Ben's Nerd Corner

GoPro Hero 5 Black Not Working with Blackmagic ATEM Television Studio HD: EDID Problem at 1080p50

2018-01-30T22:16:00.002-08:00

This problem was VERY frustrating for me. We have a Blackmagic ATEM TV Studio HD at my church that we use with a Blackmagic Webpresenter to stream 720p to Facebook Live. Our primary camera is currently a Panasonic V770 which runs at 1080p50 out of its HDMI and therefore the resolution and frame rate of the ATEM needed to be set at 1080p 50 frames per second as well since the ATEM can only switch between cameras sending the SAME video format.
We introduced the GoPro Hero 5 thinking it would work perfectly at this setting. Indeed you can set it to PAL 1080p 50 fps and plug it in via HDMI to the ATEM running at the same resolution and frame rate, but the result is a black screen - absolutely no video - even though they are the same format!

However, I was getting audio from the GoPro which was weird and made me even more frustrated! I tried two different cables and still had nothing...

After some google ninja work I found one blog post in which someone was trying to do the same thing but at 1080p60 and they fixed it by introducing an EDID (extended display identification data) emulator in between the GoPro and the ATEM. So I ordered the ATEN VanCryst VC080 HDMI EDID Emulator in the hopes that it would solve the problem. At first it didn't - I had to use an RS232 to USB cable to connect to the VC080 and configure it using the ATEN software from the website. For some reason the auto setting didn't work so manually telling it to present itself at 1080p50 to each device was required.

IT WORKED!!! For some reason the Blackmagic ATEM must not send the correct EDID information to the GoPro and it stops the devices from "shaking hands" properly.

I hope this helps someone who has also come up against this problem.

A Simple Mining Rig for Beginners

2018-01-29T23:14:00.001-08:00

In this post I'm going to give an overview of my simple mining rig which I am currently using to mine Electroneum at a rate of about 25 ETN per day. Below are the parts that I bought:

A second hand PC with an a 3770 Core i7 Processor, 8 GB of ram and a Gigabyte GA-B75M-D3H motherboard with x2 PCI-E slots.
A Sapphire Radeon RX570 graphics card (GPU).

I currently have the CPU pulling about 300 H/s with Claymore Miner and the GPU about 600 H/s with XMR-Stak-AMD. I'm mining to etn.spacepools.org and have found them really good and the pool fee is only 0.1%

If anyone has any questions, let me know. I just thought it would be helpful to have some photos and brief explanation from an average tech guy about a simple mining setup.

Sapphire Radeon RX 570 Pulse for Mining Ethereum and Electroneum

2018-01-17T00:09:00.001-08:00

So I just bought an AMD Radeon RX570 for $486.24 NZD and I expect to see it in 6 to 8 weeks... Great...
Cryptocurrency is all the buzz at the moment, especially after the boom of November 2017 and I find the whole thing very interesting. I'm have no experience in trading so I haven't jumped in head over heals into buying up crypto - although I have bought a couple of hundred dollars worth just to be in the game. What has really caught my attention is the concept of "mining" and all the possibilities of blockchain technology. If you don't know what mining is, you're better off reading about it somewhere else. But pretty much you get rewarded with coins for using computer power to solve cryptography to verify the validity of transactions on the blockchain. This is where I want to get in on the action - being a computer nerd and all. I found that ethereum is still kind of profitable to mine and also electroneum which is a coin I have taken an interest in.
After much research about what hardware to use, it became apparent that GPUs are the most efficient pieces of hardware to use to mine - short of using ASIC units, which are dedicated computers designed specifically for mining certain blockchains.
I also discovered that GPUs are in VERY high demand at the moment and this has pushed up the price! I could either buy an RX570 from PB Tech for $575 and get it tomorrow or buy one from Ascent Technology for $486.24 and wait for it because its on back order. Bear in mind, these card used to be about $400 NZD a few months ago. They are also out of stock in the USA but some are appearing on Amazon for $ 500 USD - that's $690 NZD at the time of writing this!
As far a I'm concerned I got a bargain and the value of this thing is probably going to go up!

