Archive for the ‘television’ Category

How My Mythbuntu (MythTV) Media Center Beta Has Worked Out (Halfway There)

Tuesday, January 17th, 2012

About my Home Entertainment System Attempt…

Initial Needs:

First of all, I had the following goals in mind from before:

  • Have ultimate control over TV
  • Recording live TV
  • Watching Live TV from any computer
  • Watch recordings anywhere
  • Be a media distribution platform
    • Share music or downloaded TV anywhere,
    • Distribute music from one PC to a variety of places, and more importantly, acting as a ‘repeater’ music tower.  Like, an Apple Airplay server.
    • Perform as a torrent downloading server

    About what I used / had to work with:

    • MythBuntu (MythTV)
    • Schedules Direct
  • My old HTC Evo 4G with MythDroid (as a remote control/remote streamer)
    • VLC on MythBuntu (for MythDroid)
  • uTorrent
  • ShoutCast (yet untested..)
  • My Motorola DCT3416 (I believe)
  • A Bluetooth Dongle
    • A Wii-Mote
  • Various Game Server software
    • Minecraft
    • TF2 /srcds was installed, but not configured.

     

    What I Learned:

    Ultimate Takeaways:

    1. Without a perfect/unique remote (MythDroid),
    2. without MythDroid being responsive and 100% good,
    3. And without the ability to detect two or more tuners in one device,

    …This is great, but not ideal.

    My biggest problems were the following:

    1. My users don’t want to take the time to figure out how to ‘do this’ and how to ‘do that’.
      A remote with 100 buttons is way too many.
      A remote with too few buttons is not enough.
      MythDroid is PERFECT, and revolutionary– but it doesn’t fail gracefully enough, and requires you or me to have an Android device in the first place.
    2. Being able to watch ONLY ONE THING at a time is a MAJOR disadvantage.
      Unless your MythTV/Ubuntu installation will detect two tuners inside one cable box, you may need to rent two cable boxes and hook them up at the same location!
    1. Why would you need to rent two AND hook them up at the same place?  MythBuntu can connect to remote “back ends’ and give them duties, or pull recordings from them.
    2. But, if your computer is set up with WiFi, you’ll need two computers and possibly buffering patience while the show streams from one PC to another.

  • Firewire is dead, but you’ll need it anyways.  So far, there’s only a mandate requiring cable companies to keep a FIREWIRE port in use…
    Finding a cable box that works with USB may be a holy grail.  One that sends BOTH tuners via USB may also be a fantasy..
  • Perhaps it’s easier to use TiVo Premiere.  
    - TiVo works with your cable provider,
    - has apps like NetFlix and Pandora– the former not working easily in Linux.  (It’d be nice if NetFlix had a native client inside the Chrome browser, though.)
    Downside?
    - $600 to buy it directly from TiVo (or $240 for the first year), or $20 on top of your monthly cable bill.
    - No Web interface
    - No Recording Streaming via the Flash Web App
    - No Direct Recorded Show Streaming .. (if MythDroid gets that figured out)

    • Click below to read on:

    (more…)

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    Posted in Computers, linux, MythBuntu, television, Ubuntu | No Comments »

    Setting up my main server to be a MythBuntu

    Friday, October 1st, 2010

    I recently heard about MythBuntu, and considered it an easy way of getting a MythTV Installation.  I’ll let you guys know as I work on it.

    Posted in Computers, linux, MythBuntu, television, Ubuntu | No Comments »

    “Join us Online” – The Daily Show transcending ‘Show’

    Friday, September 17th, 2010

    Jon Stewart is a popular TV Pundit, whether he likes it or not.  Because of this, media networks and politicians alike want to be represented in the chair Stewart interviews every night.  Of growing importance on The Daily Show featuring Jon Stewart is Stewart’s extended interviews.  On CNN or Fox, if there’s not enough time to continue a conversation, the last few words are where it lies.

    Likewise, Jon finds himself in similar situations with his interviewees– what to do with a rare and valuable guest, or how to end a worthwhile conversation?

    The Daily Show ignores that question.  Why stop there?  Asking that assumes that shows have to fit into time constraints.  The Daily Show continues the interview and posts the result online.

    Imagine that for a moment– additional information for people who want it and are aware of its existence.  Jon and his staff’s inclusion of “Watch the Extended Interview Online” in either verbal or screen caption form has amazing implications.

    For one, I (and I assume many) of The Daily Show’s audience is savvy enough to watch the reruns online.  That means that instead of leaving the episode right there, I’m brought to the website for the additional interaction and advertisement.  The conversion and push to watch online is incredible, and strengthens The Daily Show’s website for the additional and unique content.  Can you imagine having this pull?

    Imagine popular sitcoms having additional content online, such as scenes that were cut, but still exist within the show’s universe.  Imagine interviews that can continue and be archived or streamed online from a news broadcast.  Imagine The Price Is Right having an online component as well.

    It’s rare to find innovation when it comes to network or cable television.  That’s why The Daily Show’s subtle and powerful extension into the online market should be grasped and appreciated for what it truly is:  a stroke of brilliance.  At this pace, Jon would be able to advertise additional content on the internet, additional fan interaction, and bring The Daily Show’s website to be a valuable hub for its target demographics.

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    Posted in netnews, Our World, Technology, television, The Daily Show | No Comments »

    I want a super home entertainment system– DVR, multi room audio and music, media center, the works.

    Thursday, July 15th, 2010

    So here is my latest hunger– moving out into an apartment with my buddies that is an incredible media hub.

