Lawrence "The Dreamer" Chen's Blog

Link: http://www.hulu.com/watch/66310/fringe-inner-child

I haven't used Boxee/Hulu/AppleTV in a long time, but today I was catching up on some TV shows....and found that I didn't get all of Fringe, because Idol had run long

So, after calming down....I decided to see what the state of Hulu on my AppleTV was. Guess the Boxee/Hulu issue had gotten straightened out, and I was able to watch the episode...more or less.

It paused now and then while playing....guess DSL isn't the way to do much of anything in streaming video. Wonder if I should change the default gateway of my AppleTV to use Cox HSI?

Though it wasn't the day that my Amazon Kindle 2 arrived...that arrived a day early. But, I did start loading it up with material to read. The first purchased item was a subscription to Reader's Digest.

I had let my print subscription go years ago, because it was hard to keep up....I have too many magazines and not enough time, so I could probably stand to lose a few more here and there. But, it was interesting reading Reader's Digest again...on the Kindle. Might look at other subscriptions, though not really sure what else I would want that is currently available.

Also not sure where I stand on books. I haven't been reading much in a very long time, but I've been meaning to get back into things....I just don't know where to begin now.

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For some reason NBC was on the fritz on Wednesday.....so all my TiVo HD recordings were bad/incomplete. So, I had to seek out alternative ways to get Knight Rider, Life and Law & Order.

The first two I tracked down using Boxee and Hulu, on my AppleTV. Things went okay, the only gripe is that if you hit the Menu button while watching a Hulu program, it goes back...but there's no button the on AppleTV remote to get back to the program (which is continuing to play in the background). Pressing play starts it all over again.

Menu is the button on the AppleTV remote that selects its input on my Zektor HDVI5 switcher. The other annoying problemhabit, of course, is that I keep picking up my TiVo remote and pressing the skip button and others while watching programming not on the TiVo. And, then had to pop over to the TiVo to make sure I didn't mess anything up.

Law & Order on the other hand wasn't available via Hulu (or on NBC's site). For this I resorted to using Amazon's Video on Demand service to download the show to my TiVo HD. After doing some fiddling to figure out why it wouldn't let me using my second TiVo HD, when it says I'm allowed up to 2 TiVo's to be associated with my account. But, it turned out that there was a sync problem between Amazon.com and TiVo.com, TiVo said both my TiVo's were enabled for Video on Demand, but Amazon.com was only seeing my first TiVo.....

Also the other day I had gotten my new Visa card, and going to various sites to update my information. Turns out you can only edit/update a credit card online, on numerous sites including Amazon.com, if the account number doesn't change...have to remove and then add new card. What then happens is that things that were associated with the card, just go away... IE: a subscription in my paypal account was canceled, instead of asking me to reassociate it or something. The "are you sure" dialog shouldn't count as the warning.

In Amazon.com's case it cleared my 1-click settings, which was minor....since I happened to have the issue where Amazon.com and TiVo.com were out of sync. I opted to associate my American Express card as my 1-click. Since, I had recently changed to associating my Visa card with Apple iTunes....

Later I saw that Law & Order is also available on iTunes...wonder if that would've been in HD? Evidently not.... L&O:SVU and L&O:CI are available as HD downloads, but not L&O....strange. Though I don't now if I would've spent the extra $1 for HD for L&O. L&O:CI yes, L&O probably not.

Link: http://www.boxee.tv/

Following the replacement of batteries in my SmartUPS 1250VA UPS, my TiVo HD failed to boot properly...and I didn't notice until CSI was more than half over, that it wasn't recording....

I thought to myself on how I might recover from this, and decided that Boxee would come to the rescue again.

So, I watched other shows last night and this evening I set out to watch the missed episode (19 Down).

Had some issues with the AppleTV. First the remote wasn't selecting the input on my Zektor DVI5. For some reason the remote changes its code now and then. This the second time this has happened. Then the AppleTV wasn't cooperating. Menu with no text. This has been happening on occasion since the update the 2.3 and the latest of the launcher & boxee.

I had to restart the AppleTV a few times, and I re-updated the software....even though the versions haven't changed.

That was enough to get into Boxee and make my way to watching CSI.

It went pretty good.

Now back to my TiVo HD for regular recordings....starting with Eleventh Hour

Link: http://www.hulu.com

Today I tried out Hulu.

Because last night, the schedule bumped Life to about 3:40am. My TiVo HD didn't get it, because it apparently needed to do some kind of maintenance reboot around 3am....only it got stuck, at the just a few more moments or something like that screen.

I had to reboot it hard during lunch when I found it that way. (I was home at lunch today, because I was still un-numbing from a dentist appointment)

I noticed the absence of shows recorded last night, and eventually concluded that only one show was actually missed. Life.

So, I was thinking where can I find the missed episode... I suppose with patience, I could get somebody to send it to me on my ReplayTV. Though it would only be SD. But, then I was reading my twitter feed of the impending new release of Boxee. (It is hard to write this blog post with twitter [TwitterFox] updates popping up and stealing focus, and not giving it back)

The NetFlix feature sounds nice, but it isn't available in the AppleTV version....so I'll stick to waiting for that from TiVo.

But, it did talk of improvements with its Hulu support...and I decided it was time to check that out. First I quickly popped over to the site to see whether it would be possible to get the missed episode of Life. Then it was off to work, with it as something to try when I get back home.

Well, it turned out to be a reasonable experience. It was 16x9, not as good as HD. And, the commercials were tolerable (and interesting and relevance). It only paused once (not including when I hit pause to answer the door and get my food delivery (I think she was cute, but I just took my food....)

