google vp8 fud

Tuesday 25 May 2010 by Steve | 9 Comments
Filed under: Gentoo, Multimedia

I don't usually like chiming in on matters like this, but I'm going to say this time that I'm disappointed in Ars Technica's recent FUD-provoking article on Google's VP8 codec being open sourced.

Specifically, and I'm not picking on Ars in general, I notice in popular journalism a technique to claim that many people are supporting a view, but then to provide only *one* source that supports that view.  That doesn't mean that many people support it ... it means that at least one person does.

For example:

"Some critics of VP8 contend that its design is sufficiently similar to H.264 to warrant concern. One such critic is Jason Garrett-Glaser, a software developer who works on x264, a well-known open source implementation of H.264. In a lengthy analysis of VP8, he attacks On2's claim that the format is superior to H.264 and says that the format's legal status is too dubious for companies to trust."

There are no other references to "some critics" anywhere else in the article.

Again, here's a second example:

"MPEG LA's threats at this stage appear to be little more than self-serving saber rattling, but others who have analyzed the technology seem to believe that there could be serious patent risks on the horizon."

There is a reference earlier to MPEG LA's own remarks, the original piece of which makes its own conclusions as well.

Looking at that piece, the whole article is based around *one* question that he shared:

He writes:

"Here’s an excerpt from my email exchange with him:

JP: Let me ask you this: Are you creating a patent pool license for VP8 and WebM? Have you been approached about creating one?

Larry Horn: Yes, in view of the marketplace uncertainties regarding patent licensing needs for such technologies, there have been expressions of interest from the market urging us to facilitate formation of licenses that would address the market’s need for a convenient one-stop marketplace alternative to negotiating separate licenses with individual patent holders in accessing essential patent rights for VP8 as well as other codecs, and we are looking into the prospects of doing so."

That's the other thing I don't like about journalism ... I would call it a pet peeve, but really it's just a matter of not being able to trust the reporting when all we get is excerpts.  His entire article is written around one excerpt of an email exhange.  Why don't journalists ever post the entire exchange?  Lack of transparency, to me, just gives the impression that they are trying to present a biased view.

I realize, of course, that in only including excerpts here that I'm doing the same thing in a sense, but at least I'm providing references to the full sources I have available so that anyone else can do their own analysis and come to their own conclusion.

If you wanted to see his own conclusions, just read the article.  First of all, the headline is: "Google's "Royalty-Free" WebM Video May Not Be Royalty-Free for Long".  There's no way to draw that conclusion from the article.

I wonder if the editors come up with the titles of the articles themselves.  It  could easily have said "MPEG LA may create a patent pool for VP8", and that would be more accurate.  Compare that possible title to the other one when reading the author's assumption after the excerpt:

"It would seem, then, that VP8 may end up subject to the same licensing issues as H.264. If MPEG LA does create a patent pool license for the standard, the free lunch Google promised yesterday may not be free after all."

That's an obvious conclusion, and I could come to the same one as well -- If this, then that.

We can see again, even in this article, that he uses the same tactic of using one source and pretending it's many:

"As a number of observers have already noted VP8 isn’t free from patent liability."

Again, it's not a number of observers ... it's one blog post ... the same one that Ars referenced as well!  Jason is a great multimedia dev, but he's not a patent lawyer last I checked.  I'd be equally bothered if someone took my opinion, on any piece of my blog, and quoted me as the expert who knows which way the industry in Linux is going to go, or what legal battles it has to deal with in the future.

My take on the whole thing is this -- first of all, I thought Jason's original piece was very well written, and it was exactly what he set it out to be: a technical write-up of the codec.  He made some comments in passing about patents, but the focus of his post was how VP8 is better than Theora, not as good as x264 (and I would agree).  I would imagine that the poor guy didn't expect his blog post to get as much attention as it did, and that it will probably affect future blog posts, if any.

