PC Doctor December 7, 2011
Have your computer questions answered here! Search the PC Doctor archive or submit a question of your own at info@athollibrary.org
Dear PC Doctor,
Why can't I play Blu-ray discs on my DVD player? Aren't they really just the same thing?
John
Dear John,
Whoa! That's not a PC question! However, I think other people would be interested in hearing the answer to your question so I’m happy to answer you.
Blu-ray Discs are called so because they use a special blue laser to read the discs. This blue laser is more powerful than the normal red lasers that regular DVD players use. Since the blue lasers can read more information that is spread throughout the layers of data on an optical disc, more data can be put on one disc. High definition movies are much, much larger in size than standard DVDs. Standard DVDs can only store up to 8.6 gigabytes while Blu-ray discs can contain almost 100 gigabytes of data. That is a lot!
Sadly, if you want to experience Blu-ray discs, you'll have to buy a new Blu-ray player. Thankfully, I haven't heard of a Blu-ray disc player that can't play a DVD, so you'll still be able to enjoy your standard definition movies.
PC Doctor
Dear PC Doctor,
I would like to be able to install new fonts on my computer. I downloaded some from www.dafont.com, but I don't know how I can set it up so they show up in anything. I can't find them in Microsoft Word or Paint. I have Windows XP.
Hilary
Dear Hilary,
Installing fonts is a piece of cake once you know how to do it. Dafont.com is also my go-to website when I need a special font. First, find where you downloaded the fonts. They're usually automatically put in the “Downloads” folder inside “My Documents”. Next, right click the icon or file for the font. A menu should pop up and in the list select “Install”. An installation window should appear for the few seconds it takes to install the font. After that, you're ready to go. If you had Microsoft Window or whatever program you're using open, close it and restart the program so the fonts will get added to the list.
While you can use a variety of different file type fonts, the main ones you'll find are “.ttf” and “.otf” ones. TrueType Font is a legacy type of font while the OpenType Font is a smaller and newer type of font file. Both work perfectly on Windows XP and both are installed the same way!
PC Doctor
Until next time…. Happy computing!
Posted: to Athol Library News on Wed, Dec 7, 2011
Updated: Wed, Dec 7, 2011
