Fire Comcast - Minor improvements

We've been having some issues with the recorded TV shows.  Most are stored on a 1TB WD Passport USB 3/2 drive.  We've been having issues with the drive gratuitously dismounting during playback.  I bought a USB 3 card on the chance that the issue was power since the drive gets its power over the USB connect and there was some web traffic that the WD Passport is something of a power hog.  The first card I bought drew power from the bus and didn't work.  It wouldn't mount the drive.  I ordered a different card with an external power connector and it's works well.  So far it's worked well and we've had no dismounts so it looks like power was the issue.  The USB 3 interface is clearly faster though for playback of recorded video it doesn't really matter as the USB 2 was plenty fast enough.

We continue to have issues with wind causing pixilation of OTA TV.  I may work on the antenna some more.  The next step would be an external antenna.  There are a couple of possible locations I'll try.

Titan tales

Well we've had Titan, an Aussie, for about a month now.  Great dog!  He's settled in well and adopted the couch as his place.  Nights he's sleeping in the bedroom, as do the pugs.  The only issue is he sleeps on my side of the bed and is virtually invisible at night.  I've not stepped on him yet but it's a close thing.

We've done a bit more training principally behaviors and hand signals.  It's going well as he's smart and very eager to please.  I found a child's plastic bowling pin in the yard after one of the recent wind storms, cleaned it up, and we've been using it to play fetch.  It's one of Titan's favorite games and toys.

The only issue is shedding.  I groom him at least once a day.  He seems to like it well enough and I typically take a couple of handfuls of hair out of his coat.  That helps but even so we have to dust mop and vac every day.  For all of that, he's still great company.

Here are some photos.

Petition - A Petition to Support the Saving American Democracy Amendment : Bernie Sanders - U.S. Senator for Vermont

Petition - A Petition to Support the Saving American Democracy Amendment : Bernie Sanders - U.S. Senator for Vermont

Money is destructive of democracy. There are now several petitions to amend the constitution to overturn Citizens United v. FEC. It's worth your time to look into the issue.

Titan update

We've had Titan for a week and a half.  He's great!  We've been out a couple of times a day to exercise and play.  We've been working on various skills and hand signals.  He's a quick learner, particularly when there are treats involved.  I've contacted a local Aussie trainer to see what help she might be.

We were by the vet to have him checked.  All is well.  I've contacted Tufts to have his eyes checked by a specialist.  When playing there is no sign of compromised vision so we're hopeful.

The dogs have the run of the upstairs den and kitchen.  Titan has decided that the couch is good.  Indeed he's turning into something of a couch potato dog when we're not out and about.  When we are he's very high energy so I've been running him twice a day.

Thanksgiving with Wassermans and friends

Real Thanksgiving we spent with Rob & Lee, Mark & Miriam and friends.  Here are a couple of photos courtesy of Mark.  As always a good time was had with plenty of food and friendship.

Pre Thanksgiving in Charlotte & we adopt Titan

BB & I went down to visit family in Charlotte and have a pre Thanksgiving Thanksgiving.  Had a great time.

While there we stayed at E lake cottage.  It's just charming.  I took a few photos.


The other big news is that J let us adopt Titan, one of her Aussies.  Great dog.  Here are some photos.

Synergy

One of the issues I've been unhappy about with the TV is that I needed to have a separate keyboard for the computer TV.  A bit of searching found Synergy.  It provides a facility to remote the keyboard and mouse for a machine.  For my purposes it's just what's wanted so that I can control the TV computer from my laptop.  Now if disk prices would just come down I'd be done with the Fire Comcast TV project.

Comcast fired!

Verizon was by yesterday and installed fiber.  The Internet is definitely faster, although not dramatically so.  I did have to reconfigure some of the house network.  The router I'd been using to run DHCP had a reservation feature that allowed me to assign static IPs.  I needed these to support some of applications I run across the local net.  The Verizon provided router, a generally much more advanced device, doesn't have an explicit static reserved IP feature.  It does seem to create the same effect by always using the same IP for a given MAC address.  The net was that I had to do a bit of reconfiguration of some software that for whatever reason needed a real IP instead of a host name.

With everything running again properly, I called Comcast to terminate the remaining service.  There was some entirely needless fuss and bother over verifying my identity.  It seems that calling from the registered phone number, identifying the account holder, and verifying the address isn't enough.  We finally got past that and Comcast service is now terminated.

We are still having a bit of issue with the USB disk drive I'm using to hold downloaded media.  From time to time it gratuitously dismounts.  That's a bit frustrating when watching something.  I'd like to replace it with a 2TB internal drive but sadly drive prices have skyrocketed with the flooding in Asia.  I'll put up with the dismounts until prices return to a sane level then replace it.

Bottom line now, though, is that I no longer pay for TV, have cut my Internet bill by 1/3, and my phone bill to 1/8 of what it was.  Well worth the couple of hundred I spent on equipment!

Fall bike ride with BB

On this lovely warm fall day BB and I took a 10 mile bike ride.  We went to Wayside Inn by way of Rt 20.  We'll probably not use that route again as Rt 20 is busy and noisy even on Sundays.  Wayside was, as always, nice but we decided not to stop as neither of us were tired or thirsty.  The fall colors were very good even after last weeks heavy snow.  There is still a fair number of downed trees and debris on roads and sidewalks.  Even so, the ride was outstanding.  Here are some photos:

BB and I went for a short bike ride today.  The plan was to bike over to Wayside Inn and stop for a mulled cider.  We got to the inn OK but, sadly, no cider and thus no mulled cider.  We stopped at the mill and I took some photos.  Here's the story:

Bike ride to 9 acre corner

Between the weather, girls weekend away, and a back issue we've not been biking for a bit.  But today with bright sunny sky we rode to 9 Acre Corner and the farm stand.  It was good to be out again.  We had to detour a few times as the storm damage is still being cleared.  While we didn't get to much damage, just one tree dropped a large limb, nearby areas were really hit.  Otherwise, it was a great ride on a brisk fall day with Monday's heavy wet snow gone.

