Category Archives: Toys and Gadgets

Video Encoding Experiments

I did some quick experiments to check the compatibility of video files that I converted and my new Philips DVP 642 DVD player. I wanted to check and see if ffmpeg would generate files which were compatible and at which bitrates and resolutions.

The long and the short of it: everything sensible I tried worked.

Details:

I downloaded a Superman cartoon from archive.org. The mpeg was 506 seconds long, and was a 397 megabyte MPEG2 file. I first tried converting it to a QCIF sized image with very modest bitmap rate using the following command:

ffmpeg -i billion_dollar_limited.mpeg -f avi -vcodec mpeg4 -acodec mp3 -b 200 -ab 56 -s qcif billion1.avi

And then a more high quality one, at full frame sized…

ffmpeg -i billion_dollar_limited.mpeg -f avi -vcodec mpeg4 -acodec mp3 -b 1000 -ab 128 billion2.avi

and then finally a two-pass conversion at the same bitrate:

ffmpeg -i billion_dollar_limited.mpeg -f avi -vcodec mpeg4 -acodec mp3 -b 1000 -ab 128 -pass 1 billion3.avi
ffmpeg -i billion_dollar_limited.mpeg -f avi -vcodec mpeg4 -acodec mp3 -b 1000 -ab 128 -pass 2 billion3.avi

I burned them onto a CD-R blank, and they all worked, with the variation in quality that you might expect. The two-pass version was pretty darned nice. Fun stuff.

My New Toy: Philips DVP 642

On a whim, I decided I needed a new DVD player. It’s not like I don’t have DVD players, but the one I had in my living room had one disadvantage: it was old enough that it wouldn’t play any DVDs that I burned. It’s simply old enough that it wasn’t an issue. Eric Haines had mentioned that he had bought these uber-cheap Cyberhome DVD players for fun ($30 at Circuit City) but I decided that while I was at it, I should get something that could play DivX/MP4 disks (I’m addicted to the new Doctor Who episodes that I’ve been snarfing from isohunt and my usual method of hooking my laptop up was painful and frequently crashes).

A bit of research suggested that the Philips DVP 642 would be a good one. And so far I must admit, it seems great. $70 from Target. Plays everything I have. DVD. VCD. SVCD. NTSC. PAL. And with a simple code from the web, apparently all regions as well.

I plopped in a DVD with four episodes of Doctor Who in it. Worked perfectly. A CD-R with two episodes. Worked fine. My Episode IV CD. Looks beautful.

It could all go to pieces tomorrow, but so far, it seems great and is a good bargain.

Heart Rate Monitor Output

My Heart RateWell, my new Polar S410 heart rate monitor seems to work: I wore it for the first time at the gym last night when I did my combination of interval training on the recumbent bicycles and 15 minutes of elliptical training. On the right you can see my resulting pulse rates, edited slightly to remove the several data dropouts that occurred.

During the elliptical portion (the last third or so) I was probably pushing too hard. My max pulse rate should be around 174, and I hit a max of 167. I’ll have to cut it back a bit.

It’s a cute gadget, but I’m not overly fond of the software, which doesn’t seem to guide you into designing an appropriate exercise regimen. I’m working on some software to decode the information transferred via SonicLink, their sound based transfer system. I’ll let you know how that goes.

Worst Product Intro Ever!

Sweet Zombie Jesus, does Microsoft need some lessons on introducing products?

It’s a rhetorical question: the answer is yes, yes, they do.

Yesterday was the unveiling of the Xbox 360, the new generation of Xbox which should be available before the end of the year (unless of course the Longhorn team is in charge, in which case it will ship with 1/2 the features in time for St. Smithin’s Day, 2008). Elijah Wood “starred” in this extravaganza, which told us literally nothing about the Xbox 360.

