best cheap/free scores 1.1

[momaka]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

One old JVC Camera , the one with tape , with all its decks and recorder , cables and accessories . I don't know if it's worth time and effort , as its pixelage may be outdated . Any advice ?

It's not so much the resolution that make these outdated as is the process of transferring the recorded video to a computer (provided it is a MiniDV recorder, not the old bulky VHS ones, lol ). In a lot of cases, you need a PC with Firewire and the proper drivers for the camcoder. And it's not a simple matter of just copying and pasting files; you actually have to record the video to a video file on the computer - and that takes time. Only then you can edit it and whatnot.

That said, if you are stuck with S-Video/component only, then it can get even more annoying. In my case, the MiniDV/Firewire port on my camcoder broke, so the only way I could transfer videos was with an USB capture device with component/S-Video inputs - and that's even more of a hassle, as you have to select the proper input, proper resolution (yes, I can force an improper recording resolution, and then things look bad), proper de-interlacing method, color/chroma/contrast/brightness adjustments, and a crap-ton of other small things. So essentially, if you do it that way, plan to be playing with the capture device for at least an hour or two before you get the most "optimal" capture settings. Luckily, you only need to do this once the first time you set up the capture device. After that, it's just a matter of time to record the video to the computer - so for 1 hour video, you will need... well, 1 hour of time to record, lol.

All that said, if the camera has good lens and good image sensor, you can still get some pretty good quality video out of it, despite the fact that most MiniDV camcoders are NOT HD. Of course, everyone should know by now that resolution is not the most important thing for an image. Bad colors and bad focus can ruin any image, even if taken at some astronomically high resolution.

[ratdude747]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

More scores today:

$3: Linksys EA2700. No DD-WRT or open WRT support, but for use as a transition router once I start moving out soon it will be perfect. All it has to do is hold down the fort when the existing Netgear RV6300 V2 gets moved over to the "new" house (so I still have internet during the transition month). Nothing super complex to worry about, but it at least has gigabit and dual band N 600/450 (I've seen it listed as both speeds). I already have an EA3500 and EA4500 sitting, but those have already been Open WRT'd to use as AP's in the new house if and where needed, and for $3, not having to f*ck with those units is worth it.

And the real score:

$10/$19: Pioneer CLD-D504 Laserdisc Player and Karaoke Machine. $10 was for the player and bag of accessories (remote, Karaoke Mic, and Sample disc). $9 was for the what was apparently the former owner's collection minus one disc (which another customer mentioned buying the day before to test his own unit, and let me know where the rest were hidden in the vinyl record section). Most are titles I don't recognize (including one that's imported from Japan), but Lawrence of Arabia was in there.

Not the fanciest unit ever (no digital audio out!), but this unit more or less completes my collection of obscure video players (at least for the ones that I'll ever afford, no D-VHS or W-VHS). In that, I have at least one player of:

-Betamax (older mono unit, would like to upgrade to stereo if the opportunity comes up)
-S-VHS (two stand-alone units, plus a third as a DVD player combo)
-Laserdisc (above)
-HD-DVD (toshiba unit)
-Blu-Ray (2D, older sony unit)

VHS and DVD are covered by those units as well (duh).

Sounds like I need to get a good AV rack for all of this gear. I have a cosmetically beat 55" Hitachi CRT-Projection 1080i W/ HDMI to go with this. Put this laserdisc unit with the Blu-Ray player and my RCA S-VHS unit and that will make a set with the Hitachi. The rest will stay with my Toshiba Projection unit (which I don't know what to do with after the move; Hmm...)

[Topcat]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

The HP Z1 workstation mentioned above had a bad HDD. Replaced, loaded OS, away it went. Sold it to a local business for a nice chunk.

Mystery box arrived from the "Supermicro Tree". It contained another X8SAX and 2x X7DAL-E motherboards. I haven't tested them yet, but odds are they're good....seldom does this place send me broken stuff.

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Got another phat PS2, for about $5.18. It's a 50003, black. It came with a dead Delta PSU (blown Rubycon MXC 400v 82uF primary cap, and it has LTEC secondaries ), a totally smashed DVD tray and missing nearly EVERY screw. Motheboard and optical drive are in good shape so I just replaced the PSU and tray and put it back together. I'll have to open it up again due to the fan connector being broken. Other than that, I was pretty surprised that the stock KHS-400C laser it had was in brilliant shape, and so is the Nidec fan.

