It was a sad day in LA (sounds like the one-millionth Red Hot Chili Peppers song about LA, doesn't it?) Friday when Conan O'Brien hosted his final episode of the Tonight Show, with guests Steve Carell, Tom Hanks (who later appeared on Hope for Haiti), Neil Young, and Will Ferrell.
Conan was only able to host the show for seven months, but those seven months were arguably the greatest months in the history of the Tonight Show. Before a montage of his Tonight Show run set to Cheap Trick's "Surrender", Conan confessed that, as part of his buyout, he would not legally be allowed to host another show for seven months. ****ing NBC!
After Niel Young gave a moving performance of "Long May You Run", Will Ferrell (dressed as a hippie) appeared with a band to send Conan off with the Lynyrd Skynyrd classic "Freebird". Along with Ferrell and Conan were Beck, Billy Gibbons (of ZZ Top) Ben Harper, and Max Weinberg and the Max Weinberg 7.
We'll miss you Conan, see you in seven months.
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Saturday, January 23, 2010
EasyCap review
As it turns out, the EasyCap USB 2.0 capture card is a pretty decent piece of machinery. When you order it online, it should come with a yellow cd that has the drivers for both the capture card and a Movie Maker-type program called "ULead Video Studio". After finally getting the capture card to work, I couldn't be happier with the product. It has a large variety of recording options (accessible through ULead), and the quality is better than most USB capture cards. The video studio itself is pretty impressive, better than the average movie maker.
Some things to mention: if you're getting a green/pink screen every time you try to capture video, your USB ports aren't USB 2.0. Or, if you're like me, they aren't enabled, or something went wrong somewhere down the line and they don't work anymore. Open up the Control Panel, click on System, click on the Hardware tab, and the click on "Device Manager". Find "Universal Serial Bus Controllers" (near the bottom of the list) and click on the + next to it. If there is a yellow icon to the left of "intel(R) 82801DB/DBM USB 2.0 Enhanced Host Controller - 24CD", then you have the same problem I did. Get ready to reinstall Windows.
Also worth noting: recording video in uncompressed AVI format will take up essentially 1gb per minute of recording, or so I've heard. You may want to go with WMV, or try out other options. If you have any issues with skipping or audio/video lag, just try out different resolutions and recording formats until you find one that works.
Conclusion: If you're looking for a cheap (but effective) capture card that is easy to use, look no further. The EasyCap is well worth the $5-$15 you'll spend on it. I give the ULead Video Studio an 8.5/10 (it can really eat up your virtual memory sometimes, and there is the occasional lag in either video or audio), and the actual EasyCap hardware a 9/10 (it's kind of big and clunky, and I don't care for the fact that nobody advertises it as "USB 2.0 ONLY").
Some things to mention: if you're getting a green/pink screen every time you try to capture video, your USB ports aren't USB 2.0. Or, if you're like me, they aren't enabled, or something went wrong somewhere down the line and they don't work anymore. Open up the Control Panel, click on System, click on the Hardware tab, and the click on "Device Manager". Find "Universal Serial Bus Controllers" (near the bottom of the list) and click on the + next to it. If there is a yellow icon to the left of "intel(R) 82801DB/DBM USB 2.0 Enhanced Host Controller - 24CD", then you have the same problem I did. Get ready to reinstall Windows.
Also worth noting: recording video in uncompressed AVI format will take up essentially 1gb per minute of recording, or so I've heard. You may want to go with WMV, or try out other options. If you have any issues with skipping or audio/video lag, just try out different resolutions and recording formats until you find one that works.
Conclusion: If you're looking for a cheap (but effective) capture card that is easy to use, look no further. The EasyCap is well worth the $5-$15 you'll spend on it. I give the ULead Video Studio an 8.5/10 (it can really eat up your virtual memory sometimes, and there is the occasional lag in either video or audio), and the actual EasyCap hardware a 9/10 (it's kind of big and clunky, and I don't care for the fact that nobody advertises it as "USB 2.0 ONLY").
Monday, January 18, 2010
Well
I had to re-install Windows XP Pro, but I finally got my capture card working! I'm still kind of disgusted by the hassle I had to go through, but it all worked out in the end I guess. Expect new me to link to some of my new Youtube videos in the near future.
Friday, January 15, 2010
Hmph.
My Latitude D600 has USB 2.0 ports, I just can't get them working correctly. Every download of any software I need (to fix more than one problem) seems to go to either Microsoft's website or Belkin's website, where it seems almost impossible to find the ****ing download I need. The world is overflowing with bull****.
Thursday, January 14, 2010
D*mn it all!
My stupid EasyCr*p doesn't work because my laptop has USB 1.1 slots instead of USB 2.0. It would be nice if that was advertised beforehand, but I guess you can't expect people to be honest anymore.
Friday, January 8, 2010
Back again
I've been sick as a dog for a few days, and I've spent my time either sleeping, working, or throwing up. Anyway, I'm working on new YouTube videos. Mostly funny glitches in video games, but I may do some other odd videos. I'll link to a few when I've uploaded them.
