DVDs & AV...

veryone¹ needs a hobby; something to stave off the boredom.

I still hesitate to reproduce my first-ever hifi magazine article (all about "Living with Dolby B" in a small, unsuitably-shaped flat) from 1975. Instead I shall present some evidence of my audio-visual adventures. These include my ever-evolving (October 2003) hifi-audio/visual components and (perhaps) my ongoing attempts to document their current interconnection. And my desultory attempts to remote control them (five universal programmable remotes tried, and discarded, so far) efficiently, effectively, and in a manner suited to domestic harmony. Translation: push one button to watch a DVD by switching on screen, player, amplifier, and switchbox, and setting everything to the appropriate inputs.

Glittering delights in store

I have now finished the tedious (real-time) task of transcribing my library of several hundred expensive analogue video LaserDiscs² on to cheap blank DVDs before "laser rot" (a condition the video industry wasn't keen to admit ever existed) finally finished rendering them all unplayable, or at least unwatchable, which is much the same thing. And I have finally retired my top of the range third Pioneer LD player after seven years of faithful service. (This is surely what's meant by "paying your dues to the video industry".) My few pre-recorded VHS tapes are of such depressingly poor technical quality they are simply not worth archiving. How did we ever put up with such fuzzy, jittery, low-resolution, pan-and-scanned rubbish? Let alone pay for it? Roll on hi-def.³

I've generated simple text lists of my videos, giving me an excuse to prove that I can eventually do on a PC what always seemed to be trivially easy on a RISC OS machine. Still, at least I can now emulate RISC OS under Windows XP Pro and enjoy the dubious benefits of three separate, world-class DTP systems.

Footnotes

¹  No big "E" of "Everyone"? ... try loading images. No text navigation across the top? ... upgrade your browser!
²  I once calculated that a LaserDisc could store three complete IBM MVS/XA address spaces — we used to think that was a lot! Now [after hiring my first LD player for a year in 1983 while I waited to see if this technology would ever catch on here in the UK — it never did] even my obsolete 20GB MP3 jukebox has more capacity. The more recent Media Player, of course, has (at 250GB — 230GB after Mr Gates' NTFS has finished feasting on it) more capacity than you can shake a stick at!
³  Mind you, my present plasma screen's resolution of 1,280 by 768 does my old eyes fine, clearly revealing (at times, mostly when they try to cram too many channels in) all the digital weaknesses of UK terrestrial broadcasts.