Showing posts with label PC. Show all posts
If there’s one thing music lovers would love, it is better quality of sound. Distortion-free, high quality and natural sounding sound. Unfortunately, since we live in this so-called digital world, we’ve got to deal with things like ‘electrical interference’ and the likes. Which begs the question – should anyone really consider buying a sound card for a PC?
Audio Experience On PCs
Granted that talking about the audio experience on PCs is not as exciting as talking about Titan X graphic cards with SLI and 3 monitor setup with 4K display, but the truth is – audio experience is a big part of whatever media you enjoy on your PC. It’s not just about audiophiles or gaming enthusiasts, everyone loves listening to music and there is no point in putting up with an average experience.
Understanding PC Builds
A PC is not really the ideal place for any kind of hardware to be added for enhancing sound. Why, you ask? Well, as I’ve already mentioned, we have to put up with electrical interferences of all kinds in our digital lives and there are plenty of such issues inside a PC.
You have several different components inside a PC which are connected to the power source, like the motherboard, the hard drives and even your graphic cards (if you have those). Each of these components will surely then, in some way, produce electrical interference.
Electrical Interference Is Your Enemy
This interference will bleed in to the portion where you’re adding the sound card and will manifest itself as some kind of hissing or distortion of some kind. That’s not saying that the computing industry hasn’t made any progress in this regard. In fact, integrated audio has got a whole lot better in recent years from the early days. But, not a lot of this advancement helped in amplifying sound clearly and without, you know, interference!
Is There A Solution?
Well, the problem to this vexing issue is rather simple indeed. Since you can’t go internal – go for an external. Ahem. Okay, before you get any ideas let me clarify that we have great audio gear that connects externally. Yes, I’m talking about DACs & Amps.
But, before we go any further, the bigger question is – do you really need one?
Know Your Own Needs
First and foremost, these external pieces of shiny hardware go well with only high-end audio you already have. So, first look at what you are currently using. Average $50 headphones or classy $200 cans that make your friends go jealous instantly? If your answer is the former, then stop reading now. If it’s the latter, read on.
Digging Deeper
So, what are DACs exactly? They stand for Digital-to-Analog Converters and what they do is actually pretty cool. It translates the digital signal that computers can understand (the combo of 0’s and 1’s) to a signal that we humans can naturally understand – sound waves.
Yes, it’s the same process that goes on internally in your PC too, but since there is (you guessed it) electrical interference, the sound is much nicer whilst using a DAC. Additionally, most DACs come with a nicely packaged boxes that also house an amplifier that can fine-tune the output unlike an internal audio component.
The sound will be particularly impressive if you can pair these with headphones that have high impedance. The story is the same with the amplifier too, it’s main function is to boost the sound signal more and give a cleaner output while also converting digital signal to analog.
An external DAC is no bigger than a router | Shutterstock
Sound cards are also similar in function and do have an in-built amplifier, unless it’s some high-end production-quality card which needs to be used in studios in conjunction with other high-end gear which general users like you and me don’t even care for.
DIY Project: If you want to turn your PC into a Hi-Fi Audio Platform, then this is all you need to read.
Are They The Same?
I know, I know – the big question in your mind must be why keep 3 separate names for the same kind of hardware? Well, the big difference is that sound cards work in conjunction with a software that is designed specifically for its hardware. Plus, they also generally have more I/O ports which is the stuff of an audiophiles wet dreams. And there is no cabling because it’s an internal piece of hardware, but that also means we go back to the same problem we wanted to stay away from – Electric Interference!
Hear Me Out
In summary, we’ve understood that external Amps and DACs avoid the issues of an internal sound card and are pretty good at what they claim to do. What’s more, a good majority of them do not even need any drivers, it’s simply plug-and-play equipment.
Whether or not you’re facing any distortion from your motherboard while playing games or enjoying the latest songs on Apple Music or Tidal or Spotify, only you can tell. And only then can you make a more unbiased decision. But if you are serious about your audio – give DACs and Amps a try.
Forget Sync. It’s pathetic if all you’re really looking to do is copy some video files to your iPad so you can watch them later. You know, on the plane or during a commute or just sometimes when you want to watch a movie on the iPad.
Copying videos to your iPad should be easy. Yes, we’re going to need iTunes and yes, it might take almost the same time that it takes to sync your iPad with iTunes but no, it’s not going to be tough. In fact, if you can drag-and-drop, you can do this seamlessly.
The iPad understands a few formats for video. There is a default Video player on the iPad which can play videos and which can handle video files that you drop into it.
So the big question is, how to copy video files to the iPad easily.
Step 1: Connect your iPad to your PC or Mac
Step 2: Open iTunes if it doesn’t fire up automatically
Step 3: Select your connected iPad from the list of devices. (You’ll find this on top-right or on the sidebar if it’s enabled. You can enable the sidebar from the View menu option.
Step 4: Under the device, you have an option called Movies. Select this. (If you’ve got videos on the iPad already, they’ll be shown as a list)
Step 5: Now all you have to do is drag and drop the video files that you want to copy. To make this easy, have the folder containing the video file ready, have iTunes open in the background and just drag-and-drop the file from the folder into the iTunes window.
