The Guide to the Life and Times of Craig Lorentzen

Gnome-Shell Multimonitor support oddity

2012-02-10T12:52:00.002-05:00

If anyone has used Gnome-shell with a second monitor you may have run into an unexpected behavior. The secondary monitor, with a laptop the likely more expensive much better monitor, is statically stuck to the first workspace. It does not follow workspace switching rules like we are all used to in prior gnome releases, and KDE and LXDE and XFCE and all other Desktop Environments I have used. Instead it seems one developer feels that the normal use case for a secondary monitor is to display something static and that it should not follow the rest of the users activity.

http://blogs.gnome.org/alexl/2011/03/22/multimonitor-support-in-gnome-shell/

In most typical cases the external monitor is used to show something static, like always visible information, a presentation on a projector, or a movie on a TV.

I very much disagree with this assessment. The only way I can work effectively in my job is to have the extra space and be able to segment tasks and applications on different workspaces and be able to know that when a switch to a workspace that the entire desktop is how I last left it on that workspace.

Anyways, thanks to a comment in the discussion for this post we have a fix.
http://blogs.gnome.org/alexl/2011/03/22/multimonitor-support-in-gnome-shell/comment-page-1/#comment-1374

Ok guys, here a hint to deactivate the stickyness of the secondary monitor (works for me on natty):

* start gconf-editor
* open /desktop/gnome/shell/windows
* deactivate workspaces_only_on_primary

Unfortunately gnome-shell is still rather unusable for getting work done. I use XFCE as my primary Desktop Environment now...but still install gedit and nautilus because they are better tools than the XFCE alternatives.

Install Java 6 on Ubuntu 11.10

2012-02-10T11:52:00.004-05:00

As mode people have noticed Canonical is no-longer providing the Sun Java Plugin via the Partner repository. It is said this is due to a licensing issue. Anyways, if you want to install and replace OpenJDK on Ubuntu 11.10 please follow method 2 from the link below

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ferramroberto/java
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install sun-java6-jre sun-java6-plugin sun-java6-fonts

You probably also want to remove the existing openJDK and icedtea as well. You can do that with the following command

sudo apt-get remove icedtea-* openjkd-*

I don't remember the exact ones which were installed, however, the above will certainly remove all of them.

CCIE Security #34370

2012-01-30T10:32:00.001-05:00

'Nuff Said

Awesom Quick and Easy FTP Server (Anonymous)

2012-01-18T11:15:00.002-05:00

Check out this guys post. Very nice
http://www.g-loaded.eu/2008/12/02/set-up-an-anonymous-ftp-server-with-vsftpd-in-less-than-a-minute/

XBMC Stable (Darhma) For Ubuntu 11.10

2012-01-12T17:43:00.007-05:00

Ubuntu 11.10 - Oneiric Ocelot

XBMC 10.1 can be installed from the stable repository provided by XBMC Nathan Rennie-Waldock on Ubuntu 11.10 "Oneiric Ocelot"

sudo apt-add-repository ppa:nathan-renniewaldock/xbmc-old-stable
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install xbmc

Google Translated from
http://www.loggn.de/ubuntu-xbmc-repository-10-1-dharma-und-11-0-pre-mit-und-ohne-pvr/
text reworked by me.

UPDATE: It looks like the PPA is now updated to Eden. Unfortunately Eden has been somewhat unstable for me.

UODATE2: Updated the PPA to the "old stable" for Dharma.

Oldy but still a goody Cisco IPSec Support in Debian Linux (vpnc)

2011-12-15T18:28:00.002-05:00

sudo apt-get install vpnc network-manager-vpnc network-manager-vpnc-gnome

How to build pianobar in Ubuntu, easiest way using ubuntu development packages

2011-10-21T10:48:00.004-04:00

sudo apt-get install git-core libmad0-dev libfaad-dev libao-dev gnutls-dev

mkdir git
cd git

git clone https://github.com/PromyLOPh/pianobar.git

cd pianobar

make
sudo make install

The make install will install the application after building so that any user can type pianobar into the shell and launch it from a common location.

More details can be found here in case you want to be fancier and not install libmad or libfaad. You will need one of the two.

libmad is an audio decoder supporting MPEG-1, MPEG-2, as well as the de facto MPEG 2.5 format. Layers I, II, III (i.e. MP3) fully implemented.
libfaad is is an open source MPEG-4 and MPEG-2 AAC decoder
libao is a cross platform audio output library

Ubuntu 11.10, hate it?

2011-10-14T11:10:00.005-04:00

Why is Ubuntu destroying all of my existing functionality and utility in each new Ubuntu release?

1. Synergy is a core requirement for me. I have it setup to run at boot through GDM...but 11.10 changes to LightDM and I see no way to configure lightDM to run synergy for me. So I needed to find a keyboard, attach it to the box I have managed solely via syergy for the last two years, since 9.04 and login manually.

Fix to restore dgm

http://www.webupd8.org/2011/07/how-to-switch-between-gdm-lightdm-or.html

2. I had to again change from Unity to ubuntu classic after 11.04 I made the same change.

http://www.webupd8.org/2011/08/installing-using-classic-gnome-desktop.html

3. The inability to boot for some people is awesome too.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1859799

4. Global Menu is shit. In Mac OS X it is okay...but this just doesn't work for me.

http://www.addictivetips.com/ubuntu-linux-tips/how-to-disable-global-menu-in-ubuntu-11-10-tip/

I Give up on Ubuntu 11.x, going to re-install with 10.04 LTS and then evaluate other Distros as replacements.