My opinion on the MPEG LA stance, reading just the excerpt above -- and not the author's own conclusion -- is that their business stance is completely normal and reasonable.  The way I read it is not that MPEG LA is claiming anything, but that some other companies might be wanting their own assurances of patent protection, and looking to their company to make sure they have their licensing ducks in a row.  That could be it, maybe not.  Either way, we don't have any information from them to really speculate.

Personally, I'm not too worried about the whole thing.  I think VP8 will emerge just fine, there may be *some* licensing involved somewhere, but in the end, open source tools will go on just like it has for years and support the standards, and consumers will still win out with more options.

As far as journalism goes, I think we're going to see more FUD pieces about the whole thing.  It's a common tactic used by big bullies (anyone remember SCO?).  I'm not saying the concerns are illegitimate, but I sure wish people would use critical thinking and analysis when writing their articles, instead of trying to spin up hype and paranoia for .. whatever reasons they may have.

It's obvious that my attitude is that modern journalism has completely lost its credibility, and that's the reason I don't like writing about it -- is because I get into rant mode. And I apologize for that.  Also, sorry that the post kinda bounces back and forth between my points ... it's the nature of a rant, I suppose. :)

One last comment (this is one of those posts that has the misfortune of never ending), that I wanna make sure I clarify is that it's not my intention to disprove, stir controversy or anything like that ... my only goal is to encourage critical thinking which seems to be a missing element in reporting these days.  I'm personally tired of how research becomes whittled down to conclusions.  It's like statistics -- you can often make the numbers say anything you want.  But, yah, not trying to hand out pitchforks or anything, I just think it's a good idea to be honest in reporting, present the facts, and let people come to their own conclusions.  That's all. :)   Have a donut.

small multimedia fixes

Friday 21 May 2010 by Steve | 1 Comment
Filed under: Gentoo

I haven't done much of anything lately, so it's good to report that I actually helped fixed some breakages lately ... yay. :)

For one, LIRC should actually build again, both on 2.6.32 and 2.6.33 kernels (both gentoo- and zen- tested, for the record).  Use either lirc-0.8.6-r3 or the new 0.8.7_pre1 if you like, and open or comment on existing bugs if you hit any.

I also fixed ivtv-utils so it'd build, and split v4l2-ctl into a separate ebuild so it's simpler to access for those who need just that handy little tool.

Finally, amid all the VP8 excitement, which I'll write up my own thoughts sometime later, there is already an ebuild for libvpx in bugzilla.  I tested it on my own overlay, and it looks good, so it should just be a matter of time before it gets included.

Just to clarify, I don't deserve any credit here other than actually doing some small amount of legwork and putting the stuff in the tree.  In each of the above cases, there were both ebuilds and patches provided by users, without which it probably never would have either gotten done or as quickly.  Thanks, guys. :)

studying the scriptures

Monday 17 May 2010 by Steve | 4 Comments
Filed under: Religion

Whenever I feel like a post was kind of cut off a bit, I feel the need to explain myself a bit, and give a bit of background to the overall story.

Basically, a recent occurrence in my life for the past couple of months has been a renewed effort to find out what purpose the Lord has in store for me in this life.  I really have no idea, to be honest, but I'm trying to find out a lot of answers.  Not just my purpose generally, but what I'm supposed to do with all this free time and resources that I have.

Well, one habit I used to hold dearly was that I would study the scriptures a lot.  That hasn't really been a focus in my life as much as it was before, for probably eight years or so.  I mean, I have been reading them on a regular basis, but generally not more than anything other than a sense of obligation at times.  Never anything I'd really call "studying".

Not too long ago, though, I got a new idea for an approach I could develop towards studying.  It mostly came because I was getting exasperated a bit by following the letter of the commandment (read your scriptures daily) rather than the spirit (feast upon my word).  I like to mix things up now and then, and this time was no different, and I don't doubt that this current idea will eventually fade away and I'll be trying something new later on.

