OT - At last, a Windows Explorer work-around for .jpg folders

"Bob Noel" wrote in message
...
In article ,
"Gig 601XL Builder" wrDOTgiaconaATcox.net wrote:

At home I'm running an Alienware 3.5 Ghz machine with WinXP and I have
restarted it exactly 4 times (other than after new software loads) in the
last 12 months. So stability is not an issue and it is MANY times faster
than anything Apple makes today and it was a year old last December.

"many times faster"? are you nuts?

How long does it take this wicked fast machine to process/encode
one hour of video for burning on a DVD? For your claim of "many
times faster", it would have to complete the job in less than 10 minutes.
This I would love to see.

--
Bob Noel
Looking for a sig the
lawyers will hate


I haven't burned any DVDs but when I get a chance I will. I'm not sure but I
think the dual NVIDIA cards may offload some of the video processing so it
might not be a fair comparison.

"Garner Miller" wrote in message
...
In article , Gig 601XL Builder
wrote:

I was an Apple guy from my first Apple IIe and worked with several
Macs until about 7 years ago when both work and the games I wanted to
play knocked me out of the Mac arena. Apple makes a great machine and
for certain uses it has no peer. But don't let anyone fool you it is
not perfect and has bugs and glitches all it own.

With all due respect, your experiences with the Apple machines of 7+
years ago are not at all relevant to the machines of today. The
operating system is *completely* rewritten five years ago, the hardware
is much better (and uses more commodity parts for inexpensive
upgrades), and the reliability, stability, and security model put
Windows (even 2000 and XP) to shame.

No, it isn't perfect, but if you're basing your opinion on the
old-technology machines, you're misinforming yourself. (It's the
equivalent of me disliking Windows because of poor experiences with Win
95 on a Pentium 90 -- no comparison with today's machines.)


No, I still have frequent access to Macs specificlly a G5 with the most
either the most current or close to it version of OS X.

As far as reliability and stability I'll match my Alien against the Macs.
Security, that's a different matter. Some of the issues that have hit the
Windows machines are because of the users and some are because of the OS.
But many are because there just aren't that many people out there writing
malware to effect the Mac OS.


At home I'm running an Alienware 3.5 Ghz machine with WinXP and I have
restarted it exactly 4 times (other than after new software loads) in the
last 12 months. So stability is not an issue and it is MANY times faster
than anything Apple makes today and it was a year old last December.

Alienware makes a fine machine -- hopefully that'll still hold true now
that Dell has purchased the company. And if I were a heavy gamer, I'd
buy one for that purpose. But I don't believe your speed claims hold
water -- the current top-end PowerPC G5 machine uses two dual-core
2.5GHz processors, and will far outperform the Athlon64 I'm assuming
you're using.

I think it will kind of depend on the specific task. The last head to head
comparison I read about was A 64 Bit G4 against a 32bit AMD. The tests were
some Photoshop tasks and they were split.

"john smith" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Garner Miller wrote:

Alienware makes a fine machine -- hopefully that'll still hold true now
that Dell has purchased the company. And if I were a heavy gamer, I'd
buy one for that purpose. But I don't believe your speed claims hold
water -- the current top-end PowerPC G5 machine uses two dual-core
2.5GHz processors, and will far outperform the Athlon64 I'm assuming
you're using.

I listened to a podcast last week that revealed that intel has a group
of inhouse games that have been playing with overclocking their
processors for some time now. They have convinced conservative
upper-management that it can be safely done with outstanding results.

Aleinware pretty much made a business out of overclocking machines.

I think it will kind of depend on the specific task. The last head to head
comparison I read about was A 64 Bit G4 against a 32bit AMD. The tests were
some Photoshop tasks and they were split.

Which brings up the sad commentary that Apple has to take a step
backwards to 32-bit software to run on the new intel processors.

In article ,
"Gig 601XL Builder" wrDOTgiaconaATcox.net wrote:

At home I'm running an Alienware 3.5 Ghz machine with WinXP and I have
restarted it exactly 4 times (other than after new software loads) in the
last 12 months. So stability is not an issue and it is MANY times faster
than anything Apple makes today and it was a year old last December.

How long does it take this wicked fast machine to process/encode
one hour of video for burning on a DVD? For your claim of "many
times faster", it would have to complete the job in less than 10 minutes.
This I would love to see.

I haven't burned any DVDs but when I get a chance I will. I'm not sure but I
think the dual NVIDIA cards may offload some of the video processing so it
might not be a fair comparison.

Well, AFAIK the video cards don't have anything to do with the
encoding/processing of converting DV into a video DVD.

--
Bob Noel
Looking for a sig the
lawyers will hate

"Bob Noel" wrote in message
...
Well, AFAIK the video cards don't have anything to do with the
encoding/processing of converting DV into a video DVD.

