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I've been using MSNTV2 (webtv) which is a web browser that connects to the tv for internet use. We like it because we're able to use HSI on it and do almost everything a computer does or more accurately it does what we need it to do. It has no hard drive so there's no chance of anyone hacking into it or getting viruses and it's cheap.
Just bought my first computer 2 wks ago which is a used dell desktop that runs windows xp 2000 and it came with a 'wireless card' that the guy says may pick up a wireless internet connection in my neighborhood which it's doing.
Questions:
1) When picking up a public or private wireless signal does that somehow increase the risk of someone gaining access to your computer?? Is doing online banking safe in that situation or not recomended?
2) How do you download videos/movies to the dvd burner and if you have to download to computer first what do you do? Was thinking about burning some youtube vids and tv shows from the network's sites to dvd-r
3) When uploading lectures from a digital voice recorder what format and bit rate is going to give excellant quality sound without losing ANYTHING? Do you need to record in a lossless format or will mp3 @ 320 kb or less be good?
4) Related to last question--when compressing/converting 10 hrs worth of lectures will that all fit on a stardard cd-r and/or do I have the option of recording just audio to a DVD-R which should have more space than a cd-r.
5) Although I have windows media player down good for ripping cd's and syncing to a DAP is it easy to use it for the video + voice recorder operations to record to dvd-r?
Well that's all I can think about right now and the computer didn't come with an instruction manual, thanks.
1A. No. It's just a connection.
1B. As long as the connection to your bank is encrypted, aka starts with https, you should be as secure as normal. Note, there is no such thing as completely secure.
2. You usually have to have a program such as Nero to encode video files and burn them to DVD. You first download the video, then use your video encoding software to code it to DVD format, then you burn it to DVD.
3. Without losing anything is lossless. But for speaking/lectures you can probably go mp3 160kbs and be just fine and save a lot of space.
4. You can't do CD audio to DVD. You could do a DVD video that was just audio. Again you need Nero or some kind of DVD encoding program to encode it and write it to the DVD. You will need a DVD player to play it back, of course. I'm not sure why you would want to put audio that will fit on a CD onto a DVD. Most DVD burners also burn CDs.
5. No. As you're probably guessing by now, CD audio and DVD video are different beasts. If CD audio works for you, there is no reason to go through the additional difficulties of using DVDs. You might want to use a DVD as a *data* backup of the lectures, in which case you just burn all the mp3 lectures to a dvd as data, and then you can retrieve them on any DVD capable computer whenever you like.
Nero is already enabled on computer so I'll try to figure out how to use that.
As far as using dvd-r's for audio from digital voice recorder I figured it would hold a lot more than cd-r's Plus I just bought a 100-pak of dvd-r's and don't have any cdr-r's yet. Also figured that labeling different dates of lectures and finding them on dvd-r would be easier. Btw DVR has usb connection so uploading should be easy but haven't tried it yet.
1) When picking up a public or private wireless signal does that somehow increase the risk of someone gaining access to your computer?? Is doing online banking safe in that situation or not recomended?
Yes, if you are connected to a wireless signal, you will be networked with any other computer on that signal. However, the risk factor depends on what kind of security you have on your Dell or how XP is configured. If you have some sort of basic security in place, it will probably be enough.
Online banking over a wireless connection is fine, but I would be weary if you are picking up a signal from the local cafe or something.
Quote:
Originally Posted by tripod
2) How do you download videos/movies to the dvd burner and if you have to download to computer first what do you do? Was thinking about burning some youtube vids and tv shows from the network's sites to dvd-r
You download to your hard drive, not DVD burner. If your Dell as a DVD burner then you probably already have some sort of basic DVD authoring software already.
Quote:
Originally Posted by tripod
3) When uploading lectures from a digital voice recorder what format and bit rate is going to give excellant quality sound without losing ANYTHING? Do you need to record in a lossless format or will mp3 @ 320 kb or less be good?
Format...depends on what types of format your audio/music player supports. I would bet pretty much anything
Quote:
Originally Posted by tripod
4) Related to last question--when compressing/converting 10 hrs worth of lectures will that all fit on a stardard cd-r and/or do I have the option of recording just audio to a DVD-R which should have more space than a cd-r.
A CD will max out at around 80 minutes of straight audio at 16bit. If compressed, such as with mp3, you can squeeze an extra hour and half or so, however, you will only be able to play back the CD on a computer or other CD device that can read mp3's.
Yes, if you have a DVD burner, you can burn only audio onto a DVD-R.
in regards to the burning audio to a disc question, it really depends on how you are going to play it back. If you plan on playing the audio on a CD player, then you must burn to a CD-R which can only hold up to 80 mins. If you plan on just keeping it for storage, to play back on a computer, then you can probably get 10 times that much if it is an mp3 burned onto a data disc (same cd-r disc but select the data disc option in the Nero cd burner). But this can only be played on a computer with a sound file player (like windows media player) or on an mp3 player (like a car stereo specifically designed to read mp3 files).
The whole thing works by saving or creating the file on the computer, and then having the burning program (Nero or others) burn the mp3 file(s) 'as-is' onto a disc, to playback on a computer or mp3 player, or as a music cd which will work on any music cd player (but limited to 80 mins per cd). Other sound file types may be supported by your burner program, like .wav files. This process is similar for dvd-video as well, but different file types.. in relation to your question #5.
Most likely you will use a different program than windows media player to record the files, but you may use wmp or another burning program like Nero to copy/convert the files onto a disc for storage or playback.
To burn youtube videos to a dvd to play on a dvd player, it would probably involve multiple steps. First you would have to save the video files onto your computer somehow, and there are 3rd party websites that allow you to save youtube videos on your computer (which may or may not be legal..) Then you have to burn them in dvd format, which Nero will do, but you may have to convert the files to a different type that Nero supports first.
Last edited by LogicIsYourFriend; 10-08-2009 at 03:31 AM..
Regarding burning tv shows from cbs.com for example, is that simple to do? I wanted to burn some available episodes to dvd so I could watch them on tv. I have Nero and windows media player.
Regarding burning tv shows from cbs.com for example, is that simple to do? I wanted to burn some available episodes to dvd so I could watch them on tv. I have Nero and windows media player.
What version of Nero? It only get "simple" about version 8 and newer.
Nero has a wizard that is pretty good at walking you through the steps. Best thing to do is just get any old video file and step through it and start learning the process. It's not hard, but familiarity breeds confidence.
Keep in mind, videos downloaded from the web are usually sized to play on the web. The video quality will degrade going from web videos to DVD unless they are very high resolution to begin with.
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