I retired from personal blogging in July 2008 but you can find me over at blog.xero.com
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CJ writes …
Noticed your post on blog about the TV project.
Go Media Center! :)
Here is how I would put it together. Have one central Media Center machine hidden away and connected to your main TV and Stereo etc… Then in any room you have a TV all you need is either:
A MCE Extender device such as:
- An Xbox with the Xbox Media Center Extender
- An Xbox 360.
- Lynksys MCE Extender
See http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/mediacenter/extender/default.mspx
Other reasons to go Windows Media Center:
- Easy as pie to manage, operate etc… you don’t need to know how to compile the Linux kernel to include the right drivers for your hardware as you would with Myth etc..
- There is a sweet roadmap with MCE in Windows Vista
- Support :)
- Recorded TV is WMV so you can take it with you on the road
- Support for Music, Photos etc…
- It is a super set of Windows XP so you can drop back to XP on your TV whenever you like … I.e. surfing the web etc…
- Lots of aftermarket plug-ins for stuff like RSS
- Integrates with Caller-ID on your phone line … so you can see who is calling on your TV when the phone rings.
- The list goes on…
Multiple TV’s, minimum paid Cable/Satellite decoders (I currently have 3 paid Saturn decoders)
>> You probably only require 2 … so you can record and watch another at the same time.
Hard disk recording and playback from any TV
>> Record on the central MCE machine with the decoders in it … and watch from anywhere with an extender.
Useable by wife
>> Very usable. My soon to be wife loves it!
Happy to talk more about what you might need if you want.
CJ
One of my new year projects is going to be finally sorting out the home TV problem. Here are my basic requirements.
- Multiple TV’s, minimum paid Cable/Satellite decoders (I currently have 3 paid saturn decoders)
- Hard disk recording and playback from any TV
- On screen program guide (for NZ)
- Useable by wife
I think I need 2 decoders stored centrally, transmittinng over RF, with two radio controlled remotes to change the channels. The wife has a remote (saying working of RF5 and mine will be RF6). So we just tune to our station.
I’m looking currently at Media Centre, MythTV and MySky.
Any tips welcome, I’ll keep you posted as I progress. If anyone wants to do it as a paid project (based in Wellington) let me know.
… The team presented me with a t-shirt today.
Digital TV switch set for early 2009
Starting Feb. 18, 2009, millions of televisions in American households will go black unless they’re outfitted to receive all-digital broadcasts.
Compare that with Broadband in NZ.
As summer holidays arrive Airnet (Hawkes Bay Wireless ISP) annouces their one of the first 20 carriers in the world to roll out WiMax.
Check out the coverage map for their Fixed Point Wireless Service.
Great reason to spend time in the Bay!
Why governments tremble over Google Earth
At http://maps.google.com you can enter in ‘Area 51′
Some cool things coming soon as VS2005 add-on’s are refreshed.
Upcoming Releases of Useful ASP.NET 2.0 Things
Looks like AJAX stuff (Project Atlas) is going to be substantially updated.
this refresh drop is also making common scenarios super easy
Cool!
Saw Kong tonight. Kong’s been so hyped locally I was ready to be underwhelmed. I wasn’t. I found it just stunning. From the New York sets (shot in Seaview), to the Island, the bugs, Kong’s expressions, the dog fight.
I’m in complete awe of the work that goes into a movie like Kong. It makes business computing seem worthless and weak. Also that a simple story can be spread over 3 hours and wasn’t boring for a second.
Peter and his team again take on the impossible and again over deliver. Makes you proud to be a kiwi.
We had a good spot at the Kong Premier…
Dave5 just showed me how cool Flickr was by taking a photo on his phone, emailing it straight to Flickr and then blogging it.
Now Flickr is owned by Yahoo, I got put off on signup by having to create a yahooid.
Any suggestions as to Flickr alternatives?
I’ve accepted an invitation to join the Board of TradeMe, New Zealand’s most successful Internet business.
I have a huge amount of respect for what Sam and his team have achieved. I look forward to contributing as much as I can as well as learning from their successes.
News.com posts Direction’s on Microsoft’s take on Microsoft’s top 10 hurdles for 2006.
A colleague is looking for a consultant with Power Builder skills for a review project and then an ongoing development.
Anyone know of anyone with PB skills? Flick me a note.
I missed this article last week on unbundling the local loop.
The industry was staggered last year when the decision not to unbundle the local copper network in New Zealand was flipped back to the status quo at the last minute - after it was strongly signalled that unbundling would occur.
This letter is a revealing insight into big business and Government relationships. What is scary is that it appears to have worked.
My PC has become a communications tool. I live on Email and Skype Chat, while working on office documents and sharepoint sites.
Even though I have a wide screen Sony laptop I’m always flipping screens, especially with IM.
I could use a Cinema display, but I still need a laptop. So what I really need is a laptop that can drive a huge resolution screen like the Apple 30″ monitor which runs a resolution of 2560×1600.
I can’t flip to PowerBook but if anyone knows of a PC laptop that drives a big screen let me know.
Wouldn’t it be great if Skype could auto-dock. Expand when required and then slide away.
Comment from MichaelB:
I use my laptop as my main pc too and was wanting more screen space. Here’s was I did: I setup up 2 external 19″ monitors, one was in landscape mode(normal) and other I swivelled 90 degrees to portrait mode. I used the first monitor for my main work area, and second monitor (portrait) for displaying docs, like pdfs, or debugging output. I kept the laptop screen for email, etc.
The larger the monitor you go to, you don’t necessarily get more screen real estate (or the ones that do give you that, cost heaps), so use more cheaper (commodity) monitors and you will probably get more screen space overall than going with say a 30″ probably.
To plug in more than one external monitor you will most likely need to use another old pc and then use MaxiVista www.maxivista.com to output your laptop video to that (or there are USB video devices appearing now, but still a bit exe and not great resolution last time I looked).
To manage your desktop, use UltraMon http://www.realtimesoft.com/ultramon/ - allows you to drag windows between the windows and manages task bar.
See what you think…
Just noticed Kirk’s post on Pandora. Under the metaphor of creating your own radio station you can enter in an artist and it starts a tour of music you might like.
This is completely cool. You can imagine this becoming something you do on your couch, ‘remoting’ your media center when you get a few quiet moments.
A great example of social networking and at the same time an entry point to significant eCommerce opportunities.
Impressively simple but powerful. It’s not every day you see a new thing to do.
When installing Adobe Acrobat I’ve never been sure what Acrobat Distiller is. Found a good definition when looking for something else…
PDFs made with Distiller have high resolution, so the images will be sharp on any output device: monitors, laser printers, and offset printers. The fonts will also appear correctly, including Asian fonts, because Distiller lets you include the fonts into the PDF.
If you are producing files for print production (such as computer manuals, books, and so on,) you can save tens of thousands of dollars in production, plus cut the production time from weeks to literally a few days.
The drawback is that Distiller PDFs tend to be larger than Writer PDFs. They are often 500 KB, and as much as 10 MB for simple files. For large files, such as books, I’ve made PDFs that filled 600 MB. The Distiller PDF contains much more information within it. However, for distribution over corporate networks and on CD disks, this is not a problem.
We have just moved to our third new space since starting up.
The team continues to grow.
We’re now Level 11 TeRenCo house. Same building, across from the Lido in Wellington.
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