Wow - almost a year since the last post here. Let's make up for that with a recommendation for a seriously useful piece of software.
I'm an information junkie. Even though I knew I wasn't likely to have any earthshattering info come in that wouldn't come by mibile phone, I still had to keep checking. However, how do you do that when you're away from your normal internet connection.
Enter :
Laptop +
Android phone +
EasyTether Lite
The Easytether software comes in two parts. One is an app for the mobile, the other is a driver for the laptop. It's available from the Android Market and the link above. The free version is a little crippled, although you won't notice that if you don't use what it limits. The limits (https, games and messenger apps are blocked) are listed in the FAQ and are removed in the $10/£6 paid version (not tested)
How's it work ?
After the software is in, connect your phone like you would to sync or charge it. Easytether (if set to auto) will detect it and activate the internet connection. Job done. Simple as that. It really is as seamless as just plugging it in. The only tweaking to do on the phone is to enable USB debugging, which is how the data goes from internet -> phone -> laptop. No need to root the phone to enable superuser access.
The end result is that you're using the phone as a 3g dongle.
Taking it a step further, you can then use Internet Connection Sharing via the Windows laptop to get other machines hooking up to the net. My current Acer laptop runs Windows 7 and we got good results with an ad-hoc WiFi network. Well, after a little tweaking of course to ensure an old Dell WinXP laptop could see it (the Dell laptop was limited to WEP encryption).
So that's :
Easytether + Win7 laptop = seamless internet access
Win7 + adhoc wifi + ICS = internet access to several laptops
It just worked. No hassle (see below) and it was a lot more efficient than a friend's 3g dongle that was trying to connect via Virginmedia. Latency was as good as my 10Mbit cable internet back home and I was seeing download speeds of around 2.5-3.5Mbits/s when a bit of rogue iTunes downloading was going on ...
I'd fully recommend this app and I'm heavily considering actually paying for it. Quality devs need cash to keep them going.
Hardware in use :
Acer Aspire 7540 Win7 laptop
Sony Ericsson X10i Mini Android phone at 2.1 update 1
Apple Airport Express mk1 (802.11b/g version)
What issues did we see ? All of these are either Windows issues or Apple issues.
Sharing via Airport Express - nogo. Didn't want to happen. Suspect this is a Working As Intended, as while the Airport Express is capable of routing an internet connection that comes in via its Ethernet port, it is not intended to share internet coming in from its wifi.
ICS vs Airplay. This is a curious one ... When Win7 Internet Connection Sharing was enabled, I could not use iTunes remote speakers, iTunes would not allow selection of the Airplay speakers. Looks like a critical clash between ICS and the Apple Airplay protocol. When ICS was disabled, I could connect to Airplay again. I could also see the net while streaming to Airplay, I just couldn't share the connection.
Overuse of internet :-) Lol - this is a sign of the app working maybe a bit too well. I didn't use all of my monthly allocation, I still have about 40MB left ...
Reconfiguring Win7 ad-hoc wifi networks. Seems like these are a "Set up once, step back, leave well alone" thing. The only reconfiguration options I could see were "Create New" or "Delete old".
Closing out - really impressed with this app. It just sits in the background after waiting to do its thing it performs with silent efficiency.
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Kaspersky and Internet Security
Wow - not posted here for ages. Sadly I'm breaking the silence with a rant ...
As part of a discount thing, I got a 5 licence copy of Kaspersky Internet Security 2010 a few months ago. The 5 licences went to my laptop, my desktop, my dad's laptop and my sister's laptop with one being held in reserve for when I eventually rebuild my desktop.
On the whole, it's a competent product. It doesn't cause a temporary whole machine freeze like McAfee did, plus it has spotted a few nasties come in. McAfee was allegedly on guard when my Eve account details got stolen. Kaspersky looks like it does the job and it installs and runs easily. You get the occasional alert "Kaspersky is turned off" when starting Windows but that's the Race Condition you sometimes get. I.e. Windows has checked for active AV before the AV has gone active. No big deal.
What is a big deal is when a piece of software does too much. I used to use a program called Zonealarm as a personal firewall, until I got annoyed at it Doing Too Much.
Kaspersky does this as well but how :
Application blocking - if it doesn't trust it, then it'll add it to the restricted applications list. It won't tell you that it's done this. I discovered after asking "why is my BOINC Climateprediction not doing anything?" Kaspersky had decided it didn't like the look of the mini executables that BOINC uses and just blocked them with the only notification being an entry in the Restricted apps list.
Network blocking - If you connect to a wireless SSID and click on "Location : Home", you would expect it to work properly. Not so, Kaspersky will say "I don't know this" and block it. This has the effect of disabling network file shares (Windows workgroups) and network printing. People may be able to see the machine on the LAN but can't connect to it. Again, the only notification is an entry in the Networks list that says "Public". This is sadly avoidable as Kaspersky should really be asking Windows whether the network is Public or Home.
Looking at the problems with cold, hard logic would say "Nothing wrong here, it's attempting to do its best to protect the system it is installed on." Which is fair enough, however the critical aspect is "It hasn't told me".
First noticed this on the Snowdon weekend where I couldn't transfer pictures across the wifi LAN at the house there. Thought it was Windows doing a Funny and dismissed it as network transfers worked when I got home. However, I've changed my wifi SSID here (to prevent jamming of the audio streaming) and when Kaspersky saw that, it decided to block it. No more network transfers ... This continued with my dad reporting problems with his printing, where he has a printer hooked up to a rarely used desktop. His laptop couldn't see the desktop to allow printing.
To troubleshoot, I did the standard thing of thinking Windows had done a Funny and went through setting the filesharing options back to default. No joy, except seeing a desktop that could see the 2 laptops but laptops that couldn't see anything. The "Odd One Out" theory strikes here, the desktop is the only one not running Kaspersky. A quick look in the deeper options of Kaspersky spots the issue, it had tagged the networks as "Public" thereby firewalling the computers.
This is a problem I'd only expect a Nerd Level User to fix, due to the lack of feedback from the application at fault. To be an issue with an all in one product like a major name's Internet Security product is inexcusable. Even with my Nerd Level Knowledge, it was sheer luck that I joined the dots enough to identify the cause of the problem.
I will be voting with my feet, when my Kaspersky licences run out I will be changing who I have my anti virus protection from. I can see the logic behind the protection measures but the lack of any feedback as to what it has blocked just causes a critical level of confusion.
Now then - who knows a competent anti virus supplier ? My blacklist is getting ever longer ...
As part of a discount thing, I got a 5 licence copy of Kaspersky Internet Security 2010 a few months ago. The 5 licences went to my laptop, my desktop, my dad's laptop and my sister's laptop with one being held in reserve for when I eventually rebuild my desktop.
On the whole, it's a competent product. It doesn't cause a temporary whole machine freeze like McAfee did, plus it has spotted a few nasties come in. McAfee was allegedly on guard when my Eve account details got stolen. Kaspersky looks like it does the job and it installs and runs easily. You get the occasional alert "Kaspersky is turned off" when starting Windows but that's the Race Condition you sometimes get. I.e. Windows has checked for active AV before the AV has gone active. No big deal.
