No longer using pmwiki due to continuous attacks on the site.
Mon Apr 25 20:14:03 CEST 2011
Some time ago bought a Logitech MK320 wireless desktop.
That is a wireless keyboard (black) and wireless mouse that goes with it.
After having used it now for several weeks I can say: good stuff.
Only thing is that I have to get used to is the small Enter key.
It also comes with that USB thing that goes into the PC,
had to activate USB keyboard in the BIOS.
Nice product, value for money, batteries still OK, on at least 12 hours a day.
Mon Mar 28 18:43:13 CEST 2011
Bought a Samsung LE46C750R2 3D LCD TV, 46 inch.
So far it seems a POS.
The following is wrong with it:
Reflective screen.
Cannot find free to air channels on Dutch digital TV.
No zoom possibility in mediaplay or from USB stick.
Most of the things described for the tools option in the media play menu simply are not there,
so cannot select a language in a multi language .ts file in media play either.
Called Samsung support, asked if a firmware update would fix the missing FTA channels,
they did not know, I asked if they could send me a USB stick with the latest firmware,
as I have a slow connection and it is 136 MB or so, they 'had no USB sticks available, maybe later', still waiting.
Been weeks now.
The remote control is insensitive, does not work right from even more than 2 meters in daylight.
The set takes longer to start up than my old Philips tube colour set from the sixties (K6 chassis).
Have not seen any 3D on it yet, went to the shop to look for the Samsung 3D DVD player,
it had 'Powered by Java' written on it.
I realized it must then be an other super slow unresponsive POS, so I left the shop.
The layout of the buttons on the remote is clearly done by an idiot.
And also for example if you finally managed to get a movie running via ethernet
and mediaplay from your PC, and press any except some special buttons on the remote,
it falls back to for example TV, and you have to select the movie again, and FFWD to the point where you were,
and FFWWD does not seem to work very well if at all,.
So, I have a Samsung LCD monitor, SyncMaster 206BW, that has a great picture (some burn in after many years,
was fixed once too because it became all blue, but fixed in guarantee),
so Samsung seemed a reliable choice.
Something must have changed there, as this is also my last Samsung product,
I can use it for movies now by connecting it with a long VGA cable to my PC,
and in Linux use xine to zoom to the right format and size.
But VGA at that resolution is specified as 60 Hz,
and the movies here are 50 Hz (TV standard) so that gives motion artefacts.
There is a lot more wrong with it.
From missing 5.1 channel analog out connectors, so you have to connect your HiFi to the little earphone connector,
a missing decent ground terminal on the back, there are many things that could be improved.
Anyways it will have to last a few years.
It also claims to have 'internet', but all I can see on my network is that it tries to access some site in .kr.
I did not let it do that, because of my current slow link, it has no web browser build in, so I would not call that 'internet'.
Else I could have tested it on the LAN here on my own server, no way.
And if it had you would not need that idiotic upnp DNLA protocol media play shit,
because then you could just access youtube or any other server directly for example.
Sun Apr 18 12:53:08 CEST 2010
On The Origin Of Oil
Somebody probably thought of this before, but here is my idea:
How I came to this:
Somebody mentioned solar energy was no good.
I wanted to reply that without 'Sol' we , the earth, would be just a few degrees above absolute zero,
no plants would exists, and then I wanted to parrot what I was taught: 'Oil comes from plants'.
That never jived with me in any way..
I did read theories that mentioned it came from inside the earth, but that made no sense to me either.
Then one thing was still on my mind, this article about Pluto's atmosphere:
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2010/14apr_molasses/
It mentions how they hope to get a probe to Pluto 'before the atmosphere there condenses'.
The theory:
Now imagine earth in it early years, hydrocarbons make up the atmosphere, and temperature is high.
As it slowly cools off, the hydrocarbons condense and leave a thick layer on the ground.
Summary:
For me, when that thought occurred to me, all things just clicked into place.
Tar sands, where the hydrocarbons fall on sand, other places where the goo collects in
basins with a solid rock bottom, later to be covered by sand, like in deserts..
Oil *everywhere*.
Copyright (c) Jan Panteltje 2010-always
Nothing of this may be used without written permission of the Author.
Fri Jun 13 2009
Got myself a 1 Tera Byte Seagate Free Agent external USB-2 disk.
Put some partitions with reiserfs on it.
Started to store many of my CDs and DVDs, have about a thousand, just storing the best ones,
plus some movies from DVB-S satellite in transport stream format, plus some backup stuff.
I notice reiserfs slows down a lot (about 2 x) with so many large files (600MB to 5 GB mainly),
and then sort of locks the system at intervals for several seconds when writing to disk.
Am now at about 67 % full on the largest partition of the 1TB:
/dev/sda8 897504508 597423844 300080664 67% /mnt/sda8
/dev/sda3 38571552 32840 38538712 1% /mnt/sda3
Solved this for recording from satellite by recording to a smaller reiserfs partition sda3,
then later copying the files to the big partition sda8 in the background with nice -n 19 cp ...
Maybe I should have left NTFS file system, but all permissions look funny in Linux, maybe next time try ext3 or ext4 too.
For the rest this Seagate disk is very nice, like all my other Seagate disks.
Such a small thing on top of the PC with so much data :-)
Also added an extra Sweex USB-2 card with VT6212L chip just for this disk, and to have some more USB2.
Wed Apr 15 2009
Some time ago I bought a Nokia 3110 classic GSM mobile phone.
It is a nice phone, with camera, radio, mp3 player, media player, voice recording, voice control, etc.
Wanted to play some of my movies on it.
As the phone has a slot for a 2GB microSDcard, there is plenty of space for music, video, and applications.
In Linux, to convert almost any format to the Nokia format, you can use ffmpeg,
you need the libamr narrow band audio libraries installed, and compile ffmpeg with support for it.
Then you can do:
ffmpeg -i $1 -r 25 -s 176x132 -padtop 6 -padbottom 6 -f 3gp -acodec libamr_nb -ac 1 -ab 12.2k -ar 8000 -vcodec h263 -b 100k -y $1.3gp
the padbottom and padtop change geometry to 4:3.
The Nokia screen is 176x144, use other values for other geometries (this came from DVB-S 720x576).
The 3gp format for this small screen takes little space, 112.2 kbps, so on a 2 GB card should fit: 39 hours of video :-)
There is one problem: when the Nokia plays full screen, the text 'PAUSE' next to the play button covers the middle left side of the screen..
