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For more Leo and friends all week long, listen to the
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Sunday May 9, 2010
Show Audio
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Edited Audio | |
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Posted one week after broadcast… | |
Tech News
Facebook Fans get their wish: Betty White Hosts SNL
After months of campaigning by fans on Facebook, Betty White was the guest host of NBCs Saturday Night Live. And ratings shot through the roof!
Leo’s Mom wants to leave Facebook
Leo’s mom called him yesterday saying she’s had it with Facebook changing it’s rules for privacy and wants to quit. Leo agrees since Facebook is connecting with YELP, Pandora, and Microsoft to read your personal information unless you specifically deny it. But the worst part is, that unless you specifically block the application, your information can STILL be shared if you’re friends don’t. And this is just the beginning.
Facebook claims that everyone loves the new course away from privacy and says that nasty media types are stirring up trouble. Yeah, that’s a good attitde. Leo says you have two choices, quit Facebook or just assume everything on Facebook you do is out in the open and behave accordingly.
FCC Gives Hollywood the Keys to technology kingdom
Citing being “in the public interest,” the FCC has granted the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) “selective disabling authority” of the technology in your home. That means that Hollywood can disable YOUR OWN EQUIPMENT remotely to prevent you from recording first run movies. Any product with HDCP compliance, which include Blu-ray players, HDTVs and even your computers. And if you choose to avoid it altogether by keeping old technology that doesn’t deal with HDCP, well you won’t get to watch movies at all. This should go to the Supreme Court in the New York minute!
Guests
Scott Wilkinson, Home Theater Magazine
Scott Wilkinson joins us to talk about a call we had yesterday about the Yamaha NEO HD Media Server. Scott hasn’t seen it before, but he’s really curious and it looks quite worth a review.
What’s the hot topic this week? How about 3D TV without glasses?! Scott says it’s loosely based on lenticular technology which uses a lenticular lens to project images on either side to create a kind of 3D. But you have to be in a 10 degree window, which isn’t much, in order to see it. Leo says this kind of technology is better for advertising, not for home theater. It’ll really fatigue your eyes. Scott agrees and also says it cuts resolution in half as well. So what’s up with that?
Scott also says he gets comments all the time about people who have no desire to get 3D and even Roger Ebert has written an article about why he hates 3D. Scott doesn’t go that far, because for every once in awhile certain movies are great to watch it in. Leo also goes on to say that a 3D movie seen in 2D doesn’t make them a worse movie. Scott says that Roger Ebert says that your brain fills in the 3D on those through our visual perspective.
Hour 1
Q Boris, Riverside, CA - Linux issues
Boris has “upgraded” from Windows to Ubuntu Linux. Leo’s thrilled by this and says that new version, dubbed Lucid Lynx, is gorgeous. Boris says that he can’t hybernate or go to sleep. Leo says that sometimes Ubuntu doesn’t recognize all your hardware through the ACPI settings. Leo doesn’t blame Linux on this, but the manufacturers who haven’t tested all the hardware. Leo says if you go to the Ubuntu.com/community, you’ll find workarounds that have been posted which solve it. You can also “Google” it too. Sometimes if you reinstall, it’ll do it right.
Q Mike, Calabasas, CA - Wait for a larger TV?
Mike wants to know if he should wait until HDTVs get above 65″ in size. Scott says that Vizio showed a 72″ LED Backlit LCD at CES this year. And he said it was impressive. And knowing Vizio, it’ll be very competitively priced. What about Plazma? Scott says you wont’ find a plasma over 65″. The other option is the Mitsubishi rear projection TV, which makes sizes up to 82″. And they’re easily the best bang for the buck for screen size. They don’t look too great off axis and suffer from some hotspotting at certain angles.
Leo says that Epson is pushing home theater projectors with their new site called Great American Movie Night. The idea being you create your own drive-in in your back yard.
Hour 2
Q Tom, Warren, OH - video on the iPad
Tom wants to talk about the quality of video on the iPad. He’s gotten one for his 80 year old father and he wants to put video on the iPad. Leo says you can do it, as anything Quicktime can handle, the iPad can play. Leo says you need to format it for the iPad, and Handbrake can do it nicely using the AppleTV preset. It’ll also rip the DVD. But blu-ray may be an issue. What about streaming? Leo says that ABCTV has an app and Netflix looks great, but it’ll look much better on WiFi than it will on 3G. And word on the street is that Hulu is planning an app for $10 a month. There’s also the Major League Baseball app ($15 plus extra streaming fees from MLB). Leo can’t wait to take it to the ballpark.
The downside is that it won’t support flash. But YouTube works, and anything that runs HTML5 works. BUt unfortunately, Apple feels no love for Flash.
Q Tom, Westfield, NY - streaming in flash
Tom has a question about encoding in Flash. He’s using Flash Media Encoder Live Encoder to do a streaming video podcast. Looks great. But he has a limited amount of power to transcode the video, but he’s stuck with 60 fps. How can cut it down to 30 fps? Leo says the compressor should do that. Leo says that if you’re using UStream, they have a program called UStream Producer, which will compress it for UStream. Your encoder is probably devoting all resources to it in order to compress it as fast as possible. But Leo says that it’s not really 60fps, it’s 60 fields, not frames, per second. It’s still 30 fps. Can UStream Producer choose the right frames? Leo says yes, In fact, it wraps around FME and should let you customize your frame rate as you need it.
