Page 42 – Krunk4Ever!

November 22, 2008November 22, 2008

XviD Playback Keeps Flickering

So for the past few weeks, I’ve been experiencing a lot of flickering with video playback. The funny thing was it only happened with MPC (Media Player Classic) and not VLC media player. However, I know VLC uses it’s own codecs for decoding and would often times skip what’s registered.

Anyway, I decided to try debugging. I installed the latest release of ffdshow, but that didn’t help. It doesn’t flicker all the time, but usually flickers the most often in dark or mostly black scene. I also notice the flickering only happens with .avi files (particularly Xvid). When I was playing some .mkv (H.264 encoded) files, they played fine. That’s when I realized that when I play .avi files in MPC, the little ffdshow system tray icon no longer shows up.

In MPC, I opened the context menu –> Filters and looked for the video decoder. Apparently it was using something called: FunBox Video Codec Filter. I don’t recall ever installing a FunBox codec and started to think maybe I had accidentally installed some malware.

Anyway, I did a bit of research and found the file that’s associated to this codec: FunVideoCodecFilter.ax. I started a system-wide search for this file while I continue searching for clues to how I got it.

I then landed on this page: AVI playback issues – weren’t even there days ago. It appears that the FunBox codecs came with a recent update of Samsung PC Studio 3, which I did update a few weeks back. I just never associated the two because I didn’t expect my cell phone software to be installing video codecs (overwriting the ones that were already installed), but I guess they do do some multimedia stuff. I just use it for my bluetooth synchronization.

Anyway, all the FunBox codec files are located under:
C:\Program Files\Samsung\Samsung PC Studio 3\

And I simply unregistered all of them:

regsvr32 /u FunAudioCodecFilter.ax regsvr32 /u FunAviSplitter.ax regsvr32 /u FunConvFilter.ax regsvr32 /u FunDecFilter.ax regsvr32 /u FunEncFilter.ax regsvr32 /u FunEQFilter.ax regsvr32 /u FunImgFilter.ax regsvr32 /u FunMp3DecFilter.ax regsvr32 /u FunMpgDecFilter.ax regsvr32 /u FunMpgGrabFilter.ax regsvr32 /u FunOggDecFilter.ax regsvr32 /u FunSampleGrabberFilter.ax regsvr32 /u FunSubFilter.ax regsvr32 /u FunVideoAdjustFilter.ax regsvr32 /u FunVideoCodecFilter.ax regsvr32 /u FunVideoResizeFilter.ax

Things are back to normal now, and the little ffdshow icon shows up in my systray again. I still don’t understand why reinstalling ffdshow didn’t fix my codec settings. I even made sure the Xvid box was checked. Hopefully this post will help someone out there that’s experiencing a similar problem.

November 18, 2008November 18, 2008

Heroes and 2012

I know it’s been awhile, but here’s some food for thought. I first saw the 2012 trailer during the previews of Quantum of Solace, the new James Bond 007 film. The HD trailer was released and I started reading up on it. If you didn’t know, 2012 is the Gregorian year where the Mayan calendar ends. Many have predicted that it’ll be the end of the world.

Anyway while reading it up on Wikipedia, I came upon the following passage:

2012 is claimed by some with New age beliefs to be a great year of spiritual transformation (or alternatively an apocalypse). There is disagreement among believers as to whether 2012 will see an end of civilization, or humanity will be elevated to a higher level.

Many esoteric sources interpret the completion of the thirteenth B’ak’tun cycle in the Long Count of the Maya calendar (which occurs on December 21 by the most widely held correlation) to mean there will be a major change in world order.

Astrologer John Jenkins has determined that on this date, there will be “an extremely close conjunction of the northern hemisphere winter solstice sun with the crossing point of the Galactic equator and the ecliptic“, an event that will not be repeated for thousands of years.

According to Wikipedia, an ecliptic is the apparent path that the Sun traces out in the sky during the year. … The name ecliptic is derived from being the place where eclipses occur.

I don’t think the passage above predicts an eclipse is going to occur, but I’m not exactly sure what it means to have the Galactic equator crossing the ecliptic, but for some reason it reminds me of Heroes. If you’ve been following the recent Heroeos, you’d know that some eclipse happened a long time back which gave them their super powers, and another eclipse is going to come and take their powers away and somehow the earth ends up being blown to smithereens.

Update: During dinner, Xyon and I were discussing Monday’s episode of Heroes and the topic of solar eclipses came up. It seems that the closest 2012 total solar eclipse to this “dooms day” is on November 13. So maybe my theory is a bit off, or maybe the solar eclipse happens on 11/13 and the earth blows up on 12/21.

October 23, 2008October 22, 2008

Waiting Pet Peeve

So over dinner, Xyon and I were chatting as usual, and the topic of waiting came up. One of the things I hated as a kid, was when my parents would line up at the checkout line, decide they forgot something, and ask us (the kids) to man the shopping cart while they go pick up the items they forgot. As an engineer, I would agree this would be most efficient, but as a kid, I was scared shitless, always wondering if they’ll be back before it reaches my turned at the checkout line.

You know how you get that feeling where 1 minute feels like an hour. Yeah, I get that feeling when I at the checkout line and the person who’s paying isn’t. When asked what I should do if I’m next in line and you guys aren’t back yet, they say to just let the person behind me go ahead. And if they always came back in time, I’d probably have more confidence in them, but there’s been times I’d have to let 3 or 4 people behind me go ahead.

