Ja, that is a cool thingy! I have quite some trouble with my Bluetooth wireless keyboard that I use for my HTPC - regardless of using Windows or Ubuntu GNU/Linux, each system start I have to setup that keyoard again and have to use another keyboard in order to do so first... That sucks. As both OS' are affected, I guess it has more to do with the very keyboard instead of a system setting that I missed. Who knows, tips are welcome.
But, there is hope already! Having an iPhone and browsing the App Store recently, I discovered Logitech's Touch Mouse application. This is an application suite that allows you to use the iPhone's touch screen as a remote mouse and keyboard. This is done through WLAN, the Touch Mouse app on the iPhone connects through the local net to an according server application installed on the PC.
And this works surpisingly well with quite low latency - mouse and keyboard events are instantly there. Of course this is not an option for power users, but for quickly doing something this is absolutely fine.
This works on a computer running Mac OS X or Windows (XP upwards) and is for free. Find the app in the appstore, while the server application can be downloaded on the Logitech website.
The app provides up to three mouse buttons and a simplified keyboard (e.g. there are no cursor keys present), but it provides also landscape mode and when having the keyboard enabled, the mouse can still be used on the same screen in parallel but with a smaller canvas. Here is a short Youtube video showing the application
Sunday, 31 January 2010
Monday, 30 November 2009
HD works now...
Strike! Got HD now working. Have a HD ready TV, so I have 720p. I searched the web for a while but always missed a certain post which now spotted me to the right direction. The trick was to follow a link to the beta driver located on Techno Trends's FTP site.
Please, Techno Trend, list also your beta drivers. Other companies also do that, such as nVidia. Why hiding it and not making any link or hint on your website pointing to that beta driver that allows to use HD on Windows 7 MCE? Just make a big fat note that beta srivers might cause trouble, but hiding it at all leaves a bad impression and customers not able to find that (even I had troubles finding it for some weeks!) might not buy again and tell their friends something different.
Okay - however it works not perfectly! I have got real HDTV with MPEG4 codec running very smootlhy. The only real station that I can watch is arte HD (Germany) - the rest is promo from Astra, Das Erste and ZDF. But soon, Das Erste and ZDF will yet again send HD programme until in February, regular HD will start.
... with no additional fees - as the "HD+" stuff from Astra will be charged for after one year. As HD+ is no real standard, it will be hard to impossible to receive this on a regular PC such as an HTPC that I have. And if so, I gues only Windows will be the platform of choice - leaving GNU/Linux users and those of other open platforms out. Not so nice.
I still have to find out how to use Ogg/Vorbis and other codecs in Windows 7 MCE. I installed some codec packs, but only Windows Media Player understands them... I think it has to do with the way the codec supports playback. Most codecs work with the DirectShow or whatever filter while for MCE you need the newer Windows Media Foundation (did I got that right?).
Without a working coded in Win7 MCE, I cannot play almost anything such as my music (Ogg/Vorbis) but also many of the videos on my disk that sometimes are Quicktime etc.
Time will tell.
Am also happy with the rest, such as remote control. I could not get back working my IRTrans thingy that is built-in my PC, so I got the remote control working that came along my TT DVB-s2 adapter. I just had to install EventGhost and move a DLL to it - bing! It also works by now!
Next things to come and test are codecs, recording, cutting, cover support, burning recordings etc.
If you need more details on the things named above (or even a HOWTO), just give me a wink!
see ya!
Please, Techno Trend, list also your beta drivers. Other companies also do that, such as nVidia. Why hiding it and not making any link or hint on your website pointing to that beta driver that allows to use HD on Windows 7 MCE? Just make a big fat note that beta srivers might cause trouble, but hiding it at all leaves a bad impression and customers not able to find that (even I had troubles finding it for some weeks!) might not buy again and tell their friends something different.
Okay - however it works not perfectly! I have got real HDTV with MPEG4 codec running very smootlhy. The only real station that I can watch is arte HD (Germany) - the rest is promo from Astra, Das Erste and ZDF. But soon, Das Erste and ZDF will yet again send HD programme until in February, regular HD will start.
... with no additional fees - as the "HD+" stuff from Astra will be charged for after one year. As HD+ is no real standard, it will be hard to impossible to receive this on a regular PC such as an HTPC that I have. And if so, I gues only Windows will be the platform of choice - leaving GNU/Linux users and those of other open platforms out. Not so nice.
I still have to find out how to use Ogg/Vorbis and other codecs in Windows 7 MCE. I installed some codec packs, but only Windows Media Player understands them... I think it has to do with the way the codec supports playback. Most codecs work with the DirectShow or whatever filter while for MCE you need the newer Windows Media Foundation (did I got that right?).
Without a working coded in Win7 MCE, I cannot play almost anything such as my music (Ogg/Vorbis) but also many of the videos on my disk that sometimes are Quicktime etc.
Time will tell.
Am also happy with the rest, such as remote control. I could not get back working my IRTrans thingy that is built-in my PC, so I got the remote control working that came along my TT DVB-s2 adapter. I just had to install EventGhost and move a DLL to it - bing! It also works by now!
