Friday, October 30, 2009

Turbo Charge Your New XBMC Installation [Winter Upgrades]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/yBfM19DaA7M/turbo-charge-your-new-xbmc-installation

We give a lot of attention to XBMC here, and with just cause. It's an open-source, cross-platform, highly-customizable media center solution that outperforms just about every commercial option out there. Here's how you can make it even better.

If you've played around with any commercial media centers or extenders, you've probably quickly realized how clunky and inelegant the user interface and experience is. Sure once the movie is playing and you're no longer staring down the interface all is well, but prior to getting to the actual showtime the menus are ugly and the navigation is kludgy.

Yesterday Adam detailed how to set up a silent, standalone XBMC media center on the cheap—and that's a good starting point. The "out of box" experience with XBMC is fantastic, but even better than that, it's extremely customizable. You can alter menus, vary the display method, and completely swap out the skin for a fresh new look. We've reviewed some great XBMC skins and shown you how to install them. For this article we've selected the excellent AEON skin to showcase some of the advanced features of XBMC.

Getting Started

Before we delve too far into tweaking and customization, you'll need a media center running XBMC. It all began with XBMC running on the original Xbox, and you can still turn an old Xbox into an XBMC platform. Check out our original guide to installing XBMC on your Xbox and XBMC Installer Deluxe. One thing to keep in mind regarding using the classic Xbox for XBMC: it's just a Pentium III in there with 64MB of RAM. You can, under exceptional circumstances and with a hard to find Microsoft AV pack, squeeze out some better than standard-def images, but it's pushing it; if you want HD playback you simply won't be happy with the classic Xbox.

Thankfully XBMC has been ported from the classic Xbox and can run on Windows, Mac, and Linux-based machines as well as off a USB drive. Our most recent guide to building an XBMC is a fantastic one: For around $200, you'll have a silent and HD-capable media center. If you'd like to use existing hardware, you can always run XBMC off a USB drive or visit the XBMC wiki to read up on other installation techniques.

If all you do is install the stock version and add your media shares, you'll be a happy camper and you'll get frequent compliments on your rocking media center. If you want to get frequent compliments and have people express complete disbelief that you got such awesome media center software for the outrageous price of free, then keep reading.

Taking XBMC Beyond the Basics


Installing XBMC is easy, and so is performing the basic setup, but because XBMC is a work in progress and new innovations and features are constantly being added, custo! mization can get a bit confusing. Take it from a guy who has loved XBMC for years and runs it on the classic Xbox and on a custom-built HTPC—I frequently find myself reading over the user forums and saying "What? It can do that? Oh man!" If you've looked at screenshots of XBMC and wondered how they made it look so cool or got such and such custom icon to appear, this is where you'll want to pay close attention.

XBMC is equipped with a variety of "scrapers"—scripts that scan your media and pull information from the folder structure and file names—to help you get things like thumbnails, fan art, and movie and show information. These scrapers can access a variety of databases like TheTVDB.com for television show art and information and IMDB for movie posters and info. This entire process, once you tell XBMC what kind of content a folder contains, is totally automated. For most entries you can select from multiple movie posters, thumbnails, and so on—check out this entry in TheTVDB for the show Heroes to get a feel for it.

The automated process is awesome and for the most part hassle free. You can increase the effectiveness of the scrapers by properly formatting your directories and file names. One thing that merits particular emphasis: You must keep your movies and TV shows separate. XBMC can't scrape a folder for both television and film and if you attempt to scrape it twice all sorts of weird things can happen. Store your movies completely separate from your television shows and you'll save yourself quite a bit of frustration.

When you set the content type for the folder you can specify "Use Folder Names for Lookups" and it goes a long way towards accurate file identification. It also saves you from having to cleanup files names and if you're using direct DVD-rips you must use folder name lookup or the scrapers won't function. Here's an example folder structure:

\Movies\ &mdash ;-\Army of Darkness\
—— AofD.DTS.x264.mkv
—- \Blades of Glory\
—— Blades.CON.x264.mkv

When XBMC scrapes the folder names it will easily find a match. In the rare cases where a movie has a title that has been used before or is a remake of a prior movie you can include the year in the folder name, such as Halloween (2007) and Halloween (1978).