What is a big deal is when a piece of software does too much. I used to use a program called Zonealarm as a personal firewall, until I got annoyed at it Doing Too Much.
Kaspersky does this as well but how :
Application blocking - if it doesn't trust it, then it'll add it to the restricted applications list. It won't tell you that it's done this. I discovered after asking "why is my BOINC Climateprediction not doing anything?" Kaspersky had decided it didn't like the look of the mini executables that BOINC uses and just blocked them with the only notification being an entry in the Restricted apps list.
Network blocking - If you connect to a wireless SSID and click on "Location : Home", you would expect it to work properly. Not so, Kaspersky will say "I don't know this" and block it. This has the effect of disabling network file shares (Windows workgroups) and network printing. People may be able to see the machine on the LAN but can't connect to it. Again, the only notification is an entry in the Networks list that says "Public". This is sadly avoidable as Kaspersky should really be asking Windows whether the network is Public or Home.
Looking at the problems with cold, hard logic would say "Nothing wrong here, it's attempting to do its best to protect the system it is installed on." Which is fair enough, however the critical aspect is "It hasn't told me".
First noticed this on the Snowdon weekend where I couldn't transfer pictures across the wifi LAN at the house there. Thought it was Windows doing a Funny and dismissed it as network transfers worked when I got home. However, I've changed my wifi SSID here (to prevent jamming of the audio streaming) and when Kaspersky saw that, it decided to block it. No more network transfers ... This continued with my dad reporting problems with his printing, where he has a printer hooked up to a rarely used desktop. His laptop couldn't see the desktop to allow printing.
To troubleshoot, I did the standard thing of thinking Windows had done a Funny and went through setting the filesharing options back to default. No joy, except seeing a desktop that could see the 2 laptops but laptops that couldn't see anything. The "Odd One Out" theory strikes here, the desktop is the only one not running Kaspersky. A quick look in the deeper options of Kaspersky spots the issue, it had tagged the networks as "Public" thereby firewalling the computers.
This is a problem I'd only expect a Nerd Level User to fix, due to the lack of feedback from the application at fault. To be an issue with an all in one product like a major name's Internet Security product is inexcusable. Even with my Nerd Level Knowledge, it was sheer luck that I joined the dots enough to identify the cause of the problem.
I will be voting with my feet, when my Kaspersky licences run out I will be changing who I have my anti virus protection from. I can see the logic behind the protection measures but the lack of any feedback as to what it has blocked just causes a critical level of confusion.
Now then - who knows a competent anti virus supplier ? My blacklist is getting ever longer ...
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Acer laptop mini review
This new toy kinda got lost in the noise with all the other bits of kit I bought at the end of last year ...
I had to retire my old laptop, a G70-120EA made by Hewlett Packard. The post I did that talks about that one after a couple of weeks is still on this blog, here's a link. I was quite positive towards the G70 back then, it was a lot of laptop for the money. I was also happy to overlook the flaws, like the poor build quality. The Vista experience hadn't quite hit by then, although I'd been getting the UAC popups regularly asking me if I was sure I wanted to do stuff. As a laptop, it did well for about 6 months and then the fan started to die.
The problem with the HP was the location of the fan. It hadn't been built with support in mind, so to replace a simple item like the fan required the disassembly of the entire machine. I guess this is also where the poor build quality came from too. Most engineers will just find a way to make something work, they won't bother making it particularly efficient or clean. Good engineers take a little more pride in their designs and attempt to make them easier to put together, take apart, fix and all those other little things that separate Fiats from Ferraris.
Or Acers from HP's ...
Ahh - that fan. By the time the end came, I'd cut the HP back to 40% cpu power to stop it from overheating. That kept it stable, although it wasn't comfortable with 5's On Demand video service. That didn't last though, with the fan dying the Sunday morning after I'd finished with work for 2009. Cue one emergency trip to the Mall to investigate a replacement ...
After a steady bit of research through the year I'd settled between 2 choices, Apple and Acer. Apple got a look through curiosity at them being "different", with the interest in Acer coming from their reliability record. Apple is still up at the premium end of the market, i.e. too expensive for too few features. My eye got caught by 2 Acers, a 15" and a 17". Good features and cheap. I ended up being seduced by the lure of wrapping my fingers around a few more inches :-)
Out of the box, the Acer (an Aspire 7540) felt heavier than the HP. I'm not bothered about extra weight, it usually means "sturdier". The keyboard seems fairly Apple inspired. I have to class it as "reasonable". I haven't caught my fingers on the keys like on the HP but it does miss the odd keystroke. The trackpad is not great.
The Aspire 7540 came with Windows 7 and the much vaunted Multi-touch and Gesture features. After a couple of days, they got disabled because they just plain got in the way. I think the laptop was getting confused over "is it a click ?" "is he trying to gesture control ?" with the result being much reduced responsiveness to taps on the trackpad. So I just turned off the multitouch features (kept scroll gestures - those work) and trackpad responsiveness improved considerably.
Multitouch gestures tend to be Drag, Zoom and Rotate type operations. Seriously, how often do you alter the Zoom, how often do you Rotate something and isn't it easier to hold a mouse button when you're dragging ? I really can't see any point in the multitouch gestures on a laptop. Touchscreen and tablets - fine, there's no mouse button there. But on a trackpad that's not got the "I'm tapping there" feedback of a touchscreen, nope - gets in the way.
Heh heh heh - that's more a whinge at Windows 7 functionality instead of saying what the laptop's like. Still, keyboard - good, trackpad - poor. I have to be careful when browsing shopping sites because the tap-click of the trackpad can be a little ... random. Sometimes it takes a couple of Big Taps, sometimes it seems to do a click from what must be the electric charge on my fingers. Did I mention it likes to do those phantom clicks when the pointer is over a "Buy" button ? :-)
Muahaha - had to clear out Shopping Baskets a few times cos the laptop is a shopaholic.
The screen is excellent. It claims to have LED technology, which like the tellies is intended to give more definition to those colours. It works too, there's a Facebook game I keep up with that has blocks of colour in its interface that I hadn't noticed on the HP. The screen is 1600x900 so not quite 1080p. There's a HDMI port plus a VGA D-Sub port to allow hooking up to a telly or projector. I've tried both, I have to say I'm impressed with HDMI's ability to send video + audio on the same cable. BBC's Day of the Triffids via iPlayer played pretty well, although the HD version coming from the V+ box looked better.
Memory - 3GB again, same as the G70. Windows 7 seems a little less hungry on memory. The load is currently 50% with 10 Firefox tabs active, as well as iTunes, Outlook and Messenger. On the G70 and Vista the load would be 60-65%, although a couple of the baseline apps are different. I'm still running the baseline McAfee trial instead of Kaspersky and Evemon isn't loaded while my Eve account is inactive.
Software - You get the usual trials, one of those bits being a 60 day trial of McAfee. I've put an opinion of McAfee up before (linky!) and that opinion has sadly been reinforced by my experience on the 7540. There's 2 key performance indicators on Anti-Virus - does it slow the machine down ? does it work. McAfee's update is annoying because it effectively hangs the machine for a few seconds, annoying and unnecessary. Does it work ? NO! I had my Eve account info stolen by a keylogger which slipped through McAfee.
