Topic: Episode 201: Refractory Period

[Jonnyboy117]

We take it a little easier this week and read some of your favorite DS memories.

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/rfn/23664

It's a three-man show this week, as Jon got held up announcing his move to Miami on live television. We had planned for a light episode anyway, and that's what you'll get. New Business is all over the place, with Trauma Team, Motorstorm: Pacific Rift, Sin & Punishment: Star Successor, Endless Ocean: Blue World, Super Stardust HD, and Joe Danger.

Part two is mostly your DS anecdotes, which we read and provide some commentary on. We also answer one question about Tiger Woods, MotionPlus, and our perceived apathy towards sports (or at least sports video games).

Our next RetroActive discussion has started - head into our forum thread for Mother 3 to contribute your thoughts on the game for a future episode of RFN!

[greybrick]

The first and last letter of mine to ever be read on RFN involved the accusation of me recreating my manhood in pictochat to lure an unsuspecting female. I am pleased with my legacy.

[Kytim89]

Here is a picture of the Gulf War Gameboy:
 

[Crimm]

graybrick is blue now.  It's weirding me out.

[greybrick]

graybrick is blue now.  It's weirding me out.

You could always make me grey, note the proper English spelling.

-I would totally buy Dark Side of the Endless Ocean, I don't think that Floyd LP has left my record player in over a year.

[Shaymin]

Nuts, Jonny's out this week. I was hoping he'd be out next week for 203.

Then we could get Karl and Stan back on.

[Crimm]

I thought about it when he told us he would be out.

I was relieved.

[gtownclown]

Is my IPhone stupid or are the chapter pictures and breaks missing from the last 2 episodes? If they just aren't being done anymore I’m formally complaining. The pictures make it more distracting on my crappy Monday mornings at work. The chapter breaks let me and my friend discuss the episode better and more clearly. And I already commented on ITunes that I love the editing and I consider this part of the editing process.
I still love the show keep it up.

[Yoshidious]

Is my IPhone stupid or are the chapter pictures and breaks missing from the last 2 episodes? If they just aren't being done anymore I’m formally complaining.

The chapter art and breaks are still being made, however what's happening currently is that the enhanced AAC file is going out a little while later (so far it's been under 24 hours)--if you download 200 or 201 now, you'll find they have the chapters as normal.
 
This disruption is due to the fact that the method we non-Mac users have been using to create the enhanced AAC file for the past two and a half years was discovered to be incompatible with iOS4 (people couldn't stream the file on devices using it), so now the enhanced file has to wait until a Mac user on staff (great thanks to Andy) can create it using my instructions. Obviously I don't want this to delay the episode being posted for everyone, so for now we have this unfortunate lag.
 
Clearly this isn't ideal and we're looking into ways we can eradicate this problem going forward (Apple tech support have been of no help so far), but to be clear you can still get the enhanced version of the most recent episodes after iOS4 hit.   

[NWR_Karl]

Clearly the remedy here is for Greg to buy a Mac.

One of us. One of us. One of us.

[Crimm]

As the point man on the iOS4 recovery unit I can expand on what Greg is discussing.

My exchanges have gone as follows:

"Hello, my name is James Jones. I am part of a podcast (iTunes listed) that has, until recently, been providing an enhanced AAC feed for our listeners. However, our listeners reported that after upgrading to iOS4 they were unable to stream the file. Because we use PCs we are unable to use an Apple product for this task, and have instead been using the tool Slide Show Assembler. This had not been an issue for the prior 2.5 years, but now is an issue.

Our listeners like the additional content we provide them in the enhanced feed. Any help you can offer would be appreciated."

"Slide-show Assembler is not an Apple product. Please contact the creator with all questions."

"Dear sir/madam,
The AAC and enhanced AAC are both Apple creations. As is the iOS4. Clearly if SSA worked prior to iOS4 then SSA was creating valid AAC files. I simply want to know if something in iOS4 was changed with respect to this."

"Podcasts created using Garageband are working under iOS4."

"Well that's great for you. Enjoy your antennas."


I don't do well with tech support.

[KDR_11k]

And people complain about governments investigating Apple for antitrust violations...