For now, though, what I do in the morning is I read the scriptures (the Book of Mormon) until I find a passage that I find interesting.  It doesn't matter how much I read, but as long as I find something that stands out -- that either makes me ask a question, or consider the passage, or something I just find kinda cool.  Then I write it down in my little notebook.  There's nothing cooler than going back to old notebooks, where I've recorded previous thoughts and questions, and seeing what I wrote years ago.  It's a lot of fun.  So far though, my new method has been very effective, if not the most effective I've had yet.  The reason I say that is because I find myself thinking about that scripture during the day or week.

One thing that I do to get myself to ask questions while reading, is I'll look at a passage and say, "Now, why did they put *this* in there?  Who cares?  What does it matter?  Is that important?"  And that kinda stirs the mind and gets me thinking about why it would be included, what importance it could have had to the author (think of all the stuff we write in our journals that seem important to *us*, but to anyone else it would be a bunch of fluff).

As an example, I'll use the one I found this morning.  It's in the book of Mosiah, chapter 10, verses 4 and 5.  They read:

4. And I did cause that the men should till the ground, and raise all manner of grain and all manner of fruit of every kind.

5. And I did cause that the women should spin, and toil, and work, and work all manner of fine linen, yea, and cloth of every kind, that we might clothe our nakedness; and thus we did prosper in the land--thus we did have continual peace in the land for the space of twenty and two years.

Now, aside from the comment about continual peace, there's not really anything of substance there on first glance, it would normally seem like to me.

However, this time when reading it, verse four caught my mind, and I thought it was interesting how he said "all manner of fruit."  When I was thinking about it later during the day, I realized that it may stand as a bit of a description of how their culture was advanced and organized that they could have not only the technology to raise all different kinds of fruit, but the agronomy and sciences to do so.  Like, for instance, grapes grow differently from bananas, and they are not the same as pineapples, apples, oranges and peaches.  It would take some skill and organization to be able to handle *all* manner of fruit.  I dunno.  I just find it interesting.  The same thing with the cloths as well ... the different types have to indicate that there were artisans trained in different skills.  Anyway.  Interesting.

So, that approach of study is working for me well so far.  I'm having fun with it.

Going back to my earlier point, though, and with my recent discoveries, I'm remembering how much I enjoy studying the scriptures.

When I served my mission in Argentina, I studied them voraciously during all my free time.  Early on, I had the goal to finish reading the entire standard works.  Every free moment I had, I would read, and I got through it rather quickly.  Once I was done with that, I colored all my verses with a coloring scheme I had developed, and marked up my scriptures quite a bit.  I still have that set today, and it's great to reference them, because I can flip open my books to almost any chapter in any book and find something I've highlighted.

I'm a bit of a perfectionist though, or more accurately, fixated on progression and refining my processes.  My original approach to highlighting verses was to do it on a dialogue basis, which works well for the Book of Mormon or the Gospels where there are a *lot* of conversations, but that doesn't apply to every other book.  So, I'm taking it much slower this time around and I'm trying to categorize each book and see how I can distinguish it as to what a good markup scheme would be.  Doing that entails reading through the book first and getting a feel for what the common themes and topics are ... something that gets pretty frustrating at times, because I'm so eager to start marking things up.  In fact, I'm already planning on doing a third refinement of my approach that I've done with Isaiah (the first book I've looked at, yet), because I couldn't wait started using colors before thinking it all through.

It's fun, though.  But really, I'm glad to have found something I can do with some of my time.  Some of the happiest moments in my life so far have been me hunched over a little desk in 25 de Mayo or Neuquen or Esquel, trying to understand the scriptures.  I'm not nearly at the same level as I was before, but I'm having a fun time trying to get there.  Good times.  I tell you what.

studying isaiah

Monday 17 May 2010 by Steve | No Comments
Filed under: Religion

I'm still reading (well, re-reading) and studying the Book of Isaiah in the Old Testament (King James Version, for the reference geeks).  I already finished my preliminary run-through of coloring the verses, and now I'm just going through it again trying to see if I missed anything or can understand the scriptures better.  This is the part I really don't like.

