BELGIUM-ROOTS-L Archives

Archiver > BELGIUM-ROOTS > 1999-03 > 0922201558


From: Guy Bonemme <>
Subject: Re: BELGIUM-ROOTS-D Digest V99 #209
Date: Tue, 23 Mar 1999 16:05:58 +0100


> Subject: Technology question
> Date: Mon, 22 Mar 1999 21:17:10 EST
> From:
> To:
>
> Hi,
>
> This may seem like a strange question - however, I would like to know if the
> computers we have in America are compatible with those in Belgium. I have
> some family history wordprocessing files I would like to share with family in
> Belgium, and want to make sure they are able to access them. Also I want to
> puchase CD games as a gift.

As many others explained it already they will be no problem for files from WP
I would anyway suggest you to save your wp files in the natural format like word or
wordperfect, but also in simple ASCII text files that many WP allows.
This simple format can be read with allmost any program, of course you will not have
a nice presentation (format) anymore but the essential text is preserved.

>
>
> The reason I ask is - our family from Belgium brought us a video tape -
> evidently the video tape players in Belgium are different from the ones in
> America (and vice versa). Unfortunately, in order to play the video tape, we
> had to get it "configured" at a specialty camera shop in order to view the
> video tape. Cost was approximately $50.00!
>

A suggestion for films:
If you have the possibility to acces a PC equipped with a simple video acquisition card,
I would suggest you to acquire the info from your tape recorder into your HDD clips by clips.
The program will create the so called AVI files (under Windows)
These (huge files) can be saved or recorded onto a writable CDROM(CDRW are cheap USD1.5)
These basic files can be read back onto an other PC machines via the multimedia players (not on TV).

Drawback : quality is with respect of the acquisition card one, low quality on gives you 15/16 frames per
second instead of 25.
Don't record the sound although be prepared and have a very huge HDD for aquisition.
30secvideo might result onto a huge 10Mb files!
A CDROM contain +/- 650Mb capacity.
I you know a local PC fan he might certailny help.

A more expensive solution :
Digital camera (DV) like sony can be switched to output video signal on both PAL (european standard)
and NTSC (US standard)

Simple... suggestions

Regards

Guy in Waterloo

it exist to day very simple video card,

>
> Any information on the compatibility of computers sure would be appreciated.
> I would hate to have the family go through "reconfiguring" of a file.
>
> Thanks.
> Diane St. John
>
>

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