April 16, 2010 18:06 pm by Jal
Quick-Tutorial
Media Player Classic bundled with K-Lite Mega Codec Pack is my favorite player for watching movies (VLC comes close second). But sometimes I do run into a problem where the volume of the movie is not properly normalized. The result is a very low sounding audio. Here is a small workaround for this.
I am assuming that you have already installed K-Lite Mega Codec Pack.
» In Media Player Classic, go to View > Options…
» In the Options window, in the left pane, click Audio Switcher under Internal Filters.
» In the right pane, checkmark Normalize option and move the Boost slider to a considerable amount (as shown above). Click OK.
There you go! The volume will now be normalized and also the intensity will be much better.
April 16, 2010 1:27 am by Jal
The much anticipated Silverlight 4 has been launched some minutes ago and now you can download its Windows and Mac runtimes. For those who don’t know, Silverlight is a platform for creating and experiencing top-notch interactive web, desktop and mobile applications. Silverlight 4 is claimed to bring in even better support and interactivity for multiple browsers thanks to the awesome .NET framework.
Striking new features of Silverlight 4:
-
Support for local fonts
-
Support for printing
-
Webcam and microphone
-
Official support for Google Chrome
-
Out of browser window settings like position, size, etc.
For more features, click here.
Download Silverlight 4 for Windows and Mac
March 27, 2010 17:47 pm by Jal
Beginner Quick-tip
Windows Media Player 12 is my favorite music player on Windows and it has evolved to a great extent. I have shown some WMP tricks in the past and today I am back again with yet another small trick that will enable / disable automatic preview of songs just by hovering over them. This small tip will work for Windows Media Player 12 that comes bundled with Windows 7.
» First, open up Windows Media Player 12. Click ‘Organize’ > ‘Options’.
» In the ‘Library’ tab, just check the option ‘Automatically preview songs on track title hover’. Press OK.
» Now you can preview songs just by taking your mouse pointer over the title of the song. A small pop-up will appear and the song will start playing immediately when you click ‘Preview’. Moving your mouse away will stop the preview.
Enjoy previewing songs 
March 27, 2010 0:44 am by Jal
On April 6, Microsoft will roll out an update through XBox Live enabling the XBox systems to use any external USB storage provided it’s larger than 1GB.
Upon installing the update, users can now simultaneously add up to two 16GB flash drives at once for storing the game data. That means, 32GB is the maximum one can throttle out. Obviously, you can access the empty space using a PC.
Microsoft’s Larry Hyrb (aka Major Nelson) clears all the speculation in a blogpost,
On April 6th, we will be releasing a system update over Xbox LIVE for your Xbox 360 that will allow USB flash drives to be used for storing profiles, game saves, demos and more. I’ve been testing this feature out for a few weeks, and I have to say it’s really great. Once you take the system update on April 6th, you’ll be able to connect your USB flash drives to your console and head over to the memory section to configure your new storage device.
Microsoft has partnered with Sandisk to deliver a kind of ‘Made for XBox 360’ flash drives which will be available around May. No price details as of yet. [via]
February 22, 2010 17:39 pm by Jal
We’ve all known that Internet Explorer is the last one to support any new web browser feature. And while Firefox and Google Chrome are showing support to HTML5, Internet Explorer is busy playing in the sun. However, a genius dude called
Christian Adams decided to roll up sleeves and provide a plugin for IE to support HTML5 <audio> and <video> tags.
Christian says that the plugin is currently in the ‘Technical Preview’ stage and supports only basic playback. Features like seeking, controls and HTML5 interfaces are yet to be incorporated.
The following video (courtesy Christian Adams shows HTML5 plugin in action. If you can’t see the video, your browser might not be supporting HTML5.
This plugin comes bundled with new version of Xiph.Org Ogg Codecs which you can download from the link below. While installing, make sure you check mark the option ‘HTML 5 <video> tag for Internet Explorer’. “Also, to enable <video> tag for Internet Explorer you need to add xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml/video" attribute”, Christian says.
Download Xiph.Org Ogg Codecs
January 27, 2010 18:30 pm by Jal
Quick tutorial
Recently I had to revamp a video of a family function with some overlaid text and images and I used VirtualDub after a long time. Thought this would be really helpful for anyone who wants to overlay an image / logo on a video and want it to be done really quick. So follow these simple steps.
1) Open the video file in VirtualDub [Download VirtualDub].
2) Setting ‘Compression’ parameters first:
3) Now click ‘Video’ > ‘Filters’. In the Filters window, click ‘Add’ button.
4) Here, select the option ‘logo’ from the list and click OK.
5) You will see a window like the one shown below. Here you can specify the image to be overlaid on the video and some related options.
-
If your image contains Alpha channel (i.e. transparency values) then check mark ‘Enable per-pixel alpha blending using alpha channel’ to retain transparency.
-
X, Y offset values let you better position the image on the video.
-
Use ‘Show Preview’ button to see the preview of the video with the image overlaid on it.
6) Once you are done playing with the settings, click OK a couple of times to close the ‘Filter’ windows.
7) Finally, click ‘File’ > ‘Save as AVI…’
This method is very efficient, time saving and does not require bulky software.
January 19, 2010 2:39 am by Jal
I think Microsoft has developed a ‘thing’ for music since Windows 7 launched. Some weeks back, we
did a post on Microsoft’s Win741 campaign and provided free MP3s of songs featured in Microsoft videos.
Now recently Microsoft declared its sponsorship to ReverbNation’s Playlist 7 program whereby music fans like you and me can vote for and download 7 free tracks every week. For those unaware, ReverbNation is a major marketing platform for more than 500,000 music artists, labels and managers. It basically gives exposure to immerging music talent.
It so goes that music fans vote for 7 artists every week to help them make it to the ‘Playlist 7’ and get further promotion and of course, some bucks. In return, the fans get to download 7 of their music tracks every week. The first 50 tracks are already available for download. So it’s a win-win situation for everyone.
Mr. Jed Carlson, the Co-Founder of ReverbNation said,
“Windows’ generous sponsorship for this program (Playlist 7) means that more emerging Artists will be heard as well as compensated for their art. It’s a great way to bring bands and brands together for mutual benefit.”
To vote for the artists and download some really beautiful tunes click the link below:
Download from Playlist 7
