From: owner-ecto-digest@smoe.org (ecto-digest) To: ecto-digest@smoe.org Subject: ecto-digest V16 #547 Reply-To: ecto@smoe.org Sender: owner-ecto-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-ecto-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk ecto-digest Thursday, September 13 2012 Volume 16 : Number 547 To unsubscribe: e-mail ecto-digest-request@smoe.org and put the word unsubscribe in the message body. Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: Latest pet peeve: Media players without volume controls [Andrew Fries] Re: Latest pet peeve: Media players without volume controls [Bernie Mojze] Here's a name I haven't heard for awhile... [Paul Blair Subject: Re: Latest pet peeve: Media players without volume controls On 12/09/12 11:58, Paul Blair wrote: > Lately it seems more and more embedded media in web pages have players in > which it's impossible to control the volume. What this means in practice is > that I'm at home at 11pm, I click on the player, and am immediately blasted > out of my chair by the volume (and no doubt my neighbors are annoyed as > well). There is no "standard" volume for media on the Internet, which > means, e.g., that sometimes when I'm watching videos I can't hear anything > unless I turn both the video player and my computer up to maximum volume. > Then the next video that comes along of course raises the roof. I like to > be able to set the volume control low on the media player before I start > playing, and then adjust it after the clip starts playing. > > Does this bother anyone else? Yes it bothers me too. In fact these days I see many instances of human-computer interface taking backwards steps and this is just one of many such examples. Sadly it is Apple who are to blame for much of it - yes Apple, who were the pioneers of useful and consistent interface for PCs, have by now done an almost complete turn around on the subject and produce some of the poorest and almost unuseable interfaces around. Another problem is the seeming desire to dumb down the environment on the PC to the level of smart phones.... the next version of Windows that is about to be forced upon the world is a perfect example of that. Sadly, not even open source software is immune - I've been using Linux Ubuntu for many years but no longer, as their "Unity" interface is an abomination as far as I am concerned. So is the new Gnome for that matter. (Luckily, Linux Mint is still pretty good) So where were we? Oh yes... the volume. Well, you might not be able to control the volume of the player, but luckily you can still (for now...) control the volume on your end, on your hardware. Just get into the habit of turning it down, I guess... it's not ideal, I know. ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2012 11:12:21 -0400 (EDT) From: Bernie Mojzes Subject: Re: Latest pet peeve: Media players without volume controls I tend to keep the sound off on my computer a lot, particularly in public places. Most annoying are web sites that automatically start making noise, and strangely, the worst offenders seem to be the news sites - click to read an article, and the next thing you know it's starting to play a clip of the broadcast, but not before blasting you with an advert about how awful the Canadian Health Care system is, or somesuchthing. Of the two media players (i.e. not embedded-in-web-pages) that I use (itunes and vlc), both have ways in the preferences to set volume normalization. On Tue, 11 Sep 2012, jessica spurling wrote: > that bothers me :) > I try to remember to make sure my volume is set pretty low before i click > on anything that might have sound. > this is something that keeps me from clicking a lot of links, for sure. > -jessica > > On Tue, Sep 11, 2012 at 6:58 PM, Paul Blair wrote: > >> Lately it seems more and more embedded media in web pages have players in >> which it's impossible to control the volume. What this means in practice is >> that I'm at home at 11pm, I click on the player, and am immediately blasted >> out of my chair by the volume (and no doubt my neighbors are annoyed as >> well). There is no "standard" volume for media on the Internet, which >> means, e.g., that sometimes when I'm watching videos I can't hear anything >> unless I turn both the video player and my computer up to maximum volume. >> Then the next video that comes along of course raises the roof. I like to >> be able to set the volume control low on the media player before I start >> playing, and then adjust it after the clip starts playing. >> >> Does this bother anyone else? > - -- brni i don't want the world, i just want your half. http://www.kappamaki.com/ http://brni.livejournal.com/ ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2012 21:47:00 -0400 From: Paul Blair Subject: Here's a name I haven't heard for awhile... Facebook sponsored links told me Lili Haydn has a new single out, "Tyrant." http://lilihaydn.com/ ------------------------------ End of ecto-digest V16 #547 ***************************