Skip to content

Hardware

Boxee Box

My wife (who knows me all too well) got me a gift I’ve been coveting since it was announed at CES last year:  the Boxee Box.

IMG_20101225_133807

I’ve been using Boxee on a Mac Mini hooked up to my home theater for almost two years now – and love it.  Unfortunately, the Boxee Box by D-link has been a disappointment so far.

Setting up the box was a breeze – plug in the power and the HDMI and on first boot it checks for new firmware, which it downloaded, installed and rebooted.  I’ve been a release or two behind on th Boxee software on my Mac Mini due to a bug it has with processing a full HD stream from my MythTV box, but using the new UI was simple.  It was easy to find where to adjust the screen size and add network shares to start scanning my local content.

And that’s where the problems started.

While scanning my content, I tried to watch The Daily Show from the Comedy Central website.  Video played fine but there was no audio.   Tried a Youtube video and the same thing.  I then tried to play a file locally from my NAS and guess what – no sound.

It appears I’m not the only one.  Sure enough, plugging the Boxee Box directly into my TV and not my receiver, sound and video work fine.  Connecting the HDMI into the receiver, I get video and no audio.

This has to be a problem in software – I’m familiar with the HDMI spec, and transmitting a video signal and not audio is not a physical problem.  I own a Denon AVR-4306 – it’s not like it’s a cheap receiver either.

The second major issue is that the MythTV support I’ve been using in Boxee doesn’t seem to work on the Boxee Box.   Rumor is that the mythtv:// protocol was removed, but I haven’t been able to confirm it yet.  What’s worse, trying to play back video via the MythTV UPnP doesn’t work for me either, which seems to be hit or miss for most people.

I want to love the Boxee Box.  I really do.  The fact that sound is not working for a small subset of people is concerning.  I love the software, but the hardware implementation just isn’t there yet.

Some other random observations:

  • I love the form factor.  I know some people don’t, but I love how unique it is.  I like how the Boxee logo lights up when it’s powered on.
  • The remote is awesome.  Perfectly sized and light.  The keyboard built into the remote is good too – not too big or too small.
  • I was happy to open the packaging, take out the Boxee Box and have a paper copy of the GPL.  That always makes me smile.
  • An HDMI cable is included.  A very nice touch.
  • I like the browser improvements they’ve made in the new WebKit browser.  It’s much easier to move the mouse cursor using the remote.
  • I’m happy with the new firmware updates – the changes they made to playing back local media and listening to their users feedback was impressive.
  • I won’t even comment on the lack of Hulu and Netflix support – they promise it’s coming, but it’s not out yet.

I want to love the Boxee Box.  Especially since my wife bought it for me.  But it doesn’t work for me and I don’t know if I’m going to keep it yet.  I may buy a new TV for a different room in the house sometime in the next year, but it seems silly to hang on to something I can’t use.  Please try again Boxee.

  • in Hardware
  • 2 min read

The Needle Doctor is moving

The Needle Doctor, Minnesota’s premier retailer (and online retailer) of everything related to turntable hardware, is moving.

After I first bought my turntable in April, I had gone on a buying spree of used records.  Most of them needed cleaning and I also needed something to get the dust that would build up on my cartridge.  Doing some quick Google searches, I kept coming up with links to the Needle Doctor.  I was pretty excited to realize they were in Minneapolis.

One afternoon I printed out directions (yes, I live way out in the ‘burbs) and took Zoe, my six year old daughter, along for the ride.  We get there and I realize I didn’t need directions – they’re located in Dinkytown in the heart of the University of Minnesota campus.

Whether you need something cheap and basic like cleaning supplies to a new turntable to $1200 cartridges, the Needle Doctor has it.  When we visited, there were 3 or 4 people working up front and another 2 or 3 in the back of this tiny store front.   The customer service rep answered my questions (and confirmed I had picked out the right cleaning solution!) and took care of me.  After the sale was completed, I realized I had forgotten to pick up a 45 adapter for my turntable.  After I asked, he reached into a drawer and tossed me a used one free.  Now that’s service!

The Needle Doctor has everything online – I highly recommend them if you need to pick anything up for your turntable.  I’ll make sure to be visiting their new location – especially as it cuts down on the drive by 50%!