What do you think guys, should I fix this up and mod it with a Modbo 4.0?

[stj]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

or fit these?
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/XBER...824774568.html

[mikay786]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Got 2 Nintendo Wii Consoles, a stack of games, 3x Wii Fit boards and accessories for

£25

Best bit for me being some twat who always pinches the best games is going home with a empty case as the disk was in one of the consoles

Tested both Wii’s and one fit board so far and all working.

[onex]

Re: Your Best Dumpster Finds

back again with more crap ive found for free in the rubbish.
hp proliant dl380 g5 rack server complete with all ram and 2 HHD .works fine.
1150 socket i5 just missing HHD ,had blown power supply.works fine now
onkyo tx ds575 amp ,has a fault but still fixable
old ibm 5291 2 terminal .powers on still .
IBM personal computer 330-100dx4 complete with original IBM mouse and keyboard which ive bumped up the memory and using for old school games machine.

[Curious.George]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Sharp LC-43LE653U

<https://www.amazon.com/Sharp-LC-43LE653U-43-Inch-1080p-Smart/dp/B00TTVMFD6>

Apparently, bodged firmware update (easy to fix).

Unfortunately, missing remote so I had to program one of the Harmony's for it.

Probably set it in one of the bedrooms. Or, find a neighbor headed off to college, etc.

[vinceroger69]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Got 2 Nintendo Wii Consoles, a stack of games, 3x Wii Fit boards and accessories for

£25

Best bit for me being some twat who always pinches the best games is going home with a empty case as the disk was in one of the consoles

Tested both Wii’s and one fit board so far and all working.

Im seeing a lot of wii consoles with accessories going cheap on facebook sale sites etc can you still make a profit on resale ? once tested the consoles etc

[mikay786]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Im seeing a lot of wii consoles with accessories going cheap on facebook sale sites etc can you still make a profit on resale ? once tested the consoles etc

Nothing amazing but you can make a little bit, depends on the games. You want the mario and zelda games. For example i got two Mario kart games with the two consoles i bought and i could sell them for a tenner each all day long. So pretty much anything on top of that is profit.

[vinceroger69]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

Nothing amazing but you can make a little bit, depends on the games. You want the mario and zelda games. For example i got two Mario kart games with the two consoles i bought and i could sell them for a tenner each all day long. So pretty much anything on top of that is profit.

Thanks i will keep a look out at car boots and sales sites for bargains what other electronics do you find at car boots thats sells well if you dont mind me asking i know you cant make a fortune but any profit can go towards new electronics tools etc

[jiroy]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

It's not so much the resolution that make these outdated as is the process of transferring the recorded video to a computer (provided it is a MiniDV recorder, not the old bulky VHS ones, lol ). In a lot of cases, you need a PC with Firewire and the proper drivers for the camcoder. And it's not a simple matter of just copying and pasting files; you actually have to record the video to a video file on the computer - and that takes time. Only then you can edit it and whatnot.

That said, if you are stuck with S-Video/component only, then it can get even more annoying. In my case, the MiniDV/Firewire port on my camcoder broke, so the only way I could transfer videos was with an USB capture device with component/S-Video inputs - and that's even more of a hassle, as you have to select the proper input, proper resolution (yes, I can force an improper recording resolution, and then things look bad), proper de-interlacing method, color/chroma/contrast/brightness adjustments, and a crap-ton of other small things. So essentially, if you do it that way, plan to be playing with the capture device for at least an hour or two before you get the most "optimal" capture settings. Luckily, you only need to do this once the first time you set up the capture device. After that, it's just a matter of time to record the video to the computer - so for 1 hour video, you will need... well, 1 hour of time to record, lol.

All that said, if the camera has good lens and good image sensor, you can still get some pretty good quality video out of it, despite the fact that most MiniDV camcoders are NOT HD. Of course, everyone should know by now that resolution is not the most important thing for an image. Bad colors and bad focus can ruin any image, even if taken at some astronomically high resolution.

Thanks Momaka for your reply ; The Camera right now went deep in a box in my house , and frankly , I never set an eye on Model or anything else . With its accessories and cables , I'm sure there are some 15 kgs , lol .
Let me check those details in a couple of days as i'm away from home this week visiting a friend , and i'll report the Model and details back .

