ALL SCI-FI

[Tom]

I've recently started doing this and it works really well.

Open an audio skype with your friend.
Click CALL in the skype command bar and select SHARE SCREENS
Click SHARE on the little window that pops up.

Have Your friend hover their mouse over your screen and click the arrows on the rt side to make their view of your screen FULLSCREEN

Stream your movie or play your dvd full screen and both of you can watch it together while continuing to talk.

Great for parties and marathons.
Recipicant can be on a smartphone.
Great for boyfriend & girlfriend time when you are apart.
You are only limited by your own imagination
Easy to do

You both need a good connection and you should shut down programs you are not using at the time because it does tax your system
But it does work and rather well I might add.
I've done this with my son when he was stationed in Japan

[bulldogtrekker]

My friend Bud Brewster and I watch movies the old fashioned way. We go to Facebook chat and start a bluray disk the same time.

We stay together most of the time.

Fascinating

PS Welcome to New All Sci-Fi

[Bud Brewster]

___________________________________

Yep, we came up with the idea back in 2008, and we called it a synchro-cinema. We started out using the rather restricted chat window of All Sci-Fi, but a few years later we started using Facebook.

Admittedly, having to type our comments on Facebook's chat window is not the same as being in the same room with a friend, watching a movie -- and it's not even the same as chatting using a skype. But it does have a few advantages.

Such as:

You watch the movie on your big HD television, not your laptop.

You play the sound through you TV's speakers, or (in cases like mine) through your stereo system.

You don't have worry about combing your hair, putting on a clean shirt, or scratching yourself in socially unacceptable places while your companion stares at you on his laptop and thinks, "Oh my God, this guy is a slob!"

You never get shushed for talking during the movie. Your comments to your companion can be read after the interesting scene is over and the dull stuff starts back.

You can surf the internet during the movie and not tell your companion that the movie is boring and you're doing something else! (Of course, Bulldogtrekker and I never ever do that while we're sharing movie, uh-uh. No sir! Never. )

You may be asking yourself, "Do these guys really start two DVDs in two DVD players in two locations at the same instant on a given signal and keep them synchronized through the entire movie?"

"Really?"

Yep, really. It's remarkable how well it works. Of course, one of the secrets is that the two DVDs don't have to stay right together. If I see something on my TV thirty second before Bulldogtrekker does, we don't even worry about it most of the time.

I mean, by the time a pretty girl unexpectedly takes off all her clothes and offers the hero a quickie, it's at least thirty seconds before I finishing typing and sending a message to Bulldogtrekker like, "Holy crap! She's naked!"

And by the time he reads message on his computer -- she is!

Yep, the good old synchro-cinema works pretty damn well, all things considered.

Bud
_________________
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Tom]

Thanx fer the Welcome BullDog!

Another way to watch together is to open a chat like FB or an Ajax chat then go to the movie stream and cascade the windows so they are right beside each other.
Then start the streams together and chat in the chat window.

I did this a few times at a horror site I go to.

[Bud Brewster]

To quote Darth Vader, "Most Impressive."

Bulldogtrekker and I will have to try that sometime. It will definitely be a different experience. Right now, here's what I see when we do a synchro-cinema using Facebook's chat window and our own stuff.



The one below is the "Bud's-eye view", right from the sofa. With a wireless keyboard in my lap and a wireless mouse on the cushion next to me -- I'm one happy camper! (Of course, the laptop would be showing the Facebook chat window, not a picture of Robby. That's just eye candy for this shot I made several years ago.)



I'd be looking at something like this on my computer during the movie.


_________________
____________
Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Tom]

Cool pics - I have my pc hooked into my TV via HDMI and my TV is hooked up to my surround system.
I only use my lappy for graphics and art.

I'll try to take a pic sometime to show ya but I love my pc on my TV - I dont have cable or ant. I watch anything I want anytime I want online.

I also dont have any VHS DVD or Cds anymore - Its all on my harddrives (I have 6) I have almost 10TB in total now.
90% of all my books are now on the computer too. (Eyes getting bad - Love to magnify but miss the dead-wood smell and feel)

I have almost a TB of MP3 music too and it grows all the time.

Found an old pic I took when I first moved in - Not pretty but it works

[Bud Brewster]

Wow-zer, Thomas, we are alike in a lot of ways -- and different in others.

I have every kind of recording/playback device known to man, and I love 'em all.

In the picture below, my entertainment center has a reel-to-reel tape deck, a CD recorder, a 5-disc DVD player, a Blu-ray player, a DVD-R recorder, two hi-end cassette recorders, a marble-base Kenwood turntable, a Kenwood tuner (for when I listen to NPR), and two VHS recorders (rarely used these days, but still beloved and frequently dusted).



