Category Archives: General

Where did this year go?

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This seems to happen every year. Christmas and Boxing Day comes round and we’re sat in that limbo between then and New Year where we come to reflect on what has happened over the past year.

Trying to remember everything is quite hard… the year has had some ups and downs, some positives and some negatives.

I’ve made lots of new friends in the car world, the fun and joy I get from tinkering with my ever ongoing project car (see Garage) and the lust for the sound of a spooling turbo is one only people who’re mixed up in the car world will understand (of which there are thousands of like minded guys and girls worldwide.

I’m also attempting to broaden my music knowledge and items on my music wish list are being bought as vinyl – (see Playing some vinyl)

I’m focusing on building my freelance work too, so if you or friends or family have a problem with your computer please get in touch or see my website for that stuff (Frantik/Whitecherry).

Family and friends mean the world to me but unfortunately as the internet strives to bring us closer, it seems that this alone is not enough. If you see me out and about say “hi” and I’ll aim to do the same! 🙂

I’d like to thank my girlfriend for sticking by me and my annoying habits for another year. The longer we’re together the closer we get.

All the best for 2019!

Ripping movies using My Movies software

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I thought I’d write a bit about what I’ve learnt about ripping movies from DVD. The process is a lot more in depth then it first may seem.

Logically, you may think it’s as easy as ripping a CD. Unfortunately, as I have now found, there is more to it.

I first started getting interested in this topic, when I got recommended a very useful movie cataloguing app called “My Movies“. I love stats, and tracking what I watch. I love IMDb, and being able to track actors across films, and genres.

I started looking into how to to import DVDs using the My Movies for Windows app which has an import feature. It works well but this is where I started getting caught up in the DVD encryption issue. So, logically, DVDs have encryption to prevent you from simply copying them with built in software.

Import disclaimer

My Movies works with either DVD Fab Passkey or AnyDVD to decrypt the movie and import it into the My Movies database. Together they work very well but a disclaimer is shown, so check local laws before proceeding (does anyone really check?).

I tested importing some DVDS for as long as trial copies of both import tools worked (around 1 month each). From what I found:

  1. The speed of your PC directly impacts the conversion process.
  2. Ideally, you want the fasted optical disk drive you can get to reduce the copy process to a minimum.
  3. You need plenty of local disk space – the movie is copied from the disk first, and then converted to a format your TV/console/player can deal with before giving you the opportunity to remove the imported version.
  4. If you have foreign language films, dealing with subtitles is the biggest pain in the ass — something which has led me to take a break from the whole test.

For now I will continue to use My Movies for it’s cataloguing and database apps. I have the iOS app and the features on that are great. I love being able to scan the barcode of a film to add it to your collection. You can also mark films out “on loan” so you don’t lose anything! Great product, overall.

I’ve only scraped the surface here but will probably write a followup post somewhere soon.

Moving on

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Not long ago I lost an old friend – not as in dead lost – but lost as in they moved up the country and broke all contact without much notice or explanation… it wouldn’t be so strange other than I’d known them for a long long time (since school long).

I won’t be naming any names but I really don’t understand the reason for it. People need to take a break and have their space and focus time but to break all contact with the people you’ve been dealing with is rather odd.

You know they meant a lot when they keep on appearing in your dreams… months on even. The biggest problem was not knowing, so I made sure they were actually alive but the reasoning for the silence and why still baffled me. It’s actually really annoying, the dreams I mean. In my consciousness I have acknowledged that for whatever reason the friendship we had obviously wasn’t all that. I’ve other friends through work and out of work and come to terms with the fact I just need to move on and hope that if this person really cared then at some point they’d get back in touch.

I’ve written this in the hope that it’ll help by putting pen to paper so to speak (always better to get something off your chest).