20111030 Snow Storm

We survived the snow storm with no issues save a single large tree limb; no power loss though internet was down for a bit.  Ten miles west of here things were very bad with over 20" of heavy wet snow.  Out by heather they had up to 30"!  She lost power and borrowed our generator to run the sump pumps etc.  Fortunately their electricity was only down for a couple of days.  I'm now a firm believer in generators.

Recent bike rides - 50+ miles - with BB

BB and I did a lot of biking, over 50 miles, over the Columbus Day holiday.

Thursday and Friday we went down to the Cape and used the last two days of our reservation at Seashore Park Inn.  I upgraded the room so we'd have a king size bed and a bit more space with a small living room.  Much nicer!  Seashore Park is an OK place to stay and the price was right.

From 20111005 Bike cape

The Cape has some great biking.  Thursday we did 20+ miles on the Cape Cod Rail Trail.  It was VERY windy so we decided to bike N against the wind out so we'd have it at our backs when returning.  It turned out well since after 20 miles we were both fairly tired.  Here's our route.

From 20111005 Bike cape

Friday we biked out to the Salt Marsh park.  The path through the salt marsh is rolling and twisty.  Rather more fun to ride that the straight flat rail trail.  The old coast guard rescue station is at the end of the path and a nice place to stop.  On the way back we rode up to Arnolds Clam Shack.  Great food!  I had the lobster bisque.  We stopped on the way home for ice cream.  Here's the route.

From 20111005 Bike cape

Here are a bunch of pictures from these rides.



Saturday we decided to bike to the farm store at Nine Acre Corner.  That ride is about 14 or 15 miles.  The store is a nice place to stop with picnic benches and tents.  Here's our route and some pictures from the ride.  BB rode her Rock Hopper finally.  It's MUCH lighter and a generally better bike than she's been riding.

From 201110 Bike 9 acre

Sunday we decided to ride the rail trail from Bedford to Lexington.  This was the site of our very first bike ride together.  Memory serves we rode a total of 3 miles or so.  Sunday we zipped down to Lexington (about 4 miles), walked around a bit, then rode back.  We were both looking for a fairly short ride as 3 back to back days of biking had us both a bit leg weary.  Monday we decided to do that ride again stopping in Lexington for lunch.  Interestingly, BB remarked that 4 miles is not much of a ride! Here's the route and some photos from those rides.

From 201110 Bike Lexington

Between all the rides we did 50 plus miles over 5 days.  Not much, I suppose, by some standards but fun for us.

Fire Comcast TV ... They are fired!!

I've been working for some while to get rid of Comcast TV service.  For the last month or so we've not used any Comcast content so today I canceled the TV service and returned their equipment.  Of course Comcast in their infinite but bone headed wisdom decided to increase the cost of the remaining service $10/month!  That's a great incentive to continue to do business with them ... NOT.

In a related development, Verizon is working at the end of the street so there is some hope that broadband will soon be available.  Given that Verizon cost is comparable and included phone service Comcast is going to get fired completely.

I got an email from an old friend about my Fire Comcast system and sent the following reply.  It sums up things fairly well.

The answer to all questions is 'it depends.'  I built my system on old used gear of one sort or another on a 100 Mbps network.  By splitting the recording and playback functions I was able to use older/slower gear.  It's certainly possible to build a single PC system but I'd be concerned about cost.  Here's the current state:

• Tuner - HD Homerun dual tuner ($94) -Takes the digitization load off the DVR.

• Antenna ($0) - Made several from internet plans.  The fractal antenna works as well as anything else.

• TV DVR - MythTV running on 3 Ghz P4 with 1.5GB memory & 360 GB of old IDE drives ($70 for box, power supply, motherboard & memory, $0 for disk drives salvaged from old machines).  This box is ONLY responsible for recording OTA from the HD Homerun and playing back to another machine driving the TV.  There are some issues when recording two shows while playing back a third.  Most likely it's either a processor or disk issue.  There are a number of fixes the cheapest of which is to setup a cron job to move the recordings to the playback machine overnight ($0).

• TV computer - Intell Core 2 DUO, 2.4 GHz, 3 GB main memory, 2 sata disk drives ($90), chassis and power supply ($70), 1 TB USB ($99).  This machine drives the TV and downloads NZB content.  I overspent on it as I was anxious to get the whole system up and fire Comcast ($90/month) so the extra expense seemed justified.  I run XBMC as the principal video display software with extensions to playback MythTV recordings (loose commercial skip so I just skip forward 30 seconds to get past commercials).  I run Sabnzbd for NZB content download and store it in the XBMC directories.  I also setup a bunch of desktop launchers for major networks and a web page with show links.  This allows watching current shows on the show sites.  We don't much use these.  I use vobcopy on this machine to copy DVDs for backup and later viewing.  We get DVDs via netflixs and from the library.  I use an XVGA interface to the TV since the TV has a conformal display mode better than HDMI (machine doesn't have an HDMI output).  This box is overkill to drive the TV (previously I'd used a P3 laptop).  I use it because of the XVGA resolution compatibility with the TV.

