Info and forum posts by 'EmilyHoward'

RE: Playing DVD from a PC Drive Via DVI to LCD TV

That`s all set up perfectly already..as I said, I can watch avi/mpeg with winamp

Playing DVD from a PC Drive Via DVI to LCD TV

..and I`m getting nothing but black screen on my TV. Picture displays fine on the PC, but I`ve tried everything I`ve got on my Pc- Power DVD, Nero Showtime, VLC PLayer- even Windows Media Player, and nothing will give me a picture. I can play back AVI or even MPEG files via winamp and get a perfect picture on my TV, so anyone got any ideas how I can do the same with DVD content?

RE: Graphics Card For attaching to LCD TV...

OK, I think I`m following you here..if I get a graphics card with both a d-sub and a DVI output, I can send the signal from the dsub to my PC monitor and the DVI out to my LCD TV, right?

I`m just slightly confused by your first paragraph though, where you say that connecting a PC to an LCD TV via DVI will cause a broken up picture- doesn`t that kind of defy the point of having these dual output cards? would setting the output on the DVI socket to 1024 x 768 just mean that the LCD TV will just display at that resolution (In other words, just treat the output to the LCD TV as as another monitor)?

Heres a link to the HD channels- encrypted and FTA that are currently active
http://www.lyngsat.com/hd/index.html
Yes, you need to be able to move your dish across the skies to pick these up, or have a fixed dish on any particular satellite.

RE: Graphics Card For attaching to LCD TV...

Oh for sure it`s unencrypted HD signals I`m tuning into..

Not quite sure I`m following you on the LCD TV not upscaling though..if I`ve mentioned that, it`s purely by accident as I`m not really sure what that is!!!

Just to take this back to the beginning...all I really want to do is take the picture from my PC and onto the LCD TV- the LCD has both 15 pin Dsub and DVI inputs and, at the moment both are free so I could use either. What I need to find is an adequate card that I can connect both my LCD TV and LCD monitor to. I don`t need anything spectacular as I mentioned earlier because I simply don`t have a single computer game in the house! I can see plenty that have dsub and DVI output, but not yet find one that has two dsub outputs, which, if I`m not connecting using DVI is what I`m going to need as my LCD monitor only had the standard dsub input

RE: Graphics Card For attaching to LCD TV...

it`s a 37" LCD TV I`m looking to connect the PC to, as well as a 17" LCD monitor.

I`m using ALT-DVB in conjunction with my Skystar2 pci card to view Hi Def on my PC-it`s not Sky`s services - they are all encrypted- I`m watching as they are all encrypted but there is a fair bit of FA Hi Def on other satellites.

What I need to find is an AGP graphics card with outputs for both monitor and TV

This item was edited on Thursday, 28th September 2006, 20:29

RE: Graphics Card For attaching to LCD TV...

There is definately a DVI connection on the TV and the manual recommends the PC be connected though it!! I would probably be better going the DSub route though to leave the DVI input free for another device. It makes sense really, but as so many graphics cards now have DVI connectors, there must be a way of getting a good display via DVI.

As for the HDCP issue, I already view HD via my DVB-S card onto my LCD monitor and that displays without any problems. My DVB-T card is also HD compatible- there are people in Australia already using it for HD-DVB-T. No HD tests off my transitter to test it off yet though.

This item was edited on Wednesday, 27th September 2006, 22:46

Graphics Card For attaching to LCD TV...

Looking to attach my PC to my new LCD TV. The TV has both D-Sub and DVI connections-I assume it would be better going to the SVI socket, so with this in mind, any good recommendations on graphics cards that will suppport both output to my TV and PC monitor..

I`m not a gamer on the PC at all, so don`t need to go crazy there-my current card is a 64mb Radeon 7200 which is perfectly adequate for my PC work. As I have both DVB-T and DVB-S tuner cards in the PC, it will be used more as a part og my home entertainment set up and i`m wondering wher whacking up to a higher performance graphics card would give me any better results, especially as I can recieve HD signals via my DVB-S card and my DVB-T tuner card is HDTV compatible (as and when it gets here).

