Re: Set Top Box updates

[Paul Kitchener]

Below is a to a discussion which contains some ideas on PVR choices or 
lack thereof, it also discusses Tivo shafting Mac users too:

If you aren't a media junkie too you make think this is a little off topic.

http://www.pvrblog.com/pvr/2005/04/tivo_cfo_no_tiv.html

"Anybody looking for another solution as a PVR should seriously consider 
an EyeTV unit combined with their Mac or a new MacMini."


After much browsing lately I feel at the moment there is no simple yet 
well equipped PVR solution around, yet.

PC or Mac, off-the-shelf or custom built.
Plenty of great partial systems but no true PVR, the way I want it to be 
that is.

A complete media centre with me in charge of content.
From the article above it sounds like the party is winding down at Tivo 
too.


The thing with Mac based solutions is the desire to dedicate a computer 
to the job of PVR. I just don't see Macs that way and nor do people 
selling them and the price reflects this. Too good to tie down that way.


The main issue with PC hardware however is windoze.
If PC hardware can be dedicated to something else more singular, like a 
Linux server or a PVR, it can be a comparative bargain compared to 
consumer products promising similar functionality, like Windows Server 
2003 or Set Top Boxes.


Well I guess those PC parts on my shelves will have to be patient for a 
while yet.


All this wont help much if I cant improve my reception anyway!

Have fun
Paul

Re: Firewire 800 HDD

[Rob Davies]

Evening Martin.
On 05/05/2005, at 7:58 PM, Martin Hill wrote:


From: Rob Davies <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Actually that brings up a point why the camera manufacturers with the
advent of large files and bandwidth size have not adapted Firewire
800. Would rectify a few problems especially with the VTR's for HD
coming online and the troubles Panasonic and Apple are having with
the AJ-HD1200A.



Sadly if the CEO of Weibetech (a Firewire hard disk manufacturer)  
is correct
(see link and excerpt below), Apple may be deprecating it's  
commitment to
Firewire 800 and possibly heading in the direction of SATA bus  
technologies

for external as well as internal connections.


For this purpose I could actually see the benefits, and would have to  
say Apple would be crazy to ignore it and rumours for next upgrades  
of PB it is the bus technology of choice. I believe it is already a  
design factor, just a HD to slot in the PB is problem. A simple  
connector for external would not be an issue, and SATA can be daisy- 
chained so only one connector is needed.




It is hard to imagine that Firewire 400 won't stick around with so  
much

video gear using it - but at least for future external hard drives, it
sounds like Firewire 1600 and 3200 may just be pipe-dreams.


I doubt the demise, if at all wont be for quite sometime as USB is  
just not up to speed for NLE, and I can not see Apple chop of one  
hand that feeds it. Especially now with the vast amount of  
broadcasters joining the fray as an alternative to Pro equipment and  
cost factors not to mention mobility. Video camera manufacturers are  
not able or capable to switch to SATA, I also believe it cannot do  
what FireWire does with same accuracy which is USB downfall.




Perhaps that is why Firewire 800 still hasn't made it down to the  
iMac or
into video gear and perhaps why Apple hasn't fixed the performance  
problems

with Firewire 800: http://www.barefeats.com/fire47.html


I suspect this has a lot to do with M$ mob not accepting or using for  
capture. Apple would have to tackle it alone and we all know the  
market share resources required. So plug type of choice for moving  
vast amounts of DATA accurately and with control?? I would suspect  
connection will remain the same, but the codecs will allow the  
advancements.




Who knows which way it will go?  :-(

-Mart





Cheers!

Rob Davies
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
"You can always tell if you're working on a Mac or a PC," he said.  
"Just take your applications and stick them in and see if they run  
(Gates 05)." If it does Welcome to Mac OS X!

Streaming video of meeting (Modified by Wendy S. Austin)

[Wendy S. Austin]

Your off-shore members appreciated this very much.

Wendy

Wendy Austin & Thomas Oswin
Coastal Road
Pomponette via Surinam
Mauritius Island
tel/ans/fax: +2306257399
iChat/MSN:  [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: Firewire 800 HDD

[Martin Hill]

> From: Rob Davies <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Actually that brings up a point why the camera manufacturers with the
> advent of large files and bandwidth size have not adapted Firewire
> 800. Would rectify a few problems especially with the VTR's for HD
> coming online and the troubles Panasonic and Apple are having with
> the AJ-HD1200A.

Sadly if the CEO of Weibetech (a Firewire hard disk manufacturer) is correct
(see link and excerpt below), Apple may be deprecating it's commitment to
Firewire 800 and possibly heading in the direction of SATA bus technologies
for external as well as internal connections.

It is hard to imagine that Firewire 400 won't stick around with so much
video gear using it - but at least for future external hard drives, it
sounds like Firewire 1600 and 3200 may just be pipe-dreams.