All in all the system works well.  All of the hardware is used/salvage (exception is 1TB USB disk & HD Homerun).  Most was bought on Craigs list. There's much to recommend partitioning functions across a network.  With complete P4 systems going for anywhere from $30 to $70 I suspect that this configuration could be replicated for about 2/3 of what I spent.

A couple of pieces of advice.  

• Get a good solid TV interface early in the process.  The laptop I used to drive the TV originally had plenty of power but couldn't drive the TV at HDMI or better resolution.  Check your TV docs to see what inputs it has at what resolutions.  If you've got a HDMI 720 or better D shell input you'll likely be satisfied with the video quality for TV (most hi def TV is actually 720p/i) but may have issues with DVDs.  Above 1080 it's all VERY GOOD.

• I tried several OTA TV DVR software packages.  MythTV is the pick of the litter.  Plan on installing it several/many times as you sort through the configuration issues.  There's lots of docs available but be aware that there have been several versions and the docs while giving useful clues are not reliably current, often contradictory, often confusing, often incomplete, etc.  That said, the clue you need to configure is out there somewhere you just need to be patient, keep looking, and be willing to do things over and over again until you get it sorted.

• I prefer XBMC over MythTV as a viewing interface but it's only a preference.  Several factors drove my choice.  XBMC has a good mouse interface and the new Logitech wireless mouse has good range, is cheap, and works well.  I also wanted a keyboard/mouse interface on the TV system so it is usable for other purposes.  If you are going to use MythTV as the viewing interface you'll probably want a remote as it is oriented that way.

• There is much good information on YouTube.  Look at it BEFORE you get started.  That said, don't believe everything you see.

• Start with what you have by way of hardware.  When you run into issues then you can direct your spend at the real problem.  My original configuration was a P3 laptop with a broken keyboard and a 486 doing OTA recording.  It actually worked surprisingly well.

• Experiment a bit with NZB before getting over involved with DVR recording.  Checkout NZB.su.  Likewise, experiment with the network TV show sites before getting over involved with DVR recording.  Hulu is good.  There is a LOT of recorded content available and you may not want/need to do as much DVR recording as you think.  

Good luck with it.  Let me know how you do.
Regards,
Richard

Bike rides with BB

BB and I went biking this weekend.  We  took a short ride Saturday and a longer ride Sunday out to Nine Acre Corner and stopped at Verrill Farm for some cold drinks.  Now that we're able to ride farther we should be able to bike to local destinations and back.  Here is a sort of video of this weekend's ride.

Afternoon in Wells, Me

One of the people BB works with has a home in Wells, Me.  She invited the office up for a party.  It's a 2 hour drive for us but was a lovely day and great time.  We walked out to the ocean and enjoyed the view.  Here are a couple of photos.

Messing around with Kdenlive

I've  been playing a bit with Kdenlive (nonlinear video editor).  My initial impressions were rather mixed since it had a tendency to crash.  However, once I discovered its preferred work flow it is actually fairly usable.  I took the flip video I made of our ride the other day and made a sort of stop motion video by speeding it up by a factor of 4 and sampling every 60th frame.



Clearly a home movie, but interesting none the less.

Bike ride with BB - Around the neighborhood

BB and I went for a nice bike ride around the neighborhood.  I tried the video camera mounted on top of my helmet.  Actually worked OK.  I took the following stills from the video.

Bike ride with BB - Wayside Inn loop

BB and I went for a bike ride.  About 11 miles in 70 minutes.  We tried a new route down to Wayside Inn and then back to the Assabet.  Nice route but traffic was a bit of an issue particularly with idiots that think it's OK to pass on blind curves and hills into oncoming traffic.  Still it was a nice day and we had a good ride.

Tried mounting the flip video camera on my helmet.  The video seems much more stable.  Unfortunately, I didn't have it reasonably pointed so the video was mostly pavement.  I'll adjust the mount and we'll see what happens.

Image via Wikipedia

Image via Wikipedia

Here's the route.

Phone madness

We lost phone service (Verizon) during Irene Saturday August 27th.  It's now 11 days on and still no phone service.  I've tried to work with Verizon but it's been an unbelievably bad experience.

• 8/27 tried to call Verizon - all circuits busy
• 8/27 tried again to call Verizon - all circuits busy
• 8/27 tried for third time to call Verizon - all circuits busy
• 9/1 Comcast back - tried 6 different Telephone numbers from Verizon phone book and Verizon web site.  Five had message "this number is not in service."  One had message "this mailbox is full."
• 9/5 called 1-800 VERIZON.  After IVR was connected to a non-working number.
• 9/5 called 1-800 VERIZON.  Spoke with repair service.  They said service would return by 8 PM.  Asked for credit.  Was told could only be issued from date service outage was reported!  Tried to reason with agent.  Didn't work.  Got routed to customer billing.  30 minutes later hung up.
• 9/6 called 1-800 VERIZON.  After IVR was connected to a non-working number.
• 9/6 called 1-800 VERIZON.  After IVR connected to billing.  System hung up.
• 9/6 called 1-800 VERIZON.  After IVR connected to billing.  System hung up.
• 9/6 called 1-800 VERIZON - all circuits busy
• 9/6 called 1-800 VERIZON - all circuits busy
• 9/6 called 1-800 VERIZON - all circuits busy
• 9/6 called 1-800 VERIZON - all circuits busy
  Addenda
• 9/6 phone service restored at 4 PM.  Message from Verizon says problem fixed last Sunday around 10 AM.  As of this AM I had no dial tone.  Given choice to speak to representative.  Dragged through IVR knothole and placed on hold at 4:06.  Decided to wait on hold with speaker phone to deal with bill.
  
