Removing channels you dont want to watch can be done -- but it would be really nice if there was a way to do it from the guide.
If you aren't afraid of voiding your warranty, you can install software like MFSFTP, Tyserver, Tystudio, etc and be able to do digital video extraction for archiving onto your file server or DVD.
I think that Tivo is a triumph in usability. Not only is the remote very comfortable to hold (it is by far my favorite remote), but the GUI on the application itself is extremely well thought out.
I can't count how many times when using Xbox Media Center to watch a movie that I've been frustrated by the many ways that that XBMP falls short of the Tivo experience.
The fast forward / rewind interface is beautiful. Not only is the predictive fast forwarding extremely convenient, but it also shows you where you are in the movie in an equivalent of a scroll bar.
It's a shame that it isn't easier to convert MPEGs into TMFs that can be inserted w/ MFSFTP. If it was, I'd be watching my archived movies on my Tivo instead of in XBMP in a heart beat.
My only complaint (actually My GF's complaint) is that it sometimes is difficult for her in the dark to figure out which side is up and which is down.
This doesn't belong here. Go to Tivocommunity.com or the Tivo dealdatabase forums. This information is well covered.
If you have an older DirecTivo (series 1) like I do, buy a turbonet adapter from 9thtee.com and install it per directions. You then put in a special code into the phone number field and your DirecTivo will use your Internet connection instead of a phone line.
I don't know if that will work for PPV (I never buy PPV)
If you have newer DirecTivo models, I believe you can get a USB/ethernet port for them in follow a similar process.
I spend a lot of hours video gaming w/ my girlie. Fortunately for me, being raised with a geeky brother was a good influence on her.:)
While it would be inappropriate to make sweeping genrealizations about girl vs boy gaming, my girlie at least prefers cooperative vs competitive gaming. She doesn't really like military-themed stuff as much (although I did eventually get her roped into Halo).
Her favorite games are ones like Gauntlet, Baldur's Gate, Dungeons and Dragons Heros or puzzle games (I just forgot the name -- but the one where you shoot rows of bubbles)...
I know this doesn't address the communication aspect (we sit next to each other when we play).. but perhaps you should give more thought to the subject material/theme of the game...
Flash cards price are constantly dropping. I meant my rant to be more directed towards the value of "no DRM" vs the [dis]advantages of a flash player vs a HD player.
If apple sold an ipod that played MP3s and would act as a removable storage drive w/o drivers -- I'd buy one in a heart beat.
I purchased a NexIIe from Frontier Labs because I wanted a player that had no (or at least did not require) DRM.
My last MP3 player was a Compaq IPAQ-1. Compaq stopped supporting it and I had a lot of problems trying to get their software to work on Win 2000/XP/20003. I can't just copy my music to its memory cards because guess what? It is stored in a proprietary format. That means you need to have their software which means that if they go out of business or don't support your OS, your nice little gadget is worthless!
With my NexIIe, I can just plug the device in via a USB cable to my computer and it shows up as a disk drive. I can copy music files (or even copy other files for storage). If I want better performance, instead of connecting the NexIIe, I just pull the CompactFlash card and put it into a card reader. I use no tool more complicated than explorer to manage my music.
The current firmware even supports CF up to 2GB. I don't see why you would want a 2GB hard drive when you could have 2GB of solid state. That said, it would be nice to have a 10+ GB version of my player.
Thanks for the advice!... I had to mess w/ everything in roder to get the CIFS mount module created. Who knew an upgrade to W2003 would cause so many samba headaches!:)
I'd like to start playing w/ compiling custom kernels. Can you get the.config files that are used to make the RH RPM kernels or do they just use default options?
I'm not a videophile, but the difference between video captures and digital extraction was readily noticable. I suspect that the real issue was from signal degradation (I was using decent (i.e. monster) svideo cables).
The video seemed to have more mpeg2 artifacts and the colors weren't right.
