Hello everyone !
Thank you for reading the last DVD Catalyst Newsletter of 2011, Newsletter 36.
I hope all of you had a nice Christmas. Even though I’m not much of a social-bug, mine was “better than average”.
Last month, when my wife and a friend went out of town for a day, I decorated the place with some Christmas lights, and I actually got second place in our little community. I wasn’t aware of an actual contest, but getting $25 taken off of next-month’s rent is of course always welcome 
As many of you already know, this year we have been working on an addition to our place. We turned our porch in an extra room, and while we ran into some complications, the goal we set was to have it done before Christmas, and we did. So we had the family over for Christmas and did lunch and gifts in there. It worked out pretty well, but one of the disadvantages of it all was that of course we ended up with cleaning up the mess ourselves afterwards 
As for gifts, I got the Battlestar Galactica (2004) collection on Bluray, the Lord of the Rings Trilogy on Bluray, a variety of puzzles and some other things, so I was happy. My wife even had some shirts and caps made with the Cat-Eyes DVD Catalyst Logo
Tech news:
It’s the last week of the year, so there wasn’t that much tech news. Of course you can find some x-mas sales-figures on the web of gadgets, but other than that nothing special.
So I take this part of the newsletter to say goodbye to the tech of 2011, the year I often referred to as the year of half-xxs releases.
Clearly, 2011 was ruled by iOS (Apple) and Android (Google) based devices. Blackberry tried to compete with the Playbook running QNX, HP tried it with the Touchpad (webOS) but unfortunately, with the other 2 being backed by offering a bit more than just the hardware and operating system, they failed miserably because of their pricing.
The Playbook, overhyped as it was, just wasn’t worth the $500 price for its limited use. The hardware itself is great, and the QNX operating system and touch-enabled borders are features I adore, and are the reason why I did not return it, but aside from that, Blackberry has yet to deliver on all the promises it made.
The HP Touchpad originally sold for the same $500 all other tablets ran for, but when you actually got it out of the box, it was more of a knock-off iPad than anything else. It didn’t take more than a couple of weeks when they realized they were competing with the wrong market segment, and decided to sell it for the same price of the cheap Android tablets, a better match. For me, since I picked up a Touchpad on release day (for $500) I knew right away when I got it out of the box that it was going back the next day. This is probably also the reason why I never seen one on display in the local tech stores.
Then there is the Nintendo 3DS. I picked one up (pre-ordered even) because it was promised to do videos. Well, after 9 months and a major price-cut in-between they finally added video capabilities. I know that as an early adopter you usually end up with some small issues and some features that are being ironed out, but to push something out half-finished just to make a release date is just weak.
Let us not forget the iPad 1.5, or, as what Apple called it, the iPad2. Just like with the usual Apple products, rumors were flooding the web, and usually Apple delivers, but not this time. Hyed during presentation, the only major differences between the iPad 1 and iPad 2 were specs. Everything else pretty much the same, except for a dual-core processor and a faster graphics chip. I don’t upgrade the computer I use for development 16 hours a day just for a faster processor and a better video card every year, so why anyone who picked up an iPad 1 the year before would upgrade to a slightly faster one a year later is beyond me. I was expecting a bit more, maybe a retina or a wide-screen display rather than the same 4:3 resolution screen, especially with iTunes offering HD versions for most of their video content, but it just felt like Apple was holding back on purpose so they could offer that for the iPad 3.
And last but not least, the Xoom. I admit, it has grown to be my pal, but when it was first released back in late Feb, it had some issues. It had a nice MicroSD card holder so if you took one out of your phone, you wouldn’t lose it. Thankfully a couple of months later, they made it so you could actually put files on it and use them on your Xoom. Of course the 3G model ($800) was advertised as being 4G upgradable, which was cool, but it took about 6 months before VZW finally delivered on that.
I am really hoping 2012 will be a bit different when it comes to gadgets. Blackberry should finally deliver the long-awaited update to add Android support to the Playbook, Apple supposedly will release new iPad models, and possibly even a smaller-sized one. I just hope they will actually come into this century and release a wide-screen version.
DVD Catalyst News:
Due to the holidays, I haven’t been able to do much regarding articles and updates. December is always a crazy month, and the last week of the year, right after Christmas, of course everyone and their dog/cat got new gadgets so my inbox got flooded with emails this week. I did manage to get back to everyone to answer their questions within a timely manner though.
Aside from all the festivities, I have worked on the MovieGallery update and made some modifications to DVD Catalyst, but the releases of those will be in a week or so (sorry).
