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Video under MythTV

MythTV itself is a Digital Video Recorder which records off of various television sources. To make it a complete media center, it also needs playback of video files and DVDs.

MythVideo is a plugin that handles all of your video needs. In 0.22, it is dramatically expanded with support for new metadata information, TV Series handling, Fanart, Banners, Screenshots, and a host of new browsing features.

The biggest change is that MythVideo now supports storage groups. The feature is still in a preview phase, but it means videos can be watched with zero configuration on the frontend. Under the older system. each frontend had its own video directory settings. Thus, if you wanted to share files from a central server, you needed to set up an NFS share.

We’ve been using the new system, which unfortunately doesn’t work for DVD isos, but otherwise works flawlessly. External players, such as mplayer or xine for unsupported file types also does not work. Both are planned for 0.23.

Metadata can be very important to media file storage. As of 0.22, MythVideo uses TheMovieDB as its primary movie grabber. It also includes support for TV series handling with fields for season, episode, and subtitle, and support for TheTVDB to fill in the information. To determine if an item is a movie or a TV program, it parses the filename.

In additional to searching within the interface, MythTV now includes JAMU. We’ve done some basic testing on JAMU, which stands for Just Another Metadata Updater. JAMU provides for mass updating and regular maintenance of associated graphics and text meta data. It can even reorganize the directory structure based on the metadata.

Check back soon, when we will be providing some screenshots off of our MythTV Frontend of it in action. We just need to organize our MythVideo directories so we can best demonstrate these features.

Published on October 31, 2009
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MythTV 0.22 Final to Be Released Next Week

Terra Theme
Terra Theme

As you may know, MythTV 0.22 has gotten to  release candidates, but now, the team has announced the final version, barring any new critical issues, will be released next week.

Since the initial release candidate two weeks ago, more than 50 updates were submitted.

We’re not sure whether we like the new default theme in actual use, but it doesn’t show of the possibilities the new MythUI offers, and is visually appealing. Our biggest issue was that highlighted items on the new theme have a light box around them which does not contrast significantly.

We’ll be continuing to cover MythTV and the 0.22 release, discussing some of the tricks, tips, and issues we’ve come across.

Published on October 31, 2009
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Review: Wolverine F2D100 35mm Film and Slide Scanner

[asa]B002TKMG92[/asa]

Update: The below review was of the F2D100, since discontinued. The link above is to the Wolverine F2D, a newer version of same. Wolverine offers several less expensive models as well.

Recently, a relative of ours discovered a box of old slides in his garage that had been sitting, untouched, for many years. The logical thing to do with untouched media is to digitize it. then, not only will it last forever, but it is suddenly accessible. New prints can be made at any drug store without problem, it can be added to digital photo frames, displayed online, shared with relatives, etc.

As a side note, we love the idea of loading decades of photos onto a digital photo frame. It allows your entire album to be visible to you, as opposed to just a select group of pictures using conventional means.

The cheapest professional slide scanning we could find was 27 cents a slide. With several thousand, that would turn out to over $500. Even though it would require work on our part, a slide scanner seemed a more economical option. We never expected professional quality results, but we aren’t blowing up our slides to poster size. For digital photo frames and prints 8×10 or less, it seemed good enough. And sometimes, good enough just is.

We read the reviews of many different slides scanners and decided on the Wolverine Data F2D100 scanner for many reasons. One, it does not require a computer, which allowed it to be set up on a table very easily. Slides are viewed on a tiny screen, then saved to a Secure Digital Card.

Specifications

  • 6(H) x 3(W) x 3(D) dimensions in inches
  • 5 megapixel CMOS sensor
  • Scan Quality: 1,800 DPI – 2520×1680 pixels
  • USB powered

Now, we have a simple system for the cleaning of slides prior to scanning. The scanner includes a small brush to clean dust off the backlight in between scans, and you can get slide cleaning supplies. We went with a homebrew solution. A bottle of canned air to blow the dust off the slide and a cheap brush used to clean LCD monitors without scratching them to wipe it off. It isn’t perfect, but both were sitting around our office already.

Below, you can see a sample slide, taken in San Francisco nearly 40 years ago. Click to see full-sized images. You can spot a little dirt still left over, but that could be fixed with a more thorough cleaning of the slides. The first image is exactly as it was when loaded from the scanner. The second is with the picture crapped, and an automatic white balance and color enhance function run on it(as opposed to manual fiddling, which might produce even better results).

Ultimately, the hardest part of the process is the insertion of slides into the slide tray so they can be slid into the scanner. However, Wolverine has replaced the existing tray with one that makes this easier, with a new magnetic lock, as of last month. Unfortunately, we got the old one. We may purchase extra trays anyway, as this would speed the loading process.

Otherwise, this is the perfect item for someone who wants a reasonably decent quality slide scanner.

