Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with burn

Dual layer DVD movie quality?

zardoz — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 03:32:03 -0800

Question about burning movies onto dual-layer DVDs...is the quality better? I have ripped both Blu-ray as well as standard DVD quality movies on my hard drive and wonder if I should get dual-layer DVDs for watching them on my (normal, analog, non-hi-def) TV. I've burned many a CD and DVD but don't really know anything about dual-layer. Is the quality better than a normal DVD burn? Which frankly can be pretty sketchy in quality.

I'm using an Intel iMac, btw

Plasma burn in new TV

gfrobe — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 10:13:46 -0800

I've got burn in on my new plasma TV screen. Is there anything I can do about it? I bought a new LG plasma TV just under a month ago. My kids have been watching PBS Kids in the evenings and today I noticed that when the TV screen is white (i.e. when I'm surfing the web on the TV and come to a white background page) the Kids 13 logo is clearly visible on the bottom right side of my screen.

Should I take the TV back or is this normal for a plasma (I thought plasma burn in was supposed to be a thing of the past these days)? Or is there anything else I can do to get rid of this burn in?

Can I salvage these tomatoes?

Orinda — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 15:15:45 -0800

While trying to cook a large quantity of tomatoes for sauce, I accidentally burned a few on the bottom of the pan. Now the burnt aroma pervades the entire (did I mention large) batch of tomatoes. Is there any way to salvage this project? I'm trying to make tomato sauce.

I started by cutting up raw tomatoes and chucking them into my biggest, deepest pot. Once there was a few-inches-deep layer of tomato chunks in the bottom of the pan, I turned the heat on high underneath and continued cutting and chucking tomato chunks. After a while, the chunks became difficult to stir around because the pan was so deep. I stupidly left the pan unstirred on top of high heat. Not long after I finished cutting up the tomatoes and adding them to the pan, my nose notified me that the bottom layer of tomatoes had burned. Uh oh.

A mild but noticeable burned smell seems to pervade the entire potful of tomato chunks, which are in varying states of cookedness. I pulled the rawest layer of tomato chunks off the top of the pan, thinking I might be able to salvage them, but that still leaves at least 20 lbs of tomatoes sitting in what is now a burnt-tomato-scented broth.

Advice? Do I have to throw out the whole lot? If I dig out the un-burnt tomatoes can I continue cooking them in a clean pan, or will the resultant sauce have that unpleasant burned flavor to it? Would it make a difference if I strained off the liquid and just cooked what's left of the un-burnt tomato flesh? Is it true that a peeled potato can "absorb the burnt taste"?

Burn, Baby, Burn!

Jon-o — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 15:23:46 -0800

Holy Crap! I burned a tattoo! The other day, I got a serious burn right on one of my tattoos (hot exhaust+forearms=teh suck)
I gave it some first aid, but it's a really nasty, deep, ugly burn and it's probably going to scar. Unfortunately, it's right in the line of fire, as far as being aggravated goes. It gets touched and scraped all the time and I'm really worried about how messed up the ink will be when it finally heals.
Aside from keeping it covered (I'm doing my best, but I tend to sweat the bandages off), what other advice do you have for helping this come out at least ok-ish? Is my ink doomed? I'm really upset and worried.

How do I prevent a cigarette burn from leaving a scar?

washburn — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 11:10:34 -0800

How do I prevent a cigarette burn from leaving a scar? As I maneuvered through a crowded beer garden last night, some gesticulating smoker put his cigarette out on my arm. I didn't worry too much about it yesterday evening, but this morning it does look like the spot might end up scarring.

Any day-after advice for preventing the burn from leaving too noticeable a scar?

Which papers go in the rectangular file and which go in the circular file?

fiercecupcake — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 06:08:53 -0800

What important household papers and documents must I keep and file? What papers are OK to throw away? My wife and I are going to go through a ton of old stuff tonight that needs to be filed. What is important for us to hold on to? What is not worth our time to file?

We bought a house last year. We have two cars and no car payments. We have student loans.

Documents may include, but are not limited to:
- mortgage stuff
- water and utility bills (electric, septic maintenance)
- tax things from previous jobs
- insurance bills/statements (car, house, life)
- ??? whatever fun things have been stacked in piles

Please hope me. This seems daunting.

