Month: October 2004

There’s much to like about the Eyehome digital media player as I noted previously. Tonight though I was able to get .vob files (the format actually on the DVD) to play with audio which means I can safely copy my DVD collection to disk and have a fully connected library to view from. You can opt to convert your DVD to some other format to conserve space, but I’ve found the process to be time consuming and frustrating at best. Disk space continues to come down in price which makes keeping the large files around much easier.

I am using the freeware Mactheripper (do a search) to backup the DVD. I chose to save just the feature (rather than the titles and extras) which eliminates some extra file size (probably not that much) and gets rid of parts of your movie you can control anyway since you are not actually playing through a DVD player. Once the files are saved, you simply point the Eyehome to the VIDEO_TS directory and hit play… You’ll need the optical connection enabled to get the audio to play, but with it, you get AC3 sound and full DVD quality video streaming through your home. This works from a Mac connected either with Airport Extreme or via ethernet. A second (or third) Eyehome would enable this in other rooms… Rock on!

After seeing the Windows Media Center 2005 presentation at Digital Life I officially re-caught the bug to get something similar working at home. I’d certainly heard about the Eyehome digital media player previously, but had not had a chance to really figure it all out until this weekend. I am very happy with the results and thought I’d share for anyone else looking to do something similar.

The Eyehome box is a small silver set-top box measuring just over 8″x6″x1″. It comes with an IR remote for control and can connect either directly to a Mac via ethernet cross-over cable or directly to your network through your router or switch. For linking up to your TV you can choose either Composite (HD), S-Video or Standard component (RCA). Audio connections include Component (RCA) or S/PDIF (digital optical). I am fortunate to be able to support the highest quality connection to my TV and stereo and very pleased with the results. Sound comparison to my SliMP3 (the original model) is definitely crisper and cleaner. There is also considerably less latency — Eyehome is much more responsive. You’ll need to set the box volume to about half to avoid distortion though, which is an interesting difference since my Slim could and seemed to want it’s volume to the max.

Set-up is very simple, you just connect the box to your stereo, network and TV, install the software and you are done. Assuming you have a DHCP network, the IP settings get configured correctly as they are detected and your Eyehome finds any computer (and as many as you have installed the software) via Rendezvous (zero conf for non-Mac people). The only glitch I ran into was that my router fed some lame name server info to my Eyehome and it was unable to connect to the mothership for some firmware and graphics updates. Once I manually entered that info, it was a snap to connect, download and update things. This box initially was released in January of this year and I am quite sure the one I purchased at Tekserve had been in the initial shipment so there were several Firmware updates as well as a graphics system update to download. It was pretty quick to to and easy to find from the settings menu.

Getting Going

Once you have everything installed, you’ll need to choose a computer with media currently available. I have an iMac and a PowerBook here and both show up when the Eyehome turns on, or when you press the (person) button on the remote. Any files you have within the default locations are ready for use. Your entire iTunes, iPhoto library, photos in your Pictures directory and movies or video files within your Movies directory are all viewable. You can also use aliases or symbolic links if your content is stored elsewhere… iTunes and iPhoto do not have to be running as the box just reads the library file, but they can run and will update the Eyehome if you add or change things as you go.

The EyeHome hardware runs at a native 480p (720 by 480) resolution. It can scale this to 720p (1280 by 720) or 1080i (1920 by 1080), and the scaling is high quality. You pick the resolution you want in the EyeHome Settings screen. You can also choose standard TV resolutions.

Only video that is 480p or less will play. EyeHome cannot play HDTV video from EyeTV 500 or any other source, due to its higher bitrate and resolution above 480p.

When displaying high resolution photos from your iPhoto library, like multi-megapixel JPEGs, EyeHome first scales the image down to 480p. From there this 480p version will be scaled to the current display resolution. This means that you won’t see your picture at full resolution, even if you pick 1080i. You’ll always see the 480p version scaled up. [Eyehome FAQ]

While this may sound a bit funky, it actually works quite well – at least in my set-up. There are certainly higher end ways to deal with this kind of stuff, but you will most certainly pay for that privledge and may even require a (gasp) PC.

