DV-Done!

Cleaned-up (PAL and NTSC) discs of the Interaction Masquerade and Hugos Ceremony are imaged. There is now more than one known copy in this hemisphere. The NTSC disc should run in most North American DVD players.

I'm getting the hang of Nero, although there is some weirdness. Setting chapter marks is strange ("set, find the location you want it to be at and then nudge," rather than "find the location, nudge and set" like the other software). Setting button thumbnails is strange (the precision stinks).

But they're done.

The new TV is in...

If you read kproche's last entry, you heard about the new TV.

It's pretty slick.

On the up-side, it fits perfectly in the space available. Perfectly.

On the down-side, it's got only 1 HDMI input and one VGA input, but it's got two component video inputs.

On the up-side, we only have one device that can use the HDMI, and one device that uses component video.

On the down-side, the Comcast DVR has a DVI output, not a HDMI ouput. They're compatible, but the only HDMI/DVI cable I could find quickly (the TV was a charity auction purchase, we didn't plan out cables in advance) was a Monster Cable. I hate Monster Cable. They're the most amazing bullshit artists, turning the excessive prices they get for their cables back into bizarre pseudoscientific marketing and lawsuits. Should have checked Radio Shack.

On the up-side, I got some decent 3-lead AV cable for the component connection to the DVD player pretty cheap, and it's working beautifully.

It only took a few minutes to find the manual for the Motorola DCT6412 DVR and the JVC XV-N55SL DVD player so they could be reconfigured to work with the new TV. The DVR was already set up for 1080i resolution for a 16:9 screen on the component and DVI outputs. The DVD player took a touch more fiddling (and switching a bunch of settings back to "auto") to get things running really cleanly in 480p for a 16:9 screen.

So shiny new TV, working well.