Oooooh . . . nifty

I love maps. The idea that one person can represent space on paper and as a result, share info about that space with someone who's never been there is, I think, one of the neatest of all time. During my crazy roadtrip days, I read maps the way I read novels: to see what else was out there, to get ideas for what might be next, and to pass the time (if you don't think you can read a map to pass the time, either you don't have a good enough map or you're not reading carefully enough! A good map should point out random things like fake Dutch windmills build purely to attract tourists driving through Minnesota. Really.).

So I think Mapbuilder is one of the neatest websites out there. Not only do you get to look at maps, you get to write on them!!! Wow. Cool. I haven't tried it yet, so I can't report on ease of use and so on, but soon I will. Soon!

Sweet techno-victory

This weekend, I didn't buy a TiVo. Ha!

My guy and I recently had a DVD-player breakdown. This led us to the idea that we should start recording TV on our current hard drive. We don't have TiVo or rent a DVR from Comcast, because we feel about subscription fees the way most people feel about visits to the dentist (besides, back when I taped things onto videotapes, I owned the darn thing I was recording onto. I controlled it. It was mine. Why should I settle for less now that we've gone all digital?).

The obvious solution seemed to be to hack our desktop computer - after all, it's got the storage space, right? The cool part is that I just finished getting it working, it adds to my geek cred, and it was easy. It was also cheap, at least when you compare it to other electronic gadgetry out there. So here's my setup:

• Existing desktop computer: 200Gb hard drive, some kind of Pentium chip, etc.
  
• New Hauppauge 350 TV tuner + PVR card - $133
  
• Splitter to send our incoming cable +internet signal into two separate jacks (the TV tuner + cable internet modem) - $15
  
• GBPVR software - free (tho I'll send the guy a donation once I've run it a little longer)
• Monthly subscription fees - none! Works just beautifully without 'em.
  

The only things I can't do with this setup:

• Watch my recordings on the TV in the living room. If/when I care, I can hook things up using Hauppauge's MediaMVP.
  
• Watch one show while recording another. If/when I care, I can install a second tuner card.
  

Sticky points:

• Rearranging the wild jungle of cables under the desk. It's still wild, but no longer actually prevents me from reaching the printer.
  
• Figuring out which tuner card to buy. Hauppauge seems to be industry standard, but they've got a 150, a 250, a 350, and a 500. I opted for the 350 because it had a bunch of enthusiastic user quotes re: picture quality, and because it has TV-out jacks. If we ever put the real TV in the same room as the computer, I can use those TV-out jacks to hook my computer directly up to the TV.
  
• Figuring out which software to use. Hauppauge's own software is a pain. My options were SageTV (costs $100), BeyondTV (costs something, and the UI got poorer reviews than SageTV's), MythTV (works on Linux, not Windows), and GBPVR. I was sceptical of GBPVR at first since it's free & has no manual, but it got so many user raves that I decided to try it. It turns out to be some of the easiest-to-install-&-use software I've ever run across, and the support Wiki & the user forums had all the info I needed.
  
• Installing Microsoft's dotNet 2.0 framework. Windows told me I already had it, so I didn't realize at first I needed to install it. Grrr. Evil Windows!
  
• Configuring the Mpeg decoder settings on the GBPVR software. This actually wasn't hard, I just forgot I needed to do it.

And there you have it. It's up, it's running, and I'm recording Grey's Anatomy on Thursday.

Adventures in networking

Last week our DVD player started making sad little staticky noises instead of actually playing any sound. Hmph. So much for watching News Radio while lazily eating pizza.

Possible solutions: we could clean our DVD player . . . buy a new DVD player . . . or we could network the whole house! Use our 200 GB hard drive to record TV! Download movies! Set up our internet connection to run thru the walls on our electrical wiring! Copy our old VHS tapes to a portable hard drive!

Naturally we chose option three.

We haven't set it up yet, but here's what I've learned so far about doing it (as well as prices, for my own amusement in case they come down before I get around to doing this):

• Total cost to get the TV network set up should be $300-$400. Wow, less than I thought!
• No need for Windows Media Center edition - in spite of Microsoft's nasty website that tells me I need to buy a whole new computer!
• We'll need a TV tuner & recorder to install into the computer - $134
• We'll also need a Media extender to get the signal from the computer into the TV - $90
• Two powerline ethernet adapters to get the network signal from the room with the computer into the room with the TV. Sounds like the older ones are too slower, but the latest from NetGear might work: see Powerline Networking that Doesn't Suck, and Mossberg's column
  
• Possibly Sagetv, which supposedly has a better UI to navigate recorded stuff & find new things to record - $100 (including the site license re: the TV networked in the other room)
• This page has great details on how to set up recording from various sources. Another good reference guide is here.
  

I also have a bunch of questions:

• Can we watch DivX movies and/or streaming movies with this setup (eg CinemaNow - and is there a better site than this one)?
  
• The TV tuner supports 125 channels. BBC America is on channel 162. Will this work?

And of course, the final question: if we clean the DVD player, will that solve the initial problem?