It's difficult to do a secular study sometimes, because it's so easy to look beyond the mark.  I was reading a favorite commentary on the Old Testament the other day called The Fourth Thousand Years (by Cleon Skousen), and while I was reading, it occurred to me that I was studying the secular history of the people, the promises and the events that were to happen.  It kind of bothered me a little bit -- not the text, but the discovery of what I was doing.  This is a difficult point to make, so I'm going to try and carefully explain it.  I believe there is great worth in studying the history, background, and relationships of the history in general surrounding the scriptures, but I do not believe that studying the gospel should be an academic exercise only.

One scripture that can help illustrate my point is Isaiah 6:8.  In this chapter, the prophet accounts his calling from the Lord.  It reads:

Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I; send me.

I'm finding it hard to think of any real commentary that I can add to that.  One thing I like, that Skousen pointed out in his book, is that Isaiah didn't know or ask what it was the Lord wanted him to go and do ... and it didn't matter to him.  He volunteered, and asked the Lord to put him to use.  I can testify that when we ask the Lord to use us in His service, He will.

Okay, well, I can't think of a good ending to write up to that, and I have a *really* hard time writing up these posts.  I feel okay about the first part, but can't come up with anything else, and in my experience it's better in those cases to say nothing. :)

Edit: It occurs to me after walking away for a few moments that my sense of high expectations of self will only serve to keep me from writing any more similar posts in the future, so I think I'm going to go back to my usual mix of stream of consciousness mixed with an overall sense of not trying to offend anyone. :)

the book of isaiah

Thursday 13 May 2010 by Steve | 4 Comments
Filed under: Religion

I bought a second set of new scriptures a few months ago, because I've been wanting to do a new markup for an entire set.  This week, an idea came to me of how I could do that, two themes in particular to focus on: the restoration, latter-day work and personality traits and characteristics of the Lord Jesus Christ.  I wanted to start in the Old Testament, and settled on the book of Isaiah as the first one to tackle.  It seemed like a reasonable choice, and a good sampling of what most of the Old Testament is like anyway -- difficult passages to understand, but with persistence, inspiration and study, you can find some gems.

I've been studying it all week, and I've been having a lot of fun with it.  My initial markup of the entire book went fast -- I got it all done in two days (Sunday and Monday).  Since then, I've been going back over it, and finding more stuff.

The prophets writing style is pretty amazing.  He will switch from theme to theme all the time, sometimes mid-sentence.  The topics he seems to cover the most are: the restoration, the last days, the final judgement, the second coming of the Lord and the millennial reign.  On top of that, there are constant promises, reminders, and prophecies to and concerning the house of Israel (the saints who have accepted the covenant).  There's just so much.

I'll quickly share a few verses that have really stood out to me lately, though I can't go into much detail because of time right now.

Isaiah 5:1-7 is a cool parable of sorts.  I like it because it paints a cool picture of what the Lord has done.  Here's the actual text from the King James version:

1. Now will I sing to my wellbeloved a song of my beloved touching his vineyard. My wellbeloved hath a vineyard in a very fruitful hill:

2. And he fenced it, and gathered out the stones thereof, and planted it with the choicest vine, and built a tower in the midst of it, and also made a winepress therein: and he looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes.

3. And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem, and men of Judah, judge, I pray you, betwixt me and my vineyard.

4. What could have been done more to my vineyard, that I have not done in it? wherefore, when I looked that it should bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes?

5. And now go to; I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard: I will take away the hedge thereof, and it shall be eaten up; and break down the wall thereof, and it shall be trodden down:

6. And I will lay it waste: it shall not be pruned, nor digged; but there shall come up briers and thorns: I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it.

7. For the vineyard of the LORD of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah his pleasant plant: and he looked for judgment, but behold oppression; for righteousness, but behold a cry.

This one touches upon the apostasy of Israel, an event that has happened on numerous occasions.  One thing that stands out to me is in verse 2, documenting all the things the Lord did for His vineyard, he "planted a tower in the midst of it."  That phrase, "in the midst of it" has been popping up in my brain lately, and it's interesting to see where it occurs.