Now I know what to do the next time my TiVo or cable company let's me down, eh?

I was bored and playing around with my AppleTV, I'm way behind on my video podcast viewing...but there's only so much I can take in at once.

So, I was playing around with other parts of it, and looked at Trailers. Finally saw the Star Trek trailer. I tried it in HD format. And, it keep stopping to buffer. But, watching SD format trailers were okay. Maybe Cox can't deliver the consistent speed I need for HD streaming, wonder if this'll be a problem when NetFlix HD streaming comes to my TiVo HD....except that the TiVo's are on DSL. Though I had contemplated flipping them over.

Later I was looking at my MRTG graphs, and saw that once again the transfers were considered Bulk. Guess I should set QoS marking for the AppleTV to Express. We'll see if that makes a difference next time.

I was kind of hoping that NetFlix Instant viewing would be available on my TiVo's this long weekend, but I guess it'll be sometime next month. Wonder if I'll have time off to inflict damage of watching too much NetFlix during the Xmas break

I thought of asking to borrow a NetFlix instant viewing device again, but now see that there's a limit of device activations that I can have on my account. And, I've already burned one. And, I think the plan is to activate both my TiVo HD's, so that I don't have to think of which one I'm on when the urge strikes. Even though, of course, they are both right next to each other and connected to the same display

I had recently decided, after seeing a Inside Secret podcast on getting XBMC/Boxee onto an AppleTV, that I would settle on getting myself an AppleTV instead of a Mac Mini for my Home Theatre setup.

I pulled the trigger on my 40th birthday

But, I didn't get to finally setting it up until last night.

Somewhere in anticipation of getting it, it occurred to me that I might not have enough capacity on my current Zektor HDVI5 to switch between all the devices. At least if I wanted to keep all the 'HD' sources on DVI. Like I could move the Momitsu back to VGA or use the AppleTV on component, etc.

But, I'm using 4 of the 5 inputs....and somewhere down the road I plan to get something that'll do NetFlix streaming. If I had stayed with the plan for a Mac Mini...I wouldn't have the input concern. At least until I get BluRay, though the BluRay may replace my current DVD player rather than supplement it....

Anyways...connecting the AppleTV to my setup was pretty straight forward...the hardest part again, for some reason...was finding an extra ethernet cable. I don't know why I seem to always be out of them. Actually, the digital audio cable that I used is kind of short....so perhaps at some later point I'll replace with both with longer cables. But, I have a small supply of short digital audio cables. Maybe I'll stock up on ethernet cables again.

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Link: http://www.woot.com/Blog/BlogEntry.aspx?BlogEntryId=4120

A new category has appeared on my blog.

That's because I pulled the trigger on buying a TiVo HD DVR yesterday....via Woot!

Not entire sure where I'm going to put it or how it is going to be connected into my setup. But, I've done it.

Not sure what this means to my HTMac project. I think I still want a computer as part of my HT, but it might take on a different form....perhaps it'll be something with its own screen (either as its primary display or only display)...also not sure how it ties into the plan to switch my main desktop from Windows to Mac. Or my other Mac purchase wishes.

Like the Time Capsule. Or at what point do I stop buying stuff for the only mac that I do have....my work laptop.

In a moment of insanity, I saw somebody selling a 'new' Samsung SIR-T451 on eBay.

So, I threw in a bid and won it.

The timing was kind of poor as I was about to embark for LISA, so I knew it would be one big item waiting for me when I did get around to making a trip to the UPS store. And, I was worried that I might have too many big items waiting for me.

I was close. I didn't take into account that there would also be several pounds of catalogs stuffed into my box. I lugged those home, because I didn't want to sort through them and also plan to enter them at Catalog Choice....

Well, after processing all the other deliveries and mail...I set out to try out the SIR-T451 at receiving clear QAM. It would scan and the lock up and reboot. It made some progress at find HDTV signals, but I realized that it wasn't going to work. The channels are all weird (though making a custom channel guide using WiRNS might have been an option)...but there was also the use of subchannels...and they weren't on the first subchannel. Which meant that I wasn't gonna have anything usable via ReplayTV.

I was about to pack it up and give up, when I decided to see what would happen if I hooked an antenna to it. Largely because the signal light has been flickering lately on the SIR-T351 and there were a lot of bad OTA recordings...which was getting annoying. There was a mix from forums on which was better for OTA...the T351 or the T451. So, not having anything to lose at this point, I tried it.

Well, the T451 worked better for me. It had a fairly solid lock on WIBW-DT, but unfortunately no other HD stations. So, I set up on my ReplayTV.

That leaves the one open cable connection for something else....at least now I know that there are some clear QAM stuff in my area, perhaps I'll look to finally building that HTmac....

Link: http://www.hdtvsupply.com/zedv5in1oudv1.html

Oh yeah...during the blog move, I picked this item up from the UPS Store.

I got a black one.

I unpacked and placed it under my TV, though I don't have much in the way of cables to put it into service. And, I don't yet have much need for it....the TV can handle everything that I currently have plugged in to it.

But, if I do get that Mac Mini and/or add a PC to my setup....or decide on Blu-Ray vs. HD-DVD (or get a universal)...then I'm going to have need more inputs.

I was originally planning to get a remote controlled Digital Audio switch, because I there is one device where its audio output is not connected to anything at the moment....the OTA tuner. Though its usefulness might have reached an end due to neighboring construction (too late to move to a higher place...)

But, I anticipate a need for some kind of switch...and I had been looking at a component video / digital audio switcher for some time. Though some of the things that I switch by component now, could also be switched using DVI...and the price/feature point was in the ballpark of what I would pay/get. So, I went for it.