Ubuntu 11.04 if you hate the new scrollbars

2011-09-30T12:11:00.002-04:00

There are two solutions provided below on how to rest back to the 10.10 srollbar style.

http://www.webupd8.org/2011/04/how-to-disable-overlay-scrollbars-in.html

I used

sudo su
echo "export LIBOVERLAY_SCROLLBAR=0" > /etc/X11/Xsession.d/80overlayscrollbars

Ubuntu FF7 beta PPA

2011-08-29T16:42:00.001-04:00

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mozillateam/firefox-next
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

Obviously when 7.0 comes out officially this firefox-next PPA will be for 8.0

Did I mention that I dislike this new numbering scheme?

Duke Nukem Forever First Thoughts

2011-06-19T11:29:00.009-04:00

My Close friends will know that I went to E3 a couple weeks ago. While there I got my first taste of the gameplay for Duke Nukem Forever (DNF), released by 2K Games after an extended development by 3D Realms, Triptych Games, Piranha Games, and finally Gearbox software.

At E3 I really enjoyed the fast paced Capture the Flag...err Babe mode. It is a little odd that the ultimate badass can only cary two weapons but, I chalked that up to the modern style of games that only give you 1/2 slots. Anyway my team won and I killed a good number of gamers and scored with multiple babes.

Recently I was able to get my hands on the DNF demo and played the two levels provided. Both levels were very linear. The first one killing the big alien with rockets was boring as all you need to do was fire and strafe...then pickup the rocket drops. The second level, the required Vehicle section of all games today, felt like driving a remote control car and the scripted Out of Gas was annoying as it doesn't take into considering anything around how you drove.

Now onto the enemies. In this demo we get three enemies. Big ass alien Cyclops (easy), the Pig Cop, and some little alien scuttlers. My main question is, why do the pigmen no longer wear police uniforms? The police uniforms were one of the Duke staples of irreverent silly comedy. Below find pictures to compare

Original Pig Cop	DNF Pig Cop

The other issue is that the pig cops blend into the background of the level since they are grey/yellowish-brown and so is the sand.

Just some first thoughts. 2K will eventually get my money and I will probably enjoy this game but it will feel like a mashup of other better games.

Synergy+ + Synergy = Synergy-FOSS

2011-04-05T13:22:00.003-04:00

Synergy is not dead...if you wish to control multiple computers from one keyboard and mouse via a local network Synergy is your friend. Check it out

http://synergy-foss.org/

Where did Synergy+ go?

Synergy+ and Synergy have now merged! We'll still be using the old synergy-plus source code repository and mailing lists (there's no reason to migrate away). A bit of history for the newcomers... Chris Schoeneman created the original version of Synergy, but temporarily stopped development in 2006. Since the demand for updates was so massive, Synergy+ was started by Sorin Sbârnea and Nick Bolton in 2009 to provide support and bug fixes. While maintaining version 1, we are also working on version 2, which will see more stable support for newer operating system versions.

Upgrade Firefox in Ubuntu 10 to Firefox 4

2011-04-01T14:03:00.004-04:00

Source: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1712247

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mozillateam/firefox-stable
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade or sudo apt-get install firefox ubufox

This repository provides the current mozilla release of firefox, in this case Firefox 4.0.

Bonus: I have seen others complain, and so have I, that the ubuntu language packs get stuck on firefox, are not compatible with 4.0, and are just useless.

To remove these you can remove the langpack directories (using root privileges) from
/usr/lib/firefox-addons/extensions

cd /usr/lib/firefox-addons/extensions
sudo rm -rf *langpack*

Please keep in mind this may be removing more than just the old 3.6 language packs. Please be careful and understand what you are doing before doing this.

Why don't electronics manufactures provide firmware changelogs?

2011-03-12T16:21:00.002-05:00

Just a quick editorial. I currently own a Samsung BDP-1590 Blu-ray player, and a Vizio XVT553SV Television. When I boot these devices up, just like all modern home theater electronics with Internet access, they check to ensure I am running the latest firmware. If I am not currently running the latest firmware they will 1) Ask if I would like to upgrade (Samsung) or 2) will upgrade immediately (Vizio) without a choice. While I will 99.999% of the time allow the upgrade I do like Samsung's request to upgrade better than Vizio's. But, this is not the core of my editorial.

Everytime one of these firmware upgrades is done I wonder, "What is being changed?" I work for a major Networking company, and anytime we release a new version of code we also put out release-notes. I wonder where these release-notes/changelogs are with regards to the Samsung's, Vizio's, Sony's, Panasonic's...etc is. It would be nice to know what the upgrade will do, and what if any new features I should test after the upgrade.

Major electronics manufacturers, can we please get a publicly reviewable list of the changes in each firmware? It would be very nice, for those of us who care about out products, to know exactly what bugs should be fixed and what new features are introduced. If we know what was changed we can better understand our products and should be able to get the most out of our investment. This shadowy upgrade process that is currently used does not instill confidence in the products or your company. I for one would hold you in even higher esteme if I could point to these changelog documents and say, yes they found the issue I notice and fixed it...or just to say, hey look a new feature, I wonder what that does.

Just my thoughts as a technical expert in computers and home theater electronics enthusiast.

