sda capture blog

of course, that's a positivist view. if i decided tomorrow that sda was not for me anymore, then suddenly i wouldn't look so dedicated, after all. but i like to force myself into the probably more realistic viewpoint that every second i spend working on sda means i'm that much more "into it".

things have been exciting around here lately. i'm sure y'all have noticed grenola and mike doing updates, and indeed, they are together doing the entire update process now, leaving radix to watch over his creation like a proud father and to occasionally yell, "no, no, you're doing it all wrong!" mike responds to runners, no matter how annoying, with super speed, and grenola has made short work of automating much of the remaining parts of the sda updating process. it's safe to say sda is operating better than never, ever before.

on the home front, i am very pleased with my new dvd recorder, an lg dr1f9h (say that five times fast!). media compatibility is far better than with my old panny, and as an added bonus, the lg writes dvd+rw without the need for a finalization step. that means that i went from using isobuster to raw read the vobs off of every dvd i recorded (because all the media i bought was incompatible with the panny) to not even needing to finalize the disc to take the vobs directly off of it in v5. and on top of all of that, the title corruption bug that precipitated "katamari hell" is nonexistent. good deal for only $200.

the lg has tons of other crazy features i'll probably never use (like dv in and hdmi out), but i think it's a good sign that i'm getting all these earmarks of a high-end dvd recorder at only $200 while over at walmart cheap (but still perfectly good) dvd recorders are down below $100. it's never been clearer to me that my prediction of dvd recorders meeting and then beating vcr prices will happen by this coming summer. that's significant, of course, because i plan to phase out my free vhs capture service at that time. the reason is because i must help the quality of the videos on the site in any way i can, and if that means coercing people into buying dvd recorders, then so be it. at $40 a pop they'll be less expensive than a single next generation game.

i'd like to take this opportunity to thank tom batchelor for his continued monetary support of sda. clearly he's not the only generous one around here, but he is obviously the one with the most money, and i appreciate his confidence in me and my operation. when other people believe in you, you often find a way to make things happen regardless of whether you share their confidence.

i will keep it coming.