Perhaps that is why Firewire 800 still hasn't made it down to the iMac or
into video gear and perhaps why Apple hasn't fixed the performance problems
with Firewire 800: http://www.barefeats.com/fire47.html

Who knows which way it will go?  :-(

-Mart 

-

http://www.wiebetech.com/pressreleases/firewireevolution.pdf

"While FireWire 800 was originally promoted by Apple, SATA has quietly won
the entire rest of the market. FireWire promoters didn¹t pay it serious
attention, because SATA didn¹t have an approved connection methodology for
the support of external drives.  It didn¹t appear to be competition for
FireWire (or USB2, for that matter) but it is the biggest competition that¹s
out there.

SATA enclosures don¹t need to have additional bridging silicon within them.
SATA drives are happy to directly connect to a host SATA port.  This reduces
overhead in every sense of the word, and reduces costs as well.  SATA
connectors function perfectly fine at 1.5Ghz and soon at 3.0Ghz as well, and
do not have the steep cost associated with them, unlike FireWire 800
connectors, silicon, and cables.  The SATA architecture has been improved to
support, in hardware, multiple drives through one connection port.  This
will allow very large capacity storage devices to come to market, at lower
costs than FireWire.  I expect to see these kinds of devices soon.

When it comes to reducing costs and increasing performance, Apple¹s no fool.
I believe that Apple will continue to increase its use of SATA devices
within and outside of its computer systems, simply because the costs of
doing so are lower than implementing FireWire 1600 or FireWire 3200, SATA II
will do it better, and Apple will have the opportunity to use this as a
competitive industry advantage, just like it originally tried to use
FireWire 800.  

While Apple has occasionally been a reluctant follower of pervasive industry
standards (for instance, USB 2 was only adopted by Apple last year), my
impression is that it is getting smarter in this respect.  The argument
boils down to this:  It¹s a prudent business decision for Apple to use a lot
more SATA, including external SATA II storage.  What else is there?  What
could be lower in cost?  What would offer a better benefit to the consumer?
The answer:  nothing else is out there at this point in time."

Re: Set Top Box updates

[Martin Hill]

> From: Dark1 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> If your lucky enough to have graphics card with a "video in" port you
> can get any digital set top box you like and use your mac like you
> can with eyeTV.

Another problem with this scenario is it introduces a generational loss of
video quality when capturing via an analog video capture card - almost as
bad as using an analog TV tuner card.  As Shay says, you also can't change
channels using software on the Mac or set up your recording schedules on the
Mac - you're still basically stuck with most of the disadvantages of STB
PVRs that I mentioned in my earlier email. I wouldn't really recommend it.

-Mart

--
Martin Hill
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
homepages: http://mart.ozmac.com
Mb: 0417-967-969  hm: (08)9314-5242

Re: Firewire 800 HDD

[Rob Davies]

On 05/05/2005, at 9:43 AM, Christof Slawomirski wrote:


Hi all,

does anybody know of any particularly good (or particularly bad)  
firewire 800 external hard drives that I should be aware of? I'm  
looking at purchasing one of these drives for my 15" Powerbook  
1.25GHz/512MB


LaCie d2 160gb, I have 2 of these and have had for the past 12 months  
without a problem. I utilise these for Digital Video Editing and  
backup with a PB 17" with firewire 800 and 400 on machines that do  
not have the 800 connection.


Actually that brings up a point why the camera manufacturers with the  
advent of large files and bandwidth size have not adapted Firewire  
800. Would rectify a few problems especially with the VTR's for HD  
coming online and the troubles Panasonic and Apple are having with  
the AJ-HD1200A.



Cheers!

Rob Davies
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
"You can always tell if you're working on a Mac or a PC," he said.  
"Just take your applications and stick them in and see if they run  
(Gates 05)." If it does Welcome to Mac OS X!

Re: Set Top Box updates

[Shay Telfer]

If your lucky enough to have graphics card with a "video in" port 
you can get any digital set top box you like and use your mac like 
you can with eyeTV.


Easy for PC users... not so easy for Mac users that don't have video 
in graphics cards as readily available.


At least until they want to change channels on the set top box.

Have fun,
Shay
--
=== Shay  Telfer 
 Perth, Western Australia   Technomancer  Join Team Sungroper in the
 Opinions for hire  [POQ] 2005 World Solar Challenge
 http://public.xdi.org/=Shayfnord 

Re: Set Top Box updates

[Dark1]

If your lucky enough to have graphics card with a "video in" port you  
can get any digital set top box you like and use your mac like you  
can with eyeTV.


Easy for PC users... not so easy for Mac users that don't have video  
in graphics cards as readily available.


Ruben A. Franke

Re: John Currie on TV May 12

[John Currie]

There's a beaut pic of WAMUG's own John Currie in today's Melbourne 
Age promoting  the ABC's Ten Days to Victory programme coming up at 
8.30pm on Thursday 12.


