Search results

  1. Mercutio

    Windows 11

    I just started using this thing specifically because I can bind a bunch of nonsense in my content creation applications to it. I have a Davinci Resolve Editing Deck as well but it's a little too big to go on my desk and share space with my drawing tablet. Many keyboards seem to treat the menu...
  2. Mercutio

    Windows 11

    Microsoft is changing the PC keyboard again. We're all going to have a Copilot key soon. I'm sure that will be great the very instant I figure out why people need copilot in the first place.
  3. Mercutio

    Home NAS

    Ideally, everything should be ECC. If you're on DDR5, it is. I've also long-since learned that if an OEM says their platform does something out of line with specs, it's generally true under at least some condition. That might require a particular set of HCL DIMMs, but if I'm doing anything...
  4. Mercutio

    Home NAS

    I was just about to say that as far as I know, nobody is selling the N305 as a barebones motherboard but no, there it is on AliExpress. Looks like getting the upgraded CPU adds about $100 to the system cost AND I'd have to get it from "Tan Lancheng Products Business Department" but that is...
  5. Mercutio

    Home NAS

    Something mildly obnoxious: Adler Lake Celerons are actually pretty respectable CPUs with extremely low wattage and it's pretty easy to find ITX boards with 2.5GbE and a Celeron N100, probably with a couple m.2 and maybe 4 or 6 SATA ports and an 8 lane PCIe slot. Perfect for a NAS build, until...
  6. Mercutio

    Video Cards

    iGPUs are always going to be about getting to some minimal level of capability, but for my purposes, anything that has the Codec feature set of Arc or Xe is giving me something that nVidia doesn't. It's the same thing with the Vega cores on AMD in integrated vs discrete hardware.
  7. Mercutio

    Video Cards

    The information may simply not exist, especially if you're zeroed in on DxO or Topaz as the tools you might be concerned with. The only generalization I know to be true is that there seems to be a significant performance improvement for between the 4060-series nVidia and the 4070-series in...
  8. Mercutio

    Video Cards

    If I'm using Resolve Studio, the correct answer right now is either an Intel CPU with an iGPU + a high end Radeon, or a Threadripper with both Arc and Radeon hardware. That's the only video editing application I actually care about. Premier is a crashy mess on Windows for reasons that seem...
  9. Mercutio

    Video Cards

    It's application specific. For Resolve, AMD is actually preferable to nVidia overall, but even that depends on assumptions in what is being processed and how; I still benefit from Intel because I want to preserve the chroma data from my camera. Adobe does very little on a GPU aside from things...
  10. Mercutio

    Video Cards

    Macs aren't better for video. They are well optimized and power efficient for it, but so is a Snapdragon 8 gen 3. I'm sure Apple Silicon is Adobe's primary optimization target as well, and that definitely helps both sides, but for GPU compute workloads, the mainstream M3 Pro is somewhere...
  11. Mercutio

    Video Cards

    I don't care if they are or not. I don't like Apple's architecture. More or less every computer I have ever owned has gotten RAM and storage updates over its useful life, and I definitely prefer to have dedicated GPU memory rather than letting it float on top of system RAM. I'm definitely not...
  12. Mercutio

    Video Cards

    The main goal I have is to find the right GPU for content creation acceleration. Probably LM as well. The field in this area is very uneven. Adobe does a lot with Intel Xe cores and RTX, but almost nothing with AMD. I have a theory this is because Apple was using AMD GPUs leading up to the...
  13. Mercutio

    Mirrorless Cameras (MILC) and Lenses

    Blackmagic Cameras are beautiful if you are the opposite of LM in terms of photo/video capability. However, the newer ones are not small, which is usually the thing Micro Four Thirds is good at. I only ever use my Lumix if I'm worried something might happen to a camera. It gets taken to...
  14. Mercutio

    Video Cards

    For GPUs? Leakers say they're still targeting a TDP of 225W like the A770 have. Arc had tons of driver issues and performance quirks at launch, but these things have largely been addressed and are really of primary concern for gamers rather than regular people.
  15. Mercutio

    Video Cards

    The world of video card leakers seems to think that Intel Battlemage will have 3, 5, 7 and 9-series SKUs, with the most expensive models landing somewhere around RTX 4070 in terms of standard benchmarks, but with 24GB RAM and an MSRP of around $500. That would be just about perfect IMO. Also...
  16. Mercutio

    Mirrorless Cameras (MILC) and Lenses

    That's a legitimately interesting use for MFT, other than the $1000 price tag. You can get a pretty respectable Panasonic MFT camera for under $250.
  17. Mercutio

