Brain Enema of a Savage Mind

A while ago I did a post when we got our AppleTV.  I promised a followup after I had played around with it for a bit, but fell out of the habit of updating this blog.  Well I’ve certainly had plenty of time to play with the AppleTV and I thought now that I was trying to update this a little more frequently I’d follow up on some posts of the past, and this one seemed like a good one to start with.

After playing with the AppleTV for a little bit it was time to get down to the business of hacking it so that it could play a multitude of video formats as well as allow the attachment of an external storage device.  There are lots of instructions online for rolling your own hacks on to a USB key, but out of laziness, and the fact I’m willing to let better qualified people do the work for me, I went with the guys at aTV Flash.  They frequently update the software which is especially helpful as some of Apple’s updates to the units firmware can tend to break the things you so meticulously went about hacking.

The 160GB internal storage of the AppleTV wasn’t going to cut it once I started making digital copies of my DVD’s to transfer to the device.  We ended up hooking up a 1TB external USB drive to it, which was a snap.  I formatted it as HFS+ Journaled, plugged it in to the AppleTV, and it was immediately recognized.  I was able to FTP in to the unit and copy files over to the external HD.  After the finished copying the were accessible through the AppleTV’s menu - specifically in the “DVD” section of the expanded menu that appears after initially hacking the unit.  For ripping the video I find that Handbrake’s default settings work quite well - a great compromise between file size and quality of both picture and sound.

One of the other benefits that came from hacking the device is access to Hulu (along with other services)through Boxee.  I’ve watched some old episodes of ALF for nostalgic purposes as well as a few other gems (Airwolf and Knight Rider in particular).  It’s hit or miss with newer episodes of some shows through Hulu, but I use it more when I don’t know what I want to watch as opposed to stay current with series I follow.  More recent series I’ve slowly been acquiring from the Apple Store.  Following the series that I do as well as purchasing a couple I haven’t seen in awhile works out to the same, if not a little cheaper than the cable bill had been.  Boxee has also enabled me to have access to every episode of South Park that has been made thus far - something I take frequent advantage of.

The AppleTV has been working great as a replacement for live TV.  Yes, I do miss popping on the occasional football or hockey game, but I can always go to a friends house or one of the sports bars in town to see those.  I certainly haven’t felt any less transitioning to this digital centered, cable tv free lifestyles.

My bright and shiny new Apple TV arrived today.  I’ve been looking at them ever since they came out, and decided I wanted one after the Take 2 software was released.  Finally the day came to actually purchase one.  I have to say that initially pairing it with a computer can get a bit wonky.  Right off the bat it wanted to suddenly synch all my media files via iTunes.  I had to cancel that and dig throuhg a few menus to eventually figure out what I wanted.  The synching is quite like it is for my iPod Touch.  After clicking through a few menus I was able to synch only what I wanted, and keep it from displaying the items that I didn’t synch (it does this in case you want to stream files from your computer directly from your computer).  If you’re going to be syncing via a laptop I suggest you have both the laptop and the Apple TV plugged directly in to your router rather than using wifi as the wireless connection can be slow if sync’ing an entire media library.

Once I had some shows on it, it ran like a champ.  Denise and I watched National Treasure 2 which I purchased through the iTunes store on my laptop while we were in Maui.  It ran smoothly and both the picture and audio were great.  I didn’t get the lagginess some people say they experienced during action scenes in movies.  There was no pixelization either, just clear DVD-looking quality video.  Now we’re watching an episode of Torchwood that I converted with a great program called VisualHub.

My initial reaction to it are pretty positive.  The biggest cons I’ve found is the limited selection of video formats that it can play (this can be fixed by hacking the machine.. something I’ll be looking in to), and the fact that you can’t simply plug in a big external hard drive for additional storage (again, something that can be accomplished with a little hacking).  I’ll follow up more after I’ve played with it more.

There are going to be a couple spoilers in here from Season 3 of Battlestar Galactica, so if you are worried about it, stop reading now. Seriously. SPOILERS AHEAD, stop reading now if you don’t want things potentially ruined.