When the risen Lord visisted the Nephites in America after his ascension ... well, I'll just quote the verses from 3rd Nephi 11 and point it out there:

And now it came to pass that there were a great multitude gathered together, of the people of Nephi, round about the temple which was in the land Bountiful; and they were marveling and wondering one with another, and were showing one to another the great and marvelous change which had taken place.

2. And they were also conversing about this Jesus Christ, of whom the sign had been given concerning his death.

3. And it came to pass that while they were thus conversing one with another, they heard a voice as if it came out of heaven; and they cast their eyes round about, for they understood not the voice which they heard; and it was not a harsh voice, neither was it a loud voice; nevertheless, and notwithstanding it being a small voice it did pierce them that did hear to the center, insomuch that there was no part of their frame that it did not cause to quake; yea, it did pierce them to the very soul, and did cause their hearts to burn.

4. And it came to pass that again they heard the voice, and they understood it not.

5. And again the third time they did hear the voice, and did open their ears to hear it; and their eyes were towards the sound thereof; and they did look steadfastly towards heaven, from whence the sound came.

6. And behold, the third time they did understand the voice which they heard; and it said unto them:

7. Behold my Beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased, in whom I have glorified my name--hear ye him.

8. And it came to pass, as they understood they cast their eyes up again towards heaven; and behold, they saw a Man descending out of heaven; and he was clothed in a white robe; and he came down and stood in the midst of them; and the eyes of the whole multitude were turned upon him, and they durst not open their mouths, even one to another, and wist not what it meant, for they thought it was an angel that had appeared unto them.

9. And it came to pass that he stretched forth his hand and spake unto the people, saying:

10. Behold, I am Jesus Christ, whom the prophets testified shall come into the world.

11. And behold, I am the light and the life of the world; and I have drunk out of that bitter cup which the Father hath given me, and have glorified the Father in taking upon me the sins of the world, in the which I have suffered the will of the Father in all things from the beginning.

12. And it came to pass that when Jesus had spoken these words the whole multitude fell to the earth; for they remembered that it had been prophesied among them that Christ should show himself unto them after his ascension into heaven.

Okay, I didn't intend to quote that much, but I didn't want to take it out of context, and it's easier to follow this way.

Verse 8 though, what fascinates me is that when the Lord descended, "he came down and stood in the midst of them".  When I read the verse in Isaiah, it jogged my memory about this event, and I find it interesting because I had always envisioned Him, for some reason, as appearing on the edge of the crowd and having them come to Him.  That's not the case, though -- He was right there among them.  I think that's pretty cool.

Anyway, lots of little realizations like that ... I could probably write a whole series of posts on the stuff I'm finding in here.  Good times, though.  It's really fascinating to study, I would recommend and encourage it yourself.

work, work, work … movies?

Tuesday 4 May 2010 by Steve | 5 Comments
Filed under: Entertainment, General

I don't think I've ever made it any particular secret that I don't enjoy the many jobs I've had.  Looking back through the long years of working (20 years now, go me), there's only been one job that I've enjoyed: working at the movie theater.  I don't remember exactly how long I worked there, since it was at two different chains  and across a number of years, but I'd say it probably capped out around three years of my life or so.  And, man, I still miss working there to this day.

I've been thinking a lot lately about what I wanna do with my life, and invariably the answer always quickest to come first to my mind is, "not this!"  I never wanted to go into computers, and I did so, really, as a matter of indifference ... I did it because I could.  I'm finding that attitude to be somewhat negative now.

But, I don't wanna sound like I'm whining.  I got myself into the situation I'm in, and I'm willing to take responsibility for that, and I want to gracefully exit out, but at the same time, find something I would rather do instead.  Interestingly enough, I've had two ideas bouncing around my head lately of something I could do.  It seems incredibly risky, but I have so many ideas and I get so excited about it that I'm starting to wonder if I shouldn't at least start to look into it.  I've been thinking about either running my own local movie theater or video rental store.