Vizio Theater 3D

2011-01-29T21:03:00.004-05:00

Vizio, a USA based budget friendly TV manufacture, is releasing 3D TVs using what they call "Theater 3D". This is a Passive 3D technology which works in a similar fashion to a theater. Instead of using the bulky, and expensive, active glasses which many other manufacturers are using, the Vizio technique is to do the same light polarization as is done in theaters. The big difference, and problem, is that with the TV you must use half the lines for the right eye, and half for the left eye, thus dropping the verticle resolution of your media from 1080 lines to 540 lines. The resulting softness in the image will be a deal breaker for many...but will the cost reduction and simplicity be enough to curry favor with many?

I think that they will need a fix/workaround by making new LCD pannels which provide 1920x2160 resolutions (double the vertical resolution) and line double for normal (2D content) should look the same to the end user, but use this double vertical resolution so that when we run 3D we keep the same 1080 lines of resolution for both eyes....I am not sure how well this would work...just an idea.

Please note that Vizio has both Active and Passive style 3D TVs so just be sure to evaluate all of your options when deciding on a new TV as Vizio still might provide a TV which will match your desired quality with 3D and your budget.

For now it looks like Active Shutter is still the way to go as it continues to provide crisper images with higher resolution. Just my 2 cents.

Steam, Penumbra: Overture, native in Linux

2010-12-30T21:56:00.007-05:00

1. Copy the redist folder from the Steam\steamapps\common\penumbra overture directory anywhere on your linux system.
Default: C:\Program Files\Steam\steamapps\common\penumbra overture
The redist folder contains the actual Penumbra binaries and resources that the game uses.

2. Download and run the Penumbra: Overture Linux Patch, pointing the installer to the location where you placed your Penumbra: Overture installation.
http://support.frictionalgames.com/21/
As of this writing patch version is 1.1. This will get you the current Linux libraries to install into the copied redist folder.

3. Download the Linux binary and extract it to the Penumbra: Overture directory where you installed the patch.
http://www.frictionalgames.com/forum/announcement-4.html

Use the penumbra.bin file.

NOTE: If you don't use that binary you will encounter a failure to launch the game where it will ask you for a serial number.

This may also work with the other Penumbra games, however, I haven't downloaded them yet to test.

Command and counquer originals free and legal.

2010-12-27T12:38:00.006-05:00

http://www.commandandconquer.com/classic

I may be late to the party but, EA/Westwood have released the original C&C: Tiberian Dawn, Red Alert, and Tiberian Sun for free download. Check it out, these games are still fun even though the graphics may be lacking...

Ubuntu: Thunderbird 3.1 PPA

2010-07-26T12:33:00.002-04:00

Below is a link to an article about the availability of thunderbird 3.1 PPA for Ubuntu. It was useful to me so I thought it would be good to post.

http://www.webupd8.org/2010/07/thunderbird-31-ubuntu-ppa-repository.html

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ricotz/ppa && sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install thunderbird

UPDATE: I no longer recommend this ppa. I recommend the mozilla team, stable, ppas
Firefox: https://launchpad.net/~mozillateam/+archive/firefox-stable
Thunderbird: https://launchpad.net/~mozillateam/+archive/thunderbird-stable

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mozillateam/firefox-stable
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mozillateam/thunderbird-stable
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install firefox thunderbird

Outlook Users - Please Disable Miscrosofts TNEF format

2010-04-16T09:30:00.001-04:00

I am sick and tired of receiving emails with an attachment named winmail.dat when I am expecting a screenshot.

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Winmail.dat_attachments
-----
Disabling TNEF in Outlook

The sender can avoid sending TNEF attachments by by turning off TNEF in Outlook. When Outlook is configured to send e-mail in "Outlook Rich Text Format", it may use TNEF. When it sends in "HTML" or "Plain Text", it uses standard, compatible formats. There are two options for disbling TNEF:

In at least Outlook 2002 (a.k.a. Outlook XP) and Outlook 2003, if it's being used at a business, the following is recommended to ensure compatibility with corporate mail systems:

1. On the "Tools" menu, click "Options", then click the "Mail Format" tab, and then the "Internet Format" button.
2. Set "When sending Outlook Rich Text messages to Internet ..." to either "Convert to HTML format" or "Convert to Plain Text format".

In all versions of Outlook, you can disable TNEF completely:

1. On the "Tools" menu, click "Options", and then click the "Mail Format" tab.
2. In the "Send in this message format" list, click "Plain Text" or "HTML", and then click "OK".
-----

Thunderbird and Lightning, Control C

2010-03-31T14:06:00.003-04:00

It has been annoying me for awhile that when I wanted to copy the Subject of an email via Thunderbird I had to right click and select copy, Ctrl-C wouldn't work. I recently found the bug and it has to do with Lighning

Bug 521003 or 544046 which might be a duplicate.

Just thought since I was happy to find it I'd post it and see if it helps others.

Rock Paper Scissor

2010-02-06T13:03:00.000-05:00

Rock crushes scissor

ffdshow

2010-01-17T22:59:00.002-05:00

As you may know, since early 2002, the best way to ensure good video play back on a Windows PC was to install the ffdshow codec. FFDshow by Milan Cutka is a Directshow wrapper for a few codecs including libavcodec and ffmpeg, as well as many filters including cropping, resize, subtitles and more. This made ffdshow both a quick and easy way to ensure playback of almost any audio/video file in a Directshow based player...it also makes for amazing control for power users.

