Trey’s Blog

Since starting to pay attention to the HDTV advertisements lately, I have noticed a feature that is being mentioned quite a bit. That feature is the QAM tuner, which comes integrated with most HDTVs. I had never heard of it until recently, and decided to look it up. I was surprised to find out that the QAM tuner can receive unscrambled television broadcasts sent by the cable provider through the standard cable lines. If you are wondering what this really means, it means that most cable companies are satisfying their FCC obligations by providing more broadcasts (some HD) outside of those being broadcast through your current setup. Extra Channels? Not really, most are just the same as you find on your Basic Cable package, but this varies on location, not just city. Specific areas can vary as well. For the record, I’m right between Katy and Cypress, Texas, Northwest of Houston and our cable provider is now Comcast (formerly TWC).

With my current setup, I have Basic Cable, with roughly 70 channels, and I have an OTA (Over-The-Air) HDTV Tuner pulling my local network broadcasts, which is about 10 channels. To my surprise, this Samsung HDTV Tuner I’m already using has a QAM tuner as well. I ran the cable line into my tuner and had it search out channels available. I found about 50 channels being broadcast between what we consider channel 75-100. I know that sounds like strange math, but anyone who has dealt with OTA broadcasts will confirm that many channels will feature subchannels. Our NBC affiliate has 2.1, 2.2, and 2.3. None go higher than X.3 with OTA, but with QAM, many will go as high as X.11, thus cramming many channels into the 25 range mentioned above. Of the 50 I found, only 5 were being broadcast in HD, but the good news is that 4 of those 5 I didn’t have access to prior to this. The new channels I found were USA HD, ESPN HD, National Geographic (in HD), Music In HD. The other channel was PBS, which I had access to with OTA and I must say, they do a phenomenal job with providing good HD content separate from their standard broadcast. Strangely missing from the HD broadcasts were the other major networks, NBC, ABC, CBS, WB, etc. I’m not going to rule them out just yet, because they may not have been broadcasting those particular shows in HD, but it was 8:00 PM CST when I did my test. We’ll see when I try again.

To find about more about QAM Tuners visit WikiPedia.For a good list of HD Channels and their listings, check out CNET’s HDTV Listings page.

As you may or may not know, I’ve been actively camping with my daughter this past year, and it has been very exciting.  We are part of the YMCA program, Safari Princesses.  This being my first year I wasn’t sure what to expect, but it has been nothing short of great.  The people in our tribe are fantastic people and we all enjoy getting out to spend time with our daughters and giving them an opportunity to play freely.  Now that this program is over for this year, I started planning for the next season.  I found a good deal on a popup camper on Craigslist, and made the purchase.  My girls couldn’t be more eager to go on the next campout.  They’d be plenty happy camping in the driveway if I’d let them.  Anyway, what most new buyers don’t realize and old buyers already know is that you aren’t just buying the camper.  The are a lot of other expenses associated the purchase.  Besides the obvious license registration, there may be some sales taxes, storage costs, maintenance costs.  You’ll also find yourself needing to purchase items for camping you didn’t need before.  It adds a new level of complexity, but it sure makes ‘roughing it’ pretty comfortable.

I posted about a year ago, maybe longer, about my HDTV experience with purchasing equipment, and what provided quality results. What I found was that online sources had more affordable HD antennas than any consumer electronics store. The brand I fell into online was Terrestrial Digital, which is now available through Target.com. Apparently, someone at Target realized how important these antennas were, or perhaps they got tired of people returning the typical indoor antennas that provide mostly lousy results.

Check out their antennas here

Just recently I decided to try enabling Internet Sharing through my Mac Mini to have my Tivo, across the house, access through it’s Internet connection. The reason I wanted to do this was beause my wireless network is currently 802.11b, and transferring files from my Tivo to my computer over wireless takes several hours. Since the Mac Mini is hardwired to the network, I thought I’d take advantage of its unused Wifi card which features 802.11g. I bought a new USB Adapter for my Tivo and began the configuration. Everything seemed to be going okay until I tried to configure the Tivo to see the Mac on the network. It saw 6 of my neighbors, but no Mac. My conclusion is that the Mac’s built-in wireless card is not strong enough to penetrate walls and floors of a moderate size house. If it had an external antenna, it would have likely performed better.

