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Got a new desktop

THEFERMANATOR

THEFERMANATOR

FRANKENBURBAN
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Decided to get a new computer. I need more than what my tablet can do and I want to save my laptop for strictly tuning purposes. Did ALOT of searching and decided on the MINISFORUM X400, 16gb ram, 512gb ssd hard drive, and an AMD Ryzen 7 4750g 3.6ghz(overclocked to 4.4ghz) processor. I wanted something with considerable processing power, could hook up to our TV, and very compact. The gatorade bottle is there to show how small it is(roughly 6x6x2.5 inches).

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Have followed the micro PC sector for a while.

Love the concept.

Whenever it came time to replace a desktop, pricing of reconditioned full sized computers on Overstock won-out over new price of anything else.

Have looked into Raspberry systems which also have a small footprint, but at the moment they are too much of a learning curve (for me) to mess with.
 
JayTheCPA said:
Have followed the micro PC sector for a while.

Love the concept.

Whenever it came time to replace a desktop, pricing of reconditioned full sized computers on Overstock won-out over new price of anything else.

Have looked into Raspberry systems which also have a small footprint, but at the moment they are too much of a learning curve (for me) to mess with.
Click to expand...
What was the name of the phone operating system ? Blackberry or some such.
I never did see one so I know nothing about them, maybe a precursor to the android googlity thing.
Would this Raspberry thing be on similar lines ?
 
Blackberry arguably cracked the door open to what we now know as a mobile device or smart phone as it integrated the mobile phone with an ability to access the Internet (over what was known at that time as the cellular network) and install Apps.

Raspberry Pi is good at performing task oriented jobs which do not need much 'think' power in an analogous manner of how robotic arms are great at working on assembly lines. By design, a Raspberry device does not have much processing power and trying to do things like what Ferm wants can easily take the Raspberry past its capability.
 
I have 2 Raspberry Pi3's that I use for media centers and also as game emulators. Probably going to upgrade them to Pi4's for better video playback. I went on vacation so I haven't had much time to use it, but I did do some video conversion work. It runs handbrake at right around 4.1ghz at 80% processor capacity so i can also run makemkv at the same time ripping discs into raw files while handbrake converts my mkv's to mp4's. I can convert a 75 minute animated movie into a fairly high quality mp4 in under 10 minutes, and that is taking a 3.5-4 gb mkv file down to a 300-400mb mp4. It was taking me 30-35 minutes to convert them on my laptop and I wasn't getting as good of compression with it. It is also a very snappy unit responding near instantly to commands and opening apps. The kids start back to school on Tuesday so i should be able to get to work redoing my video library then.
 
MrMarty51 said:
That sounds impressive.
Especially seeing as how I dont know a thing about what You mentioned. 😹😹😹😹
Click to expand...
Im with you. I read that thing a couple times like maybe I would understand more the second time around.
This is what it is like when i tell my wife about an engine.
These cool stuff and neat parts. Guessing it will last a long time and go fast!
 
My main use right now is converting all of my dvd's & blu-rays over from disc to .mp4 files. I have the raspberry pi3's set up with kodi to play .mp4 video files so that I can upload all of our movies onto a hard drive and play them through the media centers on the TV. It is alot easier to carry around a 2TB hard drive loaded with ALL of our movies than it is to carry around all those disc's.

I use a program called makemkv that converts dvd's & blu-ray's over to a universal format called .mkv. .mkv files are great in that they are high definition, but they contain all the data with no compression, so the files tend to be VERY large(dvd's can be as big as 5.7gb and blu-ray's range from 17gb all the way up to 35bg's). Next I use a program called handbrake which converts those very large .mkv files into .mp4 files which have video compression so they can be much smaller. As of right now I'm able to convert a .mkv raw file that is 3-4 gigabytes down to a .mp4 file in the 300-400 megabyte size range, roughly 1/10th the size with virtually no picture quality loss. With some blu-ray's you can get an even better compression percentage while maintaining high definition picture quality.

Then I load the .mp4's to my hard drives, and play them back using the raspberry pi mini computers or plug them into the usb port on a blu-ray/dvd player(if equipped) to play on the TV. It works out great with kids as all of your movies are loaded onto a hard drive and you don't have to worry about missing discs or them getting scratched and I like not having to get up to load movies in.
 
Actually, that post was more likely from a bot looking to see whether this site is a candidate for planting a Trojan or malware; if the servers are not fully patched (all the way through to the virtual servers), then it may have succeeded.
 
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