Posts by Peter

Sharp shows image-retaining LCD

Tomorrows World

Thorn EMI CRL were finalists one year in the annual Prince of Wales award thingy that Tomorrows World used to do.

Nothing new

Since the technology isn't specified it is hard to say whether it is a real step forward, but retaining an image on a LCD panel is nothing new. Thorn EMI's Central Research Laboratories developed a colour Ferro electric LCD (FLCD) in the early 1990s (1992?) that would do exactly that. FLCD panels will retain the image indefinitely without power being applied (although power is still required for the backlight to view the image).

MS tweaks Vista with minor updates

Patches cause media playback stuttering

I dutifully installed this collection of patches. I immediately started noticing problems when playing MP3 tracks in Windows Media Player. I was getting silent pauses for one or two seconds at a time before the music continued. This happened quite frequently: at least once very two tracks played.

Later, I was playing video content in VLC and I experienced the same type of pauses: video/audio freezing for a couple of seconds and then continuing.

After enduring this for a day and thinking that the patches must have been the cause I removed the latest set of patches. After 24 hours during which I listened to a lot of music and watched two hours of video I haven't experienced one media playing glitch.

Be warned!