Make sure to read this article as it has more detail than the City Pages article linked above and gives you a feel for what Dinkytown used to be.

Six Months Without Satellite TV

img_6217.jpg

It’s been six months since I cut the cable and canceled DirecTV, going over-the-air and internet only.

Do I miss DirecTV?

In a word, no.

This past Sunday started the real test as I’m a huge (American) football fan. Living in Minnesota and being a Green Bay Packers fan, this season is the first in ten years that I haven’t had DirecTV’s NFL Sunday ticket to watch out of market games (luckily the Packers were the national game this past Sunday). I also missed my beloved University of Wisconsin Badgers play the last two weeks, but I think I’m going to make it (especially as they play tomorrow on ABC).

None of this would have been possible except for three innovations: Boxee, MythTV and streaming Netflix.

The only hiccup I had was my antenna setup – the first couple of months everything was great, except NBC was a bit flaky, which was to be expected. The local NBC affiliate is the only TV station not on the HDTV antenna array here in the Twin Cities, and the antenna they use is notorious for its weak signal. But after a couple of months, I started experiencing signal strength issues with almost all of the channels. After doing a bit of research, I climbed up on the roof, and turned the antenna 90 degrees, as seen in the photo above so it faces the direction of the antenna tower. I was worried that even if I did so, I’d still have signal strength issues as the antenna is now parallel with the roof but under the roof line – but thankfully all of my signal strength issues appear fixed going in to the fall TV season. And now my satellite dish just sits on the roof, unused.

I’ve previously talked about my setup and with summer TV being mostly re-runs, I’ve been using Netflix. A lot. I’m glad to see Netflix continue to focus on expanding their catalog for streaming titles and was interested to read how much cheaper streaming is for them vs. mailing DVDs. With the new fall TV season starting, MythTV has proved invaluable in recording off-air TV shows and automatically removing the commercials helping make watching TV more enjoyable. I’m probably only using 20% of what MythTV is capable of. And for the cable shows I don’t have, Boxee’s Hulu integration continue to works pretty well. It’s standard def quality – but you get what you pay for, so you won’t find me complaining. Additionally, I’ve converted all of the movies I own and store them on my NAS, adding another library of content to watch through Boxee as well as stream to my old Netgear Eva in my bedroom.

I’m also keeping an eye on the Boxee Box, launching later this year. I’ve been using Boxee with my 60″ Sony HDTV in my man cave and if and when we replace the old analog TV in the living room, I’ll have some interesting choices to make. Between Google TV, Boxee and even litl working on a set top box, there will be some interesting choices to bring internet content to the TV. And with CNBC reporting this morning that 37% of adults 25-34 who subscribe to Neflix now use Netflix instead of cable and satellite service, DirecTV, Comcast and other satellite / cable providers are going to need to find a new business model. Fast.

Vinyl (R)Evolution

Note: This is reposted from my main blog and seems fitting to kick off my Vinyl Music blog with.

When I was 17 or18 years old, I wanted to be a DJ with a friend of mine. I grabbed all of my parents vinyl records, trucked them over to my friend’s house and then… we didn’t do anything. He and I eventually had a falling out and a couple years later when I inquired about getting the records back, I was dismayed to learn that his basement had flooded and they were trashed.

I don’t think my father has forgiven me to this day.

I grew up heavily influenced by music, including my parents listening to their records and favorite artists such as ABBA, Billy Joel and Elton John. I remember periods of my life based on the music I was listening to at the time and if I hear a specific song it can take me back right to that moment.

I’ve been thinking about buying a turntable for the last few years and re-creating some of those memories. I participated in Record Store Day last year shopping at a local store and picking up a number of CDs and this year on Record Store Day I went out and this time picked up some used and new vinyl records and then bought a turntable off Craigslist. (An early 80s Pioneer direct-drive).

img_5174.jpg

I’m one of growing number of people getting back into vinyl – just visit The Future of Vinyl blog for non-stop media coverage of the growth of vinyl over the last couple years – it’s now the fastest growing segment of the (dying) music industry. Even large retailers like Best Buy are getting in on it. (Though I found their selection disappointing – very few new records, just 180g re-issues of older material, and for the same prices as the local stores, who I would rather support).