For the rest it plays perfectly with acceptable sound at 25 fps.
Battery lasts long enough for several movies.
Fri Sep 26 2008
Bought a Canon PowerShot A470 digital camera.
Very impressed with it, CCD sensor, powered by 2 x AA NiMH, manual mode with shutter to 15 seconds,
photographed some stars in the sky (moonless night).
Records movies 640x480 @ 20 fps, and 320x240 @ 30fps.
Sound OK too.
Good colors, accepts SD card, closes (protects) lens when off.
Optical zoom to 3.4 x, zoom does not work while recording movies.
LCD is bright, enough to find your way with it in the dark :-)
Amazing how long 2500Ah batteries last, been recording and shooting afternoon and late evening on one charge.
Framerate conversion in Linux, how to make a h264 30 fps movie with sound from the camera 20 fps 640 x 480 AVI:
First, extract sound:
ffmpeg -i mvi_0212.avi -f wav big_30_h264.wav
Second convert movie with yuvmotionfps:
ffmpeg -i mvi_0212.avi -f yuv4mpegpipe -b 5000 -vcodec pgmyuv -y /dev/stdout \
| \
yuvmotionfps -r 30:1 \
| \
ffmpeg -i big_30_h264.wav -f yuv4mpegpipe -i - -f avi -vcodec h264 -r 30 -b 1000 -g 300 -bf 2 -ar 48000 -y big_30_sound_h264.avi
Third, play it:
xine big_30_sound_h264.avi
The super macro mode is fantastic too, combine it with the timer, so the camera does not move when you press the button,
and the pictures are very sharp of very small objects, great through the lens auto foucs too.
The camera uses PTP, you can get the pictures in Linux via USB with ptpcam --get-all-files (ptpcam is part of libptp2).
No other PTP commands seem to work, I have not been able to take a picture via USB.
In general this camera invites to photograpy, it is a pleasure to take pictures with it.
Thu Jun 1 2008
Got a Vodaphone USB Uawei 172 modem and subscription for one year 19Euro95 / month and 59 Euro for the modem.
250MB / month free data.
So the eeePC can go online anywhere (see blog entry below).
ssh -Y to the PC at home works, but is dead slow if GPRS.
Using NAPT translation, not the standard port, no I won't tell, plenty of false login attemps in the past with ssh.
But nice to have remote control of the server from anywhwere in the world, read my system email, get temperatures,
pictures of the PC room, etc:-)
Sat, May 31 2008
Aquired an ASUS eeePC 701 (4GB FLASH, 512 MB RAM).
I am happy with this small notebook, it looks nice and it works OK.
Added some soft, just copied the binaries from my grml (debian based) server to /usr/local./bin/, and those worked!:
First get an xterm with ctrl alt T,
then you can become root with sudo su -
Remeber when root you can severely mess up the eeePC, so only do this when you know Linux / Unix inside out.
joe
The best text editor, also copy the joerc config file to your home directory.
telnet
So I can test simple things on the network.
This required me to copy some older libs, libssl.so.0.9.7, and libcrypto.so.0.9.7, as eeePC had newer ones 0.9.8.
ccrypt
So I can encrypt and decrypt simple text files with for example passwords.
ccrypt -e file.txt to encrypt, and ccrypt -d file.txt to decrypt, do not forget to erase unencrypted backups your editor makes.
lame
So I can encode to mp3 with the internal microphone.
I use the following script in /usr/local/bin/record_mic:
rec -d /dev/dsp1 -r 44100 -c 2 -s w -t raw - | lame -r -s 44.1 -m s -x - ./mic.mp3
And you can play back with mpg123 ./mic.mp3
IRC on the eeePC:
I wrote a small text based IRC client 'uirc' that works great on the eeePC:
I have made some binaries and libs available here: ftp://panteltje.com/pub/eeepc/"
copy as root uirc to /usr/local/bin/
Log out as root, and make a directory .uirc in your home dir.
Copy the files in ftp://panteltje.com/pub/eeepc/.uirc/" to ~/.uirc/
Start uirc by typing: uirc
It may help to select a bigger font by means of ctrl right click in the terminal window.
Commands start with a '/', so /join #worldchat should join channel worldchat,
/quit quits (or ctrl C), and /help shows some help.
Digital satellite on the eeePC via wireless from the local PC with a sat card:
I am amazed this actually works, uses less then 30% CPU (top) with de-interlace active.
On the PC with the sat card use xdipo, and the 'showe' script ('show' called as 'showe' for 'show on eeePC').
First open a terminal on the eeePC, and start this script, I call it 'listen-ts-c' (for listen for .ts continuosly):
EEEPC_PORT=1234
while [ 1 ]
do
echo "Hold ctrl C down to abort."
netcat -l -p $EEEPC_PORT | mplayer -fs -vop pp=0x20000 -monitoraspect 800:480 -cache 1000 -
done
exit 1
Then open a second terminal, and do (replacing 'pcwithsatcard' by what you have):
ssh -Y root@pcwithsatcard.
enter your password, and then simply type (for example):
showe bbc1
and BBC1 will appear on the eeePC (pressing 'q' will abort).
So now you can watch satellite TV on the eeePC around the house via WiFi.
An other good thing about the eeePC is that it uses a LED backlight for the display.
I started wondering why the colors were so good (compared to other LCDs), and playing
with the brightness controls began to wonder if this was perhaps a LED backlight,
looked it up, and indeed! Best for watching photos and videos!
It is of course also possible to simply watch a movie recorded in transport stream format,
this script, that I call 'send-ts', on the PC with the sat card will make that possible:
# send-ts
if [ "$1" == "" ]
then
echo "Usage: send-ts offset10MB filename ipaddress"
exit 1
fi
if [ "$2" == "" ]
then
echo "Usage: send-ts offset10MB filename ipaddress"
exit 1
fi
if [ "$3" == "" ]
then
echo "Usage: send-ts offset10MB filename ipaddress"
exit 1
fi
dd skip=$1 if=$2 bs=10000000 | netcat -w 100 $3 1234
After logging in to the PC with the sat card, simply type:
./send-ts 0 mymovie.ts IP_OF_LAPTOP_IN_LAN
Replace the '0' by how many times 10 MB you want to skip.