Important lesson when buying new kit - Don't trust that it's ok out of the box, give it a security scan before putting any passwords in. I can't prove where my keylogger came from but one suspicion is that it was on the machine when I opened the box. McAfee did nothing to prevent the keylogger from doing its stuff.
Windows 7 - it's an improvement over Vista. It seems more likable too, although I have a feeling that part of the design brief involved "let's get people looking at their desktop pics more". The sidebar changes are a step back. On Vista, I liked the ability to click the sidebar to bring the gadgets to the front. That's gone from Windows 7, so I had to move my Evemon skill plan window left a bit to keep the sidebar visible. Apart from that, the interface is a logical step forward and works a bit better. I like the ability to Pin programs to the task bar, when starting up I can tap 1,2,3 and Messenger, Outlook and Firefox start up.
Performance - no problems here. I don't push my laptops particularly hard, my key point with them is screen size and having lots of windows open while I listen to iTunes on them. My desktop is the gaming machine. Got my doubts as to whether this puppy has the performance to run graphically demanding games but it was perfectly happy playing that iPlayer video on the telly.
Something I suspect is that a little bit of extra Hamster Power means that it gets more out of the iTunes to remote speaker link. I think it sounds better and gets more detail across but that could just be a placebo effect. Bit like my blu-ray player getting more out of dvds because of having Hamsters On Steroids.
No blu-ray - the G70 had a blu-ray drive. My opinion on this is that blu-ray is a bit of a gimmick. Comparing blu-ray movies to dvds suggests that blu-ray doesn't add that much value in terms of improved picture quality. It is better ... but when you're sitting back and watching the telly from the other side of the room, dvd movies look just as good.
Laptops are Vastly Overrated as movie playing machines. Spending an extra £100 on a Sony BDP-S360 (happily recommend those, I'm a fan of mine) is well worth it due to the extra connectivity it offers. Surround sound adds a lot to movies and it's a lot easier to get that from a standalone player, as trying to do it through the crippleware programs that come with PCs tends to be ... awkward if not doomed. So - sound connectivity means hardly any laptops will be suitable as movie players. Video connectivity is irrelevant as HDMI is the only valid connector here, it's the only one that allows HD playback.
Oh yeah - it's easier to surf forums if the movie is playing back on a different machine than the one you're using for forums and Facebook :-) :-) :-)
Overall - it's got the thumbs up so far. I can live with the quirks of the trackpad (by making sure it doesn't one-click buy stuff!) because it's more than made up for by the overall build quality.
The Acer cost more than last year's HP but I think I got an exceptional deal there last year. Hopefully it will last longer :-)
I had to retire my old laptop, a G70-120EA made by Hewlett Packard. The post I did that talks about that one after a couple of weeks is still on this blog, here's a link. I was quite positive towards the G70 back then, it was a lot of laptop for the money. I was also happy to overlook the flaws, like the poor build quality. The Vista experience hadn't quite hit by then, although I'd been getting the UAC popups regularly asking me if I was sure I wanted to do stuff. As a laptop, it did well for about 6 months and then the fan started to die.
The problem with the HP was the location of the fan. It hadn't been built with support in mind, so to replace a simple item like the fan required the disassembly of the entire machine. I guess this is also where the poor build quality came from too. Most engineers will just find a way to make something work, they won't bother making it particularly efficient or clean. Good engineers take a little more pride in their designs and attempt to make them easier to put together, take apart, fix and all those other little things that separate Fiats from Ferraris.
Or Acers from HP's ...
Ahh - that fan. By the time the end came, I'd cut the HP back to 40% cpu power to stop it from overheating. That kept it stable, although it wasn't comfortable with 5's On Demand video service. That didn't last though, with the fan dying the Sunday morning after I'd finished with work for 2009. Cue one emergency trip to the Mall to investigate a replacement ...
After a steady bit of research through the year I'd settled between 2 choices, Apple and Acer. Apple got a look through curiosity at them being "different", with the interest in Acer coming from their reliability record. Apple is still up at the premium end of the market, i.e. too expensive for too few features. My eye got caught by 2 Acers, a 15" and a 17". Good features and cheap. I ended up being seduced by the lure of wrapping my fingers around a few more inches :-)
Out of the box, the Acer (an Aspire 7540) felt heavier than the HP. I'm not bothered about extra weight, it usually means "sturdier". The keyboard seems fairly Apple inspired. I have to class it as "reasonable". I haven't caught my fingers on the keys like on the HP but it does miss the odd keystroke. The trackpad is not great.
The Aspire 7540 came with Windows 7 and the much vaunted Multi-touch and Gesture features. After a couple of days, they got disabled because they just plain got in the way. I think the laptop was getting confused over "is it a click ?" "is he trying to gesture control ?" with the result being much reduced responsiveness to taps on the trackpad. So I just turned off the multitouch features (kept scroll gestures - those work) and trackpad responsiveness improved considerably.
Multitouch gestures tend to be Drag, Zoom and Rotate type operations. Seriously, how often do you alter the Zoom, how often do you Rotate something and isn't it easier to hold a mouse button when you're dragging ? I really can't see any point in the multitouch gestures on a laptop. Touchscreen and tablets - fine, there's no mouse button there. But on a trackpad that's not got the "I'm tapping there" feedback of a touchscreen, nope - gets in the way.
Heh heh heh - that's more a whinge at Windows 7 functionality instead of saying what the laptop's like. Still, keyboard - good, trackpad - poor. I have to be careful when browsing shopping sites because the tap-click of the trackpad can be a little ... random. Sometimes it takes a couple of Big Taps, sometimes it seems to do a click from what must be the electric charge on my fingers. Did I mention it likes to do those phantom clicks when the pointer is over a "Buy" button ? :-)
Muahaha - had to clear out Shopping Baskets a few times cos the laptop is a shopaholic.
The screen is excellent. It claims to have LED technology, which like the tellies is intended to give more definition to those colours. It works too, there's a Facebook game I keep up with that has blocks of colour in its interface that I hadn't noticed on the HP. The screen is 1600x900 so not quite 1080p. There's a HDMI port plus a VGA D-Sub port to allow hooking up to a telly or projector. I've tried both, I have to say I'm impressed with HDMI's ability to send video + audio on the same cable. BBC's Day of the Triffids via iPlayer played pretty well, although the HD version coming from the V+ box looked better.
Memory - 3GB again, same as the G70. Windows 7 seems a little less hungry on memory. The load is currently 50% with 10 Firefox tabs active, as well as iTunes, Outlook and Messenger. On the G70 and Vista the load would be 60-65%, although a couple of the baseline apps are different. I'm still running the baseline McAfee trial instead of Kaspersky and Evemon isn't loaded while my Eve account is inactive.
Software - You get the usual trials, one of those bits being a 60 day trial of McAfee. I've put an opinion of McAfee up before (linky!) and that opinion has sadly been reinforced by my experience on the 7540. There's 2 key performance indicators on Anti-Virus - does it slow the machine down ? does it work. McAfee's update is annoying because it effectively hangs the machine for a few seconds, annoying and unnecessary. Does it work ? NO! I had my Eve account info stolen by a keylogger which slipped through McAfee.
