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Re: I love technology

Posted: Tue Jul 21, 2020 10:25 pm
by JR.
mediatechnology wrote: Tue Jul 21, 2020 7:30 pm
I figure one LM339 per channel will give me adequate blinky lights.
I'm shocked, just shocked JR.
Welcome back from the dark side. :D
I'm not enthusiastic about the project but another 6-9 dB of level will be worth it.

The blinky lights were more useful for determining when the old decoder locked up, so maybe not really needed now.

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Here's another observation.. I think this new (cheap) decoder has even more propagation delay... on some sources I can easily see that the lip sync is way off (audio lagging)... of course might be program specific.

Back in the day it was major bux to delay video (expensive frame store), now I suspect its a couple dollars of ram... why don't the video sources offer a simple tweak in settings?

JR

Re: I love modern technology

Posted: Wed Jul 22, 2020 8:36 am
by mediatechnology
Back in the day it was major bux to delay video (expensive frame store), now I suspect its a couple dollars of ram... why don't the video sources offer a simple tweak in settings?
I use the audio offset setting in VLC.
It's in 50 ms chunks - I'd prefer frames.

Re: I love modern technology

Posted: Wed Jul 22, 2020 9:40 am
by JR.
mediatechnology wrote: Wed Jul 22, 2020 8:36 am
Back in the day it was major bux to delay video (expensive frame store), now I suspect its a couple dollars of ram... why don't the video sources offer a simple tweak in settings?
I use the audio offset setting in VLC.
It's in 50 ms chunks - I'd prefer frames.
I don't know what VLC is,,, can it move audio forward in time? My cheap audio decoder is introducing delay... I need to delay the video to sync... or just ignore it, it is only noticeable on tight shots of people's mouths while speaking. I can't complain too much this is only $32 and gives me remote volume control.

JR

Re: I love modern technology

Posted: Wed Jul 22, 2020 10:02 am
by mediatechnology
VLC is a product of Video LAN which is a stand-alone player.

It has both positive and negative audio offsets.
Wouldn't help you in your situation but you might want to install it on your Mac and PCs.
It will play just about anything.

Re: I love modern technology

Posted: Wed Jul 22, 2020 10:39 am
by JR.
mediatechnology wrote: Wed Jul 22, 2020 10:02 am VLC is a product of Video LAN which is a stand-alone player.

It has both positive and negative audio offsets.
Wouldn't help you in your situation but you might want to install it on your Mac and PCs.
It will play just about anything.
I do not have an effects loop in my ROKU TV monitor that selects feeds from multiple places (including internet streams).

This is pretty far down the list of things for me to resolve, but thanks.

JR

Re: I love modern technology

Posted: Wed Jul 22, 2020 2:15 pm
by AnalogJoe
mediatechnology wrote: Wed Jul 22, 2020 10:02 am VLC is a product of Video LAN which is a stand-alone player.

It has both positive and negative audio offsets.
Wouldn't help you in your situation but you might want to install it on your Mac and PCs.
It will play just about anything.

+1 on VLC, a lot of players won't play stuff that VLC will, or they will ask me to buy a codec, yeah right :lol:

Re: I love modern technology

Posted: Fri Jul 24, 2020 11:25 am
by JR.
I have decided to do one more experiment before I scratch out an active interface design.

In my current design I have simple pot attenuators on each amp input (unbalanced) all cranked full up. I like the capability to tweak balance if needed.

My next experiment is to hard wire the amp inputs to the unbalanced decoder outputs and see if the hum/buzz noise floor gets any quieter. Right now with the amp inputs floating they are dead silent. It is actually usable as is with current noise floor but now seems like a good time to experiment. Another experiment is to impedance balance the decoder outputs.

I'm sure I can improve things with differential circuit from the unbalanced decoder to active interface stage and then balanced (actually differential) output in my interface to the amp which gets me +6dB of easy voltage gain.

JR

Re: I love modern technology

Posted: Sun Aug 30, 2020 11:58 am
by JR.
JR. wrote: Tue Apr 14, 2020 1:27 pm I haven't dropped a squirrel in over year, despite two very good opportunities a week ago. I purchased a laser bore sight, and zero'd in my scope. :roll: No wonder the squirrels barely noticed that I was firing on them. The laser pointer indicates my scope was aiming low and to the left about two squirrel widths. :oops:

Now I have it perfectly zero'd in for about 50 yards, with the only variable remaining is drop over that much distance... I could tweak for this with a paper target. For now I can aim a little high.

Now I actually want to see some squirrels in my yard. 8-)

JR

Image
Well I am getting my wish, sort of... I am not seeing actual squirrels up in my main producing pecan trees but I am seeing evidence of them chewing on immature pecans. It is still too early for mature nuts, but I'm starting to get early drops (the trees drop weak/sickly nuts early). In years past a lot of these early drops were infested with insects that would bore holes through the soft shell and lay eggs inside that would grow to become mature larvae... Now since I started spraying, I'm seeing pretty much zero insect holes, 8-) but I've started seeing evidence of squirrels chewing. :oops:

I got up at 6am to check my squirrel surveillance cameras and it was too dark outside... by 6:30 I could see the trees but no squirrels.Walking around outside I did see one in my back yard rescue pecan tree (that I cut down a couple nearby trees to get it more sunlight). I could not get a clean sight on that squirrel because of dense leaf growth but put one pellet into the general area and he left quickly.

I may need to start waking up earlier and sitting out in my yard. I am not an early morning person but the squirrels are. :lol:

JR

Re: I love modern technology

Posted: Sun Aug 30, 2020 6:34 pm
by billshurv
Do you have a link to the $32 surround decoder that actually works? It's on my list as something to mess with over the winter.

Re: I love modern technology

Posted: Sun Aug 30, 2020 7:10 pm
by JR.
billshurv wrote: Sun Aug 30, 2020 6:34 pm Do you have a link to the $32 surround decoder that actually works? It's on my list as something to mess with over the winter.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B011D ... UTF8&psc=1

It was $29.99 but apparently not in stock any more...

I've had mixed results with these before. This is the third one I bought.

Crazy cheap with remote control, may have been an end of run blow out.



JR