I own more CDs than I can count, and even if it’s in my head, I do think vinyl sounds better. There is something to be said for the crackle and hiss of a well worn and loved album playing on a stereo.

I don’t know what’s more fun – listening to the albums or shopping for them. I’ve already bought over 60 records in the last 6 weeks, the bulk of them at two events. The first was a private collector who put an ad in Craigslist and was selling over 5000 records with most of them going for 3 for a dollar. The second sale was today at the Minnesota Record Show which is held four times a year and features a number of dealers selling records for a few bucks each to rare albums worth hundreds of dollars. On average at an event like this or in the local record stores, used albums are about $3 each. I have bought a few re-issues on 180 gram vinyl of some of my favorite albums of all time, such as Depeche Mode’s Music for the Masses. (Most albums are 120 grams – the thicker the album the higher the fidelity).

img_5171.jpg

But what impresses me the most is the resurgence in current artists releasing vinyl day and date with CD – and including MP3 or FLAC downloads for free when you purchase the vinyl record. I’ve picked up some great new albums, including the latest from The Hold Steady, The New Pornographers and Broken Bells.

My wife laughs at me every time I say “I’m going downstairs to listen to some records” but I’m enjoying the experience immensely. She also says I’m done collecting for a while, but don’t tell her, I have my eyes on some more new releases and I heard about another upcoming show…

Cutting the Cable, Part 3 (or Why Customer Service Matters)

I followed through and canceled my DirecTV service today. My MythTV / Boxee setup has been running great the last couple of weeks and I kept DirecTV through yesterday just as a backup as I hosted a Super Bowl party.

This all started due to extremely poor customer service from DirecTV. My high-def DVR was dying in November, specifically the hard drive, as I could hear it grinding from twelve feet away over the sound of my speakers and the buffering and audio / video playback was terrible.

I had to reboot my DVR every 2-3 days, and performance would be better, then degrade. Calling DirecTV, they made me jump through a number of hoops to diagnose it which resulted in it taking almost a month and three phone calls before they agreed to replace it. Now, I don’t own this HD-DVR receiver – I lease it from DirecTV. When I first signed up for DirecTV 11 years ago you had to buy your hardware, now you just lease it from them for $5 / month.

They finally agreed to replace it, but they were going to charge me a $20 shipping & handling fee. My wife runs a small business out of the house, and I know it doesn’t cost $20 to ship one of those, especially in bulk. To say I was livid that I had to pay to get a receiver repaired that they own is an understatement. Each time I called in, they also tried to “upgrade” me on the last receiver that I actually owned – so I’d have to pay them another lease fee. I always told I’d only upgrade if it was a DVR, not just a standard receiver, and they always declined. (I had been able to take advantage of this a couple years ago, so I know they can upgrade old receivers to a DVR).

I emailed and called their customer service to complain – and their response was: “Sorry, that’s our policy”.

So now they’ve lost a customer. I may have had their lowest tier of service, but I also bought the March Madness and NFL Sunday Ticket packages each year, so from a revenue per customer standpoint I was above average.

When I called to cancel, they offered me $20 per month off for the next twelve months and a free DVR upgrade. Too little, too late. When they asked why I was cancelling, I said poor customer service for my HD-DVR experience this past November. So the customer service rep processed my cancellation, and then let me know I’d be receiving a box with pre-paid shipping to send my HD-DVR back to them. Where exactly was this pre-paid box when I needed to get it repaired? (The state of Washington is suing DirecTV over hidden fees).

What gets me is the focus DirecTV, cable companies and cell phone companies have on customer acquisition rather than keeping existing customers happy. Even though I had already contacted them and complained they weren’t willing to do anything about it until I actually cancelled. In my opinion, they need to keep a balance between these two groups of customers. This wasn’t the first customer service incident I’ve had with them over the years, but enough was enough. Thanks to innovations like Boxee I can make up some (but not all) of the content I’ll be missing from going over-the-air only. A loyal customer will pay dividends – do you think I’ll be recommending DirecTV to friends in the future?