My next step is to buy a new 802.11g router and a new PCMCIA card for my laptop. Once my entire network is on 802.11g, I assume I will have no problems getting files from my Tivo in a timely manner.

It seems Tivo has outsourced their TivoToGo initiative to the good folks over at Roxio. This is good and bad news for Mac users. The good news is that Tivo has finally addressed the issue of having TivoToGo for Windows, but not for Mac. The bad news is that in order to get TivoToGo for Mac, you have to purchase Toast from Roxio. Though being packaged with Toast,

Tivo Transfer, as they call it, seems loosely integrated with Toast and the only obvious tie it has with it is the burning of your recordings. I think this is a good idea to keep things from getting bloated. Sometimes I want to burn a Tivo recording to DVD, but most times I don’t. The overall interface is very easy to use.

One thing against this offering from Roxio is the fact that TivoDecode Manager just came out last month for no cost to the end user. The would seem more inline with the previous offerings from Tivo since we do pay for a subscription after all. Which should you go with? That depends on what you are looking for. If you need a cheap way to watch you recordings or back them up onto your Mac, stick with TivoDecode Manager, but if you want the ability to make DVDs from your recordings, and have the interface integration with Toast, go with Toast. I’ve personally been using Toast for burning on my Mac, so I’m kind of torn between the two options and might just go for both.

After Steve Jobs pushed aside the Apple TV, Apple’s version of the Media Center [Extender],  to carry on for 90 minutes about the iPhone, I began to wonder if the Apple TV would do what I need it to do. It boasts streaming from any PC running the latest version of iTunes, but one catch is that iTunes only supports videos encoded with H.264 and some MPEGs. This makes sense for iTunes because its primary job is getting Videos from the iTMS (iTunes Music Store) to the customer’s iPod. However, I don’t purchase my movies through iTunes. I prefer to encode my movies using the XVid or DivX codec. All of my DVD Players support this codec so it makes sense for me. In fact, with a simple codec install for QuickTime, I’m able to watch my videos perfectly using FrontRow on my Mac Mini. This brings me to my question. If my videos work in FrontRow, would they also work on the Apple TV? I’m guessing that the interface on the Apple TV is the next version of FrontRow, which might suggest I could watch my movies assuming they were stored locally on the 40GB internal HDD or an external HDD. Streaming may be a different beast altogether since it seems to ride on the shoulders of iTunes sharing features. I use iTunes to listen to music or look through photos on my Tivo, which tells me it is very capable of sharing across Wifi, but by why will they not add DivX/XVid support for iTunes?

A couple of other issues I have about this device is the lack of an optical drive, to replace DVD Players, and the name itself. I’m aware that it outputs through a TV, but why call it “Apple TV” when no TV Tuner is included. The only TV Shows you can watch on this device are those available for purchase through iTunes.

What does this all mean? I guess if I can get some answers to the above questions, I would likely buy this unit because the $299 sure seems a lot better than the $799 Mac Mini alternative, which provides everything I need including a DVD Player replacement for only $500 more [ouch].

I always find these to be very fascinating. The first one I saw was about a year ago when some person online had installed a Mac Mini in their Toyota Prius. This one is installed in a Subaru and the owner has posted many videos demonstrating its capabilities. This is one of the best uses I’ve seen for Front Row. I especially like that he is using his cellular phone’s Bluetooth connection to get Internet to his Carputer. I guess this means I need to make sure my next vehicle has some sort of touchscreen LCD in the dash somewhere.  There is no amount of describing I could do to let you how awesome I think this is, so check out his video here.

