Simon's Mess » tv

Watching Sopcast & TvAnts on Ubuntu !!!

admin — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 09:27:00 +0000

It’s Shangaï Master’s time ( Gooooo Gasquet ), and while blogging, surfing, and whatelse, I wanted to watch the tennis game on my newly configured Ubuntu Gutsy box !
Of course Sopcast and TVAnts are THE P2P programs to watch television right now, so this is the way I went !

First thing firt, you need to install the standard Windows codec, because they don’t come defacto with the Gutsy installation. A really good tutorial on the official site here, and look for “Playing Restricted Formats”.

For TVAnts the installation is straight forward. You need to install Wine, the windows emulator. Then you download the regular Windows setup file and run it with the previously installed Wine. Apparently it needs a rebbot for Wine to add the shortcut to the faked “Windows Programs”. After that you just need to add a channel or select one from the list, and open MPlayer or VLC on the url given by the program, which is usually something like http://localhost:8900/1.asf.

For SopCast, it’s not as simple. Unfortunately the gui does not really seem to work at the moment. So you need to install the command line util. You can download it from their website, and unzip it on your machine. It has a dependency over libstdc++5 which you can install from the package manager. Once this is done, you need to issue a command line of the like :

./sp-sc-auth sop://myserver/mychannel 3908 6908 >/dev/null &

3908 is the port that will connect to the server, 6908 is the port that will have the video, >/dev/null is to prevent the verbose output, and & to make the process run standalone which is obviously optional. Once this is done, you need to wait a little bit for the data to buffer (look at you systray and the network monitor), and then start your preferred player on the http://localhost:6908/tv.asf URL.

And there you go ! P2P Television enabled on your delighted Gutsy Ubuntu box !

If you have any problems, or need more information, don’t hesitate to ask !

IPhone frenzy … Again !

admin — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 20:44:00 +0000

Ahhhh, that little piece of technology has made the world gone counter clock-wise for the past few weeks … Fortunately for us those late night talk show are always there to remind us of how stupid we are …

Yes, I’m sure you clearly heard the roaring in the audience when the word “Ipod Nano” was sent out there ! It’s true that a lot has been rumored on the subject but come on, do you really think Dave would be the one showing it first

Found via Yannick.

Original Advertisement

admin — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 20:07:00 +0000

For once I did not find this one via Blog De Nuit (although I have not checked it in a while so it might be there) but via a standard email chain. I guess the goal is to find who that guy is …

So, did you find who he was without cheating ? Not that difficult I guess. But in today’s world where energy and green stuff are all over the place, I do feel this ad stands out and gives us this little smile on the corner of your mouth. Not really deep, but a good couple of minutes !

What do you think ?

AppleTV killer ?

admin — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 21:14:00 +0000

I’m sure that as a good blog reader, and techno fan out there, you cannot have missed the launch of the AppleTV. This is this cool little device sold by the Apple company in hopes to rule over the entertainment center world like the iPod did.
A certain number of competitors like Msft itself, Tivo, … are also competing on the market, and some software providers like Joost are eagerly looking into that space also. So believe me when I say this is a crowded place.
But fortunately, no place is too crowded for opened and standard compliant innovative initiatives. DivX, the company behind the world’s famous video encoding codec, has recently announced the release of the GejBox.
A complete post here on NewTeeVee describes the product, but this basically is a system similar to the AppleTV, but which will use DivX as an encoding system, use Stage6 as the content provider, and provide more standard and HD compatible outputs like HDMI. Connectivity will include WiFi and Ethernet. However no CPU or hard drive will be present on the box (CPU is replaced by a HW DivX stream decoder) which might be a little drawback but will certainly help making it unnoticeable in your living room. Finally the platform should remain opened for extension, living some room for all of you with imaginative minds to come up with some great usages for this platform.

Will your favorite TVShow make the cut ?

admin — Wed, 30 May 2007 21:49:00 +0000

As already mentioned previously, I really do like TV shows. If you share this passion, then you’d be glad to find the TV.com 2007 Upfront !
This page lists all the majors American networks, and for each of them lists which show will make it into the fall 2007 lineup, which one won’t, and which one you’ll be eager to discover !
One little critic I will formulate is that it also lists gameshows and stuff alike that I personally do not really care about …. But maybe you will !
So I’m sure it won’t come as a shocker that shows like Heroes, Lost or Desperate Housewives will make the cut, whereas less noticed ones like The Knights of Prosperity or In Case of Emergency won’t.
A final usage of this list is to detect shows that you missed because you were so full over your head with all the exciting ones. Being kind of a specialist on Comedy/Drama Soap I had some good times watching the 6 episodes of October Road … If you have a girlfriend/wife you want to invite-over/have-a-nice-time-with , it might be worth a shot ! (I’ll try to give a little description on the show in the next few days, and update the post then)

What’s coming next ?

admin — Tue, 15 May 2007 21:39:00 +0000

I’m quite a big fan of TV shows. I’ve been nursed with them during my stay in the US, and been using more or less legal ways for getting my daily dose of them !
ABC just announced the lineup for next fall ! So to get a glimpse on who’s going to be the next Heroes, Men In Trees, Help Me Help You or Love Monkey, have a look at this press release : ABC network adds 11 new series.
A bunch of dramas and comedies definitely look promising, whereas the classic will continue to hold our breath !