shovelhd

The only version of Windows XP that will address more than 4GB of RAM is Windows XP Professional x64. Stay far, far, far (did I say far?) away from Windows XP Professional x64.

AzTallRider

I'll take a fresh look at compatability, as I don't recall which software was alleged to not run on Windows 7. Some of my stuff is old: Office XP, old PhotoShop and Sony Vegas, etc. Someof it would be replaced by Mac functionality; some not so much.

On the DAC front, it would be Toslink didgital audio into the DAC, and unbalance analog (left right only) going out. One issue though, is I think I lose my sub-woofer! Here is a DAC I'm considering:

https://www.cambridgeaudio.com/summar...ogue+converter+

shovelhd

This one could save you some money:

https://us.store.creative.com/Creativ...B004275EO4.htm

Read the first review for instructions on how to use the Toslink in with anything other than a computer.

AzTallRider

Thanks Shovel. It takes RTFM to find it out, but apparently not supporting surround sound protocols is common to almost all external DACs. The digital out is just a pass-through on some, and if I remember right, those will let you use the surround, but I've only seen it on very high end components, as in the $1K range.

ridethecliche

I've been doing a lot of laptop hunting lately and lenovo's having a sale.

You'll get a better deal if you buy through this sale link: https://shoplenovo.i2.com/SEUILibrary...arnesnoblegold

If you're buying this for work or just for those programs and have an external cd drive (or want to mount your old one in a case i.e. cheaply), you should probably grab an ultrabook with an i5. It'll last you forever, be fast as heck, and serve you well.

Then you can spend a bunch on a desktop.

Else, you can scope lenovo outlet, dell outlet, or ebay for an older laptop (thinkpad or otherwise). That should be fine for your needs and far cheaper.

waterrockets 

If you just need to run a few random apps, I'd recommend looking into a virtual machine running on your Mac. The VM software will be free (well, VirtualBox is free). Then you just buy a license for Windows 7 and have at it.

AzTallRider

I appreciate the input on the Windows laptops. More research and decision making required. But first, I'm trying to nail down the DAC thing, because music 'es muy importante', and right now I can't play it except from my iPhone to the AppleTV, which, as I have mentioned, sucks. Sorting it out gets interesting. The review Shovel pointed to says:

First off, before we begin, know that this does NOT decode dolby and DTS surround formats. For instance, if you are watching a DVD/Blu-Ray, make sure that you are NOT outputting the Dolby/DTS surround formats. It only decodes two channel, stereo, PCM.

But the User's Guide says this:

You can set up a PC home entertainment system using your audio device. Watch DVDs on your PC and decode Dolby® Digital and DTS™ signals from your audio device through a Dolby Digital external decoder or an AV Amplifier. Connect the digital input of your external decoder or AV Amplifier to the Optical S/PDIF Out connector of your audio device. For more information on external decoder or AV Amplifier speaker connection settings, consult the User's Guide of your external decoder or AV Amplifier.

I'm thinking that the reviewer is connecting directly to speakers, and since the DAC doesn't have Dolby/DTS decoding, that wouldn't work, but if you pass the signal through to a receiver with decoding, things will work.

The Cambridge Audio DAC specifically says in the manual that the inputs won't accept anything but 2 channel LPCM, which screws the pooch.

ridethecliche

Music?

Ipod and a 3.5mm speaker wire. Fixed.

shovelhd

Sound quality sucks. You missed the part about high bitrate ripping from CD.

AZT, you said all you wanted was stereo, so I'm not sure why you need 5.1. If you do, then look for an external sound card.

ridethecliche

Then get something better than an IPOD and play off it in Ogg Vorbis, FLAC, or Lossless.

I bet a netbook could do that!

Or am I really that clueless and missing something?

carpediemracing 

I think your audio questions (which are basically like mine) are along the lines of "Why aero wheels" or "Why tubulars?".

A long time ago someone asked some famous rock band person what they thought of ripping CDs. He shrugged and said it sounds horrible so he doesn't care. To me it sounds perfectly fine but I don't know.

I think we live in the Huffy of the music world.

shovelhd

You got that right. The iPod killed high fidelity.

ridethecliche

And here I thought that lossless or flac preserved all that stuff from ripping cds...

Also:

waterrockets 

Yeah, CDs are lossy to begin with. Of course, I couldn't care much less about sound quality.