Perhaps these are all solvable.
Issue #3: Quality (Audio)
I agree that most channels don't broadcast 5.1, but I do disagree about it being a "toy". Most of the content that I archive from my DirecTivo to my PC or DVD for future watching are movies. A substantial % of these are broadcast in 5.1. I for one, really enjoy the sounds of bullets, etc wizzing around my head:)
Am I to understand that if you do have 5.1 sound, that MythTV can encode it? I don't think you can encode 5.1 in MP3 -- I beleive that AC3 is used for that...
Say you are a DirecTV owner (like myself), a home theatre PC has significant issues when compared do a hacked DirecTivo.
Issue #1: Control
Can MythTV control the receiver (i.e. via a serial port or an IR blaster)?
Issue #2: Video Quality (this is the big one)
You still need to connect up your PC w/ a video capture device to the output of your DirecTV receiver. This means that there is an additional digital->analog and analog->digital transaction occuring.
Of you have hacked your DirecTivo, you can digital extract the programming at broadcast MPEG2 quality.
I used to do video capture w/ an All in Wonder. There is a world of difference between the vid caps I did on my AIW and the digital extractions from the DirecTivo. Even if I did a vid capture at a higher resolution+bit rate than the original programming, the quality was still inferior.
Issue #3: Quality (Audio)
If the movie is broadcast in 5.1, will MythTV record it?
I only read the discovery article, but the science seems a bit weak to me.
From what I gather, they took a number of sparkling wines that were rated of different qualities and then tried to determine the difference. Given this methodology, its not at all surprising that they found that the size of the bubbles was the differentiator since I was under the impression it was already well known that smaller bubbles was better.
If the wine tasting community already believed that smaller bubbles were better and that influenced their ranking, then it shouldn't be too surprising that the study turned up a correlation.
Perhaps I'm not giving the study enough credit -- because Discovery doesn't go into that level of detail... but I hope that they used some sort of blind taste test w/ people other than trained wine tasters to establish the ranking system for the different champagnes that they tested...
I haven't read the article and I don't know what I am talking about... but..
I was under the impression that nuclear waste was good source material for "all sorts of bad things" -- ranging from making weapons grade materials to just using to pollute water supplies... etc.
I've read enough horror stories about the security around nuclear power plants -- will mini-reactors make this any better?
Thats got to be one of the worst suggestions I've ever heard.
Email is a 7 bit medium. If you take a file and encode it for email, you are basically getting 8 bit content to work in a 7 bit medium. This means that the overall file size is increased. Since the author was complaining about speed, adding that overhead isn't likely to help.
That + the fact that email really isn't designed for transferring large files around. You'd probably break the hell out of whatever mail system you were using anyways.
There are plenty of other suggestions here (i.e. a HTTP based application.. or better yet just encrypting the control channel)..
I was taken for a sizable chunk of change by a "career counseling" firm. Often times these firms represent themselves as recruiters. Unlike recruiters, they charge the job seeker a fee. They promise to provide you with access to contacts/the "hidden" job market and usually bundle things such as resume re-writes and "career marketing plans."
I recommend strong caution before you ever pay someone to assist you in your job search. For more information see:
Jobscams.com
Welcome to the world of Porsche...
on
Build-to-Order Cars?
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
My last two Boxster's were built to order to my specifications. Waiting 3+ months for your car to arrive is a bitch, but the anticipation can be fun.
There are literally hundreds of options/choices that you can pick. I really like the idea of everything being "a la carte" so you don't end up paying for features that you don't care about. I also like the idea of knowing that my car is +/- unique (or at least relatively unique)...
I've been a happy paying customer (quite a bit - I subscribe to just about everything) of DirecTV for quite a few years.
Unfortunately, they have me locked in. I love my DirecTivo -- and while I find these sort of tactics very offensive -- I'm not willing to cancel my service over it. That said, I can only hope that others are less attached to their DirecTV set up and move to the competition.
