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Ok first major thing which is now added the core of xbox media centre. Yep Audioscrobbler support! At long last well after I suggested it here on this blog and here on the official forums. This is all timely with me adding the what I'm listening to, on the side of this blog now. It grabs the RSS feed from my audioscrobbler page and does some simple XSL transfromations to generate the side panel for this blog. Expect to see much more entries now my xbox can also add music I listen to during the weekend.

The other major change is the sad news that the Project Mayhem I and II skin support will be dropped. As I commented, I respect move to the newer Project Mayhem III skin but its too dark and I believe not as good version 2. I'm hoping to use version 2 for quite some time to come, and who knows I may keep on adding extras to it if no one else is interested.

There is also interface sound in the latest beta which I have played with but am not totally sure of. I grant you some people will like it but for me the start up sound was all I needed. Since the early April versions there has also been a lot of new scripts added, including a script which will check for the latest versions of scripts. One of my favorate scripts now I got 1meg broadband is consumption junction which streams nicely and makes me and sarah laugh, hurll, scream and gape. Scary place, its advertises its self as – new fresh sick free adult humor, tasteless dirty jokes, and free video clips. Anyhow its all fun and makes using xbmc even more great to use.

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I was just browsing around and noticed Blogmatrix have redone there website. But thats only the start, yep Sparks! is out of beta and is now on version 2.0 for Mac and PC it would seem. Theres a new pricing and business model too… Now not only do you get this great client for RSS, recording and podcasts but you can upload and record your own podcasts and store them on blogmatrix's 150 meg per user storage server as long as you only do 4 unique uploads a day. Which is ideal for podcasting really. Theres also a option to upgrade space and the customise the client for businesses and large scale operations. This is a serious shift because now you can listen to a podcast and reply with your own right there and then. Blogmatrix are even planning on turning files into torrents for you which would save so much hassle! With all the talk about 360 degrees recently, I would say this is pretty close to a complete 360 degree product and service – and I welcome the change of focus and sharp business move. Only one thing seems to be missing in my mind, if you read a RSS entry the only was to reply is via comments. For consistency wouldnt it be good to have some simple XML-RPC client built into Sparks! which would pingback or trackback to the article, entry, post you were just reading? I would dump w.bloggar like a shot if it did.

Just thinking about Jaeger's position now, I would like to see it have all the features of Sparks! but without the creation and recording internet radio features. So just improve on whats currently in it and take some features like del.icio.us posting and podcast/attachment download queue from Sparks! It would be a real shame if Jager just got forgotten behind this great service and application of Sparks! By the way, Doc Searls has a interesting piece to say about Blogmatrix, while Ross Rader doesnt really say anything but is all the way behind Sparks!

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I'm trying out the Amazon Rental DVD service at the moment. According to my account 3 Cracker DVD's were dispatched to my house yesterday. The cost is pretty good for 6 DVD's specially when placed against all the money I've spent at Blockbusters over the last few years. 6 DVD's a month is 10 pounds at Amazon.co.uk but Lisa is also considering a DVD rental service by Tesco which is only 8 pounds per month. Now I think its unlimited but everytime I view the page in Firefox it crashes the browser. This is the reason why bricks and morter stores like Tesco loose out so badly to there net rivals like Amazon!
I was also checking out a few other online rental stores and the price ranges from 7 pounds a month to 15 pounds a month. But I in the end choose Amazon because they have such a range of titles that none of the others (excluding Tesco because I cant check with the website issue) come close. And honestly I dont want the usual films I can get down Blockbusters thank you very much…
Anyhow I will see how it goes after a month and see if Tesco sort out there website! Shame on you Tesco, shopping works fine but film rental not so fine.

I recieved my Amazon DVD's this morning [22nd Feb 2005] and I have to say Amazon have done a amazing job on the packaging. You kinda of rip it one way and the DVD comes out in a slim plastic case then to send it back you just put it back and pull off a bit which hides glue to seal it up again. The whole thing is almost the size of the DVD and weights hardly nothing. Good service so far Amazon!

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United Kingdom Leads the World in TV Downloads from slashdot. Yep, no sh*t sherlock! I write this while watching some excellent Daily Shows with Sarah. The 17th Feb has a great piece about bloggers and journalists by the way. Usual torrents channels…

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Just recently I've downloaded a excellent freeware chess game on to my ipaq. It supports not only 5 different modes of difficulty but arranged games, playlistings for undoing moves, multiplayer and also a internet engine play. The last one hooks the ipaq up to a central server farm where you can play that instead of the local engine. Only for the hardcore chess player! The best I've been able to do is draw with the local machine on level 1, but I've only been playing for the last few days and havent played chess like this for ages. Anyhow, another thing I came across which is related is Thinking Machine 4, which looks like a Flash Chess game but turns into something alot more. Not only does the machine play you, but it shows influence and the moves the computer is thinking about playing! Its in the usual flash style very pretty but also quite amazing to see while playing.

