I hate Sony
You read that right. This pathetic company must be wiped from the face of the galaxy, along with Apple and way, way before Microsoft.
Because vendor lock-in is the one thing I don't tolerate.
Now, the Sony DRM scandal was sufficient for me to say my "nyah" to their corporate politics, so when it came to choosing a cellphone, I picked Nokia 6233 instead of a Sony Ericsson model. (Although I admit, that phone is not without its flaws — it has DRM, can't play Vorbis audio, MPEG-4 video — I don't even mention Theora here, and its USB connector sometimes hangs my Ubuntu system. And it doesn't come with a USB cable. But who could have predicted that? At least it plays MP3s, comes with earpieces, and I can copy them to its memory card from my PC. Sometimes. When the system doesn't hang. Sigh.)
But if Nokia's USB support is bad (by the way, did I mention that it only supports USB 1.1 so the transfer is slow as heck?), Sony's is nonexistent.
I'm not even talking about Linux here. Windows bloody XP kriffin' Professional frellin' x64 Edition. My Sony DSC-V1 camera, which is "responsible" for half the photos posted here (and which works in Ubuntu out of the box), only works in PTP mode under that system — meaning it's slow, not treated like a disk, and the access is read-only. And in XP i386 edition, known as simply "XP" to those who don't know x64 Edition exists (which includes Sony), they require installation of custom USB drivers. By comparison, my parents' Panasonic camera, which they bought as a replacement, works under both "flavors" of Windows XP out of the box. Granted, it's a newer model; but Sony could at least release the x64 drivers on their website, which they didn't. I only found the needed drivers on planetamd64.com recently, after the situation became really pressing — they're unofficial, made by some hacker from the 32-bit ones.
But for the Sony DCR-TRV345E camcorder, the situation is essentially hopeless.
First, Digital8 cassettes seem to be extremely hard to find now. Why? Open standards, baby, yeah! It appears that Sony phased out their proprietary Digital8 standard (which is just one entry in a long list of Sony's attempts to establish their own hardware standards, which includes Betamax and Blu-Ray in opposition to VHS and HD-DVD) and switched to MiniDV. Good for Sony that it learned its lesson the hard way, but now we're stuck with a legacy cassette format. Really, I think I'll try buying a regular Video8 cassette and recording on that. If it doesn't work, so be it.
Second, there's the USB support issue as well. In the olden days™, when I thought Linux was an extremely complex, server-only system without a GUI, I had no problem with that — I just plugged it in, set Movie Maker to video capture mode, and captured — getting a WMV with horrendous quality and lots of dropped frames in the end. Not like I cared back then, though.
Now, having to deal with Ubuntu on one machine and XP x64 on another, I plugged the USB cable in and run Kino. Obviously, nothing worked. Having trudged through several Ubuntu support forums, I read that Linux has no support for Sony USB video capture, but not before trying the IEEE1394/FireWire guides involving manual creation of /dev nodes, which, obviously, didn't work. On the other computer, Windows didn't find the drivers, and remembering my DSC-V1 struggles, I gave up.
I went to one of the local computer shops (there are, like, seven — all of them along the same street or not far from it...) and bought a FireWire controller and cable for the Russian ruble equivalent of $12. The other, newer PC has a FireWire socket on the motherboard but mine doesn't, so I installed the one I bought... but what I needed was the cable anyway, since the camcorder obviously didn't come with one — despite having a FireWire socket (labeled "DV" for reasons that aren't quite clear to me).
When I installed the card and turned on the computer, I noticed that Ubuntu was booting extremely slowly. A recovery mode boot made it clear that the source of the problem was my old CNet PRO200 Ethernet card — I plugged the FireWire card right next to it. Okay. I disassembled the entire thing again and uninstalled the Ethernet card, since I have an RJ-45 socket on the motherboard anyway. Granted, now I can't NAT to the other computer using two Ethernet cards, but I don't need this for the time being anyway.
Voila — the FireWire interface worked out of the box, and I finally managed to capture the video in Kino. But it cost me a trip to the computer shop and back and lots of nerves.
I hate you, Sony. I'm never using your products again, except for those I already own.
Because vendor lock-in is the one thing I don't tolerate.
Now, the Sony DRM scandal was sufficient for me to say my "nyah" to their corporate politics, so when it came to choosing a cellphone, I picked Nokia 6233 instead of a Sony Ericsson model. (Although I admit, that phone is not without its flaws — it has DRM, can't play Vorbis audio, MPEG-4 video — I don't even mention Theora here, and its USB connector sometimes hangs my Ubuntu system. And it doesn't come with a USB cable. But who could have predicted that? At least it plays MP3s, comes with earpieces, and I can copy them to its memory card from my PC. Sometimes. When the system doesn't hang. Sigh.)