Step 1 - Do some research online. I did some Google searching and found quite a bit of information published by the state of CA on how to do collections.
Here is a brief summary of how it works in CA.
You can either: get a collection agency or do it yourself.
Collection agency will take a % of the $s.
If you want to do it, you have a number of options. Pretty much all of them start with getting what I believe is called a Writ of Execution. It is a two page form that needs to be signed by the courts.
Once you have that, you can:
Collect against their bank account (you may need to fill out another form, then the Sheriff will go to the bank and get the money. You don't get it immediately -- they have a time period where if they can show that the $s are protected (i.e. social security type stuff) then they get it back.
If they run a retail store front that has cash on premises, you can get the sheriff to go and empty out their cash registers.
If you know how there clients are, you can get an order so that the clients will give you the money directly (talk about an embarrasment to them!).
You can also order them to have to sell assets to raise you the money.
Re:ADHD is not as funny as you jerks think it is.
on
Working with ADHD?
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
I've never been diagnosed with ADHD, but I'd be willing to bet I'd "pass" the test -- especially if I was tested when I was younger. My parents tried to control my diet under the belief that sugars, artificial flavors/preservatives, and some other chemicals were triggers.
Perhaps I'm lucky that I enjoy my work (technology management) so that I don't find myself getting distracted from it. I do have a difficult time paying attention to things that bore me.
Being an ADHD technology manager can be a challenge. Last thing everyone needs is a spaz interrupting everyone and making decisions before completing the requisite analysis. I have to constantly keep a "watch thread" running on my behavior to try and keep myself in line.
I'm fairly happy with my ADHD nature -- probably because it isn't quite as extreme as what some of the people here have described. I find that my "inner spaz" is a powerful energy source that I'm able to call upon to do great things.
The poster earlier who said it was a "two edged sword" is right on.
I'm almost 30. I've been coding and generally dinking on computers since 3rd grade... 8 years old? My handwriting is pretty terrible. I don't remember how to "properly" do cursive anymore. Part of the reason my handwriting is so messy is because I try and write as fast as possible. I find it very distracting when there are delays between the formation of a thought and its recording.
I think people should know how to handwrite, but I don't think cursive still needs to be taught. They could better spend the time subjecting kids to cursive by investing that in their math, science, art, etc education!
When I was a grad student, I did some work for an Army project on building some of the biosensors that would be included in future uniforms. The organization I did the research for was working on biosensors to measure heartbeat (I did some work on the microcode) and was attempting to build a hypothermia/shiver detector (that I was doing most of my work on).
We were experimenting with placing small devices that measure acceleration in various places and attempting to determine from a frequency-time analysis (i.e. imagine a frequency spectrum vs time) using neural networks and wavelet analysis to try and differentiate between the acceleration profiles caused by walking, running, moving, etc vs shivering....
The alternative was to stick a small thermometer up the soldier's "rear" which I don't think anyone wanted:)
I run Xbox Media Player to play my videos (MPG, AVI, etc), audio (an impressive number of codecs supported), and shoutcast streams. It also can function as a slideshow for your pictures. XBMP is a great application and is only getting better. XBMP will play the files from your server (via a number of different cross-platform protocols).
I have a turbonet card from 9thtee installed on my series 1 DirecTivo (Philips DSR 6000). The Tivo is an excellent PVR. While some try and replace some of its functionality with a PC, I think that the Tivo just has a much better interface. By using software such as Tystudio (beta 2) or MFS_FTP, it is possible to pull down MPEG or M2V/M2A elemental streams. You can use this to create a MTV video juke box, archive movies to your HD, or burn DVDs. And yes... you do get the full bitstream available to the DirecTV -- no signal degradation + 5.1 sound. etc.
Slashdot Mirror
It looks like they have a fairly extensive IP block list. It shouldn't be too hard to get this list to work w/ IPtables.
My question -- will IPtables run "okay" with a few thousand block rules?
