End of analog TV

[(PeteCresswell)]

Per Dave Plowman (News):

The amount of advertising is controlled in the UK. And all the mainstream
channels take their breaks at exactly the same time - to try and prevent
channel hopping. Which looks dreadful on progs not made for this system -
they simply crash out of them.

I've just discovered something called "MythTV": basically a
poor-man's Tivo that runs under Linux. It's kind of a
hobbyist's thing in that it's far, far, far from plug-and-play.
You have to work at it for awhile.

No cable, just a rooftop antenna.

I record stuff using Myth's scheduler and then watch it later.

Myth somehow flags the transitions between regular show and
commercials.

The big thing is that the commercial flagging actually works....

As a result I can hit a key and skip past a commercial in about a
half second.

Dunno if it's my long-term solution yet - and I'd pay a hundred
or two hundred bucks for an alternative that has a better UI...
but MythTV is definitely growing on me.
--
PeteCresswell

 

[(PeteCresswell)]

Per Geoffrey S. Mendelson:

KNOPPMYTH's is much better.

Have you had a chance to compare it with MytBuntu?
--
PeteCresswell

 

[Geoffrey S. Mendelson]

(PeteCresswell) wrote:

I've just discovered something called "MythTV": basically a
poor-man's Tivo that runs under Linux. It's kind of a
hobbyist's thing in that it's far, far, far from plug-and-play.
You have to work at it for awhile.

Try KNOPPMYTH. A combination of Knoppix and Mythtv.

Dunno if it's my long-term solution yet - and I'd pay a hundred
or two hundred bucks for an alternative that has a better UI...
but MythTV is definitely growing on me.

KNOPPMYTH's is much better.

Geoff.
--
Geoffrey S. Mendelson, Jerusalem, Israel gsm@mendelson.com N3OWJ/4X1GM

 

[Geoffrey S. Mendelson]

(PeteCresswell) wrote:

Per Geoffrey S. Mendelson:
KNOPPMYTH's is much better.

Have you had a chance to compare it with MytBuntu?

No, I am very happy with Knoppmyth. My wife and kids use it as a playback
device for downloaded files, DVD's, etc.

I added an old Packard Bell serial remote control.

Geoff.
--
Geoffrey S. Mendelson, Jerusalem, Israel gsm@mendelson.com N3OWJ/4X1GM

 

[Peter Hucker]

On Wed, 26 Nov 2008 21:14:08 -0000, Geoffrey S. Mendelson <gsm@mendelson.com> wrote:

Peter Hucker wrote:
It's surprising anything works at all, so complicated!

That was the whole idea. The US television standard was set in the 1940's.
It was a 525 line "frame" of video split between 2 "fields" 30 times
a second. Starting at the top middle of the screen, it would trace
down and right and then back again and down and right, so that the
entire screen was covered in 1/60th of a second.

Then it would repeat with the even numbered lines.

The idea was to syncronize it to the lights so there would not be
any noticable flicker.

Oh I see! I thought it was just easier for the TV to get its timing from the mains frequency.

Video was single sideband reduced carrier, while
the audio was that "new fangled" FM.

There were several incompatible color systems, but the one picked by
the "National Television Standards Committe" was one that added color
information over a standard monochrome signal so that it was compatible
with black and white TV sets.

Don't you mean "Never Twice the Same Color"?

The BBC picked a similar system except running at 25 frames a second to
sync with 50Hz lights. The 20% slower frame rate allowed for 625 lines per
frame. This replaced the older 405 line system that was used before.
The BBC color system was based on the NTSC system, but in order to
compensate for the main flaw of it, the color signal was inverted in phase
every other line.

That's why NTSC TVs have brightness, contrast (from the black and white days),
color (chroma) and color level (saturation) controls while the PAL ones
are missing the color control, the PAL system makes them almost all the
the same, while NTSC ones need a phase adjstment to keep in sync.

Now here's were it gets complicated.

The French did not want their people to watch UK TV,

Why on earth not? Mind you it would more likely be our thieving BBC chasing after them for not paying the license fee...

Just in case you have not gotten completely lost yet, due to a rounding
error it was to 60Hz, or 30 frames per second, it's 30000/1001 or 29.97
frames per second. Does not sound like much, but it's 3 frames off every
100 seconds, or 3.6 seconds off per hour.

A very slow flicker?

DVD's can be had in NTSC (30000/1001 fps), NTSC file (24000/1001),
which are supposed to be 30 fps and 24 fps, and PAL 25 FPS. Films
shot at 24 fps, have been shown at 25 fps on PAL TV's since the 1960's,
maybe earlier.

As you can see, the big difference was that in the 1960's no one
wanted anyone else to watch their TV and vice versa. Now it's the
exact opposite.

Oh I dunno - look at that stupid region encoding rubbish!

