codedread

I have a bunch of cartoons and film shorts on my hard drive. Now that I’ve installed Suse, I have video/audio output to my TV/Stereo, and I’ve set up Myth, I wanted to figure out how to play a series of videos from a playlists (.pls) file. Here’s how I did it. As a bonus, I also set up Myth with an option to randomize a playlist as well. Click To Read More...

There’s been a lot of discussion around the blogosphere about some very prominent technophiles migrating from either MacOS or Windows to a Linux flavour of Operating System. The conversions are spurring probably premature speculation of whether Linux is about to hit the big time in terms of desktop deployments.

My main system at home is Windows 2000. I have been fairly happy with Windows 2000. In my experience it’s the best OS that Microsoft has made thus far. I’ve had the same install for about 6 years (I have not had to re-install or re-format my system in all that time). While this says good things about stability, I don’t think I have to convince anyone that boredom has long since set in. Additionally, and perhaps more practically, support for Windows 2000 will be ending sometime on the horizon (presumably when they deploy and entrench Vista), so I’ve started to consider my options. Click To Read More...

Last night in an online chat with the Home Theater Forum, Warners Home Video announced they have finally settled their legal issues with Hearst Entertainment and King Features Syndicate and are planning to release all the Popeye starting in 2007. Here’s the press release. The cartoons will be given the royal treatment, just like the Looney Tunes and will be released chronologically. Click To Read More...

Our library kicks ass. It’s about 3 blocks away so it’s often a place to take the boys and let them blow off steam looking at puzzles, playing with puppets or picking out books. We’ve even picked out some DVDs for them (mostly discs in the Baby Einstein series: Baby Mozart, Baby Newton and Baby Beethoven). The kids love those DVDs, but we have had a hard time keeping their TV watching to under 30-40 minutes/day (I know, still too much for 17-month olds, but c’est la vie). Click To Read More...

I had to force myself to finish writing this entry as it’s been sitting in “Draft” state for way too long. Read Step 1 and Step 2 first. Click To Read More...

Read Step 1 first.

Although my interests in digital video are currently taking a backseat to game development, web programming and general Linux administrativeness, I thought I’d add a second entry to this series that discusses the software I used to create my DVDs from analog video sources. Click To Read More...

This entry will be the first of a series that describe in fine detail how I transferred video from old VHS tapes and Laserdiscs to brand-spanking new DVDRs. It includes the video capture, the MPEG encoding, some audio engineering, DVD title/chapter/menu creation and burning. Get ready… Click To Read More...