Lawrence "The Dreamer" Chen's Blog

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.

As the impending start of the new fall season, I noticed that my OTA HDTV tuner wasn't getting a signal for some reason..... At first, because it was like 2am, I thought maybe it was because WIBW-HD was off the air. But, since it wasn't working this morning, I started to fiddle with the antenna. The Terk HDTVlp had served me well last fall thru spring....and there just hadn't been anything worth watching during the summer, so I don't know when it stopped working. Though WIBW-HD did go off air in the spring....apparently it had taken a lightning hit. So I hadn't paid much attention to it during the summer.

But, now there's lots of new shows to check out, and I not enough HD recording capabilities to keep up. So I need the ReplayTV with OTA HDTV tuner to supplement my recording capabilities again. I still plan to get the HTMac, but now I'm waiting for Leopard to come out before buying my first Mac. (though there might still be another computer in the future...so I can run Momitsu's V880N's MMC software somewhere closer and with more storage...).

Anyways...I suspect the condo's new building outside my livingroom window is doing more than just blocking my view.... Turning it to off to the side a bit, I could some signal...but not enough for a stable picture. Probably just a narrow slit between buildings.... So I switched to the Terk HDTVa to see if I can get more directionality on receiving a usable signal.

It seems to be working now....

Meanwhile, I saw the Tivo HD was being carried by the local Best Buy...wonder if that means if I can actually get Cable Cards around here? Though I'm wondering when they'll be more than just Tivo with CableCards. Would like to keep my fleet of ReplayTVs going for as long as possible....

Actually, it is Zap2It that will be dead. And, with that deadline looming, I've been trying to decide when to make the leap from the very stable WiRNS 1.3.2.21 version to the Preview release of 2.0.0.0

I had been holding off for a variety of reasons, one the Preview wasn't distributed as a ZIP file...just an MSI, so I could just unpack and drop it into my less than normal setup. And, for some reason I couldn't do builds of this code on the same computer (Guess Microsoft is trying to kill Windows 2000).

But, I decided this this afternoon that I would make a quick try at getting the preview release going....even though I also had plans to be somewhere this evening. Well, I blew off those plans...and now it is quite late, and I have a job interview tomorrow....

Anyways....I made a quick backup and moved things aside on my computer and set about to install the 8.16 preview.

It crashed a bunch of times, but I eventually got it up....and then I set about to go through the configuration to make sure everything was reasonable. The hard part was updating the lineups for my ReplayTVs....since I have 7 of them, and it does a rebuild of the ReplayGuide each and every time I edit one.

Then I did an update guide....it went to build ToDo and kept crashing....I have Season Premiere/Finale and Series Premiere/Finale ReplayZones on two of my ReplayTVs...one for regular cable TV and one for Digital Cable TV....it had 155,xxx for the regular cable TV unit, and it would go for about 30 minutes on the Digital Cable unit and then crash. And crash was considered a good response....other times it would just hang and be unresponsive until I killed it. At least with a crash, it would eventually automatically restart (Windows Service setting).

Didn't I add a boolean option to decide if ReplayZones would go into Building the ToDo list? Well, I found that another developer had commented it out...saying ReplayZones works now. Ummm, I don't think so. So, I guess if I'm going to make WIRNS 2.0 work, I would have to figure out how to get it to build and go back to making custom builds for myself.

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and, it had been a while. I had taken it into the office, with the intent to work on a problem that I couldn't seem to solve using any of the 4 computers I have in my cubicle.

Aside from lack of updates to various parts of it....the battery in it had completed self discharged. In fact I was worried it would recharge. The days for this laptop are probably numbered....it'll probably move to where I'll find a corner to stick, and leave it on all the time to throw more cycles at BOINC.

At the same time, I think I could use a laptop as a laptop. Though the old laptop is kind of showing its age....which makes it hard to use a laptop. Most of the time, I want it to do some impulse web surfing....but it takes forever to become available after being re-awakened. Even longer if I have to reboot, which seems inevitable because there'll be at least a few updates from Microsoft to make it run slow and then force me to reboot.

But, I have the work laptop...and if I were to get a new personal laptop...I seem to be leaning towards getting a better of the same (MacOSX)....and I think I want to get a desktop first....or rather that HTMac idea I've been tossing around for a long time.