gila [any, any]

Makemkv is slow because it remuxes with no compression. I’d try linking it with handbrake under preferences - integration. Then open handbrake and select your drive as the source. That or vidcoder should do what you want.

Any reason you need this specific software? Seems like it has a fairly generic use case, also possible with free / open source software

A quick demo for you to show this isn’t some weird unintuitive process, at least once you have everything configured (and that’s half the fun). This kodi skin won’t show me bitrate per video/audio track but this example is approx average 47mbps video, 4mbps audio. Similar results for most movies released this decade.

https://streamable.com/bgkyp5

Well for convenience I pay 1.99 pmth to torbox to stream stuff on Kodi using add-ons like POV or umbrella, links scraped with cocoscrapers (there are better scraper modules out there but cocoscrapers has never done me wrong). I think most people just use stremio add-ons for this but I’m very picky about UI/UX.

Fundamentally all that’s really doing is searching public torrent sites. Paid access to a debrid cache just streamlines the process

Screw free, is it possible for paid content? I mean, I’m sure there’s some out there, but probably not much you’d actually be interested in watching. Most of the movies I stream are about 40mbps average, I think that’s really good. It’s often significantly better than watching the same video on a paid streaming service, and I think it’s as high as you’re likely to find across a broad range of content (at least, content which isn’t AI upscaled, which creates more issues than it solves).

It’s hard enough finding 8K content of any bitrate - I think your parameters would need 16K res or higher to make any real difference. Almost every AV device on the planet would need a significant upgrade to play that - it’s just not likely to be distributed, at least in the next decade.

HiRes (up to 24-bit/192khz) lossless audio averages around 5mbps, it wouldn’t even peak at 10mbps. Standards like TrueHD Atmos or DTS-HD are already redundant - audio master tracks for video content are usually inherently lossy.

If you’re saying you play files like I described and the quality is average, I’d suspect you’re either dealing with issues with the production techniques inherent to the masters or just lossy transcoded video.

IIRC that’s been a known function of Edge ever since its redesign around 5-6 years ago, regardless of whether you’re signed in all URLs go to Microsoft in plaintext

I’d assume Sweeney would know that user tags and steam curators are a thing, but then again EGS doesn’t have users

I do it now with the PC I paid market price for, if you subsidise the hardware that’s just more money left in my pocket. If you’re a manufacturer fixing to take a loss on upfront cost, I bet you’d want to have some kind of assurance about the expected later dividend. It’s to Valve’s credit that they won’t lock the device into a particular ecosystem in that way, though I agree the device won’t make a big splash as a result of that higher cost. Overall seems like a weird thing to move forward with given the original steam machines from a decade ago failed for the same reason.

Even Xbox’s failures in the console hardware market stem from the bundling of Kinect with XBone, which meant it cost more than PS4. Not that a laggy camera feature is comparable to steam machine’s advantages over PS5/XSX, but the console with the laggy camera was only $100 more

Vendor lock-in. Nothing preventing you getting games for your Steam machine off GOG etc or simply pirating them.

That’s the whole basis for subsidising consoles… Which is also a thing of the past. Microsoft/Sony/Nintendo are not less greedy than Valve in any way.

What a shame this will certainly flop, not that the price is unexpected in these times but given the first steam machine you hate to see it go down the same way

I guess the main issue i’d encounter is syncing watched progress metadata with YouTube servers, which Grayjay & Smarttube both optionally do

Definitely not the asshole. It’s not your problem that your job doesn’t have 100% uptime. Where I am we don’t have fantastic work protections or anything but at least we legally can’t be compelled to take our rest breaks in segments (or multiple breaks together at once). Unfortunately this sounds to not be the case where you are so do what you need to do to keep your job if you need it, but no way in hell should you feel bad. Hope you have better days soon.

Have seen a few discussions about various aspects of this that aren’t fully covered in the article.

The “one-time” check is only after the refundable period for the game purchase has ended. If you go offline at any time during the refund window, you’ll lose access after 30 days without checking in. This can be tested by removing the CMOS battery. Game won’t launch.

It’s not retroactive, only affects new purchases.

An unverified claim is that once the refund window has ended, the temporary license is automatically swapped with a permanent one.

Yes, there is a technical cause to do this given the ability for modded ps4’s to effectively get free games direct from Sony by buying them, copying the license file and then refunding them before manually reapplying the copied license.

However, the new system doesn’t prevent the same ps4’s running pirated game copies via other methods. It only saves Sony some bandwidth.

The exploit also wasn’t scalable because it involves the refund process, meaning abuse is easy to detect.

It’s true that the customer impact is limited, but I don’t see how it’s worth it to prevent a small number of unauthorised licenses via one of several available methods. Especially given the negative press.

As always, DRM only hurts paying customers.

Yup that’s what they did, article is out of date

Lineage is privacy focused, not security focused (other than security through obscurity etc). Graphene is more secure but may require tinkering for NFC payment / banking. Graphene is partnering with Motorola for their new phones, but old/current Motorola phones won’t be compatible. IMO best bet for daily driver is a used/refurb older pixel or pixel A, like pixel 6a or pixel 7a are sub-$200 even brand new sometimes. e/os is another option but I haven’t used it (don’t have compatible device) so can’t comment on it.