Step 6: You should now see a progress bar that will indicate how long it will take to copy the file. Got short videos? Fast. Full-length movies? That’ll take a little time.
Step 7: If you encounter problems stating that the file couldn’t be copied, it means there’s a problem with the file format. You’ll need to change the format of the videos through any of these free video converters or with QuickTime to an iPad compatible format before copying it.
You’re sitting with your family members, laughing about a funny moment from the recent past. And then they ask you to show them the wedding/baby photos. What do you do? The pics are on your phone. You can either pass them the phone and risk them looking at photos you don’t want them to see.
Or you can pull up your laptop, PC, or a Chromecast enabled TV. And in a couple of seconds you have your photos up on the big screen, with you in the driver’s seat.
Streaming Photos from Android to PC via the Web
AirDroid does a lot of awesome things but apparently it doesn’t have photo viewing/gallery features. So I had to go looking something else. And I found an alternative, one that looks exactly like an AirDroid clone but with this one extra feature.
To get started, make sure both the Android phone and your PC (or even your smart TV that has a web browser) are on the same Wi-Fi network.
Now, download the Web PC Suite app for Android and launch it. Go to the PC/Smart TV and open www.webpcsuite.com. Hold your phone’s camera against the screen to authenticate using the QR code. That’s it, now the phone and PC are connected.
Sidenote: If you have multiple apps and devices connecting with each other over Wi-Fi, Web PC Suite can give you a connection error. If that happens, go to Settings and change the web socket to something else.
On the website, click the Gallery icon. This will bring up all the images you have on your device. Scroll till you find the images you want to showcase. Click on an image for a full screen preview. Use the left/right arrow keys to navigate.
What’s important to note here is that all of this is very fast. Images load up quickly and switching between them is smooth as well. Don’t let the fact that it runs over a website get in the way of you trying it.
Using Chromecast
If your photos are backed up with Google+ (something you really should consider), you can go to the Photos app and cast them to Chromecast directly while connected to the internet.
But if you want to cast photos from your local storage, we’ll need to download an app calledPhotoCast.
Of course for this to work your Chromecast will need to be set up and connected to the same Wi-Fi network.
Launch the app and connect to the Chromecast using the Cast button.
Then browse the app’s albums and tap the photo you want to cast to the screen. It will appear on the TV in a jiffy. You can change the layout from fullscreen mode to stacked or magazine style. There’s also an option to start a slideshow.
How Do You Use Your Chromecast?
Do you use Chromecast? What novel uses for this cheap little HDMI dongle have you come up with? Let us know in the comments below.
So before I dive into the topic, let me tell you a brief history about why it was important for me to transfer my photos to the camera roll on the iPhone.
My parents came over to our place last weekend and the entire family went for a weekend trip. As usual, we took plenty of photos on my DSLR. Now, after the holidays, I was faced with the simple task of transferring the files to our family WhatsApp group just so that each one of us has the photos directly on our mobile device rather than downloading it from cloud storage or a Facebook album.
Had it been an Android, I would have transferred the files to the SD card via a data cable and then transferred them using WhatsApp. But for the month I was using my iPhone and a simple task became a struggle for me. Even the iTunes photo syncing didn’t work, as WhatsApp, or any other similar apps only take Camera Roll as a source of photos and adding any additional album using iTunes would not reflect.
Adding Photos to iOS Camera Roll
So finally I figured out a way that a user can transfer photos from PC directly to the Camera Roll and then share it using the various social apps installed on the iOS device. So let’s see some step by step instructions on how to easily transfer any photo directly to the iOS Camera Roll from Windows.
Step 1: Download and install a free app called Drop2Roll from the App Store. The app is free but quite old, and hasn’t been updated for quite some time. However, I have tested it on iOS 8.1.1 and it solves the issue in question.
Step 2: Connect the device and the computer from which you want to transfer the files to the same Wi-Fi network. If you don’t have a local Wi-Fi access point, you can check out our guide on how to host a personal hotspot using a laptop.
Step 3: Once the computer and iPhone are connected to the same network, launch theDrop2Roll on the iPhone. The app will give you an FTP URL, which you can access using a computer.
Step 4: Now open the Windows run box, type in the FTP address provided in the app and launch it. The FTP should open in Windows Explorer.
Note: If the FTP folder opens in Internet Explorer, click on the View option and select View in Explorer.
Step 5: After the FTP folder opens up in the Windows Explorer, copy all the photos you wish to transfer to your Camera Roll and you will be able to see all of them getting updated on the iOS app in real time.
Step 6: Now all you need to do is tap the Import Now button on the app to import all the photos to the camera roll. The importing might take time depending upon the number of photos, but once done, the app will close automatically.
Conclusion
So that was how you can transfer photos from any computer to the iOS Camera Roll easily without involving iTunes. You can then share these photos through various apps installed on your device. The process is wireless and hence can be performed using any computer running on any platform. So try it out and let me know how much of your time was saved.
