Some geek stuff

[SIDEWINDER]

With high speed internet finnally coming to my neck of the woods via a company who is 20 miles away and using a repeater to bounce the signal into our area, I'm starting to take notice of all the  old music videos, I could download and then burn to DVD. All videos usually show MB for the length. I'm allowed 50 GB per month with my current package. Does 1024 MB equall 1 GB? Also, I've been streaming the video first to see if I want to download it. Does streaming use as much bandwidth as downloading it? If so,  would I be better off just downloading it, watching it and then deciding whether to burn it or delete it as opposed to using the bandwidth to watch it and then using the bandwidth again to download it, should I decide to keep it? Any advice on burning a dvd off a computer to play on television?  In my regular DVD burner, I use R- as that seems to be pretty much the standard but what about for burning it on a computer to watch on TV?

[afriend]

With high speed internet finnally coming to my neck of the woods via a company who is 20 miles away and using a repeater to bounce the signal into our area, I'm starting to take notice of all the  old music videos, I could download and then burn to DVD. All videos usually show MB for the length. I'm allowed 50 GB per month with my current package. Does 1024 MB equall 1 GB? Also, I've been streaming the video first to see if I want to download it. Does streaming use as much bandwidth as downloading it? If so,  would I be better off just downloading it, watching it and then deciding whether to burn it or delete it as opposed to using the bandwidth to watch it and then using the bandwidth again to download it, should I decide to keep it? Any advice on burning a dvd off a computer to play on television?  In my regular DVD burner, I use R- as that seems to be pretty much the standard but what about for burning it on a computer to watch on TV?

  Read this WIKI on Megabyte definition.

Streaming could use sometimes as much bandwidth as downloading.  It depends on if they are showing the same resolution and size of the download.  Of course you could stop the streaming after a couple of seconds or minutes of viewing if you did not want the video.  That might save some usage as well.

DVD buring off of computer depends on a couple of things. (1)The authoring software you would be using on the computer to create the DVD. (2)The format supported by the DVD player used to play the computer created DVD with.  Your authoring software must support, and you use, one that is supported by the TV DVD player.  -R is a type of physical disc and both recorder and the DVD player must support that.  Look at the manual or go online and look up the model number of the units.. but they should support that standard as it is very common now days.

Take care,
afriend

[CookieMonster]

If you have satellite, What I do is have a shared External 1.5 Terrabyte unit.  (Yes, that's Terabytes, not GB or MB, and 1.5 TERABYTES cost me a whole $150.00 back then)  I Store movies to it and they are accesable from my Satellite DVR -or- from my computer via my gigabit network, so I rarely even touch a DVD recorder.  I can delete them at will, freeing up space and if I do actually wish to store them to DVD-r then I just use Nero or Roxio on my PC to convert the Mpeg file and burn a DVD version of it.  To keep this on Topic, I am willing to do this for any LPIN gal that asks, for a discount off my next party.

[SIDEWINDER]

Well, I don't know a teri whatchamacallit from a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I once went to frys to look for a book which would help me. They didn't have any books for "ham&eggers" so I bought one called more internet for dummies. Come to find out, I knew more then I thought I did. I just didn't know it by all the fancy names they were using. All I do know is they have come a long ways in as far as picture quality goes. I was watching the streaming of them fixin the Bay Bridge this weekend and it was crystal clear and the people actually looked normal instead of looking like the old films of Babe Ruth running the bases. Pretty good signal for picking it up off a repeater too. I've run speed test and I'm right at 500 up and 1000 down. Beats the hell out of logging into MLB to get my baseball scores and going to shave, hoping that my scores would be there when I returned.

[Lulz]

With high speed internet finnally coming to my neck of the woods via a company who is 20 miles away and using a repeater to bounce the signal into our area, I'm starting to take notice of all the  old music videos, I could download and then burn to DVD. All videos usually show MB for the length. I'm allowed 50 GB per month with my current package. Does 1024 MB equall 1 GB? Also, I've been streaming the video first to see if I want to download it. Does streaming use as much bandwidth as downloading it? If so,  would I be better off just downloading it, watching it and then deciding whether to burn it or delete it as opposed to using the bandwidth to watch it and then using the bandwidth again to download it, should I decide to keep it? Any advice on burning a dvd off a computer to play on television?  In my regular DVD burner, I use R- as that seems to be pretty much the standard but what about for burning it on a computer to watch on TV?

You're correct 1024 MB = 1 GB.  I live near a big city so I get unlimited cable, but I pay extra for a 20megabit download speed, about $45 a month, normally it's 7megabits for $30.

For movies, music, and software, all you need are two things:
http://www.utorrent.com/
http://isohunt.com/

If you've never used torrents before, read the utorrent help page, there's a lot to learn but easy once you know.
Isohunt is a massive directory of torrents found on other torrent sites all in one. Just about every movie and album that you can think of can be found there.
It's best to download movies that are compressed and encoded in Xvid or Divx, a full move will only be around 700-1400 MB.  If you download the raw DVD files they will be 4 gigs or more.

Keep in mind, downloading copyrighted music/movies isn't legal lol, but if you're paranoid get this: http://phoenixlabs.org/pg2/.  It's a massive list of blacklisted IP's that are assigned to RIAA, MPAA, and most government IP's, and will prevent them (somewhat) from seeing that you are sharing files.  But millions of people share files everyday so chances of getting sued are slim.  The media industry is going broke (to my delight!), so they no longer have the funds to go after every kid downloading Metallica LOL. Just don't share files a lot, download and end the torrent once it's complete (leeching).

