Category Archives: Tech

Using Existing DIR-655 Router with Starhub MaxInfinity Fibre Plan

Initially I was a little apprehensive about hooking up to fibre connections. From all reports via friends, colleagues, friends of friends etc, it seems you are doomed to using only the modem/router combination as provided by your ISP (M1, Singnet, Starhub) and you have little or no choice in using your own existing router.

Why does someone want to use his own router? For one thing, all your wireless SSID, security settings, DHCP, and so on, are already configured. If you have to dump your router and use only the one provided by the ISP you would have to set everything up again.

In any case I was surprised how easy it was.

When the Starhub guy came he said essentially that if I wanted to use my router I would have to disable DHCP on it and all my reservations will have to be done on the new router. I didn’t want to prolong the issue so I said ok, you set it up as you normally would, I would figure it out later.

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Black Border Around Video In Windows Media Player

Recently, I ran into a very puzzling problem.

One fine day, my videos suddenly had a black border around it. I remembered clearly that previously they played fine in full-screen (Alt-Enter), but now in full-screen, they have this black border around it.

I tried playing the same video in VLC, and it played fine in full screen. So that implies that the video only is affected by DirectShow filters.

I then tried to recall what I did recently just prior to this problem, and I remembered that I turned on the ATI Catalyst “Steady Video” function.

 

It was set to “95%” when I first saw it. So, I moved the slider to 100%, but yet the black border persisted.

In desperation, I un-checked the “Enable AMD Steady Video” option, and my videos went back to full-screen!

So, if the normal fixes of making WMP stretch the video to fill your screen doesn’t get rid of black borders, and if you’re using an ATI graphics card, try looking at this option and see if it will fix your problem.

 

 

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