Media center
Al jaren hangt er pc aan de TV (of andersom) en al jaren gebruik ik deze als mediacenter.En al jaren hangt heel die configuratie een beetje met haken en ogen aan elkaar.
Het werkt allemaal wel, maar is verspreid over verschillende programma's en de interface is niet echt gebruiksvriendelijk.
Daar moet nu maar eens verandering in komen ...
Nieuwe hardware kopen doe ik natuurlijk niet, maar nieuwe software, die moet er wel komen.
Hier staat een prima overzichtje van verschillende Media center software, en ik heb er al een dozijn van getest, maar eh ... 't ziet er weer naar uit dat ik zelf iets in elkaar moet steken om mijn gading te vinden ...
Bijvoorbeeld iets wat ik nu al veel gebruik en zeker ook in mijn media center moet zitten is een mogelijkheid om mij X10 apparatuur aan te sturen, en blijkbaar hebben al die media-center ontwikkelaars daar nog niet aan gedacht want die functie is nergens te vinden.
En ook zijn de meeste systemen dermate gesloten dat het er ook niet zo 123 aan te te voegen is ...
The only expection seem to be Xlobby.
Xlobby has some mayor pro's - like multizoned audio - muli-device interfaces, open architecture ...
But basically, that's what my own custom software does allready (allthough not as good) and , the big "deal-breaker" is the lack of TV support.
I've been struggling to write my own TV player/recorder for some time now and haven't really succeeded, so that's the one feature I'm looking for in third party software.
Offcourse Xlobby can achieve TV support through the XLTV plugin, but that's a bit fake: XLTV is an interface to your existing TV-software, and Xlobby is an interface to XLTV, so .. why don't use the existing tv software then and write an interface to it yourself ?
At this moment I'm using a Slingbox to have network wide - multidevice live tv, which works fine, but it does not have the ability to pauze live TV streams end recording a slingboxstream is not really straightforward or bugfree ...
Some Software Solutions I tested:
- Windows Media Center 2005
Very smooth product, however ... it's entirely Windows media based (Duh) so .. no divx or custom codec redording, no custom EPG ... no thanks. - Cyberlink Powercinema.
Cyberlink makes a kick-ass software DVD player, but for the rest: clumsy interface, not expandably .. terrible music manager .. - GBPVR. Looks very very good ... almost perfect, however ... limited support for TV tuner cards and - murphy's law ... not one of my cards are supported.
Weird .. I don't understand why they didn't add a default DirectShow interface ... - Showshifter
The original mediacenter ... works well on older hardware, has all the feature you want but ... the company behind it got liquidated a few years back and since then ... the software seems dead ...
Webtv
De overname van Youtube door Google bewijst het nog maar eens: Video on demand via het net is aan het boomen.Het aanbod van web-tv kanalen is ondertussen al zo groot dat zeker het aanbod van reguliere TV ver overstijgt.
Gelukkig is er wwiTV dat alles netjes catalogeert.
Belgi� blijft zoals gewoonlijk hier weer wat achter maar goed: tussen een paar duizend engelstalige kanalen zit er allicht iets tussen wat je interessant vindt.
Een paar favorieten:
| Kulaks Woodshed | 24/7 Live accoustische muziek | Site - 500k stream |
| Channel UK | underground films en documentaires | Site - 300k stream |
Hier staat ook nog een leuk overzichtje. Grappig: deze schraapt de paginas van Tvopjecomputer.nl weg, en Tvopjecomputer.nl kaapt ze dan weer weg bij wwitv.
Wat een omweg! Maar ze staan tenminste netjes op een rij. Geef je reactie (0)
SL stands for Sling, not Second Life
Today I decided to put a hold on my Second Life for some time. The Linden-dollar exchange rate was at a very low L$275 / US$1.00 , so it was the perfect time to cash out :-)
With a part of my earnings I bought a Slingbox from Ebay.
Yey! I have had my eyes on this device for over a year now.
A few months ago Slingmedia finally made the jump to europe with a PAL version.
Not sold in Belgium yet, so it has to come from Ireland.
This will work insanely great with my Q1 UMPC!
I hope they will soon update there Windows Mobile player to make it compatible with the PAL version so I can watch live wireless TV on my PocketPC. Geef je reactie (0)
BlogMusik
Heh :-)This is some great use of search-engine result mash-ups:
http://www.blogmusik.net/
Do some clever google-querying (for example -inurl:(htm|html|php) intitle:�index of� +�last modified� +�parent directory� +description +size +(wma|mp3) +�artist name� )
Slap on a nice flash interface, and Wham:
you got a streaming music app that makes a HUGE music-libary instantly available, while using other peoples bandwith, and without doing something illegal ...
Brilliant !
Geef je reactie (3)
Second Life issues
Ouch!!Massive security breach in Second Life.
As a result they have reset over 650.000 account passwords.
Man, that's a developers nightmare! I hope they have deployed an extra army of support personel ...
They call it "a zero-day exploit of third party web-software"
If it was a zero-day exploit, why took it 5 days to discover and fix the problem?