This season, while over all enjoyable, left a lot to be desired.  You knew at least one person on the crew would turn out to be a Cylon, and I was pretty sure they’d do the typical TV show formula.. wait until the last moments of the season finale to let you know who.  I think it was because people were waiting for that big moment that more people didn’t tune out during what felt like a dragged out season.  I am a fan of the character development and interpersonal changes between the characters - it’s something that has helped to set the show apart, but this season it was what pulled the show down.  It was like watching a bad Lifetime original movie during moments.  We get the fact that the time on New Caprica divided people, and created a lot of emotional trauma.  There was no need to repeat the exact same episode, just with a different characters emotional damage week after week.  I’ve never seen so many episodes devoted to nothing at all in a sci-fi series and I’ve watched some really bad sci-fi series.  Hell, short of a sitcom I don’t think any hour drama has devoted the entire middle part of the season to a long chain of predictable events because everyone is now divided emotionally, spiritually and loyalty-wise.  The first two seasons were great at moving along the story, but for the most part in the third season the story came to a screeching halt.  There were points I just wanted the Cylons to come along and wipe out the entire whiny lot of them.

My other big complaint has to do with Kara Thrace.  The second she died a part of me got angry and it wasn’t because they killed the character; it was because right then and there I knew they were going to do the painfully unsurprising act of making her a Cylon.  I didn’t want this to happen - not because I don’t like the idea of her being a Cylon, but they basically telegraphed that they we were going to discover she was one all along.  What surprised me more were the other 4 who ended up being Cylons.  I’m holding out moderate hope that they go somewhere interesting with this rather than having a string of ten episodes devoted to the deeper meaning of the revelation of who they truly are - I want to watch a good show, not rehash Psych 101.

My last bit of ranting is that this season didn’t have nearly enough big booms.  After all the heart of this series is a people being hunted down to the brink of extinction and that’s going to lead to conflict.  Not emotional boohoohoo conflict, but “Let’s blow them up!” conflict.  It’s not that this season was without it, I just could have stood for a few more minutes of it here and there to break up the monontity of the ever present whining.

I have to say so far the Fall season has been underwhelming. Even shows that I enjoy have been sub-par thus far. Sure, there’s several that I have enjoyed, but last season for many shows set the bar pretty high and it seems for the most part they are falling short this time around. I know there are one or two shows (ER for example) where I haven’t seen the new episode(s) yet so maybe they are going to thrill me. In the case of ER though I kind of doubt it. I mean I acknowledge that show lost whatever edge it had long ago; but for me its still a soap opera, as much as it pisses me off what they have done to the show I am still hooked on it. Oh well, I guess we all need that little bit of fluff.

I’ll be sad to see Stargate SG-1 come to an end. I’m curious to see how they’re going to say good-bye to the series. I can only hope it doesn’t happen like what happened with Farscape. They need to give it some form of closure. It doesn’t even need to be some huge cataclysmic fighting to save the fate of the universe kind of ending (though knowing SG-1 that’s what they have in store), but I’d like to see some kind of wrap up that does the show justice.

I am excited for the new season of Battlestar Galactica coming up. It’s just a couple weeks before the new episodes begin and the trailers really have me pumped for it. Hopefully it’s not going to deflate me when it finally airs. I have to say that it’s one of the only sci-fi series that can use modern music in their trailers and not have it come off as being at all cheesy.

The one thing, however, that has remained a gem is the Venture Brothers. It continues to be one of the most twisted shows on television. At times it makes no sense at all, it disorients all rational thought, but it makes me laugh so hard at times that I have to remind myself to breathe. We all need a little twisted break from reality now and again.

I was supposed to head off to Rhode Island today, but due to some issues there it wasn’t a good time for me to go.  Since that trip was put off I decided to just spend the day relaxing.  Well part of that relaxing included putting on the webcast of the Niagara v. Beimidji state hockey game for the CHA championship (and a bid to the NCAA tournament).  I spent a lot of time pacing around my room while listening to this game.  It was a tense one.  Beimidji’s goalie was on fire.  He was stopping all kinds of craziness that was thrown at him which gave them enough momentum to start scoring on a rather icy performance by Niagara’s generally good goaltender.  Niagara tried to come back late in the third, but they didn’t have enough to force an overtime and Beimidji won.  Yes, I was quite dissapointed.  However I hope they do well in the tournament.  If my boys can’t be there then I’d like to at least see someone from the CHA do really well.  It’s a longshot, sure, but I love the underdog.

I’ve been sitting in the dark listening to my growin music collection, just sort of relaxing while waiting for the pick me up that will be tonights 6th season of the Sopranos premiere.  I’ll enjoy a little high definition viewing of it too.  This should certainly help lift my mood back up.  The growler of beer isn’t hurting in that regard either.

And finally, I’m aware the server is still slow.  I’ve eliminated a lot of possible problems and am left with a mystery on my hands.  So I’ll continue checking that out - but not tonight.  My brain is done for the evening.