Ask MetaFilter posts tagged with digital

Welcome to our office, we're technologically advanced.

Talia Devane — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 09:13:15 -0800

I need an electronic welcome sign for my office. Currently we are using printed signs in a frame to welcome clients and prospects to our financial services office. We would like to change that to a large digital frame that can also show some photos from client events. The large part seems to be giving me trouble. Preferably, I need wireless acess, the ability to use a picture frame, and scheduled changes rather than random. The display must be at least 14" diag, (8 1/2 x 11").

I have looked at the offerings from Digital Spectrum and I don't think the quality is up to the price on that brand from the sparse reviews I have found. I have considered using a lcd monitor or television, but don't know what software might be appropriate.

Connect Canon HG10 video to Mac os X

willep — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 17:02:20 -0800

Mac osx/canon hg10 cannot get stills off camera. Video yes, stills no. We're supposed to have a baby any day now and this sucker ain't behaving (the camera-mac connection). I haven't had this kind of problem with a mac in 10 years. I can get iMovie to find my Canon HG10 thru USB cable but not Final Cut Pro of iPhoto or Image Capture. That would be fine except that iMovie does not download images from still mode.

I have everything Canon has for download, I have iPhoto, etc. I have another Canon still camera that works fine in all programs.

I saw this thread was closed.

I've looked: no one else seems to have this problem and Canon isn't aware of it... thank you.

Do film cameras have any unique benefits?

invitapriore — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 09:04:29 -0800

In terms of output, what are the benefits to using film cameras over digital? I want to get back into photography. For a long time back in high school, I had access to a friend's semi-DSLR (lens not removable, fully adjustable shutter speed and aperture but limited choices in terms of things like white balance) and now I want to get back into photography. I've always been drawn to the idea of film cameras, and a friend of mine has a dark room, but my concern is the result and not so much the process. Does the medium of film have any unique advantages in terms of the images you can create?

My budget isn't very high, so if I were to go with a DSLR it would have to be old and somewhat cheap. Given this, the initially low investment that a film camera represents is somewhat alluring. I understand that film is a repeated expenditure, but I don't think I'll be shooting so much that it'll be a strain on my income.

Looking for old musical digital watch

foodybat — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 10:00:14 -0800

I'm trying to find on OLD casio (i'm pretty sure) digital musical watch. Any ideas either where to look or at least identify the model? When i was 10 or so i had the coolest digital watch EVER! I'm pretty sure it was a casio. It had many songs / alarms it could play. On your birthday, it would always play happy birthday, on Xmas it would always play several of the xmas tunes, etc. It was way cool. I remember that on the main menu it would show a musical bar with notes, highlight the note it was playing as you scrolled through the menu.

ebay has nothing.

google just didn't work for me...

Any ideas???

How to DIY distribute an album on the internet?

Mali — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 17:00:24 -0800

Is there any sort of code available / software / how would I design a digital download distribution model for an independant band? My band is releasing our first full length this month, and we're keeping everything as DIY as possible (we recorded / mastered the thing, we did the art, and we're going to be doing the promotion / pressing of it for the most part). We are going to have physical copies available for purchase at shows, but we want to have people be able to buy and download the FLACs and JPGs of the album art from our website. We don't want to use iTunes or any other established solution, because we're going to sell the thing for cheap (3 bucks) and any sort of profit we'd make from it would probably go right back into paying for iTunes and such. We'd just set up a Paypal donation thing and then send people to a download link, but we're afraid that people will just send the download link to their friends (we're aware that all music on the internets gets shared, and we're fine with that, but we don't want to make it THAT) easy.

Is there any solution that we can use where people can Paypal us 3 bucks and then somehow be directed to a unique download link or site, without us having to manually send it every time someone buys the thing? Or any better solution / existing infrastructure we haven't thought of?

G-tech or Western Digital Hard Drives

captainscared — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 06:23:43 -0800

I am looking to buy 2 1T drives. I'm doing some final cut work but mostly for media storage. I'm looking at the Western Digital 1 TB My Book Premium Edition II Triple Interface ($236) and the G-Tech Q drive which retail at $445. That's almost twice the price of the western digital.
Two questions:

Which is my best bet? The g-tech or the wdc?
Are the drives differences really represented by the price differential?

Thanks.

Digital noise recording to Mac Pro

wubbie — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 19:24:44 -0800

I'm trying to record audio on my Mac Pro from a hardware source using the digital Line In on the Mac, but am only getting "digital noise" as the recording. I'm trying to record audio from a hardware source (in this case, an Xbox 360) by hooking up the Xbox's digital Audio Out to the Mac Pro's digital Line In via optical cable.