Tools4Movies.com Articles:
Just one this week, mainly because of about 1/3rd of the emails I got this week were due to this subject
Quick Tip: Fake Memory cards
http://www.tools4movies.com/2011/12/quick-tip-fake-memorycards/
I posted an article on my website a few months ago regarding fake memory cards, but of course during Christmas-time with a lot of people ordering everything online, the amount of issues regarding these fake cards exploded. The article contains some information and links on how to determine (and avoid) ending up with an overpriced piece of plastic.
Handy Links:
Many people don’t realize it, but the side-menu on the Tools4Movies.com website contains a lot of handy links. Aside from direct links to a collection of How To guides for certain devices like the Galaxy Nexus, NOOKtablet, Kindle Fire etc, it also contains direct links to some of the most asked questions I receive, such as how to use DVD Catalyst with Bluray and how to remove black borders from your videos. The side-menu is an often-overlooked part of a website, but sometimes it really does pay off to have a look through some of the information offered there.
The DVD Catalyst Christmas Give Away:
Last week I announced the Christmas Give Away on Facebook, Google+ and a collection of website forums (ClubNOOK, ThriveForums, XoomForums, TransformerForums, KindleFireForums, GalaxyNexusForums, DroidForums, DroidXForums and AndroidTablets.net).
Last night I collected all the names of the responses I received, and wrote them on small pieces of paper. I threw them all in a hat (some movie buffs might recognize it as being one of the most famous hats in the world) and pulled out 25 names. I figured some people might be interested in seeing the process, so I recorded it and uploaded it to youtube here:
So here are the 25 winners:
rednkgrl – AndroidTablets.net
dansamy – AndroidTablets.net
Luvs2Garden – ClubNOOK.com
RedTater – ClubNOOK.com
GeekGirl69 – ClubNOOK.com
Wolf99 – ClubNOOK.com
SwagMonster – DroidXForums.com
David X – Facebook
Troy W – Facebook
Gina G – Facebook
Robyne K – Facebook
Dawn M – Facebook
Sonny C – Facebook
Fish1552 – GalaxyNexusForum.com
FutureFuzz – GalaxyNexusForum.com
BilgeDiver – ThriveForums.org
WolfPackMars2 – ThriveForums.org
sjspbp – ThriveForums.org
Tamed – ThriveForums.org
Hayes – TransformerForums.com
Jeggen – TransformerForums.com
Maleko – TransformerForums.com
Moriarty777 – XoomForums.com
CastorShells – XoomForums.com
Sardo Numspa – XoomForums.com
Then there were a couple of responses from mods and admins, and while some of them did not actually responded with a video scenario (and thus didn’t enter) I do like to thank them for the work (mostly volunteer) they do in order to keep the forums up and running, so I did not include them into the actual Give Away (and thus didn’t have their names in the hat), but decided to make them winners anyway:
Wicked
QuickSilver7714
DriveTheGreen66
Garemlin
Ggrant3876
Hawaiian Princess – KindleFireForums
gbrinn – DroidXForums
mugz91 – DroidXForums
BatFish – ThriveForums
MCCarver – ThriveForums
Leeshor – TransformerForums
tp76 – DroidForums
And last but not least,
FunBucket007 – GalaxyNexusForums
BigRedNemo – GalaxyNexusForums
Making you honorary winners of the Give Away is the least I can do to thank you for your services to your country and your community.
Thank you !
So, as promised, all of the winners listed above will get a free copy of DVD Catalyst 4, or, if your name is listed above and you already purchased DVD Catalyst 4, I’ll give you your money back.
To claim your winnings is easy. For the forum users, just send me a PM (Private Message), for the Google+ winners, just send me an email (dvdcatalyst@gmail.com) from the email you use with your Google+ account, and for Facebook users, send an email from the email account you use for Facebook to tools4movies@facebook.com
If you won and want a free copy of DVD Catalyst 4 for yourself or for someone else, just mention that in the email, and include the email address you want me to send the information to.
If you won and purchased DVD Catalyst 4 before and would like to get your purchase price back, please mention the email address you used for your purchase, and, if different, the email address you use for PayPal so I can send it to you.
I do try to be as quick as possible but it might take a couple of hours before I get back to you.
Closings:
Congratulations to all the winners of the Give Away.
I know there are quite a few people anxiously awaiting this Newsletter to see if their name is listed, so I’ll keep it short:
Happy New Year everyone !