Dudley Gager

At Starbucks Swanston St Melbourne


G'Day all

I haven't seen the production yet  but it is in  two parts and I 
understand I feature in the second part which is to be on ABC Channel 
2 on the  Thursday  19th  at 8.30.


Don't forget to support the Oscar nomination for next year :-)

RE: Airport Interference

[Chris Griffiths]

Thanks to all you guys that helped me with the airport interference 
problem.


I now have an airport that is always communicating.

The solution was to change the channel to channel 13 on all devices.  
Worked a treat.


Regards Chris Griffiths
__
V I S U A L  M A N A G E M E N T
Suite 4, 316 Onslow Road, Shenton Park WA 6008
Phone: (08) 9381 2299  Fax: (08) 9381 3366
www.visualm.com.au

Re: Part II streaming video now up

[Ronda Brown]

On 05/05/2005, at 12:11 PM, Martin Hill wrote:


You'll now find part II of the WAMUG meeting is available at:

http://ilectures.curtin.edu.au/ilectures/ilectures.lasso?ut=692

I've now got the iPod audio book and mobile phone 3GP video  
versions working

so you can listen/watch the meeting on the bus.  :-)

-Mart


Thanks again to Susan, Martin (Marty), and Matt for the work involved  
in producing the Video Streams of the Meeting.


Also thanks to the people who Starred  ... Peter Hinchcliffe (Bert  
Newton doesn't have anything on you Peter),  Matt (Rove-'Move  
Over'),  Daniel (so Suave) & Peter Botman (The Business Man).


AND, thanks Guys for 'The Wave to Ronni' ???
Once again WAMUG have 'Come up with the Goods'!

Cheers,
Ronni
When Microsoft asks you, "Where do you want to go today?" Tell them,  
"Apple!"

Re: Part II streaming video now up

[Robert Howells]

On 05/05/2005, at 1:56 PM, Martin Hill wrote:


From: Onno Benschop <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Out of interest, does your MPEG4 encoding use H264?


Not yet Onno.  Apart from the fact that we haven't fully certified 
Quicktime
7 on the iLecture Processor, we're a bit hesitant to force all our 
users to
upgrade to Quicktime 7 before it has been out in the wild for a while. 
 Not
to mention the fact that there is no guarantee your average mobile 
phone or

PDA will support H264 at this point in time.

-Mart


Quicktime 7 readme says it needs 10.3.9 or later 
and 10.3.9 has it's own problems still being sorted out.

I for one will remain @ 10.3.8 for some time yet,
and I imagine there will be numbers of others doing the same.


Bob

Re: Part II streaming video now up

[Martin Hill]

> From: Rod <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> BTW Mart, is it easy to put the links up in the iLecture website that
> might have been mentioned in the broadcast?  Like when Daniel does a
> write up for the list, he might have web links from the meeting.  Is
> it possible to have them up on the broadcast (there is a section next
> to the video)? 

Yes, this is indeed an option with iLectures.  You can have powerpoint
slides, pictures, web pages or other media listed on the right-hand side of
the iLecture Caster window  and even synchronised to appear at the
appropriate time if you so wish.  When I get a chance I'll add some urls for
your perusal. 

-Mart

Re: Set Top Box updates

[Keith Feltham]

Thanks to everyone for your replies on the STB issue. As usual, what 
I'd like to buy and what the budget will allow don't quite coincide! 
But you've given me plenty to think about. Thank you.


Keith Feltham

Re: Part II streaming video now up

[Martin Hill]

> From: Onno Benschop <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Out of interest, does your MPEG4 encoding use H264?

Not yet Onno.  Apart from the fact that we haven't fully certified Quicktime
7 on the iLecture Processor, we're a bit hesitant to force all our users to
upgrade to Quicktime 7 before it has been out in the wild for a while.  Not
to mention the fact that there is no guarantee your average mobile phone or
PDA will support H264 at this point in time.

-Mart

Re: iTunes Holdup

[Rod]

On 05/05/2005, at 12:57 PM, Matthew Healey wrote:

http://www.thecouriermail.news.com.au/common/story_page/ 
0,5936,15177683%255E953,00.html


My bet is Festival/Mushroom being the hold-out. (That's Lachlan  
Murdochs' baby).


- Matt



He probably read that article that was floating around a couple of  
weeks ago that record companies were *supposedly* getting a raw deal  
from Apple.  Geesh..what about the consumer getting a raw deal  
from music labels for the past 80-odd years :-)


Seeya

Rod!

Re: Prebinding & Tiger

[Rob Davies]

Afternoon,

On 05/05/2005, at 8:40 AM, James Devenish wrote:


Hi,

(I'm yet to upgrade anything to Tiger.) What is the status of  
prebinding

with Tiger? I had been under the impression Apple was finding a way to
avoid it, and get better performance.




