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Tech notes

Random IT tests, fixes and and findings that might help others.

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The real reason people record video at 24 frames per second (and why you shouldn't)

Ever wondered by many professional YouTubers shoot video at 24 frames per second? You have probably heard it explained away as "the most cinematic" frame rate. You probably also heard that people can't see frame rates beyond about 30 fps. Well, that's all bullshit.

The real reason why 24 fps is so common is purely historical: It is basically the minimum frame rate that allows a moving image without annoying flickering. Video used to be shot on physical film, so keeping the frame rate as low as possible saved on film costs. Apparently it also helped with sound synchronisation.

Neither of these are valid constraints in the modern era. Sticking to 24 fps just makes panning shots look terrible due to judder, especially on a big screen. You are better off going for 50 or 60 fps depending on your region, which will deliver a far more fluid image.

Please stop telling people that 24 fps is "cinematic". It just makes video look like arse.

NGINX reverse proxy: How to increase max file upload size

The default upload file size limit in NGINX is 1 MB, so if you are using it as a reverse proxy for your Tuskfish CMS site, you may need to increase it. You can do this globally for the server itself, or you can do it on a site-by-site basis.

Arctic Liquid Freezer III installation advice on AM4/5

I just installed the new Arctic Liquid Freezer III 280 on my AMD 5950x. It is a beast of a cooler. In an OCCT stability test with all 16 cores engaged at 100% workload my CPU sustains 4.5 GHz with a maximum temperature of 63°C, and that's in a warm room (the aircon is broken). There are some reviews showing that it is less effective on Intel CPUs (no idea why) but for AM4/5 it's top tier.

But you are going to hate the AM4/5 installation process. Here's how to make it less painful.

Rode Connect: Use advanced processing mode

TLDR I have been playing around with Rode Connect software, which came with the Streamer X, trying to EQ my voice. The software gives you choice of a basic or advanced processing modes. The problem with using the basic mode is that it activates all of the advanced controls in the background. You can't selectively turn options off or adjust them and you're stuck with the default values. This means, for example, that the noise gate is turned on in basic mode, which is something that I personally don't like because it is jarring when you do have a bit of environmental noise. So, if you need to turn anything off, use advanced mode.

Fixed my AMD Ryzen 5000x series random reboots

My Ryzen 5950x became unstable and started throwing random reboots. No errors are reported, and Windows logs just shows a kernel power loss event. The distinguishing feature is that the reboots usually happen when the CPU is lightly loaded or idle, or a few seconds after leaving a heavy workload. The machine passes stress tests without an issue. The consensus seems to be that the CPU is undervolting a bit too far under light/idle workloads. So people are experimenting with many different BIOS settings to try and fix it.

TLDR: After trying every BIOS adjustment under the sun, installing a different OS, and rotating every component bar the motherboard with old spare parts, I was left with only one option: It had to be the motherboard. So I bought a new one, and yes, everything just works great now.

Review: SmallRig Lightweight Travel Tripod AP-01 (3987)

Overally, the tripod is very solid, relatively light (1.3 kg) and feels like it would be good for smiting The Enemies of Journalists. It has a few useful features, including a 3/8 inch mounting thread that retracts to expose a 1/4 inch thread, and three built in 1/4 inch mounting threads at the top of the legs. The tripod legs extend out into three locked positions, including one near-horizontal, allowing the camera to be placed at ground level even without a center column.

I found a couple of minor flaws: Two of three (unneccessary) screws for securing the head worked loose and dropped out on the first day of use, and the spirit level on the supplied head was hopelessly misaligned, ie. useless. Despite that, it's otherwise well-built and fairly decent value for money, but the lack of quality control is disappointing.

The MacBook Air headphone jack supports external microphones

Want to connect an external microphone to your MacBook Air? You can.

The 3.5 mm headphone jack is actually a combo jack, which is capable of supporting microphone input as well. But for microphone input you must use a TRRS jack (the ones with two black rings, such as on a phone hands free kit).

Presumably this is also true of MacBook Pro.

Fix for ASUS TUF RX 6800XT OC Gaming crash to black screen

I started getting random crashes to black screen during gaming. It took a long time to isolate the problem, since the machine passed stress tests without issue, but after pulling my system apart, I finally noticed that the VGA light on the motherboard was lit after crashes. The fix was to update the GPU VBIOS, using an update tool from the manufacturer. It takes about 2 minutes and I haven’t had a problem since.

I don’t know if this is a problem with 6800XTs generally, or just with this specific model, but if you are having crashes and see the VGA tell-tale is lit, then check if an update is available for yours.

Microsoft forms: Fixing the "This form may not be safe" warning

TLDR: Using certain words such as "login" on your form will get it automatically flagged as suspicious. If you have problems, remove any terms that could be misinterpreted as phishing. It's likely that other terms such as "password" would also create problems.

How to fix Perl locale problems in Debian / Ubuntu / Raspbian

Here's a simple fix that works. Why don't they just fix it already? This has been driving me mental across multiple distros for ages on every box I have. There's just no excuse to leave an obvious irritation like this sitting around for years. But that's what you get on Linux.