Removing channels you dont want to watch can be done -- but it would be really nice if there was a way to do it from the guide.
If you aren't afraid of voiding your warranty, you can install software like MFSFTP, Tyserver, Tystudio, etc and be able to do digital video extraction for archiving onto your file server or DVD.
I think that Tivo is a triumph in usability. Not only is the remote very comfortable to hold (it is by far my favorite remote), but the GUI on the application itself is extremely well thought out.
I can't count how many times when using Xbox Media Center to watch a movie that I've been frustrated by the many ways that that XBMP falls short of the Tivo experience.
The fast forward / rewind interface is beautiful. Not only is the predictive fast forwarding extremely convenient, but it also shows you where you are in the movie in an equivalent of a scroll bar.
It's a shame that it isn't easier to convert MPEGs into TMFs that can be inserted w/ MFSFTP. If it was, I'd be watching my archived movies on my Tivo instead of in XBMP in a heart beat.
My only complaint (actually My GF's complaint) is that it sometimes is difficult for her in the dark to figure out which side is up and which is down.
This doesn't belong here. Go to Tivocommunity.com or the Tivo dealdatabase forums. This information is well covered.
If you have an older DirecTivo (series 1) like I do, buy a turbonet adapter from 9thtee.com and install it per directions. You then put in a special code into the phone number field and your DirecTivo will use your Internet connection instead of a phone line.
I don't know if that will work for PPV (I never buy PPV)
If you have newer DirecTivo models, I believe you can get a USB/ethernet port for them in follow a similar process.
I spend a lot of hours video gaming w/ my girlie. Fortunately for me, being raised with a geeky brother was a good influence on her. :)
While it would be inappropriate to make sweeping genrealizations about girl vs boy gaming, my girlie at least prefers cooperative vs competitive gaming. She doesn't really like military-themed stuff as much (although I did eventually get her roped into Halo).
Her favorite games are ones like Gauntlet, Baldur's Gate, Dungeons and Dragons Heros or puzzle games (I just forgot the name -- but the one where you shoot rows of bubbles)...
I know this doesn't address the communication aspect (we sit next to each other when we play).. but perhaps you should give more thought to the subject material/theme of the game...
I could be wrong, but I think that there are now 2GB CF solid state cards out now (i.e. not micro-drives). They are pretty expensive (~$500)
Flash cards price are constantly dropping. I meant my rant to be more directed towards the value of "no DRM" vs the [dis]advantages of a flash player vs a HD player.
If apple sold an ipod that played MP3s and would act as a removable storage drive w/o drivers -- I'd buy one in a heart beat.
My last MP3 player was a Compaq IPAQ-1. Compaq stopped supporting it and I had a lot of problems trying to get their software to work on Win 2000/XP/20003. I can't just copy my music to its memory cards because guess what? It is stored in a proprietary format. That means you need to have their software which means that if they go out of business or don't support your OS, your nice little gadget is worthless!
With my NexIIe, I can just plug the device in via a USB cable to my computer and it shows up as a disk drive. I can copy music files (or even copy other files for storage). If I want better performance, instead of connecting the NexIIe, I just pull the CompactFlash card and put it into a card reader. I use no tool more complicated than explorer to manage my music.
The current firmware even supports CF up to 2GB. I don't see why you would want a 2GB hard drive when you could have 2GB of solid state. That said, it would be nice to have a 10+ GB version of my player.
Thanks for the advice!... I had to mess w/ everything in roder to get the CIFS mount module created. Who knew an upgrade to W2003 would cause so many samba headaches! :)
I'd like to start playing w/ compiling custom kernels. Can you get the .config files that are used to make the RH RPM kernels or do they just use default options?
Issue #2: Quality (Video)
:)
I'm not a videophile, but the difference between video captures and digital extraction was readily noticable. I suspect that the real issue was from signal degradation (I was using decent (i.e. monster) svideo cables).
