OT: Movie Magic

Techocrats suffer from the same delusion that "more options is better". They confuse their lack of understanding for what GOOD default settings should be with "flexibility" -- i.e., shove all of this onto the user's lap and they'll be GLAD they have all this flexibility!

They'd be the sort that would design a HANDGUN that had menus, three layers deep! In an emergency, you'd be spending your last few precious seconds of life answering how many grains of powder you'd like in the charge and what target muzzle velocity, whether you'd like the bullet teflon coated or not, etc. Having specified all of those options, you'd then be told that a required library is out of date and you need to download a more recent version...

Yup. Makes me wonder what Linux birth control would be like! No, wait -- I suspect EVERYTHING-Linux qualifies as birth control (as it ties up any "free time" you MAY have had for sex!)

Reply to
Don Y
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You have no sense of humor. Why am I not surprised.

Reply to
Micky

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Those don't look like shin daggers on the label...

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'Ain't No Saguaro in Texas' Reverend Horton Heat

I've been watching the Longmire series which was filmed in New Mexico. It might be sheer luck but I haven't seen anything that obviously doesn't look like Wyoming.

Reply to
rbowman

This and MythTV only provide over-the-air channels, is that right?

The advantage is the ability to record?

And both of them require an (in-practice) devoted PC?? I have spares.

Is a video tuner card expensive?

Does everyone thing Sage is better?

Even though, as I said, I have more tv than I can watch, and I like the reruns because they are clean, I like the idea of a project.

Reply to
Micky

Ah, well... no one would recognize anything *but* a saguaro as indicative of The West.

Settings tend to be fabrications. SWMBO was watching a movie allegedly set at my alma mater. "Ain't no place that looks like that on campus!"

Reply to
Don Y

Ah, excellent! I looked at it when I bought my first HD HomeRun.

Probably some sort of kluge with the hooks for the MythTV crowd, Though, nowadays, you could probably scrape that from other sources (with some work -- that *some* FOSS soul would doubtless take on!)

Reply to
Don Y

Per Micky:

I think Sage can handle cable too.

Wouldn't bet the mortgage money on it.... but the interface between Sage and the signal source is the tuner. Sage doesn't care where the signal originates.

And I am pretty sure tuners can be had that tune cable.

SiliconDust's HDHomeRun PRIME, for instance:

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Something about "M-Card cablecard"....

I *like* my SiliconDust tuners... no clutter in the PC, available across all devices - one of them even provides live TV viewing on my Android phone.

Reply to
(PeteCresswell)

Per Don Y:

That's good....-)

Reply to
(PeteCresswell)

Exactly. Why tie an I/O device to a particular machine architecture needlessly? Mine are hidden in my "equipment closet" (which has an antenna feed) so they can be accessed from any network drop in the house -- not JUST the PC *into* which they happen to be installed!

Ditto with the telephone interfaces.

Reply to
Don Y

Keeps the nerds from reproducing? :>

Reply to
Don Y

Per Don Y:

I went the whole way and put them in the garden shed - about 100' from the house - which also has a TV antenna on it.

My rationale being isolation from the eventually-inevitable lightning strike on the TV antenna. Not there yet - fiber has intimidated me so far and the little radio link I tried was kind of so-so bandwidth-wise... so it's still linked via hard Ethernet cable.

Reply to
(PeteCresswell)

Cool! I drool at the prospect of having someplace out-of-the-way to hide all this kit! Currently, I have the lower 2 ft of a pantry to hold *everything*. It becomes... "challenging".

As a result, I've migrated much of the "smarts" out of that central location as I can more readily find a couple of cubic inches "here" and another couple "there", etc. to get the job done.

Eeee... I wonder if the "inevitable lightning strike" won't end up taking out you've got on BOTH ends of that link? You might consider slipping a "disposable" router between the outside line and whatever you've got it connected to, inside (assuming that is precious).

I've been designing little "one port firewalls" (one in, one out) that filter traffic entering/exiting via any of the network drops. AND, are essentially "fuses" in the event of lightning strike or malicious attack (replace the one port device instead of having to replace the network switch that it feeds!)

Reply to
Don Y

Per Don Y:

I would expect it to take out everything in the garden shed that is connected to the TV antenna - but that is "Only" the three SiliconDust devices and a switch. Several hundred bucks; but still not the whole LAN and everything connected to it.

Fiber instead of Ethernet cable between the shed and the LAN closet in the house would isolate the rest of my LAN from anything that happens to the garden shed.

In fact, I did a "Redneck Air Gap" solution using a couple of these things:

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Down the shore, I have a couple of them linking 4 IP cams and a couple of PCs in a windsurfing shop to a somebody's residence about a half mile away and they have been working reasonably well for several years.

But, for some reason, my SageTV recordings of live TV started coming up with artifacts and pixellation when I tried them between the garden shed and the house. Not that bad... but irritating enough that I figured I should bite the bullet and climb the fiber optic learning curve.... but I have yet to do that.

Having said that, now I expect lightning to strike the shed tonite....

-)

Reply to
(PeteCresswell)

New info. What about TIVO are you looking for?

