bioneural.net » streaming

An exercise in wireless frustration

Bruce — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 14:17:34 +0000

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. My "BeBox", the hub of my home LAN, is actually a SpeedTouch 780WL WiFi router/ ADSL modem. The router's wireless access point (WAP) offers 802.11b/g, which is secured with Wi-Fi Protected Access (WPA) encryption—the earlier Wired Equivalent Privacy (WEP) standard is considered insecure. A slow, insecure option that worked It's worth noting that the original Apple Aiport Card appropriate for this machine can still be had on eBay for £30–40. Although this card is WPA-aware, it is only 802.11b (11Mbps) and thus not suitable for streaming. I know this to be so because the first device I tried was the Linksys WET11, a wireless Ethernet bridge. For the record, because it took me some time to discover, this device has a factory-default IP of 192.168.1.225. However, before you can connect to it using Safari (or any other browser), you need to manually assign your Mac an IP address in ...

HDTV, Blue-ray, HD DVD, HDV, PVR, TV & Macs

Bruce — Sun, 17 Jun 2007 09:29:18 +0000

From http://www.bioneural.net :

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. Terminology and standards Firstly the normal PAL television is now considered to be SD, or standard-definition. HD is thus high-definition, and HDTV refers to high-definition television. There are three HDTV formats in common usage: 720p, 1080i, and 1080p. Note that: The numbers stand for lines of vertical display resolution; The p stands for progressive scan (the whole frame is redrawn in each refresh); The i stands for interlaced (alternate lines are redrawn in each refresh); Sometimes another number, the frame rate, is tacked on to the end (e.g. 1080i25). "Full HD" may refer to 1080p, ...

Great New Zealand music on YouTube

Bruce — Fri, 15 Dec 2006 01:58:42 +0000

From http://www.bioneural.net :

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! Pokarekare Ana by Hayley Westenra Poi E by Patea Maori Club (Glad I'm) Not A Kennedy by Shona Laing Deciphering Me by Brooke Fraser Walkie Talkie Man by Steriogram Computer Games by Mi-Sex Distant Sun by Crowded House Don't Front On Me by Deceptikonz I Got You by Split Enz Listening For The Weather by Bic Runga Sway by Bic Runga Tip: YouTube Downloader provides a cross-platform way to save the videos to your hard drive (if like me you need to overcome a pathetic Xtra broadband connection that is incapable of streaming). You can watch these .flv files on your Mac or PC using VLC. The quality of the videos isn't that good, and often the audio and video are out-of-sync. But when you're done viewing, you can buy some of these tracks via the recently-opened iTunes Music Store (NZ).

Getting local news while abroad

Bruce — Sat, 09 Dec 2006 04:52:27 +0000

From http://www.bioneural.net :

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. Local radio Peak FM is our local radio station in the UK. I used to catch the news bulletin as I drove to work, and often at lunchtime as I did my house calls. Although the traffic information isn't much use to me 12,000 miles away in New Zealand, it was nice to hear what was going on in the neighbourhood. Unfortunately, however, despite the station allowing folk to "listen live" over the net, I am barred from doing so with a New Zealand IP address: No way around that one. At least Simone can still listen to Hit Radio FFH. BBC television In the case of BBC News video content the restriction is partial—you can get narrowband content. Here is the narrowband player (actual size): To get the broadband stream outside of the UK we are asked to pay $40 per year, but despite there being an Intel-native Real Player for Mac, the sign-up page says: This service has not been designed for use on a Macintosh. Then I recalled writing about the BBC testing health-news video podcasts, noting that Ben Metcalfe had created an unofficial feed list that links directly to the streaming media. Interesting, I can subscribe to the broadband feeds despite my ...

BBC testing health-news video podcasts

Bruce — Tue, 03 Jan 2006 18:48:23 +0000

From http://www.bioneural.net :

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. As noted here, the feeds do not link directly to the streaming video; this is displayed embedded in a web page to give it proper "context": As is typical on the Internet, a net denizen has created an unofficial feed list that does link directly to the streaming media (Real Player or Windows Media Player required). Ben Metcalfe offers links to broadband streams (also requiring a UK IP address) and narrowband streams so that clicking on an article title will open the appropriate media player rather than a web page with embedded video: The real utility of this service (official or unofficial) is that you can now catch important BBC News items without having to wait up for the next bulletin, or having to visit the main News website to see which health stories have video associated with them. Using Metcalfe's feeds also means you can be listening the audio of one article opened in Real Player (say), while at the same time be reading other posts in your RSS aggregator or newsreader (e.g. Safari). These days anything that helps us multi-task has to be a good thing, right?

The utility of WiFi on a handheld

Bruce — Fri, 21 Oct 2005 07:32:01 +0000

From http://www.bioneural.net :

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. I was unable to establish WiFi connectivity in my first 48 hours with the X50v. It turns out that my router was configured to accept connections on 802.11g only (since I have a Wireless-G card in my laptop). The X50v supports the 802.11b standard only: Shortly after this realisation and switching the router to "Mixed" mode WiFi was up and running using the Odyssey client (which isn't mentioned in the user guide; I gave up on Dell WLAN Utility). Here, mostly for my record (maybe it'll help you too), is how to set it up: Use the Dell WLAN utility to turn on WiFi; Close the Dell WLAN utility and open Odyssey Client; In the Settings menu tap Configure; Tap Add; Tap Scan to find your WiFi network; Select your network when it is discovered and check Infrastructure mode then OK; In the following screen tap Next; Set Association mode to Shared; Set Encryption method to WEP; Uncheck 802.1X then Next; Enter your WEP hex key with hexadecimal checked, then Next; Tap Finish; Tap OK; Select your WLAN from the drop-down menu and check Connect to; Tap OK. Your WLAN connection (Odyssey client icon) and signal strength is displayed on the Today screen: Downloading You can use Internet Explorer to download software and other files. Files of the type .cab can be downloaded direct to the Pocket ...