As ever your thoughts would be much appreciated

RE: Reading Festival - Muse

Quote:

Quote:
What f***s me off is that the BBC only shows bands that are fashionable to listen too, whilst near enough shunning anything metal.


That is sensible though, you can't be shocked by the BBC playing the most listened to bands of today? The BBC has a large audience to try and impress - of course they are going to air the most popular bands playing in attempt to please a larger audience.

Sorry, but that`s not right- . I recorded `everything` and the only Slayer I saw was the interview with some comedian who was fan, plus one song. They were showing the weekend over two channels, plus they had two full time interactive channels running from 7pm until 2 am each night. That meant we got the delights of a couple of birds warbling awful cover versions plus all manner of stuff that seemed to get repeated ad nauseum-if they can show that kind of garbage, then surely, a 30 minute slot for the metal bands on the interactive channels wasn`t out of the question? The only `Metal` band that got that was Coheed & Cambria.

Monitor Problem

I`ve got a 17" flat screen Digimate monitor which has developed what appears to be a rather strange fault.

Yesterday, I was working on it just fine, all of a sudden, the image on the screen disappeared. Switched the monitor off and the picture briefly came back on the screen (a split second only) and disappeared again-tried this half a dozen times, same result each time. I immediately thought it could be a graphics card issue, but I checked the TV out picture and that was fine, but to be sure I put in a different card- same problem.

Put the original card back in and tried it with an old CRT monitor- works just fine.

My next thought was that the cable from the card to the moitor was faulty, as there is a pretty sharp `bend` in it at the screen end to get the connection to fit around the stand. I replaced the cable, same problem.

So, I`m now thinking the issue must be with the monitor itself. Anyone got any thoughts??Ideas???

RE: DVD+R/W to DVD-R or DVD+R

You probably just need to finalise the DVD+RW first.

RE: Just Got sky digital installed...does it have to be plugged into phone line all the time?

If you`ve got Multiroom, it`s got to be connected all the time, not just the first 12 months- If you disconnect at all you WILL get a warning, if it`s still not connected a couple of weeks later, you`ll get a final warning telling you your sunsidised multiroom subscription will be charged at the full price if it isn`t connected... and believe me, they WILL do it!!!

RE: Any DVD Recorders with HD for under £200?

Do a search on Google (or Froogle) for the Lite-On 5026 -Same model as the 5045 but with an 80gb HDD instead of 160gb (the 5045 starts around £230)

RE: Am I being unrealistic? Broadband Provider

Lots of packages will give you what you are looking for, though if you just go off bad reviews, you`d never sign up with any ISP!! Pretty sure both Tiscali and even AOL have unmetered packaged at the price /speed you are looking for, though do a Google (UK only)search for ISP comparisons or something similar if you aren`t too sure about them (loads of bad reviews, though I`ve had both and been very happy with them)

Aerial Amps

My current one is making starnge buzzing sounds and is putting a kind of `herringbone` pattern across the screen, so I pretty much think it`s time to change it!!. Anyone got any good, inexpensive recommendations? Doesn`t need to be anything fancy- the current one isn`t 1 input, 2 outputs, plus into a wall socket then you can put a plug into it- got from Argos about 3 years ago and has done the job very well

RE: ALDI 80GB PVR with Twin Freeview Tuners from 15th Dec £99.99

Hang on to them - there is a software update between Christmas and New Year -wait and see if that solves your main issues-if not, you can still take it back then

RE: I`ve just bought a

Always found PC Chips boards to be very reliable though - I`ve used them many times in PC`s I`ve built up when people are on a budget. On `budget` builds I now tend to use Mercury boards, though.

Asus I`ve had good and bad personal experience of - bad was the first Asus board I had that failed inside 2 weeks and it took me 8 months to get anything back from them on a warranty claim. The good- in my current PC- I changed my board afer several failures with an ASRock model (3 inside a year) and it runs the whole system so much better (It seems to handle the psu so much better).