I will do an in depth post with pictures etc once I build my rig but for now I'll say; I plan on using an older PC and mounting the RX570 externally with room to add more. Once I get it up and running and I'm happy that I'm earning crypto I'll probably use some of the profits to buy more GPUs.

More to come!

Ben-the-nerd

Apple's Strategic Delayed Release of Technology

2017-09-20T04:22:00.001-07:00

It's fair to say that mobile technology has stalled in the last few years. The speed of mobile processors reaching a point where they were good enough, so then an increase in number of cores became the focus and all the while, power consumption being reduced. Some people won't even know that you used to be able to see the pixels on your screen! High resolution (retina) displays have changed the way we consume our content! The true measure being the pixels per inch (ppi) or pixel density. This is why a 1920x1080 resolution phone looks far better than a big TV with the same resolution when you're half a metre away from it. More than that now we're into HDR and OLED; trying to make our pixels look better...

This is where the satirical comments playing off the features between iPhones and Samsung Galaxy phones start to roll. Apple started off ten years ago breaking new ground with the first iPhone. Since then, Samsung and other high end Android phones have been pushing to employ the latest and greatest technology every step of the way and they have largely succeeded.
Samsung were the first to use OLED displays, IP67 water proof rating and use a large screen size with high pixel density, among many other features.

Apple on the other hand took a while to admit that a larger screen was of importance to consumers and comparatively has been releasing new features much slower than its counterparts. In the case of the new iPhone X (10), Apple say that this is the first OLED display good enough to be in an iPhone - a dig that all the other smart phones with OLED display technology have nothing on the new iPhone screen! This may be true, but it does make you wonder whether Apple have their finger on the pulse so much that they knew how technology would slow down and in order to maintain something to change each year, held back certain features that were actually available.
 
However, I do have to hand it to Apple - when they do add new features, they make sure they WORK! You can be certain that the new facial recognition (a result of not having a home button on the iPhone X) will work perfectly and will be hella secure.
 
All that to say, I am an iPhone user and will probably stay an iPhone user - I am too imbedded in iMessage and the joys that it brings. I will also say this; if your wondering what will be in the iPhone 8S, iPhone 9 or iPhone XI, just take a look at the latest generation Samsung Galaxy... LOL... JK...
 
//Ben_the_nerd

Ubiquity Edge Router X Firmware Fail

2017-09-11T04:45:00.002-07:00

So I recently bought an Edge Router X to replace my Apple AirPort Extreme. I use a PPPOE connection to my ISP (Big Pipe) through a fibre optic connection. I never had any trouble with the AirPort Extreme, I just wanted to have a more robust firewall, not to mention more configurable router. After a fair amount of research, I settled on the Ubiquiti Edge Router X and also bought a Unifi Ac Lite wifi access point to run in conjunction with the ERX. These products are beautifully designed in my opinion! However, they're not designed for the average person (iPhone users...). The lower end are prosumer products and the product range quickly expands into the professional and enterprise level.
Here's where thing get frustrating. We started getting drop outs in our wifi that we had never experienced up until this point. I turned first to the AC Lite access point and check it's not rebooting- which its not. I've used the correct power supply to power the ERX with POE and this passes this through to the AC Lite. I also noticed drop outs on my PS4 Pro which is connected via Ethernet. After I noticed this, I ruled out wifi issues which meant it was either the ERX or something to do with my ISP.

Since the router is the only thing that's changed, I started researching possible problems and solutions. Everything started getting way over my head really quickly so I decided to keep it simple and start by checking my firmware was up to date. I should be able to handle this...

I followed the instructions provided by Ubiquiti and uploaded the new firmware file via the browser GUI. Uploading... Uploading... Uploading... BRICKED...

SERIOUSLY pissed right now.

Anyway, I manage to RMA the device with PB Tech while reinstating the AirPort Extreme. After a few weeks I received a new ERX and I really hope I can get this one to work perfectly. I'll post another blog to report how it goes!!!

- Ben the Nerd.

The OnePlus 5 Has LTE Band 28!!!

