In an about face I returned (by the time this posts I hope to have returned) the EyeTV 200. It was not as good as the Snapstream setup I have on my PC. It wouldn’t go full screen correctly on my 40″ LCD TV. It also didn’t have the ability to schedule season passes. I will go with the substantially cheaper option of getting another Hauppauge USB2 PVR off of ebay. There are not many of them but the price is right. I will plug it into my existing setup as a second tuner. If Apple comes out with a better DVR solution I will take a look at switching over, until then the last remaining Windows box that I rely on is my DVR box.
Month: January 2006
Back To Work Monday
It was hot at work. We turned the AC on in our office also. Just my luck that we are having AC issues all around. Our other office had an AC issue in one of the computer rooms, and our room in NYC was a bit hot. Not broken, but not at a cool 69 degree’s like it should be. I had to deal with that in the AM. Then I had some meetings and taking care of misc issues.
My group had to stay late to do a bunch of physical computer moves. Because so many people stayed it only took us an hour to do. I think everyone was working except for one phone that needs to get addressed first thing tomorrow. For the messiness of the job I am happy to report my Dockers where not ruined. We shall see how many issues we have related to the move from users tomorrow. That is the true test of if we did the work right.
Very Little Sleep
I couldn’t sleep much last night. It was first too hot so I put the ac on. Yes I know AC in NY in January. it was rainy so I couldn’t open a window without getting my comfy chair by my window wet. Then I was nice and temperature controlled, but my allergies started kicking in with the extra dust of using the AC for the first time in months. It was not a fun night. It didn’t help that I was a lazy bastard and took a 2 hour nap on Sunday.
Technorati Tags: sleep
Lazy Weekend
So far this weekend has been absolutely unproductive, and I couldn’t be happier. Yesterday was reorganizing and then just lying around on the couch watching TV. Today has been a continuation on yesterday’s theme. I don’t know why but I got up early and just bummed around all day. Nothing else to report as of yet!
Watch Issues
So my experience with my watch took a turn for the worse. I realized on Friday that the alarm wasn’t working since I took it in for a battery replacement. Turns out when I turn the backlight on it makes a weird buzzing sound. I bet that has to do with the fact that the alarm does not plan at all. I took it back to Tourneau (since I bought it there and they changed the battery in the first place). They looked at it for a second and said I had to send it in. To say I was ticked off would be an understatement. I was furious. They changed a friggen battery and then the watch (not exactly a timex) didn’t work right. So I explained that to them. They gave me the song and dance about it is an electronic device, bla bla bla, things happen, etc. I understand that, but it wasn’t like the dam thing just stopped working. I gave it to them for a 10 minute piece of maintenance and they give it back to me not working. The clincher was that the watch had to go back to Omega for service. They said that would take 6-8 weeks. Having no other options I gave the watch in for service.
At least I got an answer to an age old question I had. You can get really horrible service at an expensive store just like you would at Walmart. I will probably be sporting my Dad’s old watch until I get mine back. Not the end of the world (i will admit that), but just an annoyance!
Video Redux
I finally took the time to look at an article that shows how to convert video from my DVR program to a format that works with my video iPod. Turns out it is a free video extractor (windows only) that will convert almost any video file (i am using a generic mpeg-2 file that worked flawlessly) into a compatible format for use on the video iPod. I ran a test this morning and it worked flawlessly. I programed my DVR computer to convert a bunch of other shows I have. I also programed my desktop to convert a bunch of misc video’s (a lot of them) to the same format. The conversions take allot of time so I am going to let them run overnight. While I sleep they will perform.
I also broke down and bought an Elgato EyeTV 200 for my Mini. it is not as elegant a system as my Beyond TV, but I wanted to use my Mini as part of the home entertainment center. Since my DVD player was going I removed it and now I have my Mini & my Media Center PC as my only components of my home entertainment center. The Tivo is now in the bedroom, and it will be gone as soon as I watch whats left on it. Tomorrow I hope to go through video’s I have and encode what I want to keep for use on the iPod and get rid of the rest. The other advantage of this conversion is the space savings. An hour long video in MPEG-2 is about 2 gigs, in the H.264 codec it is less than 500 meg. Not a bad savings.
No Staff Wednsday
Just as the title says my department had a no staff Wednesday, well almost. The moons seemed to align in such a way that half the group took off today for whatever reasons they had. The rest of us got allot done! I had the typical meetings and other misc tasks to do for the day. Nothing major to report.
