COMMENTS
Visible Search
I’ve read lots of discussions and reviews of various streaming devices and the apps in TVs and DVD/ Bluray players, and they never seem to discuss a few very basic but, to me, extremely important usability issues, such as visible search, frame- stepping, and other related “transport” issues. I’ve always been horrified whenever I’ve tried to watch streamed content— how can anyone search without being able to see if the video you’re fastforwarding or rewinding through is OK? I have a new Sony UltraHD Blu- ray and tried the Amazon Prime app, and no surprise— no visible search. If I try to replay the last few seconds because I missed a word or just want to watch a cool bit over and over, I have to check the time as it goes into rewind, which it does at about 5- 6 seconds per second. If you don’t, it’s easy to get lost, and trying to get back to where you were can be a nightmare. If you hit rewind twice, it moves at something like two minutes per second!
The icing on the cake is that after you manage to hit “Play” at the right time, say five seconds from where you were, it takes seven to eight seconds before it manages to start playing again. Who thinks that’s even close to usable? You had to have the cheapest crappiest VHS VCR to not have visible search. Do any of the standalone streaming devices do this any better? My experience is limited, and I don’t have the energy or the sanity reserves to keep trying to find one that meets the most basic requirements for me. I can’t stand to watch good movies or television with such limitations. Daum PotPlayer gives you four levels of one- key stepping, forward or backward, you can grab the cursor and drag to whatever time you want, and see the picture you're dragging through. Even YouTube in a browser is far superior. Am I missing something? How can anyone put up with such horrors? – Rob S EXECUTIVE EDITOR, ALAN DEXTER, RESPONDS: I agree that some of the user experiences with streaming can be sub- optimal, but the convenience of being able to browse so much content from the comfort of your couch often outweighs them. I use a big smart 4K Samsung TV as my main screen at home, and don’t mind the searching, but maybe I’m just lucky. Still, as you’ve pointed out, PCs are far better at such things, so if frameby-frame searching is your thing, a media center PC is the best solution.
Split Keyboards
Perhaps you could forward this to Alex Cox, author of the “Create Your Own Macro Keyboard” article in the September issue. It’s a complex process, which I might pull off. I’d like to know whether one can disable its settings or not. Would I be able to toggle the interception on/off?
– M. Lutz CONTRIBUTING WRITER, ALEX COX, RESPONDS: There’s a number of ways to disable macros when using AutoHotKey and the Interceptor method we described—primarily, you could just stop the AHK script from running. Your macro keyboard will still send Key- F23, but as there’s almost no Windows software, bar AHK itself, that listens for it, it will behave like a normal keyboard. Killing the intercept.exe process has the same effect, but cuts out the F23 portion—run it again, and it loads your last configuration.
Open Correction
In the December 2018 issue, the article on open-source processors has a comment called “An Open Dream.” I thought that comment missed the mark on a few points. First, Arduino is not a microcontroller range, it is a microcontroller platform. The difference may seem insignificant but it is actually quite large. Arduino does not make microcontrollers. Arduino used existing microcontrollers made by Atmel and placed them on a board. Then it created a coding and programming environment to form a platform for development. Atmel (now owned by Microchip) does not make an open microcontroller. Second, while Arduino’s
open nature about its board designs is great, it is not the main thing that contributes to its popularity. When using its platform, Arduino lowered the barrier of entry to coding for microcontrollers. It hid away all the yucky hardware stuff behind many libraries. This library approach continued as other people built more and more libraries. There are hundreds if not thousands of libraries and examples to simplify coding. Finally, the image shown above the note is not even an Arduino board. The image is of what the Arduino platform calls a shield. A shield is an expansion board that plugs directly into the Arduino board to give it extra functionality, which is then further covered by libraries. This particular image is of an Ethernet shield. – Igor Vinograd EXECUTIVE EDITOR, ALAN DEXTER, RESPONDS:
Thanks for your clarification. And yes, we may have been a little off with our image selection, although the idea was simply to show an Arduino device. The essence of open source providing another possible future for processors still stands, though. And the key idea you’ve pointed out, that a lot of the hardware managing is done for you through libraries, is vital to the success of any future processor, or indeed open-source hardware. We’re still excited by the possibilities.
Screen Scene
I have been reading
MaximumPC since 1999. It has shaped my love for PCs and helped me with my builds. With the rash of new video card tech, there is a debate about which monitors to purchase. There are so many options.
Could you guys dedicate an issue and discuss and explain about all the tech behind today’s monitors? Such as what the differences are between panel types ( VA, IPS, TN, etc), HDR, OLED, LCD, and LED. Talk about response rates (GtG), contrast, pixel density, native resolution, G-Sync, FreeSync, frame tearing, 1080p, 4K, bezel, aspect ratios, backlight, pixel pitch, viewing angles, display colors, VESA standards, flat versus curved, connectivity types (USB C, HDMI, DisplayPort), and anything else I might have missed.
It’s quite overwhelming, and I would love to see you guys take on the challenge, and explain all that jargon to readers like me, who are trying to make sense of it all. – Chad Schoenthaler EXECUTIVE EDITOR, ALAN DEXTER, RESPONDS:
We did take a look at the current state of the monitor market last issue, and we covered most of the things you mention here, along with recommendations for screens at certain budgets. However, if you want a deeper dive into screen tech, let us know, and we’ll see what we can do.
Buying Advice
Please tell me where Alan Dexter purchases his components (ref: “Tracing the Rays of the Future,” page 70, December 2018 issue). I would like to build the machine detailed in his article. – Jack Williams EXECUTIVE EDITOR, ALAN DEXTER, RESPONDS:
We use a variety of sources for piecing together the builds each month, although for the main part, we get our gear from manufacturers sending us the hardware directly. Even so, if you use a site like PC Part Picker, you can see where the best deals are, and what you’d expect to pay for such components (prices are pulled in from several sites, including Amazon, Newegg, and the like).
For this system, you can see what we’ve pieced together by pointing your browser at https:// pcpartpicker.com/ list/ zC6HsZ, although there are a few things to note, thanks to plenty of the items being out of stock pretty much everywhere at the moment. The Raijintek Orcus 240 is too new to appear on this list as well, although by the time we go to print, hopefully this will be rectified. You can replace individual parts easily enough, and search for better deals as you do so.
Budget Workstations
I’ve subscribed for two years and love the articles, especially the print format, which no other PC mag offers anymore. The article some time back about buying used PC equipment was excellent. I replaced a Core 2 Quad Dell with a used HP Z420 from eBay that had one of Intel’s “red- headed step children” in it—a Xeon E5 2670 (eight cores with HyperThreading)—plus 32GB of RAM, and a full- size case. All I had to add was my Quadro K620. It was far cheaper (under $ 400) than an Intel Core i7 system, and has plenty of room to expand. Why not run an article about Intel’s Xeon chips, and while you’re at it, another article on Nvidia’s Quadro processors? Aside from some brief mentions, I’ve seen nothing on these “step children” in Maximum PC. I’m sure there are readers who use them. Mine get used daily running DAZ Studio Pro 4.10. That’s another thing you should cover— it’s a 3D rendering program similar to Poser, but (for now) the Pro version is free. It even has a ray-tracing rendering engine called Iray that produces incredibly lifelike results. They’re only single images, but you can't beat the price. – Eddie Davis EXECUTIVE EDITOR, ALAN DEXTER, RESPONDS:
Good points well made, and definitely something we’ll look at in the future. There are some great deals to be had out there if you know what you’re looking for, and it certainly pays to know what your software will support before reaching for your wallet.