Have fun!

[BorderBandit]

Think of it in simple terms

1024 bytes (letters) = 1 kilobyte (or 1k bytes)
1024 kilobytes = 1 megabyte
1024 megabytes = 1 gigabyte
1024 gigabytes = 1 terabyte
etc. etc. etc.

[Interested bystander]

You left off one.  I saw a previous poster talk about bits rather than bytes, if I remember correctly it's 8 bits to a byte.

[ovr-da-hill]

But what comes after a terabyte??

I don't really care...just wanted to get another post in somewhere!   

[shooter]

bits?? I thought a "bit" was 12 & 1/2 cents!! You remember 2 bits is a quarter, 4 bits is a half dollar , 6 bits is 75 cents and 8 bits is a dollar..

[Hiking Guy]

You left off one.  I saw a previous poster talk about bits rather than bytes, if I remember correctly it's 8 bits to a byte.

You are correct, there are 8 bits to a byte. And in case anyone is wondering what a bit is, it's just a binary digit (i.e. a 0 or a 1).

The one I like is a nibble--a nibble contains 4 bits. Nibbles & bits--makes it sound like some kind of dog food.

[Speed Racer]

But what comes after a terabyte??

I don't really care...just wanted to get another post in somewhere!   

And the answer is... a petabyte! I'm not kidding, and it has absolutely nothing to do with the animal rights group (or cult, as some accuse PETA of being). After that comes exabyte, zettabyte, and yottabyte. After that, I don't know what comes next...

Here is a handy chart:
1 bit (b) = the smallest unit possible in binary, value either 0 or 1
1 byte (B) = 8 b (256 unique combinations of bits)
1 kilobyte (kB) = 1024 B
1 megabyte (MB) = 1024 kB = 1024² B = 1,048,576 B
1 gigabyte (GB) = 1024 MB = 1024³ B = 1,073,741,824 B
1 terabyte (TB) = 1024 GB = 1024⁴ B = 1,099,511,627,776 B
1 petabyte (PB) = 1024 TB = 1024⁵ B = 1,125,899,906,842,624 B
1 exabyte (EB) = 1024 PB = 1024⁶ B = 1,152,921,504,606,846,976 B
1 zettabyte (ZB) = 1024 EB = 1024⁷ B = 1,180,591,620,717,411,303,424 B
1 yottabyte (YB) = 1024 ZB = 1024⁸ B = 1,208,925,819,614,629,174,706,176 B

Metric prefixes are used to represent multiples of computer storage or memory units (usually bytes); however they are based on the number 1024 (or 2¹⁰) rather than 1000 (10³) as they are for traditional metric measurements.

In 1998, the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) proposed the binary "metric" prefixes kibi-, mebi-, gibi-, and tebi- to be uses in place of kilo-, mega-, giga-, and tera- when powers of 1024 rather than 1000 are meant. This proposal has failed to gain widespread acceptance in popular usage. When the units are bytes, the powers of 1024 are usually assumed for the traditional metric prefixes, though not in all cases.

- compiled from data from the following sources: Dictionary of Computer and Internet Terms (Eighth Edition), by Douglas Downing, Ph.D., Michael Covington, Ph.D., and Melody Maudlin Covington (Baron's, 2003, ISBN 0-7641-2166-9) and The World Alamanac and Book of Facts (World Alamanac Publishers, 2004, ISBN 0-88687-910-8)

Best regards,
Speed Racer

[SIDEWINDER]

There's a place where I can view the status of my connection along with file sharing, security and it's a part of windows vista and it's shown in bytes. The stange thing is, from what I can figure. With the new high speed isp, I'm downloading about five times the amount of stuff as my old isp. Yet, by looking at the bytes, it looks like I'm using less bandwidth.

Could a slow connection cause you to use more bandwidth then a fast connection?

[Speed Racer]

...
The one I like is a nibble--a nibble contains 4 bits. Nibbles & bits--makes it sound like some kind of dog food.

And the usefulness of a nibble is in how it allows one to break down the binary value of a byte into two hexadecimal (base 16) numbers for easier representation and/or conversion into decimal form. The value of any nibble can be expressed as a decimal value of 0 to 15 (hexadecimal 0 thru F). To get the decimal representation of the entire byte, it's left nibble value is multiplied by 16 and added to the value of the right one. For example, a hexidecimal (hex) value of "7F" would be 7 times 16 (112) plus 15, or 127 in decimal. A hex value of "A1" would be A (10) times 16 (160) plus 1, or 161.

This information was provided by the School Marm's brother, the Math Maven.

Regards,
Speed Racer

P.S., Speed Racer really wants to nibble on some perky nipples, like Kalli Morgan's nibblicious ones.

[afriend]

There's a place where I can view the status of my connection along with file sharing, security and it's a part of windows vista and it's shown in bytes. The stange thing is, from what I can figure. With the new high speed isp, I'm downloading about five times the amount of stuff as my old isp. Yet, by looking at the bytes, it looks like I'm using less bandwidth.

Could a slow connection cause you to use more bandwidth then a fast connection?

This is just a hunch on my part, but I wonder if a setting changed when you switched ISPs and it changed the cached pages refresh rate. Hence downloading them more or always when you goto a webpage.  Another thought would be have auto updates/downloads changed?... now enabled?

Just a thought,
afriend