Important lesson when buying new kit - Don't trust that it's ok out of the box, give it a security scan before putting any passwords in. I can't prove where my keylogger came from but one suspicion is that it was on the machine when I opened the box. McAfee did nothing to prevent the keylogger from doing its stuff.
Windows 7 - it's an improvement over Vista. It seems more likable too, although I have a feeling that part of the design brief involved "let's get people looking at their desktop pics more". The sidebar changes are a step back. On Vista, I liked the ability to click the sidebar to bring the gadgets to the front. That's gone from Windows 7, so I had to move my Evemon skill plan window left a bit to keep the sidebar visible. Apart from that, the interface is a logical step forward and works a bit better. I like the ability to Pin programs to the task bar, when starting up I can tap 1,2,3 and Messenger, Outlook and Firefox start up.
Performance - no problems here. I don't push my laptops particularly hard, my key point with them is screen size and having lots of windows open while I listen to iTunes on them. My desktop is the gaming machine. Got my doubts as to whether this puppy has the performance to run graphically demanding games but it was perfectly happy playing that iPlayer video on the telly.
Something I suspect is that a little bit of extra Hamster Power means that it gets more out of the iTunes to remote speaker link. I think it sounds better and gets more detail across but that could just be a placebo effect. Bit like my blu-ray player getting more out of dvds because of having Hamsters On Steroids.
No blu-ray - the G70 had a blu-ray drive. My opinion on this is that blu-ray is a bit of a gimmick. Comparing blu-ray movies to dvds suggests that blu-ray doesn't add that much value in terms of improved picture quality. It is better ... but when you're sitting back and watching the telly from the other side of the room, dvd movies look just as good.
Laptops are Vastly Overrated as movie playing machines. Spending an extra £100 on a Sony BDP-S360 (happily recommend those, I'm a fan of mine) is well worth it due to the extra connectivity it offers. Surround sound adds a lot to movies and it's a lot easier to get that from a standalone player, as trying to do it through the crippleware programs that come with PCs tends to be ... awkward if not doomed. So - sound connectivity means hardly any laptops will be suitable as movie players. Video connectivity is irrelevant as HDMI is the only valid connector here, it's the only one that allows HD playback.
Oh yeah - it's easier to surf forums if the movie is playing back on a different machine than the one you're using for forums and Facebook :-) :-) :-)
Overall - it's got the thumbs up so far. I can live with the quirks of the trackpad (by making sure it doesn't one-click buy stuff!) because it's more than made up for by the overall build quality.
The Acer cost more than last year's HP but I think I got an exceptional deal there last year. Hopefully it will last longer :-)
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
V+ box vs HDMI
Technology 1 Sleepypete 2
This one's an additional to the post below ... Got my HDMI leads today and hooked them both up. Turned the V+ box back on - instant trouble ...
I could get a picture through to the telly but the picture would blank to black screen every 5 seconds or so. Just as if the lead was connecting-disconnecting. Cue the logical problem solving step sequence ...
Blu-ray player through HDMI - ok. This proves that one lead and that input into the telly are ok.
Swap the leads over, use that lead&socket for V+ - no joy
Put Blu-ray into the HDMI socket & lead I'd first used for the V+. Blu-ray happy.
Try hooking the laptop up to the telly via the HDMI leads, this is happy too. A little fuzzy though when watching Day of Triffids Part 1, possibly because I was watching in the laptop's native resolution of 1600x900 instead of 1080p which is 1920x1080, there's always a little mushyness that comes in when you upscale an image.
This proves that the telly is ok and the two leads are ok, so the problem is with the V+ box. I then have a peek online for V+ box problems with HDMI, not as much reported as you'd think but there's still reports out there telling of faulty HDMI sockets in the Scientific American V+ boxes. Ho hum.
Time for Plan B ...
Which involves going for the Component Video solution I mention in the original post. 5 leads instead of 1, which is a bit of a pain to wire up but when it's done you can hide the wires out of sight. It does sadly mean I don't get the full 1080p thing but 1080i ain't so bad. Looks pretty darn good at the moment cos I'm halfway through the second episode of Day of the Triffids. It's better than watching it from the laptop iPlayer, sharper and much more detailed.
(Plan B should really be ringing up the Cable Guy to get me a 100% working order cable box but that's not really an option cos it'll take me a few days to clear what's recorded on it)
So - Technology 1 Sleepypete 2 and I have a spare HDMI lead I can use for hooking up laptops to tellies which will go in the laptop bag.
PS Another "additional" to the post below - Star Trek dvd quite happily plays back at 1080p through an HDMI lead, so that's a confirmation on Component being limited to 576p only due to DRM restrictions.
This one's an additional to the post below ... Got my HDMI leads today and hooked them both up. Turned the V+ box back on - instant trouble ...
I could get a picture through to the telly but the picture would blank to black screen every 5 seconds or so. Just as if the lead was connecting-disconnecting. Cue the logical problem solving step sequence ...
Blu-ray player through HDMI - ok. This proves that one lead and that input into the telly are ok.
Swap the leads over, use that lead&socket for V+ - no joy
Put Blu-ray into the HDMI socket & lead I'd first used for the V+. Blu-ray happy.
Try hooking the laptop up to the telly via the HDMI leads, this is happy too. A little fuzzy though when watching Day of Triffids Part 1, possibly because I was watching in the laptop's native resolution of 1600x900 instead of 1080p which is 1920x1080, there's always a little mushyness that comes in when you upscale an image.
This proves that the telly is ok and the two leads are ok, so the problem is with the V+ box. I then have a peek online for V+ box problems with HDMI, not as much reported as you'd think but there's still reports out there telling of faulty HDMI sockets in the Scientific American V+ boxes. Ho hum.
Time for Plan B ...
Which involves going for the Component Video solution I mention in the original post. 5 leads instead of 1, which is a bit of a pain to wire up but when it's done you can hide the wires out of sight. It does sadly mean I don't get the full 1080p thing but 1080i ain't so bad. Looks pretty darn good at the moment cos I'm halfway through the second episode of Day of the Triffids. It's better than watching it from the laptop iPlayer, sharper and much more detailed.
(Plan B should really be ringing up the Cable Guy to get me a 100% working order cable box but that's not really an option cos it'll take me a few days to clear what's recorded on it)
So - Technology 1 Sleepypete 2 and I have a spare HDMI lead I can use for hooking up laptops to tellies which will go in the laptop bag.
PS Another "additional" to the post below - Star Trek dvd quite happily plays back at 1080p through an HDMI lead, so that's a confirmation on Component being limited to 576p only due to DRM restrictions.
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
Adventures with new AV kit
Been spending rather too much money lately. There was the laptop last week that I talked about on my main blog but the more interesting one is what I've been up to today.
Today's new arrivals are a Samsung LE32B530p LCD telly, 32 inch with 1080p. Bit cheap but perfectly functional. I'd have liked an LED telly but they're significantly more expensive. The other new arrival is a Sony BDP-S360 blu ray player.
