The Geekcast #183 – Converting VHS to Digital Easily
Posted on : 26-01-2010 | By : Aaron | In : Episodes
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Items of Note:
We’re live-podcasting the January 27th Apple event! Please join us at www.GeekcastOnline.com to watch our coverage and interact with us! We’ll be starting at 12:30 Eastern for our pre-event show and then we’ll cover all the releases as Steve Jobs himself announces them. Check out our twitter feed (twitter.com/TheGeekcast) for all the information. We hope to see everyone on tomorrow!
Our co-host Allen and friend of the show Mark have launched their own open source podcast called the FreeThink Show! Be sure to check them out on iTunes at http://bit.ly/5UfQ7S or their website at http://www.freethinkshow.com. We wish them the best of luck!
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Geek This Week:
Aaron:
Project 365 / Pixelpipe. Using RSS feeds in iPhoto to keep things in sync.
Gozer:
Goin to see the one man shhhta wars show this weekend with shhhta wars dan, toots and chad. $15 not really expecting much but it is just an excuse to dress up and wield a lightsaber.
Still playin God of War 2, just killed icarus and took his wings. Can’t get past the part where i have to get the scholar to read something in this other language.
Playin some Bayonetta. Nice to see the SEGA logo come up as the game starts up. Basically you are an umbra witch who fights angels. After killing these angels, they drop halos which are very reminiscent of the sonic rings. This game is insane, at first i couldn’t tell what was going on, like devil may cry on crack. Got used to the controls and i actually like the controls better than devil may cry. And she also summons a demon made of hair.
And…converting alot of old analog vhs to digital which we will get to later.
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Tech and Gaming News:
AT&T Insiders Report iPhone Exclusivity Going Away On Wednesday
Saturday, January 23, 2010 – by Shawn Oliver
It’s sort of hard to believe that all the hype from CES is already over and done with. Larger companies spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to introduce and showcase new products at the show, and now all anyone wants to talk about in the tech world is Apple. Must be nice to be Steve Jobs (or an investor). The company that gave the world the iPod and iPhone is planning a media event on the 27th of this month, and while the world tends to believe a tablet or slate of some sort is planned, there has been no definite proof of that to this point.
We really have no idea what’s next from Apple; we just know that it’ll be something to unleash one’s creative side according to a tagline in the invite. According to an inside source close to the going-ons involved in all of this, a new tablet of some sort may not be the only thing on deck for next Wednesday though. We have been led to believe by an inside source that AT&T will lose their iPhone exclusivity on the same day, though it’s not yet clear what other carrier (or carriers) will be stepping in to also carry the phone. For anyone who has followed the saga, you may notice that you haven’t seen AT&T fighting to extend their original exclusive agreement of late. In fact, they have spent most of their time fighting Verizon’s negative ad campaign.
This may not be all that surprising. Inside of AT&T, we are hearing that the iPhone is causing more trouble than ever before. On some level, having the iPhone is hurting AT&T’s image. Because they are the only company to carry it, and it’s such a data hog, it’s largely to blame for AT&T’s network troubles. We don’t remember hearing about AT&T’s “horrible network” before the iPhone–do you? The iPhone itself doesn’t really handle the switch from 3G to EDGE very well, so calls that are in-progress tend to fail whenever the 3G bands aren’t optimal and the phone attempts to step down to EDGE. It seems that AT&T is tired of taking the heat for this, and at this point, they may be smart to just let another carrier take some of those customers who are most inclined to complain.
We also heard that when AT&T loses their grip on the iPhone, they’ll be introducing a bunch of other new smartphones with new platforms in order to “compensate.” At CES, it was announced that new Windows Mobile, Android and webOS-based phones were destined to land on AT&T, but few details were provided as to when. Now, it seems the puzzle pieces are beginning to slot together. It’s possible that AT&T recently went searching for deals with other phone makers in order to proactively bolster its smartphone lineup for when this day-of-doom would come. AT&T has gained a huge amount of subscribers from being the only operator with the iPhone, and if it loses that advantage, it’ll need some other cutting-edge, high-brow phones to keep people’s attention.
One big happy family soon?
It’s hard to say what’ll happen if a carrier like Verizon gets the iPhone. Will existing iPhone users on AT&T run in droves to switch, regardless of the early termination fee? Will existing AT&T iPhone users stick with their plan? Maybe Apple will simply see a new influx of iPhone users, as customers who were always wary of AT&T finally make the jump now that the phone is a on a network with better perceived quality? We still have to take all of this as rumor for now, but we have very good reason to believe that we’ll see AT&T quietly (or perhaps not so quietly) lose its grip on the iPhone come Wednesday. What happens after that is anyone’s guess, but we would expect the overall iPhone market share in the US to surge quite significantly if it’s made available on a CDMA carrier.
http://hothardware.com/News/Will-ATT-Lose-Their-iPhone-Exclusivity-On-Wednesday/
Google Voice Arrives on iPhone With HTML5-Powered Web App
The robust web application can be accessed by visiting m.google.com/voice on your mobile device and works with phones running iPhone 3.0 software and above and Palm Web OS. Google has put the power of HTML5 to work to finally bring a rich Google Voice web app to the iPhone (and Palm Web OS).