  Got connected to agent at 4:35.  Adjusted bill ($90 in credits).  Explained my experience and cautioned that I and our neighbors were re-evaluating doing business with Verizon.

Have decided to switch phone companies.  Will try to work with Comcast, though it pains me greatly.  Sadly, trying to call Comcast has been a bit of a challenge.  Six attempts with NO success.  Get message "We are unable to process your call at this time."

I've decided to call the security company and see if they can work with with a cell connection.

Bike ride with BB - Great Meadows Reserve

BB and I rode down to the Great Meadow National Wildlife Reserve on the Sudbury River.  It was a great day and a good ride.  Here are some photos and a vid.



Video

Bike Ride With BB

BB and I went on a bike ride a week ago and I took a video using the new Flip camera.  I was delayed in posting it as the video was long, the entire ride, and I needed to learn how to edit in Ubuntu Kdenlive.  I've managed to get something together after a number of false starts.  Here's the results.

Irene - We have electricity and HOT SHOWERS

Irene is now almost truly gone - electricity came back on Wednesday around 11 PM.  Took a few minutes  to shut down the generator and connect things to NSTAR power.  Surprisingly, hot water came up in around 30 minutes so I enjoyed a nice long hot shower.  Life is good.

Plan for the day is to finish the storm cleanup and start washing the decks so they can be stained.

Addenda: Still no phone service.  Tried to call Verizon on cell.  Got several "not in service" and "all line busy" numbers.  This raises SERIOUS issues concerning leaving Comcast internet.  Finally got through to an automated system that said Friday by 11 PM.  My guess is that it's a local CO power issue as that's consistent with power to the rest of Sudbury.

Irene - Day 5, still no electricity

Well Ollie, this is a fine mess you've got us in!


Good news, Nstar now projects we'll have power by 10 PM Friday.  Bad news, 10 PM Friday 2.5 days from now.  I suppose I shouldn't complain as the generator is holding up OK.  I'll need to go out today and buy batteries and a couple of bottles of gas for the lantern.  Otherwise we're faring reasonably OK, though I'm desperate for a hot shower.

The whole experience has me thinking about what is really important WRT electricity other than having it obviously.  Refrigeration is at the top of the list, though news is up there as well.  I'm also a bit more aware of the much slower pace of life no electricity sets.  Many things take longer and are far less convenient.

Of course there is the issue of what I'd do if something like this happened in the winter.  While we have gas heat without electricity to run the pumps, blowers, and computers that distribute the heat we'd have no heat.  I think I'll look into what would be required to power that part of the house.

Irene - Come and gone

Irene has come and gone, well, sort of gone.  We lost power 11 AM Saturday.  Now 11 AM Tuesday and still now power.  Fortunately we've a generator and are able to run the refrigerators, make coffee, etc.  Sadly, no power to pumps that allow furnace to make how water.  Therefore no hot showers.  NOT GOOD.  BB definitely NOT happy.

As with most hurricanes once the storm passes the weather is lovely.

Various theories about when power will be restored are circulating ranging from last night by 8 PM (clearly that didn't happen) to by 4 PM next Saturday (the electric company clearly has figured out how to deal with the MA law that requires them to give an estimate).  About 1/3 of the town is without power.  There is power a couple of blocks from here.  I'm hopeful that we'll have power sometime today as there is a crew working nearby.

Lost TV and internet service about 8 PM Saturday.  It returned today at 11 AM.  That's a step forward.

Some photos and videos of the storm such as it was.

Irene - Lots of rain

The storm is still well south of us near NY.  We've had heavy rain and occasional serious gust since yesterday mid day.  So far though we still have electricity and no issues.

Looks like Irene will track about 50 miles east of us.  Even so we expect some serious wind gusts and I'd not be surprised if we loose power.  Unfortunately, the current track takes the storm right over HB and Allen's.  They are on low ground near a river in N Hampton.  I'm a bit concerned for them as they are bound to get some flooding and loose power.  I spoke with HB yesterday and offered my generator.  Of course there is no way to get it to them right now but after the storm I'll drive it out.

No photos as there isn't really much to see except a lot of rain and occasional heavy wind.

Irene - Preparation and waiting

Irene cometh, so says the news and the Sudbury disaster management team per the automated phone call we've just received.  So it's clearly official now, not that Irene really needs anyone to make it official.

I've seen a number of hurricanes up close and personnel over the years.  On one occasion I actually decided to see the storm from the NC Outer Banks.  That particular storm cut the island I was on in half destroying a road and all the buildings adjacent to it.  It also piled up a sand dune about 12 feet high in front of the motel I was staying at and running about 6 miles along the beach.  Hurricanes are clearly not something to mess with.  Seeing one up close as I did is just as clearly dumb.

Fortunately it seems that Irene is weakening as it glances the coast.  The current track has the storm center passing within 30 miles of Sudbury so we expect to get considerable wind and rain.  I've taken in all the outside furniture and anything that seems like might be inclined to visit OZ in a strong wind.  I also brought in the container garden so the plants won't get stripped (we're just getting tomatoes).  Here's what the den looks like just now:



Now that preparations are made I expect the storm to weaken and miss us completely.  Then again, the current weather forecast says we'll get hit.