After 5 weeks of pure goodness, my new favorite show is probably Heroes. The whole premise is just plain entertaining. It reminds me of what X-Men would be like if it were more realistic. Not everyone on the team needs to look like they just stepped out of GQ or Muscle & Fitness Magazines. It has real people discovering superhuman abilities, but also having to learn how to use them. This is very much like Spiderman in that aspect, but his abilities came overnight and via radio-active spider. Anyway, this is a great show and you should check it out on Monday nights. However, I would recommend catching the episodes in order so the story doesn’t escape you. There is a lot of character building throughout the first four episodes before the story really advances. My only fear with this show is that they drag it out way too long. Lost, my previous favorite, is starting to reach this point. Networks need good writers to write short-term masterpieces (3 seasons maximum), then shift those off to syndication to bring in residuals. This would be shows similar to Mini-Series, but with a minimum of one season and a maximum of 3 seasons. Other shows I’m digging this season:

• Prison Break - First season was put off for too long, which made way for good writing I guess. Now in the second season, the story continues to unfold and we get to see how deep the conspiracy flows.
• Studio 60 On Sunset Strip - Matthew Perry is finally showing us that he has great ensemble timing
• Nip/Tuck - (this maybe an exception since the storyline is ever changing) - This also pushes the limits of morality and the FCC everytime we watch it.
• Jericho - In its first season, this has great potential for a second season, but I don’t see it pushing much further than that. This is where I think the networks should design these to fill the larger than mini-series segment. Something sensational like a nuclear weapon going off nearby will lose its sensation after a couple of seasons.
• Lost (this is the 3rd season and it appears to be nowhere near a wrap up) - I’d hate to lose interest in what appears to be a great show.
• The O.C. (this maybe the last season - 4th is pushing my limit) - You can only watch the turmoils of the rich and pop-culture references for so long before it gets tiresome.

I bought two tickets for my eldest daughter’s birthday this year. She really enjoys listening to The Cheetah Girls and Hanna Montana, and fortunately for me, the concert featured both. It also featured an up-and-coming band named Everlife, which I had heard before without realizing it. Overall the concert was pretty good. Despite the generation gap of the performers and myself, the music was enjoyable. The sound engineers, however, must have had no training as the sound was horrendous. It was just enough over the comfortable limit that I started to feel guilty for subjecting my daughter to this. Maybe this is just a sign of my age, but I think the concert could have been better with someone monitoring the sound output from the stands. Everlife played about 5 songs over about 20 minutes. Miley Cyrus as Hanna Montana played 6 or 7 songs over 40 minutes. Despite the obvious presence of the background vocal track, like that used by Ashlee Simpson on SNL a couple of years ago, it was apparent that Miley was belting out her tracks. The Cheetah Girls finished the show playing for about an hour. Their performance contained a lot of choreography and simple storyline, but demonstrated talent easily obtained by years of practice and Disney promoting. Most of the songs from each performer were recognizable to anyone who has been in the room while the Disney Channel is on the tube. In fact, between performances, the side screens were utilized to promote other musicians seen on The Disney Channel. This was more proof that the Mouse will use every opportunity to promote anything. My daughter and I enjoyed the concert even after the awesomely overpriced seating options.

Ratings:

• Everlife: 3 out of 5
• Hanna Montana: 4 out of 5
• The Cheetah Girls: 4 out of 5

I feel like I’m the last one on the bandwagon of Tivo or DVRs in general. Everyone I talk to in my everyday life, assuming they even watch TV, has a DVR of some kind. With all of the gadgets that I have, they always assumed I would have one as well. Anyway, the time has come and my wife mentioned how her work schedule wasn’t going to allow her to watch her favorite shows this season. I saw this as a good opportunity to surprise her with a Tivo.

I went ahead and went for the best deal possible which was $30 for a dual tuner Series2 Tivo with prepaid subscription. No rebates were necessary so the deal was immediate. It was quite a hit to take all at once, but it will be hassle free for the next three years and by then TVs might come with built-in DVRs… or not.

