Mac users, Have you ever wondered how you can ad video’s to iTunes and have them show up under the “TV Shows” headings? This is done via the files meta tags. To make adjusting the tags easy, download the free program Lostify from Major Geeks, and as you will see from the screen capture below, there are plenty of options that you can easily adjust to make your files appear where you want them.
The programs official description is:
Lostify is a metadata tagger for MP4 videos. It runs on Mac OS X, and the tags it produces aim to be compatible with iTunes, the iPod video (5G), and Front Row. This means that after you tag a video using Lostify, it will show up in iTunes, iPod and Front Row appropriately as a TV Show, Music Video, etc., with all the episode information, season information, etc. intact.
Windows Users, The best I can find for you is a program called Atomic Parsley. It’s a command line tool, and free, but I don’t think you will be very happy with it. I Will keep searching for an equivalent and post here if/when I find one.
I have been extremely caught up in “Apple Magic” lately, and I was all set to buy the new Apple TV 2. Upon digging deeper, I found that Sir Stevie doesn’t want us watching those crude .avi files on his gorgeous looking, ultra small box with an insanely slick user interface. BOO! Trouble is, EVERY video I have on my FreeBSD FREENAS server (200+) is in an AVI container encoded with the open source XVID codec, or in the case of my HD Vids, MKV format. In other words, the basic free open source standard formats that everybody is using when sharing video on the internet. All the TV shows and video’s I converted from VHS video cassettes, the home movies from the many video cameras we have had, and a swag of other video’s we have accumulated over the last 20 years, have all ended up in AVI format. When I have wanted to send a video to somebody, I have found that pretty much everybody who can receive a video to watch on their computer, can watch an AVI, so that has become my standard format when creating/saving video. The problem is though, Sir Stevie wants you to convert all of those videos to his Quicktime based formats, and if you don’t comply, you can’t watch your videos on his device….DOUBLE BOO!
Today, I set out to look at the D-Link Boxee as I learned it was capable of plaving AVI’s, and along the way I discovered Western Digital’s WD LIVE TV HUB. After 5-10 minutes on the iPhone researching, we left Office Works with one!
Within 5 minutes of un-boxing it, it was up and running. All I had to connect was the power cord, a HDMI cable to the TV, and a Ethernet cable to my network/internet connection. It updated its own firmware quickly and automatically, and before long I was watching my videos from my FreeBSD FREENAS server on my Samsung LCD TV via the WD TV Live Hub
I am VERY Impressed with this device, and will post updates as they arise.
Just like most browsers, Safari, on your iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad has a cache, it stores cookies, and keeps a record of your history. Also like other browsers, you notice a boost in performance if you clean it from time to time.
The Atari 2600 wasn’t the only major Tech invention that took my interest in 1980. For me, this little beauty was another hot topic.
The Sony Walkman. My parents wouldn’t let me have one because I would go deaf from the headphones (not to mention satan penetrating my brain with his evil hip gyrating sin induced melodies such as Don’t stop til you get enough by Michael Jackson) . It wasn’t long before everybody at school had one. They were all the fashion, and they were all “The Craze”, but they were also “Really good”. This is one of those devices that is fun to reflect back on. We still carry music in our pockets today, but this battery powered audio cassette player really was the first portable music player of note……until the batteries went flat. Eventually I did get one, but it was long after 1980, and I bought it with my own money once I started working, in 1988. Today, some 23 years later, yes my hearing is damaged, but I can confidently say it is not from the Walkman. Perhaps fixing/tuning chainsaws and being the drummer in a fairly active hard rock/metal band for the majority of that time contributed.
Another welcome change in 1980 was the end of the HMV record player (My folks loved HMV and Rank Arena….in case you hadn’t already noticed) like the one pictured below:
It was replaced with (Surprise Surprise) a Rank Arena component stereo system similar to this Akai set.
We also saw the introduction of the Video Cassette Recorder. Ours was a “Top Loader”. This machine appeared way before infra-red, so the remote control had a looooong wire that you plugged in. It was pretty cool! The first movie we watched on this thing as a family was Benji – I cried, and cried, and cried.
I cant even begin to tell you the amount of times I got smacked down by my father for tripping over that remote cord.
This was probably the first handheld gaming device I laid eyes on. My brother owned it, and I wanted it so bad – I did get to play with it from time to time, but would have much rathered it belonged to me instead of him
April 1979, I remember it so well. The next 8 months were to be the most painful of my life.
