Kalcifer

Kalcifer , 10 days ago (edited 9 days ago)

Why does it seem that so many of those who claim that they’re libertarians are not actually libertarians?

Kalcifer , 9 days ago

being libertarian is only marginally less embarrassing [than being a Republican] anyway

What about libertarianism is embarrassing to you?

Kalcifer , 9 days ago

To be fair, Libertardians also care about lowering the age of consent!

Based on what are you making this claim?

Kalcifer , 9 days ago

libertarians aren’t a thing

[Libertarians] are republicans that are too embarrassed to identify as such publicly

Be careful to not make hasty generalizations.

Kalcifer , 9 days ago

So, are you saying that your claim is conjecture? Or, perhaps, simply anecdotal?

Kalcifer , 13 days ago

And Arch Linux instead of openSUSE Tumbleweed and Fedora 😊

Kalcifer , 14 days ago

ELI5 How come it seems now the old wise tale of Vietnamese eating pets and now its immigrants into the USA?

I don’t understand that sentence.

Kalcifer , 14 days ago (edited 14 days ago)

ELI5 How come it seems now the old [wives’] tale of Vietnamese eating pets and now its immigrants into the USA?

That’s still a rather incomprehensible sentence.

Kalcifer , 14 days ago

Older Thinkpad (eg T460)?

Kalcifer , 14 days ago (edited 14 days ago)

Ah, so it does [1]. Apologies! Perhaps another older Thinkpad has a 12" screen? From what I’ve heard, and from my experience with my own T460, they’re usually pretty solid laptops, so if you could find one with the specs that you are seeking, I would say that it’s worth considering.

References1. “Product Specification Reference” (Version 506, May 2017). Lenovo. Published: 2017. Accessed 2024-09-11T19:41Z. psref.lenovo.com/syspool/Sys/i_pdf/psref506.pdf. > [§ThinkPad T460 Platform Specifications] > > https://sh.itjust.works/pictrs/image/bd60fed0-7550-4c8a-bbc7-b8972107cca2.png

Kalcifer OP , 15 days ago

Why a separate VCR for cleaning tapes?

I was just thinking that the cleaning process might damage the VCR (as one is rummaging around in its internals [1]), so it’d be better to use a worse quality VCR for cleaning, and a good quality one for digitization.

References1. “How to Clean a Moldy VHS Tape”. Dustin Kramer. YouTube. Published: 2016-04-24. Accessed: 2024-09-10T18:49Z. www.youtube.com/watch?.v=uVq0o2CzVKI

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you should definitely not use default deinterlacing techniques for the video

What “default deinterlacing techniques” are you referring to?

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you should […] especially not [use deinterlacing techniques] built into these generic dongles

How do I find out that information for the 2 things that I purchased (mentioned in the post)? How would I even control that? Only the composite to HDMI converter has a single switch from 720p to 1080p. I don’t see anything else that would control what interlacing technique is used.

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Capture [the video] interlaced, preferrably as losslessly as possible

What method do you recommend to accomplish this?

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use deinterlacing software where you can fine-tune the settings if you need to.

Is this possible in OBS?

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TBC can obviously be done in software if you have the raw composite or head signal but that is not possible with the capture cards you have.

If I did want to capture the raw signal, do you have any methods and/or tools that you would recommend to accomplish this?

Kalcifer OP , 15 days ago

vhs-decode

This is a very cool project! Thank you for sharing it!

Kalcifer OP , 13 days ago

This was very informative! Thank you for your comment!

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you should check that the video output is actually at [59.94 Hz]

How does one measure the input frequency of the video feed? I’m not aware of OBS being able to monitor the frequency/refresh-rate of individual input devices, but I could certainly be wrong.

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Don’t use the converter if it cannot output 480i or at the very least 480p! Scaling should happen during playback, the files should be original resolution.

I looked on Amazon again, and it seems that every converter being sold only outputs 720p, or 1080p — none of them simply repeat the input resolution, eg 480p or 480i. Would you have a converter in mind that would accomplish this?

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I’d just clean the VCR after every tape if I suspect mold. You’d still need to clean the cleaning VCR after every tape to avoid cross-contamination

Do you have any resources that you would recommend for proper cleaning of a VCR?

Kalcifer OP , 13 days ago

Check that the output is indeed interlacd

Is it possible to see this in OBS? I see an option to select an interlacing technique if I right click the scene

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Look at stats/logs to see of any frames are dropped and investigate if it’s just the 59.94 Hz compensation

Are you referring to “stats/logs” within OBS?

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make sure to disable auto-gain or else quiet sections will get boosted like crazy, increasing the noise.