Anyways, ffdshow was abandoned by Milan in late 2004 and has since been picked up by another team as the ffdshow-tryouts fork. This fork has been continuing the example of Milan for having both massively simple to use as well as many expert features, woo!...

Recently ffdshow-tryouts have added DXVA support for H264 and VC-1, so now ffdshow-tryouts can use the video card (GPU) to offload processing of some content. Unfortunately the DXVA implementation is not as mature as Media Player Classic - Home Cinema's Video Decoder (MPC-HC). I am sure that the team will work to fix all the issues that I am seeing in build 3200. albain and Tal are great people.

Please do checkout ffdshow-tryouts (http://www.ffdshow.info/) and MPC-HC + Standalone filters (http://mpc-hc.sourceforge.net/).

Here is the issue I am seeing. With some H264 videos there is a jitter, like two frames get out of order. Maybe this is an issue with the ordering from the splitter and/or ffdshow is not picking up the ordering. I would use the MPCVidDec codec and enable to DXVA codes there and disable H264/VC-1 decoding in ffdshow for now.

I hope this helps open some eyes to a wonderful opensource project that is keeping up amazing quality video and audio decoding for Windows PCs.

Windows 7 Start Menu Search doesn;t wiork

2010-01-12T20:54:00.002-05:00

I had an issue recently where the start menu would not search properly. I found this site
http://www.troublefixers.com/fix-windows-7-start-menu-search-problem/
Deleting the registry key it said to fixed the issue ([HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\FolderTypes\{EF87B4CB-F2CE-4785-8658-4CA6C63E38C6}]). What the heck?

HalfLife 2 Node graph out of date/ AI disabled

2009-08-15T21:44:00.004-04:00

Howdy internet gamer kids. I don't know how many of you are into Half Life 2, I just started to play it again today on my newly installed Windows 7 x64 install and see this note in the upper right hand corner "64-bit mode active", reading this I was kind of excited, woo get to use the 64-bits to full effect, yes.

Anyways, my happiness was quickly replaced with annoyance. Each map start would have a message "Node graph data out of data" and something about recompiling or whatever...I thought fine, recompile I see no slow down or issue.

As I approached the doctors building I then see a statement "AI disabled" which stays on the screen in the lower right quadrant of the screen. Guess what all AI objects stopped working; pigeons sat around, and the swat like guys didn't attack me so that Alyx could come rescue me. Oh boy how can I play the game if the computer has been lobotomized?

I did a quick search for AI disabled what was returned was a console command to disable/re-enable the ai "ai_disable" which seems to be a Boolean variable. Pulling the console down "~" (remember that you must have enabled to console "developer access" in the Advanced keyboard settings) "ai_disable 0" allowed me at times to re-enable the AI and sometimes not.

With the AI re-enabled I was able to proceed past the attack and meet Alyx. Now Alyx calls the elevator to take us down to find the doctor, however, she cannot seem to see that the elevator is there or just doesn't know how to walk into the elevator. My hypothesis is that the rebuilt node graph is inaccurate or not working. With the help of some threads on steampowered forums I was able to add an automatically executed fixer to disable the node graph updates "ai_norebuildgraph "1"" with this in place I have not yet had another issue. I am midway through the lake map and hope that I see no further issues at all.

So in summary
1. Valve, please put someone on fixing the 64-bit build of HL2.
2. For anyone having trouble, I would recommend adding this auto command. or
3. You can also try running in 32-bit mode, add the -32bit launch option, in 32bit mode I had crash issues when at the doctors for teleporting so YMMV *Your Mileage May Vary".

Happy Gaming,
Craig

Wolfenstein 3D, still fun after all these years.

2009-07-12T01:01:00.002-04:00

Just finished re-playing Wolfenstein 3D using NewWolf a OpenGL (video) and SDL (audio) rewrite of the engine. A little issue is that after killing each of the Boss's it doesn't end the map but, whatever you know you did it. It's a dead project but, it is the best Wolf3D engine rewrite.

The game is still hard, fun, and can get your blood pumping when you come around a corner and face down the Blue machine-gunner. And who doesn't like killing Nazi's (ah when good and bad was so black and white), except maybe German's. The map (TAB) gives you a little bit of a cheat at finding secrets. Be careful as you might go bleary eyed through some of the maps where the secrets are like impossible to get to all of them.

You'll be amazed by some of the great design and gameplay mechanics that were ahead of the games time, including enemies that patrol, specialized sounds (e.g. things farther away are softer than those that are close up, also things on the left and right are actually setup that way). You might want to search for the original game, not sure if the full version is legal to download, so that you can also revel in the nostalgia inducing game with NewWolf.

Apparently my musical tastes are not in the US iTunes store

2009-05-21T19:21:00.005-04:00

Something is either a) horribly wrong with me, or b) horribly right.

MC Chris For the Win

2009-05-17T08:32:00.003-04:00

Friday I went out to Cat's Cradle in Carrboro, NC (www.catscradle.com) to see MC Chris Live. It was amazingly fun. I only sat down once in the hour long set by MC Chris. The opening set by Whole Wheat Bread was a lot of fun too.

Anyways, check out MC Chris' Left 4 Dead rant on youtube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kje_iluojts

240Hz? Why?