The Mutliplayblog today published the results of a survey measuring customer satisfaction levels in satellite, cable and telco TV subscriptions:

Low Perceived “Value for Money” among all Digital Pay TV customers

Virtually across the board—and irrespective of platform—respondents reported low satisfaction in the metric of `Value for Money.’ There was very little measurable difference by platform among respondents, and in all cases, fewer than 22% of respondents felt the service “exceeded” or “greatly exceeded” expectations of value for money.

This is among the most important findings of study, as it underlines the vulnerability of pay television in its current state. Indeed, in a report published in 2008, we found that over 50% of US digital pay television customers would be willing to scale back or completely drop their television service if household budgetary circumstances dictated.

I highly recommend reading the rest of the blog post, as these companies are at a tipping point. We’ve seen it in the music industry, the video industry is feeling it, and now pay TV services will be feeling the pressure as technological innovations will put their business models at risk. Will they embrace their customers and these new technologies or will they become extinct? First they need to look in the mirror and see if they’re keeping their existing customers happy before trying to sign up more. And I’ve already had a few people ask me about my setup and express interest in ditching pay TV…

Cutting the cable

I’m an entertainment junkie. I own hundreds of music CD’s, books, movies and am an early adopter of Blu-Ray. My usual routine once my two youngest children are in bed at 8 pm is to plop down on my couch, put my notebook on my lap and use that while watching my pretty 60″ TV.

I’ve received my TV content from DirecTV for the last ten years since we built this house – primarily because I’m a huge (American) football fan, and my team, the Green Bay Packers, are out of market where I live and DirecTV has a monopoly on the NFL package to be able to watch my team.

I’ve been happy with the television service (even though it’s the most compressed of all high-def signals) but their customer service is atrocious. About once a year I have a run-in with them that gets my blood boiling, but the other 364 days of the year I don’t have to think about them – it just works.

Almost a year ago I got a great deal on a Mac Mini and bought it to try out Boxee. I’ve ripped my music and movie collection to my NAS and Boxee gave me the ability to stream that straight to my TV plus their collection of Internet content I could stream as well, such as The Daily Show, Hulu and more. My best friend uses Plex, and both Plex & Boxee are based on the XBMC upstream code which does an awesome job of playing back any file you throw at it.

I’ve loved Boxee – the user experience has only gotten better from the Alpha to the Beta that launched today (the screenshots don’t do it justice). I’ve thought about, but never very seriously, getting rid of DirecTV and going Internet only. With Netflix streaming (both in Boxee and on my Xbox 360), Hulu and other apps available in Boxee, there’s a lot of content I can get if I’m willing to be patient for DVD releases of my favorite shows that I can’t watch in real time.

And then in early November, my DirecTV high-def DVR started to die. And it was a painful experience having to call in to their tech support once a week, rebooting my box every few days until they finally agreed to swap it out a month later (I pay $5 / month to lease the box from them – I don’t even own it!) I was pretty frustrated with the entire process, and this is a long enough story as it is, so I won’t go in to all the details, but when I received my bill in early December and found out they charged me $20 to replace the box, I was livid. They never bothered to inform me of the charge or asked for permission in charging me, and you may think “It’s only $20!” – but when I called to ask them to refund it, they refused – so I asked them to refund my $100 monthly charge for November as my box didn’t work and I didn’t feel that I received the service I paid for and they still refused, I started to think about all these options.

After a long conversation with my wife on the advantages and disadvantages of not having cable or satellite (she doesn’t watch TV anyway) I’ve decided to cut the cord. I’m lucky enough to have a nice HDTV antenna on my roof right next to the satellite dish and all the coax terminates at one spot in the basement, so re-wiring won’t be tough.