Slide exactly as Uploaded from Scanner
Slide exactly as Uploaded from Scanner
Slide Cropped and Color Balanced
Slide Cropped and Color Balanced
Published on October 25, 2009
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The Future of Internet Video

A server used for the My Home
Image via Wikipedia

We like Hulu. We think it is a great service, and like any services that offer good content at the wonderfully low-low price of free. However, Hulu is considering adding a premium product…where they could offer things they don’t offer now at a premium.

Some people, despite its free nature, don’t like Hulu. And it hasn’t exactly made a great deal of profit. Mark Cuban wrote today on the subject of Internet Video vs the Cable Company DVR. As the owner of HDNet, a television channel offered on cable, he may be biased though. But the fact that content providers, cable companies, and the other organizations involved just don’t get the possibilities is not one we can argue with.

Cuban makes the case for better cable hardware with better improved features and remote access so you can enjoy your programs on the go. Beyond that, there is also the network DVR, where the videos are stored on a cable company server, instead of in the house. The library of On-Demand programming offered by all carriers continues to increase.

Cuban makes the point that with the current limitations of Internet based video, cable may be the more popular option for the foreseeable future. At least, in that regard, we agree.  If you are paying for something, you should receive good quality service at a good price.

Published on October 24, 2009
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Roku Video Player to Add Revision3

The Roku Video Player(formerly Roku Netflix Player) will soon be adding the popular and free Revision 3 line of shows to its devices.
Currently, the player supports Netflix Streaming, Amazon Video-On-Demand, and MLB.TV, all subscription or pay-per-view services. The Revision3 functionality will be the first free service for the inexpensive little box that could.

The Revision 3 stable of shows, with their newest as an exception, are all non-fiction shows, geared at various interest groups, and will be offered in HD-quality(or as high as your connection supports).

Updated with links to latest Roku boxes.

[asa_collection]Roku Collection[/asa_collection]

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Published on October 15, 2009
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MythTV 0.22 Release Candidate 1

Component video cable with RCA connections.
Image via Wikipedia

Yesterday, MythTV unveiled its version 0.22 Release Candidate 1. It has been almost two years since version 0.21 was released, and the change brings a great deal of welcome changes.

  • Support for the HD-PVR 1212 – The Hauppauge HD-PVR captures analog HD video and digital audio from component video inputs and outputs them over USB using the H264 codec. Since cable companies are encrypting almost all of their content, this device ensures the analog loophole can be exploited. We’ve been using the development version of 0.22 for this reason ever since our cable company shut off our other alternative.
  • VDPAU Support – VDPAU is a feature of certain Nvidia graphics cards that permits offload of processor intensive video decoding, include the H264 codec the HD-PVR uses, from the system processor to the graphics card. Thus a slow system can play back HD content without problem.
  • The User Interface has been ported to a new standard, MythUI. It allows for inheritance and menu animation, and takes layout and behavior away from the program and puts it under the control of the theme. And surprisingly, that simplifies things.
  • Automatic Prioritization, which keeps track of what you watch and uses it to increase the priority of shows watched closer to their recording times over shows that are not.
  • A New Channel Scanner – This is a big one, as instead of adding channels when found, it allows you to decide which channels to select, dividing them into New channels, Old Channels, and several different channel types. For example, every time we scan we find a variety of foreign-language channels. Since we don’t speak those languages, it is pointless to add them. This allows us to tell the system to ignore them on scan.
  • HDHomeRun Multi-Rec Support – Multi-Rec has been supported under MythTV for DVB devices for a while. This extends it to the popular HDHomeRun, which we also happen to have. Digital TV, both cable and broadcast, allows for multiple subchannels to be embedded on the same channel frequency. Multirec allows two subchannels from the same channel to be recorded at once, instead of discarding all but the one you are watching. It means that if your cable system puts the local NBC and CBS affiliate on the same channel, you can record them simultaneously on the same tuner.
  • A score of bug fixes and general handling improvements too numerous to list, but can be checked in the Release Notes.
  • MythBrowser now has support for flash and javascript, which means it could be used for Hulu and other Streaming sites(We have yet to test this feature).
  • MythNews, the RSS reader, now has podcast support(We have yet to test this feature).
  • MythVideo now supports videos stored on the backend. Previously, this required adding the videos as NFS shares. New video metadata grabber scripts are now part of the package, and several other features. The networked option is still in its infancy, and is considered beta till the next version.

There are some additional features that you can review, but essentially, MythTV 0.22 is everything we hoped for after all these months. It can only get better from here. And for US residents, the only possible way this software would not be a great addition to your tech offerings is if the cable company locks down their system so much as to prevent you from using it.

Published on October 15, 2009
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Hulu unveils Desktop for Linux – Another Shot at Boxee?

Image representing hulu as depicted in CrunchBase
Image via CrunchBase

Hulu, the online movie streaming site, released a version of its Desktop software for linux.