RE: NTL 10mb Speed Upgrade

I was, but if you tell them you are going over to <insert any ISP provider name here> then they will probably offer it to you now. I was seriously going to move, phoned them up to tell them (Was also cancelling the phone service) and they came up with half price (and not for a limited time), free upgrade (They are charging some people 50 quid) and the 10mb service now.

NTL 10mb Speed Upgrade

Just had my old STB taken out and a new cable modem (NTL 250) put in it`s place - and it goes like stink!!!

Downstream 9178 Kbps (1,147.3 KB/sec) 9912 Kbps (inc. overheads)
Upstream 493 Kbps (61.6 KB/sec) 532 Kbps (inc. overheads)

So, if you are still on their service, get pestering them to upgrade you

RE: help woth slow computer

To be honest- at 8 months old, and (I assume) still under it`s warranty)I wouldn`t be fiddling with it`s innards at all.

To me, it just sounds like a case of too many programs running at start up. click on start>run and type msconfig in the box then, when the system configuration window opens, click on the startup tab and look what is ticked. There is VERY little in there that needs to run from start up. These pages do a decent job of telling you all about it in detail.

http://netsquirrel.com/msconfig/
http://www2.whidbey.com/djdenham/index.htm
http://castlecops.com/StartupList.html.

There are other reasons that could be causing it (Do you have anything pluggedinto the USB ports? -if so, try pulling them out and see if that speeds the computer up), but if you can`t solve it with what I`ve mentioned above, I`d look to get it back from whence it came..pronto!!

RE: PAL/NTSC AND DVD`s

Don`t forget, if all else fails, then it could be played back with no problems on a PC DVD drive

RE: problem playing some DVD on LG RC1000 DVD recorder combo

You could do a google search on your make/model number to see if there is a firmware upgrade.

RE: Freeview Boxes - do they work in your area if it says no on the website???

Try your local electrical retaillers who sell the boxes- ask them if they`ve sold them to people from your area who have it working- I`ve got a mate in the midlands who was told by the postcode checker he couldn`t receive it- went to his local store and asked the question- bloke in the store said he`d sold a stack of them locally and had no complaints -even offered to take it back if it didn`t work. He bought a box-it worked, he went back for another one and a freeview pvr.

RE: I want to create menus for my dvds how do I do it?

If you are converting from divX, yes it`s not a bad all in one solution- as is Winavi converter which also converts several other formats and gives a fair few output variants too.

RE: I want to create menus for my dvds how do I do it?

Quote:
So if you had an svcd mpeg (still mpeg2 aren`t they?) what would you use?

Yes they are still MPEG2 - it`s just the resolution that isn`t DVD-Video compliant You can actually author MPEG1 (VCD resolution) to DVD if you want (Though the audio must be re-sampled to 48k)

I`d still use TMPGenc DVD Author, but it needs `fooling` into thinking that what it is getting is DVD-Video compatible. To do that, I simply use a little program called `DVD Patcher` (Free download link and `how tos` here http://www.videohelp.com/tools?tool=154 ) .

All I do is open the MPEG in it, and change the resolution to one that is DVD Compatible (it doesn`t matter which one you choose, but I tend to take the 720 x 576 ption) , then tick `first header only` so that it only patches the initial frame-which takes less than a second to complete. Next open the MPEG in TMPGenc DVD Author which now `thinks` it`s getting a DVD compliant MPEG file. It is important that, once TMPGenc DVD Author has accepted the file that you go back to the DVD Patcher window (You should keep it open after patching) and change the detail back to what it was originally. If you don`t do this, you will get some odd effects on playback after authoring.

The advantage to doing it this way is that you are not re-encoding, so you retain the original quality- The SLIGHT downside is that you are going to be making a non-standard DVD that SOME DVD players may not play- though you`ve got a 99% chance it will playback just fine.

DVD Patcher is great if you want make a compilation DVD which has some PAL and some NTSC footage (Something you cannpt do with `by the book` authoring), or if you want to correct an incorrect Aspect Ratio or, as happens with a lot of DVB captures,you get an incorrect bitrate reported by the header file.