We spend just under a $100 month on DirecTV (cheapest package, 3 boxes for 3 TVs, DVR service and HD service). I figure with a small investment in buying some new hardware it will pay itself back in 3 months (considering I had already bought the Mac Mini a year ago):

  • HD Homerun: Dual tuner off-air HD tuner with a network jack that any PC in the house can connect to for watching or recording live TV: $150
  • HD amplifier & terminators: $35
  • Digital converter boxes for the other 2 TVs in the house to get off-air: $20 each off Ebay
  • Elgato EyeTV PVR software for Mac: $80 (maybe, see below)

The one kink in my plan is I realized that if I buy the EyeTV to record TV on to the Mac Mini it can only record one show at a time, even though I have a dual-tuner HD Homerun. There are a few shows like NBC Thursday night comedies and Fringe on Fox that I like that air at the same time, so that’s a challenge. One of the major reasons I bought the HD Homerun is the fact that’s dual tuner but also that it has a network jack and works on Linux. One option is to install MythTV on an older computer and use that. MythTV has native support for the HD Homerun and I can mount my NAS via NFS and just point Boxee at it, though there are some questions whether Boxee and XBMC can read the .nuv files that MythTV records in.

It’s a pretty cool time seeing these convergence devices come to life. The Internet is evolving to add video content, whether it’s TV shows like Hulu or movies & DVD on Netflix. CES is happening this week and seeing the Boxee Box, Popbox and Iomega set top boxes only support this point. There are still some challenges – I’m going to have to give up watching my favorite football team, live sports on ESPN, and waiting to watch some of my TV shows until they release on DVD, but I think it’s worth trying.

The content companies are going to have to evolve. They’re going to need better customer service and better ways to allow consumers access to content. (And I’m willing to put up with the movie studios stupid rental window on Netflix if it means more streaming content). My hardware arrived today and now I’m off to start installing all this stuff….

T61 Lockups Follow-up

Thanks to zdz for posting a comment on my T61 Lockups post.

He was absolutely right – it was an Intel / xorg driver issue causing the lockups.

A big shout out to doniphon for updating and testing Xorg at the 20/20 Conference last week. I’m running the latest Xorg on my T61, and the lock-ups are gone!

And I’m still loving the T61. Great Linux support, good form factor, and a great value. All I have left to do is figure out a bug with suspend.

T61 Lock-ups

My new T61 laptop is freezing, typically after 5-10 minutes of inactivity, but every once in a while I’m using it. It seems as if I’m actively using it, it won’t freeze up, but soon as I stop, within 5-10 minutes it just hard locks. I’ve used my T61 up to two hours without lock-ups, set it aside, and bam, frozen.

I’ve browsed through the /var/logs/messages file a number of times, but I don’t see anything in the file – just the reboot messages. I spent 3 hours last night running Memtest86, and my memory passed all the tests. I also re-formatted and re-installed Foresight a second time. I can’t figure it out.

I would really hate to have to re-install Vista to see if it happens there too before calling Lenovo’s warranty service.

Anyone have any ideas?

Lenovo Thinkpad T61

My uncle, who’s also my godfather, passed away recently, and unexpectedly gifted me with an inheritance. After a discussion with my wife, I decided to buy myself a new toy.

My current laptop (a Toshiba A135-S4467) is only a year old, but doesn’t support VT, and I wanted something slightly smaller and lighter. It’s had Foresight on it since day one, and I recently just upgraded it from 1 GB memory to 2GB, but resume and suspend has never worked on it. (Thanks Toshiba). My wife’s laptop is about 4 years old, and my old laptop will make a nice upgrade for her. Once I peel the stickers off…

I did a little shopping around, but a number of Foresight developers have Thinkpads, and they just work. I had a little guilt buying from a Chinese company, but let’s be honest. They’re all made in China anyways. What really decided it for me, was the ability to support a company that offers Linux pre-installed, specifically SUSE.

After a quick run to Best Buy to look at screen sizes, I decided to buy a 14.1″ T61online at Lenovo.com. Now it was time to place the order.

The buying experience was so-so. Finding the link on Lenovo’s Thinkpad page to the SUSE option was fairly well buried, and I finally found it on the bottom right of the page, way below the customization options for the different models prominently featured above. (Going back to their site this week, I don’t even see that link or any of the other information under the Special Offers).

To my disappointment, all of the processor options for the SUSE builds were a generation behind (T7400 – T7800). If I was going to buy a new laptop, I thought I might as well do it right, and get one of the new 45mm Penryn processors (T8100 – T9500). But no such luck, and I ended up having to customize one with Vista. I chose Vista Home Basic and as I’m going to immediately wipe it and put Foresight on it anyway. I also ordered less memory (1x1GB) and ordered 4GB (2x2GB) from Newegg, as it was much cheaper that way.

