The Front Porch

[wxntrafficfan]

With special thanks to Patrick, I finally have a better understanding of my laptop. First, let me explain that Windows has a rating system from 0 to 7.9 that rates things like hardware and graphics in terms of performance. Here are my ratings:

Processor: 4.9
Memory (RAM): 5.9
Graphics: 3.9
Gaming graphics: 3.8
Primary hard disk: 5.5

Graphics   
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
  Display adapter type ATI Radeon HD 3200 Graphics
  Total available graphics memory 1918 MB
        Dedicated graphics memory 256 MB
        Dedicated system memory 0 MB
        Shared system memory 1662 MB
  Display adapter driver version 8.533.0.0
  Primary monitor resolution 1440x900
  DirectX version DirectX 10
 
There in lies the problem. Graphics rating is horrible, especially for what I demand out of my computers.

[TWCToday]

There in lies the problem. Graphics rating is horrible, especially for what I demand out of my computers.

If you play games then yes that is the problem. The CPU is the most taxed part of your PC for encoding and video processing. However I picked up a 280 buck old tower from Circuit City several years ago and its done just fine recording and processing HD video from a tuner. Your problem is choosing to do many other tasks while recording. In fact your biggest bottleneck most likely is your hard drive. Your computer has to constantly write recordings while reading and writing other information. You probably didn't get a 7200rpm HDD in your current laptops. Make sure you get one of those or an SSD.

[wxntrafficfan]

There in lies the problem. Graphics rating is horrible, especially for what I demand out of my computers.

If you play games then yes that is the problem. The CPU is the most taxed part of your PC for encoding and video processing. However I picked up a 280 buck old tower from Circuit City several years ago and its done just fine recording and processing HD video from a tuner. Your problem is choosing to do many other tasks while recording. In fact your biggest bottleneck most likely is your hard drive. Your computer has to constantly write recordings while reading and writing other information. You probably didn't get a 7200rpm HDD in your current laptops. Make sure you get one of those or an SSD.

You know too much
Yes, I multitask with my computers. With my laptop, I usually have to minimize the tuner window while recording, and close out of everything else. My desktop is great with multitasking. It's too bad they don't post hard drive speeds on the pages for each computer online. That would be helpful. Thanks for the info on computers Martin, you've cleared up quite a lot

[Zach]

Aaron, with a Pinnacle tuner, you should be able to exit the program while you program your tuner. (no pun intended)

[wxntrafficfan]

Aaron, with a Pinnacle tuner, you should be able to exit the program while you program your tuner. (no pun intended)

Zach, the Pinnacle tuner is on my desktop. The Hauppauge tuner is on my laptop.

[Mike M]

I can't do anything with both my computers when recording. Whenever I try to surf the internet and record at the same time, the video skips and ends up way out of sync with the audio. It doesn't bother me though, since I usually only record individual LFs and not tire out my computer by continuously recording TWC like others do. Too much work.

[TWCToday]

I can't do anything with both my computers when recording. Whenever I try to surf the internet and record at the same time, the video skips and ends up way out of sync with the audio. It doesn't bother me though, since I usually only record individual LFs and not tire out my computer by continuously recording TWC like others do. Too much work.

Yea I dont record on any computer I use for other task. Easiest to set up a cheap computer to the side to record but thats just me

[Mike M]

Has anyone with Hotmail been getting a lot of spam lately? I get them almost weekly and although most of it gets placed in my junk folder, it's still kinda annoying.

[beanboy89]

So, sometime in the past week or so, I was bitten by a tick, and now I have a nice large red mark on my leg, and I have to take some antibiotics for Lyme Disease. Apparently this particular antibiotic makes patients very prone to severe sunburn, which is not good for one who works outside, like myself. I need to get the prescription changed.

[phw115wvwx]

Has anyone with Hotmail been getting a lot of spam lately? I get them almost weekly and although most of it gets placed in my junk folder, it's still kinda annoying.

Hotmail gave me all kinds of trouble several years ago with spam and even losing some of my email.  I'm so glad that I switched to Gmail.  You may want to check and see if your email address is readily out there online as that's one easy way to get spam.

So, sometime in the past week or so, I was bitten by a tick, and now I have a nice large red mark on my leg, and I have to take some antibiotics for Lyme Disease. Apparently this particular antibiotic makes patients very prone to severe sunburn, which is not good for one who works outside, like myself. I need to get the prescription changed.

Ouch, Billy.  I hope you can get that healed with a different prescription.

[curtjr4]

Quite a few laptops at Bestbuy with i7 under 1500

There's the same laptop I saw at Staples, HP Envy, for about $300 less. Still a lot of money. I may have to stick with HP if they are going to give me a ticket for a new computer.

Try going to Digilink Computers in Okemos... they have always been helpful for me They even gave me a free keyboard since the one I had (Didnt even buy from them...) broke. But they are all caught up in that buisness. If not that, just go to Best Buy or OfficeMax.

[wxmediafan]

Sorry that I haven't been around a lot over the past few days guys. I have a had practice graduations, piano recitals and Harborfest (big local festival) thats been keeping me busy. Ill try to catch up on everything

How exciting!  When do you graduate?
-----
I am without a car for a while.  My transmission is basically shot, and my car is sitting at a random gas station 2 1/2 hours from my house.  My parents are headed up there today to get it with a dolly, and hopefully we can find out exactly what's wrong and (hopefully) get it fixed.

Tomorrow Ugh that sucks about your car!

Hmm, that seems odd that you would graduate on a Tuesday.  But congrats, Martin!  As some of us mentioned a little while back.. it's one of the best feelings to be done, and it's very surreal.  Have fun!

And yes, it does suck about my car, my baby haha.  Luckily it can get fixed for a price that I am confortable paying.  If it was too much, I would have payed the car off and junk it, and then get a new one.  I am glad I am not having to do that, because that would be my 3rd car in just as many years .

[tpirfan28]

In my prior experience, a laptop is going to be more taxed than a desktop when dealing with video.  Donno how much that's changed with new processors and new technology.  I built a dedicated recording box for ~$550 and it runs swimmingly (2.5Ghz dual-core Intel, 2GB ram, 1TB hard drive, Hauppauge 2250 dual tuner card, Win7 Home) - can record two HD feeds + watch a third without breaking a sweat.  Might be worth looking into a dedicated machine at that cost.  Once digital CableCard solutions come out for the PC it will probably become my all-in-one digital box.  Plus you get Windows 7 Media Center which is the best thing to come out of Redmond in a very long time.

You could probably do it cheaper with parts-on-hand/not as fancy tuner card.

[Zach]

In my case for tuner cards, it's the opposite. My laptops can handle HD video feeds, yet whenever I tune to an HD OTA station on my desktop, the computer becomes unstable haha. The video memory on my desktop is only 128 MB, so yeah.

[wxntrafficfan]

Well I have about had it with my laptop. I rode my bike for an hour over here to record the :18 LF on WUWA... and because of my laptop, the skipping- along with the video and audio scrambling- were so bad, I had to scrap the recording. And I had nothing else going on. I am about to turn in my laptop to warranty. As far as I'm concerned, it's just scrap metal to me now until I ship it off.

Speaking of that, Comcast has finally converted some of their channels over to the digital format over here... including channels 35-40 and 44. This includes The Weather Channel. Not too convenient for me.

Apparently, wikipedia is "not a collection of links". One of the users added "&feature=channel" back into one of the video links for an XL in the database (which I edited out to make the links uniform), and told me that wikipedia is not "a collection of links" on my talk page.