If you haven’t seen this monstrosity, let me set the scene for you:

Begin with Elijah Wood’s intro claiming that the Xbox 360 is so revolutionary, so earth-shattering, so absolutely mindblowing that if you don’t buy one you’ll be a virtual pariah because everyone who is cool and doesn’t have acne is going to have one and you’ll be left out and never be able to get a date and then you’ll have to spend all your time alone playing video games by yourself, uh. Well, never mind.

Launch then into a cheesy retrospective about Pong and Space Invaders. Hey, Elijah. I knew Pong and Space Invaders. Pong and Space Invaders were my friends. You don’t get to talk about Pong and Space Invaders, you 24 year old furry toed bastard…

Then, pan to a bunch of teen and early twenty skate punks and halter top wearing girls (I never saw any of those while playing Pong or Space Invaders, or Halo for that matter) all madly cheering amidst a greenish light. Voice Over: “and now, the future of everything, the only hope for all of humanity, the Xbox 360!!!!” Cue the music, the crowd parts, and….

It’s a girl with an enormous handbag.

Is that the new Xbox?

Oh wait… she’s approaching the podium, and…

Pulls out an absolutely gi-normous white box, and places it on a podium.

Cue Green Flash and Green Laser Effects!

And then, cut to songs by The Killers, whoever the hell they are.

Surely they are going to tell us something about the box though, right?

Uh, no. The remainder of the half hour was spent carefully avoiding showing us anything interesting about the Xbox 360 or why we should want one.

Even Robert Scoble didn’t have any enthusiasm for this launch.

Whoever is in charge of the Xbox at Microsoft could learn a few things from Steve Jobs:

  • Advertising is only really useful when you have a product to ship. Announcing a product six months prior to its availability to the public merely tips your hands to your competitors and keeps people from buying your original machine. Care to guess where sales of the traditional Xbox are gonna go in the next six months?
  • Beautiful people do not sell products. Having good products sells products. That means cool games running on cool hardware. The question that people will ask before buying the Xbox 360 is just this: why should I buy? What will this box let me do that my existing system will not? We saw no answer to this yesterday.
  • The market for video games is not nearly so much about 18-23 year olds. 20% of the gaming market is over 36 for god’s sake, and we are more likely to have the diposable income to actually buy your latest gadgets. Video games are also approaching gender parity, so a more thoughtful approach to the way you portray the sexes might be in order.

I’m going back to sleep until the thing ships.

Need more information/discussion? Slashdot has some links. Favorite quote from that discussion:

Whoa! I actually felt the 30 Minutes of my life pull from my body after watching that.

NASA World Wind

I ran across a cool Windows program the other day: NASA World Wind. It’s an application that allows you to view landsat and shuttle radar topography data from any view on earth. What’s doubly cool is that it has high resolution photography of urban centers throughout the US, at considerably beter resolution than the imagery available via Google Maps. For instance, check out this image of Pixar via WorldWind and compare it to this Google Maps view of Pixar. Quite a big difference.

It’s a fairly big download (180 megabytes) but very cool. Try it out.

Aximsite – Dell to offer Windows Mobile 5 to X50 owners

Looks like I won’t be left out in the cold when Microsoft releases their Windows Mobile upgrade later this year:

Aximsite – Dell to offer Windows Mobile 5 to X50 owners

Dell will offer a Windows Mobile version 5.0 software upgrade for the Dell Aximâ„¢ X50 handheld family later this year.

The new software is expected to enable users to take advantage of several new productivity and multimedia enhancements, like updated Microsoft Office programs and Direct3D Mobile support. It also supports persistent storage capability, helping to protect against the loss of personal data and applications when batteries discharge completely.

Dell Axim X50 customers will be able to purchase the upgrade, expected to ship during the third quarter, on compact disc. Microsoft Corp. previewed the next-generation mobile software today at its annual Mobile & Embedded DevCon (MEDC) 2005 in Las Vegas.