Fairwell to Windows

I've finally done it.  I've installed Ubuntu 10.04 on the last of my MS Windows machines!  Unless in extremes, from now on it's Ubuntu Linux!

What precipitated the change was the flip video camera Miriam gave us.  Turns out it creates MP4 720p video files.  I made a test recording of a bike ride with BB the other day.  When I went to edit the video using Windows tools it turned out to not be possible.  I moved the file to the TV Ubuntu machine and tried to edit there but doing video editing from across the room is very tedious and just doesn't work well at all.  Soooo ... I've installed Ubuntu on my Sony laptop.  I've left Vista as well, just in case but baring unforeseen circumstances I plan to run Ubuntu exclusively.

I can't say there is much about Windows I'll miss.  There is much about Linux I'm looking forward to.

Installation was, as always, simple.  Just pop the live CD in and install.  I allocated 100 GB for Ubuntu and left Windows with 33 GB of room to grow on the off chance I'll ever need it.

Installed Chrome as a browser since it has a very nice bookmark sync feature supported by Google.  Gotta love the Google folks.

Checked that Windows Vista still boots.  It does though it ran chkdsk after the Ubuntu re partition.

I'll install the rest of my preferred tools as need arises.

--------------------------------------------------------------------
Addenda
--------------------------------------------------------------------

20110827 - Installed Picasa 3 beta.  Released Picasa was generating seg faults.

20110827 - Installed kdenlive to do video editing
20110827 - Added vinegra remote desktop viewer to task bar
20110827 - Installed VLC media player (it's get a better collection of codecs and I like the UI better)
20110827 - Installed Sabnzdbplus (usenet NZB) and configured
20110827 - Installed Pan (usenet)

20110903 - Installed CUPS (printer) support and Brother MFC-465CN drivers for network printer.

Fire ComcastTV - Bring up new MythTV backend

There have been some buffering issues with the current MythTV backend (AMD Athlon, 1.2 GHz, 750 MB).  A combination of memory and processor limits is the likely issue.  I'd finished building a P4 3GHz 1.5MB machine (tiber - I like the name particularly since tiber is liquid cooled) a couple of days ago so went ahead and installed MythTV backend and frontend and configuring to make the recordings.  Hopefully that will resolve the issues.

I decommissioned Amazon and moved its recordings to the 1TB drive using MythLink (http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/Mythlink.pl).

I added /usr/share/doc/mythtv-backend/contrib/user_jobs to PATH in /etc/environment per https://help.ubuntu.com/community/EnvironmentVariables (stumbled on the fact that /etc/environment holds name value pairs and is NOT a sh script).

I added

mythlink.pl --link /var/lib/mythtv/pretty --chanid %CHANID% --starttime %STARTTIME%  --format '%T-%oY%om%od-%S'

as a user job on RecordingStart so that going forward there will be links if they are needed and the recordings can be moved with reasonable names using cp.

Anniversary and bike ride with BB

Next week is our wedding anniversary.  Only seems like yesterday but it's been 11 years.  We went out to Allura, a semi Italian restaurant, for dinner last night.  They've patio dining and it was very very nice.

Today we went for an early bike ride around the Assabet reservation.  It was a bit warm by the time we got back but we had a very nice ride.  I tried out the new Flip video camera.  It works well but i messed up the controls and managed to shoot over an hour of the inside of my pocket.  Not really that interesting as videos go.

Sailing with Marc and Miriam

BB and I went down to MMs over the weekend.  Had a great sail Saturday and a good visit.  Here are some photos.



Miriam gave me an interesting Flip video camera.  It might make an interesting bike camera.  I'd hoped to try it today but it's gone very rainy.

Cindy, one of BB's pugs, has been sick.  Took her to the vet and she seems to be on the mend.

Fire ComcastTV - OOPS, destroyed Ohio TV System

Bit of a mostly self inflicted setback.  I'd bought a second mobo and am in the process of building it.  I'd decided to remove the 37 GB SATA from ohio (tv machine) and use it in the build.  When I did so, ohio would not boot. It turned out the MBR was on the 37 GB drive.  In the process of trying to create a MBR on the remaining 200 GB drive I managed to corrupt the install.  So ... reinstall and reconfigure ubuntu on ohio:

• Reinstall ubuntu 10.04
• Run update manager
• Use synaptic to install chrom browser, mythtv front end
• Install xbmc per http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=Installing_XBMC_for_Linux
• Configure chrom browser
• Enable all installed plugins in chrome
• Upgrade adobe flash player so can access youtube.  Notwithstanding adobe docs you must install as it is NOT part of chromium on linux.
• No audio.  Set preferences->sound->output to internal audio analog stereo. 
• Verified that can watch youtube and have audio.
• chmod /usr/share/icons so I can easily write custom icons there
• Set custom icon for mythtv and xbmc so they are more visible
• Configure mythtv
• Set password
• For some reason can not watch live tv.  The DB also appears to be corrupt.
• Not sure what was going on but a reboot seemed to help.  There were many 0 length recordings.  I've deleted them.  I'm somewhat suspicious that there was a power issue and the machine went down leaving a lock on a file outstanding.  It bears watching.
• Along the way I foolishly enabled OpenGL on Amazon.  This breaks the UI so it's not possible to unset it.  After MUCH work discovered that the fix is to  "mythfrontend -O ThemePainter=qt" and reset it to "Qt".
• Configure xbmc
• Configured weather for Sudbury, Charlotte, and Seoul
• Configured picutres
• Installed and configured Picasa
• Installed and configured Facebook
• added pictures_nas0000
• Configured music to music_nas0000
• Configured videos
• Added videos_nas0000 & recordedtv_nas0000
• Installed and configured mythbox addon in videos
• Added a source for mythtv per http://wiki.xbmc.org/?title=MythTV
• Set system->preferences->visual effects to extra to jazz up the interface a bit
• Enabled remote desktop
• Set screensaver preferences to AntSpotlight, 2hrs, unselect activate and lock.  This will hopefully stop the screensaver and lock when watching tv with no interaction.  Set power management preferences to never/never with spin down enabled as default.
• Installed and configured hulu desktop.  Not sure I really like the way it works but we'll see.
• Setup desktop applications for 
• XBMC & MythTV
• Pandora & Art Bell
• Hulu desktop & hulu
• Netflix (but can not watch on demand)
• Weather - Intellicast, NOAA, Weather Underground
• News - PBS Newshour, CNN, ABC, You Tube
• Networks - USA, Syfy, ABC, NBC, TNT, WB
• Went to medibuntu (https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Medibuntu) to get some help with playing dvds.

• sudo wget --output-document=/etc/apt/sources.list.d/medibuntu.list http://www.medibuntu.org/sources.list.d/$(lsb_release -cs).list && sudo apt-get --quiet update && sudo apt-get --yes --quiet --allow-unauthenticated install medibuntu-keyring && sudo apt-get --quiet update

  sudo apt-get --yes install app-install-data-medibuntu apport-hooks-medibuntu

• sudo apt-get install libdvdcss2

• Upgraded mplayer components
• Installed vlc.  Mplayer will not play DVDs.  VLC will.
• Installed acidrip, dvd::rip, and vobcopy to support dvd rip
• Had some issues ripping DVDs I'd previously ripped.  These were resolved by installing medibuntu and libdvdcss2 above.
• Recopied DVDs that were lost

Things are now back, more or less, to where they were before.  I'll still need to make show links but otherwise things are well.

To DO

• Upgrade roku to use http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/ROKU_HD_Frontend
• Build new system
• Finish the tivo slide support
• Setup mythnettv properly
• Buy and install blu ray drive in Ohio TV system.
• Finish freenas install
• Improve antenna.  Bow tie is better but could use better still.  Also consider array of fractal and large fractal.
• Remove passwords that popup

Fire ComcastTV - New case for Ohio TV computer

Moved the Ohio TV PC components into the Antec 300 case.  This will give me LOTS of space for additional boards and drives if or as that becomes necessary.  Things generally went well but there were a couple of issues:

• DVD drives I'd wanted to use were to large to fit.  The issue is the length of the drive.  I've a number of older working drives but generally they are around 7" to 7.5" long.  There is only about 6.5" of space in the Antec chassis before the drive hits the mobo.  I managed to get one DVD reader in so I'm ok for the time being.  Long term I'll buy a blu ray drive and replace things.
• I wanted to pull the 37 GB sata drive and use it in another system.  Much to my surprise the boot tracks were on that drive and the 200 GB drive with the OS etc would not boot without the 37 GB being present.  I'll need to pick up some other SATA drives for the new build or make the 200 GB drive bootable.

To DO

• Upgrade roku to use http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/ROKU_HD_Frontend
• Build new system
• Finish the tivo slide support
• Setup mythnettv properly
• Buy and install blu ray drive in Ohio TV system.
• Finish freenas install
• Improve antenna.  Bow tie is better but could use better still.  Also consider array of fractal and large fractal.
• Remove passwords that popup

Fire ComcastTV - Refine network shares, DVD rip, new computer

Continuing to work on the Fire ComcastTV project.  I think I'll be able to do so sometime in the next week or so.  Verizon has pulled fiber and they should be contacting customers soon.  As soon as they do Comcast is gone.

Spent some time refining the configuration.


Refine network shares

The network shares for the 1TB USB network drive are a bit difficult to use.

• Create share on 1TB drive for /Public/Media directory as media_nas0000 
• Create share on 1TB drive for /Public/mythtv as mythtv_nas0000
• Install smbfs
• On ohio create permanent mount for media_nas0000
  
  sudo mount -t smbfs //192.168.1.2/media_nas0000 /media/media_nas0000 -o password=,uid=rbell01824,gid=rbell01824

For reasons I don't understand this is not working.  I'll look at permissions and try a sleep to allow the mount to happen.

DVD rip

• vobcopy -I to get info
• vobcopy -l to copy title with most angles  clean and simple

Also downloaded thoggen and acidrip.  Tried both.  They both work.  thoggen is simple but rips at about playback speed so it takes a long time.  acidrip is much faster.  Where vobcopy is fast the output doesn't always play well.  One issue is that fast forward/back doesn't work with vobcopy but seems OK with thoggen and acidrip.

Had some difficulty with one DVD and found that dvd::rip worked OK.  Looks like you need to sometimes play a bit.

After experimentation I think acidrip is the pick of the litter.

2nd disk drive

There is a second sata drive on Ohio.  It's a 37 GB WDC that was probably previously a Windows drive.  There's no real reason to mount it so I'm going to just leave it alone for the moment.