To be honest never took much notice whilst installing Tigger, with  
the exception it completes it's registering  phase a lot faster at  
the completion of Tigger install. But, still optimises at finish of  
any software installation, extremely faster. Also, Cocktail in the  
10.4 version does not include the feature for Update prebinding in  
the pilot section, so they may have succeeded?


Cheers!

Rob Davies
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
"You can always tell if you're working on a Mac or a PC," he said.  
"Just take your applications and stick them in and see if they run  
(Gates 05)." If it does Welcome to Mac OS X!

iTunes Holdup

[Matthew Healey]

http://www.thecouriermail.news.com.au/common/story_page/ 
0,5936,15177683%255E953,00.html


My bet is Festival/Mushroom being the hold-out. (That's Lachlan  
Murdochs' baby).


- Matt

Re: Part II streaming video now up

[Onno Benschop]

Martin Hill wrote:


You'll now find part II of the WAMUG meeting is available at:

http://ilectures.curtin.edu.au/ilectures/ilectures.lasso?ut=692

I've now got the iPod audio book and mobile phone 3GP video versions working
so you can listen/watch the meeting on the bus.  :-)
 


Out of interest, does your MPEG4 encoding use H264?

--
Onno Benschop

Connected via Optus B3 at S25°34'41" - E152°35'34" (Graham's Creek, QLD)
--
()/)/)()..ASCII for Onno..
|>>?..EBCDIC for Onno..
--- -. -. ---   ..Morse for Onno..

Proudly supported by Skipper Trucks, Highway1, Concept AV, Sony Central, Dalcon
ITmaze   -   ABN: 56 178 057 063   -  ph: 04 1219    -   [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: Part II streaming video now up

[Rod]

On 05/05/2005, at 12:11 PM, Martin Hill wrote:


You'll now find part II of the WAMUG meeting is available at:

http://ilectures.curtin.edu.au/ilectures/ilectures.lasso?ut=692

I've now got the iPod audio book and mobile phone 3GP video  
versions working

so you can listen/watch the meeting on the bus.  :-)

-Mart



Thanks again Mart, Matt and Susan!

BTW Mart, is it easy to put the links up in the iLecture website that  
might have been mentioned in the broadcast?  Like when Daniel does a  
write up for the list, he might have web links from the meeting.  Is  
it possible to have them up on the broadcast (there is a section next  
to the video)?


Seeya

Rod!

Re: Streaming video of meeting

[Vladimir James]

Thanks to Susan Hastings, Martin Hill and the presenters for the 
streamed video of the meeting. A lot of hard work, I'm sure, but good 
stuff with lots of potential.


Vlad James

Part II streaming video now up

[Martin Hill]

You'll now find part II of the WAMUG meeting is available at:

http://ilectures.curtin.edu.au/ilectures/ilectures.lasso?ut=692

I've now got the iPod audio book and mobile phone 3GP video versions working
so you can listen/watch the meeting on the bus.  :-)

-Mart

--
Martin Hill
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
homepages: http://mart.ozmac.com
Mb: 0417-967-969  hm: (08)9314-5242

Sidebar problem

[Severin Crisp]

I have several Sidebar items for folders on external disks which are  
not always mounted.  On dismounting these disks Tiger deletes those  
items from the Sidebar, which Panther did not.  This is rather annoying.

Has anyone else noticed this and found a fix?
Severin


Assoc Professor R Severin Crisp, FIP, CPhys, FAIP
   15 Thomas St, Mount Clarence, Albany, 6330, Western Australia.
  Phone  (08) 9842 1950   (Int'l +61 8 9842 1950)
 email  mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Web pages http://www.JennyCrisp.com.au
  &  http://members.westnet.com.au/Crisp

Re: 2nd Hand G4/500 with LCD Apple Studio Display

[Murdoch Allen]

not enough info here like size of hard drive whats the optic drive the 
size of the LCD screen

What programs you selling with it



iBook 500mhz 384mg ram (256 chip 128 Built in )15 gig Hard Drive  
CD-rom drive Good LCD no dead pixels  $400 ono





On 5 May 2005, at 8:58 AM, Michael Schmidt wrote:


Good morning.

I'm wanting to sell (and have a possible buyer for) my G4/500 with 
512MB

RAM with an LCD Apple Studio Display. It's 6 years old and I was
wondering what would be a fair price (for me, for the buyer) to sell it
for. I thought $500 but wonder if that's a bit low.

Have a good day,
Michael


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WAMUG is powered by Stalker CommuniGatePro

Re: Set Top Box updates

[Martin Hill]

> From: Rob Phillips <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> I have been looking into PVRs and set top boxes recently.  I agree
> with Mart that if you're buying a STB, you may as well get the PVR as
> well, for all the excellent reasons Mart gave.  However, I don't
> agree with Mart that eyeTV and a mac is the best way to go.  I don't
> have that much spare money!  How much did your setup cost, Mart?
> $2000?