Sadly I don't have the kit yet to show them off at full potential as I have a pair of HDMI leads on order hopefully arriving tomorrow. I've been having fun exploring the options for connecting everything up :-) The telly has just 1 Scart input, favouring 3 HDMI sockets. It also has a PC monitor input plus component (3 RCA Phono leads) and composite video (1 RCA phono leads). I'll be hooking up a few bits of kit :
Virginmedia V+ cable TV box
Sony blu-ray player
Desktop PC for gaming
The V+ box was relatively simple, it's hooked up via the Scart lead it had before. I'll be replacing that with an HDMI link when the lead arrives. The Blu-ray player is a little more interesting ... I don't have a proper Component Video lead set so I improvised. The link is the same as the typical RCA Phono lead that's used for digital audio and composite video, so I've done a little scrounging. Time for a little aside on the various ways to connect up :
HDMI - wide flat plug that carries audio and video in digital format. Use this wherever possible as it gives best and simplest results
Component Video - 3x phono leads labelled Y, PR/CR and PB/CB (I dunno what that stands for !). Capable of nearly as good quality as HDMI but has other limits I'll go into below.
S-Video - 1 lead, 4 active pins inside with a false one to help you put it in the right place.
Composite - 1 lead coloured yellow.
VGA - otherwise known as D-Sub, it's the one you connect your PC to the monitor with.
So - HDMI gives the best picture plus it's just one lead. There's a sneaky reason to that though and that's based around the paranoia rampant in the people who provide us with all that content out there. You see Digital Rights Management uses the HDMI link to tell a player that it's sending the signal to something kosher, these signals aren't sent back through the other links. So although your Component Video link is capable of 1080i resolution, your dvd and blu-ray discs will only play back at standard definition : 576p.
Obvious question time - Huh ? What does that actually mean ? Based on what I think from watching the new Star Trek film through the combination, not very much in practice. Excellent sharp picture, no complaints. If the telly is up to the job, it'll fill in the gaps. I'll have to watch it again after the HDMI leads arrive, just for research purposes of course :-)
So that's the Blu-ray player :-). As mentioned above, I have it hooked up through the Component Video link however I'm using scrounged leads to do so. Two are the yellow leads that should really be used for Composite Video, another is a digital audio SP/DIF lead. It works :-). The audio link I'm using is the same as always, it's a digital SP/DIF lead going to an ooold Creative Labs 5.1 surround speaker set that's still going strong. Looks and sounds great.
Oh by the way, what I've mentioned above is tame compared to what I did after ...
Ingredients :
1 desktop PC equipped with a 1 year old Radeon 4850.
KVM switch
2x looong KVM hookup leads (keyboard video and mouse)
Telly
Mass Effect game
The mayhem starts with hooking up the KVM to the desktop. I still have a PS/2 keyboard though, so I have to unplug that. This uses the second display port on the graphics card. The KVM can stay fairly permanently connected and I can hide it between sofa and side table when not in use (errmmm - side table = old PC box in disguise). My main mouse can stay connected to the main PC.
So that's a long lead going to a KVM switch that will end up in the middle of the floor. The output of the KVM switch goes to the telly through the second long hookup lead. Keyboard can plug into the KVM beside the sofa, which is also where the second mouse goes. I upgraded my last mouse to one with more buttons (for voice comms), so I had an excellent Logitech mouse available for use.
End result : PC stays behind the sofa. Long leads go to a KVM in the middle of the floor. Monitor lead goes to telly, keyboard and mouse go on my lap. Having the KVM makes it act as an easy way of cutting the cable when not in use, I can separate the link there instead of pulling leads out of telly or PC. Not quite got the sound arranged yet but that'll be an easy one as I have another suitable Long lead lying idle :-)
On goes the PC - bit of a fiddly arrangement to get the picture on the screen though. The resolution allowed by the telly is 1920x1080, which is far more pixels than there are available on my 1280x1024 monitor. I needed to enable the telly as a second screen and then make it primary. Lots of potential confusion with WinXP here, as I then needed to do a log-off/log-on to get the telly properly recognised as primary. That being the screen upon which the game would appear ...
I got it going in the end though :-) Mass Effect looks rather spectacular at 1920x1080 on the 32" screen :-) Must get the sound hookup done so I can get some proper playtime in. Eve should be amazing on there too, although I have a worry about text size. I could barely read the text on Windows icons due to them being a leeetle bit smaller than I'm used to :-) Big screen but rather more distant than the typical monitor.
I've packed it all away now so there's only one lead trailing (laptop power lead). A very successful first night of testing, looking forward to the HDMI leads appearing as well as the 2 blu-ray discs I ordered off Amazon today.
PS There will be a minor drawback to gaming on the telly ... I'll either have to go back to listening to music on the laptop speakers (yuk) or I see how the speaker set behaves with it mixing game audio and Airtunes audio.
PS2 Not recommended to hook up laptop direct to telly as a monitor - it'll get confused over screen resolutions and move all your windows around on first connection. Annoying if you have them arranged just-so.
Today's new arrivals are a Samsung LE32B530p LCD telly, 32 inch with 1080p. Bit cheap but perfectly functional. I'd have liked an LED telly but they're significantly more expensive. The other new arrival is a Sony BDP-S360 blu ray player.
Sadly I don't have the kit yet to show them off at full potential as I have a pair of HDMI leads on order hopefully arriving tomorrow. I've been having fun exploring the options for connecting everything up :-) The telly has just 1 Scart input, favouring 3 HDMI sockets. It also has a PC monitor input plus component (3 RCA Phono leads) and composite video (1 RCA phono leads). I'll be hooking up a few bits of kit :
Virginmedia V+ cable TV box
Sony blu-ray player
Desktop PC for gaming
The V+ box was relatively simple, it's hooked up via the Scart lead it had before. I'll be replacing that with an HDMI link when the lead arrives. The Blu-ray player is a little more interesting ... I don't have a proper Component Video lead set so I improvised. The link is the same as the typical RCA Phono lead that's used for digital audio and composite video, so I've done a little scrounging. Time for a little aside on the various ways to connect up :
HDMI - wide flat plug that carries audio and video in digital format. Use this wherever possible as it gives best and simplest results
Component Video - 3x phono leads labelled Y, PR/CR and PB/CB (I dunno what that stands for !). Capable of nearly as good quality as HDMI but has other limits I'll go into below.
S-Video - 1 lead, 4 active pins inside with a false one to help you put it in the right place.
Composite - 1 lead coloured yellow.
VGA - otherwise known as D-Sub, it's the one you connect your PC to the monitor with.
So - HDMI gives the best picture plus it's just one lead. There's a sneaky reason to that though and that's based around the paranoia rampant in the people who provide us with all that content out there. You see Digital Rights Management uses the HDMI link to tell a player that it's sending the signal to something kosher, these signals aren't sent back through the other links. So although your Component Video link is capable of 1080i resolution, your dvd and blu-ray discs will only play back at standard definition : 576p.
Obvious question time - Huh ? What does that actually mean ? Based on what I think from watching the new Star Trek film through the combination, not very much in practice. Excellent sharp picture, no complaints. If the telly is up to the job, it'll fill in the gaps. I'll have to watch it again after the HDMI leads arrive, just for research purposes of course :-)
So that's the Blu-ray player :-). As mentioned above, I have it hooked up through the Component Video link however I'm using scrounged leads to do so. Two are the yellow leads that should really be used for Composite Video, another is a digital audio SP/DIF lead. It works :-). The audio link I'm using is the same as always, it's a digital SP/DIF lead going to an ooold Creative Labs 5.1 surround speaker set that's still going strong. Looks and sounds great.
