I'm a F&$%ING idiot!

Email Print posted by Spinny 02/25/2008 08:38:57 AM EST

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I've been searching for a good method to convert videos of various formats to run on my new video iPod. Part of that has been looking for various free/shareware apps that might do the job.

Searches for such things often turn up "clearing house" sites that aggregate downloads into one easy location. Don't trust them.

Like an idiot, instead of noting the names and going to the original vendors' sites to download, I got some trial programs from such a clearing house. I don't even remember the site name or URL, I was focused on what I was trying to do.

One of them gave me a virus last night. A nasty one. First thing it did was disable my Norton AV, then it killed my wireless connection so I couldn't download any solutions. I can't even un-install Norton or re-install it, it blocks the process. I'm going to have to blow away the whole partition, create a new one, and then restore from a backup. Of course I've been slack in doing backups so I'm going to lose a few weeks worth of some things. I am able to burn a DVD with my e-mail and bookmarks so I won't lose any of that.

Sigh.

The moral of the story is screw convenience. ALWAYS get free/shareware from the original creator's site.

The other moral is some people need to get a life.

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I'm a F&$%ING idiot! | 9 comments (9 topical, 0 hidden)
bum deal (none / 0)
It happens and I think I'll back up today.  On a side note, I wonder if I've lost more computer files or physical objects in my life....  Good luck!

by rev24 on 02/25/2008 12:42:19 PM EST

get a mac (none / 0)

You won't run into these kinds of problems.  ;)

 

 

by schmoab on 02/25/2008 01:49:20 PM EST

Heh. Main problem with that is (none / 0)
Lightwave and Rhinoceros 3D don't come in Mac flavors, and I refuse to learn 3DS Max.  I hear tell of PC emulators, but renders take long enough as it is without adding another software wrapper layer to the pipeline.

"If you're not pumped up, then get the hell out, 'cause you don't belong here." -- Cenk Uygur

by Spinny on 02/25/2008 02:19:51 PM EST

[ Parent ]
You (none / 0)
can find good freeware and shareware here.

by z1p101 on 02/25/2008 09:00:57 PM EST

Could've been worse? (none / 0)

That TOTALLY sucks, I feel for ya. But everyone's been burned before, don't blame yourself. Personally I've had a lot of success with Yamp (great for converting from WAV to MP3 or  boosting signal and removing noise from live audio) ACE Mega Codecs pack with BS Player (simply the best collection of audio and video codecs available) and with the shareware sites TUCOWS and OLDVERSION. I generally don't trust sites with too many pop-ups (but with a pop-up blocker who can tell) but everyone has been needy and greedy before and googled and taken a chance and been burned.

Good thing you were smart enough to have partitioned your drive first. Not to sound like, look on the bright side, but things still could have been worse.

If it is any consolation, I've tried many times looking for video converters for podcasts and haven't had much luck myself. Part of the confusion seems to stem from Apple buying the rights to MP4 (formerly known as DivX, which is still available) and the heavy use of flash in streaming video. Most good free video converters now a days either give you a watermark, or only allow ten minutes of conversion, or only allow half the file to be converted, or in some cases limit the number of uses in the trial. version. 

I went out and bought a great little Chinese iPod knock off (I'm the one always ranting about how China is going to take over the world in the 21st century) which comes with free conversion software to a format called AMV (which I hadn't heard of before). And it works great with everything except for MP4 (although it does the original MP4, now known as Xvid, remarkably well, perhaps because that was the format the Chinese used to use to pirate DVDs onto video CDs) and WMV (Windows Media  Video) which unfortunately are both very popular today. So I simply eschew YouTube, Google Video (and other flash sites) and most web related content and instead dl movies from P2P to watch at the gym on the stationary bike. 

I would like to be able to watch ESPN's PTI and Steven A. Smith related content in video, but for now I'm content to listen to their audio only versions. I still watch Cenk and JR and Dave and Jesus and Ana of course, but only on my computer. And after your cautionary tale of woe, I'm not going to worry about trying to find a better video converter. I can't even imagine the kind of nightmare of having to reformat because some lil two sandwich eating zitfaced high school hacker full of teenage angst cause he couldn't get laid had too much time on his hands and decided to write some code to fry your box. Sucks to be you. Glad it ain't me. Peace in the Middle East. 

by tiggerporn on 02/26/2008 02:40:37 AM EST

WMV conversion (none / 0)
I tried a couple of things to go from WMV to MP4 (the path to get TYT onto my iPod) with limited success.  An Imtoo app had a nice compression scheme but the audio and video don't sync at the default settings.  I used their little info window and set all the parameters to match, and they still didn't sync.  Their customer support was weak on that issue.  I also tried one from E-zsoft that had perfect sync but the mp4 file size ballooned up by a factor of 10 over WMV!  No settings for compression beyond a simple good/medium/bad setting that didn't seem to affect the TYT vids any.  When my system is back up I plan to check out one called Videora based on a tip at work.

On the virus front it took me all last evening to back up what I wanted to keep onto DVDs.  My laptop burner is only a 4x so it takes about an hour to do a full disk (at least at the slowed speed my system is at with the virus throbbing in its veins).  Partition blown away, re-created, formatted, and blown away a second time just to be sure.  When I left for work this morning the restore had just begun.  Good news was my latest backup was about two months more current than I'd feared.  I should be doing them weekly. Grr! Arrgh!  I learned that lesson the hard way.

Anyway, when I get home today (if the gods approved of the small animal sacrifices) my system will be restored and running fine again.  Then all I need to do is restore my data from the DVDs and this will all be a bad memory.

I want about five minutes with a hammer and a virus writer's fingers.  Just five minutes.

"If you're not pumped up, then get the hell out, 'cause you don't belong here." -- Cenk Uygur

by Spinny on 02/26/2008 07:53:41 AM EST

[ Parent ]
From the department of computer science, with love (none / 1)
http://www.videora.com/en-u s/Converter/

by jarett on 02/26/2008 10:52:16 PM EST

Thanks, jarett (none / 0)
That's on my list to check out, now that my system is back and running fine.

That's the good news:  the restore went perfectly and the system came back like nothing ever happened.  Many kudos to Acronis for their True Image software.  This is the second time I've needed them (first was a HD crash) and they're two for two in perfect restores.  Best fifty bucks I've ever spent, or so it feels today.  I had to sit through a bajillion software updates as everything and its uncle chimed in saying it was out of date, but it all went fine.

Moral one of this story?  Get back on the regular backup schedule!  Moral two?  No downloading of software while head is up ass.

"If you're not pumped up, then get the hell out, 'cause you don't belong here." -- Cenk Uygur

by Spinny on 02/27/2008 08:02:16 AM EST

[ Parent ]
More on videora (none / 0)
The more I read about it, the more it sounds too good to be true.  I can't wait to try it out!

Man, where were you guys (you're the second to recommend it to me, after a co-worker) when I was doing the learn-by-Googling thing?  I could have saved myself days of pain!  ;-)

Thanks again, man!

"If you're not pumped up, then get the hell out, 'cause you don't belong here." -- Cenk Uygur

by Spinny on 02/27/2008 08:20:45 AM EST

[ Parent ]
I'm a F&$%ING idiot! | 9 comments (9 topical, 0 hidden)
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