Aha - the can of worms opens...  :-)

True Rob, it depends on your budget and patience for other disadvantages -
if you look at the Mac/EyeTV combo replacing a wide-screen LCD/plasma TV,
audio CD player, DVD Player, VCR, CD-burner, DVD-burner, radio, photo
library, music library, movie library, shared home computer, etc then the
expense can be easier to justify.  And hey - this is a Mac list, so the
Apple-based solution *must* be the best mustn't it?   ;-)

Actually, don't tell anyone, but we did consider a Windows Media Centre
setup, but at the time, pretty much all those we looked at only had analog
TV tuners(!) - not digital TV, and they were pretty expensive and butt ugly
for the lounge room.  The flat wide-screen iMac G5 on the coffee table in
our lounge is just sooo much more elegant and we watch TV on it's screen
most of the time (even though it is only 17").  We do also have a data
projector which we fire up for movies though - so yes, a little more than
$2,000 in our case...  :-)
 
> I am only looking at a standard definition PVR. However, I think it
> is important to have one with two tuners, so you can record one show
> while watching another (helpful for married couples with men who like
> sport and women who don't!).

I'd agree this is the main disadvantage of the EyeTV as I noted previously.
However, in our case, we pretty much never watch live TV. We record the news
on channel 10 and SBS every day and various other regular shows so there is
always some recorded show to watch instead of live TV which means we also
never have to watch ads. This means the EyeTV can be recording something
else in the background while we watch a recorded show in the foreground.  In
our case, the number of times there has actually been things we have wanted
to watch on 2 channels simultaneously has been rare enough to be only an
occasional annoyance.  (in which case there is always Bitorrent.  Wait - did
I just say that?  No, I must have been imagining things)

YMMV (Your mileage may vary).

>The Topfield unit is available in many
> stores in Perth, but costs ~$1,000.  This unit has 2 tuners, a 120Gb
> disk and a USB2 port to import and export movie and sound files.
> This is about the only SD PVR I have found in stock in Perth.

Yes we looked at the Topfield as well for the two tuners but decided the
advantages of the EyeTV solution far outweighed the disadvantages.
 
> This is also out of my price range, but I discovered that there are
> quite a few STBs and PVRs available on eBay. Currently, I am looking
> at an Opentel box with 80Gb and 2 tuners for $469.  However, price
> seem to be going down all the time.

We have found that to properly use a PVR to it's full extent without feeling
hemmed in and spending half your time just trying to keep enough free space
on disk so your favourite show doesn't get missed demands a LARGE hard disk.
Our 80GB Strong STB was way too small (the earlier 40GB was impossible) and
our current 250GB HD is pretty reasonable.

By "using a PVR to its full extent" I mean:

- Having room to schedule the recording of several daily shows (eg. several
News broadcasts, Simpsons etc)

- Scheduling the recording of movies on the weekends and then keeping them
on disk for a while until you watch them (or get around to burning them to
DVD for later viewing)

I generally find most Perth stations broadcast Standard Definition (SD)
digital TV at a data rate close to 3GBs per hour so you'll only fit maybe 30
hours of digital TV on an 80GB hard disk, which may still sound like a lot,
but when you've got a few 2-3hr movies and a collection of Simpsons episodes
or news and other daily shows and you need quite a few gigs free as a
scratch disk if you want to pause live TV -  30hrs is not much at all.

If you're willing to break your warranty on units such as the Topfield and
don't mind getting your hands dirty, you can put bigger disks in some Set
Top Box Personal Video Recorders (STB PVR) which bumps up their price of
course.

Another area where we found ourselves constrained with the STB PVR solution
was in being limited to scheduling only about 8 or 10 recordings maximum,
which again may sound like a lot, but is not enough when you have many
regular shows plus irregular movies, plus schedules you want to disable but
still have ready to re-enable when a season starts up again.  The Topfield
or other more recent STB PVRs may not have this limitation.  The EyeTV can
have as many schedules as you like.

I also found it a pain how some STB PVRs name each scheduled recording based
on the Electronic TV Program Guide (

Re: Tiger and Safari Query

[Shay Telfer]

Hi all,

I upgraded to Tiger and now when I try to launch Safari, it launches fine,
but asks for a password with the explanation: Safari wants to use keychain
"login". It doesn't like any password that I enter, and if I click cancel, I
can continue to use Safari as normal.

Anybody have any idea what this means?