2009-03-20T19:25:00.003-04:00

So, you might have read one of my previous posts discussing 120Hz, the technologies and what they solve. I recently read that Sony has released a 240Hz model, I am at a lose as to what this solves, it only allows there SmoothMotion, Automotion, whatever interpolation algorithm more chances to change the original picture to something new.

As we know, traditional NTSC broadcasts are 60Hz (30fps), movies are 24Hz (24fps) and Digital broadcast is an amalgam of 24Hz (24fps) and0 60Hz (both 30fps and 60fps for interlaced and progressive). And we also know that these smoothing techniques are interpolation and create images that were never captured by the camera. So bottom line, 120Hz covers the entire spectrum of frame rates and there is no reason for 240Hz.

This is the same argument I had with European countries and the 100Hz LCD panels. In Europe the two primary analog transmission styles were PAL and SECAM both of which where 50Hz (25fps) and films are already modified (read slowed slightly) to be 25Hz (25fps)...so 50Hz covers both segments, 100Hz is unneeded and does not cover 24Hz (24fps)...so what are these companies thinking?

Oh wait, I know they are thinking that they can make a buck off of people who either a) do not understand film/video or b) just want the prestige of owning the latest and greatest gadget.

Anyways, enough of my rant. Please note, this discussion is only for LCD technology flat-panel displays.

Snow in NC?!!!

2009-02-01T16:00:00.003-05:00

Check out some pics I took of the snow a few weeks ago.

Click the Image.

120Hz Importance to a consumer

2008-12-26T11:36:00.004-05:00

This is an email I wrote to a group at the office explaining 120Hz with respect to HD TV sets. (Keep in mind this is written for an American audience, so I used the NTSC standard 30fps (60 fields/second). European countries have a different electrical system which operates at 50Hz thus there television standards (SECAM, PAL) were defined as 25fps (50 fields/second)
-----
There is a lot of incorrect information out there about 120Hz. There are two separate technologies and problems being solved, however, most sales people cannot separate them.

So first let us define the problems
1. Jutter/Judder (SP) - This is when the image appears to stutter on sweeping camera moves or similar. Judder occurs because of a difference between the refresh rate of the display device and the frame rate of the source.

2. Motion Blur - This is an artifact of the fact that all video/film is moving pictures (e.g. sampled). The blur occurs because our eyes bridge the gap between frames.

Below we will define the two technologies which are unfortunately both refered to as 120Hz by most people

1. 120Hz - this is the refresh rate of the monitor, so how many full frames/fields per second which can be displayed. (Most devices have historically had 60Hz refresh)

2. Auto-Motion Plus (Samsung's TM, Sony named their's MotionFlow) - This is an interpolation technique which attempts to create intermediate frames to increase the clarity and decrease the bridging your eyes need to do.

Now we know the two technologies and problems we are trying to solve.

The 120Hz (refresh rate alone) is designed to solve Jutter. To explain why this is we need to learn a little about video/film. As you may know film is recorded at 24 fps (frames per second), TV programing is filmed in 30 fps (60 Hz interlaced). So with a 60 Hz display we get a none equal pattern to display film (24 fps) with 60 Hz we get a 3:2 pattern so the first frame is displayed 3 times, then the second twice and that continues to fill out 24 fps into 60 fields/second, this is where the judder comes in as there is a caddence mismatch between the original film and the display. To correct this we look to 120Hz and the display rate becomes 5:5 each frame is displayed 5 times thus creating a standard cadence (however, the 3:2 cadance is hard coded into standard DVD video so you need to rely on a good deinterlacer to restore the original 24fps and then pass that as the same to the TV so that we get 5:5 output.

The Auto-Motion (interpolation) changes the original quality of the video because it is adding frames that didn't originally exist. Some people like the extreme crispness of the image it produces. I prefer to see the directors intent and very much dislike the video which is produced by this interpolation.

So for me 120Hz would be a big buying point today, however, I would need to be able to ensure that the interpolation is off. For a normal consumer I would say it isn't a make or break feature.

Whew that was a lot of typing to let you know that I doubt it would matter to you or your family, however, hopefully it has educated and my assist others in deciding.

Liberty is the answer

2008-12-14T11:35:00.000-05:00

http://www.jonathangullible.com/mmedia/PhilosophyOfLiberty-english_music.swf

Video Encoding with mencoder is a nightmare

2008-10-03T17:16:00.006-04:00

I have been spending a lot of time recently working on defining exactly how to accomplish taking my HD feed of television programing, and automatically encoding it to remove commercials and use x264 as the H264 encoding engine. To this end I have found some lacking in the original mencoder documentation. I will try to document each of the filters that I am using in my attempt to complete my task and hopefully help others to not have the same issue(s).

Conventions:
Text which requires replacement will be marked like a variable with a dollar sign ($).
definitions will be preceded by a double hyphen (--)

Part 1. In this section I will provide an automated method to crop a video to remove all of the black bar area. The remaining video area will be the correct aspect ratio...etc. as mencoder corrects this for us.