Next things to come and test are codecs, recording, cutting, cover support, burning recordings etc.
If you need more details on the things named above (or even a HOWTO), just give me a wink!
see ya!
Sunday, 25 October 2009
New DVB-S2 adapter and Windows 7
So, for more than a week now I have Windows 7 Home Premium (System
Builder) running and am quite content with it. I replaced my two
Hauppauge/Technotrend FF and budget PCI cards in favour of this USB
2.0 DVB-S2 device.
Builder) running and am quite content with it. I replaced my two
Hauppauge/Technotrend FF and budget PCI cards in favour of this USB
2.0 DVB-S2 device.
Got everything running so far except any HD channel - regardles of
whether it is MPEG2 or H.264 in Windows Media Center. The TT one will
not install through missing Intervideo filters which I cannot find
anylonger on the net. Let is see on how I can get further. A more
detailled text with photos will follow soon.
Wednesday, 7 October 2009
New site
I started to create a new site again. Unless I add a domain for it, you can reach it using the original URL http://sites.google.com/site/neveprise. There is also a related foto album via http://picasaweb.google.com/bjblazko.
Monday, 5 October 2009
About scene graphs
Today, I continued development on our Java based game engine. Ja, re-
inventing the wheel but this the only way to learn :)
Current problem is how to design the interface for the scene graph -
not in the sense of graphical representation (we default to OpenGL)
but in a logical sense. Problem is: do I need to make the graph a tree
or a plain list? A tree involves much more algorythms and memory
consumption is a major issue, as using dynamic arrays per node (for
referencing child nodes) will become a problem in the heap as there
will much add/remove operations on each list.
inventing the wheel but this the only way to learn :)
Current problem is how to design the interface for the scene graph -
not in the sense of graphical representation (we default to OpenGL)
but in a logical sense. Problem is: do I need to make the graph a tree
or a plain list? A tree involves much more algorythms and memory
consumption is a major issue, as using dynamic arrays per node (for
referencing child nodes) will become a problem in the heap as there
will much add/remove operations on each list.
So, having a 3D space sim in mind as show case, I think I will use a
linear graph with a list of fixed size. I have to read more on this if
the engine should become a more general one...
Let us see - and you are welcome to post your ideas here!
Friday, 2 October 2009
New DVB-S2 tuner
In my VDR, I used two cards:
Okay, I gave Windows 7 RC1 a try last week on my decent hardware. Then, I was shocked: those two DVB cards are perfectly supported in GNU/Linux systems - but Windows after XP - hardly a chance due lack of BDA drivers - especially as I installed the 64 bit OS version...
Okay, so no quick testing with Windows Media Center and TV.
For a longer time now, I was planning to settle to HDTV with DVB-S2 hardware. It seems that different devices are quite well supported in GNU/Linux as well, so I decided short hand to order a new DVB adapter.
As I always struggle with missing free PCI slots on my Abit AN8-SLI board (having PCIe), I ordered a USB2 device, model TechnoTrend S2-3600. It got good reviews all over the net and seems to run well both in Windows and GNU/Linux.
I will receive the new hardware and tell you how it works for me.
- A TechnoTrend full featured (means: onboard MPEG-2 decoder) DVB-S PCI card with memory mod (upgrade to 4 MB for more colours in OSD themes)
- An old Hauppauge budget DVB-S card as second tuner
Okay, I gave Windows 7 RC1 a try last week on my decent hardware. Then, I was shocked: those two DVB cards are perfectly supported in GNU/Linux systems - but Windows after XP - hardly a chance due lack of BDA drivers - especially as I installed the 64 bit OS version...
Okay, so no quick testing with Windows Media Center and TV.
For a longer time now, I was planning to settle to HDTV with DVB-S2 hardware. It seems that different devices are quite well supported in GNU/Linux as well, so I decided short hand to order a new DVB adapter.
As I always struggle with missing free PCI slots on my Abit AN8-SLI board (having PCIe), I ordered a USB2 device, model TechnoTrend S2-3600. It got good reviews all over the net and seems to run well both in Windows and GNU/Linux.
I will receive the new hardware and tell you how it works for me.
Thursday, 1 October 2009
Watching television
Since 2004 now I am using the Video Disk Recorder (VDR) on GNU/Linux.
Since I bought an AMD 64 Bit CPU back in 2005 or 2006, I was building
the VDR from sources because packages were hardly available or brought
too few plugins. And using a dedicated distribution for this was also
not an option because this limited me in other things - my system was
connected to a flat TV. So, just using it for TV was a waste; desktop
usage was also a demand.
Since I bought an AMD 64 Bit CPU back in 2005 or 2006, I was building
the VDR from sources because packages were hardly available or brought
too few plugins. And using a dedicated distribution for this was also
not an option because this limited me in other things - my system was
connected to a flat TV. So, just using it for TV was a waste; desktop
usage was also a demand.
But building VDR from scratch and getting integration (e.g. remote
control) done took ages.
Now, a colleague tried Windows 7 Media Center. He was using MythTV
before. Well, he was quite impressed and recommended to give it a try.
Well, I will do so and report here.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
