OT : 23 channels and nothing to watch!

Geoff Lock wrote:

Ah, I have a bunch of 8GB flash drives lying around somewhere - I had
thought it'd take several 100GBs to do a recording but then I never did
sit down and calculate what I really needed and I was looking for an
excuse to buy a 500GB external USB HDD.

Same boat, had the 4Gb on hand and just tried it and it worked enough
for what I wanted to record.

"Moike" wrote in message
...
On 20/06/2011 3:06 PM, Geoff Lock wrote:
The Tour de France is coming up and I thought I'd get one of those el
cheapo $50 HD digital set top boxes which allows recording to an
external USB HDD for later viewing as I am not always around when each
stage of le Tour starts.

I plugged it all in, did the scan and was kinda excited to discover that
I can get 23 digital channels in Sydney. Man, I've got it made - NO MORE
5 channels of crappy free-to-air **** - or so I thought.

After two days of channel surfing 23 digital channels at different times
of the day and night, I have come to the conclusion that, I now have 23
channels of crappy digital ****.

Oh well, never mind, I hope the recording function works but I'll not
know that until I can get an external USB HDD.
If you get an external HDD,make sure it has its own power supply. All the external HDD
boxes I've used need two USB plugs, one for data and another for (extra?) power. I
haven't seen a set-top-box with twin USB ports.

Moike

The recent ones are fine with one cable, unless the PC's current (on USB) is low.

"terryc" wrote
Geoff Lock wrote:

I have come to the conclusion that, I now have 23 channels of
crappy digital ****.

ditto. Aren't you just excited about the digital swap over.

Did you think the content was going to change. You now have four
iterations of channel 7, all showing the same thing. three channels of
ABC1, all showing...etc. You really still only have five channels.

Same crap, different transmission.

OTOH, I have 130 channels of Foxtel, so I have more crap to choose
from.

Theo

Geoff Lock wrote:
On 20/06/2011 5:02 PM, terryc wrote:
Geoff Lock wrote:
I have come to the conclusion that, I now have 23 channels of crappy
digital ****.

ditto. Aren't you just excited about the digital swap over.

Over the moon, I am.


Oh well, never mind, I hope the recording function works but I'll not
know that until I can get an external USB HDD.

Those cheap USB sticks work okay, say 4Gb plus.

Ah, I have a bunch of 8GB flash drives lying around somewhere - I had
thought it'd take several 100GBs to do a recording but then I never did
sit down and calculate what I really needed and I was looking for an
excuse to buy a 500GB external USB HDD.


You can get two terabytes for about $100 now.

On 21/06/2011 1:36 PM, F Murtz wrote:
Geoff Lock wrote:
On 20/06/2011 5:02 PM, terryc wrote:
Geoff Lock wrote:

Ah, I have a bunch of 8GB flash drives lying around somewhere - I had
thought it'd take several 100GBs to do a recording but then I never did
sit down and calculate what I really needed and I was looking for an
excuse to buy a 500GB external USB HDD.


You can get two terabytes for about $100 now.

Some of them need external power from what I have heard.

On 21/06/2011 5:38 AM, Alan Erskine wrote:
On 21/06/2011 4:44 AM, Geoff Lock wrote:
On 21/06/2011 12:59 AM, Alan Erskine wrote:
On 20/06/2011 3:06 PM, Geoff Lock wrote:

I plugged it all in, did the scan and was kinda excited to discover
that
I can get 23 digital channels in Sydney. Man, I've got it made - NO
MORE
5 channels of crappy free-to-air **** - or so I thought.

After two days of channel surfing 23 digital channels at different
times
of the day and night, I have come to the conclusion that, I now have 23
channels of crappy digital ****.

What's the song by Pink Floyd? ...."16 channels of **** on the TV to
choose from." He should thank his lucky stars! I've been watching black
and white episodes of On The Buses. :-|

"And, oh, by the way, which one is Pink?"