Oh by the way, what I've mentioned above is tame compared to what I did after ...
Ingredients :
1 desktop PC equipped with a 1 year old Radeon 4850.
KVM switch
2x looong KVM hookup leads (keyboard video and mouse)
Telly
Mass Effect game
The mayhem starts with hooking up the KVM to the desktop. I still have a PS/2 keyboard though, so I have to unplug that. This uses the second display port on the graphics card. The KVM can stay fairly permanently connected and I can hide it between sofa and side table when not in use (errmmm - side table = old PC box in disguise). My main mouse can stay connected to the main PC.
So that's a long lead going to a KVM switch that will end up in the middle of the floor. The output of the KVM switch goes to the telly through the second long hookup lead. Keyboard can plug into the KVM beside the sofa, which is also where the second mouse goes. I upgraded my last mouse to one with more buttons (for voice comms), so I had an excellent Logitech mouse available for use.
End result : PC stays behind the sofa. Long leads go to a KVM in the middle of the floor. Monitor lead goes to telly, keyboard and mouse go on my lap. Having the KVM makes it act as an easy way of cutting the cable when not in use, I can separate the link there instead of pulling leads out of telly or PC. Not quite got the sound arranged yet but that'll be an easy one as I have another suitable Long lead lying idle :-)
On goes the PC - bit of a fiddly arrangement to get the picture on the screen though. The resolution allowed by the telly is 1920x1080, which is far more pixels than there are available on my 1280x1024 monitor. I needed to enable the telly as a second screen and then make it primary. Lots of potential confusion with WinXP here, as I then needed to do a log-off/log-on to get the telly properly recognised as primary. That being the screen upon which the game would appear ...
I got it going in the end though :-) Mass Effect looks rather spectacular at 1920x1080 on the 32" screen :-) Must get the sound hookup done so I can get some proper playtime in. Eve should be amazing on there too, although I have a worry about text size. I could barely read the text on Windows icons due to them being a leeetle bit smaller than I'm used to :-) Big screen but rather more distant than the typical monitor.
I've packed it all away now so there's only one lead trailing (laptop power lead). A very successful first night of testing, looking forward to the HDMI leads appearing as well as the 2 blu-ray discs I ordered off Amazon today.
PS There will be a minor drawback to gaming on the telly ... I'll either have to go back to listening to music on the laptop speakers (yuk) or I see how the speaker set behaves with it mixing game audio and Airtunes audio.
PS2 Not recommended to hook up laptop direct to telly as a monitor - it'll get confused over screen resolutions and move all your windows around on first connection. Annoying if you have them arranged just-so.
Sunday, October 18, 2009
TV On Demand
With increasing internet speeds and more demand for ... "on demand" services, I thought I'd give a post on what I've seen so far ...
I have access to On Demand telly via two conduits : my V+ cable TV box and the general internet via my laptop. I'm including the V+ box there as it has a collection of On Demand sources available to it, including BBC's iPlayer, ITV Net Player, 4 on Demand and the Virgin1 Player. I currently use it for watching stuff like the Doctor Who repeats, as the V+ box hooks up to a telly that my laptop isn't compatible with (explanation later).
How does the V+ manage ? The best description is "competent" :-) I only have an old CRT telly due to being forced to buy it at completely the wrong time ... (link attached for the "why"!) so it's not capable of showing HD. If it did, then I'd have the option to upgrade that "competent" a bit. As it is, BBC iPlayer through it gives playback as you'd expect to see on a live broadcast or from a recording. The interface on the V+ box is a little slow but that and a tendency for it to take a few hours for shows to become available are the only drawbacks.
So a good showing from the V+ box, the only downsides being noticed because I'm an impatient button presser :-)
How about the laptop ? Here's the techie part :-)
My current laptop is a G70-120EA made by Hewlett Packard. It's powered by an Intel Core 2 Duo T5800 capable of running at 2GHz. It's got 3GB of RAM and it's hooked up via wifi-G to a 10Mb/s internet connection. The internet comes in through a cable modem hooked up to a Linksys WRT54G2 wifi-router. However, I have to de-rate the cpu (Power Options) by 50% to stop it overheating due to a duff cooling fan. There's still plenty of power available in there though. Unfortunately I have to suffer watching via the laptop screen, due to my old CRT telly not having inputs that can take the D-SUB and HDMI outputs from the laptop. Upside, there's a 17" screen on the laptop :-)
I've tried 3 internet based on-demand services so far : SkyPlayer, BBC iPlayer and Channel 5's On Demand service. How do each fare ?
Sky Player : In the final days of me being with Sky, this allowed me to keep up with a few shows that my Sky Box + Dish weren't able to pick up. I've not used it since switching away from Sky though, so my knowledge is a little old. Impressions - high quality playback, no issues with download rates, good choice for movies etc but limited otherwise.
All On Demand suffers a little from lack of choice, you're dependent on what the providers of the service are interested in squirting down the pipe. Some providers are better than others and for what they don't show, there's always DVDs :-)
Back to Sky Player - very competent on downloaded programmes, although live streaming was VERY susceptible to jamming via other internet activity. As in, I used their streaming Sky Player News programme to test the Airfoil utility I've described in a post below and the conflicting streams rendered the news programme unwatchable. That's about 700kbits/s coming in and 1Mb/s going out. There were other issues being caused by glitches in their login code, where the Skyplayer app would kick you out, unless you knew the trick to logging in. It also required its own player application, although IIRC that branched to Windows Media Player.
(note - this could also have been a router issue, I've changed from a rubbish Philips to the mostly good Linksys but can't remember when ... the conflicting stream issue could have been the Philips getting in the way, plus Airfoil streaming got kicked to touch for other reasons)
Verdict - Good for Sky owners :-) No use whatsoever for other people. Let me watch Star Wars Clone Wars when my Skybox decided it would block Sky Movies Premier. Last word here - Examine the T's & C's closely ... I couldn't get SkySports streams through it, even though I had that as part of my Skybox package.
BBC iPlayer : UK people will know (and love) this service well. It's been around for a while now (in internet terms !) and has evolved since day 1. If I called the V+ "competent", then this can only be described as "excellent". BBC make most of their programmes available quickly after they're broadcast and in the UK, it's free to view. No adverts either. Quality depends on the stream you're using :
Normal - uses about 750kbits/s bandwidth and is Not broadcast quality
High-Def - about 2-2.5Mbits/s and is definitely broadcast quality
I'm also able to do other stuff over the internet while iPlayer is doing its thing. Think frenzied internet browsing with an iPlayer window showing Grand Prix coverage while cricket is on the telly. (I will freely admit to being an Information Junkie)
Ok, Ok, that temptation to play was too much. I'm now listening to music from iTunes (Portishead) streaming over the network to remote speakers while an iPlayer window is playing back coverage from the earlier MotoGP. Here's how it behaves :
What you're seeing there is the output from a Vista gadget called Network meter, that I have monitoring the wifi coming and going from my laptop. The green line is approx 1Mbit/s going from laptop to my remote speakers via an Apple Airport Express. The yellow spikes are from iPlayer grabbing data from the server. They peak at 10Mbits/s, so it's taking its bites in at the maximum potential of my cable modem, with no interference in my music playing. That's probably due to buffering both in the Airport and from iPlayer.
iPlayer used to come in as a separate app but has compressed into being Flash now. That's good although Flash does come with certain vulnerabilities, which is why I use Firefox with the Flashblock app so I can control when Flash apps load. No compatibility issues to report there.
