I'm thinking about picking up an EVGA RTX 3060 since I found one at a pretty good price. It looks like it's on par with the other models, but I really need something quiet since I don't care about overclocking or anything. Does anyone actually own this card? If so, maybe you could give me some info?
Where are you even watching movies made with Handbrake? If you're on a PC, you might only see them using a DivX player, since that's the only thing that really handles that tech—the subtitles aren't hardcoded, they're more like a DVD stream. If you use an external player, you should be able to see them, assuming they're actually enabled. Just watch out for one thing: make sure they aren't "too low" and end up getting cut off at the bottom of the screen. I archive all my movies using Handbrake and watch them on an external player, but I always double-check where the subs land first, because sometimes they're too low to see. So, I just make a quick little clip (grab a snippet using VirtualDub) along with a small srt file and test out two different files using various settings (basically two templates). So far, every movie fits into one of those two templates. Once I know which one works, I just make the full movie based on that template.
I guess you'll need a motherboard with integrated graphics that also has a PCI 16 slot for an actual video card. Then you just disable the onboard stuff in the BIOS and let the external card handle everything. It really just comes down to how much you want to drop and if you're a gamer looking for max performance at a specific resolution. Basically, you get what you pay for. You can find cards ranging from $30 to $400.
I was trying to look something up on the forum (specifically an ASUS ROG Maximus) since I remember seeing it mentioned in some old threads, but now I can't find any way to actually search. I recall being able to search ages ago. It's probably buried under some setting somewhere, but I honestly don't see it.
About a year and a half ago, I picked up a 23-inch Apple 1920 x 1080 (16:9) monitor, but I always felt like I was lacking vertical space. I used to use a 1600 x 1200 setup, and that’s what I’m stuck using at my job too. After doing some actual digging on the forums, I saw people recommending 1920 x 1200 (16:10 aspect ratio) for work, which is supposedly way better. It's a shame because they're pretty hard to find now. I guess most people just assume everything is the same, and honestly, it's probably easier for manufacturers to cut 16:9 panels since they get more out of the glass. I ended up grabbing an IIYAMA E2607WS (26-inch), which I left for the kids, and I'm more than happy with it. It uses CCFL instead of LED, but it only pulls about 50W max, and I have the backlight set to 65%. The built-in speakers are actually decent, too. In a word? Perfect. I might actually regret it if I can't find a 16:10 monitor in a few years.
Thanks for the reply. Pretty weird. The one in the picture seems to have a decent angle (at least to me), just like the ones I was looking at online earlier. But mine is sitting at almost 90 degrees. I guess I didn't really check if there was any kind of pivot or joint when I mounted it, thinking I'd deal with it later, but now everything is fixed in place. Now I probably need to build some kind of angled stand just so it doesn't look like total garbage.
Benjamin King2, I see you're rocking the XL2370. Just wanted to pick your brain on something. I've got the P2370, and they look identical from the outside—mine uses CCFL, but it’s super slim since it has an external power brick.
Here's the thing that's bugging me: I noticed you mentioned you can't adjust the tilt either. I'm in the same boat, even though some manual I found online claims you actually can ??? When I look at photos on the web, my P2370 looks like it should have way more tilt than mine does. Mine stays almost perfectly vertical, so I had to prop something up underneath it just to get a decent angle, which looks pretty terrible. The hinge at the bottom looks like it's meant to tilt, but it won't budge. Honestly, I feel like if I force it, the whole thing might just snap instead of moving. I was starting to think maybe my monitor was just defective, but seeing as you're dealing with the same issue, now I'm really questioning things. It seems kind of weird to me that it doesn't tilt, since that should be such a basic feature. What's your take? Thanks in advance
I mean, if you just want a solid burning tool, maybe grab Windows Media Player since it’s totally free. I use it myself and it gets the job done fine, especially for what you're after—burning AVI files to play on an external player that supports DIVX-XDIV.
If you actually need to convert stuff, like if the movie is an MKV or made with ffdshow, I usually just run it through Format Factory to turn it into MPEG first.
If you’re working with MP3s, I guess Mp3Gain is a pretty solid free option. Whenever I’m burning an audio CD from random MP3s I've grabbed online, I just use Mp3Gain to level everything out. It’s actually decent because it looks at the total average volume instead of just hitting those crazy peak values.