However, when I set the Mac's Input to Digital In and record, only noise is recorded (it's a loud, fast-tempo clicking sound, like a baseball card flapping in a bicycle spoke.)

I've tried recording with a few different apps, including Audacity, Garageband, and Audio Hijack Pro, all with the same result.

The strange thing is that Audio Hijack's preview (and a shareware app like LineIn's) passthrough "preview" of the input is fine. I can hear the audio source from the Xbox 360 playing through the Mac, but the recording is still just digital noise, with no sign of the actual audio intended to be recorded.

Is there some reason this shouldn't work? Do I need to use specific frequency settings for the recording? Is there some sort of "protection" in OS X (or 360) in place to prevent this sort of recording? Or is it a bug in the Mac Pro and/or OS X?

Digital Camera for college?

tihleigh — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 23:48:23 -0800

I'm heading off to college in a few months and I'm absolutely overwhelmed by the myriad of point-and-shoot cameras on the market. I ran through some pictures (well, actually many pictures) on Flickr to try and get a feel for what I was looking for, but some pictures are naturally more appealing than others and the quality is affected by various factors, so I ruled that method out as an objective option. I'm pretty sure more megapixels isn't always more quality and that there are other factors to account for, such as noise and shutter speed, but I'm at a loss at what really matters in a digital camera. I hope I don't sound completely uninformed, but I've scoured previous topics and while they're very helpful, they're a little outdated. I would really appreciate recommendations on a compact/ultracompact camera that takes pretty pictures! I'm willing to spend up to 300, but hopefully no more than that :) Thoughts? Suggestions? Jeers? :(

store the big stuff

crapples — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 18:41:05 -0800

Long term storage of digital media that is too big for DVD's... what's best practice? I have about 10 hours of VHS tapes that I have converted to AVI files. The shortest one is one hour long - so the size of these things is immense. Altogether I'm looking at about 150gb of media, and I can't break them into pieces any smaller than about 15gb.

What if I really really want these things to be around in 20-30-100 years? What's the best storage strategy? What are my options?

Guides/tricks for my new DSLR?

meerkatty — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 10:55:24 -0800

Please help me use my new DSLR camera. Are there guides/tricks for specific cameras online? I took a course today on how to use my new Canon Rebel xti, which came with a handy password protected guide online. (The guide was far superior to the camera manual - with explanations of when and why you would use a certain function, complete with photo examples.) The course was a little basic for my needs but I can't take the more advanced part of the course for a few months. Are there guides along these lines available online?

Big bonus points for anyone who has the password for Henry's School of Imaging Canon xti Part 2 guide.

Recording critters at the zoo, need a good recorder

krisjohn — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 18:57:13 -0800

I need recommendations for a digital video recorder designed for multiple video inputs, including sound, (four cameras point at an animal enclosure at a zoo) that's designed to allow for easy access to the videos recorded. Networkable would be really great, or standard removable storage (USB/SATA). I'd prefer it if the device recorded directly in a standard video format so no conversion from a proprietary format is needed.

CABLE GUY!!!

nushustu — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 10:50:36 -0800

Will I still have cable next year? Two years ago I signed up for high-speed internet through the cable company. After it was hooked up, I also started receiving cable tv. It's the basic cable package, I guess. None of the premium channels. I called the cable company to tell them I didn't want the package, and they told me they would shut it off. They didn't.

After my first bill came, I was surprised to see that I wasn't being charged for the tv, just the internet. I called them again, and again was told it would be shut off.

Two years later. I've had cable tv all of this time for free. And now I enjoy a lot of shows. If the cable company were to shut it off, obviously I wouldn't be in a position to complain. In the meantime, since I've called them more than once and mentioned that I'm getting cable for free, I pretty much wash my hands of any guilt associated with the situation.

However, I know everything has to go digital in February 2009. Obviously, if there are upgrades involved, I won't be getting them from the cable company. I would like to keep getting cable. If it's going to be shut off next February, I'll need to start paying for the service afterwards. If that's the case, it would help me to start putting a little away for that now.

So when this change-over happens, am I going to lose my cable tv until I pay for an upgrade? Or will the thing just switch over without me noticing?

