Tag: file formats

Dualbooting Ubuntu and Vista … the installation blues.:)

Well, well. It has been a very interesting week, to say the least, for me. On Monday, I got this bee in my bonnet that I would like to give the Linux operating system a really good shake. Earlier this month, I had installed Ubuntu “Intrepid Ibex” on my 64-bit Vista laptop via Virtual PC 2007. I fell in love with the operating system, but there were niggling problems like my screen resolution and speed that truly prevented me from observing how powerful this system was. So, I decided to dive into the world of dual-booting. It was simple in theory until I embarked on the process. I popped the Ubuntu desktop cd (the “live cd”) into my CD/DVD drive and restarted my computer.

Note: before I started any of this, I fired up Acronis True Image and made a whole disk backup of my laptop and I also copied all my important files to an external hard drive. Additionally, I had all the programs that I’d purchased for my Vista Ultimate laptop so that if I needed to, I could simply use my computer’s recovery disks and not have to pay extra to get my installation files. So to recap, before embarking on any ‘dangerous’ operations like partitioning your hard drive, please do the following:
1) Make sure you have lots of time to troubleshoot any missteps. This is vital.
2) Have at least 2 backups of your important documents (I had a complete PC backup through Acronis True Image as well as copies of my important files on my external hard drive).
3) Ensure your hard disk has been defragmented and it would not hurt to run a disk check (rightclick your C: drive and go to “Tools”). There should be  a section to schedule or start a disk check; You should also allow the disk check to scan and fix any errors it finds.
4) Have access to another computer for getting online and troubleshooting when things go wrong or have a printout of relevant answers to questions you are anticipating.

The first mistake I made when attempting to install Ubuntu on my laptop (along side Vista) was selecting the “Install” option right after the Live CD menu came up, upon restarting my laptop. The fallout (from not selecting “Try Ubuntu first”) was that the partitioning of my hard disk stalled at about 1%. Actually, I’m not so sure if it stalled as much as I panicked that it was still at 1% after 15 minutes. In any case, I restarted my computer (this was a huge risk!) and I was able to get back into Vista. This is the reason that I recommend you be a very patient person when it comes to these things. 🙂

So, I was back in the Windows operating system without Ubuntu installed. I tried using Vista’s inbuilt partitioning feature, but I kept getting a “logical disk access denied” error. Now, I started getting frustrated, but I quickly remembered that I’d purchased the excellent Acronis Disk Director Suite!! I quickly fired the Acronis Disk Director suite up, but I was alerted to the fact that my C: drive had been marked “dirty”. This alert came about because I wanted to defragment my C: drive after the botched Ubuntu partitioning. That was when I ran the disk check tool on my C: drive and then, used Acronis Disk Director to carve out a partition for Ubuntu (~ 25 GBs). I left the partition unformatted because I wasn’t sure what file format to select) and the Disk Director program did its thing.

After the disk check and the disk partitioning (w/o the installation of Ubuntu yet), I restarted my computer with the Ubuntu Live CD in my CD/DVD drive. This time, I selected “Try Ubuntu” and after the Live CD loaded up, I clicked the “Install” icon on the Ubuntu desktop.

Note:
1) It helps to have an internet connection while you are using the Live CD for troubleshooting purposes as well.
2)  After answering some preliminary questions, the time came for me to select a partition to install Ubuntu to and I selected the 25GB partition and allowed the Live CD to format the partition as “ext3”. I got thrown a curveball when I was told that there needed to be a “swap” area for Ubuntu (analogous to the paging/hibernation files in Windows). So, I fired up GParted (a partitioning utility for Ubuntu/Linux) and further carved out 1GB of space from the 25GB partition. In the GParted dialog, you will have the option to format any partitions you create and for the new 1GB partition, I selected “swap area” and formatted the 1GB partition.