The Resurgence of the Over-the-Air DVR

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Partial excerpt:

Channel Master DVR+ ? Number of tuners: 2 ? Hard Drive Size: 16GB (requires add-on USB storage) or 1TB ? Connection Options: HDMI and optical digital audio output; RF input; Ethernet port; dual USB ports; IR extender port. ? Integrated streaming services: VUDU, Pandora. ? Other Features: 14-day program guide with integrated VUDU search; remote access is not directly supported, but DVR+ is compatible with Slingbox 500; the DVR+ doesn't have built-in WiFi and requires the use of a USB WiFi adapter if you want to go wireless. ? Price: $249 for 16GB version (plus cost of external storage); $399 for 1TB box; $299 for optional Slingbox 500; no monthly subscription fee.

Simple.TV 2 ? Number of tuners: 2 ? Hard Drive Size: N/A. You must add your own USB hard drive (a 500GB drive starts at about $50). ? Connection Options: RF input; Ethernet port; USB port. ? Integrated streaming services: None ? Other Features: Simple.TV does not directly connect to a TV; instead, it streams everything to iOS, Android, and Windows 8 devices, as well as Roku, Apple TV, Chromecast, PLEX, and Web browsers. Through one Simple.TV box, you can watch live/recorded content on up to five devices simultaneously. The box supports ClearQAM cable signals. It does not have built-in WiFi and only supports stereo audio output. The Premiere subscription is required to remotely stream live/recorded content and download recorded content via mobile devices and Web browsers. ? Price: $199.99 for box; $249.99 for box with one year of premiere service; $349.99 for box with lifetime subscription to premiere service. Premiere service is $59.99 for one year or $149.99 lifetime. Factor in the additional cost of the USB storage device.

Nuvyyo Tablo ? Number of tuners: 2 or 4 ? Hard Drive Size: N/A. You must add your own USB hard drive (a 500GB drive starts at about $50); Tablo supports up to a 2TB device. ? Connection Options: RF input; Ethernet port and built-in WiFi; dual USB ports for external storage. ? Integrated streaming services: none ? Other Features: Like Simple.TV, Tablo does not directly connect to a TV; instead, it streams everything to iOS/Android devices, as well as Roku, Apple TV (via AirPlay), Chromecast, and Web browsers. Through one Tablo, you can watch live/recorded content on up to six devices on your local network; you can stream live and recorded content to iOS, Android, and Web browsers outside the home; attractive 14-day program guide; can't download recordings to remote device. ? Price: $219.99 for two-tuner box; $299.99 for four-tuner box; $5/month for Tablo Connect remote access and program guide; cost of external hard drive.

Reply to
Micky

The problem isn't the tuners but, rather, this nice long ANTENNA you've got (buried?) in the yard. A nearby strike will induce large voltages that will creep into all sorts of things directly and indirectly connected to it.

Yup. You're still vulnerable to a nearby strike -- but much less so (because you don't have anything "guiding" the strike/induced spike

*into* your kit).

We lost POTS many years ago from a nearby strike. No evidence of any damage on the property -- but at least one (electronic) phone was fried and the TV picture tube was horribly "magnetized" (LOTS of degaussing cycles to restore color purity).

OK.

No "out buildings" here so I don't have to worry about long stretches of cable over/under the ground.

My little "sacrificial firewalls" make sense because they protect the *content* of the network (filtering traffic in/out of each INDIVIDUAL port). Having them do so in a manner that allows them to be disposable/replaceable just gives me some protection against adversarial attacks on drops that are "available" to potential adversaries (e.g., porches, guest bedrooms, exterior cameras, weather station, etc.)

They also give me precise clock synchronization and PoE capability without having to buy a many $K switch that has those features built in!

Reply to
Don Y

And get this, according to

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And TiVo's subscription policies can seem downright customer-unfriendly: "lifetime" subscriptions are tied to your box and won't transfer to a new TiVo if your box breaks or you want to upgrade in the future.

so it's the life of the box!

They may have other plans at some other time, but never assume it's better than, or even as good as, the literal meaning of the words.

Reply to
Micky

Ah, yes. The mountains in the background of Robocop, which was set in Detroit. IIRC it was shot in Pittsburgh.

Cindy Hamilton

Reply to
Cindy Hamilton

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$288 and 299 at amazon and marketplace.

Big deal.

Only HDMI and optical outputs, but adapters available.

Reply to
Micky

I can "buy" the "things no one will be able to suss out". E.g., a generic interior shot "could be anywhere" -- unless it CLAIMS to be somewhere specific (and folks will have been in that place to attest to its inaccuracy).

[E.g., the control room in WarGames is largely fiction -- though parts of the set are inspired by reality (e.g., the giant springs supporting the buildings). Likewise, the entrance to the Cheyenne Mountain Complex in SG-1 is real -- but little else!]

But, the OBVIOUS screwups are just laughable. E.g., the STEEL crate to contain the "ferocious velociraptor" up-thread... that's actually made of WOOD (and obviously so!) :<

And, the ones that are put there with the intent of chuckling at the viewer (e.g., SINED, SEELED, DELIVERED) are almost a deliberate challenge to the viewer!

Reply to
Don Y

I looked at Amazon and googled and didn't learn much.

CPE is customer premises equipment?

Where do you put the things you bought (each end of the coax to the shed?) and what do they do?

Reply to
Micky

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