My new camera is worthless!

wafaa — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 14:52:47 -0800

My new Canon SD750 suddenly displayed the dreaded black screen. Help! I ordered this from Amazon and received it 3 days ago. I was getting ready to take a picture and the LCD went black. I can still see the menu and images stored. My Googling gave me results that pretty much said, wow that sucks, and Canon sucks with their customer service, and something about a CCD failure... I went to the troubleshooting section of the manual and it said "black display--hit the display button, if that doesn't fix it, your camera needs service". I checked Amazon's return policy and if I understood it correctly, it said only new, unopened product will be accepted for refund. Now what?

Is a broken camera lens useful for anything?

logic vs love — Wed, 28 May 2008 14:01:34 -0800

Can anything interesting be done with a broken SLR zoom lens? So, I dropped my digital SLR and the lens didn't survive. It was a 18-70mm zoom lens, if it matters. Now the barrel is tilted and it's nearly impossible to zoom in/out or focus. It was the kit lens so I'm not too upset, but I'm wondering if there's anything fun that can be done with it at this point? It seems such a waste to just toss it.

How to sell photos online?

furtive — Sun, 25 May 2008 12:27:44 -0800

I'd like to create a stock photo service for a client. Does anyone have any recommendations for existing services such as photostockplus.com or those that focus on selling digital content such as tidwit.com or the now defunct blish.com. Is there a leader in this marketplace? My main priority is speed and not cost, so using an existing web service would be greatly appreciated. I'm also debating putting a Wordpress front end that would point to content hosted by one of those (or other) sites.

Are there any scriptable digital picture frames?

jacobm — Fri, 23 May 2008 22:02:40 -0800

Hey Metafilter electronic hardware folks: I want to set up a digital picture frame that I can control via software on a Linux desktop to toggle between two different images on command. What should I buy? Everything other than the basic idea is flexible: I want to hang a digital picture frame on my wall, and I want to control it via software so that I can run a program on my computer that will switch it from displaying one image to displaying another. I will know the images I want to switch between beforehand, so I just need to be able to send the frame a switch instruction (though I could certainly transmit the entire picture every time I switch if that makes things easier). I can connect the frame to the computer via USB or a network connection. There will be reliable access to wireless networking if that helps. I could probably even get the frame its own static IP address if that turned out to be what I needed.

My problem is that I know nothing about digital picture frames, so I don't really know what's out there that might do what I want, and product sheets for frames aren't much help for figuring out whether they'll work for my purposes. So, Mefi, what's out there that will do what I want? I'd prefer not to spend more than about $100, and I don't care about how much storage space the frame has (realistically I won't ever be storing more than a few pictures on it). Any ideas?

underwater point-and-shoots summer 2008

johannahdeschanel — Thu, 22 May 2008 12:50:38 -0800

Anyone know of a good, cheap (< 300$) digital point and shoot with above average underwater shooting capabilities?

Transcribe to Mac

segatakai — Sat, 17 May 2008 00:17:41 -0800

Please recommend a solution for transcribing voice to text on my Mac. Ok. What I want to do is to have a (relatively small) device that I can carry with me, and, when the mood hits, speak into the device and have it record my voice. Later, I want to have my voice transcribed into editable text on my (PowerPC) PowerBook G4, which is running OS 10.5.2. Ideally (though perhaps unrealistically) I'd like to not spend more than about $250. Questions like this have been asked before, but are either outdated, inconclusive, or recommend $400 and up machines without really addressing the transcription issue (or all or the above).

I thought that this would be relatively simple (though I guessed the transcription might be somewhat less than 100% accurate), but I'm having trouble finding any clear-cut solution. I'm willing to be open-minded about solutions, including jerry-rigging (sp?) something. What exactly are my choices here?

First I looked at speech recognition/transcribing software for the Mac. It appears that IBM's Via Voice was discontinued some time ago, and anyway it seems to only be compatible up to OS 10.3 (maybe it was discontinued before 10.4?). MacSpeech seems to have replaced iListen with Dictate, which is apparently not-compatible with PowerPC macs (like mine). iListen, from what I can tell, would work with my Mac. However, my Googling has come up short; where can one find iListen for purchase (or steal)?

Next I looked at digital voice recorders. Wow, what a swamp! Only a few products specifically mention that they are compatible with Macs, but ultimately I'm not even sure what that means. Does this mean that the recorder and the Mac can't communicate at all (like the Mac won't recognize the recorder when its plugged into USB)? Or is it just that the included software is not compatible (i.e. the Mac will recognize the recorder, but you have to use some other software to listen/transcribe the files)?