2017-06-20T13:23:00.003-07:00

The phone we've all been waiting for has finally dropped! www.oneplus.net/5 has the full specs for the phone which shows 4G LTE band 28 included with is great for our little country New Zealand. I've put off getting the OnePlus 3T, so I can get my hands on the 5. I look forward to PB Tech making this phone available :)

- ben_the_nerd

Leaving iPhone for OnePlus 3T..?

2017-01-09T10:38:00.003-08:00

What am I thinking!?
Leave the iPhone ecosystem that I've been in since the iPhone 3GS!? (2010)

I'm one of those guys who has stuck to prepay and never changed to a contract plan. Every time I've done the numbers, it always ends up cheaper to buy the phone outright and keep my 2 degrees $19 a month plan for 100 minutes, unlimited texts and 500 mB of data (with a bonus 500 mB, so they might as well just say 1 GB). The minutes and data carry over month to month and I never run out because I don't call much and I'm mostly always on wifi except for when playing Pokemon Go and going on holidays.
Over the years Apple have done a sneaky thing where they introduced the "Plus" (bendy) line of phones at a larger but now commonly known industry standard screen size of 5.5". Where it got sneaky is they increased the price to match instead of making everything cheaper. I'm looking at all these 5.5" Android phones and thinking "what the frig?" they're way cheaper than the new iPhone 7 Plus!

I bet Samsung is happy about that though because it gives them an excuse to charge a similar exorbitant amount.

So what I'm looking at now is the company OnePlus. They're a Chinese company that has risen to greatness by offer top of the line specs in their smart phones for a fraction of the cost. They do marketing in a very "apple like" fashion too which makes them appealing. Their website is extremely pretty and designed to present a quality item to consumers. I have to say I'm almost sold just by looking at pictures of the OnePlus 3T - it's a sexy phone. I also got to try out the 3T at my local PB Tech which was a bonus! It's really snappy! While I'm still thinking through what it will be like to not send and receive iMessages, I'm really considering making the move to Android. We'll see what happens in the next 6 months or so.

Ben-the-nerd

Building a House / Data and AV Wiring

2017-01-09T10:28:00.003-08:00

I've been wanting to write this for a while! My wife and in the middle of a house build in Cambridge. Among my many thoughts about the matter, the ones I spend the most time dwelling on are my data, audio and visual wiring. Having a blank slate is a rare thing I wanted to "get it right" (in my opinion anyway). I'm sure people will see what I've done and think it could have been different or better but I don't care because it suits my needs. Let's start with data. Two cat 6 cables to each bedroom plus garage and six in total to the media room / lounge. Also, four in the computer alcove, two in the living room and two in kitchen. It's probably too many but cat 6 is cheap and I'd rather have too many than not enough. That's 24 in total - perfect to fit on 1 RU patch panel. Now there is more cat 6 runs for things like alarm feed, wireless access point, IP cameras etc but these can be fitted off to the 24 channel keystone patch plate that I intend on using for RG6. That brings me to the next part, coaxial cable. The same cupboard that I brought all the cat 6 cable back to, is very close to the back of the media room which will also make it a perfect media cupboard (a place to have audio receiver, sky box if you're stupid enough to have sky, playstation, streaming boxes etc). So, also running back to this location is six RG6 coax cables from various locations that might need distribution of over the air (OTA) television. Also, the freeview aerial cable is brought back to here which will be distributed accordingly. Last but not least this location also has all cabling for 5.1 surround sound brought back to it from the media room, a 4k hdmi cable, SPDIF cable and cat 6 for IR repeater from TV mounting position on wall and also the main ultra fast fibre micro conduit from the external termination point (ETP). Therefore, this will also be the location for my ONT.

I'll try add to this if I think of any other interesting details. Feel free to ask any questions. I did all the wiring myself so I have some tricks and tips for keeping the data cables away from power cables.

Here are some pictures to help this all make sense:

Figure 1: House design.

Figure 2: Top of media cupboard.

Figure 3: Bottom of media cupboard.

Figure 4: Action wall of media room and media cupboard.

Figure 5: Lined wall of media room.