Sounds like you've got a dud keychain. Open Keychain Access (in your 
Applicationsn/Utilities folder) and see what keychains it lists. On 
my machine there's


yourloginusername
System
X509 Anchors

If you can't work out the password for the 'login' keychain you might 
as well delete it :)


Have fun,
Shay
--
=== Shay  Telfer 
 Perth, Western Australia   Technomancer  Join Team Sungroper in the
 Opinions for hire  [POQ] 2005 World Solar Challenge
 http://public.xdi.org/=Shayfnord 

John Currie on TV May 12

[Dudley Gager]

There's a beaut pic of WAMUG's own John Currie in today's Melbourne  
Age promoting  the ABC's Ten Days to Victory programme coming up at  
8.30pm on Thursday 12.


Dudley Gager

At Starbucks Swanston St Melbourne

Type 12 and 60 errors?

[Toby Oldham]

Anyone know what the above errors refer to? A friend has an 1.2Ghz  
(512Mb) eMac running 10.3.9, does some web surfing (wireless D-link  
modem with airport card), plays WoW. Errors have begun appearing  
since the 10.3.9 update - display darkens, message pops up asking him  
to restart.


Running disk restore gives him the above error messages.  
Interestingly the issue doesn't manifest when logged into his  
girlfriends account.


T.

[no subject]

[Rod]

Seems it was supposed to be released last Thursday, according to this  
article.


Seeya

Rod!



--
Endorphin IT
Specialising in After Hours Macintosh Support and Training
7pm-10pm Monday to Friday
ph 0408 913 473
email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Re: Set Top Box updates

[Paul Kitchener]

Just briefly:

Earlier we had purchased a DivX (mpeg4) capable DVD player, a Zensonic 
Z330, this plays most downloaded .avi and .mpg stuff we get.
Teamed with the DVD burner in our G3, this is helping to fill our TV 
viewing gaps.


Long live broadband TV!

Have fun
Paul

Tiger and Safari Query

[Andrew Schox]

Hi all,

I upgraded to Tiger and now when I try to launch Safari, it launches fine,
but asks for a password with the explanation: Safari wants to use keychain
"login". It doesn't like any password that I enter, and if I click cancel, I
can continue to use Safari as normal.

Anybody have any idea what this means?

Cheers,

Andrew

Firewire 800 HDD

[Christof Slawomirski]

Hi all,

does anybody know of any particularly good (or particularly bad)  
firewire 800 external hard drives that I should be aware of? I'm  
looking at purchasing one of these drives for my 15" Powerbook  
1.25GHz/512MB


Cheers,


Christof S. 

Re: Set Top Box updates

[Martin Hill]

> From: Onno Benschop <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>> Our family are considering purchasing a Set Top Box in an attempt to
>> improve the fringe-signal ghosting and snow that currently constitutes
>> our TV picture.
>> 
> You state that you're wanting to improve fringe-signal ghosting and
> snow, which both point to marginal reception. Digital TV uses the *same*
> method of transporting data to you, only the information that is being
> sent is digital, not analogue. What this means is that if your reception
> is poor, the amount of information that you'll get that can successfully
> be decoded will be less than 100%, thus your picture will suffer.

I agree with Onno to the extent that it was only after we installed a new
antenna and new RG-6 "digital-ready" coax cable that we were able to get
100% reception with our original STB.  The old antenna only had one of the
two rusted wires connected.

However, in the case of my mother-in-law, even with a new antenna and new
cabling, her analog TV reception was still very poor - she could hardly get
ABC. However, once she got a digital STB her reception did actually become
crystal clear on all channels without the horrible digital glitches.  Looks
like YMMV again!

-Mart

Re: Set Top Box updates

[Shay Telfer]

I am interested in hearing about any experiences WAMUGgers have had with PVRs.


Quite happy with my EyeTV. Yes, if you throw a Mac into the deal it's 
a more expensive option, but then it's much easier to upgrade than 
having to flash firmware or anything just by upgrading the EyeTV 
application. And you can also use the Mac for other things (Web TV 
Guide, IMDB, weather, etc.)


Also, if you so desire you can AppleScript it, or use your own python 
etc. scripts. Or control it remotely via the Internet (or if you 
wanted, SMS or e-mail) if you forget to set it for something :)


Have fun,
Shay
--
=== Shay  Telfer 
 Perth, Western Australia   Technomancer  Join Team Sungroper in the
 Opinions for hire  [POQ] 2005 World Solar Challenge
 http://public.xdi.org/=Shayfnord 

Re: Set Top Box updates

[Shay Telfer]

Onno wrote:


Specifically you'll notice the following things:

   * Artifacts on the screen, things like blocks, frozen frames
   * Black screen for about half a second every half hour or so


Not to mention audio popping

Have fun,
Shay
--
=== Shay  Telfer 
 Perth, Western Australia   Technomancer  The love of liberty is the love
 Opinions for hire  [POQ] of others; the love of power is
 http://public.xdi.org/=Shayfnord the love of ourselves - Hazlitt

RE: 2nd Hand G4/500 with LCD Apple Studio Display

[Michael Schmidt]

It's a 15" screen. It also has a DVD RAM drive.

