Trouble with compatability…
Posted by Steve on December 26, 2007
So recently I found a bug in windows. So I thought ‘cool, I’ll take some screen capture of it and then upload it to youtube and write a blog post about it.’ So I get two of these three things done properly; and based on the title a bet you can assume which one I couldn’t get to function!
Firstly I’ll describe the bug. The bug occurs when editing the details of a music file. If you select one of the text boxes and scroll the mouse wheel the text box floats as you scroll. THis clearly is not designed functionality.
So my first step was to get the screen capture and export it into a .avi file. I use software meant for screen capture (I am avoiding the name because I don’t want to bring negative attention to a product that in general I really enjoy) to get a nice 30 second video of the bug. When exporting to a .avi I fiddle with the settings slightly so the file is a reasonable 2 Mb size (instead of the original 170 Mbs!). I view the video file everything seems to be fine, the video looks ok and the framerate seems good as well.
From here I start writing a post on this blog to let the world know of this grievous error (heh heh)! I get my post all set and save it before posting it and surf over to youTube to upload my video (as this blog does not accept video uploads).
Here is where the trouble begins. I try to upload my screen captured .avi file, and everything seems to be going fine but when I watch the video it is only one second long! It was like watching the bug in fast motion, all of the 30 seconds where compressed into one.
I have a theory of why this happened; I am ‘fairly’ confident that it was because the frame rate I chose to take the video in was different then from what youTube desired. What I found odd about this whole thing was that the video plays fine in Winamp, windows media player and VLC player but once its uploaded to youTube it ends up being one second long!
My contemplation here lies with the following question: ‘Is this user error, or a bug in the youTube software?’.
Frankly I am not sure. I feel that I am pretty computer savvy but I have had no end of trouble with this youtube upload. I could, with reasonable certainty, identify what the issue was, but for some reason I could not seem to fix it (I tried a few times). Am I at fault and should be more aware of the .avi I exported or should youTube’s software be able to rectify the disparities between the video I am giving and what it expects.
Just something to think about while I get some new video capturing software and see if I can get that bug uploaded!
–Steve
Discussions and arguments are not about who is right or wrong; they are about having new ideas, thoughts and expanding the mind.
Still Life 
Eric Argo said
This is an example of one of the questions I ask at tech interviews. Can you explain how one defect leads to other defects? (which is a book of worms in itself) Even though it was quite indirectly related to the first defect, because a pursuit decision was made, (wanting to post the defect) knowledge was given on a different defect. Had you not found the first you probably would not have stumbled upon the second. Since decisions affect outcomes, its the decision to make a decision that enables the outcome to live.