What it can do

You can play MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX¨, 3IVX and XVID video files and AIFF, MP3, WAV or (unprotected) AAC tracks as well as Ogg Vorbis and unencrypted WMA files will also play. I’ve also found that .VOB files play, but they don’t link automatically so you’ll need to play with various tools I won’t go into here in order to convert content from DVD to play. You might try this page for a way to handle things…

Eyehome goes beyond your local network content and as a connected device it also contains a browser. I would not recommend too much web surfing as it’s not a great browser, but certainly capably for digging deeper as you browse RSS feeds which are pre-programmed as content within the UI. Any bookmarks or folders of bookmarks within your Safari bookmark bar are displayed.

How it works

I am very pleased with how this box works and would recommend it to you as a very easy way to extend your media library to any room in your home with a TV and a stereo. Picture and sound quality are excellent and I’ve tested content that was linked to both my powerbook (connected over Airport Extreme) as well as the iMac (connected over ethernet) and both were able to stream their music and video files without issue. I have a few issues and recommendations after my first day of use, which I think can all be resolved with software updates to both the Mac software and the Eyehome’s firmware.

The Eyehome’s software could definitely use a few finishing touches to make it even more friendly.

• Right now you can’t listen to music while browsing any other screen like what else you might like to listen to, view your movies, photos or read RSS. You actually have to press stop in order to leave the screen. This actually sucks and is a flaw that needs to be pressed out in the next release pronto.
• There is no active playlist or way to add tracks to a playlist as you browse (see previous point). This is a must have for me as well.
• When browsing music the menu system needs to be much more dynamic. My library is much too large (over 22,000 tracks) and going simply by alpha is not very feasible for long. Data entry on the remote is not that great, you can currently search using the alpha/number keys like on a phone, but you can’t skip to T for example by simply pressing 8 once. Please, please fix this.
• When viewing photos, I’d like to see the option to add a custom track of music to a slideshow, rather than using the default from iPhoto (though I gather that’s part of how the thing works to begin with…). It’s as if the Eyehome is a Mac on your network since it plays most anything your Mac can and sees the other machines in the same way.
• I’d love to see headless operation. While it’s nice to use the TV’s large screen, it’s not necessary for Music and since you don’t current see album art (which I would like to see added), or a photo slide show (also something I’d like to see added) it’s unnecessary for many applications. The software that runs on your Mac is actually a local webserver that runs on port 8000 – http://localhost:8000 and this would be a great way to manage the Eyehome if it was in a different room or if you had more than one. You might also be able to relay and sync content from one to another.

I think it’s fair to say I am very enthusiastic about this addition to my Home Theater. The box was only $189, which seems like a steal given the current set of capabilities. There is a unfortunately surprisingly small community out there… I’ve searched quite a bit and was unable to find any active forums or lists so I set one up (with just me in it for now) on Yahoo Groups. If you own one or are just interested in learning more, please come stop on by…

I arrived at Digital Life yesterday and met my buddy Sandro for some gadget goodness.

I snapped a few pictures which you can see here. Motorola had one of the larger booths and definitely had a nice display of phones and some new gadgets.

The RAZR V3 was a particular highlight as it’s an amazingly slick, yet solid piece. Seeing it in person is the only way to really appreciate the size and manufacturing of this phone. It’s unbelievably thin and feels very solid. The screen is gorgeous and I snapped a picture with the camera and it seemed to do a helluva job, though I was only able to view it on the phone’s screen. From what I could tell, there is no memory expansion on the unit and I even opened the back which revealed the battery and SIM card.

I did not see any sign of the T-Flash we saw pulled out of the V710. I’d not heard of T-Flash previously and as you can see it’s very very small. Size options are available up to 128MB, so good for some pictures and MP3s which is what the Motorola guy had on his phone (and where the actually memory came from).

The MPx series phones were present and from what I understand will be available very soon… Nice screens and design, MS Smartphone is not for me though…

Lastly MOT was showing off a video phone called the OJO… This baby is coming soon and supports some very nice technologies… Video is via H.264, though they are possibly going to expand to H.263 to allow for more web cam interoperability and video conferencing with other systems..