The video seemed to have more mpeg2 artifacts and the colors weren't right.
Perhaps these are all solvable.
Issue #3: Quality (Audio)
I agree that most channels don't broadcast 5.1, but I do disagree about it being a "toy". Most of the content that I archive from my DirecTivo to my PC or DVD for future watching are movies. A substantial % of these are broadcast in 5.1. I for one, really enjoy the sounds of bullets, etc wizzing around my head
Am I to understand that if you do have 5.1 sound, that MythTV can encode it? I don't think you can encode 5.1 in MP3 -- I beleive that AC3 is used for that...
Say you are a DirecTV owner (like myself), a home theatre PC has significant issues when compared do a hacked DirecTivo.
Issue #1: Control
Can MythTV control the receiver (i.e. via a serial port or an IR blaster)?
Issue #2: Video Quality (this is the big one)
You still need to connect up your PC w/ a video capture device to the output of your DirecTV receiver. This means that there is an additional digital->analog and analog->digital transaction occuring.
Of you have hacked your DirecTivo, you can digital extract the programming at broadcast MPEG2 quality.
I used to do video capture w/ an All in Wonder. There is a world of difference between the vid caps I did on my AIW and the digital extractions from the DirecTivo. Even if I did a vid capture at a higher resolution+bit rate than the original programming, the quality was still inferior.
Issue #3: Quality (Audio)
If the movie is broadcast in 5.1, will MythTV record it?
I only read the discovery article, but the science seems a bit weak to me.
From what I gather, they took a number of sparkling wines that were rated of different qualities and then tried to determine the difference. Given this methodology, its not at all surprising that they found that the size of the bubbles was the differentiator since I was under the impression it was already well known that smaller bubbles was better.
If the wine tasting community already believed that smaller bubbles were better and that influenced their ranking, then it shouldn't be too surprising that the study turned up a correlation.
Perhaps I'm not giving the study enough credit -- because Discovery doesn't go into that level of detail... but I hope that they used some sort of blind taste test w/ people other than trained wine tasters to establish the ranking system for the different champagnes that they tested...
I haven't read the article and I don't know what I am talking about... but..
I was under the impression that nuclear waste was good source material for "all sorts of bad things" -- ranging from making weapons grade materials to just using to pollute water supplies... etc.
I've read enough horror stories about the security around nuclear power plants -- will mini-reactors make this any better?
Thats got to be one of the worst suggestions I've ever heard.
Email is a 7 bit medium. If you take a file and encode it for email, you are basically getting 8 bit content to work in a 7 bit medium. This means that the overall file size is increased. Since the author was complaining about speed, adding that overhead isn't likely to help.
That + the fact that email really isn't designed for transferring large files around. You'd probably break the hell out of whatever mail system you were using anyways.
There are plenty of other suggestions here (i.e. a HTTP based application.. or better yet just encrypting the control channel)..
I recommend strong caution before you ever pay someone to assist you in your job search. For more information see: Jobscams.com
My last two Boxster's were built to order to my specifications. Waiting 3+ months for your car to arrive is a bitch, but the anticipation can be fun.
There are literally hundreds of options/choices that you can pick. I really like the idea of everything being "a la carte" so you don't end up paying for features that you don't care about. I also like the idea of knowing that my car is +/- unique (or at least relatively unique)...
I've been a happy paying customer (quite a bit - I subscribe to just about everything) of DirecTV for quite a few years.
Unfortunately, they have me locked in. I love my DirecTivo -- and while I find these sort of tactics very offensive -- I'm not willing to cancel my service over it. That said, I can only hope that others are less attached to their DirecTV set up and move to the competition.
DirecTivo + Turbonet ethernet adapter + your choice of extraction tools (MSFTP, Tytool, Tystudio) + your DVD authoring/burning tool of choice.
That said... its a fair number of steps (although getting less each day) and is definately beyond the technical means of your average "Joe."