If you are referring to a toggle on the capture card or the converter, neither have a button for that, so I think my setup is fine in that regard?

Kalcifer OP , 12 days ago

Get an actual composite capture card for the job.

Ha, honestly, I wish that I would’ve done this to begin with. It’s way cheaper, and simpler to get the one composite capture card rather than converting composite to HDMI, then capturing HDMI. I’m honestly not entirely sure why I did the latter — perhaps it’s because I was under some presumption that such a device wouldn’t exist (which, now, I realize is an obviously silly assumption to make). I found this one. It’s still just a generic capture card, but it’s a direct composite capture. Do you think that it would suffice?

Kalcifer OP , 11 days ago

It seems to be an EasyCAP clone, there are several devices in this form factor with different chipsets.

Good to know! That link has a lot of good information.

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This capture device seems to be labeled as “BR116” based on photos in reviews, which can help identifying the chipset. BR116 is sold by Conrad and its manual by them mentions “STK1160” in a screenshot, so this Amazon one most likely also uses the STK1160 chip, which was one of the worst ones in this timebase stability test (which means it has no TBC). However, it’s alright if your VCR is a late model that already does TBC internally.

Noted! I will keep this in mind.

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I came across this video about digitizing VHS tapes [1]. It talks about hardware to use, and hardware to avoid [1.6]. One of the examples that it gives for hardware to avoid seems to be a clone of the device that I was looking at on Amazon [1.2]. The rationale for why it should be avoided was that it doesn’t pass both fields of the interlaced video through independently [1.1]. Though, you have mentioned that it’s fine to capture the video interlaced, so perhaps this isn’t a big deal-breaker. The capture cards that the video recommends are:

• IO-Data GV-USB2 [1.3]
• StarTech.com SVID2USB232 [1.4]
• Dazzle DVC-100 v1.1 [1.5]

References1. “How to convert VHS videotape to 60p digital video”. The Oldskool PC. YouTube. Published: 2023-02-07. Accessed: 2024-09-14T21:09Z. www.youtube.com/watch?v=tk-n7IlrXI4. 1. T00:03:56 2. T00:04:08 3. T00:04:38 4. T00:04:59 5. T00:05:19 6. T00:03:50

Kalcifer OP , 7 days ago

So, I bought an EasyCap device and ran some tests. I encountered a few things that I don’t quite understand, and I would really appreciate your input!

I used a test VHS tape that I purchased at a thrift store (I’m not 100% sure if it’s NTSC or PAL, but I’m decently confident that it’s NTSC) (I’m also not sure what its aspect ratio is — I think it’s either 1.33:1 or 4:3). I’m playing the tape in a PV-D4745S-K VCR. I have the composite out of the VCR going into the aforementioned capture device which is connected to a computer running Arch Linux.

First, I used the following ffmpeg capture settings:

<span style="color:#323232;">ffmpeg -i /dev/video2 out.mkv
</span>

After capturing a short snippet of the test tape, I probed its metadata with ffprobe -i out.mkv, and saw that it was strangely in 25FPS, and 720x576 (which caused the video to be stretched vertically slightly), which is PAL. So, somehow the NTSC VHS being played in an NTSC VCR was being converted to PAL. In addition to that, the colors in the video were very overexposed. I tried a bunch of different manual settings like specifying interlacing with -vf “interlace”, -standard ntsc, -vf scale=720:480, -vf fps=29.97, -standard NTSC, and none of them solved the issue. I then came across this answer on StackOverflow which stated that capture cards themselves have settings for the video feed, and ffmpeg can modify them with the -show_video_device_dialog true option. From the ffmpeg documentation:

show_video_device_dialog

If set to true, before capture starts, popup a display dialog to the end user, allowing them to change video filter properties and configurations manually. Note that for crossbar devices, adjusting values in this dialog may be needed at times to toggle between PAL (25 fps) and NTSC (29.97) input frame rates, sizes, interlacing, etc. Changing these values can enable different scan rates/frame rates and avoiding green bars at the bottom, flickering scan lines, etc. Note that with some devices, changing these properties can also affect future invocations (sets new defaults) until system reboot occurs.

