Having spent the better part of two half days trying to achieve the impossible, I wish to recount an exercise in wireless frustration. The challenge was to hook up an iMac G4 (Flat Panel) with no Airport Card, located in the attic room, to my home LAN (and thus to the Internet). One purpose of this machine was to serve as a screen for streamed video that could be watched while using the exercise cycle. A TV had provided such distraction, but that had broke. To cement the challenge, the problem should be solved using equipment already to hand i.e. at no additional cost.
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Tag archive for 'streaming'
I was recently impressed by a HDTV broadcast I saw in Brisbane. The Wellington House & Home Exhibition demoed the Bose Series III Lifestyle 28 ($NZ5500), a Toshiba-based DVD player with media centre functionality. House of flying daggers looked and sounded superb on a large $NZ10000 Samsung "high definition" LCD TV. Although the Lifestyle is a multi-region player (I'll never by region-locked again) it uses yesterday's tech, offering neither HD nor support for higher-capacity optical discs (Blue-ray or HD DVD). My current DVD player, TV, and camcorder are all limited to "standard definition". Would largely garbage free-to-air TV programming justify the cost of making the jump to high def? What equipment would I need and what technology standards should I be mindful of? And, in a Mac-centric home, how much of this would be compatible with my preferred computing platform? Here are the results of my investigations into these surprisingly complex questions: if I have erred please feel free to re-educate me.
Continue reading 'HDTV, Blue-ray, HD DVD, HDV, PVR, TV & Macs'
I haven't paid much attention to YouTube—until now. There was a song on the vid screens at the gym by a New Zealand artist I'd not come across, and a Google search led me to the video on YouTube. I decided to see what else was there. Some of the videos available are for songs I currently love (q.v. Bic Runga) but never got to see the video for until now (maybe they weren't on UK TV). But there are also old favourites to remember and new discoveries to appreciate. Here are a few personal highlights from the past 3 decades: enjoy!
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If you're abroad and want to keep a finger on the pulse of life at home, what are your options? You might sign up for satellite TV, buy an over-priced newspaper, or read online. But sound and moving pictures somehow make you feel more "connected". Streaming audiovisual content may be the answer.
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A while back I commented on the rise of healthcare-related audio podcasts. I nearly missed the fact that the BBC have, since November 2004, been beta testing BBC News Player feeds. Among the test feeds is one for health stories. This feed contains footage from BBC's TV news reports so differs in content from the existing text-only health-news feed from the news.bbc.co.uk site.
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WiFi on a handheld? Far from being as much use as mammary glands on a bull, a wireless PDA has additional functionality over its USB-teethered brethren. Aside from wireless synching, potential roles may include downloading, controlling, accessing, communicating, informing, entertaining, printing, and updating.
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