As awesome as scraping is for saving you tons of time, it does have a few down sides. It takes a long, long, time on a moderate to large size library. Have a thousand movies and dozens of TV shows saved? You'll be leaving it to run for hours. Any time you make changes, move things, reinstall XBMC, etc., you'll end up scraping all over again which can get a bit tedious. The other down side is the limitations of scrapers. For most genres they are fine, but sometimes you'll find that they don't have the artwork you want or even any info at all about your media. When this happens it's up to you to fill in the blanks.

Fortunately XBMC follows a specific structure for checking information. It checks the local directory first, then the XBMC library, and then if necessary it will scrape for the data. The following directory structure will show you where support files go

\Movies\
—-\MovieTitle\
—— MovieTitle.mkv
—— folder.jpg
—— fanart.jpg
—— movie-trailer.flv
—— title.nfo

\TV Shows\
—- \Show\
—— folder.jpg
—— fanart.jpg
——- \Season\
——— folder.jpg

In the above format the folder.jpg is the source for the small thumbnail assigned to the folder and fanart.jpg is the large image placed in the background during showcase mode. See the image below to see what showcase mode looks like. For more examples of folder structure with some excellent and informative info-grap! hics, ch eck out this post on the XBMC forums.

NFO files provide additional information about media. If you don't want to mess around with NFO files, having the thumbnails and fan art saved to disk will speed up the scraping process enormously. You can read about NFO files and how XBMC center uses them here. You can also greatly automate the process of manually inserting fanart, thumbnails, and managing NFO files by using helper applications like Ember Media Manager.

The area at the bottom of the screenshot above, highlighted with the red box, is where your media flags will show up. The media flags are a really nice touch and indicate things like the studio that produced the film, what quality the video is in, and other media information like what kind of audio it has. All media flag information is pulled, oddly enough, from the file name. If you want the Blu-ray or HD-DVD icon to appear you need to add that information to the file name within the /Movie/Title/ folder. The following file name for example would enable the Blu-ray, 1080, and 264 encoding flags in skins, like Aeon, that support it.

/Move/Title/Title.bluray.1080p.x264.mkv

It should be noted that while the general release of XBMC doesn't presently support pulling media information directly from the files that the functionality is available in the beta builds for power users—and it looks stunning! You can read more about that here. If you'd prefer to use the current stable releas! e, then grab the AEON skin and read the readme.txt for additional information about enabling media flags. You can greatly speed up the flagging process by using a helper application like Media Renamer.

At this point in the tutorial, if you've formatted your folders properly, let the scrapers do their thing, and filled with your own pictures and fan art where you wanted to improve on the scraper or fill in some missing information, you've got a library whipped into shape and ready to show off.

Two resources you'll definitely want to check out—because we simply can't cover all the awesomeness that is XBMC in a single article—are the XBMC official wiki and the XBMC forums. You'll especially want to check out any sub-forums for the skin you decide to use, the discussions and resources you'll find in them are invaluable.

Have a favorite helper app for XBMC? A skin you can't rave enough about? A trick that took you a week of digging in the XBMC forums to find out about? Let's hear about it in the comments.




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Posted by Augustine at 11:29 PM

From the Tips Box: Google Calendar Backup, Safely Removing Media, and Radiators [From The Tips Box]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/lifehacker/full/~3/ZUCoSGw4wGA/

Readers offer their best tips for backing up Google Calendar in two clicks, easily ejecting removable media in Windows 7, and staying warm without overpaying for heating.

Don't like the gallery layout? Click here to view everything on one page.