Verdict - they've steadily improved a service that's been outstanding for a while. Yet they've still improved it. Quality of playback is excellent, although it's giving me a Lol moment on the test I'm running now because the subtitles on the MotoGP coverage seem to be from a political environmental programme instead of MotoGP.
Finally, 5 On Demand : I checked this one out because I've been watching the series Warship on Channel 5. Normally I catch it off the V+ box recordings but for some reason, it decided to eat the final episode. Cue internet research ... and finding 5's On Demand service :-) Saves the day again, just like Skyplayer in the last days of my Skybox.
You need a login for this one, in the name of parental protection. That doesn't seem to achieve very much, as although it asks for an email and a date of birth, it doesn't request any bounceback confirmation. So the parental protection is torpedoed from the start because it's trivial to insert a false year into an age. There is email notification of the creation of a new account but because there's no bounceback authentication, it doesn't have to be valid.
Quality of playback ? Good but not as good as iPlayer. Possibly suffers from trying to be too good with an app that isn't as well developed as iPlayer. Instant comparisons are that playback is jumpy and the cpu runs hot. So the player isn't as efficient as iPlayer. (Can't remember bandwidth consumption). Technically I could have boosted playback performance by letting my laptop go at full speed but it would have likely crashed 5 minutes after I did so ... Doesn't bode well for people attempting to use this on machines that aren't as well specced.
Big minus - not even the commercial Skyplayer suffers from adverts mid programme but the adverts are in the 5 On Demand player. Can't even fast forward them. Bah. Can't blame them though, they have to pay the rent, without the ads we wouldn't have the catch up service and you can always alt+tab away to check email & stuff.
Verdict - early days here, they'll hopefully have the time and cash to introduce improvements that make the player more efficient.
So - summary time :-)
Things have moved on a bit since On Demand facilities got introduced and they've improved over time. BBC's iPlayer in particular is particularly impressive (not least cos it lets me watch Grand Prix at the same time as Cricket !) and hopefully 5's offering will improve to match it.
Because episodes only tend to be available for a week or so, they won't replace Digital Video Recorders, except when the DVRs have issues like the V+ box with the Doctor Who's (attempting to schedule a recording of the first show on a channel with a turn-on time was crashing the box). And the picture quality and most importantly the sound is better off DVD. Questions are also present on equipment compatibility, like the roundhole-squarepeg of my laptop to telly hookup.
I better explain that DVD comment : Picture quality isn't visibly different (noting I don't have access to High-Def) but sound is. Both picture and sound are "broadcast" quality, i.e. picture is good but sound is just stereo. I've gotten used to the greater atmosphere of 5.1 playback off DVDs, which the streaming players don't offer.
That said though, the facility is improving into an excellent catch up service for stuff where you're not wanting to buy the DVDs. And it's great to see a facility like iPlayer get integrated into the V+ box :-)
I have access to On Demand telly via two conduits : my V+ cable TV box and the general internet via my laptop. I'm including the V+ box there as it has a collection of On Demand sources available to it, including BBC's iPlayer, ITV Net Player, 4 on Demand and the Virgin1 Player. I currently use it for watching stuff like the Doctor Who repeats, as the V+ box hooks up to a telly that my laptop isn't compatible with (explanation later).
How does the V+ manage ? The best description is "competent" :-) I only have an old CRT telly due to being forced to buy it at completely the wrong time ... (link attached for the "why"!) so it's not capable of showing HD. If it did, then I'd have the option to upgrade that "competent" a bit. As it is, BBC iPlayer through it gives playback as you'd expect to see on a live broadcast or from a recording. The interface on the V+ box is a little slow but that and a tendency for it to take a few hours for shows to become available are the only drawbacks.
So a good showing from the V+ box, the only downsides being noticed because I'm an impatient button presser :-)
How about the laptop ? Here's the techie part :-)
My current laptop is a G70-120EA made by Hewlett Packard. It's powered by an Intel Core 2 Duo T5800 capable of running at 2GHz. It's got 3GB of RAM and it's hooked up via wifi-G to a 10Mb/s internet connection. The internet comes in through a cable modem hooked up to a Linksys WRT54G2 wifi-router. However, I have to de-rate the cpu (Power Options) by 50% to stop it overheating due to a duff cooling fan. There's still plenty of power available in there though. Unfortunately I have to suffer watching via the laptop screen, due to my old CRT telly not having inputs that can take the D-SUB and HDMI outputs from the laptop. Upside, there's a 17" screen on the laptop :-)
I've tried 3 internet based on-demand services so far : SkyPlayer, BBC iPlayer and Channel 5's On Demand service. How do each fare ?
Sky Player : In the final days of me being with Sky, this allowed me to keep up with a few shows that my Sky Box + Dish weren't able to pick up. I've not used it since switching away from Sky though, so my knowledge is a little old. Impressions - high quality playback, no issues with download rates, good choice for movies etc but limited otherwise.
All On Demand suffers a little from lack of choice, you're dependent on what the providers of the service are interested in squirting down the pipe. Some providers are better than others and for what they don't show, there's always DVDs :-)
Back to Sky Player - very competent on downloaded programmes, although live streaming was VERY susceptible to jamming via other internet activity. As in, I used their streaming Sky Player News programme to test the Airfoil utility I've described in a post below and the conflicting streams rendered the news programme unwatchable. That's about 700kbits/s coming in and 1Mb/s going out. There were other issues being caused by glitches in their login code, where the Skyplayer app would kick you out, unless you knew the trick to logging in. It also required its own player application, although IIRC that branched to Windows Media Player.
(note - this could also have been a router issue, I've changed from a rubbish Philips to the mostly good Linksys but can't remember when ... the conflicting stream issue could have been the Philips getting in the way, plus Airfoil streaming got kicked to touch for other reasons)
Verdict - Good for Sky owners :-) No use whatsoever for other people. Let me watch Star Wars Clone Wars when my Skybox decided it would block Sky Movies Premier. Last word here - Examine the T's & C's closely ... I couldn't get SkySports streams through it, even though I had that as part of my Skybox package.