I happened to be standing next to a unit when a call cam in from Philadelphia. The rep did the whole thing over speaker phone and we easily saw the woman calling. She was actually doing a follow-up on some technical issues as the network at the show was causing some issue. Picture was excellent and I could actually hear her pretty well considering the noise of the floor. The OJO is a SIP capable video phone that connects over ethernet though includes an analog port as well for regular calling — though I imagine you could hook it up to a VOIP set-up just the same. Video only works when you are connected via IP to another OJO for now. WorldGate communications will be the first to release a product based on this system, though they assured me the protocol was open for others to write to. The handset detaches from the base and is a 2.4 GHz cordless to be used in either digital SIP mode or as a regular cordless.

The A845, just ridiculously large but 3G capable and this guy which I think was the A680 were also there. Pretty sure the A680 was a linux phone and the MOT people said this was coming to the US. It was made totally of plastic but felt solid and light, though it was actually pretty thick. The screen was excellent and was used both with the flip open and closed. When closed the window magnifies the internal screen for caller ID, Time and date stuff…

Media Center was a featured attraction of the show and while initially, I was pretty whatever on the the notion, it was actually compelling enough in person to get me thinking about my home set-up a fair bit (more in a later post…). A wonderful rip-off of the Media Center UI was shown by Meedio. It’s windows only, but very slick and runs on PCs with 2000 or above. With all functions including DVR, it only runs $99 and seems like a great option for the DIY-type. The only thing missing is HD compatibility, but I figure it’s only a matter of time and a software upgrade assuming you’ve got the appropriate hardware to deal with the signal.

We heard an announcement about a presentation dowstairs and caught a nice walk-through on Windows Media Center 2005 which included a PC, Extender and X-box demo. It’s slick and seems well designed, but damn expensive in my mind. You need to buy a PC just for Media Center stuff, plus the extenders. You’ll be looking at a few grand min to get going which is going to continue to hurt adoption… oh and not allowing content to work with non-PCs doesn’t help much either though I get the MS thinking there… sell more XP!

Caught a glimpse of the Blackberry booth and got to play a bit with the 7100T before taking off for the day…

It was a nice size, with a great screen. Keypad seemed quite usable. The browser was brutally slow in trying to load some weather info… I did not do any real typing so I can’t report of the predictive typing software.

We both had high expectations given the number of emails received from various companies announcing this initial show. After doing a walk-through I have to say it was fine, but far from amazing, and while there were some fun bits, nothing stood too much of a wow or even stole the show in my mind. The show floor was not that large and even stopping at many booths, was pretty easy to walk through within about 90 minutes…

I’m off to see lots of good stuff at the Digital Life expo… be back later – hopefully with some good photos and a report

This is a great sounding idea, though clearly only for Windows for now and possibly not for blockbuster commercial releases either… starting with IMAX will prove it looks and sounds good, but won’t prove the commercial viability. It’s not too unlike initiating HD broadcast with the great looking PBS content.

I know Apple still has a DRM trick up it’s sleeve and perhaps that will be more attractive to studios… but it’s going to take time and Windows has a time advantage getting to market now. Have their been any additional HD DVD movies utilizing Windows Media Player? I know about the deal with Artisan which brought Terminator 2 out…

Finally, someone is getting the idea… I’m getting sick of companies offering sub-DVD quality movies for download at standard DVD rental rates… what’s the point? At least give me a reason to want to to mess with a computer… and HD content will be that reason. Maybe the announcement from CinemaNow about the premiere of its High-Definition Channel will make other companies see the picture a bit clearer. CinemaNow will make High-Definition Movies available for download in Windows Media High-Definition format for playback on Windows XP-based PCs, including the Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 PC. This announcement marks the first broad adoption of mainstream High-definition movies being been made available on-demand via the Internet. The first titles released on CinemaNow in Windows Media Video HD are MacGillivray Freeman Films’ giant screen IMAX films through a deal with Image Entertainment.

Windows Media Video HD delivers to movie fans a visually stunning high-definition experience, offering video resolution of 720p. All CinemaNow HD movies are encoded at up to 10Mbps and feature high-quality 5.1 surround sound for the ultimate in-home theater viewing experience. [MAVROMATIC]