Being shy when I was younger (not that I’m that much more unreserved nowadays), it was an extremely horrible experience and I hated it every time. It’s also not like they’re in a hurry to come back. They seem to take their sweet old time deciding which one to get, which is a better deal, etc, meanwhile, poor little old me is here standing here shaking.

If they ask me to do that now and aren’t back by the time it’s my turn, I’d probably just pay and checkout on my own.

October 22, 2008October 22, 2008

Fringe Opening Theme

Fringe Poster So I’ve been watching a new TV series called: Fringe. Pretty good series so far. As someone mentioned, it was like a mix between X-Files, House M.D., and Heroes. I wouldn’t say it’s as good as all 3 combined, but it’s been entertaining.

Anyway after watching the first episode, the opening theme music / soundtrack / song has been gnawing at my head. It sounds so familiar as if it was on the tip of my tongue, but I just couldn’t place my finger on it.

So weeks later, after watching my 4th or 5th episode, it finally pops into my head. It reminds me of the Music from The Inner Life of a Cell. You watch the clip here: BioVisions.

Not exactly as close as I had expected, but my mind somehow linked these 2 musical pieces together. And the theme of the accompanying video and 3d animation are pretty darn similar too!

October 11, 2008

Bloglines Alternatives

I’ve been using Bloglines for the past year or so as my rss aggregator, but recently it’s been a lot flakier than usual. So when it stopped updating feeds this past Wednesday and their forums were down again, I decided to scope out some different readers. I found the following list somewhere:

I heard some good things about NewsGator in the Bloglines forums some time back when Bloglines first started having problems. They mentioned it was quite easy to switch and that I can just export my feeds from Bloglines as an OPML file and import them into NewsGator. I gave that a shot and it worked fine. So the past few days, I’ve been playing with NewsGator and there are quite a few things I miss from Bloglines.

My biggest pet peeve of NewsGator is that it’s extremely slow and unresponsive. It takes like 5-10 seconds to load a folder, while it was extremely fast and snappy in Bloglines. Another feature that Bloglines has are keyboard shortcuts. After a few days of using NewsGator, I have to say I’m not a satisfied customer.

The one thing good about NewsGator is that it updates the feeds a lot more frequently than Bloglines. Things may take up to half a day to show up on Bloglines, but new posts generally show up within the hour on Newsgator.

They also have a client version, but I would rather not have to install an RSS aggregator client on all the machines I use.

I know a few friends who use Google Reader. Maybe I’ll give that a try. What do you guys suggest?

October 5, 2008December 9, 2008

A Short Love Story in Stop Motion

I initially posted this on my HD-Trailers website, but thought I shared it with you guys too.

Saw this on Digg and thought it was beautiful:

A SHORT LOVE STORY IN STOP MOTION from Carlos Lascano on Vimeo.

A SHORT LOVE STORY IN STOP MOTION A couple of pencil-outlined birds escape from a little girl´s drawing, leading us through the life she dreams of. you can find more about the making of at this link in my page. (Source)

They have a 720p version available, but you have to register/log in before it’s available for you to download. Amazingly beautiful, you should definitely check it out.

October 1, 2008October 2, 2008

Don’t Vote

Got this video off Digg: Don’t Vote (5 Friends Uncensored)

It features a bunch of Hollywood stars telling you not to vote if you don’t care about any of the issues (some reverse psychology thing). They ended up telling you to vote, but there were some funny parts in between.

They even teamed up with Google and provided a nice helpful site: 2008 US Voter Info

Registration closes as early as Oct. 4th.

I mean even Xbox/Microsoft is teaming up with Rock the Vote to convince people to vote, especially the younger generation which is nonchalant about voting and don’t really believe their vote has much power if any at all. I mean, the whole election process could be rigged, right?

But the matter of fact is, if you’re too lazy to even register to vote, coming up with any reasons is just a way of justifying to yourself why you’re not voting this November.

September 30, 2008

Cougar Mountain Way

I guess this is why the street I live on is named Cougar Mountain Way:

September 28, 2008

Tendonitis

Could it be? Yet another post? I was planning to go into work today, but I’m still too tired from yesterday’s paintball games. It was my first ever paintball game, and thanks to Dan for setting that up. Overall, I came out not too badly damaged. But the first shot that hit me, hit me hard, leaving a bruised spot on my chest. I also got a few bug bites. On the other hand, it was extremely fun! I’ll probably talk more about it in a separate thread once Dan posts his photos up.

Anyway, onto the topic of this post.

For the past month or so, my right wrist had been hurting. It wasn’t searing pain, but it did hurt when I was using the computer for extended periods of time, which is basically what I do all day and all night. So I finally went in to get it looked at. I was diagnosed with “tendonitis,” which isn’t really as bad as it sounds. It just really means my tendons in my wrist area are inflamed. I was given a splint for my wrist and some exercises to do.

I also replaced my mouse both at work and at home with the Microsoft Natural Wireless Laser Mouse 6000, which is slanted at an angle more natural for your hands and wrist. Overall, the mouse is nice. As Caleb puts it, it feels like holding a baseball. I still don’t like the wireless aspect of it as I can still feel the jitteriness from time to time. Also I hate the fact it uses the new tilt wheel, making middle click extremely hard to use (the same problem that plagued the Microsoft Wireless Laser Mouse 6000). Honestly, I never really have any use for scrolling left/right. Maybe I should just use the forward mouse click to be my new middle click. That wouldn’t be too bad.

I’ve got to say I’m impressed this time. In just 3 short weeks, I’m now completely off my splint and am typing w/o anymore pain. For some time, I was very afraid I had started to develop carpal tunnel syndrome.