I headed out early to get my watch fixed again. After adding a link to the band because I thought the watch was too tight for months I realized after 2 days that with the extra link it was way too loose. Loose enough that I can live with the slightly tight fit the other way. I also brought in my recipt for when I bought the watch and got the battery replacement refunded. Not bad.
Also note to self, never take the Q train all the way to 57th street since it stops in the tunnel and waits for a free slot to park. and other trains that you want to connect with pass you in the tunnel getting us (kings we) pissed off…
Dinner With The Family
Meet up with Carrie, Morgan, and my dad for dinner at Sante Fe by my sisters house tonight. I didn’t really eat much. I started feeling out of it towards the end of the day. I was not hungry but nibbled on some chicken fingers while everyone ate. I went to see the family more than the food. Morgan still rocks. she is too cute for her own good.
At luch I had to get my watch fixed since I went to a store that couldn’t help me yesterday. Cost me $28 bucks but I could get that money back when I bring in the receipt from the purchase of the watch. I also had a link let out since the watch was a bit tight since I got it. now it is too loose. Go figure?
I had to cut out of the office a little early to meet up with the family. I am spoiled by the 20 minute commute now that I get frustrated with the 45-60 minute trip to Forrest Hills. The funny thing is I know it isn’t a bad trip, but compared to what I am used to it sucks. Of course to see my niece I would do double the trip. She is worth it, but only in small doses. She is allot of energy.
Even with the not feeling good it was a nice visit. My mom heard about the trip and jokingly got upset that I meet up with the family when she was out of town. She is in Florida relaxing with her friends for the week. It seems like retirement is nice!
Multi Region DVD Bliss
Today was busy, but like most days recently I can’t say my time was taken up by X. it was just hectic with “stuff”. I could give you a breakdown of the time by going into my Request Tracker system, but for this blog purposes I just don’t care! 🙂
I had to hit CompUSA today to get an external CD drive case. I needed it to build my semi-region free PC. I wanted a region free DVD player for the PC, but couldn’t find a really simple way to do it. It sucks. I own 2 different region DVD’s. Region 1 USA stuff, and Region 2 European stuff. I have mainly region 1, but do want to play the region 2 stuff. I also wanted use my DVR (now media center) pc and not my DVD player. I have a region free stand alone dvd player that worked fine up until last week (that is another story), but I am trying to do everything via the media center. Here comes the external cd/dvd bay. I found out that the region coding is per drive. so in theory (and practice) I can get a second dvd player and set it to a different region. I can then play dvd’s from 2 regions. A semi hackish approach but I only need 2 regions, so for my needs it worked out fine. I also don’t have ton’s of region 2 dvd’s so I can put the dvd player I set to region 2 in an external case and plug it into the media center via fire wire only when I need it. So I bought the case and put an old DVD drive I had around. Guess what? It worked flawlessly so far. Such a simple fix, and I didn’t find anyone on the internet talking about it. yeah a region free or region 0 player is better, but this works.
After CompUSA I went over to the store I bought my Omega Speedmaster X-33 from. The battery started to go and I needed a replacement. the branch I went to couldn’t do the work so I need to go tomorrow to the main branch and get the work done.
Technorati Tags: dvd, request tracker
Home Entertainment System
I have been using Snapstream’s Beyond TV for over a year now. I am hooked. I like the free aspect of the system (aka no monthly recurring charges). But lets be honest I paid a bunch for all the gear to make the system work. That is not a complaint, just an observation. Part of the cost was getting certain pieces of hardware and then replaceing them over time after I slowly learned I didn’t like them. Now a year later, 2 revisions of beyond tv later, & two comptuer setups later I am finally able to truly use my computer as a DVR. Right now I have it working so well (not trying to jinx myself) that I am about to cancel Tivo. Not because tivo is bad or anything (except for their evil policy of requiring a 1 year contract for new service), but because I can do everything I want to and sometimes more on my computer without a monthly fee.
The latest version of Beyond Media solved my DVD playback issues on my computer. Now I have a fully functioning Media Center PC. My DVR computer is hooked up to my TV. It plugs directly into the TV via a VGA connector. I have my firefly remote, Beyond TV, Beyond Media doing everything that a Windows Media Center PC would do for me. I have Beyond TV for my Tivo like DVR, and Beyond Media is finally working properly as a Media Center replacement. That means I can watch DVD’s on my computer with ease. I can also browse videos, photos and music right from my TV. personally I use my Mac for iTunes so I wont use the music function, but the photo album function is cool. Having the DVD player work is fantastic.
My next project is to get the entire setup to work in HD with my HDTV.
Technorati Tags: beyond tv, dvr, home entertainment, tivo, windows xp