I know I'm lucky my house didn't burn down, but do I really need to buy new cookware?

Meg_Murry — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 06:54:22 -0800

Can I safely use a burnt Revere Ware copper-bottomed saucepan? I have an old Revere Ware copper-bottomed saucepan, maybe 30 years old. I was heating some water on the gas stovetop and got distracted--called away to another room, stupidly left the pot boiling for a good hour or so. By the time I returned, all the water had boiled away, the inside of the pot was swirled with white powdery marks, and the bottom had a thin layer of black burnt stuff flaking off. Under the black layer, which I can scrub off pretty easily, there's still copper.

I'd rather throw away the pot than risk having the bottom fall off while cooking or some other disaster, but I don't want to throw away a still-usable pot. Is it safe to use?

Burning Question

Frasermoo — Sat, 23 May 2009 21:20:54 -0800

What is the cheapest (best way) to get my vinyl on to YouTube? I have a stack of vinyl and want to share it. I sold my decks before I emigrated so what should I do now? I don't want to mix, just burn and upload. I live in Canada.

Cause of palate pain when eating

hungrysquirrels — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 19:08:32 -0800

Pain in the roof of the mouth when eating, often the first meal of the day. My Google-fu has failed. Just unanswered questions. Anyway, sometimes when I have a meal, usually the first of the day, the roof of my mouth starts to burn to the point where I have to stop eating.

Usually it is dry things like a bagel before eating or drinking something else, but right now I'm having some veggies that were cooked in olive oil and it's doing it again.

Anyone know what triggers this? Or at least a soothing remedy.

Help me run and get past the discomfort of lactic acid.

simplethings — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 09:50:00 -0800

How can I deal with lactic acid build up during a run? I've been running 5k's lately as part of a whole weight loss program. They're one of the only things that have motivated me enough to work out regularly.
I have a race coming up on Sunday and my goal is to jog/run the entire race. Past 5k's have been a walk and run combo. I'd also like to be under 37 minutes.

I've been pushing myself during my workouts and when I'm running over 5 mph the lactic acid will start building up. I'll get the burning and tightness mainly in my lower legs. If I keep running the pain will get more intense and I'll start feeling it in my upper chest/shoulders area.
If I slow down the burning will decrease but won't disappear, if I stop and walk the burning will actually increase for an almost unbearable 10 seconds and then quickly decrease and go away.

I understand that building tolerance to lactic acid requires more working out... but, Sunday is 2 days away.
Is there another way to deal with this during the race that won't significantly slow me down? Would popping TUMS work? Maybe drinking extra water before I start? Or start skipping instead of running? Or stop for a moment and give my calves a quick rub down with IcyHot? Or do I just need to tough it out and run through the pain?

Windows 7 and DVD Authoring

tybeet — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 15:27:39 -0800

So I'm using the Windows 7 Beta, and I need some good burning software that is compatible. TMPGENC was my media burning software of choice, especially since it's so flavourful when it comes to making DVD menus, and flexible when it comes to transcoding formats.

Is there something that is similar (no, NOT NERO) to this that is verifiably Win7 compatible?

Make my home movies look less like bad kung fu

escabeche — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 21:34:51 -0800

Why is iDVD ruining the audio of my home movies? I stitched together about 150 short movie clips from my digital camera into a 50-minute movie on iMovie HD (6.03). On iDVD (6.0.4) I dragged the movie onto the iDVD project panel. Everything looked great. I burned the iDVD project onto a DVD. In fact, I did it four times, because I was so proud of myself for figuring out how to do this that I wanted to send one to everybody in the family.

But when I played the DVD, something very strange happened. The audio lagged the video -- very slightly, enough to notice but not to be a big problem. Then, at about the ten-minute mark, the audio drops out for about thirty seconds. When it returns, it's the audio that goes with the video of minute nineteen. Obviously, at this point, the rest (with video nine minutes behind audio) is unwatchable. All four burned DVDs have the same problem, in the same place. When I watch the movie in iMovie, it's fine. When I watch it in iDVD Preview, it's _almost_ fine -- one thing I note is that the sound cuts out at the same place around the 10-minute mark. But if I pause the preview, then start it again, the sound comes back, and the de-syncing never occurs.