The new HTML5 web app includes a few extra bonuses like a sleek design for your Google Voice inbox, the option to create homescreen icons for individual pages and the ability to display your Google Voice number as the outbound caller ID so you can easily receive return calls. You can also send and receive text messages for free.
Unfortunately Google Voice is still invite-only, which means that iPhone and Palm Web OS users who haven’t received a Google Voice invite are still out of luck.
Google’s decision to use HTML5 to circumvent Apple’s app store approval process while still powering a rich application experience on the iPhone demonstrates the flexibility of HTML5 in mobile web browsers, and also highlights a growing trend in iPhone application development.
http://mashable.com/2010/01/26/google-voice-web-app/
‘Tremendous Interest’ in a Mass Effect Movie, says BioWare
No plans currently, but project director Casey Hudson says they’re looking at their options.
Could a Mass Effect film adaptation be in BioWare’s stars? Evidently yes: Although they’re currently not pursuing any offer, project director Casey Hudson says their intergalactic RPG series is attracting a lot of Hollywood attention.
“Obviously we have a tremendous amount of interest from people in Hollywood to make a major motion picture about Mass Effect,” he recently told MTV (via VG247). “The most important thing for us is, we don’t just want to see a movie get made. We want to see a great movie get made, if it’s going to get done at all.”
So for now that means no film adaptation is in the works, but that may change going forward. “We’re just looking at our options there, but waiting to make sure we have something really right before we do it,” Hudson explained.
http://www.1up.com/do/news?ct=NEWS
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Test a Geek: This segment will return on a future episode of The Geekcast
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How To: Customize your iTunes Equalizer on a Per-Song Basis
iTunes and iPod software allow you to control the equalization or “EQ” of a song.
iTunes equalizer presets
iPod’s equalizer has the same equalizer presets as iTunes (except Loudness). This allows a high level of integration between iPod and iTunes.
After you encode or “rip” a song using iTunes, you can assign that song one of 22 equalizer presets. Once you assign a preset to a song, iTunes will use it each time you play the song. When you copy the song from your computer to iPod, the equalizer preset you chose in iTunes is also copied, and iPod will play the song with the same preset. For example, if you assign a song the “Rock” preset in iTunes, iPod will play that song with the “Rock” preset and iPod will play the song with the same preset as long as the EQ on the iPod is not set to off.
If you don’t assign a preset to a song, iTunes and iPod simply play the song as it was encoded, unless you turn on the general equalizer, which applies to all songs being played. In this case, though, that equalizer preset is not saved with each song.
iPod’s equalizer settings offer a wide range of options, which are explained in the next section.
iPod EQ settings
EQ – Off
iPod does not use the equalizer. Songs play as they were encoded.
Songs that have been assigned an equalizer preset in iTunes do not play with that setting.
EQ – Flat
Songs without an equalizer preset assigned to them in iTunes play as they were encoded (same as EQ – Off).
Songs that have been assigned an equalizer preset in iTunes play with that setting.
EQ – (other)
Songs without an equalizer preset assigned to them in iTunes play using the EQ setting selected on iPod.
Songs that have been assigned an equalizer preset in iTunes play with that setting, not the one selected on iPod. You can temporarily play a song using one of iPod’s other EQ settings as follows:
Play the song on iPod.
While the song is playing, press the Menu button until you have navigated to the main screen.
Select Settings.
Select EQ.
Select a particular EQ setting you want to try.
The song will play to the end with the new EQ setting. The next time the song is played, it will play with the EQ setting assigned to it in iTunes.
Notes
iPod does not use custom equalizer settings made in iTunes.
You can’t create custom equalizer settings on iPod, or transfer custom settings to iPod.
Turn EQ off if you don’t use it. Equalizer is a feature that uses your iPod battery more quickly. If you don’t use EQ, your iPod will play tunes longer. Adding EQs to playback uses more of your iPod processor, since they aren’t encoded in the song. If, however, you’ve added EQ to tracks in iTunes, you’ll need to set EQ to “flat�? in order to have the effect of “off,�? because iPod keeps your iTunes settings intact.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2618
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Ask A Geek: This segment will return on a future episode of The Geekcast
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Open Source Software: This segment will return on a future episode of The Geekcast
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Hack: This segment will return on a future episode of The Geekcast
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The Geek’s View:
Convert Analog Video to Digital
Video Capture by Elgato
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