Mobile Dad

I do not have a cool Roku box (would like one though) or an xbox 360 (will never happen), so for my family to enjoy Netflix streaming in the living room, I took an old laptop I had and rebuilt it with the most basic installs of Windows XP (Netflix at the time did not run on anything else). Connecting the lappy to my 52″ LCD through VGA and setting the external display to 1920×1080 60Hz, I had a nice looking computer desktop! Using a bluetooth keyboard, wireless G connection on DSL, and mini-rca audio out to the TV, I had a functional Netflix/Hulu/Joost player for the fam.

Lately we have been watching a lot of streaming movies (makes sense since we do not have cable/satellite just OTA), and starting to enjoy the higher bitrates Netflix has been pumping out, especially newer films at 3400 Kbps.  The sharpness is very similar to DVD and nicely saturated with minimal motion artifacts.  It makes watching ‘The Office’ or ‘Heroes’ episodes we missed just a bit more enjoyable.  Below is a futile attempt at showing a sample clip of LOTR using my Zi6.  Keep up the good work Netflix, looking forward to more content like this!

It seems the Senate has agreed to delay the switch over to digital TV that was intended to occur on February 18th of this year.  The fear is the backlog of some 20+ million request for DTV digital converter-box coupons that have not been fulfilled and thus leading to mass panic and hysteria for those not bound to cable/IPTV/satellite services.  Here is a quote from Sen. Rockefeller:

“We are only weeks away from doing it dreadfully wrong—and leaving consumers with the consequences,” he said. “It is no secret that the outgoing administration grossly mismanaged the digital television transition.”

I agree that the previous administration could have done a better job prepping the masses about DTV. I had to do my own PR for my parents as they were at a loss of what will happen in Febuary. But with the daily reminders of the switch broadcasting regularly on analog TV, we are only making it worse by telling folks that it will in fact not happen on the stated date.  I say stick with the original plan and extend the coupon program till mid June.  I like to believe that Americans are intelligent and resourceful.  If the signal blips out, those who were not ready will figure out the solution.  Take the the tongue lashing now rather than later.  There are just some people that will wait till the last minute and no amount of time will help them.

I guess I can understand why Obama would request such a delay.  Other than what was stated above, Obama does not want to be seen by those oblivious to current events, as the President that took away their happy box.  None the less I still think this is a bad move.

There has been a long pause between posts here but I have a very good excuse. Actually I have several. Let me see if I can convince you.
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My Optoma HD72’s bulb is acting up.  It has about 780 hours on it and now it cuts out within minutes of powering up.  I love this projector and hope to keep it going for what I paid for.  It rocks on 1080p material from Blu-ray (scalar is not bad) and just kills on 720p stuff.  Color is rich and the image is vibrant.  Blacks are better than expect, though not as good as my Sony’s 52XBR4 (ridiculous blacks levels).  It looks like I am not the only one with this problem.  I will contact Optoma and see what my options are.  In the meantime, it looks like I may be upgrading my projector any ways.  Check out TI’s latest tech bump on DLPs!  Can you imagine owning a PJ that does not use bulbs, is 50% brighter AND have true black levels (500,000:1)?  All this in a quieter and energy effiecent box.  My HD72 is fairly quiet now, hardly audible above the dialog but to go LED on 106″ just makes me shiver.  I may not have a hard time conviencing Keyla to let me jump on board when these bad boys hit the market.  She really loves our theater room and do enjoy belting out tunes in SingStar on the big screen.  God I love her!

People of the UK, stand and celebrate as now you will be given the opportunity to use that wonderful HD set you purchased for what it was designed to do. For the cost of the receiver and initial set-up, UK folks will be given access to 80 (soon to be around 200) digital television and radio channels over a satellite feed with no monthly subscription fee. Free satellite television with HD…I can only dream of such a service here in the US. Oh well, for me it will be OTA now and forever it seems.