Monday, July 16. 2007
Samsung SyncMaster 206BW 20 Inch LCD Monitor
just got this monitor today. This is just a start of testing:
Good: Brightness, design (looks good), sharpness good, color have to get used to it, probably good, Power consumption seems lower then my old Samsung syncmaster 950p (IIRC). I have run Nokia ntest.exe (google for ntest.exe) test utility on it in Linux wine, the results are excellent. I have watched some DVD material and TV on it today, and am satisfied with the quality. The monitor came both with a digital and a VGA cable. The monitor is 100% quiet. Nice and flat, does not get hot. The lighting equality of the screen is reasonable. This monitor gives better performance in the low level blacks then my old CRT. Picture is 100% stable, I have an old TV to VGA converter card, it resizes that to wide screen.... With the full resolution and digital performance should be even better.
Other: I could only test in Linux in 1440x900, probably not enough memory in my video card? Maybe I should check BIOS for allowed usage of main RAM by the AGP video card? I do get 9 virtual screens though in xfm. I have only tested the VGA input, not the digital one. The monitor is picky about the Modelines, I am using the modeline made with gtf 1440 900 60:
1. 1440x900 @ 60.00 Hz (GTF) hsync: 55.92 kHz; pclk: 106.47 MHz
Modeline "1440x900_60.00" 106.47 1440 1520 1672 1904 900 901 904 932 -HSync +Vsync Other modelines at lower resolution it gave an error message. Linux console works though. I use xine to watch (cannot get the aspect the way I want in mplayer).
Using the zoom button (Z and shifted Z) allows you to take full advantage of the screen without
sacrificing aspect (set to auto).
Needs improvement: Blue power LED too bright, I put an old floppy sticker over it, so now only the reflected blue light from the silver hollow bottom rim shines forward. The brightness is at minimum, it is still very bright in the evening (with 2 18W fluorescent lights 2 meters above it). The black rim reflects, I can live with that, so does the metal power button.
Resume: Very impressive picture. Nice looking. Nice for movies too!
Wednesday, June 20. 2007
Creative Labs Muvo V100 1GB mp3 player in Linux
I needed a new mp3 player. After hours of web searching for one that had good sound and also supported play-lists, and no unneeded stuff, I found the playlist issue was not a simple one.
Late at night I suddenly did see the solution to this, just make one big mp3 file with the selection you want. My playlist runs for many hours... I decided on the Creative Muvo because it looks OK, it uses a normal AAA battery you can get anywhere, as it is not always possible to find a USB or charge point as other players need. And i t works on rechargable AAA (I use 750mA hour) batteries too.
The player is recognized in Linux on my system as mass storage device /dev/sda1. Insert player in PC USB slot, type 'dmesg' until scan complete, then (if sda1): mount -t msdos /dev/sda1 /mnt/sda1/
Now to this playlist thingy, see, the little book that comes with the Muvo is almost as thick as the player, has many many languages, but only a few pages for each language, and that refers to the CDROM. Now this CDROM does not have the docs in pdf format (Creative that is bad bad bad) but in some stupid Microsoft format that I do not have a reader for in Linux (and do not want to install a reader for). Anyways from the menus in the player, playlists seem to suck anyways, so I do: mpgedit -o /mnt/sda1/muvo.mp3 -e- file1.mp3 file2.mp3..... filen.mp3 This concatenates all numbers together in the sequence I want these. Result: -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 388447181 2007-06-20 16:01 muvo.mp3 So that is ONE song, start it, select repeat song... done. You can find mpgedit here: http://www.mpgedit.org/mpgedit/index.html There is both a command line and a X windows version.
Sound quality: really nice.
File formats: I have many mp2 files (digital satellite for example is transmitted in mp2), and the player did not list these. As all chips that claim mp3 should also decode mp2, I simply renamed these files mp3, and they showed up in the listing, and play normally. This should be fixed by Creative in the firmware. An other thing that should be fixed if possible, is that just like the present position in a file is saved when you switch the Muvo off, also the present position should be saved when the low battery shutdown happens.
Some more test results: Playtime with Panasonic NiMH rechargable 750mAh battery: 11hours 35 minutes via HiFi (so no load and this is an older batteries used many times, so maybe less then 750mAh). Measured current with this battery (a full one) using a normal universal digital meter: Pressing start button: 108 mA. Playing, with back light off: No headphones: 47 mA. Senheiser headphones (about 33 Ohm, same as earphones that come with the Muvo): 52 mA fluctuating on music (so can be more). With LED blue backlight active: 86 mA. I recommend keeping the backlight off, it will result in longer playtime, and most of the time you do not need it, the LCD display is clear enough. Only in the dark makes the backlight sense. Using the on/off button a lot, also consumes much more current it seems.... Battery voltage for cutoff: about .908 V. When the battery reached this voltage the Muvo automatically switches off. This is a good value to allow NiMH batteries to last to 100% capacity.
Very good results really, great player. There exists 1Ah AAA rechargable NiMH batteries... so even longer playtime should be possible. If you have 2, charge one while using the other perhaps.
Thursday, April 26. 2007
Linksys WAP54G Wireless Access Point and Sweex LW053 Wireless USB stick on Linux.
This shows how I did set up a wireless access point, and a PC client for it that even runs a server.
The Linksys manual is worthless hopeless, written by idiots likely for idiots. Why? Ask them (but better read this, it may just help you out faster).
So anyways I got the Linksys WAP54G as I did read it had Linux on it, but I am not sure it does, as it looks different (less LEDs on the front) then the Linux forums show that talk about it.
My local network has addresses 10.0.0.138, 10.0.0.150, 10.0.0.151 ( it uses an Alcatel Speedtouch DSL router). Also there is a Q-Tec switch, the Q-Tec works great now for several years. And there is the D-Link DCS-900 Ethernet webcam on it too.
So, connecting the Linksys to the switch, looked in the CD that came with it for the IP address of the little webserver it has, typed 192.168.1.245 in the browser, and nothing happened.....
Here Linksys forgot to mention that IP ranges in the range 192. . . do NOT work with IP ranges in the range 10.0.0.150 etc.... To keep customers happy that should be the LEAST they would need to mention.