After purchasing it a week ago Sunday, Lenovo showed my ship date as Tuesday, April 8th. That was a little disappointing as their website said available in 1-2 weeks, and that was just over two weeks total. After a slight hiccup with my order being processed (Visa held it thinking it was fraud, more on that below), I got that fixed Monday, and on Tuesday Lenovo showed my status as starting to build the order. I was pleasantly surprised on Thursday, just 4 days later when I got the ship notice from Lenovo. So much for 1-2 weeks! Now that is under promising and over delivering. Of course, I chose the free ground shipping, so I still have a few days to go before it gets here. The waiting is killing me!

I ended up ordering:

  • Intel Core 2 Duo T9300
  • 14.1″ WXGA+ monitor
  • Intel GMA X3100 Video Card
  • 1 GB (1×1) PC5300 Memory (and 4GB from Newegg)
  • 100GB 7200 RPM Hard Drive
  • PC Card Slot and Media Card Slot
  • Intel 4965 A/G/N Wireless
  • Integrated Bluetooth
  • 9 Cell Lithium-Ion Battery

I also ordered, in addition to the laptop and the memory, a Timbuk 2 messenger bag. After taking a few hours trying to decide and building my own, I went with the Blue Whimsy Limited Edition. (No wonder Visa thought there was some fraud going on, 3 quick purchases all online).

Good-bye Toshiba laptop, you’ve served me well. And thanks Uncle John, we’ll miss you.

dsc02199.jpg

The Beauty of Blu-Ray

If you were paying close attention to my blog a week ago, buried in my del.ico.us links were 2 links to Blu-ray news, including one on the state of Blu-Ray.

This was all research with the intention of buying a Blu-Ray player, which I ended up doing a week ago Sunday. I was lucky enough to find a second generation Samsung player, the BD-P1200. Why a second generation player, and not one of the third generation players that are profile 1.2 and just hitting retail shelves? It’s all about the Silicon Optix HQV video processor included, the only Blu-Ray player to include one. Where the HQV shines is on upscaling normal DVDs and is one of the best video processors ever made. Due to trying to reduce costs, Samsung did not include it on the BD-P1200’s successor, the BD-P1400. (Read more on the HQV video processor at the CNET BD-P1200 review under DVD performance.)

The quality of Blu-Ray discs is amazing. I expected to be good, on par with high-def TV, but it’s amazing. I’m lucky enough to own a 1080p TV, and I can’t get over the video quality of the movies I’ve watched so far. I bought a handful of movies with the player, and so far I’ve had the opportunity to watch both Fantastic Four movies, and Live Free or Die Hard.

I bought my Samsung player a week ago Sunday, at night, and promptly left for L.A. the next morning for work, returning late Thursday night. I then had plans all of last weekend, and was home only a few days before coming home to Milwaukee this weekend for Thanksgiving, so I haven’t had much time to enjoy it yet.

I still have to watch a normal DVD and see how good the HQV video processor is. I made sure the first thing I did was update the firmware – plugging in via ethernet I wasn’t able to grab an IP, but burning the firmware to a CD-R and popping it in was easy enough. I’m not concerned about being limited to a 1.1 BD profile – the only thing 1.2 allows is picture-in-picture for things such as director commentary. Until players come out in a couple of years at BD profile 2.0, this player will do just fine, and by then the cost will have come down and I’ll want to replace my other DVD players in the house.

I’m also not concerned about the pitched battle between Blu-Ray and HD-DVD. A few months ago I was 100% sure Blu-Ray was going to win, but now it’s looking like a stalemate and both formats will be around for at least a few years. HD-DVD only has 2 studios in their camp, and one of those they had to pay $150 million for to be exclusive for the next year. Blu-Ray has all the other studios, and all the hardware manufacturers, except Toshiba, so I’m betting Sony will have it’s first format win in a long time.

If I hadn’t come in to some extra money, I don’t know if I would have bought one, but am I glad I did. The picture quality is beautiful and I can’t believe the difference between Blu-Ray and DVD.