[AT] computer problems

Larry D. Goss rlgoss at evansville.net
Mon Jan 17 07:44:16 PST 2005


Good, Cecil.  Good luck to you.  After wading through the whole USB
standard and all its amendments, I developed enough confidence to simply
hook the wires up, bypass all the warning messages, and go merrily ahead
with whatever I want to do.  I'm running four computers.  Three are USB
1.0, only one is USB 2.0.  I have no plans for upgrading the three older
ones because the only time I run into problems regarding data
through-put is when I'm burning DVD's from digital video on my video
camera.  Even then, it is a function of the video content of the
material I'm transcribing.  I only get hiccups in the data transfers
when the video image is showing a lot of motion.  Following a fast
moving object (like a race car) will cause data transfer problems every
time.  First, you loose audio for a fraction of a second, then you get
intermittent still frames of the video.  This is caused by the amount of
compression that the software can apply to the data as it's being
transferred.  So if you pan or zoom a lot while taking video of tractor
pulls, you'll run into problems with data transfer -- even with the
newer standard.  And, it won't make any difference whether the
components are connected through external ports or are permanently
installed inside your computer case.  

If you want to read a good discussion of all the problems and what's
really going on during the process of putting video programming from any
source onto a DVD disk on your computer and then playing it back, read
"Mastering Internet Video" by Damien Stolara.  The book is from
Addison-Wesley, so it's a bit pricey ($44.99) but you can probably find
it for less at Amazon or borrow it from a library.  Stolara has it
"mostly right".  The only thing I have found so far that he doesn't
explain as well as he should is the problem of audio and video
synchronization.  He mentions it, but doesn't give the right explanation
of it.

Burning speed on CD's and DVD's is determined by the location on the
disk and the system's ability to analyze how fast it can reliably burn
the data on the particular disk that you stick in your drive.  You'll be
lucky to ever get a burning speed above 8X at the beginning of a disk
regardless of what disks you use or which USB standard you're working
under.  As you work from the inside of the disk toward the outer
perimeter, the burning speed will increase.  I typically get up to
around 25X on 32X disks.  If you really want to slow things down, just
set your system so that it reads from one drive and writes to a second
drive simultaneously.  That will bring the whole process down to 2X
speed because the system demands that the two drives run synchronously.

Larry

-----Original Message-----
From: at-bounces at lists.antique-tractor.com
[mailto:at-bounces at lists.antique-tractor.com] On Behalf Of Cecil E
Monson
Sent: Monday, January 17, 2005 6:43 AM
To: Antique tractor email discussion group
Subject: Re: [AT] computer problems

> What kind of connector does your OEM mouse have on it?  If it's a USB
> "A", then I doubt that you'll get a simple changeover to USB 2.0.  If
> it's the round pin bus-mouse connector, then you may luck out because
> that would mean that the internal communications MAY not have been
> controlled by the USB host.


	It's the round pin mouse connector, Larry. I did not ask the
"computer" guy what he has to do to upgrade to 2.0 and just accepted
the fact he could do it. I know he is replacing more than the ports.
I've been lucky before once and maybe this will make twice.

Cecil

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