I've always wanted to run my own movie theater, ever since I was a little kid.  Growing up, going to the movies was a rare treat, and I really enjoyed it every time.  Well, except that one time my mom took me to see Bambi, and I thought the movie was pretty boring.  I must have been five at the time or something.  A critic at such a young age.  I still love going to the movies, for just the thrill of the experience.  One of the reasons that working at a movie theater was so much fun for me too, was that I've never found myself so culturally engrossed around people of my own kind as I was there.  First of all, those of us who were long-term workers were really into movies.  There seems to be more than a few shared qualities from that fascination, since I made a lot of good friends working there.

Anyway, the point I'm trying to make is that I have some really cool ideas for what would make a movie theater fun to visit.  I especially have lots of ideas on some cool promotions to do (which I might go into later ... right now, they're just floating around in my head).

The same is true for a video rental store.  I know it's in the news this week that Hollywood Video is going out of business, and it really comes as no surprise to me.  I've written before how I think the whole business concept is outdated, and some ideas they can use to brighten things up.  I have lots more ideas on top of those I mentioned there, too.  There's so many things you could do more than just making it a trip to pick up a movie or game to rent.  I gotta write em down.

There's only one small problem -- I'm not really the entrepreneurial type.  Personally speaking, I dislike the ideas of capitalism in general, and I completely glaze over anytime the topic of business comes up, so I'm not sure I'd be well suited to take on such an endeavor as I might run it financially into the ground, quickly.  If I was serious about doing it, I'd have to do my due research, that's for sure.  I'd like to think I've worked with the movie theaters for long enough to know what would be the basics (I've filled every role there -- usher, concessionist, box office, projectionist and management), but it seems like running a theater would be a lot riskier than a video store.  Who knows.  If it was small enough, I guess.

Anyhooms, I'm just thinking out loud for now.  I dunno what I think of the idea, but one thing I'm absolutely certain about -- it's one idea that gets me really excited, and just keeps generating more and more energy as I think about it.  Add on top of that it's something I've thought would be cool  to do for years, so ... who knows?

I guess at this point I'm just wondering if I should pursue the idea or not.  I mean, not commit myself to it, and run out and get a loan from the bank or anything, but rather just ask myself if there's really some sustained interest there or if it's just something to consider.  I dunno.

I can really think of some cool ideas, though. :)   Maybe I should share them.

how to train your dragon

Thursday 29 Apr 2010 by Steve | No Comments
Filed under: Entertainment

I saw "How to Train Your Dragon" the other week (in 2D ... gah, I hate saying that), and it was pretty freaking awesome. :)

I was really skeptical about the movie after seeing the trailers, so I went in with some doubts, but man, they absolutely *nailed* this movie.

First off, you're not gonna see a story so original ever again.  There's just nothing to compare it to.  The main character's name is Hiccup, who is a young teenage viking who is an absolute geek through and through.

And that's where the movie really shines, is in its authenticity as far as how the character in that situation would act.  I kept thinking the movie is really human, for lack of a better term.  It certainly tells the story accurately from that persona's point of view, including the awesome young hawt teenage chick he's chasing, as well as the idiot bullies that get in his way.  It's just great all around.

The animation was pretty incredible, too.  But what I thought was really unique was the cinematography.  When Hiccup is flying around on his dragon, some of the scenes are pretty intense ... I actually got quite the rush from watching it, which was *totally* unexpected, and pretty rare!  I was really surprised.  For that reason alone, I wanna go back and see it in 3D.

Another thing I kept noticing was the attention to detail.  The dragons themselves acted a lot like how animals would really act -- with their motions and reactions and things like that.  Again, it just made the entire thing seem really authentic.  I kept thinking how Hiccup's dragon was acting just like a playful cat, since that's what it seemed to be mimicking.  Really cool.

I won't give away the ending, but it really took me by surprise how true-to-life it was.  I'm glad to see cartoons and kids films in general going back to their roots where actions have consequences and things aren't watered down anymore.  It really adds to the story, and it certainly was *another* thing I wasn't expecting.