About the Tips Box: Every day we receive boatloads of great reader tips in our inbox, but for various reasons—maybe they're a bit too niche, maybe we couldn't find a good way to present it, or maybe we just couldn't fit it in—the tip didn't make the front page. From the Tips Box is where we round up some of our favorites for your buffet-style consumption. Got a tip of your own to share? Add it in the comments or email it to tips at lifehacker.com.

Easily and Safely Eject Removable Media in Windows 7

Ranganathan shares a discovery he made in the new version of Windows:

I observed this today: Windows 7 has a single "Eject" option (in the Explorer context menu) that works as 'safely remove' for media like USB drives, SD cards, etc. Vista had two separate options, and XP didn't have any context menu option to 'safely remove' media!


Creating a Shortcut to Sync Google Calendars

Garrett shows us how to sync Google Calendars with just a double click:

I manage several different work schedules on Google Calendars. To protect my meticulous editing from the few non tech savvy users with admin privileges, frequent backups are a must. To get all of your calendars as .ics files stuffed into a .zip file, simply create a desktop shortcut with the f! ollowing link:

http://www.google.com/calendar/exporticalzip

As long as you're logged into Google in your default browser, backups are just a double click away!


Make Your Radiator More Efficient

Photo by Todd Baker.

Thomas shares a tip to keep the heat in:

If you have radiator heat, wrap a large piece of cardboard or plywood with aluminum foil, and place it between the radiator and the wall.

It will help to reflect the heat back into the room instead of being absorbed by the wall. Helped out on the long winters in Pittsburgh.

A quick Google search shows some more anecdotal support for this tip, but specifies that the aluminum should be shiny side out.

Warm Cold Hands with Candles

Photo by Jo Guldi.

Casey lets us know how he keeps his hands warm in a cold office:

I suffer from frost damage which leads to my hands becoming uncomfortably cold while reading/typing in the office as the weather turns. For a long time I kept a large cup of tea that I could grasp to warm my hands, but that lead to cold tea. Recently I've started keeping a votive candle lit at my desk (any candle that is completely contained by a glass cylinder would work.) Now, whenever my hands get chilly, I can grasp the candle. The closer to the top the hotter the glass gets. No more co! ld hands , or cold tea. Plus the candle adds to the atmosphere of my office.





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Posted by Augustine at 11:28 PM

The RED Digital Film Cameras' Spec Lists Are As Big As Their Prices [Digital Film]

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/7sjw1Fp-h4w/the-red-digital-film-cameras-spec-lists-are-as-big-as-their-prices

We've drooled over accessories for RED's line of digital still and motion cameras, but now we've got some specs for the actual DSMCs. No release dates yet, but looks like the EPIC-X with it's $28,000 price will come first.

The first of the two models we're being teased with is the incredibly high-end EPIC-X which will be released in four stages, beginning with a pre-production model dubbed TATTOO and ending with the wide-spread final release model. The details explain the $28,000 price tag:

* New MYSTERIUM-X 5K sensor
* 5K (2:1) at 1-100fps
* 4K (2:1) at 1-125fps
* Quad HD at 1-120fps
* 3K (2:1) at 1-160fps
* 2K (2:1) at 1-250fps
* 1080P (scaled from full frame) at 1-60fps
* Increased Dynamic Range, reduced noise
* Time Lapse, Frame Ramping
* REDCODE 250
* ISO 200-8000
* New FLUT Color Science
* Completely Modular System, each Module individually upgradeable
* Independent Stills and Motion Modes (both record full resolution REDCODE RAW)
* 5 Axis Adjustable Sensor Plate
* Multiple Recording Media Options (Compact Flash, 1.8" SSD, RED Drives, RED RAM)
* Wireless REDMOTE control
* Touchscreen LCD control option
* Bomb-EVF, RED-EVF and RED-LCD compatible
* Multiple User Control Buttons
* Interchangeable Lens mounts including focus and iris control of electronic RED, Canon and Nikon lenses (along with Zoom data)
* "Touch Focus Tracking" with electronic lens mounts and RED Touchscreen LCDs
* LDS and /i Data enabled PL Mount
* Rollover Battery Power
* Independent LUTs on Monitor Outputs
* Independent Frame Guides and Menu overlays on Monitor Outputs
* Monitor Ports sup! port bot h LCD and EVF
* True Shutter Sync In/Out and Strobe Sync Out
* 720P, 1080P and 2K monitoring support
* Gigagbit Network interface and 802.11 Wireless interface
* 3 Axis internal motion sensor, built in GPS receiver
* Enhanced Metadata
* Full size connectors on Pro I/O Module. AES Digital Audio input, single and dual link HD-SDI
* Support for RED, most Arri 19mm, Studio 15mm, 15mm Lite, Panavision and NATO accessories
* Dimensions- Approx. 4"x4"x5.5"
* Weight (Brain only)- Approx. 6 lbs (2.72kg)