Step 1 - Do some research online. I did some Google searching and found quite a bit of information published by the state of CA on how to do collections.
Here is a brief summary of how it works in CA.
You can either: get a collection agency or do it yourself.
Collection agency will take a % of the $s.
If you want to do it, you have a number of options. Pretty much all of them start with getting what I believe is called a Writ of Execution. It is a two page form that needs to be signed by the courts.
Once you have that, you can:
Collect against their bank account (you may need to fill out another form, then the Sheriff will go to the bank and get the money. You don't get it immediately -- they have a time period where if they can show that the $s are protected (i.e. social security type stuff) then they get it back.
If they run a retail store front that has cash on premises, you can get the sheriff to go and empty out their cash registers.
If you know how there clients are, you can get an order so that the clients will give you the money directly (talk about an embarrasment to them!).
You can also order them to have to sell assets to raise you the money.
I've never been diagnosed with ADHD, but I'd be willing to bet I'd "pass" the test -- especially if I was tested when I was younger. My parents tried to control my diet under the belief that sugars, artificial flavors/preservatives, and some other chemicals were triggers.
Perhaps I'm lucky that I enjoy my work (technology management) so that I don't find myself getting distracted from it. I do have a difficult time paying attention to things that bore me.
Being an ADHD technology manager can be a challenge. Last thing everyone needs is a spaz interrupting everyone and making decisions before completing the requisite analysis. I have to constantly keep a "watch thread" running on my behavior to try and keep myself in line.
I'm fairly happy with my ADHD nature -- probably because it isn't quite as extreme as what some of the people here have described. I find that my "inner spaz" is a powerful energy source that I'm able to call upon to do great things.
The poster earlier who said it was a "two edged sword" is right on.
I'm almost 30. I've been coding and generally dinking on computers since 3rd grade... 8 years old? My handwriting is pretty terrible. I don't remember how to "properly" do cursive anymore. Part of the reason my handwriting is so messy is because I try and write as fast as possible. I find it very distracting when there are delays between the formation of a thought and its recording.
I think people should know how to handwrite, but I don't think cursive still needs to be taught. They could better spend the time subjecting kids to cursive by investing that in their math, science, art, etc education!
When I was a grad student, I did some work for an Army project on building some of the biosensors that would be included in future uniforms. The organization I did the research for was working on biosensors to measure heartbeat (I did some work on the microcode) and was attempting to build a hypothermia/shiver detector (that I was doing most of my work on).
:)
We were experimenting with placing small devices that measure acceleration in various places and attempting to determine from a frequency-time analysis (i.e. imagine a frequency spectrum vs time) using neural networks and wavelet analysis to try and differentiate between the acceleration profiles caused by walking, running, moving, etc vs shivering....
The alternative was to stick a small thermometer up the soldier's "rear" which I don't think anyone wanted
As long as the data is kept on an anonymous level, I'm happy to see them sell back information on my watching patterns.
TV ratings currently come from Nielsen surveys/boxes/etc. If you have ever participated in one of these, you know how ridiculous the process is.
I want my favorite TV shows to have higher ratings so that they last more seasons.
I run Xbox Media Player to play my videos (MPG, AVI, etc), audio (an impressive number of codecs supported), and shoutcast streams. It also can function as a slideshow for your pictures. XBMP is a great application and is only getting better. XBMP will play the files from your server (via a number of different cross-platform protocols).
I have a turbonet card from 9thtee installed on my series 1 DirecTivo (Philips DSR 6000). The Tivo is an excellent PVR. While some try and replace some of its functionality with a PC, I think that the Tivo just has a much better interface. By using software such as Tystudio (beta 2) or MFS_FTP, it is possible to pull down MPEG or M2V/M2A elemental streams. You can use this to create a MTV video juke box, archive movies to your HD, or burn DVDs. And yes... you do get the full bitstream available to the DirecTV -- no signal degradation + 5.1 sound. etc.