Anyways, I returned the thing to the shop, asked if they could connect to it, the sales person / tech also could not connect, and we decided it was kaput, they had no other one, I got my money back. I went up the road, next shop, the same WAP54G, told them the story, and said: You sell one if you can demonstrate you can connect to it right here. After some initial objections the sales person connected one up, but this person knew what was needed, changed the local IP on his PC to 192.168.1.10, and connected. I bought the thing, went home, and did on my PC: killall pump ifconfig eth0 192.168.1.10 netmask 255.255.255.0 broadcast 10.0.0.255 up /sbin/route add -net 224.0.0.0 netmask 240.0.0.0 dev eth0 pump
Now I could connect and configure the Linksys. (It all took slightly longer then writing this). Then I did set the Linksys static IP address to 10.0.0.153. So from now on it would work with my LAN addresses in the same range!!!!
Then after that I did set the old IP address back on the PC: killall pump ifconfig eth0 10.0.0.150 netmask 255.255.255.0 broadcast 10.0.0.255 up /sbin/route add -net 224.0.0.0 netmask 240.0.0.0 dev eth0 pump
Now I disconnected the PC from the switch, inserted the Sweex USB wireless adapter. Now it got tricky!! lsusb shows: Bus 001 Device 006: ID 148f:2573 Ralink Technology, Corp Now the '2573' chipset makes one think you need a 25xx driver..... Not so, some ID error is here, and you need a rt73 driver. To be precise: RT73_Linux_STA_Drv1.0.3.6.tar.gz Do a web search, it is on the Ralinktech website: http://www.ralinktech.com/ralink/Home/Support/Linux.html ALL drivers I could find from http://rt2x00.serialmonkey.com crash my PC, or hang the USB, disaster stuff. The next think that needs doing for this driver, is compile a kernel without SMP and without PREMPT, and with Wireless and wireless radio enabled. I am using kernel 2.6.17.9.
Now from this point on all that is needed is load the rt73 module, set the normal ethernet down, and bring the Sweex USB adapter up (it is called rausb0).
Here is a script that I have put in /usr/local/sbin/set-wireless to do this really fast:
if [ "$1" = "" ] then echo "Usage: set-wireless 1/0" exit fi
if [ "$1" = "1" ] then echo "Check with netstat if no outside server connections!" read user_reply
echo "Remove PC ethernet cable." read user_reply
insmod /root/compile/rt73/RT73_Linux_STA_Drv1.0.3.6/Module/rt73.ko
echo "Start Linksys wireless access point." read user_reply
echo "Insert Sweex USB stick." read user_reply
ifconfig eth0 down ifconfig rausb0 10.0.0.150 netmask 255.255.255.0 up route add default gw 10.0.0.138
echo "ready, wireless connection should run now." fi
if [ "$1" = "0" ] then ifconfig rausb0 down
echo "Connect PC ethernet cable." read user_reply
echo "Check with netstat if no outside server connections!" read user_reply
1. killall pump
ifconfig eth0 10.0.0.150 netmask 255.255.255.0 broadcast 10.0.0.255 up /sbin/route add -net 224.0.0.0 netmask 240.0.0.0 dev eth0
1. pump
2. if running nameserver
3. named -d 2 -c /etc/named.conf
4. load-firewall
echo "ready normal wired connection should now run, remove Sweex USB wireless adapter"
fi
OK it is in test, now running the DCS-900 camera and webserver, amazing, just like a wired connection, so far rock solid.
OK, now (20 june-2007) is some weeks later, I downloaded the Linux source for the WAP, modified it, added an SDcard slot, added a serial port connector, more commands, second webserver from SDcard, telnet, provided a JTAG debrik utility too. http://panteltje.com/panteltje/wap54g/index.html
Threw out the Sweex USB wireless, bought a second WAP54g, the Sweex crashed my PC, and the wireless connection was not 100% stable. This is possibly a driver problem, but now, using one Linksys as access point, and an other as wireless client, things work a lot better.
Saturday, February 10. 2007
Epson R200 and www.continuousink.com printing system
I have an Epson R200 inkjet printer, mainly to print directly on inkjet printable DVDs. The original Epson cartridges are expensive, even the non-original I buy from www.inkclub.com are expensive if you have to replace all 6 at once. So I decided to try the ink system that www.continuousink.com sells.
This works OK, but some remarks need to be made public about this. They send me a CD with instructions, and those instructions tell you to remove the grey clamp and spring that normally holds the ink cartridges down in the printhead. And they say that breaking it is no problem when removing it, as you 'won't need it anymore'.
However it now turns out that you should NOT remove this clamp and spring, because I did (I kept it in one piece) and then the ink cassettes no longer are pressed against the ink head, and stripes appear in the printout, that look like the heads need cleaning, but that cleaning then does not help. So to you whom it may concern, DO NOT REMOVE THIS CLAMP. Also this clamp has as function to press the backside of the ink cassette down so the contacts of the chip connectors touch the chips (else you may get an error indication).
The problem in my case showed up mainly in black, as that is the most left hand cartridge, and that is where the spring is pushing the clamp down. It also is the place where the silicon ink tubes come out, perhaps the pull of those tubes moves the ink cartridges more upwards, on that side.
I have emailed sales at continuousink.com about my findings, and hopefully they will make a new instruction CD. To avoid damage to the silicon ink tubes (that is why they remove the clamp I think), I simply scraped of some plastic from the clamp to make space for the tubes. Avoid sharp edges, and make sure no plastic lands in the printer. Melting the plastic a bit with a hot object like for example a soldering iron would work too I guess.
After putting the clamp back it worked great.
Printing in windows works great. Printing to the R200 in Linux I do via the Gimp, with the Gutenberg print drivers installed, and the Cups printing control system. You can connect with any web browser to http://localhost:631/ to access the cups administration system on your Linux PC one it is installed. For now the colors I did see from MS Windows (printed via Irfanview or the Epson printCD utility) look better then those made in Linux, so I will be using MS Windows for the CDs and DVDs for the time being. At least until I figure out why there is a difference, and how to fix that.
Legal issues: I think if you use the www.continuousink.com system, and removed the clamp according to their instructions, and then are stuck with a printer that no longer works right, and then also does no longer work right with the original ink cartridges, you could claim repair costs, as this clamp cannot be put back if damaged, and is very easy to damage, and in fact they say it does not matter if you to break it. Just make sure that is the problem is not just dirty or clogged print heads.