There was only *one* minor complaint I had about the film -- the audio track didn't seem that great.  I went and saw it during a weekday, which was a mistake, since there was a small crowd and the sound wasn't turned up very loud.  In fact, I was surprised to find myself  thinking it would sound better at my house.  But more than that, a lot of times the dialogue's audio mix didn't fit with the environment.  For instance, they'd be flying around, and their intonation or volume wouldn't change with the circumstance -- it sounded the same whether they were close up or skimming the water.  I think it's interesting I even *noticed* something like that, but it really did seem to stand out like that a few times.

Final comments, though, go see it, and take your kids.  It's got a lot of action sequences, but I wouldn't classify it as really scary / frightening until the end, and even then, it's still pretty simple fight sequences that wouldn't be nightmarish I think.  I myself am pretty squeamish, and I know there weren't any "ew, gross" moments, if that stands for anything.

Good times.  I'd give it a 4.5 out of 5, I think. :)

random dvd roundup

Monday 19 Apr 2010 by Steve | 4 Comments
Filed under: Gentoo, MPlayer, Matroska, Multimedia

I've been shuffling stuff around lately with my DVD collection, and one thing I've been doing is cleaning up my DVD ripper and web frontend to catalogue my entire collection (todo: put in git, trac).  I finally finished archiving this weekend all the cartoons I have, and I actually finished ripping all of them that I want to archive, too.  They're not all in one place yet, but by the estimates I'm running (one nice feature of my new code) is that it's gonna take about 750 gigs of storage.  Whee!  It's all worth it to have 8 seasons of Super Friends on demand (seriously).

I found a few bugs in my ripper this weekend, one of them was that I was only storing one possible subtitle type in my Matroska rips.  If a DVD had both VobSub and Closed Captioning, it'd only mux the first one I added.  Fixing it was fun, since it was one of those moments where you open up the code trying to find the reason for it, and you find a big comment labeled "FIXME: Add this feature here."  Heh.  So, now it muxes both, if available.  Woots.

There is still one DVD subtitle format that I am having absolutely zero luck in finding anything about -- English SDH (Subtitled for the Deaf and Hard of hearing).  According to Wikipedia, it's basically closed captioning with color.  I can play / watch / rip closed captioning just fine (watching: mplayer -subcc dvd://, ripping: ccextractor), but not SDH.  And I haven't seen anything that can even play them yet, although in fairness I've only been playing with Linux applications.  And everytime I try to explain to someone what I'm trying to do, they think I'm talking about VobSub subtitles.  Usually I get tired of trying to explain the difference and give up searching.  I could try finding some Windows apps to rip / play them, but if I can't get something in Linux that's scriptable to access them, then it doesn't matter anyway.  So, if someone knows of something ... plz to drop me a line, kthx.

Speaking of subtitles and MPlayer, I've come to the conclusion that MPlayer's support for them is just plain sub-par.  The options to play them back (or force them off) are buggy and inconsistent across the bar.  For example, here's a small roundup:

- Flagging a subtitle track as "default" when muxing a Matroska stream means that, if you turn on subtitles in the viewer, that should be the first one to show up.  It does not mean "these are forced subtitles, so display them automatically."  That's why Matroska has a "forced" tag.  default != forced.  If you're still lost, look at the original audio and video tracks, and you'll see they are also muxed with the "default" flag fipped on.  It's purpose makes more sense with video with multiple audio tracks -- if there's more than one, which one do you play by default?  The one with the "default" flag!  Same principle should apply with subtitles when you turn them on.

- MPlayer can't load Matroska subtitles externally.  You can, if you wish, mux just subtitle streams into a Matroska wrapper (ex: mkvmerge subtitles.{idx,srt} -o subtitles.mks).  But using "mplayer -sub subtitles.mks" won't work.  Bummer. :(   I understand that in this case, the Matroska stream could contain more than one subtitle stream (VobSubs and CC in my example), and it generally expects just one (-sub subtitles.idx, fex), but still, it'd be a fancy feature. :)

- MPlayer can't dump CC to SRT, even though it can play them (mplayer -subcc).  Bummer.