AzTallRider

I want to be able to play the music from a variety of sources (iPhone, iPad, laptop, net) without needing a computer in the flow, and I want the digital files (Apple lossless CD rips) decoded with a high quality DAC. I other words, I want to be able to redirect my iPhone/iPad/Mac/PC to play from the AppleTV, and maintain the best quality I can. The apparent issue with external sound cards is that they are just that - sound cards that are part of the computer driving them. They are run by the drivers on the computer. I don't want to need a computer in the loop. I want flexibility for the source of the media

As far as cluelessness goes, I have finally started to gain some clue on this. Pondering everything last night, and looking at the Visio flowchart I made of my media system (everyone has one of those, right?) I realized that the only reason I had been feeding an analog signal from my media-serve desktop PC, to the receiver, was because of a lack of connectivity on my old Pioneer Elite receiver. It has very limited digital connectivity, and a DAC that was designed when such things were not as evolved as they are now. The receiver is old enough to have dedicated connections for those big "LD" laser discs. So the high-end sound card I have in the dead PC gave much better quality than if the receiver is decoding the signal. I also realized that the way I had things connected, the AppleTV wasn't even doing the decoding, so I have perhaps been needlessly disparaging it.

Rather than springing for an expensive DAC, I'd be better off replacing the receiver with one that has a better DAC, and more digital connectivity.

I think I'm on the right track now, but this is one of those things that get confusing if you only deal with them sporadically.

shovelhd

By doing that you're replacing the computer with the receiver, i.e. just another dependency, but it's a smart way to go. On the low end I'm an HK fan. That's what I own, used to sell and install.

AzTallRider

I'll check it out. I think the receiver approach is likely to get the quality "good enough" for us without being over complex and expensive. Overly being a purely subjective thing, just like in cycling, as CDR has pointed out.

Enthalpic

You made a Visio flowchart... your system is already overly complex.

shovelhd

No that just makes him a geek.

ridethecliche

I think I'm clueless because I have no idea what that means. My stuff works so I'm happy.

On that note, I just got my lenovo notebook. It's naice. I liked the build of the Asus more, but I have a feeling that this will grow on me and that I'll stop caring in time. I wish more companies were getting savvy about design. They are now, but...

I need to decide if I want to work with a laptop full time and dock it when I'm at home, or keep this desktop (upgrade the GPU) and get an ultrabook or a Asus Transformer-like tablet for mobile use. It's hard to decide because I'm not sure if I can go abroad yet. I need to figure that out too.

Oy.

kensuf

ridethecliche

Is shooting in raw worth it on an older DSLR (Canon XSI). I think I'd slow it down way too much to take any pictures in succession.

If I wanted to try it, I'd definitely need a bigger card. I can fit about 1500 images on my 8gb card. Shooting in RAW+Jpeg will drop that to less than 300.

What software do you use for image processing etc? I have a few weeks to play around with things before I decide what to do. I want to shoot as much as possible when I'm abroad. I have a feeling that the NGO's going to enlist me to make documents targeted at fundraising and such as well, so I'll be able to use the images to publish and tell patient stories etc.

waterrockets 

You don't need RAW+JPG unless you are printing from the camera. Just try RAW on its own. 16GB is enough for me with an 18MP camera with around 1000 images. So, you should be able to capture about 750 on 8GB.

I started off with Canon Digital Photo Professional. There are lots of tutorials to get you started with that. I was amazed at what I could do to recover an image. Just a couple months ago I went to Adobe Lightroom 4, and it's really impressive. The Adobe algorithms allow you to really push an image without letting people see under the hood what you did.

There are a lot of impressive examples in this thread.

carpediemracing 

The camcorder worked great on a 48' wide finishing straight. Some riders came up to us to verify we got them because they were "so close to the edge of the road". We got them all, even some of the poorly pinned flapping wrinkled bowed numbers. The finishline area went from shade to bright sun to bright sun plus dark shade. All good. I set shutter speed to 1/2000 and all worked well.

Biggest issue is 1080 60p is BluRay and normal viewers (Quicktime etc) don't do BluRay. We used VLC and it worked.

ridethecliche

Oh my god that's awesome!!!

I'd want to shoot jpeg too because for some pictures, i.e. that are going to be put on facebook etc it doesn't really matter. So having both means that I can just delete the raw image if the jpeg is good enough or if the image isn't worth doing all that stuff to. I'd only do it RAW for some of the more artsy fartsy prints, but I'm not sure how long I'd have to go without plugging into a computer if I'm working in the field. I have a spare battery, I guess a spare 8gb card is a good idea, but might as well get a 16 or 32 then for 'future proofing' so some video can be thrown in there too when I get my next DSLR.