Epson R200 technical documentation: I also found the original service manual for the Epson R200 online for free, some sites ask money for this, but it is free somewhere on the Epson website, try this link, it is a pdf file after you unzip it: http://epson.2manuals.com/sm/r-200/r-200.zip
Tuesday, September 12. 2006
Mustek DV9300 mpeg4 digital video camera in Linux,
my experience: Mustek DV9300 mpeg4 digital video camera in Linux, my experience:
This is still being tested right now..... check this blog entry in the future.
Mp3 playing in music mode: interrupts - volume changes in mp3 play, possibly plays parts (sectors) of other files, filesystem problem? Mp3 no bass, distorted audio via line, distorted audio via external speaker. Does Mustek think audio starts at 500Hz? OK, more bass is there via line when terminated wit ha high impedance. It seems to me AV out uses the speaker output for audio, it sound the same with headphones on AV out cable or plugged in 'phones'. So the output coupling capacitor is likely too low a value, causing any low to be severely attenuated if loaded with headphones..... If I ever open this up... something to do here.
I also have a Mustek DVD player (very old), it is GREAT player, plays anything, but the audio via the headphone jack is just as bad, and also cuts low frequencies.... that DVD player audio headphone out even oscillates at some volume settings... Somebody at Mustek should look up 'audio', no need for such a screw up. And the tray is flimsy too, need to hold it to insert a CD.
Fixed focus lens, low quality. Never anywhere full focus.
When 'no auto off' in setup, and switched off manually, does not switch on next morning, but removing and re-inserting battery fixes that. So removing and re-inserting battery needed anytime you need it?
Flimsy covers for SDcard (front) and external connections (rear).
Hard to find photo setup menu (keep shifting right, it will pop up).
Play duration mp3 on 'all' in music with newly fully charged battery, and monitor off: 2 hours 18 minutes, 138 minutes. This was with amplified PC speakers in the headphone jack, and volume at 50%. Could be a bit less with a low impedance headphone. I test with a Senheiser HD201, Senheiser makes the best headphones around...
Severe 'blocking' when panning fast in movie mode.
About 1 hour video goes on a 21 Euro 1GB SD card at 25 fps in 640x480 fine mode. Battery last that long in video.
Sometimes difficult to just press the 'enter' middle position of the joystick.
Gets warm when playing mp3....
AC adapter also get warm when no load (bad transformer iron quality), do not leave it plugged in.
Flash gives sharpest pictures. There is a digital picture stabilizer! Do not pan too fast when using the digital stabilizer, then it makes the video jump.
Looked up battery capacity, supposed to be 1100mA/h, readily available model, you could carry a spare charged one (these are 8$ upwards).
When fully charged, and 5 minutes power off selected, and camera switched of, then 12 hours later a 17 minutes recharge is needed to make the battery 'full' again (red LED off), so there is also quite a bit current drawn when off. Better remove battery when not in use! When the battery is left out of camera, then 7 minutes recharge is needed after 12 hours... this must be the re-charge circuit response.. So 10 minues charge is lost over 12 hours with battery in and DV9300 off.
Low light not usable, lots of noise in moderate light.
I did set picture mode to 3M pixels, should be enough with this lens, and prevents re-scaling artefacts.
Comes with MS Windows Ulead video editing software... have not used it yet in win 98. Used an older version of Ulead, it worked.
Using it in Linux. Linux grml 2.6.17.9 #1 PREEMPT with an Imation universal card reader on the USB. dmesg shows it is detected as mass storage. Better to take out the SD card and put your mp3 stuff in /music, do NOT do anything in the /dcim/100media/ directory, DV9300 counts entries and it will perhaps get confused. I do not use the internal memory. You can have other directories in /, and put some backup stuff there :-) camera will not see these.
Make sure you got lock removed from the SD card.
Video out works OK, audio out via that cable not tested.
USB cable works in Linux, but some problem.... you need to mount 2 devices, both internal and extern memory, better be on the safe side and use SD card in external reader only.
Movies come in .ASF format, pictures in .jpg, and audio in .wav. Audio recording is very sensitive, will be clipping if you speak close. No mike in.....
I use mplayer to demux the ASF, 2 scripts:
make-vob:
1. mplayer -fps 29.9700 -ao pcm:file=$1.wav -vo yuv4mpeg:file=$1.yuv $1
mplayer -fps 25 -ao pcm:file=$1.wav -vo yuv4mpeg:file=$1.yuv $1
1. Both Mustek and Cyberhome play this 640x480 @ 25fps with audio.
2. this adds subtitles and special effect with subtitler-yuv,
3. mpeg2enc is part of mjpeg tools.
cat $1.yuv | subtitler-yuv -c 32 -o 0 -p demo-yuv.ppml | mpeg2enc --video-bitrate 2500 --interlace-mode 0 --video-buffer 230 --min-gop-size 6 --max-gop-size 15 --reduction-4x4 1 --reduction-2x2 1 --quantisation 5 --frame-rate 3 --aspect 2 --format 8 --video-norm p --playback-field-order t --frame-rate 3 -o ./$1.mpv
1. If resize to 720x576 DVD spec with yuvscaler then dvdwizard chokes on making pictures.
2. yuvscaler #-O SIZE_720x576 #|
mp2enc -m -o $1.wav.mp2 < $1.wav
tcmplex-panteltje -i $1.mpv -0 $1.wav.mp2 -m d -o $1.vob
exit
author-dvd:
1. language English
2. Use dvdwizard-0.4.2a, -0.5 hangs on B (no longer supported?).
command="dvdwizard -T DV9300-2 -B gallaxy.gif -A en -N PAL"
if [ "$1" = "-h" ] then
echo "Usage ./author-dvd [file1.vob file2.vob file3.vob.....filen.vob]" echo " When called without arguments, all .vob files will be used." exit 1
elif [ "$1" = "" ] then
aa="./*.vob"
else
aa="$@" fi
for i in $aa do command+=" -t auto -c 300 -a en " command+=$i done
1. echo "command=$command"
2. exit
$command
mkisofs -dvd-video -publisher Panteltje_Press -p Panteltje_Productions dvd > dvd_image
1. dvd+rw-format /dev/dvd
echo "This needs repeating on some disks...." echo "eject;growisofs -Z /dev/dvd=dvd_image"
echo "to make space after creating DVD use:" echo "rm .yuv;rm .mp2;rm *asf.wav;rm *asf.mpv;rm -rf dvd/*;rm -rf cpics/*; rm -rf vtsm/*;rm dvd_image"
Links: mplayer: http://www.mplayerhq.hu/ subtitler-yuv: http://panteltje.com/panteltje/subtitles/index.html mjpeg tools: http://mjpeg.sourceforge.net/ tcmplex-panteltje: http://panteltje.com/panteltje/dvd/index.html dvdwizard: http://dvdwizard.wershofen.net/ growisofs http://fy.chalmers.se/~appro/linux/DVD+RW/
So what do I think? I think it is a nice toy, and you can record for an hour.... It could be a lot better with some work, manual focus, better audio amp, audio line out taken before the volume control and output amp, bigger output capacitor likely.... What is inside? Could be a normal microprocessor running Linux? ARM? Or FPGA core? The fact that it still gets quite hot and uses a lot of power in mp3 playback suggests a processor, not a dedicated mp3 chip. Did they do the audio with PWM via one pin out??? ;-) Maybe one day I will open it up. Dedicated mpeg4 chip is also possible, but why not switch it of so you can get more hours battery life in music? It could be all software, running an OS. Does not feel like MS soft....
Should be OK for the casual shooting........ Is small, fits in a shirt pocket, but a bit too heavy for that.
OK opened it, chips so far on top side PCB board: Cypres CY7C68000 USB controller, not been able to figure out how to remove the main PCB, to see the bottom side....
The grey strip on top of the DV9300 is glued on, and hides a silver screw, 3 more black screws are sunk deep within the battery compartment. I found 2 black screws holding bottom PCB, but could not remove it.
Took out the flash unit, 100uF 350V big electrolitic, connects rotary switch with header to main board. Beware of any discharges.
Assembled it again, tested all functons, no parts left..... Could be an ASIC too, that mpeg4 codec.
Indeed cheapo optical assembly ....
The LCD viewfinder (monitor): I think this is a NTSC / PAL composite device, the reason is the interference I did see when shooting inside from the luxaflex (blinds) closed for low light test, but did not see it later in playback from the SD card on the PC. And it is likely 'simple' PAL too, no delay line. That would also allow for a simple cable, not a flat cable, to this LCD. Only need FBAS (composite) and power.... I suspect this LCD monitor to be just on the video out, like the audio line out is on the audio amp out. Possibly the AV jack swiches the camera output from the monitor to the video line when you plug it in. I am not sure this monitor actually switches off, when you plug in the AV jack, it does go black... these connectors have only one 2 way switch.... maybe there is an other microswitch. Maybe the LCD electronics powers down when no input video.
Thursday, March 9. 2006
OK Lets Look At Life For A Moment
Re: from Bekesy to cochlear implants OK, lets look at life for a moment.
First I will take you to the studio, and what we will do is take an amplifier and connect a microphone and speaker to it.
Now we move the speaker next to the microphone, and turn the volume up.
Some terrible howling noises will happen.
Now take a second amplifier and mike and do the same. The both will interact now too.
Turn it off, if somebody did not already use the power switch.
Now you will ask: What has this to do with life? Well it is clue 1.
When I say life, I mean 'communicating life forms',.. So now lets go to the sea. Nice, we dive underwater and find all little one celled creatures that can divide so there is more and more of these, some will be eaten by higher life forms, some will die of age, population will stabilise. They do not communicate a lot with each other and us, maybe chemically in some way, but not a lot.
There are some that divided, and stayed together and organised, sort of could communicate because they were connected together, say by electrical and chemical signals. So electrical and chemical signals happened between these cells. Some cells were sensitive to pressure, some to light, some to temperature, all of them to all these influences a bit.
But then something changed, something important.
We had this:
*
o multicellular
*
When enough cells formed chains, the ends connected together again:
multicellular with feedback
Now the exchange of signals from one cell to the other went full circle to the original one as a firing rate RATIO change from all previous ones.
The system was, by all definitions, oscillating (see clue 1).
Now lets draw our oscillating system a bit different, to show how this happens:
( ) sun
water surface
<<<<<<<<<<<<<< direction of cell eating entity
light shadow
*
1 1 1 1 1 1 0 0 0
*
^ scope probe
As NORMALLY (when nothing happens), the chemical reactions in those individual cells would take the same time, and the creature was at 'rest', you would see [for example] this electrical signal:
| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | firing pulses (not to scale) bottom right, top light bottom dark dark
But when some 'animal' some 'object' comes between it and the sun, the pattern changed like this: | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | firing pulses (not to scale)
Although on average the frequency changes, the information is in the distance between 2 spikes relative to the previous.
Now about synchronising oscillators.
Oscillators have this tendency to 'synchronise'. That is because oscillators are in essence amplifiers (clue 1) with feedback. They will pick up any signal and amplify that too, and it will affect and trigger timing in their own circuit, so they [end up] display[ing] the SAME pattern.
For a SIMILAR creature at some distance from this, that is in any way sensitive to electrical pulses, mechanical pressure (contraction expansion of cells in the first proportional to these ratios as caused by the the first one reacted to), it will start displaying that pattern in its OWN chain of cells. It sees what the other 'sees' Quite exactly actually.
The person told you: Hey I can see what you just described, visualise it.
So life, and communication... here we are. What leaves when a person dies? The organs are not dead ;-) These stay alive for a long time and can be used for transplants, and then will live for even longer. We, (the doctors) look at the brain patterns, and when those patterns are no more detectable, they say: This person is dead. The brain stops working and needed signals (control) to maintain the body will fail, heart may stop, and the body will start to fall apart.
When we look at brain waves, there are so many theta, alpha....
* When the feedback path fails**** is when life (communicating life) stops.
When the microphone is moved away from the speakers in clue 1, or the amplifier gain is set so low the feedback gain is < 1, the amp becomes quiet.
It is for this reason life stops at one point. Many times people are treated with highly poisonous chemicals that also kill nerve cells. Chances are the ones responsible for the feedback path are hit, and that person is no more. Statistically....
So, here is your 'secret of life' if you please. We are the oscillator. We listen that way, we see that way, we interact that way, and when the loop is cut, we die that way.
The 2 states of man:
When we have a loop, a bunch of cells forming a line byting their own tail, a 'ring oscillator' forms, basis of the basic pulse of life, wave generator, but when cells divide and the loop
somehow becomes a figure 8, _then_ there are 2 oscillating modes possible.