New computer


Picked up a case (antec 300, http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811129042) and power (antec 750, http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817371026) supply yesterday.  The case has 3 external and 6 internal bays so there is lots of expansion room.  I think I'll move the core 2 to this case and use the other case for the intel mobo I recently bought.


mythlink.pl


Tried this utility.  Links made in a directory owned on nas0000 owned by mythtv.  nas0000 mounted uid/gid mythtv.  Remounted as uid/gid rbell01824 and deleted directory.  This needs additional investigation before using mythlink.pl.

To DO

• Upgrade roku to use http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/ROKU_HD_Frontend
• Build new system
• Finish the tivo slide support
• Setup mythnettv properly
• Finish freenas install
• Improve antenna.  Bow tie is better but could use better still.  Also consider array of fractal and large fractal.
• Remove passwords that popup

Fire ComcastTV - record flash from TNT

There are some shows on TNT and other cable TV channels that BB and I enjoy.  Generally, these are available on the shows's web site as streaming flash files.  It would be handy to be able to save them and then play later.  Several possibilities:

• http://www.unixuser.org/~euske/python/vnc2flv/index.html looks like it might have some potential
• http://camstudio.org/
• Xvidcap http://tombuntu.com/index.php/2007/11/06/record-your-screen-with-xvidcap/
• VERY poor frame rate.
• RecordMyDesktop http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/24742/record-screen-activity-in-ubuntu-with-recordmydesktop/
• Played with it a bit.  Able to do a fair job of video.  Not getting audio.  Not sure why but it seems to be a common problem.
• home is here http://recordmydesktop.sourceforge.net/faq.php
• Interesting youtube video here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_QoWzgYp1A.  Reference to editing software and combining multiple audio streams.

Recordmydesktop seems to do well with the video but sound is an issue.

• Found a clue at http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/3490/how-can-i-record-the-sound-output-with-gtk-recordmydesktop after a good deal of searching and experimentation.  It seems if I set the internal audio to Analog Stero Output all is well.  There is some choppy video but now I've got sound.
• Reduce video quality to 31%,  15 frames per second, zero compression, frequency 28000:  Works to a point but video is a bit choppy.

I'll do some more research to see if there is a way to snag the video directly from the stream.

Fire ComcastTV - Another new computer

Picked up another new computer from Craigs list ($50):

• ATI Radeon Sapphire X1950GT with 512 MB video card (dual DVI and TV out) 
• Intel DG33FB motherboard with 3 gig pc800 memory with Intel Celeron 450 (single core 64 bit) 2.20GHZ/512/800/86 processor

I'm not entirely sure what I'll do with it but someone gets an upgrade.  I'll need a new power supply since this has some PCIe slots and 24 pin power.  Power requirements from http://extreme.outervision.com/psucalculatorlite.jsp for a reasonable configuration is around 443W.  I'll order a 600W power supply and a couple of fans.  While I'm at it I'll order fans for Ohio.

The board also has 11 mount points.  I'll need to check the chassis I have to see if they are in fact usable.  If not I'll order a case.

Intel docs say board supports Core 2 Duo/Quad processors ($170-$200 chip upgrade).  Not worth it.

I'll need to work through the details but it looks like I can mount it in one of the old chassis with a new power supply.  Alternately, I could buy a chassis and build a really big storage server.

To DO

• Upgrade roku to use http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/ROKU_HD_Frontend
• Build new system
• Finish the tivo slide support
• Setup mythnettv properly
• Finish freenas install
• Improve antenna.  Bow tie is better but could use better still.  Also consider array of fractal and large fractal.
• Remove passwords that popup

Fire ComcastTV - RIP DVDs

To simplify things I'm going to backup my DVDs to disk so they are playable from xbmc.

• vobcopy looks promising (http://vobcopy.org/projects/c/c.shtml)
• Some apparently very good clues here: http://jaxwell.com/dvd/dvd_howto.html.  How to use vobcopy and make backups.

Addenda: This youtube video is also very helpful (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPLquAvs7eQ) using Thoggen: http://thoggen.net/
HandbrakeGTK: http://handbrake.fr/

To DO

• Upgrade roku to use http://www.mythtv.org/wiki/ROKU_HD_Frontend
• Finish the tivo slide support
• Setup mythnettv properly
• Finish freenas install
• Improve antenna.  Bow tie is better but could use better still.  Also consider array of fractal and large fractal.
• Remove passwords that popup

This is the key part:
=======================================================================

Tools of the trade

These are the tools you will need to install, with all dependencies. you can find more info on google.com or freshmeat.net:

• transcode
• dvd::rip (optional frontend for transcode. lots of dependencies)
• vobcopy (small simple tool for ripping)
• mplex (part of the mjpeg-tools suite)
• dvdauthor
• dvd+rw-tools

Gathering files from the DVD

First we need to copy our movie to the hard drive from the DVD. Mount the drive, and do a df. If the disk is already less than 4.4G(4482Mb), then its already dvd5, and you can mirror it with vobcopy, then it will be ready to burn! Otherwise, continue on.


Use vobcopy to mirror your entire DVD to your current directory for direct burning: (If it is indeed small enough)

$ vobcopy -m -o .

vobcopy -I to get info

vobcopy -l to copy single large file for default

If the disk is larger than 4.4G(4482Mb), you will need to collect only the main movie title. You can find out some info by reading the DVD with dvdrip. I prefer to gather info via the command line.

Use vobcopy and tcprobe to find useful information: Vobcopy will tell you how many titles, chapters, and angles there are. Note which title has the most chapters, and how many chapters/angles that title has. Use tcprobe to see the audio/subtitle streams of the largest title. Note the audio streams that you wish to keep. Tcprobe will show you the languages of each audio track and how many channels each contains, as well as lots of other information.