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The guy behind What's up with Xbox media center has done a great piece about the python script interface for xbox media centre. Anyway I thought I'd point out the post, as this guy does a great job reporting on xbmc. Keep it up and it reminds me again I need to do some serious screen shots of the latest cvs build of xbmc. Project Mayhem II's new skin is so beautiful running on my widescreen TV. Would love to see it at 720p.

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I had to blog something about the Tivo Home Media Engine SDK which allows developers to write applications which run on version 2's of the TIVO software. Its a very good move by TIVO but as Jon Udell points out, its not as open as it will/could be. Anyhow, highlights of the blog post and podcast by Jon Udell
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Tivo uses MDNS to find applications on the local network, All the applications are written in Java using the SDK, the applications dont actually run on the TIVO box – the TIVO just plays it or displays it (as such), It always runs from a networked machine. I have to say its quite something, and would allow for some serious applications like shopping, home entertainment and home automation. The limitations include not being able to access the metadata from the recorded shows or the recorded shows themselves. I under legally why they cant do this but there has to be some kind of legal loop whole which could be exploited? I'm wondering if Xbox media center could make use of the SDK to provide cross platform fuctionality? Hoff touches on IP delivery of Content which is an obvious move for TIVO and could be a killer when you think about the problems people have with managing/storing content on there local machine. For example, Itunes allows you to add playlists and the like but TIVO would go one step beyond by suggesting content you may like based on your previous content.

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I hate it when newspapers make you signup to read content, so I'm going to post most of the piece up. If you want to read the whole thing this is the URL you need. I logged in with washingtonpost@dodgeit.com password nHWLDb8J. It may have changed when you read this so check the dodgeit mail account here. I think its quite good to see a quite balanced view on a open source project like XBMC from the large newspapers. Even if its in there Technews section. Yes I know Firefox and others have been covered to death, but XBMC is something very different. Officially there are not even any compiled binaries so you have to build it yourself from the sourcecode or of course wait till someone builds it and releases it on the net.

The most successful such effort may be XboxMediaCenter, or XBMC. This free program (www.xboxmediacenter.com) lets an Xbox connect to a wired or wireless home network and perform many more media-sharing tricks than Microsoft's Extender add-on allows.

Those kinds of capabilities normally require spending $250 or more for a separate wireless media receiver from such firms as D-Link Systems Inc., SlimDevices Inc. and Roku LLC.

For software created by hobbyists in their spare time, XBMC is surprisingly capable. As a music box, it plays a wide variety of music, including Web radio broadcasts as well as MP3, Windows Media, AAC, RealAudio and many other file types — excluding the copy-restricted files sold at such stores as iTunes, Wal-Mart and Napster. Pop a CD into your Xbox, and XBMC can even copy its tracks to the Xbox's hard drive in the format of your choice.

If you use Apple's iTunes, XBMC ties into that program's own sharing feature, providing access to all of your custom playlists.

Switching to video, XBMC supports an equally broad range of computer formats, including MPEG-4, DivX, QuickTime and RealVideo. If you have a ReplayTV digital video recorder on your home network, this software can even stream recorded shows from it for watching on the TV plugged into the Xbox. But although XBMC can play DVD movies, it can't display their menu screens. If you have a computer monitor or high-definition TV connected to the Xbox with the right cables, this software will also upgrade the Xbox's video output to high-definition resolutions.

Last, you can plug a standard computer keyboard and mouse into an XBMC-endowed Xbox (after you plug a $10 adapter into the Xbox's controller port) and browse a limited menu of Web content — not much more than weather forecasts and Internet Movie Database lookups — on your TV.

This program isn't for the technologically faint of heart, though. You can't load XBMC on a standard Xbox — you must modify one to accept this new program, either by soldering or plugging in a new chip inside the case or patching its software through arcane routines.

Such an Xbox “mod,” if you don't perform it yourself, will cost from $50 to $100 when done by a firm such as FriendTech Computer Ltd. (www.friendtech.com) or the private individuals who market the service on local forums such as Craigslist (www.craigslist.org).

More to the point, it will void the Xbox's warranty. Subscribers to Microsoft's Xbox Live service may also find themselves banned from it if their modified machines are detected by Microsoft's servers.

The company has frowned on these adaptations in part because they are often used to play pirated copies of games. “Microsoft investigates and makes case-by-case determinations as to whether specific mod chips enable piracy,” said Molly O'Donnell, a Microsoft spokeswoman.

