Bend in the Weather (Entries tagged as tv)

Back online after moving into the new house

mbottrell@gmail.com (Matt) — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 01:44:00 +1100

In my last post, I mentioned I was moving out of the city (Melbourne, Australia) and heading to the country.

Well the transition has occurred and I'm more than happy with the move. Our neighbours two deep on each side have all come out and introduced themselves, and the general atmosphere around the place is warm and uplifting.

The sense of community runs strong outside of the capital cities by the look of it.

Bannockburn is by no means a small town, though it's no thriving metropolis. It's about 15 mins drive from Geelong, but you would think you're thousands of miles away or in a parallel universe. Hand-waves whilst driving, a chat with a stranger (soon to be become an acquaintance/friend) are all common place. At the time of the 2006 Census, the population was a mere 2,486, but has more than doubled in the following two years. By 2015, they are expecting a population of around 15,000. If you're down this way, be sure to drop in. It's a quaint part of town and quite charming.

All the majority of our daily needs are here (local Woolworths, petrol, green grocer, butcher, baker, vet, auto repair, post office, pub, restaurants, fast-food, legal and accounting services,etc can all be found in the town). Those not here (ie: the not-every-day purchases) is only a 15 minute car-drive into Geelong.

I'm loving the lack of police sirens/choppers and cars doing wheelies until 4am most nights. The only noise we hear at present is the 6-7am chatter of the native birds found in abundance. (Not a real problem -- we're up at 6-7am anyway -- working through to late at night getting the house set-up).

Bannockburn for me was a natural choice. It's closer to loved ones, as well as the type of environment, community I would like to raise a family one day. The hustle and bustle and dog-eat-dog attitude that the big cities portray is not the values I would like to instil into my own children.

So how did the move go on Friday? As many know there was a deluge across a lot of Australia. In our neck of the woods we had the pitter-patter of a few rain drops from about 10:30am whilst filling the removalist's truck. By 3:15pm they had finished unloading the truck and literally seconds after the truck doors had been shut down it bucketed!

I'm glad we got our water tank hooked up prior to the move. Those 24 hours resulted in approx 70mm of rain. The tank is now full!
That much rain ensured we had a natural inground swimming pool over most of the backyard. The dogs found this too irresistable (they had never seen so much rain in their young years), and decided it was time for swimming. Shortly after we had dual-coloured dogs.... The original colour on their top half and a nice brown/muddy underbelly.

Saturday/Sunday saw us return to clean up our vacated premises. On Wednesday we return the keys to the landlord. It's a great feeling moving out of the rent cycle and into our own home.

Monday I had our networking guys in to terminate off our wired house. We now have 48 GigaE running throughout the house. The 19" racks I have in the garage look all very impressive now. I'll take some photos in the next few days and post them up for all to see. (Once I find the box with my camera data-cable! )

The new 48-port GigE Managed Switch also has PoE on all ports, and makes powering the Snom VoIP phones a breeze with no need for a power pack anymore (frees up on power point, and also one less cable to tangle unde rmy desk!). Cabling the house was a great idea -- being able to just plug an Ethernet cable into the wall in nearly every room of the house is just a god-send and something I would recommend to anyone who's building (do it during the framing stage, prior to the plastering).

The mountain of boxes strewn around the house are slowly disappearing. It will take us some time but we're hoping by Christmas to have everything fully unpacked/setup. That will leave me with the daunting task of establishing our gardens/plants/lawns outside during this crazy drought/summer. Something I am looking forward to getting up and running.

One of the benefits is since moving that my ADSL1 connection is indeed faster and cleaner here than our previous location (though we are about the same distance from the exchange (1-1.5kms). I'm pulling down pretty much the physical limits of ADSL1 and squeezing 100-150Kb/sec more then I previously have. Once ADSL2+ becomes available through my provider (Internode - due in the next few days), I may consider the move up if the price is 'reasonable'.

The garden shed and vegie garden will probably be first off the ranks, with the rest to follow after that.
I'm seriously considering putting in a large sandpit for the dogs so they can dig til their hearts content (and not in my lawn/vegies/plants! )

Though, all in good time. In the interim, I'm just enjoying country life, and not missing the glare of the city at all. A few more weeks of setting up house and I'll be as happy as my dogs running around in mud!

Subliminal TV advertising - just what HDTV in Australia needs

mbottrell@gmail.com (Matt) — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 00:26:43 +1100

With the Arias for 2008 already getting plugged by Channel 10, one has to wonder if this year they'll be as 'smart' to try subliminal advertising throughout the coverage this year.

Many of you may have found you got the munchies for Chupa Chups or even KFC. Throw in a batch of adverts also for Telstra Bigpond, Olay, Big W and Toyota (and "oh what a feeling!") during last years Aria Award ceremony.

The ACMA took their sweet time deliberating over the issue, and has ruled Channel 10's use of subliminal advertising during the 2007 Aria award ceremony was in breach of the code of conduct.

One has to ask - was this the only time they did it?

Was NoDoz advertisement used during the AFL Brownlow Medal Count? Is SingStar used during Australian Idol, and Jenny Craig and Fitness First during The Biggest Loser?

Don't stress, you can still jump in now and get your advertising lined up for the 2008 Arias

It's soooo reassuring to hear what Channel 10 has stated in relation to the finding:

distribute the investigation report to relevant production staff (both in-house and external) to ensure that future productions of ARIA Awards are consistent with ACMAs view;
not use the same rapid cut use of sponsor logos for the upcoming 2008 ARIA Music Awards;
use the finding as an example in regular code training sessions with staff, to ensure future compliance; and
highlight the code clause in their external production agreements.

Hmm... great work their ACMA -- you've let them off the hook with no more than a wiggle of your index finger. No fine, no enforced 'apologies' on air. You really are a toothless tiger. You make the laughing stock we call the ACCC look like a bully by comparison.