More blogs to come in due time.

One tip, don't put flush boxes in for any data or audio/visual cables. It's easier to use a mounting bracket installed behind the gib later. I ended up removing some of mine so I could install large cable feed through wall plates.

Peace out!

-Ben_the_nerd

Microsoft Surface Pro 4

2015-10-06T11:34:00.001-07:00

Microsoft has officially released the Surface Pro 4. It's a more refined device building on the previous Surface Pros. The screen is slightly bigger at 12.3" but without increasing the overall size. The whole device is slightly thinner at 8.4 mm. As we know, taking devices too thin these days can cause then to bend (coughs "apple"). Also the Gorilla Glass on the screen is 0.4 mm thick - the thinest Gorilla glass ever shipped on a tablet! This makes for a more refined user interaction when it comes to touch and pen use. Can't wait to get my hands on this new device!

Allen & Heath QU32 Digital Mixer

2015-09-27T01:59:00.003-07:00

Hey! I can't believe how long it's been since I've written a blog! I've been playing in a covers band called Flamin' Nora since early 2014 now and we recently bought a 32 channel digital sound desk. After looking at the various options in our price bracket we went for the Allen & Heath QU32 and it is amazing for the price tag! You get all the standard bells and whistles of a digital mixer as well as some amazing extras that currently no other manufacture can offer. Our entire band uses in ear monitors (IEM's) and we have the ability to connect to the desk via wifi and mix our own IEM mixes using the app available for iPhone and Android! The app is called QU-You and it works super well! I highly recommend this mixing desk!

Alleged 12.9" Apple iPad Pro in 2014 With a 4K Display

2013-12-17T16:22:00.000-08:00

I'm a big fan of high resolution displays. My life has been better since upgrading from a 3GS iphone to an iphone 5. Apple may have gone with 'the bigger the better' for the new iPad Pro screen size, but with all good displays, 'the smaller the better' is true for the pixels. I really hope this rumour is true. A 12.9 inch iPad with 4K resolution would be to quote Anchor Man, "The Balls". For those who don't know, 4K (Ultra HD) is the next standard up from 1080p (Full HD), featuring 4096 x 2160 pixels (digital cinema standard). Films like The Hobbit have the priviledge of being shot at 4K resolution, obviously with an exponential increase in the size of the file being produced. Exciting times ahead in general for TV's, phones and tablets. I'm only worried about the battery pack an owner of an iPad Pro will have to lug around in order to light up those 8.8 million pixels!

~Ben_the_nerd

http://www.youtube.com/anotherdaywithbandj

HP Proliant Microserver N40L Home Server

2013-06-01T21:30:00.003-07:00

My latest purchase was a much needed, quieter, faster and more power efficient replacement for my old PC acting as a server. I took the plunge into the HP Microserver sphere after following the guys over at HomeServerShow. Subscribe to their podcast and get into the forums on their website, It really helped me a lot. For about a month I was deciding between building my own home server or buying a pre-built ready to go home server. Here in New Zealand, everything is quite expensive. So in order to build something small with at least 4 drive bays, I would have had to spend at least $200 just on the case! After going around in circles for a few weeks, I finally came right back around to the HP Microserver. After studying the prices and comparative performance of both the N40L and the N54L, I decided to go with the N40L Microserver for the price of $421.20 NZD including shipping from Ascent.co.nz. Although the N54L out performs the N40L, I decided that the dual core 1.5 GHz processor of the N40L would suffice for my modest media server needs. Also, right out of the gate, my Microserver came with 2GB of ECC ram, which was the same as the N54L for sale here too.
I also currently had a Seagate 2TB hard drive in my old PC and my plan was to use Drive Bender to create a pool to store all my data, so I bought another of the same 2TB hard drives (ST2000DM001). To cut a long story short, I now have my HP N40L running Windows Home Server 2011 (WHS) on the stock 250GB drive and two 2TB in a drive pool, all sharing to XBMC running on my Raspberry Pi.
Also, I noticed the HP light on the front was extremely bright! A lot of other people have posted on various forums about how to fix this, but I thought I would share my solution. I cut a small piece of Gaffa (cloth) tape in the shape of the light on the front and stuck it over the top. After putting the cover back on, you can't even notice and the light is much softer to the eyes.
Here is some pictures of my set up. If you have any questions about how I accomplished any of this, leave a question below.

