nick.recoil.org

I’ve pushed my beta code for mythRecommend to Github. It’s a system which allows you to subscribe to a source of regular TV recommendations, and have those recommendations automatically get translated into concrete recording schedule for a MythTV system.

Once a recording has been made, the recording schedule is made dormant, so it will not clutter your existing schedule list as time goes on. You can decide if you would like to turn that recommended program into a permanent schedule or not, and reinstate it if desired.

I hope to add more feed parsers as the code matures, but as things stand there is only one written, specifically for The Guardian here in the UK.

I’ve finally enabled SSH on my long dormant AppleTV, and am integrating it into my DVB / Rails / Beanstalk / MySQL system for processing data. I’ve used the Patchstick image available from atv4windows. I ended up unpacking and dd’ing the image from the Mac, but the process remains exactly the same. I now have Perian, ssh and a slew of other things enabled, and all I need now is to attempt the hack to get composite output working. I’ve yet to take the plunge and replace my old CRT with an LCD TV.

Incidentally, for anyone looking to figure out the ssh username and password for your freshly enabled ssh daemon, they are both frontrow, and that user has passwordless sudo privileges.

I also had a minor breakthrough with my x86_64 Ubuntu 8.04 machine. I have a Zyxel G-202 Wireless USB stick, to keep the number of trailing wires to a minimum, but I kept getting an error saying:

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zd1211rw error ioread32(CF_REG1): -110

Which was exceedingly unhelpful. I eventually tried disabling hi-speed USB from the BIOS, and rebooted to find it sprang into life immediately. Great! What was even more strange that when I rebooted and reset the BIOS back to enable USB 2.0, the G-202 kept working. I’m unsure whether this is due to the device not being cold booted, and I’ve yet to see if it stops working after I power the system off, but so far so good, and I don’t need to resort to NDIS.

Certain channels exist on Freeview which are nothing but timeshifted content from another channel. By convention, these have been called plus 1 channels, so ITV2+1 is a channel devoted to showing exactly what is on ITV2, delayed by one hour….except it doesn’t.

The image above was shown last night between roughly 10 and 12pm, during the time when ITV2 was showing Beverly Hills Cop II. Now I would think this is because ITV2 has paid for a particular number of showings during a given time period, and technically speaking, ITV2+1 broadcasting it would constitute as another showing, and that would push it over that figure. This might also be related to whether or not the content had been shown on ITV1 before ITV2, as is often the case.

This is, of course, a ridiculous waste of precious terrestrial bandwidth, and I wonder just how profitable it is for these +1 channels to be maintained. The usual way people would arrive at watching content on a +1 channel is if they’ve seen something on the non-timeshifted channel, and would like to see it from the beginning. This means the programme would have to be at least 1 hour long to begin with, and be sufficiently compelling to make people bother to find the +1 version of the channel.

These channels are also rendered useless when the viewer has a set-top box with a hard disk, and the box records the content they are interested in.

Last but not least, why not timeshift ITV1, which appeals to a larger audience? Perhaps there would be even less actual content for an ITV1+1 due to these rights restrictions. It would all depend on how much content is bought, and on what terms. Having said that, ITV1 is billed as “Top viewing”, whereas ITV2 is billed as “Top US shows”, according to the ITV website, which would suggest ITV2 has more bought content.

I also think messages like the one above reduce the amount of trust the viewer has in a +1 channel. If they find something they would like to view from the beginning, but they’ve previously been denied the chance because of those legal reasons, they might not return in the future. This is exacerbated by the fact that no information is given to the viewer to suggest why the content can’t be shown, and it is left to them to puzzle it out.

For BBC4’s Edwardian Birth of Now season, they’ve commissioned a number of interesting programmes, but none quite as interesting as Who Killed Mrs De Ropp?, which is based on three short stories by Saki. People have been likening Saki to a proto-Roald Dahl, but these stories definitely have a stronger appeal to adults, as mentioned in an interview with Ben Daniels in TV and Satellite Week magazine. Daniels stars as the narrator, playing both Saki, and one of characters in the first story. The music, colour and directing are all fantastic, and one of the nicest touches is the seamless integration of the cut-out/silhouette style animation, representing the children’s imaginations, with the live action of the actors.

Well worth watching, if you get an opportunity.

Update: There are several flash video clips available here