One last side note: My wife has an old micro-cassette Olympus recorder. I presume that if I could get iListen (or something similar) working on my Mac, I could sit the recorder next to the built-in mic on my laptop (or buy a line-in adapter??) and proceed from there. Any thoughts on that?

Help my pretty up my house!

antifuse — Fri, 09 May 2008 07:21:29 -0800

Where can I get large prints of digital photos done online? (Or locally in Toronto) I'm looking to print up some of my digital photos extra-big for my new house. I've already got the enlarging handled (Genuine Fractals is AWESOME), and I've got the frames, but now I'm looking for a place to print them out!

Basically, I'm looking to print out some pretty big images, that don't seem to be covered by your average online printing shops. One image I'm looking to print is 22"x28", and the other is 11 3/4" x 36". I tried a couple different online shops, and they all seem to max out at 20x30.

Obviously, I'm looking for high quality prints, but if it's an online shop it needs to ship to Canada, otherwise someplace in the GTA (Toronto) area would work either.

Suggestions for a digital frame that will download wireless pictures I upload to a photo site?

herbiehancock00 — Sat, 03 May 2008 00:22:32 -0800

Suggestions for a digital frame that will download wireless pictures I upload to a photo site? I'm getting this for mother's day as I live hundreds of miles away from her I would like to just upload pictures to a site and have the frame automatically updates. Budget is between $150-250.

How can I mount WD Worldbook drives in Linux?

jackofsaxons — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 17:00:36 -0800

I have two hard drives out of a Western Digital Worldbook (WD10000D033) that both show up as a Linux RAID partition in cfdisk. How can I mount these drives to pull the data off?

How useful is a 80-300mm lens for a DSLR?

unless I'm very much mistaken — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 06:52:28 -0800

Upgrading to a DSLR camera for the first time: how useful will an additional lens be? I want to buy an entry-level DSLR camera. I'm a keen walker, most of my photographs are landscapes and I don't want too much extra weight to carry if it can be avoided. For this reason, I am tempted by the Olympus E-410, shortly to be replaced by the E-420, but available in my budget range bundled with the 14-42 and 40-150mm lenses (it's a 4/3rds camera, so my understanding is that this means 28-84mm and 80-300mm in normal language).

This is the only DLSR deal I can find where I can afford the additional lens. I'm not likely to be able to be able to afford additional expenditure for at least 12 months. Am I likely to use the extra lens enough for this to tip the deal? (UK based, if that makes a difference)

How to batch edit photos? (I need to apply a filter to correct colors)

mnop — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 22:51:24 -0800

Good batch photo editing software for Mac? (I want to apply a tungsten filter to a large batch of digital images) So I have a lot of indoor photos of items photographed under a tripod, with both compact fluorescent and regular lightbulbs providing light. On the camera I neglected to use any filter to try and get the colors lifelike. I uploaded the photos to view and they all skew orangish. After some experimentation I noticed that the tungsten filter makes the colors much more accurate.

So I have tons of photos that have the wrong colors. Is there any way to apply the same filter to all of the images?

Mac OSX, Canon SD 850 IS.

Thanks (and next time I will check the picture quality before shooting for an hour)

Can I digitize my financial records for Tax purposes?

Scramblejam — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 00:15:37 -0800

What are the UK legal system rules and regulations around storing financial, legal and official paperwork as scanned digital copies? I am currently in the process of scanning in and shredding a lot of old paperwork, notes and information which I have been storing for years - My priority at the moment is all my handwritten notes and personal correspondence (that which I'm not keeping physically for sentimental value).

I would like to begin scanning and storing all my "official" documentation - Bank statements, utility bills, mobile bills, invoices etc. but I am unsure of what I can and cannot do, and what is acceptable from a legal point of view.

I am part-time self-employed, and need to keep records of my documentation for 7 years but would like to keep everything as digital copies.

Can anyone enlighten me on the legal status of scanned documents in the UK? Can they be used as reference in legal and tax issues? Are there any precedents or recommendations on file formats or quality?

Help me drag my T.V. into the 21st century!

craichead — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 19:13:58 -0800

How do I figure out which digital converter box to get for my television? So you know how there are only like two people in America who need to buy digital converter boxes for their televisions? I'm one of those two people. I have an analog T.V., and I don't have cable. I use an antenna and spend the cable money on a Netflix subscription.

Today I got my $40 coupon from the government, and now I need to go buy a box. The coupon came with a list of about 40 acceptable converter boxes, and I have no idea how to figure out which one is best. Does it matter? Has anyone reviewed converter boxes?