- Random rant about -noforcedsub and -nosub and -sub are conflicting / confusing, but too lazy to put together data about it, and it's mostly related to the Matroska one above.

I just had to get that stuff off my chest. :)   I have faith in MPlayer eventually improving in said areas, and filing bugs would probably be good on my part.  I generally don't deal with subtitles much anyway, so for me it's kind of a "would be nice to have" set of features.  Meaning, I've already worked around the bugs and they don't bother me as much anymore.  I would be curious to get SDH read support though.

I'm starting to notice a general trend here -- I complain a lot about certain issues and bugs in detail, but never go out of my way to report them.  I'm becoming the kind of user that as a developer I totally hate!  Oh noes!

In reality, I like being able to be on both sides of the coin, and I'd have to agree with the assessment of most user complaints I see, that are: the barrier to entry to reporting bugs is too hard.  I could go into detail about that, but I don't really want to, as I don't wanna focus on the negative.  But generally speaking, sometimes it's too much of a hassle to easily report a bug.  If it means me creating yet another user account on a bug tracker or subscribing to a mailing list, I weigh that against the strain of just ignoring or working around the bug.

I am, of course, to blame for my laziness, and I completely understand that developers (such as myself) need a detailed report with contact information along with the ability to quickly index reports.  I wonder if there's some magical middle ground, though, where users who aren't regular bug reporters can just easily report their issues and be on their way.  I know in Gentoo, we tend to use the forums as a poor-man's bugzilla sometimes, and maybe that's one way to do it.  Interesting stuff to think about.  Drive-by bug reporters, kinda thing.  They'll come by once or twice, but not regularly.

Anyway, I can't think of any other interesting DVD stuff I ran into this weekend.  Other than I bought season three of Taxi and it wasn't as entertaining as I remembered it to be.  Oh well.  You win some, you lose some.

what did you wanna be growing up?

Friday 16 Apr 2010 by Steve | 2 Comments
Filed under: General

I saw this post over at mental floss this morning, and I like the question -- what did you wanna be when you were growing up?  It's a cool rhetorical question that I remember asking myself when I was younger a lot, but I never really could come up with an answer.  I'm still not sure what I wanna do.  I *never* wanted to go into computers though.

My dream job, though, is to go back to working at the movie theater.  Of all the jobs I've ever had, none of them have happier memories.

Growing up, though, I remember in high school one thing I had settled my mind on was that I wanted to be a marine biologist.  I sucked at sciences in school, but I really liked biology, and with some real study on my part, I actually understood it.  On top of that, I took classes and was a registered scuba diver at the age or 14.  That was really intense, getting certified.  Diving is fun, too.

I still don't know what I wanna do, though.  My main area of scientific interest now is psychology and sociology.  It's the one subject that I never get tired of.  I don't have any kind of schooling in that area (though I never got a degree in computer science, either), so I can't really make a career change right now.

Ideally, though, my dream job is still just having one where it's low stress, low key, and I enjoy working with people I like.  I'd have to sort out a few things in my life before I can manage to do that again, though.

happy april fool’s

Wednesday 31 Mar 2010 by Steve | No Comments
Filed under: Entertainment

Okay, technically it's 30 minutes before midnight, and I should be in bed ... but hey, I should be married and have five kids by now, too, so whatever. :)

I'm not gonna post any entries this year.  In fact, I didn't even remember about April Fool's til about 2 weeks before this year, and I was like "oh yah ... oh well."  So, no ideas this year.  I'm just outta steam, yo.

However, here's some links to my favorites from last year. :)

Just for the record, I don't recommend having ferrets as pets.  Woodland creatures do not transform well into household environments.  And I'll gladly share stories with you about stepping into puddles of ferret pee.  Seriously.

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