CloneDVD removes it though

--
http://www.petersparrots.com http://www.insanevideoclips.com http://www.petersphotos.com

A lady come home and caught her husband in the act of cheating on her.
The rural housewife went to the back of the house and returned with the family's .22 caliber rifle.
Aiming the weapon at her husband's balls she said, "I'm gonna turn a bull into a steer, Jon!"
"No no!" pleaded Jon. "Not like this! C'mon, Judi, give me a sporting chance, darlin'!"
"All right. I will. You can set 'em to swinging . . . "

 

[Peter Hucker]

On Thu, 27 Nov 2008 00:09:15 -0000, (PeteCresswell) <x@y.invalid> wrote:

Per Peter Hucker:

That's why I record everything. I watch things when I have the time, not when they're on. And I can skip adverts and pause.

MythTV?

What?

--
http://www.petersparrots.com http://www.insanevideoclips.com http://www.petersphotos.com

There is a Space Shuttle mission to the moon with 2 monkeys and a woman on board.
The control centre in the US calls:
"Monkey number 1, Monkey number 1 to the television screen." He sits down and he is told to release the pressure in compartment 1, increase the temperature in engine 4 and to release oxygen to the reactors. So the monkey does the pressure, temperature, and releases the oxygen.
A few moments later the control centre calls again:
"Monkey number 2, monkey number 2 to the television screen." He sits down and he is told to add Carbon Dioxide to room 4, to stop the fuelinjectionto engine 3, to add nitrogen to the fuel compartment and to analyse the solar radiation. So the monkey does the carbon dioxide, the fuel injection, the nitrogen and the analysis of solar radiation.
A little later on, headquarters calls again:
"Woman, woman please approach the screen." She sits down and just as she is about to be told what to do she says.....
"I know I know!! Feed the monkeys, don't touch anything."

 

[Peter Hucker]

On Thu, 27 Nov 2008 05:19:12 -0000, Geoffrey S. Mendelson <gsm@mendelson.com> wrote:

(PeteCresswell) wrote:
Per Peter Hucker:

That's why I record everything. I watch things when I have the time, not when they're on. And I can skip adverts and pause.

MythTV?

Bit torrent and Chinese streaming sites.

I don't bother. There are so many films on the "free" channels, I don't need to pay for film channels anyway.

--
http://www.petersparrots.com http://www.insanevideoclips.com http://www.petersphotos.com

There is a Space Shuttle mission to the moon with 2 monkeys and a woman on board.
The control centre in the US calls:
"Monkey number 1, Monkey number 1 to the television screen." He sits down and he is told to release the pressure in compartment 1, increase the temperature in engine 4 and to release oxygen to the reactors. So the monkey does the pressure, temperature, and releases the oxygen.
A few moments later the control centre calls again:
"Monkey number 2, monkey number 2 to the television screen." He sits down and he is told to add Carbon Dioxide to room 4, to stop the fuelinjectionto engine 3, to add nitrogen to the fuel compartment and to analyse the solar radiation. So the monkey does the carbon dioxide, the fuel injection, the nitrogen and the analysis of solar radiation.
A little later on, headquarters calls again:
"Woman, woman please approach the screen." She sits down and just as she is about to be told what to do she says.....
"I know I know!! Feed the monkeys, don't touch anything."

 

[Geoffrey S. Mendelson]

Peter Hucker wrote:

Oh I see! I thought it was just easier for the TV to get its timing
from the mains frequency.

The problem with that is in the late 1940's there wasn't a "grid" as we
know it today. Power throught the US, or England, Scotland and Wales
was provided by unconnected generating stations they were not synced.

When did the UK standardize on 240 volts, 50 Hz? I know at one time there
were 5 different systems in London alone and I thought that it persisted
past WWII.

Don't you mean "Never Twice the Same Color"?

That's one of the nicknames the system was given because slight phase
variations caused by any number of things shifted colors, mostly twoard
green.

Why on earth not? Mind you it would more likely be our thieving BBC
chasing after them for not paying the license fee...

Beats me, but it was gthe way people thought in the 1950's. Off topic,
that's why the GSM system uses SIM cards. You could drive your French
rental car to the German border, take out your SIM, walk across the border
and pop your SIM into the phone in your German rental car, and still get
your calls. When it was designed, cell phones could not be taken across
borders and there may have been problems with bringing rental cars too.

A very slow flicker?

It's more than a flicker, the audio looses sync.

Oh I dunno - look at that stupid region encoding rubbish!

That's something that is optional for the program producers. I have
seen commercial DVD's that were not region encoded, and others that
were multi zone, for example UK, EU, Russia, South Africa and Austrailia.
Just about any country that uses PAL, and a few SECAM ones too.

It's completely ignored here.

Geoff.