Sounds like Super Stardust HD is quite different from regular Super Stardust, for example regular SSD had 5 weapons IIRC, one for each world.

[broodwars]

I'm not seeing James' supposed blog entry regarding his thoughts on Mirror's Edge.  Was that just something he intended to put up when you recorded this episode?

[Crimm]

No, it's currently hidden, since I'm unhappy with it but cannot discern what I dislike and how best to fix it. Jon got confused because staff members can see it ("it's rambling" "Thanks Jon") and it looks no different than stuff that is visible to the site viewership at large. On the old site hidden content was denoted more clearly.

I protested its inclusion in the Now Playing segment during recording but I guess Greg "Scissorhands" Leahy removed my objections.

[Yoshidious]

James' your memory is deceiving you here somewhat--your discussion about the blog not being visible yet was not recorded for me to "remove" any "objections" (I assume you're not charging me with travelling back in time and somehow erasing your words from the space time continuum), and secondly the last thing you said about the blog before we recorded the segment was that you were likely to make it visible between then and the episode's post date.

[MegaByte]

Clearly if SSA worked prior to iOS4 then SSA was creating valid AAC files.

I'm not sure if this is entirely true.  Those files don't work as well (or sometimes, at all) on several Windows-based AAC players either.  The previous iOS player might have been more lenient to badly-constructed files.

[Crimm]

Greg, I probably did. I teetered on the issue for a bit. I don't remember which option became the final decision, so I'll assume you're correct. Suffice to say, that blog post ready for human consumption at this moment. It's a wordy, a bit wayward, wall of text. Jon also totally misrepresented the post's nature, but it isn't his fault. Too many big words.

Aaron, I've never had any trouble playing the AAC files SSA creates, nor can I recall any specific instances of similar concerns. Be that as it may, I cannot understand why they would have locked down the file type for the latest iteration of their OS unless they deemed the previous methodology to be a security risk, at which point you would think they would have released a patch to previous versions as well. As far as I know only two programs in existence can create the damn things as it is.

[MegaByte]

Do the GarageBand-created files with slideshows still work?  It might not be something intentionally broken, just something that SSA wasn't doing quite the same and Apple didn't test.

[Crimm]

Most professional podcasts are made on Garageband, so I would guess that they work.

It seems SSA is currently a suspended project; the author noted back in 2008 that "by now I have to guess others have figured out what it takes to enhance podcasts." Nope.

There is a pay product, ProfCast, that I'm going to start exploring. However it's $60 and it's completely possible it A) doesn't work well or B) has the same issue.

[MegaByte]

How about:

Chapter and Verse (Free): http://lodensoftware.com/chapter-and-verse/
Chapter Master ($15 Shareware): http://rightwordsoft.com/products/chaptermaster/default.php

[Crimm]

Ha ha! More toys!

Inside Baseballcast.

[MegaByte]

There's also http://id3v2-chap-tool.sourceforge.net/ and others http://www.id3.org/Implementations for making chapters in MP3 files.

[happyastoria]

Clearly the remedy here is for Greg to buy a Mac.

One of us. One of us. One of us.

You are aware that Greg is a heterosexual man. Why on earth would he get a mac unless he was attracted to the same sex? Silly questions needs silly responses. A mac? Ha!

By the way, can we still submit DS stories?

[Crimm]

Clearly the remedy here is for Greg to buy a Mac.

One of us. One of us. One of us.

You are aware that Greg is a heterosexual man. Why on earth would he get a mac unless he was attracted to the same sex?

OH NO!

And I guess if you want to submit them and hide the DS story as a question...

[NWR_Karl]

Clearly the remedy here is for Greg to buy a Mac.

One of us. One of us. One of us.

You are aware that Greg is a heterosexual man. Why on earth would he get a mac unless he was attracted to the same sex? Silly questions needs silly responses. A mac? Ha!

By the way, can we still submit DS stories?

Gay jokes, really? Okay.

Anyway, Apple Customer Service has a pretty bad record when it comes to dealing with Windows-related issues. They're great for OS X, but there's no denying that air of pretentiousness. It might be worth it to just go about things in another way.