Leo also says that if you go into your camera and set it to 30fps, you’ll have an easier time. And many cameras also shoot at 24p, which is cinematic quality. Also, if you can, shoot or encode 540. You’ll get about 80% of the quality for half the space. It’ll be better than DVD quality and look great on the ‘Net.
Q Zac, Stephenson Ranch, CA - upgrading old computers
Zac calls in to say his call last week about putting Linux on a pair of old computers is moving forward as the school has told him as long as he knows what he’s doing, it’s okay to do. Leo says that’s great and Ubuntu’s new Lucid Lynx will looks great on them.
Zac also wants to know if he should upgrade to Vista or 7 with another computer that has a 100GB hard drive. Leo says skip Vista and go to Windows 7. It’s faster and far lighter weight than Windows 7. And it’s the best version ever. Leo also recommends running the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor to make sure he’s not going to run into a snag upgrading it with drivers. Course, Zac could also put that Lucid Lynx Ubuntu Linux on it as well. ;)
Q Nick, Yucaipa, CA - Home automation and the iPhone
He’s looking at Mobile Integrated Solutions iPhone App to use his iPhone to turn his lights on/off. Leo says that you want to be sure you have compatible hardware in order to get them to work properly.
Q Thomas, Laguna Hills, CA - Audio hum from his HTPC to TV
Thomas just bought and Acer Aspire 3610 HTPC. He’s got an issue where his PC is att’d to the TV via HDMI and then he’s using an optical connection for his audio. But he’s getting a constant radio buzz as soon as Windows boots up. Leo finds that strange. But can there be a “ghost signal” in the HDMI? Leo says it could very well be as HDMI is designed to carry audio as well. Leo says that some TVs will allow you to disable the HDMI audio track. Leo says you can use an HDMI to DVI connector which allows you to use HDMI for audio and video.
Hour 3
Q John, Walnut Creek, CA - Which Mac to get?
John’s oldest daughter is heading to college next year and wants to make “the switch” to Mac. But the question is, Macbook or Macbook Pro? Leo says that the biggest difference is the construction. The processors are essentially the same. But the unibody construction of the MacBook Pro is very sturdy. It also has 4GB or RAM vs. 2GB. The Pros also have better battery life. And the video card in the Pro is significantly faster, which will be key for video playback, editing, Photoshop, etc. And for only $200 more, the Pro gives you more bang for your buck. Especially when you’ll probably want larger RAM and Hard Drive and that alone puts you in the Macbook Pro price point.
Q Kevin, Sokane, WA - Dual booting PC
Kevin wants to dual boot Windows 7 and XP Pro. Would virtual do better? Leo says yes. And it’s free to do as well. Microsoft will even give you a free copy of XP Pro and Virtual PC to do it. And you won’t have to exit out of Windows 7 to do it. But you need to use Windows 7 pro or ultimate to do it. If you’re stuck with “Home,” then Leo recommends using Sun’s Virtual Box, and it’s free. Leo uses it and loves it.
Q AaronB, Gilbert, AZ - The iPad
Aaron is interested in the iPad, but does it do anything other than play games? (he’s poking fun at Leo’s obsession with We Rule). Leo says of course! The iPad is all things to all people and it’s just limited by the 200,000 apps in the iTunes App Store! Great with Google Maps. Comixology is a great app for reading comic books.
Q Roy, Orange County, CA - Telephone polling
Roy would like to take a stack of computers running Skype and turn them into a RoboCaller machine. Leo says that Skype isn’t powerful enough for that. He recommends an open source PBX system called Asterisk. It’ll do VOIP as well as regular telephony. And there are a lot of plugins which will help. And if you go to freelancer.com, you’ll find dozens of professionals who know how to do it for under $1000.
Q Herbert, Sacramento, CA - BSoDs
Herb has a Dell 1721 laptop which gives him BSoDs. He reboots and it’s fine. Leo says a Blue Screen of Death is a “catastrophic failure” that Windows can’t continue with. Why do they happen? It’s usually a driver issue or hardware problem. Overheating can cause it as well. Loose memory will also do it, as will an failing video card. Upgrading your OS will even fix it. Or you could have a flakey hard drive that’s causing read errors.
Q Tony, Yucaipa, CA - Trouble making CDs
Tony is having trouble copying CDs. He has downloaded some mp3s and wants to back them up. But he’s suspecting trouble with his burner. Leo says that it’s probably a hardware failure if it’s just asking you a disc even after you put one in.
Q Roger, Petaluma, CA - phantom PC calling
Roger is having trouble with a phantom dialup. Leo says your computer probably has software that needs to check online from time to time and when scheduled, it just calls in. You can turn that feature off in your software settings.
Have a great geek week!