And the whole thing is powered by a 30-year-old Marantz quadraphonic amplifier that could easily pump the juice into my four big old speakers at top volume -- if I weren't deathly afraid that an angry mob of neighbors from my town-home building would drag me from my living room and lynch me from a low tree limb.

The two shelves with narrow white boxes are filled with reel-to-reel tapes. I still play them from time to time, even though they've long since been copied to cassette tapes and CDs.

Across the room (behind the couch) are eleven racks of DVDs like the ones shown in this picture from many years ago, before I raised Amazon's stock prices by buying a few hundred more DVDs and the racks to put them in, not to mention over a hundred CDs.



My point, of course, is that I love the older technology, even though I also use the new stuff, and I have a burning need to possess physical proof that I really do own the movies and music I love so much. Just looking at a long list of movie and music titles on my computer monitor while trying to decide what I'm in the mood for just doesn't get me in the mood for anything at all.

I need a little foreplay first: like pulling a DVD out of the rack, looking at the picture on the front, then popping open the box and wrestling violently with that damn center-piece that hangs onto the DVD so stubbornly you'd swear the disc was about to shatter in your hand before it finally pops loose!



God I hate it when that happens . . .

But I love all the other aspects of the audio/video experience, and that's why I built that entertainment center, my Museum of Rescued Technology, my shrine to the marvels of a bygone age -- a towering Monolith like the one in 2001: A Space Odyssey, only without the screaming monkeys crowding around the bottom, trying to figure out how to turn it all on and watch a movie with me.

Funny mental image, eh?


_________________
____________
Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Tom]

Nice Home!
Well, we are not as different as you might think...
Before the MESSY divorce I had an impressive monument as well. Not only in entertainment either.
My tool box (Truck Mechanic for 30 years) was also a huge entity. Lets see if I still have a picture?...

Lets see...Here are some of my components in my 'cave' about 8 years ago. I still use the JVC receiver and it amps up beautifully.


This is me and my toolbox. I built the bench and the heavy duty cart under it. Yes, I needed a step to get in the top - LOL Everything in the pic is mine not the company's. I had over $40,000.00 in tools - Keyword - HAD


As for the entertainment stuff all I can do is list them...
Kenwood Amp
Kenwood Tuner
Kenwood Studio Cassette Recorder
Kennwood Graphic Equalizer
Akai Reel-To-Reel
Technics Frequency Equalizer
Dolby Range Expander
Pioneer Echo Box
Gibson Electric Guitar
Two microphones
Four MTX 250wpc loudspeakers (Still Have)
Two Radio shack Tweeter
Four mid-range and one bass Yamaha speakers (Still Have)
Fisher 4 head recording VHS (Stereo) OooLaLa! LOL
100 watt PA Amplifier (stereo)
Pioneer Dynamic Processor
Teak low frequency graphic equalizer
X-Box 360
Atari Genesis
Pioneer digital power timer
Yamaha 88 note workstation keyboard
Pioneer powered digital FM antenna
JVC Dual Deck Cassette Recorder
Sony 5 disc CD player
Sony 8-Track recording deck
Sony Betamax player
Pioneer Laser Disc Player
Close & Play
Crazy 8 player (Had a tee handle on top for switching tracks)
The original Sony Walkman
4 Laser disc movies
450 DVDs
600+ CDs
400+ VHS
800+ Records (45, 78 and 33)

Now I do everything except amplification and speakers with my pc - less cost, less bulk and more fidelity
I have 2 IDE hard drive enclosures, one dual sata docking station and two MY Book type externals. I scarf old hard drives from junked out computers and reformat them to act as a storage drive.
Currently at 10 TB and growing

I have not done screenshots of my movies yet but here is the music ones
If you want anything we can file transfer on skype but its slow. If I can find a good file host that is free I will upload and then give out the link.







From my WMP




















I also have country music but its on another Hard drive and I dont listen to it much anymore.

I also have all this music zipped by artist in single files.
All my movies are also zipped.

I have not started on my literature library so its still in raw form.

You are welcome to any or all of it - just let me know.

If I had components for all the things I can now do with my PC it would fill the apartment. If I still had all the CDs and DVDs and books I would need another apt just to house it all.

I like that I can carry my entire collections in one hand!

[Bud Brewster]

I was worried about the fall and rebuilding of civilization after the complete loss of mankind's collective database.

I'm no longer worried. You've got it all digitally stored and ready to carry in one hand to the bunker inside the mountain -- with the other hand free to fight off those barbarians when they invade from the north!

Good job, Tom! Mankind thanks you.
_________________
____________
Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)