Quote:
The frustrating thing though, as I said, was it didn`t tell you that at the beginning. You can add it (see thumbnail etc., play it), create sub menus, chapters and everything.... but come to process and `it said `no`....`

I`m not 100% sure but I think V1.6 onwards does warn you, but on 1.5 and earlier, you are right, it lets you author but then stops you in your tracks at the point you want to start authoring. If that does happen to you, you can jump back, use DVD Patcher and you`ll be ok.

Quote:
DVD-Lab is very flexible in that respect. You can also add buttons and draw links from them to screens to define actions.
It is surprising that, given that there is (the original?) TMPGenc (2.5 plus now?), why they haven`t come up with an integrated application to do that too. That does avi`s too

I can see the reasoning for not doing an `integrated` app-the more you `intigrate` the more complex things can often become (i.e. Have you ever tried understanding everything in NERO work??). Keeping it as a totally seperate app, it makes you use only `pure` DVD-Video compliant files (Or at least, you have to know how to get around it). The problem with `all in one` solutions is that if your footage is not exactly what the program is expecting to be fed in it`s default input settings- or you aren`t aware that there even are default settings-you finish up re-encoding perfectly good, compatible MPEG`s.

This item was edited on Saturday, 26th November 2005, 02:48

RE: I want to create menus for my dvds how do I do it?

Quote:
I used to try to use TMPGenc DVD Author but it would often fail (after all the work was done setting it up..) as I was about to do the encoding. Error was that the resolution wan`t a valid resolution for a DVD and I used DVD Lab instead. I think I was putting mpegs (svcd compliant) on. Anybody still get that?

Not wishing to sound pedantic, but TMPGenc DVD Author IS NOT an encoder-it only authors what you feed it-and If it was SVCD compliant files you used, then that is why it failed. SVCD resolution is not DVD compliant SVCD is 460 x 460, DVD authoring can only use 720 x 576, 704 x 576, 352 x 576, or 352 x 288 (For PAL).

If you try and use a resolution that is non- DVD compliant, you will be told by TMPGenc DVD Author and it will not author.

Some DVD Authoring programs also have an encoder built in and will accept anything, then re-encode your footage (Like Nero as I mentioned in my earlier reply)- not a good idea if you ask me. MPEG should not go through unnecessary re-encoding because, as it`s already a `lossy` format, it really degrades the output if it`s re-encoded.

This item was edited on Friday, 25th November 2005, 21:55

MTL 10mb in ..&gt;Manchester???

..anyone??? I`m on the 3mb service now.

RE: I want to create menus for my dvds how do I do it?

Well, my personal choice of DVD Authoring software is TMPGenc DVD Author- it`s simple enough to use straight away, but you can creare quite complex menus when you get used to how things work. It`s got a nice `import` feature which means you can stick your orginal disc in the DVD drive of your PC and import inidividual episodes (providing they were authored separately originally) - though if you are going to want to import `everything` off the disc, it`s a good idea to rip the DVD video folder to your HDD first and import it from there (speeds things up enormously) -of cpurse, this is assuming it`s not a commercially released disc -if it is, you`ll need to decrypt first.

TMPGenc DVD Author is also available on a free months trial.

There are plenty of others around -for instance, if you`ve got the full version of Nero from V5 onwards, that too will have DVD authoring software, but I always found it a bit flaky- don`t get your settings right and it will re-encode all your footage-and you don`t want to do that for 2 reasons-Time and Quality!!

RE: I want to create menus for my dvds how do I do it?

Depends on which DVD Authoring software you are using. They will all have some menu creation in them-some allow you to get more creative than others.

RE: What is the quickest way to rip a dvd to your hard drive?

Just tried to open on 3 image files I`ve got sitting on my HDD, and not one opened in DVD Shrink- I just kept getting an `Invalid UDF Filesystem` message- yet I know they are all ok, as I can open them in ISO Buster or in Nero Drive Image.

I still don`t see what advantage an ISO image file gives you over simply ripping the video_ts file to your HDD and shrinking that -it avoids any potential FAT32 problems.

RE: What is the quickest way to rip a dvd to your hard drive?

Dan, READ the messages..not an ISO file an ISO IMAGE file...reasons already given.