I switched over to AIMP recently and I'm actually pretty stoked about it. Everything in AIMP feels right where it should be, and the sound quality is killer
I guess in Rosemary's Baby, it's all about her figuring out the conspiracy involving everyone around her—her husband, the neighbor, the doctor, and that whole crew. They basically just used her to bring that little devil into the world, like in that scene where she catches them having their session in the apartment next door. I guess they didn't actually show the kid looking like a monster, they just left that part up to our imagination. But at the end, she still smiles and accepts him exactly as he is. Maybe the whole point is just that a mother's love is infinite and beats everything else.
The guy already told you above. Just watch out for what those private trackers demand and stick to their rules. I think some of them won't let you shut things down if you're the only one seeding or whatever. When I'm grabbing movies—usually through BitComet—I always go for the ones with tons of seeds. Sometimes I'll knock out five movies overnight, maybe even finish them all by 7 or 8 in the morning. I recently grabbed this patch (it's called the TCIP patch for Windows) that seems to have really helped my speeds on public trackers. Apparently, Windows defaults to only having 10 connections, but this lets you set it to whatever you want. It probably explains why my downloads from public sites are so fast now.
I mostly stick to uTorrent for private trackers back in the States where maintaining my Ratio is everything. The best thing about uTorrent is how it just automatically starts seeding everything left in my list the second I open it, so I'm always contributing to the upload pool. Once I'm done downloading, I try not to close it right away; I usually leave it running for a bit since that's when the uploading is most active. Sometimes I'll even fire it up when I don't have anything new to grab, just to bump up my Ratio. I move my finished files immediately, then check back after a few days to see how the stats look. If the Ratio is looking weak—meaning nobody's really grabbing it—I'll just wipe it from uTorrent (after making sure I've moved the file, obviously). I try to keep my list under 12-15 items total, including active downloads and seeds, just so my PC doesn't get bogged down. For those public sites where you don't need an account, I just use BitComet. It's mostly for movies and software. The downside is I have to manually start every single file once it's open. Usually, I'll let things run until the end of the day before cleaning them out.
Benjamin King2 already gave you the gist, but I’ll try to be a bit more specific. When you extracted those files (probably just some RAR or ZIP archives), you ended up with an ISO—though I'm not totally sure which exact format you've got since there are so many different image types out there. You don't actually need some fancy ISO maker or specialized tool for this. Just open up Nero (or whatever burning software you're running) and hit "Burn/image file," then point it to that file you made. That should make a perfectly fine DVD, assuming the original files weren't corrupted to begin with.
My bad, I meant I burned a CD, not a floppy disk. It's got nothing to do with floppies I guess there's another way where you tell Acronis to boot before the OS. That way, you get this little menu at startup asking if you want to go into Acronis or Windows, so if something breaks, you can just jump straight in. I used to have that set up, but I eventually switched back to the normal way I mentioned earlier.
Nothing specific to my setup, but since I’ve messed around with Acronis before, I guess I can weigh in.
With Acronis, you just back up partitions. It creates those .tib files. Personally, I only back up my C: drive because it's my system partition and it's pretty small. I usually install everything on D:/Program Files. I could back up D too, but I don't really want to waste the space. You can store those .tib backups anywhere. I have a folder called "Acronis Save" on a different hard drive where I keep my initial image (like yours) plus new ones I make every couple of weeks. I usually just delete the old one when I make a new one. You can even password-protect the folder so some random program or virus doesn't mess with it. Acronis can create its own hidden folder for storage, but I don't bother with that. It can also burn directly to a DVD—just make sure you have at least two blank ones ready if you go that route. When you actually need to roll back to a previous backup, just hit Restore, browse for the specific image (.tib) you want, and pick the partition you want to overwrite (I just use C🙂). It takes maybe 5 to 10 minutes and it's always worked fine for me.
One more thing. You definitely need to make a bootable disk using Acronis. You only need it if your system is totally bricked. Like, if a virus hits and you can't do anything (obviously you won't be able to run Acronis from within Windows). In that case, you set the PC to boot from a CD, pop the disc in, and you'll get that basic Acronis interface to do the same thing. Don't forget that. Let me know if you need anything else.
Just a heads up. I have three partitions—C, D, and E—but I only back up C. If you keep everything on C, that .tib file is going to get massive over time. If you don't mind dedicating a specific drive (like a USB stick) just for this, you could back up everything. Acronis compresses data pretty well, so the backup size stays relatively small.
I've got a few different bootable ISO images—standalone tools, nothing fancy. Each one has its own disc right now since I burned them individually from the downloads. I'm thinking it would be way easier if I could just bundle them all onto a single disc. Basically, when I boot up and set the PC to start from the optical drive, I want it to pop up a simple menu like this: