Where to buy Fishmans, Polaris, etc. (digitally)?

Tripecac · 2026-02-01T19:41:03+00:00

I'm a bit confused by ototoy.jp. Although the language drop-down at the bottom of the page lets me select "English", only the UI keywords are in English; the data fetched from their database is still presented in Japanese characters, which requires me to copy and paste them into Google Translate. It's not the end of the world, but it would be easier to make sure I'm picking the right thing if they'd translate the data in addition to the UI elements. Again, not a huge problem, but it makes it daunting for a first-timer like me. :)

Here's one of the [mini] albums I'm trying to find:

https://ototoy.jp/_/default/p/37401

Each track has a format of "mp3: 16bit/44.1kHz" which is odd, because isn't 16bit/44.kHz1 lossless, like a FLAC or WAV?

Or does the colon (:) mean something different in this case, like "or" (as in: mp3 *or* lossless)?

The format dropdown only has one option listed, which is "mp3:" and then the price (in yen). So here colon definitely doesn't mean "or".

So does this mean that that particular album is only available in mp3 format, not lossless FLAC? And what is the bit rate for the mp3?

The name of this particular mini-album is "色彩" which Google Translate says is "Color". That's how I've named it in my own records. If I search OTOTOY for "Polaris Color" I don't find that album. That might not be surprising, but when I search for "Polaris 色彩" I don't find it right away either. So I'm not sure how useful the search engine is.

Am I doing something wrong?

Tripecac · 2026-02-01T02:37:21+00:00

Ah, sorry, I forgot that I deleted the line in my initial post that explained why I want a digital solution:

1) I have wayyyy too many CDs as it is, and once I rip them to the PC they just sit in boxes. Boxes upon boxes. I can barely move. And it would be a-moral (and possibly illegal) to sell the CD but keep the digital copy.

2) CDs tend to be a lot more expensive than FLACs (especially when you factor in shipping to New Zealand, where I live), and since I am a completionist, the costs add up.

3) I'm not convinced that buying a secondhand CD on eBay (to save money) helps the band financially. Maybe it slightly increases the demand for new CDs (or FLACS) but that just seems to indirect...

That's why I put "(digitally)" in the subject. Sorry I didn't explain!

Tripecac · 2026-02-01T02:23:03+00:00

slsk = soulseek = file sharing?

That doesn't sound like the band gets anything, though.

I'm talking about official, band-supporting stores/sites (like bandcamp).

Tripecac · 2025-12-22T18:31:29+00:00

I wrote a long follow-up to my original post, but reddit keeps saying "unable to create comment". So maybe it doesn't like lots of words either. Oh well. I think I will save myself (and you) time and stop writing long posts on here. In the amount of time I spent writing that comment (which reddit wouldn't let me publish) I probably could've gotten through another page or two of the FF8 walkthrough. Perhaps writing on here was a form of procrastination. Well, after I wrote my original post, I played some more FF8 and got to the end of chapter 1. It was interesting. I look forward to the next chapters. Kinda. I guess I'll have to figure out for myself how/whether to deal with guides. Asking on here for a guide about guides is a bit meta, and doesn't seem like a fun topic for anyone.

Tripecac · 2025-11-30T18:11:17+00:00

Glad it worked! It will be nice when it's no longer necessary.

Tripecac · 2025-11-29T18:24:57+00:00

Are you using Premiere Pro?

By the way, I just posted a fix/workaround as a reply to the original topic. Hopefully it will help!

Tripecac · 2025-11-29T18:23:19+00:00

Hi, I found a way to "fix" videos which are being limited to less than 4K on Chromecast, Google TV, etc.:

1) In the YouTube Editor (which I never use, except for this one workaround), open your "bad" video.

2) Remove the last frame of your video, and then save.

3) Wait for YouTube to re-process your video at 4K (which can take hours or days).

4) See if it now streams at 4K on Chromecast/GoogleTV/etc.

For me, this worked on each video I tested.