In the one mode 2 separate independent ring oscillators form, and will not synchronise, causing 'out of sync' patterns in behaviour.
In the other mode the signal is passed along the figure 8.... One big stable strong signal.
We have, it seems, both neural path in our brain halves (consider the top of the 8 the left, and the bottom the right brain halve for moment).
It seems we can be in 2 states, 'out of sync' and 'in sync'.
The state we are in can change, if we look at the brain as playing a A versus B interaction all the time, then interaction with the one we play against (simulate in fact),
can change the flow from 2 independent ciruits '0' to one figure '8', and backwards.
When separated then we stay in the last mode.
The one who can change the mode of oscillation is the one we are closest to.
This is all pure hypothesis of course, the 2 states exist, but this explanation is the best I could come up with to explain it in the simplest possible way.
We should allways strive to be in the figure 8 state, to be in harmony, in sync, with ourselves..
End message from alien.
How do I understand bird language?: I see what the bird sees when I hear it. Do not listen for the song. Visualise the impression. You will see what the bird sees. The Yogi
(Well you know, I play there roles, some of the ones I play).
Sunday, February 12. 2006
The Truth About Dragons
Import from greymatter blog, this uses postgres, but is slower, cannot find password for the greymatter blog anymore... hehe The truth about dragons
smile Here I will copy a discussion in usenet group sci.astro. This is about dragons.
http://edition.cnn.com/2005/TECH/science/09/09/pterosaur.reut/index.html
Could be mistaken for a dragon?
These species died out same time as dinosour it seems. Why should normal smaller birds live and these die? Was there a common cause? Could larger animals exists better in higher air pressure? Many questions I have :-)
Could things like this be expected on other planets with suitable atmosphere?
And, if some survived, on earth, maybe all those stories about dragons are based on thruth, for sure if these birds were into meat, something the size of a F16 must have scared the hell out of those early humans maybe the birds were hunted because of that, and then finally the last one killed?
On a sunny day (Sat, 10 Sep 2005 14:54:27 GMT) it happened "CWatters" wrote in :
> >"Jan Panteltje" wrote in message >news:1126359637.cdfe1d88e11a29b0a818f1f142f2de0c@teranews... >> http://edition.cnn.com/2005/TECH/science/09/09/pterosaur.reut/index.html >> > >> Could things like this be expected on other planets with suitable >atmosphere? > >Why would the atmosphere has to be any different? > I think to get enough lift perhaps. perhaps gravity was simply lower, long time ago, when looking at earth pics, and that history of 'extinction' of dinosaurs (huge animals), logic says they all had to live in the water (not to collapse). Logic says dinosaurs come from birds, not the other way around as that would require prior knowledge of aerodynamics (in evolution). I proposed this 2 years ago here. Now they find more and more bird like dinosaur. If<< life started out as floating cells in the skies, then birds would predate all of us perhaps. It is kind of hard to imagine some dog like species first grows lots of skin between the tones, then all over the body, and learns to fly. In ANY of these theories dense air helps a lot, but what I wanted to say (and this is just an idea) is that earth was much smaller with mainly land (no or hardly any oceans), and then what hit by one or more HUGE ice balls, changed orbit a bit, and now had oceans (melted ice balls). And a LOT more gravity. So but that will likely trigger some fuses here and there (that theory). I have no proof for it... But I would love to be able to go at 2 C and look at it from back in time with a super duper telescope to REALLY see how it all evolved. When we move to mars, other planets, now lots of places seem to have the conditions, such as water + ice, we will find creatures we cannot even imagine. We may well be food for these too. Their patates :-) (just noticed you are posting from .be).
On a sunny day (Sat, 10 Sep 2005 14:57:39 GMT) it happened "CWatters" wrote in :
>> must have scared the hell out of those early humans, >> maybe the birds were hunted because of that, and then finally the last one >> killed? > >I suspect they may have had difficulty taking off from flat ground (but I >might be wrong) eg they may have needed a high perch or hill top to launch >themselves from. In which case they may have lived on other birds mostly. Agreed, albatros also almost never lands.... I think just to lay eggs and bring food to the small ones. But these could perhaps pick up small mammals in flight, did you see that huge beak?
On a sunny day (Sat, 10 Sep 2005 23:22:44 -0400) it happened owl wrote in :
>Not sure about the plant explanation, but analysis of air bubbles >trapped in amber suggest an atmosphere average of 30% oxygen. But the >samples vary up and down by 5%, so I'd be more cautious about a >conclusion:- http://www.npl.washington.edu/AV/altvw27.html This is facinating, I was thinking higher air pressure, so as to make dinosaurs 'lighter' (upwards pressure), and make these huge birds possible (lift). Then I read at that site:
Geological analysis of the rock strata in which the amber samples are found and evidence provided by organisms trapped in the amber along with the bubbles can be used to establish the age of the sample. In many cases the pressure inside such bubbles has become as high as 10 atmospheres from compression by the geological forces that converted the pitch to amber.
Now here is the higher air pressure, but it is REASONED AWAY! Can it be air pressure and not (only) the extra oxygen (that is contested here anyways it seems) that would allow for these huge birds (to fly)?
On a sunny day (Sun, 11 Sep 2005 12:18:58 -0400) it happened owl wrote in :
>Air pressure is stronger at the surface. There have been fascinating >theory advances about air sacs around the sauropds' mid-section >(another connection to modern birds). They'd provide both a natural >air conditioning and a natural life-jacket. (Interesting clue - >number of sauropod tracks known to be under water only showing the two >front pads.) But afaik, they're not related to air pressure despite >the 'lighter' effect of the air sacs.
>There's an excellent travelling exhibit on right now about the Orgin >of Flight. Unfortunately it didn't cover the super-sized guys. > >Here's an older and unofficial discussion:- >http://www.angelfire.com/electronic/bodhidharma/giantbirds2.html I have read that, and it is interesting, and i have read about some of that before too.
Let's have some things step by step; You say: air pressure makes little difference.