Unfortunately, when trying this option, an error popped up saying that the option was unrecognized. After some digging, and prompting ChatGPT, I found that apparently that option is Windows only as it relies on Windows’ “DirectShow system”. The way to modify it in Linux is to use the Video4Linux2 framework, which is controlled with v4l2-ctl. So, I ran the following:

<span style="color:#323232;">v4l2-ctl --device=/dev/video2 --list-formats-ext
</span>

which showed the following entry:

<span style="color:#323232;">...
</span><span style="color:#323232;">[0]: 'YUYV' (YUYV 4:2:2)
</span><span style="color:#323232;">    size: Discrete 720x480
</span><span style="color:#323232;">...
</span><span style="color:#323232;">        Interval: Discrete 0.033s (30.000 fps)
</span><span style="color:#323232;">...
</span>

So it is able to output NTSC — ie 720x480 at 29.97fps (I guess it rounds up the fps for whatever reason). So I then tried

<span style="color:#323232;">ffmpeg -f v4l2 -video_size 720x480 -i /dev/video2 out.mkv
</span>

and it was able to output the video at 720x480 29.97 fps as desired, and the colors were no longer super overexposed. Using the -vf “interlace” flag, I do seem to also be able to capture interlaced video, so it also doesn’t force progressive which is nice.

I thought that the capture card would be able to just autodetect what the input resolution was to allow ffmpeg to record at that, or at the very least, I would expect that specifying NTSC in ffmpeg would force the standard, but neither of those worked and I’m not sure why. There’s also still an ongoing issue of the video being zoomed in/cropped slightly (I verified this by comparing against online sources of the same video (some were a VHS rip, others from non-VHS sources)). I tested the VCR’s output on a regular TV, but unfortunately the TV forced 4:3 and cropped it even more, so I wasn’t able to make a perfect comparison, though that was only additional horizontal cropping — the vertical cropping from before was still present. To be able to verify that, I’ll have to pick up another test VHS tape to see if perhaps the test VHS tape that I currently have was just recorded in a cropped format.

Kalcifer OP , 16 days ago (edited 16 days ago)

Thank you for the information! Perhaps that’s what this setting is:

https://sh.itjust.works/pictrs/image/fb179d51-0f68-434f-9e10-6894588d8938.png

I will disable it and report back.

EDIT (2024-09-09T22:09Z): @ccf, unfortunately, with that setting disabled, I still am experiencing the stuttering.

Kalcifer OP , 16 days ago (edited 16 days ago)

Thank you! Solved!

Kalcifer , 17 days ago

Personally, I have little interest in learning or dealing with C++ solely for the sake of developing KDE applications. I would much rather use Rust.

Imo, restricting the languages that can be used for app development cuts out large swaths of developers who would otherwise be eager to develop software for the project. I’m sure there are some who wouldn’t mind picking up C++ for this cause, but I’d wager that they are a minority. Gnome beats out KDE in that regard, imo, as GTK has bindings and documentation for many languages.

Kalcifer , 16 days ago

I thought Rust already had several different methods for interacting with C++?

Oh? Would you mind sharing them? It would be absolutely fantastic if such a thing existed and is mature enough to be practically used.

Kalcifer , 16 days ago

Dang, that’s pretty neat! Man, there’s probably going to be some funky bugs with legacy code getting included into Rust.

Kalcifer , 18 days ago

Metaverse in my ass.

Kalcifer , 19 days ago

without having to reboot to run the installer?

I’m not sure that I understand what you mean. Are you saying that you want to be able to load the OS without having to reboot your computer? Or are you saying that you just don’t want to have to click the equivalent of “try the OS” when booting a live USB? If it’s the latter, you should be able to just select the flash drive as the install point (though, tbc, I have never tried this, but I don’t see why it wouldn’t work) (I think you’d need 2 USBs, though — you’d need 1 to be the installer source, and one to be the install point — I don’t think theres any installer that can run as a desktop application. Though, if it’s Arch Linux, you might actually be able to call pacstrap from the host OS — I’ve never tried this after having already installed the OS). There’s even OS’s that are specifically designed to be ephemeral on hardware in this way — eg Tails OS.

Kalcifer , 22 days ago

LibreOffice Draw?

Kalcifer , 21 days ago

Arch Linux for Android phone case with the app in the app in the app in the app in the app in the app in the app in the app in the app in the app in the app in the app in the […]

Kalcifer , 22 days ago

As of 2024-09-03T22:10:25.545Z, Starlink is now complying with Brazil’s X ban [1].

References1. “Starlink says it will block X in Brazil”. Emma Roth. The Verge. Published: 2024-09-03T22:10:25.545Z. Accessed: 2024-09-04T04:17Z. theverge.com/…/starlink-block-x-brazil-comply-elo…. > “We immediately initiated legal proceedings in the Brazilian Supreme Court explaining the gross illegality of this order and asking the Court to unfreeze our assets,” Starlink says in a post on X. “Regardless of the illegal treatment of Starlink in freezing of our assets, we are complying with the order to block access to X in Brazil.”

