jr conlin's ink stained banana

Why do i love Man-Man?

Let me enlighten you:

Last night, i heard that my local phone company was planning on stopping time.

Now, while i have little doubt that they could (since our phone company rivals only certain Canadian Insurance Companies in both capabilities and intent), i did realize that they meant they were going to stop offering that time recording you can call up.

Ok, right there, you've got something that can accurately specify your age. If you remember picking up a phone at any point and calling a service to get the current time, or even knowing the gender of the voice that informed you "at the tone, the time will be 8:50 BEEEP", you are officially "old". You, like i, grew up in an era before cell-phones, PDAs, iPods, actually accurate personal computers, in-dash clocks and honestly thought that digital watches were cool (Getting that reference? Yeah, that makes you old too).

For old times sake, i wanted to call up my local time in a box and wish the nice lady with the pleasant speaking voice goodbye. Only it took a bit of effort to find the number.

Doing a search for "San Francisco dial time" produced, nothing. So did about five other queries i tried. It wasn't until i dug up a copy of the white pages that i found it on page 148:
Time Announcement Service …… 408 767 8900
(the fact that they provide driving directions tickles me no end.)

Sadly, when i tried calling Time, i found out that it's time had already come. There was no answer. She had already slipped the surly bonds, been unplugged and undoubtedly escorted to the curb where she'll eventually turn up on ebay.

Oh sure, i may have helped contribute to her demise, but unless someone were insane enough to actually generate her voice as a podcast, i think we all lost a bit of history.

Recently, someone was talking about Media PCs and what's good and bad about them. About three quarters of the way through my reply, i realized that it would make a great blog post, so here it is:

My general problem with these boxes is that they seldom integrate with what you have already.

Most folks have equipment they've already purchased and invested time in learning how to operate (VCRs/DVD players, TiVo's, cable/satellite, etc.) All of these often have specialized connectors or controls that create a huge rats nest of wires behind one's home entertainment center. Granted, tech geeks and home entertainment fetishists can afford to turn over $500 equipment investments, but the other 98% of consumers won't.

Media PCs often do a lot of things, but never quite get them 100% correct. That means that media PCs almost never replace equipment the consumer already has, rather, it becomes yet another box, and unlike some of those (e.g. a tuner/amp) not even a central element. About the only device they may replace wholesale is a $50 DVD player, and at five to ten times the cost, not a particularly sound investment at that.

My dream Media PC is one that actually removes problems rather than introduces them.

It would have:

• 2GHz CPU with 1GB memory minimum (video processing takes horsepower)
  with large copper core cooling stack to reduce noise.
• 80GB min 5400 RPM drive
• "small" footprint
• 8 USB 2.0 fully powered inputs (ideally independent hubs)
• long distance RF wireless keyboard, mouse, remote (minimum working
  distance 20 ft.)
• HDMI bus support (for stackable HDMI input/output connectors)

In addition, it would have a set of "stackable" USB plugin modules, each module would support Input and Output support for:

• Video
  S-Video, component, RCA
• Audio
  Optical, standard phono jack
• IR
  multi-frequency IR remote control with "stick on" broadcast unit.
  (Note, these currently do not exist in the market, and would be fairly pricey per unit. The gains would come via the devices ability to intelligently program and mix using them.)
• A dedicated 7.1 USB sound module output.

Why this configuration?
The CPU/Memory bit is already explained. Handling the conversion load, particularly for high-def, isn't cheap. Particularly if the CPU is also responsible for rendering the video.

The disk may seem fairly small, but most home networks have NAS type servers. The local disk would be mostly used for local data storage and operating system concerns. Additional storage would be provided by the USB ports.

Why 8 powered full USB2 hub ports? Because that would provide hideous amounts of bandwidth for attachments, including the IO modules (mentioned later), disk storage, network connections and other things. Some, obviously, could be split across a USB hub since things like mice and keyboards don't require a great deal of bandwidth to use. Making the consumer think about that, however, is bad. (This is another reason for having the 2GHz processor)

The HDMI interfaces are ugly and quite possibly evil. Personally, i'd prefer something like the much rumored high-speed USB video link since that doesn't have stupid overpriced licensing concerns or weird DRM restrictions, however HDMI is the current standard and will become more pervasive until something better shows up.

Operating system should be irrelevant, however the greatest support for Codecs and licensing DRM is currently Windows based, so i'd probably recommend XP Media Center in order to use JANUS based media.

And finally, the input/output port modules. Frankly, these could be their own devices, really, but they're what makes the whole system "tick". The #1 Biggest Problem that folks at home have to deal with is wiring together all your crap. in some respects, i kinda lucked out. i've got an amp at home that handles up to five video and audio sources (s-video/rca audio-video/digital audio) and lets me switch to one of them for output and display. It's because of that one feature i can't get rid of my amp, even though i really don't need it.

The PC could then be used as a smart central device, allowing for "one button" switching and setup with existing devices as well as any internal functions that may be desired. People may not need/want/desire a replacement for some element (e.g. game consoles and satellite/cable boxes with integrated DVRs. Cable Cards are currently not a solution.) The PC is smart, and could be configured to do all sorts of clever routing and handling. There's no need to have only one path so long as you can define an input and output module.

That's what the Media Center PC should be. The Central PC for my media. The master control system that is much more than just a replacement for a Tivo that shows RSS feeds and pictures of cats from Flickr. That crap is secondary and shouldn't be even close to a main feature. It wouldn't be cheap, but it would be modular and allow me to swap out stuff easily as well as buy stuff as i needed or could afford it. Anything else is just another black box driving up my power bill.

Can someone build that, please?
(right after they build my ultimate portable media device?)

Let's just pretend that this is a post that provides some interesting insight into a highly technical niche that probably twelve people understand or even care about. Provided you're into that sort of thing.
If not, pretend that it's a witty commentary on some aspect of the day that illuminates humanities foibles amplified through self deprecation. Again, provided you're into that sort of thing.

Granted, this is quite obviously neither of those. It's just something i'll post up noting that i'm home, in spite of a the combined efforts of a great many drivers stretching from Boston to BWI (mostly through New Jersey), the air travel industry, and quite possibly the world's most expensive McDonald's franchise (seriously, a 2 hamburger "value meal" that cost $7 because i was damned if i was going to pay $12 for a turkey sandwich.)

All i can say is that it does explain that scene in Night of the Living Dead…