:-)

-Original Message-
From: Mike Fuller [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
Sent: Thursday, 5 May 2005 9:27 AM
To: WAMUG Mailing List
Subject: Re: 2nd Hand G4/500 with LCD Apple Studio Display

What size is the Studio display. Michael?

Mike

On 05/05/2005, at 8:58 AM, Michael Schmidt wrote:

> Good morning.
>
> I'm wanting to sell (and have a possible buyer for) my G4/500 with 
> 512MB
> RAM with an LCD Apple Studio Display. It's 6 years old and I was
> wondering what would be a fair price (for me, for the buyer) to sell
it
> for. I thought $500 but wonder if that's a bit low.
>
> Have a good day,
> Michael
>
>
> -- The WA Macintosh User Group Mailing List --
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> Guidelines - 
> Unsubscribe - 
>
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>


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Re: 2nd Hand G4/500 with LCD Apple Studio Display

[Mike Fuller]

What size is the Studio display. Michael?

Mike

On 05/05/2005, at 8:58 AM, Michael Schmidt wrote:


Good morning.

I'm wanting to sell (and have a possible buyer for) my G4/500 with 
512MB

RAM with an LCD Apple Studio Display. It's 6 years old and I was
wondering what would be a fair price (for me, for the buyer) to sell it
for. I thought $500 but wonder if that's a bit low.

Have a good day,
Michael


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Archives - 
Guidelines - 
Unsubscribe - 

WAMUG is powered by Stalker CommuniGatePro

Re: Set Top Box updates

[Paul Kitchener]

Onno Benschop wrote:

Digital TV uses the *same* method of transporting data to you, only 
the information that is being sent is digital, not What this means is 
that if your reception is poor, the amount of information that you'll 
get that can successfully be decoded will be less than 100%, thus your 
picture will suffer.


Specifically you'll notice the following things:

   * Artifacts on the screen, things like blocks, frozen frames
   * Black screen for about half a second every half hour or so

This basically means that you're going to get a different kind of 
irritating TV experience, rather than an improved experience.


It is my experience that nothing beats spending some time and money on 
a real TV antenna...


This is exactly what has happened to us :(

Previous to our set top box SBS was unwatchable, except in bad weather! 
Go figure.

We already had a cheap aerial installed: $200 installed.
Ironically the channels that are great on analog TV (ABC and 10) are now 
almost dangerous to watch because along with the aforementioned 
artifacts on screen we get disturbing audio glitches in *glorious* 
copper powered stereo HiFi :(

Give me hiss and ghosts any day!

When we recover from the depression this has induced we will investigate 
purchasing a *real* aerial, in fact I intended asking the aerial geeks 
on WAMUG for suggestions or recomendations.

We are in Beaconsfield atop the hill on Lefroy Road.

Any ideas?

When I believe I have my reception issues licked I think I will be 
building a PC based PVR.
Even though it is the most attractive option, dedicating a Mac to using 
an eyeTV 400 seems a waste of a good computer given our meagre finances. 
I already have most of said PVR sitting on my shelves anyway.


Whats the rush? Access 31 isn't digital yet anyway ;)
ABC2 is cool though...

Have fun
Paul

Re: 2nd Hand G4/500 with LCD Apple Studio Display

[Rod]

On 05/05/2005, at 8:58 AM, Michael Schmidt wrote:


Good morning.

I'm wanting to sell (and have a possible buyer for) my G4/500 with  
512MB

RAM with an LCD Apple Studio Display. It's 6 years old and I was
wondering what would be a fair price (for me, for the buyer) to  
sell it

for. I thought $500 but wonder if that's a bit low.

Have a good day,
Michael



Depends on the size of the LCD display.  A 15" LCD, probably $550- 
$600 for the lot.  Any higher size might be more.


Seeya

Rod!

2nd Hand G4/500 with LCD Apple Studio Display

[Michael Schmidt]

Good morning.

I'm wanting to sell (and have a possible buyer for) my G4/500 with 512MB
RAM with an LCD Apple Studio Display. It's 6 years old and I was
wondering what would be a fair price (for me, for the buyer) to sell it
for. I thought $500 but wonder if that's a bit low.

Have a good day,
Michael

Re: Tiger non-delivery

[Rod]

On 04/05/2005, at 4:51 PM, Mike Fuller wrote:

I still haven't received my Tiger from the up-to-date program. I  
left a message with the up-to-date Australian agents but it's USA  
who calls back (and I was out at the time).


Has anyone else on this program still not got their Tiger?