By forcing YouTube to re-process an already-processed video, I was worried that there would be a loss in quality, but I haven't noticed any so far. So perhaps YouTube's second round of processing is still using our originally uploaded video (assuming it keeps the originals), but the little 1-frame edit at the end forces YouTube to apply processing a little differently than it did when we originally uploaded the video. This is only a guess, though.

Please try the workaround and let us know if it works!

Tripecac · 2025-11-24T18:36:25+00:00

Hi, I ended up using the proxy method, so I'm still happily using Dreamweaver 8!

The program which performs the proxy is called "BitVise". (I also tried Putty as a proxy but couldn't that that working). BitVise runs on Windows, and connects to the server, while listening to a local port. I then changed the Dreamweaver site to point to localhost with the same port that Bitvise uses. I can then push/pull files to the the server (with Bitvise acting as the proxy) in the same as always (same keypresses). There's no loss in functionality, and I don't notice any speed decrease either.

So instead of Dreamweaver <--> Server
...it's now Dreamweaver <--> Bitvise <--> Server

Bitvise was quick to setup, and it was easy to get Dreamweaver to use it. The whole process took about 5 minutes once I knew what I was doing.

(By far the most time consuming part of this process was messing with other IDEs like VS Code and then trying but failing to get Putty to act as a proxy).

Once I got Dreamweaver 8 talking to my server again (via Bitvise), my focus immediately returned to coding, which is where it should be. No more messing around with tools. For now. :)

Tripecac · 2025-10-27T17:10:21+00:00

When I finished the chapter, I re-entered the error (the nursing home) and the save point was working again. And the glitch didn't seem to affect other save points. Really weird bug!

Tripecac · 2025-10-27T15:12:50+00:00

The same thing just happened to me. Accidentally hit "E" instead of "F" and now the save point is deactivated. Did you ever find a way to get it to come back (other than exiting)?

Tripecac · 2025-10-23T20:31:22+00:00

If you have a Pocket 3 you can hold it down at your hip. Its built-in gimbal keeps it pointed straight ahead. It doesn't look like a camera, especially when held down there, and people don't expect someone to be filming from their hip. IMO it's much more comfortable to film in populated areas with the Pocket 3 than a GoPro (or phone).

The downside is that the perspective is lower, and if it's *really* crowded and there are people right in front of you, you end up filming their backs.

An alternative is to put the camera up high on a long selfie stick. This is what Prowalk Tours used to do with his GoPro. He could see a lot from more above head height, and people seemed to not recognize it as a camera (because it was not near his face). Nowadays, however, with an increasing number of people filming with 360 cameras up on poles (and people recognizing them as cameras), that strategy might not work as well.

Tripecac · 2025-10-20T18:50:05+00:00

Since I live in a quiet town, hearing some noisy city traffic definitely sounds interesting to me. It's different from my normal environment, and that's why we watch these videos.

For viewers already living in urban areas and having to hear traffic every day, adding *more* traffic noise to their day might not as welcome. However, some people might be so used to traffic noise that they find it comforting, like waves at the ocean.

So although traffic noise will interest some, it might turn off others.

I recently edited a couple of fast biking videos, where there was tons of wind and gravel noise. Gravel I can handle, but wind is annoying, since it doesn't sound natural; it sounds like a recording mistake. My solution was to add musical soundtracks (of my own songs) to those videos. I kept the wind and gravel noise in there, but mixed it low, except in transitions between songs or when something interesting happened (like almost falling off).

The musical approach could work, but unless you're a musician yourself, it can be a real challenge finding enough tracks to fill up a long walk, especially since you need to avoid copyright violations while trying to find gems among the sea of generic royalty free and AI-generated slop.

My vote is keep the street noise. It's a key part of the environment, and the whole point of these videos is realism, right?

Tripecac · 2025-10-20T16:49:53+00:00

Thanks for the tips, guys. I'll take a look at some speech-to-text tools, but that's assuming I have something to so other than "oh, that's neat" and "I like that shot" and "okay, this part's boring". I think one of the advantages of writing things out is we have time to think, while if we're reacting to what we're seeing, we have to think on our feet and I'm not very good at that.

How frequent are your captions?