--
Geoffrey S. Mendelson, Jerusalem, Israel gsm@mendelson.com N3OWJ/4X1GM

 

[Mark Zenier]

In article <slrngiresf.irj.gsm@cable.mendelson.com>,
Geoffrey S. Mendelson <gsm@mendelson.com> wrote:

Just in case you have not gotten completely lost yet, due to a rounding
error it was to 60Hz, or 30 frames per second, it's 30000/1001 or 29.97
frames per second. Does not sound like much, but it's 3 frames off every
100 seconds, or 3.6 seconds off per hour.

It wasn't rounding error, it was done to keep the difference between the
4.5 MHz nominal (no modulation) sound carrier frequency and the color
subcarrier frequency an odd multiple of half the horizontal frequency
to mimimze video artifacts.

The color subcarrier frequency (227.5*H) is defined in terms of the
horizontal frequency, likewise the vertical (H/525), So it was easier
to shift these than to change the sound demodulators in the ten million
or so black and white sets that already existed. The horizontal rate was
set to 4.5 MHz/286, setting the beat that was causing the trouble (286*H
- 227.5*H) to a frequency where the moire effects on the picture were
minimized. (At a frequency that's an odd multiple of .5 the horizontal
rate, you end up with the beat showing up as a checkerboard pattern.
That's also why the color subcarrier is an odd multiple of .5H)

They simplified the math in the FCC regulations, I had to go back to the
issue of _The Proceedings of the IRE_ from 1954(?) (that introduced NTSC
color), to find the paper that described the reasoning behind this.

Mark Zenier mzenier@eskimo.com
Googleproofaddress(account:mzenier provider:eskimo domain:com)

 

[Peter Hucker]

On Thu, 27 Nov 2008 21:19:09 -0000, Geoffrey S. Mendelson <gsm@mendelson.com> wrote:

Peter Hucker wrote:

Why on earth not? Mind you it would more likely be our thieving BBC
chasing after them for not paying the license fee...

Beats me, but it was gthe way people thought in the 1950's. Off topic,
that's why the GSM system uses SIM cards. You could drive your French
rental car to the German border, take out your SIM, walk across the border
and pop your SIM into the phone in your German rental car, and still get
your calls. When it was designed, cell phones could not be taken across
borders and there may have been problems with bringing rental cars too.

And some mobiles won't take sim cards from other mobile companies! Crazy!

Oh I dunno - look at that stupid region encoding rubbish!

That's something that is optional for the program producers. I have
seen commercial DVD's that were not region encoded, and others that
were multi zone, for example UK, EU, Russia, South Africa and Austrailia.
Just about any country that uses PAL, and a few SECAM ones too.

It's completely ignored here.

90% of DVDs I've seen have region encoding. The 10% weren't full box office films.

Still, the region encoding (along with the non-fastforwardable (what a stupid idea) copyright notice and various company logos), and the CSS protection, can be sliced off quite easily with the right software.

--
http://www.petersparrots.com http://www.insanevideoclips.com http://www.petersphotos.com

During the weekly Lamaze class, the instructor emphasized the importance of exercise, hinting strongly that husbands need to get out and start walking with their wives.
From the back of the room one expectant father inquired, "Would it be okay if she carries a bag of golf clubs while she walks?"

 

[(PeteCresswell)]

Per Peter Hucker:

MythTV?

What?

A freebie analog of Tivo. Runs under Linux.

http://www.mythbuntu.org/downloads

*Definitely* not plug-and-play... and I'd pay an hundred/two
hundred bucks for something commercial that's more user-friendly
- but I'm warming up to it.
--
PeteCresswell

 

[(PeteCresswell)]

Per Geoffrey S. Mendelson:

I added an old Packard Bell serial remote control.

I'm in the process of trying to get what is probably the same
remote working. The lirc files are getting the best of me
though....
--
PeteCresswell

 

[Peter Hucker]

On Fri, 28 Nov 2008 21:27:07 -0000, (PeteCresswell) <x@y.invalid> wrote:

Per Peter Hucker:
MythTV?

What?

A freebie analog of Tivo. Runs under Linux.

http://www.mythbuntu.org/downloads

*Definitely* not plug-and-play... and I'd pay an hundred/two
hundred bucks for something commercial that's more user-friendly
- but I'm warming up to it.

I'll pay my bucks to Gates to get a proper OS.

--
http://www.petersparrots.com http://www.insanevideoclips.com http://www.petersphotos.com

People who live in glass houses should fuck in the basement.

 

[Baron]

Peter Hucker wrote:

On Fri, 28 Nov 2008 21:27:07 -0000, (PeteCresswell) <x@y.invalid
wrote:

Per Peter Hucker:
MythTV?

What?

A freebie analog of Tivo. Runs under Linux.

http://www.mythbuntu.org/downloads

*Definitely* not plug-and-play... and I'd pay an hundred/two
hundred bucks for something commercial that's more user-friendly
- but I'm warming up to it.