Step 1 is to get the crop value. The easiest method is to use mencoders brother mplayer and the cropdetect filter

mplayer -vf cropdetect $videofile

cropdetect -- outputs to console the current crop values to remove the black area around an image as mplayer plays. output will be similar to [CROP] Crop area: X: 0..1738 Y: 0..1079 (-vf crop=1728:1072:6:4). (units pixel)

Now you can just copy paste the -vf crop line and run mencoder with the crop filter.

crop=w:h:x:y -- crops a video frame to w by h and offsets the frame by x:y from the top left corner. Keep in mind you must be re-encoding the video otherwise crop is meaningless. (units pixel) Crop can be used in both mencoder and mplayer...so you can test the crop values by doing

mplayer -vf crop=$cropvalues and see how the frame will look.
and of course to encode
mencoder $infile -vf crop=$cropvalues -ovc $video_codec -oac $audio_codec -of $output_formatdefaultavi -o $outfile

Step 2 Now how do we string these two items together? cropdetect and crop?
Answer: Scripting, woo.

As I am using windows and my HTPC is windows I am writing my scripts in batch but, you should easily be able to convert to perl/bash...etc.

1. Let's get the crop detected values into a text file that we can find within (this is far easier with GNU tools such as grep than Windows find. But here is the line I use

mplayer -vf cropdetect -ao null -vo null -frames 5 $infile | find "-vf crop=" > crop

This parses 5 lines of the video, and find selects only the lines with crop them to print to the text file 'crop'. Next we need to extract the crop parameter

2. Extract the detected values

FOR /F "tokens=3 delims=(=)" %%G IN ('type "crop"') DO SET crop=%%G

What this line does is, for each line in the crop file extract separate items based upon the delims ((=)) and take the third item (tokens=3) then I set that item to crop

[CROP] Crop area: X: 0..1738 Y: 0..1079 (-vf crop=1728:1072:6:4). is broken into
1=[CROP] Crop area: X: 0..1738 Y: 0..1079
2=-vf crop=
3=1728:1072:6:4

3. use the crop values in your mencoder filter string

mencoder $infile -vf crop=$cropvalues -ovc $video_codec -oac $audio_codec -of $output_formatdefaultavi -o $outfile

Let's put it together

-----
mplayer -vf cropdetect -ao null -vo null -frames 5 $infile | find "-vf crop=" > crop
FOR /F "tokens=3 delims=(=)" %%G IN ('type "crop"') DO SET crop=%%G
--mplayer is a little weird and will sometimes take over the stdout redirection. Here is my replacement way to do this
FOR /F "tokens=3 delims=(=)" %%G IN ('mplayer -vf cropdetect -ao null -vo null -frames 5 $infile') DO SET crop=%%G

mencoder $infile -vf crop=%crop% -ovc $video_codec -oac $audio_codec -of $output_formatdefaultavi -o $outfile
-----

Best HTPC Front-end

2008-06-22T23:32:00.003-04:00

I have been having a lot of fun lately with building my new HTPC. It is based upon my old Gaming Rig, ASUS M2N-SLI Deluxe w/ AMD Athlon XP 3500+ (64-bit) w/ 2GB RAM and a EVGA Geforce 7900. I added a Hauppauge HVR-1800 for TV tuning, it supports NTSC, ATSC, and clearQAM tuning. I put all of this into a new case, a Coolermaster CM-282 which has a built on front panel LCD and Remote Control by SoundGraph.

With the Soundgraph LCD and Remote you get the Soundgraph iMon/iMedian software, iMon provides controls for the Front Panel and Remote, iMedian is Soundgraph's HTPC front-end, and it isn't horrible...but it isn't complete and the performance is not what you would really want. My biggest issue with the iMedian software is that as I delete/add files to my Hard Drive I would need to rescan to update the database. And the scanning is beyond slow for iMedian. So I began looking for alternatives, SageTV, BeyondTV, Meedio (now Yahoo Media Center or something like that)...etc. I found a lot of these did some things better than iMedian, however, overall they were not what I wanted.

Finally I came upon a free HTPC Front End software by a guy from New Zealand, the software is named GBPVR. It not only does everything as well/better than iMedian, it also has a built in TV Tuner that is very feature rich, with built in Electronic Programming Guide (EPG). Now GBPVR still has its issues, however, the developer of the product is extremely willing to help and fix issues. I filed (well opened a support thread on) a bug with DVD Special Features and he had a test fix for me within a few weeks. The issue was that some Special Features are in 4:3 frames and the software was not getting that data and rebuilding the frame, so the video was being stretched. Anways, he fixed that very quickly and he seemed eager to improve his product. For this I gave him $10 USD. As a retail product I would have to pay far more for this but, it is just a donation. Also, remember my main complaint from iMedian, having to rescan all the time, well GBPVR seems to not use a static db but, rather reads the current directory structure. So no phantom files or missing files.

If you, like me, are looking for a good HTPC front-end, I would highly recommend you look at GBPVR.

Check Out my "pownce"

2008-05-27T21:40:00.001-04:00

http://www.pownce.com/crlorentzen I update this site much more often, so it will probably be more interesting than this site.

Anyways, just a quick update...

Keith Lorentzen Memorial Slideshow

2007-11-11T17:04:00.003-05:00

Hello Everyone,

Many people wanted a copy of this, so here it is. Please head on over to ~~http://lorentzen.x10hosting.com~~ site no longer operational to get a copy of it, either the Powerpoint Slideshow or Powerpoint both are the same size(5.6 MB).

Update for the regular listeners

2007-11-07T11:08:00.000-05:00

If you know me personally you may have already heard about my brother's death. Keith Wendell Lorentzen died on Sunday (11/4/07). The remaining Lorentzen Family is in Connecticut now preparing for the funeral...etc.

