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Comment Re:Remember Final Cut Pro X? (Score 1) 598

Some years ago I purchase Premeire, it was a turkey. Resolution gets squashed and saved files like 720x480 are immensely large size to a point impractical. I heard these days Avid is the top program. Regarding gripes about FCP I bought a program last year and it sure doesn't perform like pre-Apple version. It may be easier to use but I find it will not import many video formats (I heard previous versions did). Then latest problem is audio is stripped when I import AVI files. Nobody seems to know how to deal with this, occassionally someone posts a useless tip like go to this menu selection that doesn't exist on my system.

Comment Re:Its a cost decision (Score 1) 840

If I break a blender, its simply not worth me sourcing parts, waiting, and then spending an hour repairing it.

Do you have to replace that blender frequently? There was a time when a blender would has forever, I still have my mom's Oster. A book called "High Cost of Cheap Fashion" besides clothes mentioned someone had a reading light for years but it finally burned out. So went a bought another (hey they're cheap) but the light didn't last very long. Then realizing these cheap lights actually cost more as having to buy a few instead of one over a certain time.

Comment Re:Branson philanthropy? When? (Score 1) 235

I believe he has funded various efforts to bring clean drinking water in deficit areas in Africa. Many civil wars, famine, etc. usually began when someone ruined the water supply. On the other hand, Branson has armies of accountants and lawyers moving monies from one country to another to avoid paying more taxes.

Comment I was thinking about a trip (Score 1) 104

but then I read "in the next thousand years" so I figure I don't have to immediately plan a trip to that portion of the planet real soon.

Other than that, it would be interesting event unless there's tons of radioactive particles or a gamma ray burst (can may be nasty).

And to think last time of a visible supernova was when Europeans spend all their time doing religious reading and writing, and Chinese did very little documentation (or if they did it got lost in bureaucracy of those dynasties).

Comment framerates, and why 29.97 came about (Score 1) 187

I say the human eye does see more than 24 fps, pan your head back and forth, no blurring like you get panning a camera. OK so I haven't RTFA but I recently read/search info on framerates. From what I gather 24 fps came about from movies particularly when the talkies became standard for motion pictures. What they settled on enough fps to have smooth action and matching audio but not too much as film is/was very expensive. But each frame is shown twice (refresh rate in the movie theatres is 48 Hz). I read 24 fps is needed so brain perceives as smooth motion but need to show each one twice to remove flicker effect. Those 16mm and silent films were less fps but not as cinema quality of major motion pictures.

Anyone have comments or corrections, jump in as many times I feel as if I'm still trying to figure out what and why of fps and refresh rates.

Then television came along, first 60 fps seems good (match with powerline freq) but too much bandwidth so they make it 30 fps but to reduce flicker, they did interlace. Framerate has smooth motion and interlace does the refresh rate like motion picture showing each frame twice. Then color TV comes along but as OTA bandwidth was fixed, they reduce framerate a little to 29.97 to insert chroma signal.

Then computers came along, why not use same CRTs as TV sets, so their framerate was 29.97 (but many simply rounded off to 30 when writing or talking about framerates). Then the flatscreens (VGA monitors) came along but used 29.97 to be compatible with existing computers, but refresh rate is 60 Hz to not have flicker effect. Gamers wanted higher framerates so 60 fps but I think it really is 59.94 fps.

I did some different FPS exercises with a CRT monitor and a Canon EOS camera. I set Canon to 30 fps (actually it is 29.97) and connected the video output to the monitor. I panned camera back and forth including viewing monitor. I did the same with Canon at 24 fps, there was noticable blurring or choppy on monitor when I panned camera back and forth. Viewing monitor with camera I can see those rolling bars like you see in the movies with TV set in background (aha, so that's what the 24/30 fps mismatch is). I set camera to 60 fps (actually 59.94), it seemed smoother view when panning back and forth though monitor is fixed 30 fps.

For many people, so what. However, I was looking at various cameras and spec sheets list framerates of 23.97, 24, 29.97, 30, 59.94, 60.... what's with all these variations? I don't think a camera can be set to exactly 30. Or is it sales and marketing people insists on lots more numbers for the spec sheets?

Comment Re:I wonder if... (Score 1) 435

Those Cuban Exiles better shut the fuck up, because if we don't get Cuba on our side, Russia will, and I don't want to live through another Cuban missile crisis because some whiny right-wingers are so goddamn certain that if we keep turning the screws on Cuba, Fidel Castro will finally step down.

ummm, Russia (or Soviet Russia) don't have the resources to place missiles in Cuba like they used to have. Regarding Castro, he has outlived just about everyone trying to knock him off the island.

Comment Re:These old farts are funny (Score 1) 176

Seriously, even these days I can find enough quality shows and even movies to watch on YouTube.

but (at least for me) I have to use AT&T or comcast for internet service, which I find is marginal for watching video. Work site is great but that's not what work is for. Other than that, Youtube can be a huge time pit with so many interesting things posted by various people.

Comment Re:This isn't really surprising at all (Score 1) 176

I've never bought a new car, always used cars (around 40K to 60K in mileage) and drive them till they drop (around 200K). Last one had 220K but failed smog check as one of cylinders had a leak of some sort. Other vehicles that got up to 200K I dumped because their transmissions failed (replacement costs more than the car). My latest is a 2008, I prefer an older because windows of new cars are getting smaller but yet MPG of this vehicle is much better than my previous vehicles.

It seems there are some people who buy a new car every two or three years, that's were those like me pick up what they don't want. Speaking of keeping cars for a very long time, I remember in 1980s a Volvo commercial, "with a large interior and a average lifetime of 16 years, this is the space vehicle that will take you to the 21st century!" showing one of their station wagons superimposed against a background of stars. I know a couple research scientists that owned this same type of Volvo. One even had the classic rack on roof with the bars wrapped with carpet to prevent scrapes on stuff they carry.

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