The Amazon Instant Video app was updated yesterday. I noticed "AirPlay to Apple TV" in the notes so thought I would be able to download shows to my iPad/iPhone, then watch them on my HDTV like I can do with other content. It's not as convenient as storing them on the Drobo, but should look better than streaming with picture degradation due to network congestion and/or ISP throttling.
Sadly, it didn't work.
I don't have an actual Apple TV, I'm using AirServer. It's a program for M
I received some questions about my DVR Project via PM from timdu. I asked him if he'd mind if I post the PM here with the reply in case others had the same questions - he replied "please do!"
Thanks for the questions!
I have Amazon Prime, but not Netflix or Hulu. I watch it on my HDTV using my PS3. I also watch it on my iPad. I went with Amazon Prime because I order enough from them that the free shipping more than made up for the annual membership fee. For that reason
The new drive showed up before lunch. I unboxed it and let it sit for a couple hours as it was warm from being on the truck all morning (it's currently 92F here in Houston).
That red WD on the static bag is a sticker that you can put on your RAID enclosure. I've never been a fan of all the stickers that end up on Windows PCs, so I doubt I'll be sticking that on my Drobo.
Installing the new drive was as easy as 1-2-3:
Remove front cover of Drobo
Insert drive into empty bay
R
Another month without any content purchased. Cumulative savings since January is now $946, with a balance remaining of $1785 on the Mac mini DVR setup.
The 4TB version of WD's NAS HDD still haven't shown up yet. Space on the Drobo is fine at the moment, but I'm keeping an eye on it as the fall TV season's about to start up and I've a few things on my plate (such as this and this) that will cut into my free time for the next couple of months. I did find out about a Seagate 4TB NAS HDD, so
Paid $20 this month for content, King of the Nerds, so saved $126 over what I would have given DirecTV.
Cumulative savings are now at $800, balance remaining on the DVR setup is $1931.
I'd read about King of the Nerds at Penny Arcade back in January and thought it might be fun to watch (and it has been). Something reminded me about it in July so I bought the series to watch with a friend. I normally buy content from iTunes, but it wasn't available so I bought it from Amazon. Won't b
Paid $50 this month for content, Franklin & Bash, Season 3 and Futurama, Season 10, so saved $96 over what I would have given DirecTV.
My cumulative savings are now at $674. Balance remaining on the DVR setup is $2057.
My average monthly savings for the past 6 months is $112 - if that remains the same then the DVR setup will be paid off in about 18 months. I suspect it'll take a little longer than that though as some of the "delayed release" series like Game of Thrones tend to co
I know people are anxious for me to get back to work on Frantic, but I'm not quite ready to jump back into a major project yet.
I have started to dabble though, so I think the burnout is nearly over. I've also been researching ADPCM to compress the digital samples even more than packing did, though it's currently making my head spin. I've had an idea though and will be experimenting with that soon.
So why, some might ask, did I experience a bout of burnout? Well namely
Another month without any content purchases! Cumulative savings over DirecTV is up to $578. Balance remaining for the DVR setup is $2153.
I know I'll be purchasing content again soon, Season 3 of Franklin & Bash starts up in a few weeks and TNT only lets you stream off their website if you log in with your service provider. Futurama starts up soon as well - while I don't think it's likely, it's possible it'll be available online like The Colbert Report and The Daily Show with Jon S
We've had a couple discussions before in Nathan's Blog that brought up the late 60's cartoon Wacky Races. I ran across this today and thought a reply to those posts might get lost, so here it is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAsyF4J_klk
Time for another rescan! 7 channels have been added since my last rescan.
COZI, another classic TV channel, has appeared on 57.5. TV Guide doesn't know about it yet so I can't schedule any recordings for it. Lassie's on at the moment:
Unlike the other classic channels, COZI has original programming. I suspect that's why they're broadcasting a 16:9 signal.
The forthcoming Movies! channel has a placeholder on 20.2. Per wiki they'll be launching next week on Memorial Day (the 27
I became aware of Walk of the Earth after this video showed up on my 3DS in the 3D Video app.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHvl6z56zGc
Soon after I found their clever cover of Goyte's Somebody That I Used to Know where all 5 members of the group play on the same guitar at the same time. I subscribed to them on YouTube after seeing it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9NF2edxy-M
Today they just posted this cover of Madonna's Material Girl.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpnHhii
Haven't heard anything from Empire of the Sun in a few years. This is from their second album, Ice on the Dune, coming in June.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPKAwJKGSDc
New album by Pet Shop Boys is coming as well - Electric will be released in July.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDCU17wXktY
Definitely looks like the new tankless water heater is saving energy. CCF of gas for the past 3 months:
Feb 25
Mar 10
Apr 7
Total 42
Usage for last year:
Feb 26
Mar 14
Apr 15
Total 55
While I did buy Blake's 7, I'm not counting it in my savings over DirecTV calculations as I couldn't have watched it on DirecTV anyway. Since that was the only content I purchased this month, I'm going with $0 spent for April, thus $146 in savings.
