Pentium100

Since my "computer" is kind-of a bigger part of a rack now, a "new PC" may not have as much meaning to me anymore. However, I would buy a new laptop if my current one stopped working and was difficult or expensive to repair. Or if it cannot run any games that I want to play (I do not play that many games in general anymore, on the laptop too).

So you dislike game mods then ? DRM for interactive things is a bit more difficult to break, but the best defense against this is to have very few people interested in the application or game, then nobody will bother breaking it.

DRM does not work, it cannot work, especially for non-interactive stuff. Suppose you manage to create an awesome DRM scheme for music - it is unbreakable, there is no way to decrypt the file without permission etc. Well, I can just connect my tape deck to my PC and record the music that way. Then record it back to digital and upload that to a torrent site. OK, now your DRM file can only be played on a special device that has built-in speakers, no outputs for me to connect my tape deck and the device is potted so that I cannot get to the speaker wires. Well, I can get a couple of microphones... DRM is like putting something in a safe, but then giving the key for that safe to anybody who asks, while telling them that they can take the item from the safe, they also cannot take the item from the safe.

See, I knew that touch phones were a problem. Seriuosly though, that's stupid, but then again, people in the USA have sued each other for stupid things as well.

Loud, well, unless I am sleeping, in that case the sound is turned off so nobody can wake me up.

Yeah, whatever. I do not know much about Bon Bon, so, I guess, she would also be "not great, not terrible".

Rarity. To quote a famous TV show - "not great, not terrible".

VHS has two ways to record audio - one of them is a linear track along one edge of the tape - it can be mono or stereo, but a lot of VCRs only have mono liner audio. The recording is just like a cassette tape, but because the tape speed in a VCR is lower, the sound quality of linear tracks is not that great. Later VCRs have "Hi-Fi" audio, which is recorded using a spinning head, just like video, the signal is frequency modulated by the audio (unlike FM radio which uses a single carrier and multiplexes the two channels, VHS Hi-Fi audio just uses two separate carriers). This has great sound quality, but is rather sensitive to tracking errors.

That is sample rate, it only applies to digital. Sample rate is how often you measure the signal and bit depth is how precise you measure it. Sample rate affects the frequency response (it can only go up to half of sample rate), while bit depth affects maximum dynamic range or signal to noise ratio (20*log(2^n) where n is bit depth). While analog formats have both usable frequency range and signal to noise ratio, sample rate or bit depth do not really make sense for them, since nothing is "measured". It also really depends on the tape, the tape deck and how well calibrated the deck is, but usually noise is worse than CD and frequency range is similar. However, some say that the numbers/specs are not everything. Digital vs analog is one of the topics that can start flame wars on audio forums.

Yeah, but unless I intend to watch the same tape over and over again it is probably going to last for a long time. I get quite good quality when I watch the tape on my big plasma TV using a scaler. Transfer to digital quality depends on the capture card, mine is rather OK, but all the hassle with encoding makes me not want to do it. Just like audio tapes, I have a lot of cassettes and reel to reel tapes. Copying them all to digital would take up so much time. So, I can just use a cassette walkman and a cassette deck in my car to listen to music - recording a new cassette is easier. If I had a cassette that I wanted to listen over and over again, I'd just make a copy and wear out that copy. Sometimes when I buy a brand new record I copy it to a cassette or a reel to reel tape, especially if I think I am going to listen to that music a lot.

Good enough to watch. I usually try to keep "fixed" processing to a minimum, that is, record and keep it as is. When I watch the file I can apply whatever processing I want, if I don't like it, I can change it. However, if I save the processed file I cannot change my mind anymore. I do the same with music for example - when I record something to a cassette, I try to make it sound exactly as the source - I can apply eq or use an expander when I play it.

I use ffdshow filters when watching a movie and just enable deinterlacing and yadif2x both for 1080i stuff from TV and 576i stuff from a tape or DVD.

Deinterlacing (especially if I want 50fps result from a video source, so yadif2x or similar) takes a lot of CPU power. Combine that with encoding ant my TV-PC may not be able to do it, so I just keep the files as interlaced. If I record the result to DVD then the player can deal with it, if I keep it as a file, I can just enable deinterlacing when playing. After all, stuff I record from TV is interlaced as well (1080i). If I just want to play something, playing a tape is a bit more convenient for me compared to booting the TV-PC.

Do you know how annoying it is to record from video tape to a PC? I sometimes do it for other people. Even if the USB device came with software that would automatically encode the file properly (interlaced, 4:3, 720x576) it would be annoying. I'd just buy another VCR, they are not expensive.

I have a few VCRs and quite a few tapes, so, yes, I still use a VCR. I sometimes even record some concert to tape.

No, hell no, f... no. One of the reasons why I do not put my real name or picture anywhere in public. Well, unless I get enough money out of it to go to the middle of Russia (or to some other place far away from people) for a few years so that people forget about me. And maybe plastic surgery. And would still have a big pile of money remaining after all of that.

There are always exceptions. Also, there are old people who were programmers etc back in the day too. Older stuff is still easier to use though, well, at least to remember how to use it.

Modern stuff is much more difficult to use and it requires a different approach. For example, take a record player - someone shows you how to play the record and you will be able to do it by just repeating the actions. Threading a tape on a reel to reel deck is more difficult, but, again, as long as someone shows you how to do it you can repeat the actions and do it (or it you see that the result looks wrong, just start over). There is a button to play, a button to rewind etc. Setting the clock on my car is very simple - push in a knob and turn it until the clock shows the correct time. On the other hand, modern technology is menu driven and dialog driven. You have to, essentially, talk with the device. Remembering Menu->settings->clock->set time->..->apply->exit is much more difficult than remembering that you need to push the knob in and turn it. So, instead of trying to remember all of the menu paths you need to think differently "I need to set the clock, well, it probably is under settings, oh look, now there is a 'clock' option". Instead, what I see some people doing is remembering this "press 'menu', then press 'down' 3 times, press 'ok', now press 'down' twice and press 'ok' again" which is more difficult to remember and easy to make mistakes (do I need to press down three or four times?).. And that is not even starting with the internet. I dislike the menus in cars and other places where there are only a few functions and each of them could have a separate button.

Well, as long as the post was useful at least once, it's good.

It's more expensive. Only a tinybit more expensive, but that is also the reason why a lot of devices have low quality capacitors that fail soon. My microwave oven just beeps. Every time I press a button and four times when the timer runs out. Yes, the fast food place can probably be quite noisy some times (the place is full of people etc). Those times would also usually be when the employees are distracted the most and need the sound. I understood that you are mostly complaining about the volume, not the sound itself. I mean if it was two or three tone but at the same dB level, would it be better for you?