    Mirrorless Cameras (MILC) and Lenses

    Payment depends on the individual, but I have a standard contract for my work. It says that both myself and models jointly own any media we create but I foreswear any public exhibition (i.e. I'm not posting them anywhere) or commercial interest. Mostly because I don't want to be bothered with...
  18. Mercutio

    Need a Decent Phone

    Battery replacement on most sealed phones is $75 or $100. My LG G8 has an OLED screen. It's five years old and the screen is still perfect. I still use it as a camera monitor and occasionally a video camera since it works with my Moment phone lenses.
  19. Mercutio

    Mirrorless Cameras (MILC) and Lenses

    When I'm asked, I always tell people that I'm a guy with a camera, not a photographer. Nonetheless, I have spent money on off camera flash, V-flats and various sorts of lighting modifiers. I more or less only take photos of people and I particularly like shooting performers. One of my...
  20. Mercutio

    Need a Decent Phone

    The S24 is supposed to get seven years of updates. That's quite substantial, and the biggest reason I chose it over an A54. I do believe phone warranties are basically useless, but Samsung has its own coverage plan that DOES include accidental damage and replacement in the event of loss or...
  21. Mercutio

    Mirrorless Cameras (MILC) and Lenses

    Presumably dd wants to do other things with his camera besides videoconference. He has a kid. People usually like to take pictures of those, even if they aren't as fun as dancers or cats. It is endlessly amazing to me that the lowest-quality images of my partner (born in 2000) over her entire...
  22. Mercutio

    Mirrorless Cameras (MILC) and Lenses

    Price-insensitive does seem to be dd's thing. :cool:
  23. Mercutio

    Ryzen

    I haven't built one for myself but I have put together a few 7x00 systems. I had RAM weirdness with two of them. One of them got better by disabling the iGPU. The other I wound up swapping a 4 DIMM G. Skill kit for a 2 DIMM Corsair kit. There's something weird with DDR5 on AMD, especially past...
  24. Mercutio

    Mirrorless Cameras (MILC) and Lenses

    Definitely concur about audio, but its pretty easy to do right for talking heads. As far as relying on subject AF, it's standard operating procedure for many Youtube creators and twitch streamers. There's a Youtube Channel called Camera Conspiracies. The creator that runs that channel is...
  25. Mercutio

    Ryzen

    We'll probably get Zen 5 in September, but from what I've heard, it's mostly a refinement over Zen 4, with the only real change being higher IPC and a smaller lithography process, but no change in number of cores or clock speeds. We should probably be thankful that AMD hasn't switched the P core...
  26. Mercutio

    Windows 11

    I believe the standard behavior is to only apply drive encryption to the drive where Windows is installed. I'm not sure what happens if you distribute your personal data elsewhere, but it does not seem to encrypt removable drives unless you tell it to.
  27. Mercutio

    Ryzen

    A newest and bestest best Intel desktop CPU was released today. The 14900KS can hit 6.2Ghz on its P-cores vs. 6GHz for the 13900KS or 14900K, all a peak TDP of 280W and an MSRP of around $650. I think that finally brings it up to a teensy bit better than the 7800X3D for gamers, but being 1%...
  28. Mercutio

    Windows 11

    I'm not that deep into SQL Server, but it's miles better documented and easier to deal with than Exchange and Sharepoint. It's well behaved and stable and these are things we like to see.
  29. Mercutio

    Windows 11

    You absolutely can if so choose. Microsoft makes the choice for you if you choose to create or initially sign in to a Microsoft account on Windows 11 though. Users can go and turn it on or off either way. Nothing stops them from doing that. 95% of Windows 11 users don't know the encryption even...
  30. Mercutio

    Need a Decent Phone

    My partner is the kid in this case. Phone SoC (System on a Chip) include the combination of CPUs, which in the mobile world are usually a combination of high performance and low performance cores; Wifi and LTE/5G transceivers; and some kind of GPU. Most phone handsets use a combination of Av8...
  31. Mercutio

    Mirrorless Cameras (MILC) and Lenses

    I don't have a nice enough Sony to tell what its contemporary subject detection does, but if I just leave my R6 in (human) eye detect mode and tell it which subject to follow, it defaults to eye then face then head then body. I can't think of a better order of operation for it.
  32. Mercutio

    Windows 11

    No. Bitlocker is a regular feature on Windows 11 Home as well. Maybe S-mode, too, although it doesn't start encrypting your drive until you sign in with a Microsoft account.
  33. Mercutio