On the coolness side, which is what you all are looking for, I was able to use my hardly utilized wireless USB adapter from my OmniFi unit (the D-Link DWL-120R) to connect my Tivo to the Internet and it worked like a charm. In fact, within about 10 minutes, I had my entire iTunes Library and iPhoto Library shared across my house to the Tivo. Very nice.

For those who are wondering why I’ve waited so long to purchase a DVR, I’m still in the mindset that when I miss a show, it is very likely that that same evening or the next day, I’ll be able to download it via BitTorrent in better quality than my basic cable can provide. When I watch my shows ontime, I’m enjoying them on my HDTV with Over-The-Air antenna which has no DVR options at the moment. My wife on the otherhand, was the major deciding factor, because I always knew I could get by with my current methods, but she wanted something easier… something she could control. Enter Tivo.

This has always been one of those topics that has come to mind just long enough not to remember to ask others what they think. This time I remembered and ask anyone who happens to read this post… How do you classify your music and why?

What I mean is do the genres of your music files follow patterns? I typically classify everything as Alternative, Pop, Christian, Country, etc., but I’ve found myself thinking Aerosmith is not really Alternative, but many out there would kill me if I called them Pop. Along those lines, who can determine if new music is Alternative or Rock? Do we still have Rock or is everything since Nirvana considered Alternative? Alternative to what, Pop or Rock? What about Soundtracks who could have a good mix of different genres? I’m thinking to just classify them as Soundtrack and have them be the exception. After all, the whole point of the soundtrack is to have some remembrance of the movie not each individual song.

What is your source of classifcation? I know some people rely on sources such as FreeDB.org or CDDB or even AllMusic.com, but I think these sources have fallen to the new generation of ‘everything gets its own genre.’ You’ll find such things as General Pop, Hard Rock, and the likes. Do we need to be this granular? When I’m in iTunes and have Genre set as my default sort, the last thing I want to do is figure out if Pantera is considered Hard Rock or Heavy Metal, not that going from H to H is that hard, but you see my point.

I’m thinking of reworking my classification system and getting down to the basics. I’d like to hear what others think before I continue, but this is what I’m thinking:

• Pop - for the type of music that doesn’t seem to fit a real category (i.e. Britney, Justin, Boy Bands, etc.)
• Rock - for anything that uses a real band and guitars to create the music (i.e. Aerosmith, Blue October, Pantera, Genesis, 3 Doors Down, etc.)
• RnB - for anything that has an underlying sound similar to that of 60s Motown, but is not Rap. (i.e. Destiny’s Child, Jamie Foxx, Rihanna, Gnarls Barkley)
• Rap - for anything that has a bumbing beat and chatter instead of singing
• Country - for anything with country roots including the very Pop Leann Rimes
• Electronic - for anything that uses little to no lyrics, lots of synthesizer, and may to most be considered Trance, House, Techno, Dance, Rave, Ambient, and many more (i.e. Alice Deejay, ATB, Chemical Brothers, etc.)
• Jazz - for those using a variety of feeling, horns, piano, bass, drums and vocals and may include Blues (i.e. Joss Stone, Norah Jones, Frank Sinatra, Michael Konik, etc.)
• Soundtrack - for anything that is distributed on a soundtrack for a movie and/or play
• Classical - for anything called a Concerto, or played by an orchestra that typically speaks volumes without words (i.e. Beethoven, Mozart, Boston Pops, etc.)
• Opera - self explanatory, but not to be confused with Classical (i.e. Three Tenors, David Daniels, etc.)
• Kids - these are typically songs from nursery rhymes, children’s CDs and possible kids remakes of current Pop music. (i.e. Kidz Bop, Blue’s Clues, Dora The Explorer, etc.)

I may have missed some, but I’m sure I’ll need to adjust my list after a few passes and suggestions. Please leave comments and let me know what you think and what your answers are to the questions above.

Some people may think she is an airhead or an idiot, but I think she is just plain hilarious. Kellie Pickler did some correspondence for Jay Leno at the MTV Movie Awards and I haven’t laughed that hard in a while. Check it out here:

KellieOnLeno