But if air pressure is zero, clearly no air is present and no flight. So I think air pressure makes a lot of difference in practice, we also see this with planes. So if the air pressure is very high (the air very dense) is it not almost as walking in water, the same surface area will give more lift at the same speed? That gave me a funny idea, what if those sacks in those birds were not filled with air, but with a gas? Some bio-gas that is lighter then air could help those birds take of vertically like a balloon! This is a wild idea of cause, but with very dense air and bird fart it may well work. Then the problem becomes more how to land ;-) Fly downwards, grab some mammal, and now you have to make effort (move wings) to get up. OK so much for that theory. When we look at the air bubbles in resin, at 10 atm pressure, and quote "many of these are at 10 atm", then have you ever seen one of those insects preserved in resin? To get 10 x pressure [by compressing the resin, as they claim] the diameter of the bubble would have to become 10x smaller, and of the WHOLE piece of resin. Then the insect in it would ALSO have been crushed and compressed, this is not so. So perhaps the air pressure was 10 atm in those times, and birds could just float by having sacks with gas, like fish float in the sea..... It is a bit out of the box thinking, but it does take into account all data.
For me it is like the birds [some] then landed, ate so much [found so much food] that they could not [did not need to] take of again, over the generations lost feathers, grew bigger, turned into egg laying dinosaurs.
Nature is fascinating for sure! Probably much more so then we know accept as scientific truth.
On a sunny day (Sun, 11 Sep 2005 15:56:27 -0400) it happened owl wrote in <6l09i1h6m1oqeksnchlnjmef28jv0r0khs@4ax.com>:
>mmm, no. They're air sacs: > >http://www.peteducation.com/article.cfm?cls=15&cat=1829&articleid=2721 > >No evidence to say air sacs now weren't air sacs then.
>>Nature is fascinating for sure! Probably much more so then we know accept >>as scientific truth. > >Science does a much better job than many of its stupid critics can >accept. It's a process that squeezes out best-science and makes it >survive all intelligent criticism. > >A book you might appreciate:- > >David M. Raup- The Nemesis Affair - A Story of the Death of the >Dinosaurs and the Ways of Science. > >The current forum for publicly debating best-science is, of course, >global warming. OK, lets have some fun, and amend 'the book': First I will address your 10 atm in honey.. 10 atm is that not 100 kg / cm^2? You'd have to do a lot of cleaning up, and do not use a glass jar. I am very familiar with 'resin' done a lot of soldering, resin does not behave like that, and I a have tree in my garden that also likes to produce resin, I think surface tension is not so strong that it would all by itself compress an air bubble to 10 atm, but here is a chance for a PhD for sure for those guys working on those bubbles in resin. Just take some resin, make a hole in it so air is in the hole, then seal it with some more resin, incorporate an insect too. Now make me 10 atm. These things have just been laying about... MANY [they say] are 10 atm. Coincidence? But now for the fine stuff:
We find the bird has a dual breathing system, the sack contains a bio-gas (methane or hydrogen even perhaps), and in order to land it empties its sacks of the gas. It lives (or used to at least) in a high pressure atmosphere.
Now you remember those stories of 'fire spitting dragons' of cause. In the long ago times stories were told so as to (there were no books) transfer knowledge to the next generation. Now imagine a bird (dragon) like that going after some human meat, descending towards some village. The villagers, especially at night, would have fires, lighted torches. The bird, to land, would breath out its hydrogen or methane bags, and [you must know the trick holding a match when you fart causing a large flame], now with ignited breath [by the fires] SPIT FIRE. When they came hunting for these dragons in caves, they would carry torches, and the dragon would breath (perhaps in distress), and set them on fire (and possibly itself if it inhaled again).
Copyright (c) Jan Panteltje 2005, released into the public domain for the sake of dragons and science.
Your a good owl. I will probably copy this to my blog, the circle is complete, the old sagas must match.
Working On Voice Recognition
Copyright Jan Panteltje 2004 and always.
Working on voice recognition. Already in the 1980ties was clear to me after experimenting with computer neural nets that these were (back propagation) not suitable for the sort of problem solving I was looking for (more human approach), and stopped experimenting with these. Work by Dr Berger on timing of pulses in neurons (he looks more into how the REAL neuron in the brain works), and a simple extremely high quality voice recognition system designed by him, see http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1999/10/991001064257.htm made me very happy to see that the timing issue was in the picture again, as an electronic educated person it was 100% clear to me all the time that 'average frequency' (we say FM), made no sense what so ever. I work with very sophisticated codings / timing / digital systems. NOTHING happens 'by chance' or 'on average'. NO. So, after reading some interesting links on the web, I now Tue Oct 12 11:09:57 CEST 2004 think like this:
Introducing the 'Panton'.
Not a neuron as specified by the general concensus at 2004, but different, my idea, I call it 'Panton' (after Panteltje of cause).
The Panton: detects coincidence of input pulses. (pulses when input pulses within specific time frame). has 'confirmation' input, and stores coincidence pattern at inputs upon activation of confirmation input. Storage likely in DNA like strings in each panton.
In 3 dimensional space grows a connection to other pantons that pulse within the same time frame (ions ... migration?). This way self organizing. Stores the change in the DNA or RNA locally in the cell.
Has parallel excitation inputs to main inputs, that can be activated by higher layers, to run simulations.
Now in a next generation the modified RNA / DNA, or whatever, is used to build the net from birth with the 'learned' (grown) connections already in place.
I do not know the criteria to 'grab' an other panton, that is when to create an extra panton, perhaps when storage size exceeds some criteria, or becomes to slow. The modified DNA / RNA or whatever sequences must have some mechanism for these to be transported to the reproduction organs. This all should be possible to run wit a few pantons in a computer simulation. Writing this down as so I remember this idea (thesis call it whatever, theory).
It shows somehow that external perceptions in this model will always trigger associations... and action may result from that, that perhaps the higher layers will interpret as autonomous, but really are but reactions to stimuli....
Looks familiar to subconscious... maybe on the right track.
Take a day or 4 to google!
panteltje on 10.12.04 @ 11:26 AM CST [link] [No Comments]
Tuesday, October 5th Is the neutrino flux the 'Spirit In the Sky" ?
hehe And is the neutrino the Le Sage particle (that causes gravity)?
cool eh?
Brain cycles being used on this.
panteltje on 10.05.04 @ 11:48 AM CST [link] [No Comments]
Listening Bob Dylan 'New Morning'
Smile, that what I feel now. Something changed ./etc/hosts What? Anyways, try w w w. a l l o f m p 3 . c o m, lots of good music, all my oldies I found there! This was the most beautiful album I had from Dylan in the seventies I think it was. :-)