Thu Apr 18 2013 20:32:25 EDT from IGnatius T Foobar @ Uncensored

So what's the most versatile internet-to-tv hookup these days? Roku? Apple handcuff TV? Google TV? Roll your own on a Pi?

XBMC is clearly the answer.

the newer pi with 512MB ram is probably a cheap and well explored option.

however, just booting a pi-bootimage on the cubieboard did not work. (which has 1g Ram but uses the same SOC - A10 all winner)

I didn't bother to look at the boot of the PI image (which works on one of the older PIs with 256 MBRam) via the serial console.

One main difference between pi and cubie board which might be pro-pi is that the pi also has a FBas chinch plug for elderly TV, the cubieboard just a HDMI port.

If you care, I could have a look at whats going wrong with the xbmc boot image on the cubie board.

Well when they lost their contract with, Stars was it?  They lost a pretty good bit of content.

Fri Feb 15 2013 08:31:51 PM EST from generica @ Uncensored

Netflix finally offers me enough value that I'd consider paying for it.
(streaming service)

I'm thinking of canning my subscription. The limited range of selection is starting to bug me a little.

I have thought about that. But we now live in a world of 7" tablets for under 99€, can't somebody fix an IR port to them and make a real stylish remote control app? 

Such apps exist, but they work by sending remote control signals into "Teh Cloud™" which then relays them back downstream to your set top box.  And it only costs $9.99 per month to be able to do that!

Of course, it's our own fault for being st00pid.  We should just put our racks of A/V equipment on the side of the room where we're actually sitting, leaving nothing on the other side except screens and speakers.  Then we wouldn't need remote controls.

well, I have used the b/w display version of the harmony.

since the remote tries to be clever, it depends on the devices how good everything works out.

if you only have absolute controll commands (power on; power off; input n} everything works fine.

but if you have one device which has i.e. toggle power on/off or toggle lists like next input; next input,..., you're completely lost.

The harmony tries to mirror the state machine inside of the device; if a command is lost, you have everything out of sync, and you have to fix the state machine on the harmony.I

I liked my st00pit programmeable remote that came with my onkyo; but it died by some beer shed over it :-(  harmony? no thanks.

btw, I've seen that there _is_ an android remote with samsung hardware offering just a remote with touchscreen...

I have thought about that. But we now live in a world of 7" tablets for under 99€, can't somebody fix an IR port to them and make a real stylish remote control app? The 79€ variant of the Logitech Harmony can only control 5 devices... My Pioneer D812 has a remote with support for 8 devices, but has some memory issues and would need 3-4 programmable buttons more. I am still not willing to spent 150€ for an almost ordinary remote.

On the analog TV I had everything connected via SVHS/Hosiden, looped through the A/V amp, since the woman's acceptance factor of having only one simple remote control for everything is quite huge.

When I wrote my original rant I had just exchanged the TV set and I didn't touch the wiring out of poor lazyness and only wondered why the DVB-S signal was monochrome and I had to switch back to Composite. Then I read the manual and found out the manufacturarer was too cheap to put in SVHS decoders, so I was back to composite completey. Which my A/V amp looped fine through the Hosiden connectors, somehow. Anyway, composite is even awful on analog SD displays.

Then I got a new DVB-S receiver, this time with HDMI support and now I see the light. Although the TV is only capable of 1080i and I am running on 720p now, the image is perfectly clear on the HD stations and even the SD signals look far better now, although the variety in the signal's color hues, etc is still more visible than on analog.

I also connected the DVD player via some ultra highquality SCART cable directly into the TV and found out that both the TV and the player are able to communicate in YUV/Component via SCART (the original scart specs only supported RGB afaik), so I am able to get at least a progressive SD signal through to the screen. Which vastly improves DVD signal and Baraka as well as my Cashern DVD look brilliant again. They are my reference material, since they have the highest bitrate. Cheap DVDs still look crap but at least the major labels do some good work and animated childrens movies are acceptable to watch.