Kalcifer , 22 days ago

As of 2024-09-03T22:10:25.545Z, Starlink is now complying with Brazil’s X ban [1].

References1. “Starlink says it will block X in Brazil”. Emma Roth. The Verge. Published: 2024-09-03T22:10:25.545Z. Accessed: 2024-09-04T04:17Z. theverge.com/…/starlink-block-x-brazil-comply-elo…. > “We immediately initiated legal proceedings in the Brazilian Supreme Court explaining the gross illegality of this order and asking the Court to unfreeze our assets,” Starlink says in a post on X. “Regardless of the illegal treatment of Starlink in freezing of our assets, we are complying with the order to block access to X in Brazil.”

Kalcifer , 22 days ago

https://sh.itjust.works/pictrs/image/83d9e4d9-cefe-4acb-b5cc-596583dd6ddc.png

I’d like to see a logarithmic version of this graph. Picking out a straight line in a log graph is easier than trying to discern an exponential. I want to see that juicy exponential.

Kalcifer , 22 days ago

This is amazing! Thank you so much for doing this!! Would you mind telling me your process for extracting the data from the graph? Did you tediously manually extract eye-balled data-points? Or, did you run it through some software which extracted them? Or, perhaps, did you just find and use the original data source?

Kalcifer , 19 days ago

That’ll definitely come in handy. Thanks!

Kalcifer , 24 days ago

If this is a legitimate test, note that there is a community specifically for this purpose: !test.

Kalcifer , 26 days ago

The secret to success: survivorship bias.

Kalcifer , 28 days ago

There’s never a wrong time to update Arch Linux!

Kalcifer , 28 days ago (edited 28 days ago)

I don’t have any fundamental issue with emojis when they’re used to expand meaning or provide clarity. Eg you could use an emotive emoji to show/clarify the intent/emotion of something. Imo, using emojis in this way is no different than the practice of adding a “/s” to denote sarcasm. When they get annoying is when they’re used superfluously; if they serve no purpose, then it’s just clutter.

Kalcifer , 29 days ago

I upgraded from 8GB to 16GB like 2 months ago.

Kalcifer , 1 month ago

The sound reminds me a lot of Mdou Moctar, but they have a lot of unique sounding effects going on. The grooves are really tight. They have a really cool look and atmosphere too. I’m really digging the subdued vocals; it’s interesting to see a more instrumental band that’s still using one’s voice as an instrument.

Kalcifer , 1 month ago

gestures passionately “Download Lemmy!”

I’m feeling warm and fuzzy for some reason.

Kalcifer , 1 month ago

When I use a website as a source, at the time that I access it for information, I will also save a snapshot of it in the Wayback Machine. Ofc theres no guarantee that the Internet Archive will be able to survive, but the likelihood of that is probably far greater than some random website. So, if the link dies, one can still see it in the Wayback Machine. This also has the added benefit of locking in time what the source looked like when it was accessed (assuming one timestamps when they access the source when they cite it).

Kalcifer , 1 month ago

What exactly am I looking at? Is this just for visual aesthetic on the outside of a building, or is there some specific purpose served by this architecture?

They don’t quite look like balconies, and there’s a hole. Perhaps in the rightmost column I can see a part of a railing or a window through some of the holes?

EDIT: Just saw this post in my feed, which I think is showing the same architecture as this one. It appears to be for aesthetic purposes, but I could certainly be wrong.

Kalcifer , 1 month ago

Given that Lemmy’s mascot looks like a mouse (I think it’s technically a lemming), an idea that came to my mind was “cheese day”.

Kalcifer , 1 month ago

That’s perfect!

Kalcifer OP , 1 month ago

Thank you for pointing out, by example, a flaw in my original title 😆

Kalcifer OP , 30 days ago

Watch for battery life when buying older Surface devices. Replacing batteries in the older Surface Pros is notoriously difficult, because apparently the whole assembly is glued together.

Thank you very much for the heads up!

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Newer versions are apparently more repairable, but you’ll have to investigate where that cut-off line of repairability is.

It looks like an attempt at heading in the direction of repairability started with the Surface Pro 9, but it’s still quite involved [1][2].

References1. “Surface Pro 9 Teardown: The Most Repairable Surface In Years”. iFixit. Youtube. Published: 2022-11-10 (Accessed: 2024-08-26T02:28Z). www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGP1pO8nGDc. 2. “Microsoft Surface Pro 9 Repair”. Clay Eickemeyer, Spencer Day. iFixit. Published: 2024-03-30 (Accessed: 2024-08-26T02:30Z). www.ifixit.com/Guide/…/165163.

Kalcifer , 1 month ago

Scaled sort on subscribed.