Baby Kit

A piece of technology I have been using non-stop lately is a Trendnet wireless security webcam to watch my daughter when she's sleeping in the other room. It's a surprisingly versatile yet inexpensive piece of equipment. It streams amazing quality video (i can see her breathing.. which crazy as it sounds i'm constantly looking for) , lets me control wherether audio in (or out) works, has night vision, and so far has easily withstood five simultaneous connections. Because it's wireless i can move it around the house easily... which mean my wife can watch us play when she's at work. My mother in arizona is also a frequent watcher. They each have their own unique logins as well. The client is java/activex so it works from firefox, ie, or safari. Though the activex gives you a few more options than the java version.

Here's a screen shot:

Back to basics.

I haven't posted to this blog in quite some time. I've been, in fact, posting to my daughter samantha's blog.

I haven't had the opportunity write about or even pursue the tech I'm interested in for a bit. I will once again rededicate myself to writing in this fricking blog. I think however I have to expand it a little bit to cover more general tech I get to encounter while working and programming as well as the entertainment/tv tech i wanted to focus on.

Be seeing you....

Carl Zeiss Cinemizer

Thanks to a link from Gizmodo I signed up for a marketing trial of the the Carl Zeiss Cinemizer. I get to test it for two weeks. Every other one I've ever tried didn't work particularly well.. lets hope these are better!

Recording Video

So i've been playing with methods to record my XBMC experiments and found that pointing the xacti at the screen wasn't working very well. (ie the video sucked). I tried recording the screen w ith Jing and while the result looks fabulous it's too big to fit into the blog page properly. The smallest I can make is 800x0600. Then fortunately I found that Snapz Pro was part of the last MacHeist and i have a license key. It takes great looking video that i can shrink down using quicktime (or even Jing on a shrunked quicktime player). So i'll finally be able to post some interface video shortly.

Samantha in a Town called Happiness

This video was generated by Animoto.. an online service that anaylzes music and adds your pictures to it in a rock video manner. It's excellent quality and a really smart business model. They allow shorts of up to 30 seconds for free but $3.00 for a longer length video. I already know I want to extend this footage of my daughter.

Live Video

If you scroll to the bottom of this page you'll see two new players are at the bottom. One is the CouchPotatoTech channel on ustream.tv. The second is live streaming from my cell phone. They'll be dark most of the time.....

Someone beat me to it.

Ok I was debating between using XMBC as the player app and writing my own file browsing system with vlc as the player. Tom Robinson has apparently started an ipod touch extension onto XBMC (xbox version) and it's probably a great working start to port to the mac version.
His site is at http://tlrobinson.net/projects/xbmciphone/

IR Controller found!

I've spent the last month or so looking around for an inexpensive solution to controlling all the equipment from the ipod touch, either via the mac mini, or from some ethernet based device like the Global Cahce IR controller. I finally stumbled onto something really inexpesive and simple. It's called the ZephIR. It's a USB IR trasmitter made specifically for the Mac. It includes an online database of control codes for a lot of standard product (though surprisingly not the tivo) and a IR learner function. It also supports applescript so it should make integration pretty easy. I've run some tests and it works perfectly. One concern I have was that with only one transmitter I might not be able to hit all the pieces of equipment but mayme with a stategically placed mirror I'll be ok.

My Daughter Samantha

I had a daughter! Her name is Samantha Jane Horoszowski. This has obviously soaked up a bunch of my time (not that I'm complaining) and I've not gotten to this project in a while. I am, however, making a promise to myself to post something (anything) at least twice a week from now on.

Here are some pictures of her: Samantha Comic Book

Sanyo Xacti HD700

I've finally picked up a video camera... the Sanyo Xacti Hd700. It's extremly portable, does a fair (not broadcast) level of HD and has an internet mode that's perfect for posting Youtube videos. I should now be able to start showing what i've acomplished so far. Assuming my wife doesn't give birth to our first in the next few days.

Media Player..

As pretty as Front Row is, it's just too cubersome to get it to handle all the video formats out there... I've been using vlc as the player with Remote Buddy on the ipod touch to do library selection. (I've ordered a sany xacti hd700 video camera so I can record some video of the setup). It handles every type of video you can imagine and the keystroke commands are extremely configurable. My brother just pointed out that XBMC (xbox mox media center) has been ported to the mac so i'll be trying that out tonight.

The Ultimate Remote

I've been playing with Remote Buddy and I think this is the way to go. At least it's a good starting place. That along with the Mac Mini as a media player is going to be the foundation for the core of the system. As it stands right now I have to use the logitech to change all the reciever/tv input options.. Then use Remote Buddy to control and access media stored on the drive. Whether it's front row or vlc via the files interface is something I haven't determined yet. I defintely want to get the source code and extend the features somewhat. I'll post video shortly showing what it can do as is and I'll start mapping out extended features afterwards...

The Existing Tech

I am on a bit of a technology purchase embargo so I'm going to have to make due with the hardware I already have. But I've got a lot of shit to work with so here it goes:

• 62" High Def Rear Projection TV
• TIVO HD with dual cable cards.
  
• Slingbox with Component Cables
• Tivo Series 2 (No cable box)
  
• XBOX (hacked with XMBC)
• XBOX 360
• XBOX 360 HD DVD
• Wii
  
• Apple Mini (intel core duo)
• Windows Vista Desktop
• Windows XP Laptop
• Redhat 5 Linux Server
• Ubuntu 7.2. Desktop
• Logitech Harmony 880 Remote
• Ipod Touch
• Sony Receiver
• AX360 Surround Sound Gaming Headphones.
• About 2TB of storage on various external hard drives.
  

Oh yeah....
a really good security system for any would be burglers that might be reading this

The Plan

The plan. Setup a digital multimedia experience in my livingroom allowing me to see what I want when I want it... while still being easy enough for my wife to use.

Some prerequiste requirements:

• HD
• One Remote (at least for my wife's basics)
• Large Scale Media Organization and Access
  
• Remote access for scheduling
• Neatness
• Tech Stud Factor