In the meantime , I have no problem with Svideo , firewires and any types of connections , as i have many laptops and desktops equipped with TVs and Nvidia's graphics outputs A/V , etc..
Also , I have no problems editing and stuff with an arsenal of professional progs . What i'm worried about is , i think it;s definitely VHS type due to size and that's the real handicap and the question .

[jiroy]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

This week , i've got for free two desktop boards , one Asrock N73PV-S and one Asus p5vd2 , with their two Core 2 duo 2.66 GHZ/ 3M/1066MHZ CPU'S .

One Laptop Toshiba Satellite M40-102 , lol .. Maybe it is good for Decoration !!

One malfunctioning Toshiba Satellite C55D . Now that's an item of interest to me , cause it is Fan-less . Very useful for nights .

[Dan81]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

I got an Samsung Galaxy S4 - the Snapdragon 600 version, GT-i9505 for free.

Apparently I can't hear anything during calls and the person I'm calling can't hear me either. I should mention the loudspeaker and WiFi/4G calls over Messenger work (although they're not usually good, it seems it depends on the caller's phone quality - i.e I could talk without problems with a friend that has a S7, but another friend that has a Nokia Lumia 525 and a Alcatel Onetouch Pop 2 would hear me with interferences)

I'm not sure if the culprit here is on the hardware side (since while the phone is the usual Black Edition variant, the MB reports it as being a La Fleur i9505 variant - the SIM/SD Card module was replaced by the way) or if it's the modem that I should blame here.

Any ideas what can I do to fix it? It's a pretty good phone compared to what I had (a Nokia X that runs some weird Android/Windows phone hybrid, a "SMARTLET SIX" 6 inch dualcore Mediatek-based phone that I had a nightmare removing viruses from and of course a Exynos-based international S3, GT-i9300 that broke.) and it would be a shame to have to throw it away, especially because it's got some good specs - 1.9GHz Quad Core, 2GB of RAM and a 13MP camera.


Should I try running CM12/13/14? Will that fix the call issue?

[jwillifixit]

Re: Your Best Dumpster Finds

This is a sampling of my "finds" recently... I've cleared about $5K usd since last Feb from two honey holes! Some truly amazing stuff.

[jwillifixit]

Re: Your Best Dumpster Finds

Here's another dose of my finds... There's a ton of stuff that I'm not showing mostly because I don't have pic's on this laptop (which I also pulled for free).

[dragos2009]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

try checking the headphone jack cause it seems to be fine when it is put on loud speaker

[RJARRRPCGP]

Re: Your Best Dumpster Finds

This is a sampling of my "finds" recently... I've cleared about $5K usd since last Feb from two honey holes! Some truly amazing stuff.

It that flower a hibiscus? The weather has been reasonable around here and we would easily have plants blooming for longer...

And the white case with the purple button, the 5th one on the top, was the same kind of case that I had, when I had an Athlon T-bird, LOL.

[momaka]

Re: best cheap/free scores 1.1

In the meantime , I have no problem with Svideo , firewires and any types of connections , as i have many laptops and desktops equipped with TVs and Nvidia's graphics outputs A/V , etc..
Also , I have no problems editing and stuff with an arsenal of professional progs . What i'm worried about is , i think it;s definitely VHS type due to size and that's the real handicap and the question .

Well, even those oldschool VHS cams can take somewhat decent video if they have good optics/lenses. Obviously it's going to be PAL/NTSC resolution, and likely interlaced too (so expect the effective progressive resolution to be even lower than PAL/NTSC format - I'd guesstimate around 360p at best). Still, if you've seen oldscool Rally racing videos from the late 80's and early 90's, some of them are not that.

Also, that camera can be useful if you are trying to make a 80's/90's camera recording effect . Sure the professional softwares have effects that mimic this, but it's not the same. Here is a computer-generated video of a computer game that was then recorded on VHS and recorded back to PC (for YouTube):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVYJ9o6Bddo
As you can see, the quality is not too terrible. So a camera with good lens will take decent videos.

[jwillifixit]

Re: Your Best Dumpster Finds

Why yes it is... Pic was taken about a month ago. Inventory of stuff to large to sell on fleabay got a bit overwhelming so i posted a garage sale ad on FB Marketplace. Ive had about a dozen sales of that ad.