Dell Axim X50(v) A03 ROM update

It appears that Dell has released a new ROM update (A03) for the Dell Axim x50v. Haven’t tried this out yet, but I will this evening. Seems like it should address a couple of the relatively minor problems I’ve had with it:

  1. Improved the compatibility with certain CF cards
  2. Improved the power management within the CompactFlash driver
  3. Improved the WLAN driver for the unrecognized card issue
  4. Improved Bluetooth memory management
  5. Enhanced the processor speed scheme (Auto) for better balance between performance and battery life
  6. Improved the compatibility of Bluetooth FTP
  7. Make the wireless button driver more robust
  8. Improved the compatibility of Switcher Bar application
  9. Enhanced the compatibility of Data Backup utility
  10. Enhanced the WEP key security
  11. Updated the Funk Odyssey client
  12. Improved the frequency change mechanism of 2700G (Axim X50v)
  13. Fixed issue when pausing live streaming video (Axim X50v)
  14. Updated 2700G display driver (Axim X50v)

I’ll let you know how it works out.

MobileRead Networks – Dell Axim X50(v) A03 ROM update

Mars Rover Suspension Patent

Mars Rover SuspensionI ran across a reference to the patent on the wheel system used by NASA in their Mars Rovers, and thought that Patent 4,840,394 – Articulated Suspension System might be worth noting for future examination.

A vehicle is provided which maintains a substantially constant weight, and therefore traction, on all wheels despite one wheel moving considerably higher or lower than the others, while avoiding a very soft spring suspenson.

Gutenberg Gem: How TO Make a Star Finder

A Star FinderA hacker’s project of old, perhaps as would have populated Make magazine had it existed in July of 1887:

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Scientific American Supplement, July 9, 1887

HOW TO MAKE A STAR FINDER.

Being all of wood, it is easily made by any one who can use a few tools, the only bit of lathe work necessary being the turned shoulder, K, of polar axis. A is the baseboard, 9 in. by 5 in., near each corner of which is inserted an ordinary wood screw, S S, for the purpose of leveling the base, to which two side pieces are nailed, having the angle, x, equal to the co-latitude of the place. On to these side pieces is fastened another board, on which is marked the hour circle, F. Through this board passes the lower end of the polar axis, having a shoulder turned up on it at K, and is secured by a wooden collar and pin underneath. On to the upper part of the polar axis is fastened the declination circle, C, 5½ in. diameter, made of ¼ in. baywood, having the outer rim of a thin compass card divided into degrees pasted on to it. The hour circle, F, is half of a similar card, with the hours painted underneath, and divided to 20 minutes. G is the hour index. D is a straight wooden pointer, 12 in. long, having a piece of brass tube, E, attached, and a small opening at J, into which is fixed the point of a common pin by which to set the pointer in declination. H is a nut to clamp pointer in position. By this simple toy affair I have often picked up the planet Venus at midday when visible to the naked eye.–T.R. Clapham in English Mechanic.

Drive cloning software…

I recently began to have difficulties with my Windows XP box. For reasons which were not clear (and given XP’s “weld the hood shut” architecture, impossible to diagnose) I could not install Visual C++ on the machine. I realized that over the last couple of years, I had acquired a lot of cruft in my system, so I decided that I would just blow the drive away and do a fresh reinstall.

After killing the better part of a day with the “download patch/driver, restart” cycle, I decided that I should invest some money so that I wouldn’t have to do this again. So, I went out and bought a copy of Acronis True Image version 8, a disk cloning and backup solution. This program allows you to backup your entire system to either another hard drive or removeable media, and then restore it all at once. I have a spare 20gb drive in an external enclosure, which was large enough to hold my newly created barebones distribution. So, I backed it up.

And restored it, in only 28 minutes, without any user intervention (just told it what to restore and hit “go”).

It worked perfectly.

You don’t need anything at all running off the old disk: you can create a boot disk that will allow you to install on completely hosed/new media. It works pretty much as expected. If you value your time, perhaps this program will be useful to you. It seems expensive ($50) for what is probably just a version of dd, but hey, convenience counts for something too.