Archive for category General Carnage and Bloodshed

Media and me….

Posted by Tom in General Carnage and Bloodshed on October 13, 2011

OK so I’m not some super AV geek who has a IP based HD setup in house so I have HD via IP streaming to every tv in the house.

For starters I only have one TV so the whole HD over IP is a non-starter for me, but I do have a fair amount of media in DVD format that I would like to have accessible at my fingertips. DVD conversion of media is another topic for another day, and honestly it’s more planning and process then actual problem so it’s not worth talking about.

I’m talking about the various digital outlets that I’ve gone to for my media more and more in the last couple of years. Basically it comes down to a simple oxymoronic premise I don’t want to be tied to a single service or outlet (iTunes, Amazon, Netflix) but at the same time have one file and device to rule them all.

Let me break it down for you, I have cable for one reason at this point ESPN and Fox Sports AZ, honestly those two things are barely enough to keep me on cable. The only reason that I’m not a cord cutter is I have not devised a way to easily get my media onto my HD tv. That problem is more a function of me being in a not research mood over the problem then anything else. As all great questions in the technical realm begin for me, I make a blog post about it.

How 2003 of me.

Ok so basic dilemma I have shows that I do want to watch, that I would like to not pay for if possible (and for the sake of argument and a paycheck lets just go ahead and say that bit torrent and it’s ilk are no longer a good way to go) so anything that is over the air is captured easily enough by a HD antenna and a recording device (hello TiVo) ok there are a few shows that watch that are not over the air… things like Top Gear… and damit if I’m going to watch six figure cars go fast I want to see them HD. So things like that tend to be avalible in two spaces iTunes or Amazon which on a feature basis are pretty much at a even level with one another. I have content from both of these providers so I’m not breaching new territory here either, which again I do like. So the cruxt of the problem comes down to content and how it’s delivered to my TV.

In the case of amazon it’s almost all via a streaming type delivery with a download avalible in some case. Essentially everything lives in the cloud though.

The iTunes model depends on a download to a device and then from the device it’s either watched on the device or streamed to another node on the network (HD over IP light)

Basically what I think this means is I need to get a Roku box and just use that.

2 Comments

drippings

Posted by Tom in General Carnage and Bloodshed on September 29, 2011

Less brain droppings and more drippings this evening….. you know to tide you over.

Jay Feeley – I feel for the Kickers in the NFL… there is no love when you miss three field goals in a game. At least he only missed two for us.

Gingerbread – The gingerbread update for my phone almost makes it seem usable (i.e. the battery doesn’t die if I merely think about using it).

Cards – Giants — I need to find the following items for Eve… a Cardinals license plate holder to go with her Cardinals Red car, A black Cardinals jersey (should it be a Dockett or Campbell Jersey?) for the black out game on Sunday, a Red Cardinals jersey for those games when there isn’t a blackout (I’m thinking Wilson or Rhodes), And some matches so she can burn them in effigy.

And it seems that all of my Pandora stations lead back to Fatboy slim….

Finally a radio DJ that we can all agree is a oxymoronic name….

Deadmau5?

No Comments

A letter….

Posted by Tom in General Carnage and Bloodshed on August 25, 2011

Honest to god(s) I received this letter from my computer…

From pegasus@localhost

To Tom@localhost

July 15, 2011

Dear Tom, we noticed that you have recently removed a GTX280 video card and replaced it with a GTX580 video card. We the componets of your computer protest, we liked the 280 he moved at our speed and had been in the neighborhood for many years. The GTX580 that has moved into his slots is loud, hot, and is up at all hours of the night looking for aliens, folding genes, and making things go “boom”. We humbly request that you bring back the 280 so we can have our friend and neighbor back.

Sincerely the CPU and Hard Drives et All of Pegasus.

Naturally I was dismayed when I recieved this letter…. First Intel CPUs aren’t supposed to hit sentient levels until the early 2020′s and second I got this email when I was logged into a Linux virtual machine and using playing around with”Pine”* just because I could… I mean seriously what self respecting Windows machine sends a email via Linux?

So after much deliberation and consultation I decided to evict the whole lot of the computer for a 30 pack of Coors light… which of course left me with a a very sad looking DVD burner and case. So a quick trip to newegg.com and some CPU love from the folks at Intel… I present to you.

Anubis… Z68 chipset running i7-2600k w/ 8GB of RAM. And all of the other stuff that goes along with a new PC… I really should just break down and get the SATA 6.0 Gpbs 10k drives… But the finance committee is already not looking kindly at the rounds of upgrades this year.