That risk, however, hasn't discouraged Xbox tinkerers from experimenting. Among other odd achievements, they've managed to craft multiple Xbox versions of the Linux operating system that turn an Xbox into a full Internet PC. And for those who just want to play video games on an Xbox, another add-on lets it play titles for older game consoles such as the Sega Genesis and the Super Nintendo.

I would say its pretty fair wouldnt you say? Shame there were no pictures because its a thing of beautiful. This also reminds me that I should take some more pictures of the latest builds of XBMC…

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I'm still not very happy with using iTunes but with the DAAP support and Winamp coming to a slow end I'm forced to use it. I thought it was pretty cool that the xbox media centre supported DAAP, but hot on the heals of that comes WiFiTunes which is still in alpha but is GPL'ed. Yes it doesnt support AAC but I would never encode my stuff as AAC, but I can understand why this would put some people off who have whole playlists of AAC's. Its a real shame I cant use it at work because the Wifi is locked down. Oh link came from pocketpcthoughts. I did some experimenting in the office today with Toms Mac laptop, and it works quite well. Theres little controls, so once its playing its playing and so you cant jump around the music file yet! But it will play all the playlists no problem (even recently played and top rated) and the delay in connecting is small, like 5secs maximum over 802.11b. One thing we did discover, is the wifitunes doesnt seem to register as a user, so if you shutdown itunes you dont get the usual prompt asking if you want to boot other users off. Still very usable for a alpha.

It certainly beats using a streaming server setup to listen to music or podcasts in the bathroom without copying the file to SD first. Talking of which, My house is fully FM tuned using the iTrip style FM Transmiters which I believe are still not available in the UK. My main problem is the signal doesnt reach past the kitchen which is a bit of a pain. Anyway, I hooked it all up so I can now listen to something on the FM signal and choose another thing in the living room. Real multiple room audio, so Sarah can listen to the hits of the 80's in the bedroom or/and kitchen while I enjoy the sounds of Armin Van Buuren. 88.5 if you ever go past my house and are interested in what we may be liistening to…

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I went to the Video Forum 2005 exhibition yesterday, it was pretty boring but I did catch the BBC HD presentation which gave me a little to think about.

The first point which hit was the thought of using digital still cameras to create HDTV clips. Let me explain, my digital camera creates pictures of 4.33 megapixels which is about 2272 x 1704. Other resolutions bellow that are 2048 x 1536, 1600 x 1200, 1280 x 960, 1024 x 768 and of course 640 x 480. The first two (2272 x 1704 and 2048 x 1536) could easily beat the highest resolution of HDTV which is 1920 x 1200 progressive. So all you need to do is take 25 pictures or even 50 pictures of the scene at these resolutions and crop or reszie them to 1920 x 1200 then join them together at 25/50 frames a second to create the clip. Only 2 major problems, most digital cameras dont have native support for the 16:9 widescreen format we enjoy in the UK and also the biggest problem. Its going to be hell taking 25 or even 50 shots a second to create a short clip. At these resolutions a attached CF card would quickly fill up and you would need some way to get the information off quickly. Anyway this method is ideal for things that dont move much aka skies and landscapes (timelapse clips). Obviously this is not new to others
, who already do HDTV quality versions. The other thing I was thinking was that you could easily achive the lower quality HDTV resolutions (480p/i and 720p/i) on a digital camera and even on a good mobile phone! My Sanyo's 1.33mpx camera is able to do 1280 x 960. Yes the CCD and lens is bad but its possible with enough time and lots of editing.
By the way Andy King also stressed the need for real digital surround sound in HDTV recordings, which doesnt seem to bother alot of the boradcasters at the moment.

And I was also alerted to the successor to HDTV which is called UHDV. Here is the camera shot I took after the presentation by Andy King from BBC HD. Let me highlight the specs, if you dont want to look at the picture.
7680 x 4320 resolution, it will be 16 times higher than HDTV and creates a 32 mega pixel image for each frame! Its also meant to run at 60 frames a second! They also havent forgotten the surround sound. Shifting to a 22.2 Surround Sound setup. Which is 10 at ear level (suspect this will be the new rumoured Dolby 10.1 or 12.1 standard), 9 above and 3 below ear level plus 2 subs.

If you do the maths, all those sound channels and image pixels add up to a massive amount of data.

In test, an 18-minute UHDV video consumed 3.5TBs of storage (equivalent to about 750 DVD’s). The data was transmitted over 16 channels at a total rate of 24 Gb/s per second, thousands of times faster than a typical DSL connection.

By the way its been talked about on slashdot twice now.

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