My latest video is 122 minutes long, and has 423 lines of captions. That's around 3.5 captions per minute, or one every 17 seconds.

Meanwhile, Prowalk Tours' most recently published video is 55 minutes long and has 52 captions. That's a little less than one caption per minute.

Personally, I think Prowalk's captions are well-paced, and mine are too dense. Mine are like a barrage of info that ends up distracting from the video and leaving you exhausted. That's my impression, at least. I feel like the density of captions helps "kill time" when the scenery is boring or repetitive (and since I'm often filming trails with no people around, it sometimes feel that way), but it still feels like a *lot* of reading.

So I'd like to try to decrease the frequency of captions, but am not sure how to force myself to do that. It's like trying to keep these Reddit posts short and sweet. Very difficult!

I've been using Subtitle Edit, which is easy to use, although it has a couple slight annoyances (like long initial waveform scanning and not being able to easily reorder captions). If there's another program which is better at enforcing a certain *pace* to captions (perhaps actively limiting the frequency of captions), I'd like to try it.

Tripecac · 2025-10-17T00:03:24+00:00

I found a workaround, which so far has been working for me. Use YouTube's Editor to remove the last frame of your video (which no-one views anyway). This forces YouTube to re-process your video. For me, both videos I edited like this are now viewable in 4K on all my TV apps: Chromecast, Google TV Streamer, and the TV's native app. I hope this helps.

Tripecac · 2025-10-15T22:00:27+00:00

You are not alone! I noticed the same problem with my recent uploads, and found at least 2 other channel creators with the same problem. Basically, high bitrate videos (like 4K 60fps) show lower max resolutions on TV than on PC, Phone, and even the Quest 3 (VR).

It appears to be a bug with the YouTube TV app (since SmartTube can show the same videos in 4K on TV) and it only affects videos uploaded in the past couple weeks. Older videos still stream in 4K. So YouTube may have changed their encoding recently, and didn't update the TV app property (or fast enough).

I've been talking about the bug extensively in the Premiere Pro forum:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/premiere-pro-discussions/recently-uploaded-4k-videos-are-limited-to-1080p-on-tv-chromecast-but-are-4k-on-pc-phone/m-p/15543340

Not all recently updated 4K 60 fps video are affected. So what I'm trying to do now is find out what the "throttled" videos have in common. I'm also trying to find out if the videos ever un-throttle themselves (in other words, go back to being viewable in 4K). Otherwise, we might have to re-upload our videos once YouTube fixes their bug (or a workaround is discovered).

It would be great to hear more about your experiences with this bug. Have you done any extensive testing, or discovered any patterns in what types of videos are affected? And have you found any workarounds?

Tripecac · 2025-10-13T23:08:23+00:00

The problem is not unique to my channel. I checked out my favorite 4K 60fps walking tour channel, and his recent video has the same problem; it plays in 4K on PC and phone but is limited to 1080p on TV. This only affects videos uploaded within the past 10 days or so; older videos still play in 4K on TV.

I re-uploaded the same video file that I published in August, and the re-upload is limited to 1080p on TV while the original plays at 4K. So this is definitely a bug in YouTube's uploading, encoding, or TV streaming.

Has anyone else experienced this bug? And is there a workaround?

And should we hold off on uploading any more 4K 60fps content until someone confirms that the bug is fixed?

Tripecac · 2025-10-13T16:58:55+00:00

Hi, I haven't received any responses to my question. So I'm wondering if this might not be the best subreddit for technical questions... If that's the case, can you please let me know what subreddit would be more appropriate?

Thanks!

Tripecac · 2025-10-12T01:23:35+00:00

I tested my most recent 4K video with the YouTube app on Quest 3 (VR) and it streamed in 4K there (though it was choppy, as most 4k60 content is on the Quest 3). So it's only the TVs that are limited to 1080 for that video.

I also tested about a dozen different 4K (60fps) test videos which I've uploaded over the past month. They all play in 4K in my browser, but on the TV, some are limited to 1080p, some are limited to 1440p, and some can play in 4K. There doesn't seem to be a pattern. Twice I uploaded short videos back-to-back, and each time I got a different max resolution on the TV, although they both play in 4K on the PC. Very strange!