The Wii is ok too, only downside is that I do not find a cable with long enough and separate audio connectors to get the sound into the amp again...  (Also, cheap YUV  cable suck donkey balls, since they lose signal too often!)

So, all in all, HD TV screens with proper analog inputs is quite likeable, but the downside is that I'd need to upgrade the A/V amp in order to get an acceptable WAF again... We now need two remote controls and select the inputs on the TV instead of using one single input and change the source via the amp's RC. (But this makes it possible to tune contrast/brightness/colour on every single input)

 Now, the thing that really unnerves me is that I need to find a fast enough USB flash drive in order to properly record/timeshift HD signals on the DVB-S device. Is there a flash drive that is able to write at about 10MB/s? The receiver claims that he needs this speed...

well, I guess if you give them enough bandwith, it would work.

You also can see the same on other astra satelite channels where the broadcaster tries to save money by using less bandwith; regardless whether its HD or not.

I guess when it comes to the quality of the scaler, the average tv will loose in quality to those professional ones.

Heh, unhappy small green pieces of paper.

yea, watching analogue satelite TV on my 42" full HD screen was so painfull that I did it just once and then used DVB-T *flicker* *BZZZT*

thank god meanwhile DVB-S is working, and I've bought a dreambox 800hdse which does a descent job.

maybe you can even hook up an USB-DVD drive to it, since its quiet hackeable for your DVDs? ;-)

HD TV is realy enjoyeable. Though sometimes with real old movies the TV stations fuck up the scaling seriously, and its better to watch the lowres versions, and make the local gear do the upscaling.

Analog media have/had the benefit of more enjoyable errors! A tape slowly degrading is something you only really notice when it is far too late, a CD degrades digitally. Either it sounds good or is annoying as hell.

Same has to be said about CRT vs modern video displays. My old CRT TV which we had to replace because we got some big lcd had a really brilliant display, DVDs looked astonishing, even DVB-S looked really good across all channels. The new TV is a perfect noise amplifier, budget DVDs look butt ugly, even my special edition of Baraka looks crappy. Same with DVB-S, only some TV stations really look proper. Contrast or color hue differences are far more visible :(

Now I need to upgrade DVD to BD and the sat receiver to something with hdmi out, too...

I also had to buy a compenent cable for the Wii because rgb via scart isnt progressive, although it could be, technically. Damn you americans with your crappy YUV stuff!!!!

Wed Apr 11 2012 21:44:09 EDT from zooer

Why don't you convert them to the lossless FLAC?
http://flac.sourceforge.net/

Better sound quality.

rethink your statement.

recoding always is a loss of quality. whether or not the new format might be capable of better quality.

As promised, here is a demo of the Samson Meteor Mic which I recorded tonight.

(And if anyone has the right contacts for me to get into the voice work biz, I'd love to do that...)

You know, I think I'm going to have to use that!  So much more colorful than "swiss army knife"....

Your average pig is suitable to be butchered for meat. It is a single purpose animal. But if you'd improve it, like make it give milk, you'd have an enhanced pig. Now make it grow wool and let it lay eggs, it would be one hell of a multipurpose animal, serving you meat, milk, eggs and some wool. It is an idiom, translating it does not make much sense, but I was lacking a proper way of describing it. After some search on dict.leo.org I found "swiss army knife" and "all dancing and all singing" to be terms which resemble that meaning.

 @dothebart: Yes, but Squeezebox is over the 100€ mark and I am just not willing to pay that much. The Xoro device has a 3.5" color display and is 50€ cheaper. It is a linux device as I have read somewhere, too.

I'm still getting my head around: "the egg-laying wool-milk-pig"

Have no idea what the means, the_mgmt, but bet it would make for a great Ron White-ism!  :-)

well, the logitech squeezebox is a little more expensive, but its worth it imho since its whole userland is opensource.

WAF also pretty high, useable for a 1st grade kid to get the music from the mp3 bunch she likes in 3 minutes.