    Like…

    • Being able to record TV and send it to any computer at any time…
    • Or send LIVE TV to any room’s computer at any time!
      • If I’m lucky, that means that we can watch multiple channels from multiple boxes with only one cable box, or high-quality decipherable stream…
    • Being able to watch internet videos on the main TV…
    • Being able to watch whatever videos were loaded onto it!
    • Being able to send DVDs across rooms!
    • Being able to remotely tell the program to download torrents and other media, keeping users separate, but all within the upload limit, and allowing remote access to the files! 8)
    • Receive Audio from the main radio station in the house..
    • And broadcast to the household radio station from any computer!
    • Even to play a role as a game server!

    It’d be complex, but damn.  I think this’d be awesome.  I think I’d need a great ethernet card, some nice RAID management.. etc..

    What a headache, but fun!

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    Posted in Computers, linux, Technology, television, videogames | No Comments »

    Truly Interesting Post about Interactive Media versus Such Media’s Requirements

    Monday, August 10th, 2009

    I found in Colin Clark’s blog a mention about a Seth Godwin blog post.
    The post is essentially about a chart Seth made– this chart shows the varying types of media and creations/services that we can make in our day and age.  It contrasts the media’s needs (EG: How much text, how much information, how much physical presence, how much investment) versus the media’s interactivity.  (Movies aren’t interactive, but IMs and Phonecalls are).

    What’s interesting is how Seth outlined an area in the graph that highlights media that’s been successful from a financial standpoint.

    Take a look at the original post and see what YOU think.

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    Posted in Entrepreneurialism, Our World, television | No Comments »

    Need to get NetGear WG111v2 running on Linux / Debian ?

    Tuesday, May 5th, 2009

    Here are some helpful links I used to fix my Debian-running-a-USB-wireless-stick problem:

    This thread on NDiswrapper, a way of using Windows XP drivers on Linux, helped me a lot with my NetGear WG111v2 Problem on Debian Linux..

    Afterwards, this article at the Debian Wiki on how to use WIFI / Wireless utilities helped me out afterwards with my NetGear WG111v2 problem.

    Anyways, Make sure to apt-get install openssh-server and configure it to your needs. Did you get IPtables, too? Should come with your package of Debian.

    Me? Well, I’m fine. Just playing some indie games, drawing, etc. :)

    Edit: Update as of 11/24/2009: It’s been working fine. I wanted to leave a bit more information about this.

    1. Here’s a copy of my /etc/network/interfaces file: 
      # This file describes the network interfaces available on your system
# and how to activate them. For more information, see interfaces(5).

# The loopback network interface
auto lo
iface lo inet loopback

# The primary network interface
allow-hotplug eth0
iface eth0 inet dhcp

# My secondary, Wireless Iface

auto wlan0
        iface wlan0 inet dhcp
        wpa-ssid WirelessNetworkNameExactly
        wpa-psk password
    2. Keep in mind I got NDisWrapper installed with apt-get, got the drivers for the WG111v2. When NDisWrapper was working with the windows drivers for the WG111v2, it detected the wireless device.
    3. A GREAT idea would be to configure the router/wireless router to do a “DHCP Reservation” for each Mac Address that requests an IP Address from DHCP. this is because DHCP will change the IP address of your server in your local network once in awhile! This means that the IP address it had before may not be valid at the next time it reboots! Ergo, you should either ALWAYS find the IP address of your server from your router’s DHCP clients table page, log into the server manually and do ifconfig to find out what the IP address is, or you should set up a DHCP reservation so the IP will never change.

    EDIT Mar 18 2010:

    The following debian page also helped on NDISWRAPPER: http://wiki.debian.org/NdisWrapper

    Posted in Computers, Debian, linux, Networking, television, Uncategorized | No Comments »

    Sick of Spam, oi vey!

    Tuesday, December 16th, 2008

    So I went and downloaded the WordPress ReCaptcha plugin.  I hope you don’t mind.

    Posted in blog maintenance, blogs, Networking, owning blogs, television, videogames | No Comments »

    South Park’s 12th Season Almost Over

    Sunday, November 16th, 2008

    To be honest, I think a lot of South Park’s 12th season episodes were hits, and got back to the core values of the series.  There were statements on how to live life without outright positions on issues (Breast Cancer Episode Ever), there were episodes that parodied the series itself (Pandemic 2: The Startling), and there were episodes that had a catchy tune or two (Elementary School Musical.)

    As usual, there were the more bitter tastes of opinions in some episodes.  One was Canada on Strike with its opinion on internet media and the Writers Strike.  The other with its opinion displayed blatantly was Eek, A Penis! talking about the patriots cheating and how cheating is the “White way” to win.  Both had their funny moments, such as a penis parallelling a mouse in the latter, and many elements in the former.

    A positive thing to note is that this season didn’t hang heavily upon the parody of current events as previous seasons had– they seemed to tackle lingering troubles in life (AIDS, Breast Cancer, Heavy Metal, etc.)

    In any case, I’ve been a fan of Moral Orel’s final season on Adult Swim.  They tightened the writing down so their ship leaked no story at all– almost everything is deliberate and powerful.  It’s powerful to see one episode tie into another– I only wonder how they can finish the series, as it was one of [as]‘s best.

    On the note of [as]‘s other series, The Xtacles (a followup to Frisky Dingo) is quite hilarious.  I think the funniest quote I’ve seen from it was,

    Guy A: “He rapes people.. with another rapist!?”
    Guy B: “I’d prefer to be raped with a penis.”
    Guy C: “And you might just get your wish. (Continues on)”  (guy B, being talked over: “Hey! It’s not my wish!”)

    Outrageous, yet hilarious.  “Rapier Ape” another witticism that will last for awhile.  Frisky Dingo has this whole ‘internal culture’ or a series of in-jokes that could spawn many more internet phenomenon.

    I suppose that’s all I have for this update.  See you next time (or not :)

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    Posted in television | No Comments »