My cumulative savings is now $432, leaving a balance of $2299 to pay off the DVR setup. I debated not counting the Drobo as I bought it for the DVD rips, but decided I should count it after realizing the DVR recordings now take over 1TB of space
On Tuesday I saw a bit about SyFy planning to remake the late 70's BBC series Blake's 7. It's a sci-fi series kinda-sorta-like Star Trek, but with a totalitarian federation. I watched most of them on PBS in the late 80s and quite enjoyed them.
I decided to look into getting the show on DVD but discovered that it was only released for region 2, which won't play on DVD players in the USA as we're region 1. You can read up on region codes here. It's possible to get multi-region players (my f
My Drobo 5D is now set up and works quite well. I've migrated all content to the Drobo (before TV recordings were stored on the internal drive while iTunes content was on the FireWire drive). While performance isn't the reason I bought the Drobo, I did a few tests with Blackmagic Disk Speed Test as I was curious - it's a bit faster:
Stock mini hard drive (2.5" @ 5400 RPM):
48.1 MB/s Write
47.7 MB/s Read
LaCie D2 Quadra (3.5" @ don't know RPMs, but based on this, 85 MB/s is the
I thought I was going to get away with spending $0 this month, but Doctor Who, Season 7, Pt. 2 starts up this weekend - so I've spent $22 for the month, netting $124 in savings.
Online episodes of Being Human started to be updated again, so I'm fine with that. Face Off started to get updated as well, so I should have held off.
The $286 in cumulative savings drops the balance to $1155.
TV Recordings, Ripped DVDs and purchased content from iTunes take up quite a bit of disk space. I've been deleting the TV Recordings after watching each show, but space was still getting tight. That's partly due to my working on another unannounced project instead of watching TV. That project is currently in limbo, so I'm taking a break from Atari projects before resuming work on Frantic (most likely mid to late April).
I'm planning to get a Drobo 5D, but I'd like to pay off my new water
Time for another rescan.
QVC is now available over the air. For some reason it's available on two different channels 10.4 and 34.3
My mom likes QVC so I thought might help if they decide to cut the cord, but it's being sent letterboxed on a 4x3 signal and looks quite crappy to boot.
It is available via their website though, so that might work for her:
The HD HomeRun tuners have had another firmware update, which I've applied:
Probing for devices:
0: 10301342 firmwa
Once again I purchased 2 series from iTunes: Face Off, Season 4 and The Walking Dead, Season 3. A little more expensive this month at $67, so I saved $79 for February with $162 in savings to date.
I'd been watching Face Off on SyFy's web site, but they didn't update the site for a month so I decided to buy the series. Of course, a couple weeks later they added episode 2. I don't normally get into reality series, but I do like the behind the scenes aspect on how special effects makeup is d
I've been having a problem with Fox Channel 26 breaking up. Sometimes it comes in just fine, other times it would break up so much as to be unwatchable. Recordings of shows that are 3+ GB when the signal was fine would be less than 1GB when the signal was having problems. So, I picked up an outdoor antenna from Fry's and mounted it where the DirecTV dish used to be. I reused the existing coax cable.
With the prior antenna I was getting 80% signal quality for Fox. With the new antenna
Handbrake took over 4 minutes to scan the titles for the first DVD from Daria: The Complete Animated Series. The scan said it discovered 99 titles on the disc (though the drop down only shows 1-98 ).
There's only 9 episodes on the disc, so I had to figure out which titles to rip. To do that, I opened up the DVD Player, started episode one, then clicked the LCD display of the control window a few times until it showed me it was playing title 59
I repeated that for the remaining 8 ep
I decided to start ripping DVDs and saving them on the mini. First up, Lexx - a dark and sexy sci-fi romp thru The Two Universes. It's quite a bizarre show - I don't think I've ever seen anybody captured in a giant condom (5:15 - 5:30) before.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lP_wy49Uy8
The first season of Lexx is comprised of 4 movies, each of which feature a well known guest star: the first has Barry Bostwick (asshole!), the second Tim Curry(sweet transvestite!), the third Rutger Hauer
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