- Ben.

Sorry about the state of my messy lounge...

EDIT:
Here is the tidy version of my TV centre.

Raspberry Pi - Raspbmc Install On USB 3.0 Flash Drive

2013-04-14T01:24:00.000-07:00

Hi everybody!

I placed my order for a Raspberry Pi from Element14 and a day later it rocked up! I also bought an HDMI cable and the USB cable to supply power to the Pi from Element14 at the same time. I ordered a Verbatim 4GB, Class 10 SDHC SD card and a Kingston Data Traveller 111 8GB USB3 flash drive from "www.ascent.co.nz" and the SD card arrived the next day but not the flash drive... Anyway, I couldn't wait to try the Pi out so I went ahead with an old USB 2.0 stick I had. I downloaded the Raspbmc installer from their website onto my work laptop (has SD card slot), inserted the SD card and followed the on screen instructions. The important thing to remember is to select "Install to USB" or something to that effect. It just means that when you power on the Raspberry Pi later (with SD card and USB plugged in) it will detect the flash drive and automatically try to install Raspbmc to it. From what I can understand, the Pi boots from the flash drive, but from then forth runs off the USB stick. Once you plug in the power (wired network connection and HDMI too) it just goes ahead and installs. You don't have to do anything except wait.
Once my USB 3.0 flash drive shows up, I might reinstall and report back on whether XBMC is faster or not. Apparently a USB3 stick will perform better than USB2 even though the Raspberry Pi is only got USB2 spec ports.
I've got so many things I want to try with this bad boy, so this is probably going to be the centre of my blogs for quite a while!
Now for a price round up (All in NZD). Raspberry Pi, $46. 1 metre HDMI, $2.54. 1.8 metre USB to micro USB cable, $4.83. I don't know why the heck I got a 1.8 metre USB cable, it just happened...
SD Card, $14.86. USB3 Flash Drive, $18.54.
Grand total, $94.28 including GST.
A little steeper than what I thought I was going to spend, but for an awesome little 1080p capable computer - worth it.

- NERD Ben.

Macbook Not Connecting to Windows 7 SMB Share

2013-01-19T23:44:00.004-08:00

Hey nerd world!

I recently found my Apple computers weren't connecting to my shared folders on my Windows 7 server. After doing some research I found this website. It details a small modification to the registry on the Windows machine which allows connection once again.
Complete the following:

Set the following registry key to ’1′:

HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager\Memory Management\LargeSystemCache

Once this is done, simply reboot your server and smb connection should now succeed!

By the way, if you stuff your registry some how, I take no responsibility...

- Ben

Apple TV 3 Jail Break / Raspberry Pi

2013-01-16T10:20:00.000-08:00

Hi folks.

I got really excited when I saw a post about an Apple TV 3 Jail Break! I loaded a video on youtube with a really creepy sounding guy who says "apple tv 3... jail break...". But it turns out that it's just a big fake. Most of them are unfortunately. The truth is, there is still another exploit in the Apple TV's security which is needed before a jail break can be developed. Stay tuned I guess.
In the mean time consider a Raspberry Pi. This thing is basically a credit card sized video card/pc capable of playing back 1080p 30fps H.264 video!
It has HDMI, ethernet, usb and run from an OS of your choice installed on an SD card (XBMC). Google it!

That's me for now!

DIY Gigabit Ethernet Connection & Homemade Continuity Tester

2013-01-16T02:22:00.004-08:00

I've just moved into a new house with the lounge being away from where I want to position my modem and airport extreme (for Time Machine backups and wireless printing). I have a lot of internet devices in the lounge including PS3, Apple TV, Media Server PC and Samsung TV. Therefore, I thought it would make sense to hard wire one place to the other. Luckily, there was already some CAT 5E cable in the roof intended to be used as another phone point. I high-jacked this cable and pulled it down with the coax cable in the lounge.
The next part is where the homemade continuity test comes in. First, I disassembled my wife's torch (flashlight for you foreigners) and stripped one pair from each cable at the junction point. Next, I positioned the battery half of the torch on the stripped pair in the lounge. Finally, I touched the light bulb end on each pair at the junction point until... There was light!
Then it was just a case of wiring up the cable to the CAT 5E ethernet jack points. To do this, I simply googled a tutorial. EASY!

