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[personal profile] caddyman
You can tell I haven’t had a great deal of experience with bit torrents, and burning videos to disk. I like to think, though, that I’m a fast learner. Well, fast insofar as I might not know what to do, but I quickly pick up on what not to do.

Over the weekend as reported previously, I downloaded the most recent episodes of Stargate SG-1, Stargate Atlantis and Battlestar Galactica. So far so good. Now I haven’t watched these yet; I want to drop them onto CDs because I have friends who would like to watch them, and I’d like to see them on TV rather than my PC simply because I know how to fix the brightness and contrast on TV (I have a theory that on my PC it will involve downloading some media player upgrade that will cost money, and I don’t feel like doing that, thank you very much).

Anyway, last night, I started the transcoding and burning process. My PC, courtesy NERO, cheerfully reported that the target disk had enough space for two 45 minute episodes in VCD format, so I thought I’d stick SG-1 ep 3 and Atlantis ep 3 on the same disk. No problem, and convenient, to boot. The transcoding took about an hour and a half, and then NERO reports that the target disk is too small.

There is a marginal rise in blood pressure.

Undaunted, I abandon that job (NERO Likes to call them jobs, see), and set it up to transcode a single episode as an SVCD. Plenty of room on the disk for that, but the slow burning technique adopted by my PC now slides back to crock pot speed, and at 1% every three – four minutes, I decide to let the bugger do it overnight.

This morning, I awake to find the procedure has aborted; I can’t remember the problem, but there was a deal of swearing involved, and a further rise in blood pressure.

Third time lucky. One episode, one disk, transcode to VCD format. Forty minutes start to finish. Done. Why didn’t I just do that in the first place?

Mind you, apart from writing the episode number on the disk, and putting it a case, I haven’t watched it yet. What odds it still doesn’t work, and I’ve wasted a CD ROM?

Pah.

technology? bollocks!

Date: 2005-08-01 12:50 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] bluesman.livejournal.com
It's no use. No matter how "user-friendly" and "intuitive" the manufacturers like to tell you they're making their PCs (and accessories) these days, computers are still bloody crap. Useful, and fun, yes, but only when they work properly and you don't have to bribe a PC-savvy mate to rebuild yours from scratch because you dumped something you shouldn't have, or you bought a perfectly usable prog that your PC doesn't recognise. It's amazing how many good friends you have if they find out you know your way around one of the damned contraptions (I do not).

(no subject)

Date: 2005-08-01 02:01 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] ysharros.livejournal.com
That's a rather hilarious title. *applause*

(no subject)

Date: 2005-08-03 11:57 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] caddyman.livejournal.com
No pun too small, that's me.

(no subject)

Date: 2005-08-01 03:50 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] romney.livejournal.com
I trust you reversed the polarity of the neutron flow, or you will end up with the picture in reverse and the characters talking backward.

(it's a check box accessed from a tag in a control panel that pops up via a menu in the preferences section of the advanced options enabled by editing the entry for the modify software option loaded by the setup executable installed by the compressed self-extrating program on the utilities disk that you don't have as a result of downloading a pirate copy of the original software)

(no subject)

Date: 2005-08-01 04:39 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] caddyman.livejournal.com
(it's a check box accessed from a tag in a control panel that pops up via a menu in the preferences section of the advanced options enabled by editing the entry for the modify software option loaded by the setup executable installed by the compressed self-extrating program on the utilities disk that you don't have as a result of downloading a pirate copy of the original software)

Easy for you to say.

(no subject)

Date: 2005-08-01 04:05 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] jennanne.livejournal.com
If it makes you feel any better your about 10 steps ahead of me. I'm still trying to figure out how to burn a file to a CD. I've tried a few times but gave up for various reasons. I only have a CD burner at work so I don't have to learn it do I?

(no subject)

Date: 2005-08-03 11:59 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] caddyman.livejournal.com
Well, you don't have to learn, but it can be damned useful!

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