Archive for August 2007
Analog Television Is Soon Dead; Long Live Digital TV!
27 August 2007 in Root | Comments (0)
Finland is about to take a final big step into the digital (TV) era, as only 4, yes 4, days of analog television broadcasting remains today. On the 1st of September 2007, Finland will only be broadcasting television in the digital DVB format. Some cable subscribers might have gotten an extension on getting a digital television or set-top box, since the cable providers are allowed to send some digital channels as analog for a short time into the future. However, the terrestrial TV viewers will have to have a digital TV or set-top box working this Saturday or they will be only watching “The War of the Ants” ad infinitum.
Getting a total of 30 channels (not counting some regional TV channels) of new terrestrial channels, is a big change to the 4 or 5 analog channels we had before. I’m looking forward to watching some new pay-TV channels like the Discovery Channel and MTV Finland using just a simple terrestrial reciever in the very near future.
Some people, however, are not as happy. Most antenna professionals are fully booked for this week and next as people have been late out with getting ready (as can be expected). Lots of digital set-top boxes are being sold like no tomorrow, and some more optimal antennas are also being ripped from the hands of electornics retailers. And some people are not getting any digital TV picture at all, or crappy such.
Fact is that too many people have 1) bought a cheap digibox which does a crappy job at recieving low signal strenghts and might not even support some of the Finnish Broadcasting Company’s subtitling (ironically as the subtitles used by FBC is standardized) 2) are using a cheap log-periodic antenna which can do a resonably good job at recieving analog TV (in the VHF region) but not the digital TV (in the UHF region). Futhermore, as digital TV broadcasts use channel-wise less bandwidth than the analog TV, the signal quality for the digital TV can rapidly worsen when using an unefficient antenna or when in a bad coverage area with an insufficient antenna.
Although people have been informed that they should get prepared for the digital era and what they can do if the picture quallity is bad, many have left this to the last seconds or just given up claiming that the “digital is crap”. I guess this is what everyone can expect of changes that require some little work from one’s own side; we Finns are wanting more efficiency that makes it more easy — not harder — for us to live our daily lives. Much like the current tax forms we get prefilled out and if everthings a-OK, we do not have to do anything. If there’s anything to correct, then one just has to correct the incorrect details and send it in before the deadline.
How Often Should INFCACHE Go Corrupt?
21 August 2007 in Root | Comments (0)
I’ve been running Vista since January and nowadays it will not install any driver properly until I’ve deleted the INFCACHE file. Before deleting it, Windows cannot find the driver although the driver is supposed to be included with Windows. After deleting the file, Windows finds the driver fast as a Ferrari… which really makes the cache idea look bad.
AnySee Tuners Works in Mysterious Ways
9 August 2007 in Code-ing | Comments (0)
If the source I read is correct, then it seems like the AnySee tuners really work in mysterious ways.
Regular DVB tuners have a Common Interface (CI) that is in some cases used together with an additional encryption card (Conax, Viaccess) and a subscriber card can decode a digital TV signal on-the-fly. The result (except an empty wallet) is an almost transparent decoding process for the digital TV software like MediaPortal or ProgDVB.
AnySee is sold in Finland as an integrated digital TV tuner with combined Conax card decoder all-in-one, but it doesn’t work in the above scenario. The same AnySee USB digital TV tuner can be used with virtually any encryption technology (in theory) that uses a smart card for pay-TV subscribers. The only thing you will need to change is the AnySee software when you change encryption technology. So, to make it short, the AnySee plus models are infact digital TV tuners with integrated smart card reader.
According to the source, AnySee has licensed the technology for Conax encryption (amongst others) and uses a software-based Conax card access module (or SoftCAM) to decode the encrypted TV channels in the AnySee TV software. This is also a reason for why AnySee will (or cannot) give out a SDK for the AnySee tuners. This in turn means that MediaPortal and ProgDVB plus the Linux DVB driver community cannot use the AnySees to the fullest potential. Granted, from what I’ve seen in the MediaPortal forums, it seems like the lead developer will sooner or later have to re-include the SoftCAM feature soon, if they are going to support AnySee and Hauppauge’s external USB CI reader.
Anyways, it is probably quite easy for anyone with the law on their side to reverse engineer the USB protocol the AnySees use to read the smartcards. The problem might be getting it working automagically with MediaPortal and on other platforms. Fortunately, this is not my problem… I’ll just stick to the slow, buggy, AnySee TV tuner program… 
Source [Min Hem Bio forums]
Nokia’s N81 Coming Soon?
2 August 2007 in Phones | Comments (0)
Kevin C. Tofel over at JkOnTheRun found this interesting website in an Google ad: http://www.070829.com/
From the looks of the date in the URL, it would seem like the Nokia N81 will be announced and/or released (maybe…?) on the 29th of August this year. However, the countdown seems to indicate another date in the same week… or I’m just not counting it the right way. 
Here’s the link to an image of the Nokia N81: http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/10/nokia-n81-and-n82-come-to-light/
I’m really hoping that the N81 will have A2DP Bluetooth profile and the rumored 8GB flash memory, since my N91 didn’t have A2DP and the integrated hard disk can be somewhat slow with Nokia Maps at times…
Whatever happens, we’ll probably hear more quite soon…