Thank you for reading the 12th DVD Catalyst Newsletter.
If you have visited the site since the last week, you might have noticed the lack of posts this week. I’m still in the middle of the home-improvement projects, and it is kicking my behind big-time. While I have been keeping up with support, questions by email, and of course the web-forums, the rest of my time, I have spent licking my battle wounds, so I haven’t spent much time on checking the news sites.
News:
The Toshiba Thrive Tablet, yet another Honeycomb Tablet, was released this week, and while its specifications don’t make it stand-out from the crowd, the Thrive offers numerous connectivity options, making it a lot more interesting. Just like all other 10″ Honeycomb tablets, just select one of the Xoom profiles in DVD Catalyst 4 to get the best results for your video conversions. The next update of course will have profiles for the Thrive.
The Droid 3 came out this week, and has been received well by many. So far the only gripe seems to be that its 3G only. The DVD Catalyst 4 Beta (DVD Catalyst 4 4.1 RC2) already has profiles for it, but if you prefer to use the “official” 4.0.2.7 version, just select the Xoom profile and change the screen size in “Modify” to 960×540
The Droid Charge, released a few weeks ago, is starting to gain a lot of popularity. The Beta already has profiles for it, but if you use DVD Catalyst 4 v4.0.2.7, select one of the Android > Nexus 1 profiles. The specifications for video playback is pretty much the same.
Also this week, Honeycomb 3.2 was released for the Motorola Xoom Wi-Fi. Unfortunately, I have the 3G model myself, so I have a few weeks to go yet.
While I am not much into rumors, one did catch my eye this week. Supposedly Motorola is readying a high-resolution replacement with a 4:3 screen. If you read my newsletter last week, you already know my thoughts on that (Touchpad, iPad2) but in short for the new newsletter readers, after using widescreen devices like the Xoom, Nookcolor, Playbook or even an iPod Touch, Droid or iPhone, I have no desire to go back to a 50+ year old screen-standard, regardless of how many pixels it has.
DVD Catalyst News:
MovieGallery: This week I did 2 updates on MovieGallery. The folder portion I added in the recent 1.2 update wasn’t working correctly, and the first attempt of a fix (1.2.2) resulted in a major failure, so after a long day of home-improvement work, I spent another couple of hours on fixing MovieGallery, and updated it to 1.2.3. All is well now, except for some people due to some issues with the previous version, a clear-data is needed in order to make it work.
More MovieGallery: This week I got approved for B&N Nookcolor development. I already have MovieGallery modified to work on the NOOKcolor (no hardware buttons for settings and such, so I had to add a button on-screen for that) and the description and screenshots are currently waiting for approval from B&N. Once that is accepted, I’m ready to upload and activate MovieGallery in the B&N NOOK app store.
DVD Catalyst 4: No new beta this week. I did spent some time on getting 5.1 audio working for some profiles, but unfortunately at the moment, only if you select a profile with AAC audio (most MP4 / H264 profiles) 5.1 works properly. Keep in mind that many devices don’t like 5.1 audio, so it isn’t really useful to use it for your tablets. The Blackberry Playbook did play MP4 files with 5.1 audio, but no Android devices.
Mitch News:
In some of my previous newsletters, the “Rants” section was something that fell in good grounds, as some of the subjects I brought up were things people could relate to, so since I don’t have much to write about this week, I figured I’d include some of my personal life in this newsletter.
Home Improvement:
Well, as many of you already know, I’m still stuck in home-improvement projects. As mentioned last week, things have been building up, and I have been pushing them off, but now they can’t be pushed off anymore, so I’m pulling a double-shift between that and DVD Catalyst/MovieGallery support.
So here’s what is being done:
*The porch. For years, we had a screened-in porch, but since we hardly ever use it to sit outside, we decided to turn it into an enclosed room, mainly for storage and such, so we can take some of the lesser-used kitchen appliances out there, making the kitchen a bit more organized.
*With the porch turning into a room, we decided to build a small deck in front of it so we can sit outside when needed.
The deck is built, and turned out quite nice, but we need to finish up on gates and back steps. The rest is finished on that. The porch is enclosed, and windows are in it. The inside is still bare, and we need to put siding on the outside. Hopefully by next week, all will be done, and I’ll put up some pics of how it turned out.
Thankfully I have a very helpful neighbor who loves doing this kind of stuff, otherwise, I would be stuck doing it all by myself, and who knows how it would come out (I don’t like using a “level” for one).
Dream Car:
We all have to have something to look forward to in life, and one of the things many men have is a wish-list of cars. Over the years, I have come to accept that some are just way out of my league, so my top-3 is fairly reasonable. 1: Porsche 911 GT2 (you have to have a dream, right). 2: Toyota Supra (on my list before The Fast and the Furious came out) 3: mid 90′s Toyota Celica.
A few weeks ago, I finally got my #3, a 1996 Celica GT. It is in rough shape (cheap), but it runs. The body has a bit of rust, but other than that, it just needs some lovin’. Right now it is in the shop for a look-over and some repairs, but I am hoping to get all nice and pretty again.
Unfortunately I have nothing else to write about, so I guess this is it for this week’s newsletter. Thank you for your time, and have a great weekend. Hopefully after the home-projects are done, I’ll be able to write more,
Sincerely,
Mitch
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