Apple TV - iTunes HomeServer

2012-10-08T04:12:00.002-07:00

Here's a great option if you want to keep everything Apple technology. The Apple TV is a great little piece of hardware. Now with 1080p capability, it makes it very powerful. It makes it easy to rent or buy movies, but also play any iTunes content from any of your computers on your LAN using Home Sharing. I tested this by dragging and dropping a few of my "acquired" movies and TV shows into iTunes on my server PC. I then labelled the TV shows (Right click, get info, options, media kind) and gave them season and episode numbers. This separated the TV shows from the Movies category. Then I simply turned on Home Sharing on both my server computer and the Apple TV. This allowed me to view my iTunes library of music, movies and TV shows under the "Computers" menu on the Apple TV. It worked very well!
The only limitation I found was iTunes does not support MKV files which are very common these days. Especially for blu-ray rips.
By the way, I saved space by selecting the option in iTunes which doesn't copy new media into the iTunes folder. It simply links to your already organized folders.

All in all, it is a nice way of presenting your media. No jail break required!
However, Samsung AllShare plays MKV files flawlessly so I think I will stick with that for my Samsung TV!

Ben-the-NERD

Apple iPhone 5 & 4G LTE In NZ

2012-09-14T17:37:00.004-07:00

On Thursday morning (NZ time), Apple updated their website after the release of the iPhone 5 (Wednesday in the USA). The 4G LTE capable piece of technology, that some say will save the American economy, is 18% thinner, 20% lighter and 12% smaller in volume than its predecessor. All while growing the screen to a reasonable 4" (diagonally) to give it a 16:9 aspect ratio but retaining 326 ppi to yield an amazing "retina" display!

The tricky bit for New Zealanders is the 4G LTE part. We don't have that yet. Apparently Telecom will be testing it later this year, which is awesome! However, I want to know which LTE technology and which frequencies will be used because there are three different versions of the iPhone 5.

- GSM model A1428*: UMTS/HSPA+/DC-HSDPA (850, 900, 1900, 2100 MHz); GSM/EDGE (850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz); LTE (Bands 4 and 17)

- CDMA model A1429*: CDMA EV-DO Rev. A and Rev. B (800, 1900, 2100 MHz); UMTS/HSPA+/DC-HSDPA (850, 900, 1900, 2100 MHz); GSM/EDGE (850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz); LTE (Bands 1, 3, 5, 13, 25)

- GSM model A1429*: UMTS/HSPA+/DC-HSDPA (850, 900, 1900, 2100 MHz); GSM/EDGE (850, 900, 1800, 1900 MHz); LTE (Bands 1, 3, 5)

That is a lot to take in right there...
The NZ Apple website is not taking pre orders right now, but it says "Coming Soon". I'm just trusting that Apple has talked to Telecom and Vodafone and they will be selling the RIGHT versions which will be compatible when we finally have 4G LTE.

The Apple iPhone 5 Is Getting Closer!

2012-08-13T04:12:00.005-07:00

Hello all!
It's been so long since I have had time to write some nerdy information!
One thing I have been keeping an eye on is the iPhone 5 and I'm thinking of making the up grade when It comes out. If the rumors are correct (and they usually are), Apple will announce the iPhone 5 in the middle of next month (September) and it will be released a few weeks later. It is thought that the screen will be upsized to 4" across the diagonal, the phone will be thinner, have NFC (near field communication), an A5X processor and 4G LTE capability.
I would predict that the iPhone 5 will be available in New Zealand by October. Apple haven't even acknowledged that the iPhone 5 exists yet! But there have been some pretty convincing photos and information leaked out of China.
All in all, I hope it is a competitor for the Samsung Galaxy S3, which is an extremely impressive phone and has even stolen a small proportion of devote Apple users!