I'll pay my bucks to Gates to get a proper OS.

I thought they weren't allowed to do Unix !

--
Best Regards:
Baron.

 

[(PeteCresswell)]

Per Peter Hucker:

I'll pay my bucks to Gates to get a proper OS.

Been there done that. XP Pro is my bread-and-butter OS.

Have you found something like Tivo that runs under XP?

My agenda is getting ready for the digital switchover.

I spend a couple days fooling around with Microsoft Media Center,
(the XP Pro version) but gave up on it and re-formatted my drive
and re-installed XP Pro.

My take on Linux so far is that one either needs to devote
themselves to it as if it were a serious hobby or, if they just
want a tool to get things done; one needs a good support team.

I don't see Linux as something that the average user can just
install and use like they can Windows XP.
--
PeteCresswell

 

[Geoffrey S. Mendelson]

(PeteCresswell) wrote:

My agenda is getting ready for the digital switchover.

A friend of mine has been doing it for years. He has had little or no
success. He was using ATI cards and they don't do all of the functions
at all of the resolutions. :-(

My take on Linux so far is that one either needs to devote
themselves to it as if it were a serious hobby or, if they just
want a tool to get things done; one needs a good support team.

Try Knoppmyth. It's a packaging of MythTV under Knoppix, and the guy that does
it is far better at it than the author of MythTV.

Last I read, the author of Knoppmyth was hired by Microsoft to provide them
with the same level of function and useability that KnoppMyth had. Part of
the deal was that he could spend a portion of his work time on KnoppMyth.

I don't see Linux as something that the average user can just
install and use like they can Windows XP.

I think that was their logic too. KnoppMyth is a fun thing to use and work with,
but it's not as easy as Microsoft would like their products to be. While it
would be possible with a decent product to have PVR functions in Windows,
and millions of people use them, no matter how good a job you do with a Linux
based product it will never be more than a fringe product.

Geoff.

--
Geoffrey S. Mendelson, Jerusalem, Israel gsm@mendelson.com N3OWJ/4X1GM

 

[Peter Hucker]

On Sun, 30 Nov 2008 14:55:47 -0000, Baron <baron.nospam@linuxmaniac.nospam.net> wrote:

Peter Hucker wrote:

On Fri, 28 Nov 2008 21:27:07 -0000, (PeteCresswell) <x@y.invalid
wrote:

Per Peter Hucker:
MythTV?

What?

A freebie analog of Tivo. Runs under Linux.

http://www.mythbuntu.org/downloads

*Definitely* not plug-and-play... and I'd pay an hundred/two
hundred bucks for something commercial that's more user-friendly
- but I'm warming up to it.

I'll pay my bucks to Gates to get a proper OS.

I thought they weren't allowed to do Unix !

Very droll..... I really shouldn't have expected any better form a unix geek.

--
http://www.petersparrots.com http://www.insanevideoclips.com http://www.petersphotos.com

Never have I seen a word as accurate as politics.
Poly meaning many, and tic being a blood-sucking thing.

 

[Peter Hucker]

On Sun, 30 Nov 2008 16:12:02 -0000, (PeteCresswell) <x@y.invalid> wrote:

Per Peter Hucker:
I'll pay my bucks to Gates to get a proper OS.

Been there done that. XP Pro is my bread-and-butter OS.

Have you found something like Tivo that runs under XP?

My agenda is getting ready for the digital switchover.

I spend a couple days fooling around with Microsoft Media Center,
(the XP Pro version) but gave up on it and re-formatted my drive
and re-installed XP Pro.

My take on Linux so far is that one either needs to devote
themselves to it as if it were a serious hobby or, if they just
want a tool to get things done; one needs a good support team.

I don't see Linux as something that the average user can just
install and use like they can Windows XP.

I use a TV to watch TV.

--
http://www.petersparrots.com http://www.insanevideoclips.com http://www.petersphotos.com

A blonde was playing Trivial Pursuit one night. It was her turn. She rolled the dice and she Landed on Science & Nature.
Her question was "If you are in a vacuum and someone calls your name, can you hear it?"
She thought for a time and then asked, "Is it on or off?"

 

[Roger Blake]

On 2008-11-29, Peter Hucker <none@spam.com> wrote:

I'll pay my bucks to Gates to get a proper OS.

You misspelled "poorly designed and excuted hack, incorporating
over 25 years of mistakes piled on top of mistakes piled on top
of mistakes, ad nauseum."

--
Roger Blake
(Subtract 10s for email. "Google Groups" messages killfiled due to spam.)

 

[(PeteCresswell)]

Per Peter Hucker:

I use a TV to watch TV.

That one flew right over my head.
--
PeteCresswell