Step 1: Ed downloads video encoded with Hi10p without knowing it, and is dismayed when he sees it being all blotchy and screwed up.
Step 2: Ed remembers something about a new codec and downloads the latest version of K-Lite codec pack.
Step 3: Ed installs said codec pack and the update patch.
Step 4: Ed looks with dismay at his machine as it plays videos in slow-motion with sound that randomly cuts out.
Now, the last step didn't bother me when I was watching video directly from the torrent box; I don't expect top-end video performance from the on-board video on a $40 motherboard. It did bother me when I got the same result on my desktop machine, which has a much better video chipset than the torrent box does.
On the plus side I'm pretty certain this is a codec problem and not a hardware one; the hardware is plenty fast and I'd be surprised if a mere change in compression was enough to bog things down. And the issue with the sound is one I've had before, and turned out to require only a video driver update.
Step 5: Ed downloads and installs the latest driver for his video card, and sees no change.
*sigh*
Next step will be downloading the latest version of CCCP and seeing if that corrects the problem. Wonderduck comments at another SDB thread about this issue and says it works fine on his machine, which (if I am subtracting correctly) is vintage 2006.
No one said it would be easy!
* * *
...what was also "not easy" but merely tedious was actually slotting El-Hazard (the torrent box) into the home network.
Last night I went to bed at around 7 PM in a fit of--I'm not sure what. Depression, perhaps, or just plain "I have sinusitis and I haven't gotten any antibiotics yet and I'm sick", or something. I slept a while, then got up and nearly vulcanized a couple of grilled turkey-and-cheese sandwiches.
"Eh? 'Turkey'?" Yes, turkey. You see, the girl at the deli counter apparently stopped listening to me after I said "oven-baked" and didn't hear me say HAM, because she gave me a pound of the oven-baked TURKEY. Naturally I learned this at around 2 AM, and with the bread and cheese already on the griddle I didn't have much choice in the matter. I'm still trying to decide if I'm going to eat the turkey or take it back. I'm leaning towards "eat" because if I were to go get some ham, I could then also pick up some pre-cooked bacon and make myself some rather tasty club sandwiches....
ANYway--
I spent some time chipping away at stuff I really don't need triple redundancy with. The 500 GB in El-Hazard was the data drive for my desktop before I started throwing terabyte drives into it, and after I copied the contents of this drive onto the terabyte drive that replaced it, I just put it in a box and stuck it on a shelf. It was a complete backup of the data drive at that time, which is why I copied the data from it to the external 500 GB before installing Vista.
But there's a ton of stuff on that drive I never look at--stuff I forgot I had--and I spent some time last night reviewing it and deleting the junk. Included were a shitton of Sailor Moon doujins I downloaded years ago, read once, and never bothered with again. I still have copies of it in two other places, so it's not like it's gone, and I need the room on that particular drive.
Once done with that, I shut the thing down; and looking at my desk I decided it was time to put the thing into its permanent (or semi-permanent, as we'll see) home.
First up, I removed the wireless network card. Second, I cleared space on the desk, having to move an approximate ton of shit to do so. Then I put the box where I had envisioned it sitting and decided I didn't like it being there, so I tried putting it on the far side of the desktop, Cephiro. That was even worse; besides, the mouse and keyboard and display were on the opposite side of the desk from there.
Then I realized there was absolutely no reason I couldn't put the box behind the stereo, so I did that. It's out of the way, the keyboard, mouse, and monitor cables all reach, and the only real problem was my first choice for placement of the switch had to go. Life is a compromise.
I hooked Cephiro up to the switch and it worked; without me having to do anything it could see the Internet just fine. So I hooked up El-Hazard and it worked fine, too.
I spent twenty minutes making the two computers see each other. Not bad considering I had never set up a peer-to-peer system in Vista before. It took a bit longer to get things set up so that Cephiro could be sent to sleep and stay there, rather than merely locking the system (not "crash" locking, but dropping to a login screen); but all I had to do was to turn off file sharing and that did it. Cephiro can see everything on El-Hazard, but not vice versa; and I don't care.
The problem I'm having now: the hard drive in El-Hazard is noisy. It's a normal sound for a hard drive to make--just the clicking of the head assembly seeking--but I'm not used to a drive making this much noise. I used to like hearing that noise. WTF.
...so I'm starting to think about putting El-Hazard in Mom's room as I originally planned.
* * *
DOOM!
There's no inflation! Except there is, and if it continues it looks to be pretty f-ing bad. Crude goods are up 21% from a year ago already. ("Crude goods" are, I infer, raw materials.)
Hold your hats! Here comes the ceiling! The jobs outlook is extra-bad.
Where the Hell are the Jobs Going to Come From?Trust me: any expansion of the government jobs sector is going to be gutted as soon as the effects of unemployment and high government debt "trickle up" far enough. The government doesn't have the money to hire more people and is borrowing more than it can ever pay--that's not going to last too much longer.
I keep asking where are the jobs going to come from?
Housing - no
Financials - no
Government - no (hopefully)
Commercial Real Estate - no
Retail Sales - no
Some folks in Britain are talking about leaving the Euro.
No, that's not possible. You see, Pat Quinn BRAVELY raised taxes in Illinois so the state could pay its bills. The article lays the problem at the feet of Rod Blagojevich, but Blago was arrested in late 2008, not quite three years ago.
This Venn diagram at Missorah.com explains why.
The Laffer Curve: it works, bitches. (And Snooki is going to have skin like an old boot by the time she's 40.)
* * *
Another big find of Roman treasure in Britain. Seems like the metal detector guys have more free time on their hands, or maybe they're just running out of the obvious places to look.
* * *
Just in case you were wondering, it's not Og.
* * *
Bible study tonight, and I'm really not feeling up for anything. I've got 3 hours to get myself into some semblance of readiness for it, and all I really want to do is go back to bed. *sigh*
...and I know that by the time I get home from the thing at 9, I'll be all wound up and ready for anything, so even thinking "Oh, I'll go, and then just sleep tonight!" is out. I know better.
Of course, even if I did go to bed afterwards, I'd only sleep for a couple of hours, wake up around 1 AM, be awake until 6 AM at which point I could not keep my eyes open any longer..and then I'd sleep like a baby for 10 hours. Why? Because I suck, that's why. More specifically, my reticular activating formation sucks.
* * *
I like this: "Prenatal exposure to cigarette smoke is known to produce lasting arousal, attentional and cognitive deficits in humans." So be warned: if your mother did the "smoking vagina" trick while you were gestating, you're screwed for life.
Eh? Well, how else could "prenatal exposure to cigarette smoke" happen? It's not like the cigarette smoke can just waft in there. (All jokes about big ones aside; c'mon.)
Now, I might find it more likely that nicotine could get to the fetus while the mother is smoking, yes. But cigarette smoke? Somehow I doubt it.
I wonder what people did before they could blame shit on smoking and "secondhand" smoke.