Searching for problems with iDVD audio/video desync yields lots of complaining about iDVD 08, which I don't have, and very slow drift of audio away from video, which isn't my problem. But what is my problem? I'm stumped -- and I'd really like to get this movie off my laptop and to my relatives.

What's the latest on burning CD mixouts?

baylink — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 16:10:51 -0800

Here we go again on cross-faded CDs... Is there any software for Windows, currently available, and cheaper than, say, CD-Architect (:-), which will let me make up a playlist for a CD, and then individually adjust the amount of overlap between each pair of source tracks, and do all the mixing and cue-sheet work necessary to give me a CD with one big long track, but the proper Q subcode to make the display and individual track selection work properly? I've looked at the articles in the search, but only a couple of them were looking for this exact thing, and even those weren't written so clearly that you could actually tell... :-)

I'm fairly sure that if you try to do this by using individual tracks, and having something split them from one big mixout at the beginning point in each new song, that you're at the mercy of people's players, and I'd prefer to avoid that.

I don't really wanna spend $mumble on Sony/Vegas, either, though...

What happens to a candle's wax?

mstillwell — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 12:52:17 -0800

When a candle is burnt indoors, what happens to the wax? An amount of smoke equivalent to the mass of the candle is released as it's burnt (?)--does this manage to escape the house, or does most of it stay in the room and coat the walls, floors, ceiling, etc.?

How should I bandage my burn?

faunafrailty — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 14:48:39 -0800

How should I care for my (now blister-less) burn? The sort-of gory details inside... I burned my right index finger below the first knuckle on a toaster oven last Thursday. It is probably a second-degree burn. I got a good blister from it. It did pop (on its own, I swear I didn't touch it) and I was leaving it uncovered to sort of air out and dry up. I did put Bacitracin on it and kept it clean.

Stupidly and accidentally, I ripped the blister skin off. I kept a band-aid on that for several days (still with the Bacitracin) but worried it was staying too moist and wouldn't scab up. So yesterday, upon internet dabbling, I switched to gauze and tape. Now the gauze is sticking to the wound, even if I smear a lot of ointment on it beforehand. So anytime I change the gauze, it's going to rip open.

It's an open wound, less than a dime in diameter, and I think at least the first two layers of skin are bye-bye. I also think I'm continuing to exacerbate it by having to type/mouse/work. I'm going on vacation on Friday (nowhere exotic) so hopefully I can lay off the finger a little more then.

How should I bandage this thing?

What is this unexplained mark on my friend's neck?

ClarissaWAM — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 12:46:58 -0800

What could have caused this weird mark on my friend's neck? It started out as a red patch, then turned into this... half-flower/sun-shaped thing! Picture. She said it hurt a little when it was just red and blotchy (this lasted about half a day), but ever since it turned "flowery" it hasn't really hurt. It has been like this for almost two days now.

We're not worried as such, just really puzzled as to what could've caused this particular shape, so I was hoping someone here may go "oh I got exactly that mark when I...."

Additional data points:
- she wasn't drunk when it happened (& no one else was involved)
- close up it looks kinda like an abrasion more than a burn
- she first noticed the red patch when she woke up in the morning
- she considered it may be caused by her hot water bottle but that doesn't explain the shape
- we're in the South of England so no big scary spiders etc (I think...)

How To Place Shortcut in root of Burn CD

cmherskovic — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 10:45:22 -0800

How do you create a shortcut in the root of a burn CD to point to a file inside a folder in that same cd? I am burning a CD that requires that the index file stay in the same folder as all the files it indexs. I want to be able to create a shortcut in the root of the CD that points to the index.htm so the person I am burning the cd for wont have to go dig for it inthe folder that contains about 300 files.

Any one know how to do this? I have tried but it never seems to work, because most people have their cd as a different drive letter.

Thanks

How to heal a sunburn?

alitorbati — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 22:05:18 -0800

How do I deal with a horrible sunburn? It's so bad that my shoulders have second degree burns and it hurts to move my arms. Is there a way to lessen the pain or somehow make my skin heal faster? I got the burn on Friday and have been applying aloe vera ever since.

