suggestion to shareholic/boxee

I use shareholic to add items to boxee, and have a suggestion to make:

currently shareholic cannot find boxee-able itmes in pages like http://www.asianetglobal.com/ShowVdo.aspx?GlHID=2008, but can be easily fixed.


if you look closely, from,

http://www.asianetglobal.com/flvplayer.swf?videoURL=http://videos.asianetglobal.com/flv/asianet/VdoGallery/KKandathum2712.flv&thumbURL=Images/VdoGallery/Kettathum%20Kandathum.jpg

you should be able to extract just the flv url fairly easily,

http://videos.asianetglobal.com/flv/asianet/VdoGallery/KKandathum2712.flv

I'd love to see this added to shareholic

Microsoft LifeCam Cinema

So far this has been the best webcam I've ever used. It's an HD webcam, 720p HD widescreen, even works on ubuntu (lucid) linux right away under uvcvideo. It also has a microphone, and the audio quality is very clear.


[ 26.861845] uvcvideo: Found UVC 1.00 device Microsoft® LifeCam Cinema(TM) (045e:075d)
[ 26.911241] input: Microsoft® LifeCam Cinema(TM) as /devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:0b.1/usb1/1-3/1-3:1.0/input/input6

$ lsusb |grep -i microsoft
Bus 001 Device 003: ID 045e:075d Microsoft Corp.

Above all, it is priced reasonably.

vital specs:

• 720p HD Widescreen Video
• Auto Focus
• High-precision glass element lens
• ClearFrame Technology for smooth, detailed video
• Digital, noise-canceling microphone

more here..

tl;dr: here's a good HD webcam for almost all operating systems. works with skype and other IMs.

nokia sale shrinks in india - here's why

here's why: shown is a nokia cellphone right after 12 months of purchase, few days outside the warranty period. what you see is 2 ginormous black dots on its color lcd screen.

in case you didnt know it already nokia, we indians like products which are durable. stop stealing from us, stop dumping flaky stuff on indian markets.

Microsoft Corp. LifeCam VX-7000

Microsoft Corp. LifeCam VX-7000 is an "OK" usb camera. here's the amazon.com page with more details



Technical Details
Model: CEA-00001
Audio Input: Built-in microphone
Video Capture Resolution: 1600 x 1200
Image types: JPEG
Image Capture Speed: 30 fps

here's the lsusb o/p against this webcam:

Bus 001 Device 003: ID 045e:0723 Microsoft Corp. LifeCam VX-7000 (UVC-compliant)

It also works on linux. I used Lifecam VX-7000 to make video calls on skype on linux. I start skype as shown below, and it works great:

$ cat /usr/bin/start-skype.sh
#! /bin/bash

bash -c 'LD_PRELOAD=/usr/lib/libv4l/v4l1compat.so skype'

So in short, if you're looking to buy a good cam which would work in linux, go for VX-7000.

hdhomerun single doing multirec

hdhomerun single doing mulirec (record multiple channels on the same DVB multiplex) on my lucid. (http://bit.ly/9hcBeo)




to setup this feature, do the following: (ref)

1. Exit the myth frontend.
2. Stop the myth backend (ALT-2)
3. Start mythtv-setup (ALT-s)
4. Select "2 Capture cards"
5. Select your capture card. Remember, it must be a digital tuner.
6. Hit the "Recording Options" button.
7. Increase "Max Recordings" from 1 to the number you want to allow.
8. Exit mythtv setup
9. Restart mythth backend (ALT-3)
10. Restart the front end (ALT-m)

Belkin 1000Mbps Gigabit Powerline HD Starter Kit review

So today i brought from Frys "Belkin 1000Mbps Gigabit Powerline HD Starter Kit for High Definition Video Streaming" - hoping that I get to watch HD mythtv recordings on my mythfrontend without the annoying pauses.

Needless to say, it gave me pain already, it would freeze up on me. I had to unplug the receiving end a couple of times to get past the hiccup.

Before returning it, I chose to attempt a f/w update against the latest and greatest from their web-page. I found this detailed instructions. When I run the thingy downloaded from the website, it seems like it downgraded my f/w version.

Before the "upgrade":

After the upgrade:


as you can see, i got downgraded to 2.0.9 from 2.2.0 although the svn branch got hiked to 25645 from 25122 -- looks like Belkin does not have much of a grip on cohesive version control.

Either way, for my own selfish sake, i hope this fixes the random hiccups i've been experiencing on these device.

Enabling display acceleratiun on Lenovo ThinkPad T500 2242-CTO

So I got a Lenovo ThinkPad T500 2242-CTO running 64bit lucid. Boxee, and Hulu refused to run on it citing lack of acceleration/ direct rendering.

T500 2242-CTOs come with Integrated Intel GMA 4500MHD, also known as "Intel Mobile 4 Series" (http://bit.ly/9lU6Wp)

Odd thing was despite having an Intel display adapter, the libGL.so.1 was linked to some nvidia nuisance (highlighted below)

$ ldd `which glxinfo`
linux-vdso.so.1 => (0x00007fff27fff000)
libGL.so.1 => /usr/lib/nvidia-current/libGL.so.1 (0x00007f6f64bb0000)
libm.so.6 => /lib/libm.so.6 (0x00007f6f6492d000)
libX11.so.6 => /usr/lib/libX11.so.6 (0x00007f6f645f6000)
libpthread.so.0 => /lib/libpthread.so.0 (0x00007f6f643d9000)
libc.so.6 => /lib/libc.so.6 (0x00007f6f64056000)
libXext.so.6 => /usr/lib/libXext.so.6 (0x00007f6f63e43000)
libXxf86vm.so.1 => /usr/lib/libXxf86vm.so.1 (0x00007f6f63c3d000)
libXdamage.so.1 => /usr/lib/libXdamage.so.1 (0x00007f6f63a3a000)
libXfixes.so.3 => /usr/lib/libXfixes.so.3 (0x00007f6f63833000)
libdrm.so.2 => /lib/libdrm.so.2 (0x00007f6f63628000)
libdl.so.2 => /lib/libdl.so.2 (0x00007f6f63424000)
libxcb.so.1 => /usr/lib/libxcb.so.1 (0x00007f6f63207000)
/lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x00007f6f64e54000)
librt.so.1 => /lib/librt.so.1 (0x00007f6f62fff000)
libXau.so.6 => /usr/lib/libXau.so.6 (0x00007f6f62dfa000)
libXdmcp.so.6 => /usr/lib/libXdmcp.so.6 (0x00007f6f62bf4000)

That does not belong there, and here's how I fixed it:

# mv /usr/lib/nvidia-current/libGL.so.1 /usr/lib/nvidia-current/libGL.so.1.junk
# ln -s /usr/lib/libGL.so /usr/lib/nvidia-current/libGL.so.1


After a reboot, direct rendering is enabled:

$ LIBGL_DEBUG=verbose glxinfo | grep "direct rendering"
direct rendering: Yes



Also Ref:
[ubuntu] client glx version string: SGI with NVIDIA drivers?!? - Ubuntu Forums