I stand corrected, just when I gave up my search, the GF accidently found somethign on the netz while searching for something else: AEG IR 4436 for 70€. Looks decent but recensions on amazon are not that good, only 3 stars. Not that I really trust those reviews, but while searching I found kind of the egg-laying wool-milk-pig: Xoro HMT 350

It even has an sd card slot (Aeg's didn't), normal FM radio and can play FLAC! But on top of that it has a display and allegedly plays even avis and stuff like that. I already own a Xoro dvd player, which was the best priced one for the feature set it has included on the market, when my old one died. (I know that proper geeks should build their own HTPC, but the Women's Acceptance Factor is of high importance here.) This Xoro Wifi Radio only costs 79€ so I think it's a steal.

 http://www.amazon.de/Xoro-HMT350-Zoll-LCD-Internet-Fernseher-Kartenslot/dp/B0040YWOEM/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1322937767&sr=8-5

In reply to my wifi webradio device rant:

The market seems indeed not to exist! Not a single device on sale on Deal Extreme or China Vision! You could get Nokia-lookalike handys running android, with tv receiver and dual sim or anything you ever dreamed of as a car multimedia system to replace your normal radio, not to mention all the totally unnescessary light and sound emitting fun gadgets at astonishing low prizes. The various mobile phones and tablets have about every feature ever invented onboard, but no, nobody did built a wifi radio. I am not really willing to pay 100€ for one, not even for christmas.

I closed my eyes and heard it wrong.

me likes the squeezebox radio.

it doesn't have an FM radio receiver though.

all open software, (linux kernel, their userland is licensed under the BSD license) nice sound, 100e and the server runs on all linux, solaris,...

What is the excuse for the atronomical price of Wifi radios?

You get a whole modemrouter for around 30-50€, even one with more than one guest AP mode. These things are sending and not only receiving. Ok, they don't have a display, but they squeeze a half decent display into every non-wifi radio everywhere. I don't even require a touch interface, some wheel or keys are fine. You can get whole mobilephones (crappy ones) for free or around 10€.

Heck, you get a decent mobilephone for around 86€ with 3" color touchscreen and wifi. For around 200€ you get the whole package of BT, Wifi, GPS, GSM, FM and a geiger counter in one tiny mobile phone. And for some big bulky and ugly radio with ubarcrappy accustics they charge 100€ or more just because it has Wifi?!

Even if you don't want wifi, it is not possible to get a half decent fm radio which looks good, sounds ok, has working SD Card/USB support and a display which was not constructed with the purpose to illuminate the whole super bowl all by itself. At least not if you don't want to pay the Apple, Bang&Olufsen or $Overprized_Designer fee.

,it wakes me up in the morning, and when i'm at my second home, there it gives me access to music and internet radio with my choice of music without any hassle.

about hacking it more... well... I already have a big timesink you might know ;-)

I still like its sound quality a lot (which compares to a JBL Control 1)

If you like an open product, I still recommend bying it. Its all GPL from the linux kernel part, and the logitech created userland was even licensed under a BSD license.

Though the build system & dependency management makes compiling it yourself a litte problematic, i'd name it _the_ opensource mainstream hardware buyable next to factory default unlocked android phones (which in fact are not that much, most of them require jailbraking therefore)

Its a little of a pity that they didn't upgrade the squeezebox boom hardware (true stereo speakers, led display) with the squeezebox radio core. (color TFT display, more powerfull CPU, dual coil stereo->mono speaker)

If you have your music on some networked disk, and like to have easy access to it (with a UI operateable by a 7year old), the squeezebox is your friend.

Compared to an average CD player, its not as easy to install & operate, but I guess that like comparing billy the kid with rambo.For somebody who drank the apple I* koolaid, it might be the wrong choice, but for an average geek like you (and your family once you made it work) its perfect.

So ... dothebart -- how's the Squeezebox running now that you've had it for a while?  Still happy with it?

Anyone have any WinXP-compatible suggestions for a similar task?  I was just shipped a small box containing probably two or three dozen 8mm tapes.  I'm looking at a pretty substantial task just to go through them, let alone make them digital where appropriate.  I'd prefer not to learn how to Linuxize my desktop on top of that...