Now, we’re Linux people, so we love that a company has released Linux software. But we can’t help but think back to how this affects Boxee. Hulu asked them to remove support, then unveiled their desktop app, and have now extended it to every OS Boxee supports, even going a step further, because they offer both Fedora and Ubuntu options in both 32 and 64 bit, where Boxee offers only Ubuntu 32.

Since we use Fedora 64, we’re pleased by this and will be testing the product and have a review soon. The lack of stability under Fedora and/or 64-bit has limited our use of Boxee, which is the point. We want to use Boxee regularly, but we can’t.

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Published on October 8, 2009
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Should You Still Wait to Buy a Kindle?

Image representing Amazon as depicted in Crunc...
Image via CrunchBase

Amazon is cutting the price of its Kindle 2 to $259, the second drop in the last few months. It is also offering an ‘international’ Kindle for $279, with shipping to begin on October 19th. Books downloaded internationally will cost an extra $1.99. This does free up a gap in the service, namely overseas, and connects Amazon to AT&T over Sprint.

Amazon has said  that Kindle books now represent 48% of total book sales when both Kindle and paper versions are available, up from 35% in May and 13% in February, but no statistics have been revealed on how many units have been sold, but Kindle owners seem to buy a lot of books.

So, with the latest price drop, is it finally time to buy a Kindle? Maybe. But we’d prefer it to hit around $200 before it becomes too tempting to resist, especially with the bulk of new e-book readers coming and Google’s E-Book initiative.

Competition produces innovation. Amazon has said it would not mind selling Kindle books to people with other E-book readers, which would be a smart move for the company. But either way, in another few months, the price will likely be where we want it to be. What do you think?

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Published on October 8, 2009
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Wakeup for HTPCs and Servers

A remote control's infrared seen as near-infra...
Image via Wikipedia

Tonight, we upgraded an old computer we use as a secondary MythTV combined backend and a frontend. It is currently the only computer we use ACPI Wakeup on, so we spent some time resetting this feature.

There are three basic Wakeup Types that are useful for computers nowadays.

  • Wake on LAN – Wake the computer up in response to a signal over the network.
  • Wake on USB – Wake the computer up in response to a USB signal
  • Wake on Alarm – Set a time for the computer to wake up

So, how can we leverage this into power-savings and efficiency? By having the computer turn itself off when it isn’t in use. We’ve been using it in cooperation with our TV recording schedule. Computer starts up, records, sets a wakeup for the next time, then shuts down.

But after that, what can we do with this? Wake on LAN allows the computer to be tripped into an active state over a network. Wake on USB would allow us to activate the computer with a USB remote control or other USB communications device, such as a sensor.

The feature is built into every current computer. So, why around we using it? We didn’t even get to the discussion of Suspend to RAM and Hibernate, two features that either save the system state to the hard drive or keep the system on minimal power to keep data in the RAM, which offer additional options.

So, why aren’t you using the power-saving functions of your computer?

Published on September 27, 2009
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The Problem with Verizon Wireless Apps

Cellco Partnership D/B/A Verizon Wireless
Image via Wikipedia

On Friday morning, we were sitting around with our Verizon phone and discovered a new Twitter app had appeared as available. Called Tweet-Tweet, it costs $1.49 a month or $3.99 for unlimited.

Get It Now/Media Center is Verizon Wireless‘ implementation of Qualcomm’s Brew technology, and the basis for applications on most of their phones. The program locks content rigidly and prevent unapproved data to be loaded onto the phone. This is to ensure the usage of their data plan, the ala carte version of costs $1.99/MB. Verizon is known for crippling features of its firmware, such as Bluetooth file transfer and unrestricted GPS access to ensure these services must use their applications.

We have a regular Verizon phone, but have considered upgrading to an organizer phone because portable data seems to be the way things are going. The problem is phones that are not phones. Phones are now cameras, music players, internet devices…everything in your hand. Having a Swiss Army Device is not always the answer. It can’t do everything well.

The most popular phone out there is the iPhone, which has mixed, even sometimes negative reviews as a phone. It is more a multimedia and networking device. Verizon doesn’t have an iPhone killer. Part of this is the Application problem. Verizon is too locked down, and its application store is limited.

The worst part is for the phones we use. You have to subscribe to an application? And pay data charges on top of that? For all we find Apple just as limiting as Verizon, they’ve approved thousands of apps you can download, and the creation process is extremely open. We don’t mind an approval process, but Verizon is shooting itself in the foot.There are rumors this may change, but innovation is slow.

Tweet-Tweet is useful for us. It is a simple, uncomplicated Twitter application that adds some functionality to our phone. We won’t be using it all the time, as the cost would be prohibitive without a data plan. But it allows us to check up on current status while away from our homebase. But it is not enough for everyone.

Published on September 22, 2009
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