Category Software tips

Make MPC-BC more like MPC-HC

I have been a long time user of MPC-HC which was recently abandoned by its developers. It’s a shame, because the media player was not only versatile and minimal. It was blazing fast, very user friendly, and supported all media formats I could think of. So I started to use MPC-BC instead, as recommended by many. Its a great alternative, though it honestly looks like a cheap and tacky version of MPC-HC. For me though, some of the default settings are a bit odd. Player window does not adjust to resolution First of all, the player window does not adjust to the video resolution. This means that if you open a video in UHD resolution, for example, the video player might be super small. Here is how you can fix it: Just turn on “Auto-zoom” to 100% in Options -> Playback. Blurry subtitles Another strange default setting in MPC-BC is that subtitles look very blurry. Almost as if they are burned in the video, even if they are external subtitles. You can fix this by going to Options -> Subtitles -> Rendering and set the “maximum texture resolution” to “Desktop”. Turn off dark theme You can also turn off the “dark theme”. Not sure why everyone is so obsessed with that these days. Options -> Player -> Interface -> Uncheck “Use dark theme”. Remove the logo The startup MPC-BC logo is not really too good looking either. Why not just remove it? Options -> Player -> Logo -> Skip with right arrow until the picture is gone.

Convert subtitles from the command line with SubtitleEdit

We can use SubtitleEdit from the command line in Windows to do batch operations on subtitle files. Just install SubtitleEdit first. If you are using the portable version, make sure you put the exe in PATH. Example: Convert TTML to SRT: It’s even easier in a Directory Opus button. Just make sure it is set to run as MS-DOS Batch function: Output: Becomes this:

Print list of files and folders in Windows

Here are a few ways you can get a list of files and folders on a computer. I won’t get into specifics on how to use them. I just wanted to give you the options. 😇 The DIR command (Simple way to list files and folders) Documentation: Microsoft Docs Articles: How-To Geek, SS64, Computer Hope, windows-commandline Advantages: Good if you just need list of files, types, sizes etc… Disadvantages: Not good if you need a visual representation of the file hierarchy. GUI Alternative: JR Directory Printer does pretty much the same with a GUI. Karen’s Directory Printer offers a little more options, but it is not portable. There is also DirLister that can export to Excel and other formats, but it is buggy and adds annoying text after each file/folder. TREE command (Make a directory structure tree) Documentation: Microsoft Docs Articles: SS64, Computer Hope Advantages: Very simple and limited. Good if you just need a tree of the directory structure Disadvantages: Not good if you just need a list of files, advanced filtering or if you need something more visually pleasing. Snap2HTML (Software to make dynamic HTML) Documentation: GitHub Download: Snap2HTML Advantages: A beautiful and eloquent way to share complex directory structures with other non-technical people. Also, the software is portable, free and allows you to export to CSV or JSON. Disadvantages: Requires HTML and a web browser. The template looks a bit outdated, but you can change it if you know HTML.

Enable version control in Bvckup 2

What is Bvckup 2? Bvckup 2 is a lightweight and versatile Windows premium backup software. I have used it for some years now and it really is superb. The only feature I am missing is “version control”. Especially when you are editing the same file over and over. You really need to be able to go back in time sometimes. What is version control? File control, file versioning, file history, version control – are all different names for what is commonly known as “Versioning file system”. Let’s say you do not have version control. Without “version control” (a.k.a file history) you would backup a file, and every time the original file is changed, the backup gets overwritten by the latest change. So, for example, if you are working on a document and you realize you have accidentally deleted 10 pages in the document. You check your backup… and HEY! You have a backup file, great! 😃👍 But hold on… That backup is also missing 10 pages, because the backup was made recently. Noooooooooooo! 😲😖 That is exactly why you need version control (not backup)! With backup you will only have the most recent backup. With version control you will have multiple backup versions. Mac users are probably laughing right now because they have Time Machine for years. Let’s hope Microsoft is catching up soon. And I don’t mean the horrible implementation of file history, because it cant be trusted at all. How to enable version control Bvckup 2 actually has a “hidden” feature in Bvckup 2 called archive\_modified which enables file versioning. 😲🙀 This feature allows you to keep all versions of a backed-up file. Every time the file is backed up, the older version of the file is moved to a folder called $Archive (Bvckup 2). Make a new […]