Data + video in one disc

echo target — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 11:49:26 -0800

Trying to make a multi-mode DVD: video plus data. What tool do I need? I want to make a DVD that will play in an ordinary DVD player, but also contains some data files (independent of the video content) that can be seen when you put the disc in a computer.

I don't need to have autoruns, link to the data content from the disc menus, or anything fancy like that. I just want two types of data accessible by different machines.

The full story: I have video of an educational presentation. During the talk the speaker refers to the handouts. I'd like to have copies of the handouts on the disc so people can view them there or print off new copies if they don't have the hardcopies they got the first time.

Free/open source is best, but I might be willing to spend some money if necessary. Are there any good software tools for this?

We don't need no water...

mezzanayne — Sat, 31 May 2008 08:17:19 -0800

Is it safe to burn untreated pine which was stained ~10 years ago? We are tearing down our deck, which was built about 10 years ago with untreated pine and has been stained with an oil-based stain. We'd like to burn the torn-off wood. Most of the stain has now worn off but the burn site is in the garden area and we fear contamination of our veggies.

Should we burn the decking or attempt to Freecycle the stuff instead?

How to create a final gold master

jimmy0x52 — Tue, 06 May 2008 07:43:00 -0800

Burning a gold master - special discs? Software? Burners? Need to burn a disc that's going into multi-thousand production duplication I'm creating a software program that's going to be distributed on DVD. Is there a special way of creating the final, master disc than just burning one in my computer's drive? Are there software, hardware and media considerations to take into account? These will need to be burned, and then shipped across the country for production.

Help me mefi's!

How to make my own karaoke discs from scratch?

thewhynotgirl — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 15:09:03 -0800

How do I take a song off a regular cd, add viewable lyrics (and whatever else is necessary) and turn it into a karaoke disc that I can hand to the kj at a karaoke joint? I already have evil lyrics and some other audio software, but I can only find reference to working with songs that are already on a cdg ... no references in my audio programs to exactly how to make one myself. Further info: Evil lyrics will yield me a .kar and help me sync it to the music I'm playing ... but it doesn't explain what a .kar is or what to do with it.

And I want to make my own rather than find or purchase karaoke tracks because I tend to pick nonmainstream songs that are often not found anywhere but on the cd's I bought them on!

Thanks in advance!

DVD Burning 101 MetaQuestion

snap_dragon — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 06:11:22 -0800

How do I back up my movies to DVD-R so I can take the backups to the gym on my portable and prevent my good ones from getting scratched? I just bought a new IMac running Leopard. It has the burner. From research, it looks like I need 1. Mac the Ripper---2.DVD 2toOneX (for compression)---and 3.Roxio Toast to burn (even though there is burning software on my computer).....I have no really good clue and am open to any support and advice you might have to offer. I don't want to buy things that are not so easy to work. I am a very basic computer user. thanks for your time!

MP3 CD Woes

snap_dragon — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 07:25:51 -0800

How to burn Mp3 random mixes (not entire albums) into several folders on Macintosh for easy navigation in my car cd player...I used to be able to make mp3 discs of whatever songs i wanted and then place them into folders on my desktop, then burn them to disc. It seems that Itunes only allows some form of folder separation (if any at all) by sorting things only by each group's album. This is not helpful if you want several folders with random songs in each folder...for example...I want one folder with songs by rock groups..another that is jazz...whatever. On the new imac, it does not seem to let me take the drag and dropped mp3s in folders on my desktop to a burn disc icon as it did in my older G4. Any suggestions on software or a simpler way around this? I appreciate your input. When it did work, it worked great and saved me from using a crummy fm transmitter on my ipod. The mp3 cds for me sound much better and are easily disposable if left in car.

Burn it Blue

msali — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 11:34:08 -0800

I would like to find a video of Lila Downs appearing at the Academy Awards, please. I was completely underwhelmed by the songs and musical performances at this year's Oscars. Three songs from "Enchanted"? Seriously? I started thinking about good Oscar's performances, and I remembered that five years ago, Caetano Veloso and Lila Downs performed "Burn it Blue" together, and I got shivers down my spine. The recorded version does not do it justice. I would love to be able to watch that specific performance, with Lila and Caetano, but I have been unable to find it through traditional means. Can anyone here help me, perhaps point me in the right direction?