The other temptress is the Scarlet 2/3-inch, which is "more akin to current video-shooting DSLRs, though it doesn't have a full frame sensor." As with the EPIC-X, there's no release date given. There are some great specs though:

* Increased REDCODE data rates
* New FLUT Color, Gamma and Sensitivity Science. Now same as EPIC.
* More extensive modular system integration.
* Interchangeable Lens mounts including focus and iris control of electronic RED, Canon and Nikon lenses, along with Zoom data (Scarlet 2/3" Interchangeable)
* "Touch Focus Tracking" with electronic lens mounts and RED touchscreen LCD's (Scarlet 2/3" Interchangeable and 8x Fixed)
* Two independent microphone level channels, balanced input circuits, 48V Phantom Power, digitized at 24-bit 48KHz.
* GigaBit Ethernet port
* Scaled 1080P at 60fps

Word is that there'll be more information at the end of the month, but that won't stop us from already fantasizing about what to do with the cameras. [Red User via Engadget]




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Posted by Augustine at 11:22 PM

xpPhone teased with specs and pictures, makes Windows XP young again

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/30/xpphone-teased-with-specs-and-pictures-makes-windows-xp-young-a/

Don't panic, we haven't gone back in time. What we're looking at here is the world's first but still-yet-to-be-released phone that runs on Windows XP, and its Chinese maker has just released some juicy specs and interface images to tease us all. The ITG xpPhone will be blessed with the chutzpah-filled AMD "Super Mobile" CPU, coupled with either 512MB or 1GB RAM. Storage options range from 8GB SSD to 120GB HDD (probably 1.8-inch) and everything in between. While the sheet confirms both GSM and CDMA support, ITG's pre-order page -- which looks more like a newsletter sign-up page at the moment -- is still vague on the phone's availability and price. For now we'll just continue to gaze at the interface pictures until something happens.

[Via Gizmodo]

Filed under: ,

xpPhone teased with specs and pictures, makes Windows XP young again originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 30 Oct 2009 21:33:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Posted by Augustine at 11:19 PM

Aptera 2e three-wheeler deemed a car by the DoE, eligible for funding

Source: http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/30/aptera-2e-three-wheeler-deemed-a-car-by-the-doe-eligible-for-fu/

For a time, it looked Aptera might be missing out on the US Department of Energy's funding bonanza for energy-efficient vehicles due to its car's three-wheeled nature, but it looks like President Obama has now had the final say on the matter, and signed legislation that makes both two-wheeled and three-wheeled vehicles eligible for the same funding as their four-wheeled counterparts. Of course, that doesn't yet mean that Aptera will actually receive any funding, and the legislation doesn't have anything to do with safety regulations, where the 2e is still classified as a motorcycle by the Department of Transportation. For its part, however, Aptera says that it'll be filing another application to meet the updated requirements, and it still insists that it'll hit "volume production" of the car sometime in 2010, and get it on the road for between $25,000 and $40,000.

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Aptera 2e three-wheeler deemed a car by the DoE, eligible for funding originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 30 Oct 2009 22:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Posted by Augustine at 11:19 PM

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