You could use a little updating (but not much...this is relatively recent).

The latest and greatest video cards include support for "DXVA" (DirectX
Video Acceleration). It provides a way for applications other than 3D
acceleration to take advantage of the immense processing power present on
modern 3D accelerator cards.

The processors on the video cards aren't completely specialized, and it
turns out that they are suitable for handling a variety of computational
tasks, including transcoding video streams (such as is necessary to convert
digital video from one format to another, including when burning a DVD).

Regardless, I find the term "many" to be ambiguous enough to give "Gig"
whatever wiggle room he needs. It is certainly true that his Alienware
computer is at least twice as fast as anything Apple is offering so far
(though as they introduce more Intel-based Macs, that will cease to be
true), and one need not come anywhere close to 10 minutes to burn a 60
minute DVD to prove "many" times faster. I doubt any Apple can do a DVD in
better than real-time (and probably slower) so as long as "many" only means
"three", all he needs is to be able to burn a 60-minute DVD in 20 minutes,
probably not even that quickly (depending on actual Mac performance, of
course).

Now, can his PC burn a DVD in 20 minutes? Don't know. But especially if
it's using DXVA for the video transcoding, and he has a fast DVD burner,
it's not entirely out of the question. Even at 30 minutes, he'd still be
able to support "many" (assuming he goes with an odd definition like "two"
).

So, how fast can the fastest Mac burn a DVD anyway?

Pete

Alienware machines are know for speed at gaming.
That does not necessarily translate into speed for other processes.

In article ,
"Peter Duniho" wrote:

Well, AFAIK the video cards don't have anything to do with the
encoding/processing of converting DV into a video DVD.

You could use a little updating (but not much...this is relatively recent).

more specifically, the video card in my G5 doesn't get involved in
the processing. Thus any attempt to wiggle out of the claim of
"many times faster" is invalid.


Regardless, I find the term "many" to be ambiguous enough to give "Gig"
whatever wiggle room he needs. It is certainly true that his Alienware
computer is at least twice as fast as anything Apple is offering so far

twice many

And I'd like to see proof of your assertion


(though as they introduce more Intel-based Macs, that will cease to be
true), and one need not come anywhere close to 10 minutes to burn a 60
minute DVD to prove "many" times faster. I doubt any Apple can do a DVD in
better than real-time

well, you yourself need some updating.

My not-top-of-the-line G5 will process AND burn a 60 minute DVD in about 40
minutes. I haven't tried to make this faster by fiddling with various settings.
This is fast enough for me. :-)

[incorrect conclusions based on faulty-data deleted]

--
Bob Noel
Looking for a sig the
lawyers will hate

"Bob Noel" wrote in message
...
more specifically, the video card in my G5 doesn't get involved in
the processing. Thus any attempt to wiggle out of the claim of
"many times faster" is invalid.

No one was talking about YOUR computer using the video card. The potential
"error" suggested was that HIS computer might use the video card. At least,
that was my understanding. You don't have dual video cards, do you?

Regardless, I find the term "many" to be ambiguous enough to give "Gig"
whatever wiggle room he needs. It is certainly true that his
Alienware
computer is at least twice as fast as anything Apple is offering so far

twice many

As I said, his definition of "many" may not be the same as yours. That's
the problem with vague words like "many". They can mean a variety of
things, and two people may go to the grave arguing about the "correct"
meaning (even though there are numerous, or even infinite correct meanings).

And I'd like to see proof of your assertion

You'd have to look up benchmarks at the various review sites. I make the
statement based on general knowledge of the PowerPC versus AMD/Intel CPU
performance ("Gig" didn't mention which CPU brand he actually has, but
assuming it's supposed to be really fast, it's probably an AMD part, for
their superior floating point performance).

[...]
My not-top-of-the-line G5 will process AND burn a 60 minute DVD in about
40
minutes.

If you say so. You must at least be using a dual-proc box. Even so, your
experience doesn't match what I've read about the G5's (or any other Mac for
that matter).

Pete

In article ,
"Peter Duniho" wrote:

My not-top-of-the-line G5 will process AND burn a 60 minute DVD in about
40
minutes.

If you say so. You must at least be using a dual-proc box.

yep. The 2.3 GHz dual core G5 is but one of the machines that Apple makes,
yet isn't as fast as the 2.5 Ghz quad G5 (or the older 2.7 GHz dual
processor G5).

Even so, your
experience doesn't match what I've read about the G5's (or any other Mac for
that matter).

All I can report on is my own actual experience with my dual core G5 and
my other older Apple computers.

--
Bob Noel
Looking for a sig the
lawyers will hate