BBC iPlayer : UK people will know (and love) this service well. It's been around for a while now (in internet terms !) and has evolved since day 1. If I called the V+ "competent", then this can only be described as "excellent". BBC make most of their programmes available quickly after they're broadcast and in the UK, it's free to view. No adverts either. Quality depends on the stream you're using :
Normal - uses about 750kbits/s bandwidth and is Not broadcast quality
High-Def - about 2-2.5Mbits/s and is definitely broadcast quality
I'm also able to do other stuff over the internet while iPlayer is doing its thing. Think frenzied internet browsing with an iPlayer window showing Grand Prix coverage while cricket is on the telly. (I will freely admit to being an Information Junkie)
Ok, Ok, that temptation to play was too much. I'm now listening to music from iTunes (Portishead) streaming over the network to remote speakers while an iPlayer window is playing back coverage from the earlier MotoGP. Here's how it behaves :
What you're seeing there is the output from a Vista gadget called Network meter, that I have monitoring the wifi coming and going from my laptop. The green line is approx 1Mbit/s going from laptop to my remote speakers via an Apple Airport Express. The yellow spikes are from iPlayer grabbing data from the server. They peak at 10Mbits/s, so it's taking its bites in at the maximum potential of my cable modem, with no interference in my music playing. That's probably due to buffering both in the Airport and from iPlayer.
iPlayer used to come in as a separate app but has compressed into being Flash now. That's good although Flash does come with certain vulnerabilities, which is why I use Firefox with the Flashblock app so I can control when Flash apps load. No compatibility issues to report there.
Verdict - they've steadily improved a service that's been outstanding for a while. Yet they've still improved it. Quality of playback is excellent, although it's giving me a Lol moment on the test I'm running now because the subtitles on the MotoGP coverage seem to be from a political environmental programme instead of MotoGP.
Finally, 5 On Demand : I checked this one out because I've been watching the series Warship on Channel 5. Normally I catch it off the V+ box recordings but for some reason, it decided to eat the final episode. Cue internet research ... and finding 5's On Demand service :-) Saves the day again, just like Skyplayer in the last days of my Skybox.
You need a login for this one, in the name of parental protection. That doesn't seem to achieve very much, as although it asks for an email and a date of birth, it doesn't request any bounceback confirmation. So the parental protection is torpedoed from the start because it's trivial to insert a false year into an age. There is email notification of the creation of a new account but because there's no bounceback authentication, it doesn't have to be valid.
Quality of playback ? Good but not as good as iPlayer. Possibly suffers from trying to be too good with an app that isn't as well developed as iPlayer. Instant comparisons are that playback is jumpy and the cpu runs hot. So the player isn't as efficient as iPlayer. (Can't remember bandwidth consumption). Technically I could have boosted playback performance by letting my laptop go at full speed but it would have likely crashed 5 minutes after I did so ... Doesn't bode well for people attempting to use this on machines that aren't as well specced.
Big minus - not even the commercial Skyplayer suffers from adverts mid programme but the adverts are in the 5 On Demand player. Can't even fast forward them. Bah. Can't blame them though, they have to pay the rent, without the ads we wouldn't have the catch up service and you can always alt+tab away to check email & stuff.
Verdict - early days here, they'll hopefully have the time and cash to introduce improvements that make the player more efficient.
So - summary time :-)
Things have moved on a bit since On Demand facilities got introduced and they've improved over time. BBC's iPlayer in particular is particularly impressive (not least cos it lets me watch Grand Prix at the same time as Cricket !) and hopefully 5's offering will improve to match it.
Because episodes only tend to be available for a week or so, they won't replace Digital Video Recorders, except when the DVRs have issues like the V+ box with the Doctor Who's (attempting to schedule a recording of the first show on a channel with a turn-on time was crashing the box). And the picture quality and most importantly the sound is better off DVD. Questions are also present on equipment compatibility, like the roundhole-squarepeg of my laptop to telly hookup.
I better explain that DVD comment : Picture quality isn't visibly different (noting I don't have access to High-Def) but sound is. Both picture and sound are "broadcast" quality, i.e. picture is good but sound is just stereo. I've gotten used to the greater atmosphere of 5.1 playback off DVDs, which the streaming players don't offer.
That said though, the facility is improving into an excellent catch up service for stuff where you're not wanting to buy the DVDs. And it's great to see a facility like iPlayer get integrated into the V+ box :-)
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Malware sucks, MalwareBytes doesn't :-)
Just finished up the tidying up from being caught out ...
Cause - clicking on a link from a Facebook app that took me to a site that downloads software in return for "Warchips". Long story short, it was a quest to boost my chances in that particular game.
The symptom - clicking on links in Firefox (and presumably other browsers too judging by the folder structure of the Nastie) occasionally caused an extra new Firefox window to open, with an advert in it.
Fix attempt 1 - run a full machine Kaspersky scan. I'm surprised here cos Kaspersky is an AV well recognised for its ability to spot the nasties. Gotta admit, it spotted something suspicious while the installer software was running, which made me immediately cancel the install. But ... it didn't stop the Nastie getting in and it couldn't spot it on a full machine high sensitivity scan. Disappointing.
Fix attempt 2 - and this one is looking successful :-) - MalwareBytes Anti-Malware (search Google for MBAM) is getting a good reputation for being an excellent Nastie Squisher. I found it a couple of months ago when a colleague at work brought a sick laptop in. It had been infected by an adserver like mine. Bit different in its attack vector but same kind of theory.
Three hours later (to be fair to MBAM, this laptop is still operating at half power and Kaspersky was also scanning), the MBAM software had successfully identified all parts of the nastie and removed it.
Good job and thumbs up for MBAM :-)
I guess I probably got away with this one because I spotted the Nastie relatively quickly due to it being so intrusive. I should count myself lucky that it wasn't a keylogger sitting quietly in the background picking up the keystrokes. Although I'm probably not as vulnerable there cos I keep my passwords in (encrypted?) cookies where the keyloggers won't be reading the key taps.
Fingers crossed that this particular nastie (DoubleD) won't come back and big thanks to MalwareBytes for making that excellent piece of software.
Lesson - mind your IT Security ! And listen to your inner voice that says that you shouldn't install non-essential software ...
Cause - clicking on a link from a Facebook app that took me to a site that downloads software in return for "Warchips". Long story short, it was a quest to boost my chances in that particular game.
The symptom - clicking on links in Firefox (and presumably other browsers too judging by the folder structure of the Nastie) occasionally caused an extra new Firefox window to open, with an advert in it.
Fix attempt 1 - run a full machine Kaspersky scan. I'm surprised here cos Kaspersky is an AV well recognised for its ability to spot the nasties. Gotta admit, it spotted something suspicious while the installer software was running, which made me immediately cancel the install. But ... it didn't stop the Nastie getting in and it couldn't spot it on a full machine high sensitivity scan. Disappointing.
Fix attempt 2 - and this one is looking successful :-) - MalwareBytes Anti-Malware (search Google for MBAM) is getting a good reputation for being an excellent Nastie Squisher. I found it a couple of months ago when a colleague at work brought a sick laptop in. It had been infected by an adserver like mine. Bit different in its attack vector but same kind of theory.
Three hours later (to be fair to MBAM, this laptop is still operating at half power and Kaspersky was also scanning), the MBAM software had successfully identified all parts of the nastie and removed it.
Good job and thumbs up for MBAM :-)
I guess I probably got away with this one because I spotted the Nastie relatively quickly due to it being so intrusive. I should count myself lucky that it wasn't a keylogger sitting quietly in the background picking up the keystrokes. Although I'm probably not as vulnerable there cos I keep my passwords in (encrypted?) cookies where the keyloggers won't be reading the key taps.
Fingers crossed that this particular nastie (DoubleD) won't come back and big thanks to MalwareBytes for making that excellent piece of software.
Lesson - mind your IT Security ! And listen to your inner voice that says that you shouldn't install non-essential software ...
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