Web based exploits are nearly impossible to predict, but once known, they should be fixed in a few hours. Especially in huge online environments like Second Life. Geef je reactie (3)
Zoooo leuk
Citaat van de dag:Het is hier zo leuk dat ik er bijna niets van zie.
Dixit - Tommy van Sesamstraat
En wie meer wil weten moet het cd-tje maar beluisteren: het blijft geniaal. Geef je reactie (0)
Zune
An article in Wired predicts the failure of Microsofts' forthcoming Zune Media player.While they probably are right, the Zune won't be succesfull, it will be for all the wrong reasons ...
The dominance of the Ipod wont be broken, and why? because no single player can compete with the complete control Apple had over the whole line: content - distribution - store - player.
and ... worst of all: complete control AFTER the sale.
a quote from the article: "New features, no matter what's promised, will likely not convince people to abandon their little white boxes -- especially since none of the billions of purchased iTunes songs will play on whatever Microsoft releases."
As a matter of fact: no Itunes song will play on any other mobile player then an Ipod.
I can't wrap my mind around the fact that this doesn't seem to bother anyone.
Apple wants it both ways: They sell you the song. But do they? no, you can only use it with their hardware ... That's not selling, that's giving it in license ... as long as you want to listen to your songs on the go, you'll have to have an Ipod. The lifespan of an Ipod is something around 4 years, so if you want to keep listening to your songs and be mobile, you will have to keep buying new Ipods once a while ...
this is bad ... very bad.
And people are shouting that Microsoft is evil ...
I completely don't get this. This is one of the reasons I really really really dislike Apple. Even in such a way I will never ever buy an Apple product in my life ...
(And for people wondering, I can easily give heaps of other examples why Apple is yuk.)
Smal updaten in 15/09/2006:
Hmm: Zune appears to have some drooling features ...
look at this and this...
VERY slick !!! Geef je reactie (0)
Virtual Vega
a perfect combination:On the 3th of august, Suzanne Vega will perform live in Second Life !!!
Really really cool !!!!
Just an example of the power of Second Life.
I'm telling you: things like this wil get more and more common: Virtual worlds will get richer and richer: Meetings will be held there, E-learning courses will be deployed, games will played, inventions will be caressed ...
It won't be long before the big media-companies will jump on this: allready there are people streaming their live TV-signal into Second Life, using a slingbox or wathever ...
I watched the Prison Break finale in Second Life with a friend, in real time !!!
the USA cable-companies will get nuts over this ... Geef je reactie (0)
This will cool you down !
Man ... It's hot ... really ... 34 degrees Celcius ... few ...A good thing there's Ze Frank !!!!
This guy is so cool ... instant refreshment !
Geef je reactie (0)
OMG - flash is skyrocketing again
The last few months I slacked a bit in following the most recent flash-developers.Shame on me: I missed out on some major cool stuff !!!
http://blog.andre-michelle.com/
Flash player 9is available ... Action Script 3 promises developers-heaven ... (check out the Commodore 64 emulator written in flash ... drooooool !!!)
Ouch .... After installing flash player 9, the framerate of most cpu and script intensive routines dropped with 50% Geef je reactie (0)
Finally a word towards my first online life :-)
If you are wondering where I'm wandering these days: come and meet me at second life!I've been active for about a year now in Second Life, but things are really shifting into 5th gear.
I teamed-up with the lovely Miss Tanith Newt to do some virtual photography.
Great stuff! check her out at www.tanithnext.com or come and find us in Second life.
Lots and lots and lots is allready being said about that platform, but it still isn't enough: this world is truely and deeply amazing! I honestly am in awe over the creativity and "realness" being unleashed by the residents.
This world has almost no rules, and almost no consequences of ones actions, so you would expect this to turn sour very fast and very bad, but think again ... resisdents are finding a admirible balance between freedom to do what you want, and self regulation. With minimal top-down interference, this is one fine example of how thousands of people automatically form a social network that keeps itself floating: lazy people are getting bored and leave after a few days, the most annoying people get banned and find an island for themselves to do their thing ... Content creators keep their intellectual property and make some money ...
Brilliant !!!!
@17.54: I just missed my train home ... Luckely there's a Wireles network signal flaoting in the air in this tiny trainstation :-) I'm typing this on my new(ish) samsung Q1 UMPC , on my also newish Thinkoutside foldable bluetooth keyboard.
Man ... this is geek-heaven !!! Geef je reactie (0)
Zomermedia
tijdens deze warme komkommermaanden wordt er vooral veel hersampled op de radio en tv, en dat is niet altijd slecht!Heel de zomer lang op woensdagmiddag: herhalingen van 'De Sample Minds': Staat mee aan de top van de beste radio ooit gemaakt!
Het traceren van covers interesseert me altijd wel.
Doet me eraan denken dat ik nog altijd mijn jaaroverzicht van "My Funny Valentine" covers eens online moet zetten (jawel: 365 verschilende versies !!!) en natuurlijk het archief Tom Waits covers ... Geef je reactie (0)