You can get more information at worldkarting.com (http://www.worldkarting.com/pg/news/2007-11/KeithLorentzen.html)

I thank everyone for their outpouring of support.

Good Morning

2007-10-02T08:00:00.000-04:00

Well, didn't get up until 0720 this morning...was deep in contemplative sleep or just being lazy, take your pick :). Just wanted to welcome the day with a nice sunrise, and remember "You've got to make your own type of music, play your own special song" Mama Cass - Make Your Own Kind Of Music :). Have a good day everyone.

The Rensselaer Magizine recognizes Stickymap.com

2007-06-30T14:06:00.003-04:00

The recent issue of the Rensselaer Magazine (Spring 2007) speaks of my activities with the website http://www.stickymap.com.

And I quote:
"Craig Lorentzen has been part of a team of three that developed Stickymap.com, an interactive Web site that lets users annotate maps of neighborhoods throughout the country."

This has been an interesting project which I worked with Max Sklar and Daniel Wiznia (Yale Grads 2006) to get it off the ground. At this point I play a far reduced part in the project. Max has become a budding Website developer he has spent tons of time learning AJAX, CSS, HTML...etc. And Dan is providing direction and business like activities.

Please check out the site and the development blog http://blog.stickymap.com/.

Tiumphant Return

2006-10-04T23:55:00.000-04:00

I hope to be updating you, my readers, more often.

Anyways as those who know me outside the web should know. I am working at Cisco Systems in RTP North Carolina. Stickmaps Marker

I have an apartment but I spend far more time at work than in the apartment, I know "welcome to the real world." Anyways, I am having fun with friends at work and outside of work. Been doing a good amount of Mountain Biking. http://www.trianglemtb.com/

I need to get a new bike unfortunately, I taco-ed the rear tire recently.
The look of a taco-ed tire.

Arguably the best weekend ever

2006-04-23T17:34:00.000-04:00

This weekend was great. I spent Friday night in Woodstock NY at the Woodstock Lodge just hanging at a Joey Eppard jam session. I was completely and utterly at peace with myself. It is wonderful just to forget all your worries and hang.

Got home around 4AM and hit the sack to sleep like a log until 2PM Saturday. Got down to work started and completed my final paper for Philosophy of Law class. Then went and enjoyed a night of musical expression performed by my roommate’s band…Tryptich. I think everyone enjoyed the show.

Finally a relaxing Sunday to top of the best weekend I have ever had here at RPI.

How to fold a Shirt

2006-03-30T10:52:00.000-05:00

The Japanese Way.

Pretty cool, seems to be easier than normal folding after a couple tries.

Rant

2006-03-30T00:49:00.000-05:00

Why would you open a new product when the same exact thing is already open, and perfectly good?!?!?!?!??

Trusted Computing

2006-02-25T14:50:00.000-05:00

This is a great little animation on what Trusted Computing was supposed to be, and what it has become.

http://www.lafkon.net/tc/

Nintendo Old-School Revolution

2006-02-04T12:59:00.000-05:00

They killed his brother. Now Nintendos Old School characters must teach the Next-Gen crowd a lesson. "Open War Is Upon Us."

Worst Clips 2002 - 2004 (2006)

2006-01-17T10:42:00.000-05:00

"Bad" TV

From the people who take it upon themselves to "clean" up TV. Compiled by the Parents Television Council, here is the worst of TV that you shouldn't watch. But here it is for your enjoyment.

Anyone find it moronic to compile what people shouldn't watch when you are the ones telling them they shouldn't watch it?

BTW: First post of the New Year, YAY!!

Ice on the window

2005-12-14T13:30:00.000-05:00

Well I came back from my CG Final today, enjoyed and episode of Babylon 5, then went to the kitchen to prepare a meal. Found the kitchen sink nonfunctional, boo have to call RPIRentals on that grr. Anyways I wen to the bathroom to check if any water was working, sure enough the bathroom faucet gave me both hot and cold water.

Out of the corner of my eye I glimpse Ice on the inside of the bathroom window. I wonder, "what the f#@*?," well I decided to investigate.

I begin to investigate, first to remove our ghetto paper curtain. Still need to get on RPIRentals for those, anyways. I remove it and find parts of curtain stuck to the bottom of the window sill, they are frozen to the sill. There got it removed, I can now see the lower window, and the light sheen of ice coating the majority of it, as well I notice the external storm window is up with the screen down...ARGG I've got to get that storm window down and stop the ice formations, however pretty they might be.

Let's see tools? Hammer and Flat Head Screw drivers...perfect. (Chip, Chip, Chip, Bang, Bang, Bang) How the heck is Robare still sleeping through this? Oh well, an hour passes, well got most of the ice. Pull, strain, ahh the metal clips are stuck. (Chip, Chip, Chip, Bang, Bang, Bang), there they seem free now. Pull, strain, ahh the metal still stuck. (Pry, Pry, Pry, Bang, Pry) One sides up. Now the other, Yes got it.

After an hour and a half the window acquiesces and opens. Brr it's cold outside, put up the screen no trouble, put down the storm window yes both work. Now to put down the inner window. Good, looking down, my feet are covering in melting ice and paint chips, grr. Whisper that I hate RPIRentals, replace the curtain...well thats done now what, I know post it to the blog. Done.

Zelda: a Link to the Past?