I might try that the next time I'm pulled over for a breathalyser:

I promise I won't drink that much again
I really will leave the car home next time.
Over beers next time re-enact the entire scene for all to watch
I'll tell all my friends to do the same.

Can I also get off with a stern warning?

Strange that Ch10 thought it was fine, and all 'hip' to do ... particularly after it's a practice that's been frowned upon since the early '70s!
Did you really think it was all above board -- "Seriously 10"?

Visit Disney World - in the luxury of your own home

mbottrell@gmail.com (Matt) — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 02:28:00 +1000

We all enjoy a good holiday. Getting the time to take one always seems to be the problem for me however. I think I may have just found the answer...

If you're like me you grew up watching The Wonderful World of Disney at 6:30pm every Sunday. Here we marveled at cartoons of Mickey, Goofy and other great Disney characters. (So much so, many the hostnames on my home network are now named after Disney characters! ).

It also introduced us to classic 'childrens' movies like Herbie, 101 Dalmatians, Mary Poppins and Alice in Wonderland.

It's probably the dream of every child to visit the magical place of Disneyland or DisneyWorld.

With the help of Google you can now explore DisneyLand without leaving your chair!
Google has produced a 3D interactive representation of Disneyland inside Google Earth.

If you've got Google Earth installed try the following:

Once Google Earth loads, search for "Disney World".
Click on the golden Disney Mickey Ears - This will load an information window.
In the info window click on Show Disney World in 3D.

The 3D world contains over 1,500 3D models and will let you explore right through the park. The models are highly detailed and a sight to behold!

It's nearly as good as being there!
Just think - no more queues for rides, no long-haul flight getting there, and the park is now open 24 hours for you.

Have fun exploring!

IPL and MythTV recording exports

mbottrell@gmail.com (Matt) — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 00:35:40 +1000

IPL doesn't stand for Initial Program Load to non-geeks.... it doesn't even stand for the IBM Public License.

Ask any Indian and they will tell you it most certainly stands for the Indian Premier League. Many would be excused for confusing it with the English Premier League as an Indian version of the famous English football competition.

Whilst it is a professional sports league, it has nothing to do with football (or soccer for those inclined). Though it does actually spring from another English sport -- cricket.

The Indian Premier League is basically a Twenty20 competition (20 overs per side). With 8 teams and stars from around the world of the game of cricket contracted to play. Many are on large money deals after the players were auctioned off.

You're asking what on earth does this have to do MythTV?! A good question indeed!

If you take a look at any TV guide you'll find from around 12:15am each night on Channel 10 for the next 40 odd days that you'll see an entry into the wee hours for IPL. It's being broadcast live into Australia (and around the world for that matter). Being live and timezones what they are means the games start extremely late.

A Twenty20 game is normally over in 3-3.5 hours... but that means in order to watch the game you won't be heading to bed until 4am. (Not really good if you're wanting to work the next day). Even worse if there is a double-header that night!

MythTV comes to the rescue... I just schedule to record the show and watch it in a more Australian Friendly timezone.

However recording 43 days worth of 3-3.5 hour shows does indeed chew a lot of disk space (particularly when recording HDTV!)

In order to get around this I convert the recorded shows in xvid format. Whilst the quality is probably no-where as great as HDTV, it's still very watchable (in fact my blind eyes actually don't tell the difference most of the time!)

I convert the nuv (MythTVs MPEG2 streams+recording info file format) into xvid avis using nuvexport.
I've played around with various settings and have the following works extremely well for me.

It ensures I get:

A good crisp image for sports action (fast moving action).
Reasonable sound.
Most importantly, a reasonably sized file so I can store up weeks of games to watch at my choosing.

Here is the settings I utilise:

Where would you like to export the files to? [/var/lib/mythtv/recordings/transcode]
Enable Myth cutlist? [No]
Enable noise reduction (slower, but better results)? [No]
Enable deinterlacing? [Yes]
Crop broadcast overscan border (0-5%) ? [1.5]
Audio bitrate? [128]
Variable bitrate video? [Yes]
Multi-pass (slower, but better quality)? [Yes]
Video bitrate? [768]
Default resolution based on requested dimensions.
Width? [624]
Height? [352]

This then converts the file from the MPEG2 stream -> xvid avi at around 45fps for me (YMMV depending on the CPU grunt you have available). It also produces an excellent 16:9 video that is perfect to watch on my wide-screen TV.

Once done, I then use avidemux to seek through the avi file (using the seek black frame options) to discover where the adverts are and remove them.

I find this approach is much more reliable then using MythTVs commercial advert detection and cutlists. Whilst it takes a while, and can be tedious the results are much more impressive.

I now find I can watch a game of cricket much faster, without interruption and without the crazy commentator 'analysis' during the game/change of innings.

It's the only way to watch the IPL!

So next time you need to record on your MythTV box, look at exporting it. nuvexport supports are range of formats including:

XviD
SVCD
VCD
DVCD (VCD with 48kHz audio for making DVDs)
DVD
DivX
ASF
MP3
PSP (disabled)
MP4 (iPod)
Export to .nuv and .sql

It also means you should be able to spit it out on a format you prefer. Whether that be onto a DVD, Xvid or even an MP4 for portable watching. PSP isn't currently supported and is documented on their website.

It's one way to ensure you have a great library of recorded shows at your disposal, but not eating a large amount of disk space.

I'm sure that whilst many of you might not be interested in the cricket (yeah I know I'm a sad individual), you can find a great way to reduce your MythTV disk usage... meaning you can record a lot more.

For those wishing to import the exported recording back into MythTV take a read of Jeffery Fernandez's excellent blog entry on just the thing.