    Need a Decent Phone

    3D as in GPU, LM. My partner watches Tiktoks on her phone screen in preference to all other forms of media. Even using a larger tablet is too inconvenient for her. The kids are really into that stuff.
  34. Mercutio

    Windows 11

    OneDrive is definitely an uninvited and unappreciated guest. If you uninstall it without doing anything else, it'll be back after a the semi-annual major Windows release, so there's a couple other things to be done (in Registry Edit form since jtr probably doesn't have Windows Pro) reg delete...
  35. Mercutio

    Need a Decent Phone

    I hate that this is a video, but it does raise some interesting points. The short version is that if you look at sustained benchmark performance over multiple runs, you'll see substantial differences over time. That makes sense, but it's interesting to see how quickly performance can collapse...
  36. Mercutio

    Mirrorless Cameras (MILC) and Lenses

    Hey if the eye detection on your camera is worth a crap, you might not. I think it means Canon really thinks there's a huge market for AR/VR video for some reason?
  37. Mercutio

    Windows 11

    MSSQL is far and away the most common back end for line of business applications developed for Windows. It's not my favorite thing either, but my biggest problem is that very often there's no actual DBAs helping to build that software, just poor choices by clueless developers using baked in...
  38. Mercutio

    Video Cards

    Silverstone still offers traditional desktop cases. The GD11 is a big roomy boy that can hold a 240mm radiator and has room for an RTX 4090. The Grandia series cases have a very normal ATX desktop PC profile, similar to the computers we all using around 1995.
  39. Mercutio

    Windows 11

    SQL Server is better. Visual Studio is better. I like Windows 10 and Server 2019 better than Windows 7 and Server 2012r2.
  40. Mercutio

    Mirrorless Cameras (MILC) and Lenses

    Get a 50/1.2 and the background will be so blurry no one will even know what's behind you. :ROFLMAO: :ROFLMAO:
  41. Mercutio

    Need a Decent Phone

    It does still have an SD card slot and five years of updates. That's four more years than you'll get from anything that says Motorola on it.
  42. Mercutio

    Mirrorless Cameras (MILC) and Lenses

    The original reason I bought a 35/1.8 lens was for videoconferencing/training sessions. I don't have a 100% dedicated space for doing it at home, and I wanted a relatively narrow field of view so I didn't have to clean too much of my office (which, as one might imagine, looks like a computer...
  43. Mercutio

    Mirrorless Cameras (MILC) and Lenses

    I see. It's fair to say that more or less none of the stills-first crowd like Leica or Hasselblad have a lens ecosystem that lives up to your needs either.
  44. Mercutio

    Mirrorless Cameras (MILC) and Lenses

    It gives Nikon credibility in cine cameras that it otherwise did not have before and possibly the patents it needs to stop using Sony for all its sensors. Basically, it can be a full camera company again. TV and movie production might not like losing an option on their side of things, but Arri...
  45. Mercutio

    Mirrorless Cameras (MILC) and Lenses

    Apparently, Nikon is buy Red. Maybe it'll finally start making sensors again.
  46. Mercutio

    Mirrorless Cameras (MILC) and Lenses

    I make more money from editing video than anything else that's directly camera-related. My copy of Resolve Studio is paid for and I haven't really wanted anything else to go with it from the software side of things. I'm using kind of a lot of my side hustle money for a trip to Puerto Rico or...
  47. Mercutio

    Windows 11

    Copilot is the AI dingus that's supposed to replace Cortana, I guess. I don't know what people do with it. I've gotten Google's thing (used to be Bard but now it's Gemini) to summarize long youtube videos. It does a decent job of that. I suppose all the AI things can handle that though.
  48. Mercutio

    Mirrorless Cameras (MILC) and Lenses

    It sounds like the R5ii is going to be as much of a meh upgrade for current R5 owners as the R6ii was for R6 owners. Maybe the new SoC will be amazing, but is it worth $3500 - whatever the resale value on an R5 is? Who needs a mechanical shutter, right? I don't really like software phoning home...
  49. Mercutio

    Mirrorless Cameras (MILC) and Lenses

    Capture One still has the option to buy perpetual licenses, unlike some giant evil imaging empires. They're $300 with discounts if you upgrade frequently. I let Topaz expire. Whatever improvements there have been in the last year definitely haven't added up to $100 worth of added value to me...
  50. Mercutio

    Windows 11

    Has anyone used Microsoft Copilot for even one single thing ever?
Top