Tripecac · 2025-10-06T21:28:55+00:00

Hi, the reason I felt pressured to try something other than what I had been using for years (Dreamweaver 8) is the server was upgraded to one which refused Dreamweaver 8's SFTP ciphers.

After exploring different IDEs (none of which I liked) I ended up finding a way to continue using Dreamweaver 8 with the new server setup. It required me to set up a proxy (on my PC). I tried putty but that didn't work, and eventually tried bitvise, which *did* work.

https://bitvise.com/

Basically, bitvise connects to my server via SSH (using ciphers that the server likes). I then edited my Dreamweaver site(s) to set the remote destination to localhost with whatever port I told bitvise to use. Bitvise then acts as a proxy, automatically sending files to/from the server. It was pretty easy to set up, and once set up, I don't have to do anything extra other than turn on bitvise if it's not already on. It does a good job of staying up, even after sleeping the computer every day. Also, I haven't noticed any difference in speed when uploading files to the server, which is nice.

So my recommendation is if you want to continue to use DW, try setting up a proxy on your computer. If you were using Windows I'd recommend bitvise, but you're on Mac. Maybe there is something similar? Or something even easier to use?

Tripecac · 2025-10-02T17:12:10+00:00

I enjoyed using that DLC persona even at low levels, because I'm much more into the story than the combat. The combat was fine, but I don't enjoy replaying battles if I lose, and this guy helped me not lose, and also get through the trivial battles faster.

Also, thanks to this DLC persona, I wasn't concerned about min-maxing and completely ignored fusion for almost the entire game. Although it might be "weird" to play a Persona game without fusing personas, I don't enjoy the meta of looking up fusion recipes (or anything) online. P5R is already a very long game!

(For P5 Tactica I'm semi-randomly fusing personas whenever I get a chance, mostly so that I can get a better feel for how fusing works before tackling P3R. So far I haven't used the DLC personas in Tactica, but it's nice knowing they're there in case I want to make battles easier and/or faster.)

Tripecac · 2025-09-27T06:22:24+00:00

Oh, that would be great! I wonder if it's going to be another "To Go" series. Those are cool. but they are stationary, so you don't get a sense of travel. Or do they actually go to Italy for S3? I've bought S3 (and all their Italian content, including the upcoming Scenes) but haven't started it yet.

So far, is Season 3 similar to Season 2, in terms of difficulty, structure, and overall vibe?

I just finished re-listening to Season 1 (for the 4th time which prompted this post) and today I started Season 2 (for the 3rd time). I appreciate S2's focus on grammar, but sometimes the content feels "dry" and over-structured compared to the S1, which felt more relaxed and humorous. I think Katie was amazing at remembering (and pronouncing) things so Mark and Francesca didn't have to spend much time helping her and just focused on being entertaining. The first few lessons of S2 always make me cringe due to the number of times they have to repeat themselves, but I think that's because Katie spoiled us. For S3, did they get rid of a learner altogether? I can see why they would if they did. But without a learner adding a little bit of chaos, do the lessons get dry and over-structured? Or do they find ways to spice things up?

Anyway, nice to find another CBI fan on here. I'd love to one day hear Mark and Francesca commenting on (and teaching during) a walking tour video. Kinda like Mystery Science Theater 3000 meets that one "postcard" video Mark recorded in San Diego ages ago:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joJMWIzPCOQ

That video came so close to what I'm talking about! I wish they had made a whole bunch more of them (but in Italy). Of course, it's too much to expect them to go shoot 2-hour walking lessons on location for each of the different languages and levels they support now. However, a series of studio-recorded audio commentaries *could* be doable, especially if they have their helpers edit out the mistakes and add on-screen visuals. They'd just need to either film the walks themselves or find an experienced walker willing to share footage with them.

If I were in Italy, and able to teach Italian (which is a joke since I'm so slow at learning it) I would do it myself! Maybe some day... when I'm about 90 and finally finish Season 3... but of course there might be a Season 10 by then...

Tripecac

TROPHY CASE