After creating my partitions, I started up the installation program again and this time, I selected my now-24GB partition to install Ubuntu to and the 1GB partition as the “linux swap” area. In hindsight, I suspect that Ubuntu may have carved out its own swap area from the partition it was installed to, but nothing was harmed by manually creating my swap area out of the original 25GB partition. The installation progressed seamlessly after this and I was instructed to restart the laptop and my face lit up when I saw the GRUB bootloader. 🙂

To be continued (I’m such a tease. :P)

Editing video and the things they don’t tell you

In my blogging life, I’ve had the good fortune of having access to tools such as TechSmith’s Snagit and Camtasia Studio. The video output from these two utilities can be manageable i.e. low file sizes depending on video length and the output is compressed & ready for uploading to file sharing site like Youtube, Blip.TV, Vimeo, etc. However, you will have scenarios where you have no control over the initial video generated i.e. files straight from the video camera, etc. These files are usually several hundred megabytes and unfit for Youtube/Blip.TV as they are.

Thankfully, there are tools (free and paid) are available to perform these tasks of compressing the raw video date. Some of these tools include: (Quicktime 7 Pro, Windows Media Encoder 9 Series, Microsoft Expression 2 Encoder, Handbrake, etc). I have actually used all 4 programs listed for a variety of tasks mostly compression (using MS Expression 2 Encoder to compress large .wmv files generated from screen captures), conversion (Quicktime 7 Pro, Windows Media 9 Encoder and Handbrake). They work great out-of-the-box, but I had some trouble dealing with a .mpg video file that 2 popular tools were unable to assist me with.

Last week, I recorded some videos using Sony’s HD HandyCam and the file sizes ranged from 300MBs to 900MBs in size. At first, I did not think I would run into any problems because the file format was mpg. I was dead wrong. Right off the bat, Microsoft Expression 2 Encoder and Quicktime 7 Pro did not help me because they could not open/convert mpg files. I guess I should have read the manual because Quicktime Pro does have the capability, but needs a separate add-on (MPEG-2 Playback Component) to be purchased (for $19.99).

Microsoft Expression Encoder failed with error code 0x80131537 and was generally a little unhelpful in deciphering if it just couldn’t open mpg files or if my file was corrupt (which it wasn’t). I’m not even going to pretend that I’m knowledgeable about the powerful abilities of Microsoft Expression Encoder 2, but this article by Ben Waggoner did justice to the power of this tool. (Back to my story), I knew I was in trouble, but I didn’t despair yet. I turned to Handbrake which I’d used to handle smaller files. I started the conversion and let it run. I came back after ~ 1 hr and found that my laptop had the dreaded blue screen of death (BSOD). Wow. This simple task of compressing my large video files was rapidly turning into a huge pain in the butt.

Then, I tried Windows Media Encoder 9 Series. It did a good job of converting the files to the format(s) I’d specified, but little to no compression was present. However, this was most likely due to my compression options which I have yet to nail down. Below are some screenshots of the process to encode a file using Windows Media Encoder 9 Series:

  1. This page allows you to select your source file and designate a destination folder (and name) for your output file.
  2. The supported file types (for the source file section) are: asf, avi, bmp, jpg, mpg, wmv, mp3, wav, wma
  3. The supported file types (for the output file section) are: wma  and wmv.
  4. You are asked the question of how your content needs to be distributed because “using a distribution method that is different from what you specify may negatively affect playback quality.”

Choosing your input source and output destination
Choosing your method of Distribution

Choosing Encoding Options
The first option that is automatically selected when choosing to convert a file in Windows Media Encoder 9 Series is for high definition. This could have been because my source file was a high-definition file in mpg format.

As you will see also, the output for this first set of encoding options is 1280 x 720. That is  huge and on my first try, my encoded file ended up being the same size (relatively speaking) as the original file. While high quality is a good thing, clearly the size of the generated file is going to be a problem and may make watching the streaming video a futile (or exasperating) experience. Thankfully, there are other options when you click the black arrow pointing downwards (under Video) as shown in the picture below:

More Encoding Options

For my purposes (hat tip to the IT guy at my place of work), I selected “DVD quality video (CBR)” and the obvious ‘menu’ changes are changes to the bit rate and the output size. See below:

DVD Quality

Another option that may be of interest is the VHS option, but be aware that the video quality drastically goes down. 🙂 And that’s that for now. I’ll leave you with the last screenshot of the changes.

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Just in case you selected wrong encoding options, there is an option to start encoding your file immediately or not. Obviously, you should opt NOT to start encoding your file whereupon you will be taken to Windows Media Encoder 9 interface which gives even more encoding options. Enjoy!!