But if Nokia's USB support is bad (by the way, did I mention that it only supports USB 1.1 so the transfer is slow as heck?), Sony's is nonexistent.
I'm not even talking about Linux here. Windows bloody XP kriffin' Professional frellin' x64 Edition. My Sony DSC-V1 camera, which is "responsible" for half the photos posted here (and which works in Ubuntu out of the box), only works in PTP mode under that system — meaning it's slow, not treated like a disk, and the access is read-only. And in XP i386 edition, known as simply "XP" to those who don't know x64 Edition exists (which includes Sony), they require installation of custom USB drivers. By comparison, my parents' Panasonic camera, which they bought as a replacement, works under both "flavors" of Windows XP out of the box. Granted, it's a newer model; but Sony could at least release the x64 drivers on their website, which they didn't. I only found the needed drivers on planetamd64.com recently, after the situation became really pressing — they're unofficial, made by some hacker from the 32-bit ones.
But for the Sony DCR-TRV345E camcorder, the situation is essentially hopeless.
First, Digital8 cassettes seem to be extremely hard to find now. Why? Open standards, baby, yeah! It appears that Sony phased out their proprietary Digital8 standard (which is just one entry in a long list of Sony's attempts to establish their own hardware standards, which includes Betamax and Blu-Ray in opposition to VHS and HD-DVD) and switched to MiniDV. Good for Sony that it learned its lesson the hard way, but now we're stuck with a legacy cassette format. Really, I think I'll try buying a regular Video8 cassette and recording on that. If it doesn't work, so be it.
Second, there's the USB support issue as well. In the olden days™, when I thought Linux was an extremely complex, server-only system without a GUI, I had no problem with that — I just plugged it in, set Movie Maker to video capture mode, and captured — getting a WMV with horrendous quality and lots of dropped frames in the end. Not like I cared back then, though.
Now, having to deal with Ubuntu on one machine and XP x64 on another, I plugged the USB cable in and run Kino. Obviously, nothing worked. Having trudged through several Ubuntu support forums, I read that Linux has no support for Sony USB video capture, but not before trying the IEEE1394/FireWire guides involving manual creation of /dev nodes, which, obviously, didn't work. On the other computer, Windows didn't find the drivers, and remembering my DSC-V1 struggles, I gave up.
I went to one of the local computer shops (there are, like, seven — all of them along the same street or not far from it...) and bought a FireWire controller and cable for the Russian ruble equivalent of $12. The other, newer PC has a FireWire socket on the motherboard but mine doesn't, so I installed the one I bought... but what I needed was the cable anyway, since the camcorder obviously didn't come with one — despite having a FireWire socket (labeled "DV" for reasons that aren't quite clear to me).
When I installed the card and turned on the computer, I noticed that Ubuntu was booting extremely slowly. A recovery mode boot made it clear that the source of the problem was my old CNet PRO200 Ethernet card — I plugged the FireWire card right next to it. Okay. I disassembled the entire thing again and uninstalled the Ethernet card, since I have an RJ-45 socket on the motherboard anyway. Granted, now I can't NAT to the other computer using two Ethernet cards, but I don't need this for the time being anyway.
Voila — the FireWire interface worked out of the box, and I finally managed to capture the video in Kino. But it cost me a trip to the computer shop and back and lots of nerves.
I hate you, Sony. I'm never using your products again, except for those I already own.
If you want to buy Hermes Plume 28,the Cheap Miu Miu 2011 must be the first come to your mind.High quality of miumiu handbag is admired by many people.The price is very resonable.Hermes Plume 32As much as I love Miumiu handbags,I tend to prefer the handbags that fashion and stylish.If you are careful to look for these bags in online sites like, you may end up owning couple of discount designerMiu Miu Sandals without spending more than a thousand dollars. Some of the discount designer handbags are trendsetters and even picked up by celebrities too.
A lady can always be an epitome of grace and sensuality especially when she adorns herself with beautiful outfit and exquisite accessories.Often those fashionable women will tell you that they have closet full of accessories.Hermes Plume Doc But, one of the most important accessories that need to be selected with utmost care is inevitably their handbag.Miumiu plisse Leather Clutchis one of the most unique clutches that I have seen in a while.With Miu Miu Platform in your hand,you would be more elegant and beautiful.
It is time for office ladies replace their black leather heavy Cheap Miu Miu Handbag with some vibrant colored ones which can brigten up their energetic image easily. The miumiu handbags have various colors so that you have many chioes.Young ladies are strongly recommended to choose miumiu handbags when it is sold at resonable price.Do not believe that those Hermes Evelyn TPM brand miumiu handbags are far beyond your reach.In fact,you can buy them if you choose the right purchase time and shopping site.As fashionable girls and wise shoppers,you should never miss discounted the brand Buy Miu Miu Online.