Keep your eyes and ears open for official information from Apple in the next few months!

Peace out!
-Ben

iTunes Won't Recognize iPhone 3GS in DFU

2012-05-31T06:02:00.000-07:00

I almost threw up when I thought I had lost my faithful iPhone 3GS!
Just today, I upgraded to iOS 5.1.1 and used Absinthe to jailbreak it untethered. It was great! I downloaded iOverclock from Cydia and noticed a huge increase in the speed of my phone. It had become quite slow with all the new features of iOS 5.

The problem came when I went to download siriport in order to try the popular siri voice recognition application for iPhone 4S. After the first reboot, my phone was hung with the apple logo and wouldn't get any further. I eventually held the home and power buttons down to reset it, but it would get stuck in the same place!

Now I thought I would put it in DFU mode and restore it in iTunes. Good plan. So i powered off, unplugged, held the home button, plugged in the usb cable, continued holding the home button until the iTunes logo appeared on my iPhones screen. I waited and waited, but iTunes never discovered it.
Now I started to freak out! I even tried it on my mates macbook pro, same deal!

After an hour of panic and searching the internet, I thought I would try my server PC in the lounge. I put it in DFU mode and opened iTunes. Initially nothing happened and I was still sad. So I left it plugged in while I went on facebook to be sad. When I looked up 10 minutes later, windows was installing driver files for the device etc, but more than that iTunes was asking if I wanted to restore my device! Magic!

So don't panic, as much as I hate to say it. Windows has your back...

-Ben.

Mouse Lite iPhone App

2012-05-23T01:42:00.000-07:00

Hello!

This blog is about the "Mouse Lite" application for iPhone, iPad and Android.
Basically this is a cheap way out of buying a wireless keyboard and mouse for your HTPC or home computer.
For me, I was tired of squatting in the corner with my server/htpc mouse and keyboard to load a YouTube video on my 40" lcd tv.
Now I can sit back on the couch, move the cursor around the screen and type in text all with my iPhone.

It works over WiFi, so all you have to do is download the application on your mobile device, download the program onto your host computer (Link here) and they will automatically connect to each other.

I can't wait to use this on the speculated new 4" screen of the new iPhone 5!

Thanks for stopping by!

-Ben.

Mac OSX HTPC - XBMC PVR + 4therecord

2012-04-17T01:22:00.001-07:00

Now there is a plausible way to have a mac computer controling what you are watching on your TV. Whether it's movie or tv show files, live tv (dvb-t or dvb-s) or music. You can even schedule recordings on your TV or via the internet anywhere in the world. Most multimedia nerds have heard of XBMC, one of the most popular open source (free) media center programs. Recent developments have made way for PVR versions of XBMC featuring plugins (addons) for accessing digital tv channels tuned in on a back-end server computer. This server computer has to be a Windows PC, but this makes perfect sense because windows is great at being a server!
Now, the best XBMC addon for live tv pvr capability in my opinion if 4therecord otherwise known as for the record. This is a fantastic program to install on your Windows PC. Combined with a cheap dvb-t usb tuner off ebay, you will be able to tune in all the digital tv channels in your region (providing you have adequate reception from your uhf aerial etc).
The next step is to download and install the Mac version of XBMC PVR, given in this 4therecord forum post or download direct from here.
Next, download the 4therecord addon, given in this 4therecord forum post or direct download from here.
The reason you need this one is because the one built into the Mac version of XBMC PVR doesn't work.

Now install this addon in XBMC (install addon from zip...), configure it to the ip address of your back-end computer, enable the addon and turn on "Live TV" in XBMC.
It should import all the information from 4therecord on your back-end computer and you should have full PVR functionality on your Mac in OSX!

Remember, these are not official builds and are possibly buggy and unstable so I take no responsibility if they don't perform as required.

However, they haven't caused me any issues yet...

Here's some screen shots:

TV Shows and Movies Should Make the Most of Illegal Downloads?

