Sunday, January 21, 2007

Randomness

Computer Query

I have a few AVI files that play adequately on any of the media players I have on my computer. However, when I try to burn them as a DVD Video, the audio is not in synch with the video. It isn't great, maybe 25 milliseconds or so? If you're not paying attention, and have bad eye sight, and the speaker has his back to the camera,it probably wouldn't make that much of a difference, but if you actually watch the characters as they speak, it can be quite annoying. The bilabial sounds--M, B, P--are the most obvious when not in synch.

I play video media using ffdshow codec, and Nero to burn video DVDs.

Does anyone know why audio/video would be in synch as an AVI file but get screwed up when converted into a DVD video file? Is it the codec that Nero is using? Wouldn't Nero--or any other DVD burning program--use the codec I have on my computer? Is the codec I'm using unreliable?

Any words of wisdom or advice would be much appreciated.

Publish or Perish

As most of you know, my field is premodern Japanese literature, but my actual specialty is late Heian court poetry. I usually focus on its reliance on context, especially the reader's context, and as such make much ado about its intertextual qualities. This focus carries over to other poetic forms as well, including linked verse. Some of my students may be interested in perusing a new book called Matsuo Basho's Poetic Spaces edited by Eleanor Kerkham. The book centers on a poet from the Edo period, hundreds of years after the period I study, but there's a chapter on renga that reflects many of my views, so perfectly, in fact, that it's scary.

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