Wed Feb 24 2010 10:20:26 AM EST from cellofellow @ Uncensored

While I don't have much (any?) experience with DV tapes, Kino should do the job. Just seek to the start point, start grabbing, and then stop at the stop point. At least, I think that's how it works.

I'm rather satisfied with my Denon amp and Polk speakers, but my listening room is a bit on the small side.

hm, for the price of my onkyo has a full set of speaker plugs, yamaha would just give you full size banana plugs for the main speakers, center and rear speakers just had tiny clamp connectors.

In sound quality the onkyo also clearly blasts a same priced yamaha to hell.

While onkyos reputation might be bader than the stuff they actualy deliver, Yamaha is vice versa.

about the third manufacturer... some germans actualy pronounce it SO NIE (never like that) nuf said.

Sony: crap

Onkyo: worse crap than Sony

I would go with nothing less than Yamaha, which still being low-end is VERY acceptable. Actually surprisingly so considering price. Unless you opt for one of their truly expensive units. Then you are getting true high-end quality. But you have to PAY for that.

And then there's LEXICON. That is what you TRULY want - although I would not advise that unless you are prepared to put about five grand into speakers, about ten grand into GOOD pre-amps, and another 3 to 5 grand into amplifiers, about 2 grand into a REAL subwoofer (or 4 grand for two of 'em), and about 5 grand in REAL cabling.

But then, this is me, with about 60 grand in "home" theater gear in my living room - more than once have I heard "you could buy two CARS for what that stuff costs!" True enough...

well, for 125 E (which is the cheapest offer I found, purchased mine for 130) You 'll have a hard time to find a netbook these days. Plus the Netbook comes with _crappy_ speakers, so you'll have to throw in another 80E for some higher quality pc speakers... Yes, the squeezebox radios speaker is _good_, i'd compare it being the little brother of a jbl Control 1.

And, the netbook won't work with the standby / full on power consumption

Plus, Maja could operate it (just finished first grade) in half a minute, and make it play her most favourite Amy McDonald song.

This network device is for authorized use only. Unauthorized or improper use
of this system may result in you hearing very bad music. If you do not consent
to these terms, LOG OFF IMMEDIATELY.

Ha, only joking. Now you have logged in feel free to change your root password
using the 'passwd' command. You can safely modify any of the files on this
system. A factory reset (press and hold add on power on) will remove all your
modifications and revert to the installed firmware.

Enjoy!
#

*roflamo*

now thats cool! I liked my dreambox, but they came with telnet by dfault... and, they were known as nerdy sat receiver.

that box I just bougt as mp3 player.. makes fun. every minute. even if its not playing music.

whew. 3 clicks later:

your root password is 1234. You cann connect via 192.168.3.113

I've been using one of these for a few years now.

It isn't bad.  I was kind of concerned when Logitech bought them out, but things have turned out okay.

ohhhkeeey. now that makes sense.

Logitech aquired Slim Devices in 2006; They created it in a verry opensource open development process.

it seems as if logitech maintained its promise to keep it that way.

Its also a very good explanation why this device doesn't feel as 'designed' as one might expect; and has a much better sound as the Brand Logitech might suggest...

Its just got that feeling of love to the detail and the brainshare of many people as just an open development process can produce.

It even dims its display...

just purchased a Logitech Squeezebox, neato thing.

The works with * logos show Windows, Mac, and a Tux! (I wouldn't have purchased it otherwise..)

there comes a perl deamon with it, so, even the PAPERBOX fineprint reads: Macos X 10.3, Win 2k, XP, Vista, 7, Linux, BSD, Solaris!

the Download page enables selection between Macos, Windoze, .deb (YAY!) and TGZ with the perl source; The link to the (english only) Protocol spec is also available.

There also already exists an amarok plugin...

so, just went into a shop, and bought a second one :] they even had a demo device for 30E of :]]]]

COOL SHIT!