2012-02-22T01:57:00.002-08:00

I can totally understand trying to stop illegal downloads. I really can. Especially music. When it comes to downloading music, there are many easy and cheap option. For instance, iTunes is amazingly easy and gives the flexibility to listen to your music via ipod, burned cd or straight off your computer. DRM (Digital Rights Management) is not an issue either, because the file can simply be converted to mp3 in iTunes by clicking "Advanced" then "Create MP3 Version".

However, when it comes to tv shows and movies, I think rights owners should capitalise on consumers desire to have a file format of their material with no DRM protection. DRM is often annoying as I recently discovered when downloading my "digital copy" of Sherlock Homes after buying the movie on Blu-Ray. First off, it could only be downloaded from a windows machine and it came in a wmv format, which requires windows media player to watch (After validating with your download code). This is a problem for me because I don't want to watch movies on my computer, I want to watch them on my TV through PS3 Media Server and the DRM protected wmv format is unplayable with this software.

What happened to "The customer is always right"? What most modern people want these days is have a hard drive full of their favorite media that they can watch it at any time without having to get up a change the dvd or Blu-Ray. This also takes away the concern of scratching your discs and losing your content that you paid good money for!

Sure, you can rip you dvd or high definition bluray content to your hard drive through various methods. I know this because I have done it AND written a blog about it! But the convenience of downloading that content straight to a folder far out weighs the possibility of ripping disc content. Thus, illegal downloading has flourished so much!

So yeah...

If any big wig rights owners see this, consider making your content downloadable in various quality formats for a small fee or by watching a advertisement first?

Imagine if you had been paid even $1 per illegal download of your material so far? For some of the more popular content, thats a lot of money!

Nerdy food for thought...

Ben.

Apple MacBook Airport Intermittent When Establishing Connection to 5GHz Wifi

2012-02-13T01:46:00.000-08:00

I have had this problem ever since I set up my a1143 airport extreme base station to operate permanently at 5 GHz. I did this to enable fast n protocol data transmission between my house hold laptops and media server pc. I have a Thomson TG585 modem/router for other wireless devices that require 2.4 GHz wireless networks such as iPhones and iTouches. I think iPads can run on 5 GHz? Correct me if I'm wrong...

Anyway! It doesn't happen all the time, but when I open my MacBook from sleep, my airport flashes up and down as it normally does. Eventually the black bars disappear as it's attempt to connect to my 5 GHz network fails. When I click on the airport icon, it loads the list of available networks, all of which are 2.4 GHz networks! If I turn the airport on and off repeatedly, it eventually finds the network and connects. I've drawn the conclusion that the airport sometimes temporarily loses the ability to "see" 5 GHz wifi networks.

I also think it is nothing to do with by base station because my flatmate's MacBook Pro never has any of the same wifi connectivity problems.

If anyone has any information about possible causes and fixes, please leave a comment!
It happens probably about 20% of the time when I awake my MacBook.
It's a 13" MacBook running Snow Leopard.

Thanks!

Ripping DVD to MP4 For PS3 With HandBrake For FREE

2012-02-06T16:29:00.000-08:00

This blog is to clarify how to rip dvd to a high quality mp4 container with a .mp4 extension suitable for PlayStation 3.
I was frustrated because I could not get HandBrake to rip to anything else apart from .m4v and as much as people say "It's the same as .mp4", when you change the extension to mp4, it will NOT work natively on the PS3 (It requires transcoding with PS3 media server).
Therefore, I finally found out how to rip dvd to high quality mp4 h.264 with HandBrake. Here are the steps:

- In HandBrake preferences, unselect "Use iPod/iTunes friendly (.m4v) file extension for MP4"
- Insert your dvd and wait for the titles to scan
- Select "High Profile" in the Presets menu

At this stage, it still has a m4v extension but the next steps change that

- Go to the Audio menu - there will be two audio tracks - disable the second track so it looks like the picture below

- Go to the Chapters menu and unselect the "Create chapter markers"

The extension should now have changed to .mp4
Now just rename the file to what ever you want and start encoding.
This file will work natively on PS3

- Ben