$ vobcopy -I

and

$ tcprobe -i /dev/dvd

Use tccat to copy the desired title:

$ tccat -i /dev/dvd -T A,B-C,D > movie.vob

# where
# 
#     * A is the title that you want to rip
#     * B is the chapter that you want to start from (typically, 1)
#     * C is the chapter that you want to end with
#     * D is the angle that you want (typically, 1)
#     * movie.vob is the output file

Fire ComcastTV - FIOS cometh

Ran an errand today and on the way back noticed two Verizon trucks.  Stopped to ask about FIOS.  Turned out they were pulling cable.  Should finish Monday and we should get sales calls shortly thereafter.

Bye bye Comcast!!!

Also found out that FIOS internet service is NOT METERED!  Nice to find some common sense pricing.

Fire ComcastTV - improved antenna, Roku, Tivo Slide

Time to improve the antenna again.  A bit of searching lead to a number of interesting sites:

• Gray-Hoverman: http://www.digitalhome.ca/ota/superantenna/design.htm
• Gray-Hoverman: http://www.diytvantennas.com/sbgh.html
• Bow tie: http://www.tvantennaplans.com/ (angle 24.8 degrees)
• Bow tie (8): http://www.qsl.net/w/w7lk//misc%20pdf%20files/Misc%20PDFs/Build-a-Large-DB8-HDTV-Antenna-Big-Bertha.pdf (angle 2*16.83 = 33.66)
• Fractal: http://www.scienceprog.com/fractal-antenna-constructions/

DB8 Bow Tie

Will fabricate according to this drawing:

Cut some plastic for standoffs.  Stripped some #12 wire for antenna elements.

Click issues in linux/flash

Had some issues with mouse click not working when viewing videos.  It may be an issue with the browser or flash.  Found a possible fix here (http://www.webupd8.org/2009/11/fix-mouse-clicks-not-working-in-flash.html) to try.

Roku box arrived


Cabling is dead simple.  Setup needs to go to internet and register with Roku.  Also registered my Pandora account.  Created a Roksbox account.  Downloaded nowhereman extension.  Added Pandora extension.  All looks good.  This is a VERY cool device and will doubtless play a significant role in the Fire ComcastTV effort.

Tivo Slide Keyboard arrived


The Tivo Slide remote arrived.  It's a very cool device.  Plugged in to the Ubuntu box.  No joy.  There seem to be issues.  Started search to see how to configure.

• Checked for installable support.  No joy.
• There's a discussion here: http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/mythtv/users/452369?do=post_view_threaded#452369.  I'll read it to see if there are any clues.
• http://www.bluetooth.org/tpg/listings.cfm reports Tivo Slide supported Aug 2010.  I'm running Ubuntu 10.04 (April 2010 I think).  There may well be issues.
• http://www.bluez.org/download/ appears to be the place for Linux blue tooth.  Ubuntu is here: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/BluetoothSetup.
• Package manager shows bluetooth support installed but there are MANY packages not installed.
• Found an apparently good clue here: http://forum.xbmc.org/showthread.php?t=79616&page=3
  Hi there,
  
  I'm a longtime user and lurker. Since I've been hacking Linux for around 15 years, I thought I'd see if I could get this remote working...
  
  Well, the kernel patch failed as the kernel I have (Ubuntu Lucid) is different enough from the patch kernel, so before hacking up kernel code, I thought I'd see what can be done in userspace. After all, the bluetooth stack does run partially in userspace...
  
  For a start, I followed the PS3 remote instructions here http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title..._PS3_BD_Remote to expand bluez beyond standard keycode recognition. After several reboots and reinstalling all the bluetooth support software from synaptics, the Tivo remote was recognized. I would note that you need to use code 0000, not the standard randomly generated code.
  
  It looks like I'm going to do some key mapping as only part of the keys work. The keyboard seems to work fine, but only up/down works on the nav pad. Left-right and select are non-functional. On the remote bit, volume, play, pause, ff, rev work.
  
  I haven't yet looked at debugging bluez to discover what other codes are being send, the only thing I saw was dmesg complaining about not being able to emulate raw mode for keycode 240.
  
  I don't know if anyone has gone down this route, but I'm hoping I can just modify the bluetooth input keymap without having to mod the kernel. It would seem logical that BT captures all the keycodes at some level, regardless of what USB HID does with it afterwords...
  
  Chris.
  
• We'll see where that leads.
• Turns out the key is to use code 0000 and be patient while the device negotiates a connection.  Keyboard generally works.  Curiously, the number keys on the keyboard don't work while the number keys on the remote face do.  Most of the other keys on the remote face don't work out of the box but hopefully some mapping will make them functional.
• XBMC support is reasonable from the keyboard tray.  Need to work out keymaps.
• Some useful background here (http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=HOW-TO_Setup_PS3_BD_Remote) on modifing /etc/bluetooth/input.conf to support a different device.
• Need to get mappings for tivo remote face.
• Mapped TV power, volume, and mute IR functions.  It appears that the channel up/down functions are bluetooth only as are most keys.
• Found some clues re XBMC here http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=Keymap.xml.
• It turns out that at the current time a kernel patch is required to fully support this device.

To DO

• Finish the tivo slide support
• Setup mythnettv properly
• Finish freenas install
• Improve antenna.  Bow tie is better but could use better still.  Also consider array of fractal and large fractal.
• Remove passwords that popup