2005-12-08T19:24:00.000-05:00

Be Warned: Scary. EDIT: Fixed

SNES FX chip OCing

2005-12-02T17:16:00.000-05:00

Digg Comments
Original Digg (Someone forgot to search)

Well some people, like me, will remember there old SNES system and that game those games with that FX label on the front.

Quick Selection of most of the games created with the SuperFX chip.

The SuperFX chip was actually an offloading 3d renderer for the Super Nintendo, kindof a cool thing. However today we are talking about overclocking this bad boy. :)

As the link in the digg post states the speed of the clock for the SuperFX chip was 21.4 MHz, the plan is to remove it and replace it with a slightly faster 24MHz ossilator. The funny thing about this is that the FX chip is an addon internal to the cartridges which are labeled , so each game can be clocked differently and will require it's own new ossilator.

You may be thinking this won't work, how can you be sure the other components have data in the pipe wating to be worked on when the clock changes. You don't this is just trial and error fun. However the poster did manage his feet and the game performed "better" whether this is a placebo affect or not it is still cool that the game functioned with the even minimal overclocking.

Probability BS

2005-11-17T23:22:00.000-05:00

http://www.ecse.rpi.edu/homepages/abouzeid/ECSE4500Fall05/hw10.pdf

Take a look at that homework.

Here is the abridged version.

1. Stick a fork in your eye.
2-4. Twist the fork.
5. Stick a fork in your other eye
6-7. Twist that second fork.
8. Twist both forks.
9. Cut off one hand.
10. Now the other.

This has been the abridged works of PEA HW10.

Numa Numa

2005-11-17T03:11:00.000-05:00

Can't get enough of that Numa Dance?

Now you can Numa in Hebrew.

If you find anymore Numa Dances please leave a link in my comments. I must be insane.

Hogwarts Dance Team

2005-11-17T01:18:00.000-05:00

This ifilm video really caught my eye.

They've probably got the main students redone in this. At least I was able to notice Harry, Hermione, Ron, and Malfoy.

check it out, enjoy the 80s music. Laugh a little, it is a pretty good dance.

Excersize

2005-11-07T22:12:00.000-05:00

I went out to the Mueller Center tonight and did a good hour of cardio work.

1 mile of rowing, 10 minutes of running on an elipticle and 20 minutes of biking.

I also lifted a little. I feel pretty good.

Best Wings in Albany

2005-10-29T23:42:00.000-04:00

Well on Friday 10/28/05 a couple friends and myself went out to find the best wings, buffalo wings that is, in Albany. We went down to I loves where we had seen a sign listing the top wings place.

From this sign we found the address of Wingz, 1704 Western Avenue, Albany, NY, 12203.

The three of us ate 3 pounds of wings. In half pound increments we had cool ranch, honey bbq, Cajun teriyaki, Garlic Parmesan, the second hottest buffalo, and the hottest buffalo with extra atomic powder on the side. All of these were wonderfully flavorful. While the spicy ones are very spicy they are tasty. Unlike some places where it is just hot but no flavor.

I definitely suggest if you want wings goto this place/order from it and just enjoy.

And now for a joke that is inappropriate. -Do not read if squeamish.

With the extra atomic powder we suggested using it for practical jokes and got the idea of using it on a females genitalia. This could certainly "heat" up sex :-D. On to the emergency room where the on call gynecologist exclaims he has seen hot wax, clip marks, but never atomic powder.

HEHE.

Well that was the extravaganza to find the best wings in Albany.

Studying

2005-10-14T15:19:00.000-04:00

Isn't it great to live with other people who have the same courses...helps you soo much with doing the homework and studying for the tests.

Just make sure you follow them where they go to study.

Serenity

2005-10-06T14:54:00.000-04:00

10 of us browcoats headed out on Friday the 30th of September at 9:40PM to Crossgates mall.

Those in attendance were Myself, Robare, Steve, Paul, Ed, Mike, Susan, Dillon, Eric and Ashley.

I think everyone had a good time, the theater was packed and people appeared to love it, laughing, and gasping at the right moments.

I realize that all Browncoats didn't get to attend the movie or a Shindig so we should set up at least another Shindig.

Anyays, Captain Tight Pants Signing off.

Alone

2005-10-04T20:40:00.000-04:00

I feel, alone
Did my homework, alone
Played a game, alone
Went to class, alone

Talk to people, alone
Everyone left me, alone
Why does no one care, alone
When will people listen to me, alone

I feel, alone
Did my homework, alone
Played a game, alone
Went to class, alone

My words are silent, alone
No one listens, alone
Why does no one care, alone

I feel Alone.

October 1st Career Fair

2005-10-03T13:42:00.000-04:00

Plan:

Step 1 - Go to the Armory
Step 2 - Talk to as many recruiters as possible and give resumes
Step 3 - Get interviews and then a job

Actual:

Step 1 - Go to the Armory
Step 2 - Mill about trying to gain the nerve to talk to recruiters
Step 3 - Talk to 2 recruiters and give resume
Step 4 - Mill about trying to decide if to talk to more recruiters
Step 5 - Goto Cisco interview the next day.

Sunday October 2nd Cisco Interview
Well I was one of the least business dressed people, but I think the interview went well, I was asked if I would mind to interview on site.

I guess that's an update. Check back later for more.

Well...

2005-10-03T12:00:00.000-04:00

I just set up this blog...don't know what it will be about. Oh well, check back for more.