* I think I did well with my last two columns on printer sharing. A client called me up and said that she was able to share her printer with no problem. Of course I lost a service call, but that is OK!
* Bad news that the HD-DVD vs. BluRay wars are still continuing. I had anticipated that the war would be over soon, with BluRay the winner. BluRay is a bit technically superior (mostly because of its larger capacity), the availability of a relatively inexpensive player in the Sony Playstation, and the desire of the industry to see a solution before this year's seasonal buying starts all should have contributed to the demise of HD-DVD. But the recent announcement from Paramount supporting only HD-DVD for its movies has started the churn again.
Many of the unaligned (and some aligned) manufacturers are trying to hedge their bets by coming out with both products, but in general I think the population isn't buying yet. So I am pretty sure that there will be no high definition DVD player under my tree this year again.
But there is a possible change in the wind: the new world technical powerhouse, China, is developing its own standard (sometimes called CH-DVD) and its marketing presence may tip the scales. And to make things even more chaotic, another format, called HD-VMD is in the works. Because HD-VMD uses old technology (i.e. a red laser) the costs are similar to today's DVDs and players.
* Speaking of DVDs, I have changed my stance on DVD camcorders a bit. The reason for that was a birthday present for my daughter from her family. She, as my wife, is a real non-techie and she wanted something simple and easy to use. Writing the video to a DVD in the camera and just being able to take it out and pop it in the home DVD player to view instantly was what she wanted.
So we purchased a well rated Sony unit for her and I have to say that I was swayed by the result. It WAS easy to use and the quality was excellent even though the encoded video uses a higher level of compression than that used on tape.
My objections to DVD camcorders were: recording time, excess compression, and difficulty in editing. Recording time is still about 20-25 minutes per single layer DVD, but she convinced me that that was enough time for most of the family clips she wants to do. But the price on the blank DVDs has dropped quite a bit now, and also the double layer DVDs (giving almost double the recording time) are now available at a good price. If you can get almost an hour on a DVD at a good price, that is almost the same as using a miniDV tape.
As far as editing the video goes, she has no interest in it. So if any editing is done, it will probably be compilations done in the future by the family video archivist (read: me). I haven't tried editing these DVDs yet, but the latest version of my favorite video editing program (Adobe Premiere Elements) is due out any week now, and I believe that it will better support these formats.
* About Microsoft Vista: The first Service Pack should be available for Vista in a few months. After it is available and bolstered by the fact that my personal PC is beginning to get a bit old, I will probably switch to a Vista PC early next year.
I apologize that I haven't been too intense in Vista columns, but I haven't seen that much need yet. Many of my clients are opting to get XP even on new purchases - this is especially true of businesses. And most of those who have Vista got it only because it came with the new PC that they bought, and most of these people are not yet using the new features that Vista has. Nobody that I know of ever actually upgraded an XP machine to Vista.
But on the other hand, the Vista issues seem to be stabilizing or disappearing. Most of the hardware manufacturers now have Vista drivers and most of the software has been upgraded. There is still some crankiness in local networking, but nothing I couldn't work around.
So stay tuned Vista fans - I promise more in the future.
(Bob Seidel is a local computer consultant in the Southport - Oak Island area. You can visit his Website at www.bobseidel.com or e-mail questions or column ideas to him at bsc@bobseidel.com. For specific inquiries, please call Bob Seidel Consulting, LLC at 278-1007.)