The girl behind me to the right is Lana Baynon – she was my first kiss!
She kissed me and I had no idea what she was doing. I really wanted her to do it again, but she never did.
After relentlessly pestering my parents for my very own Atari 2600, they caved in and said I could have one for Christmas…….8 months away. Now, this is where the story gets cruel. My parents were the most horrible people in the world to me and did something, that words just can’t describe. They went and bought it a day or two later, and made sure I saw them bring it home, and into the house. Then, they hid it until Christmas time. How could these people, my parents, be SO cruel to me. Just knowing it was in the house was a torture beyond comprehension. The anguish and mental trauma I endured would damage me forever. There was nothing I could do, but count the days. This actually made it worse. At any time I could tell you the amount of days remaining in my sentence. I was trying so hard to forget about it. I was trying hard not to count. Being aware of how long I had to wait seemed to slow everything down.
Eventually, the big day arrived. December 25, 1979. I walked into the loungeroom on Christmas morning, and there it was. I could see it, I could touch it, I could take it out of the box, but dad had to wire it in to the Rank Arena color tv, because I wasn’t allowed behind it. I got one game with it. Defender.
httpv://youtu.be/sFa5Lgu11DE
Now, you would think this was a welcome relief from 8 months of pure agony. To a point, it was. This is where family tradition became a factor. Dad took his sweet time wiring it in, and I got to play Defender for about 30 mins, before the command to “Shut it down” came. We had to go to my grandparents place, because that’s just what you have to do on Christmas day! I was like a freaking bomb ready to explode. 8 Months of pure suffering, a 30 minute tease, and then of to the grandparents place for the rest of the day, where they could pull my cheek, and rub my hair, and ooh and ahh over how big I had gotten.
Let your imagine run wild, and visual as far as your mind will allow, just how pissed off I was! Got it? Multiply that by 1000, and you may be in the same state as the ball park! I was ready to murder!
In time I did to get to use my new Atari 2600. I loved it so much. Mum would come and tell me to turn it off, and go outside and ride my bike and get fresh air. “What on earth would I want to do that for?”. She was as relentless in this instance as I was about the purchase of the device. She made it on to “My List” with this behavior. She was marked. I had my eye on her!
To repay my inhumanely cruel parents for the 8 months of brutality, I set about acquiring game cartridges. The “Defender” game was stupid now. I’d played it thousands of times. That was the beauty of the 2600. Unlike the Hanimex unit, which had four different games built in, the Atari was limitless. There were dozens of game cartridges available for purchase. And I made sure my parents had no doubt as to which ones I needed. It wasn’t “want”, it was “NEED”. The first on the list was “Indy 500”. A car racing game, that also came with new controllers. In place of the “Joystick”, Indy 500 required “Paddles”. These were similar to the controls of the Hanimex game console.
httpv://youtu.be/LBu4UmPVNeY
The new year was called 1980. The 80’s were here! More happier about that I could not be, nor have I been since. The 80’s were “The Days”. So much cool stuff happened in the 80’s.
After my brother enjoyed punishing me for a year or so on the Hanimex game console, We noted new, better, color games appearing. These units were at the local milk-bar. The first table I recall was Space Invaders. It was 20c to play, and you got 3 “lifes”.
It was a gigantic leap forward from the pinball machines we were playing previously. There was also another game table out at that time, some yellow thing called PacMan that ate stuff. It was not anywhere as near as cool as shooting aliens though!
httpv://youtu.be/DHaQ3XSyaXk
The fire in me was well and truly lit. I was hooked. Video games were the greatest things in the world to me. In 1978 I heard about a new game console called Atari.
I started seeing them in the mail out catalogs from K-Mart. The games looked great! The first time I saw one in the flesh was my cousin….again. We played “Combat”. We each had a tank, and the object of the game was to shoot each other, which I thought was awesome. Because I had never played one before, and he owned the unit, he too took great enjoyment at thrashing me. I didn’t mind though. This was the coolest thing I had ever seen. Because it was hooked up to their color TV, this one really was in color.
httpv://youtu.be/4Ri37_KhsRw
This was the beginning of the golden age of video games for me, and the beginning of a very long and enjoyable relationship with the Atari 2600.
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The programs official description is:
httpv://youtu.be/28lv3K0pje0