Mike



Those who are waiting for up to date, check out the Terms and  
Conditions:




1. Apple are sending via postal mail, which can be anywhere from 3-7  
days from postal date.


2. Anything lost, late, or mangled is not the problem of Apple or the  
company doing the mailout.


3. Apple can change the terms and conditions without notice.

When the form was sent off with your cash and signature, you agreed  
to those terms and conditions.  Which means that no matter how much  
you jump up and down, Apple may be sympathetic with your dilemma, but  
legally they don't have to do a thing.  Really sucks, but I guess  
that's what small print is all about :-(


Seeya

Rod!

Prebinding & Tiger

[James Devenish]

Hi,

(I'm yet to upgrade anything to Tiger.) What is the status of prebinding
with Tiger? I had been under the impression Apple was finding a way to
avoid it, and get better performance.

Popcorn Update for Tiger

[Ronda Brown]

Hi People,


FYI the Popcorn v1.0.2 update that fixes several issues including  
those with Tiger has been posted.


Update Popcorn to Version 1.0.2




Cheers,
Ronni
When Microsoft asks you, "Where do you want to go today?" Tell them,  
"Apple!"

Re: Set Top Box updates

[Rob Phillips]

Martin Hill wrote:

Well, rather than a straight digital receiver set top box, we went for a DVR
(Digital Video Recorder - which is basically a hard disk equipped digital
set-top box) that allows you to record TV shows, pause live TV, etc in
addition to having a digital TV tuner.


snip


Instead I'd recommend buying an EyeTV 410
http://www.elgato.com/index.php?file=products_eyetv410
If you don't have a Mac available to dedicate to it, get a Mac Mini (or an
iMac G5 which we went for and preferably a large capacity firewire drive).


I have been looking into PVRs and set top boxes recently.  I agree 
with Mart that if you're buying a STB, you may as well get the PVR as 
well, for all the excellent reasons Mart gave.  However, I don't 
agree with Mart that eyeTV and a mac is the best way to go.  I don't 
have that much spare money!  How much did your setup cost, Mart? 
$2000?


I am only looking at a standard definition PVR. However, I think it 
is important to have one with two tuners, so you can record one show 
while watching another (helpful for married couples with men who like 
sport and women who don't!). The Topfield unit is available in many 
stores in Perth, but costs ~$1,000.  This unit has 2 tuners, a 120Gb 
disk and a USB2 port to import and export movie and sound files. 
This is about the only SD PVR I have found in stock in Perth.


This is also out of my price range, but I discovered that there are 
quite a few STBs and PVRs available on eBay. Currently, I am looking 
at an Opentel box with 80Gb and 2 tuners for $469.  However, price 
seem to be going down all the time.


I am interested in hearing about any experiences WAMUGgers have had with PVRs.

Also I can recommend Digital Broadcasting Australia (http://www.dba.org.au/)

Rob
--
---
Dr Rob Phillips, Educational Designer,[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Room 4.38 Teaching and Learning Centre, Library North Wing
Murdoch University, South St, Murdoch, 6150, Perth, Australia
Phone: +61 8 9360 6054  Mobile: 0416 065 054
Executive Member, Australasian Council on Open, Distance and E-learning (ACODE)
Join ascilite! http://www.ascilite.org.au
---

Re: Set Top Box updates

[Onno Benschop]

Keith Feltham wrote:

Our family are considering purchasing a Set Top Box in an attempt to 
improve the fringe-signal ghosting and snow that currently constitutes 
our TV picture.


Having moved around the country over the past two years, I'm familiar 
with snow. In Crossing Falls, you could almost hear the ABC news through 
the snow and we resorted to downloading the bulletin every day, seeing 
that my Internet connection was just dandy.


*But*, I would like to point out one, likely fatal, flaw in your reason 
for wanting Digital TV.


You state that you're wanting to improve fringe-signal ghosting and 
snow, which both point to marginal reception. Digital TV uses the *same* 
method of transporting data to you, only the information that is being 
sent is digital, not analogue. What this means is that if your reception 
is poor, the amount of information that you'll get that can successfully 
be decoded will be less than 100%, thus your picture will suffer.


Specifically you'll notice the following things:

   * Artifacts on the screen, things like blocks, frozen frames
   * Black screen for about half a second every half hour or so

This basically means that you're going to get a different kind of 
irritating TV experience, rather than an improved experience.


It is my experience that nothing beats spending some time and money on a 
real TV antenna, or failing that, you might find that you are better off 
installing a satellite dish and getting a service called Aurora. This 
will provide you with ABC, SBS and in WA, WIN and GWN. This is *not* pay-TV!


The Aurora service is free, but you will need to buy a satellite decoder 
(~$300) and an Aurora card (~$80). For information on Aurora you can 
contact the Optus Satellite Services Support team on: 1300 301 681



Disclaimer: I am an Optus SatWeb 2-way Internet Satellite user and have 
no relationship with Aurora.


--
Onno Benschop

Connected via Optus B3 at S25°34'41" - E152°35'34" (Graham's Creek, QLD)
--
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