Posts by Paul Campbell

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  • Hard News: Speaking Freely,

    yeah HDMI sucks badly (for lots of reasons, not just the copy protection - but a lot of them caused by the copy protection)

    As I said before I design DVRs for a living - I had a 4 tuner satellite box in the US as part of a company home trial, from memory it was Sun night and we were recording The Simpsons, The Sopranos, Sex in the City and Law and Order - at which point someone wanted to check the news (4 recordings and 1 live but only 4 tuners) - see perfectly reasonable

    Dunedin • Since Nov 2006 • 2623 posts Report

  • Hard News: Speaking Freely,

    one extra tuner is a must, one extra per TV (for a PVR that supports multiple TVs) is better.

    I once lived with a 4 tuner/1 TV PVR for a while and only ran out of tuners once ....

    Dunedin • Since Nov 2006 • 2623 posts Report

  • Hard News: Speaking Freely,

    Andrew - not all Freeview boxes are also DVRs/PVRs (in fact I'm not sure any are yet - Russell's article, in part announces what are probably the first ones) - most just replace the analog channel tuning with digital tuning

    Dunedin • Since Nov 2006 • 2623 posts Report

  • Hard News: Speaking Freely,

    I should add - Freeview's grid guide (as described on their web site) is covered by a patent (owned by a litigious assignee what's more) that makes it a barrier to implementation - encouraging many different sorts of guides (and UIs) is a good thing

    (disclaimer: I work for a non-NZ settop manufacturer that makes a box with different UI and a non-grid guide)

    Dunedin • Since Nov 2006 • 2623 posts Report

  • Hard News: Speaking Freely,

    sadly still no technical specs on the Freeview web site (at least none that I can see).

    Come on guys it's 'free' - publish your specs, point to the DVB specs you support, what format is the guide data in? how do you structure your channels? (mpeg 4 rather than 2 for OTA)

    There are lots of video hackers out there, with great free tools available - enable them, it's free and not like anyonewill steal anything - open up and let a thousand flowers bloom

    Dunedin • Since Nov 2006 • 2623 posts Report

  • Island Life: And some with a fountain pen,

    surely it's "babylon", um err mon

    Dunedin • Since Nov 2006 • 2623 posts Report

  • Hard News: If you can't say something…,

    I had the same problem when I got married (back in 1984) - took several years before I could use 'my wife' without cringing (and largely because by then we were in the US and 'partner' just confused everyone)

    I'd like to encourage everyone to steal the words 'marriage', 'weddings', etc even 'wife' and 'husband' back from the fundies - apply them to civil unions with wild abandon until no one can tell the difference

    Dunedin • Since Nov 2006 • 2623 posts Report

  • Up Front: Walking Through the Ruins,

    oh we're going to play THAT game .... before we get to the cardboard box in the road: I worked for a NZ Uni in the late 70s, back when people referred to "the computer" because there was just one - we bought 1.5Mb of ram (actual core, hand threaded by someone in the 3rd world) for NZ$1M (about US$1.5M at the time) ....

    Dunedin • Since Nov 2006 • 2623 posts Report

  • Up Front: Walking Through the Ruins,

    treat those friends really well - IMHO you're not allowed to ask someone to help you move more than once a decade, roll out the good pizza, and the good beer at the end

    Dunedin • Since Nov 2006 • 2623 posts Report

  • Island Life: The Art of the Deal,

    hmmm so - 4 heads good, 5 heads bad?

    Dunedin • Since Nov 2006 • 2623 posts Report

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