B&W episodes of "On the Buses"??? Did that come out in B&W? Damn!! This
thread is starting to sound like aus.tv!! Good thing I had the thread
marked OT or I'd be in trouble, eh?

Along with the rest of us.

(weren't they a duet? Pink _and_ Floyd?) Oh wait, that was the Muppets
band!

Ma-nup-ma-nup ...

On 21/06/2011 5:32 AM, Blue Heeler wrote:
Geoff Lock wrote:

On 20/06/2011 9:21 PM, Blue Heeler wrote:
Dave Hughes wrote:

And so it begins. My addiction began about 5 years ago. While I
like the functionality offered by MythTV, it can really be a time
sink trying to fix the niggling little issues... And needing more
tuners and disk.

And ends with multiple HDhomerun boxes and Windows Media Centre -
finally a microsoft product that actually "just works".

And a plug for a fine piece of open source - Media Portal


Media Portal, eh? Hm ....

Nearly as easy to use as Media Center, but has rthe advantage that it
runs on things other than Windows 7 and it records in .ts format which
is easier to do stuff with than Windows 7 .wts format.


Bloody hell, more video formats!!! Oh well, I am no video expert and I
know why

Geoff Lock wrote:

The Tour de France is coming up and I thought I'd get one of those el
cheapo $50 HD digital set top boxes which allows recording to an
external USB HDD for later viewing as I am not always around when each
stage of le Tour starts.

I plugged it all in, did the scan and was kinda excited to discover that
I can get 23 digital channels in Sydney. Man, I've got it made - NO MORE
5 channels of crappy free-to-air **** - or so I thought.

After two days of channel surfing 23 digital channels at different times
of the day and night, I have come to the conclusion that, I now have 23
channels of crappy digital ****.

Back in the FidoNet days, when cable TV was still new, there was a
tagline doing the rounds that went along the lines of:

"I have cable TV. Now I have 30 channels of **** to choose from."
That pretty much says it all.

Even Kerry Packer said that all programming is just plain crap, as long
was everyone hangs around long enough to watch the ads, that's what counts.
I'm paraphrasing of course, and I can't remember where I heard it, nor
can I find it now so can't site it, but you get the idea.

Heck, even now, even though there's more crap to choose from, no
******* will admit it, but I swear there are more ads too.
At the very least, every bloody network SAYS, and ACTUALLY appears to
fight with the others for viewer time, but they STILL manage to
synchronise their ads so they all appear at the same bloody time.

And now everyone thinks I'm crazy for dumping all my DVDs into avi
format on a whopping big drive and watching that. It's what Video On
Demand was really meant to be.
Who cares, it works.

I did that with my audio a long, long time ago. I haven't listened to
commercial (live) radio for 15+ years now, and still haven't missed it
either.
Currently my TV viewing is confined to short sections of programs, and
I really don't see that lasting for much longer before I royally get the
****s.
--
The gene pool has no lifeguard.

Theo Bekkers wrote:

OTOH, I have 130 channels of Foxtel, so I have more crap to choose
from.

I'm waiting for the rest of the country to find the Killer Kangaroos
(furry hopping kind) that National Geographic on Foxtel said are a major
danger to life in this country. So yep, I already know how crap it is.

On Jun 21, 12:59*am, Alan Erskine wrote:
On 20/06/2011 3:06 PM, Geoff Lock wrote:

The Tour de France is coming up and I thought I'd get one of those el
cheapo $50 HD digital set top boxes which allows recording to an
external USB HDD for later viewing as I am not always around when each
stage of le Tour starts.

I plugged it all in, did the scan and was kinda excited to discover that
I can get 23 digital channels in Sydney. Man, I've got it made - NO MORE
5 channels of crappy free-to-air **** - or so I thought.

After two days of channel surfing 23 digital channels at different times
of the day and night, I have come to the conclusion that, I now have 23
channels of crappy digital ****.

Oh well, never mind, I hope the recording function works but I'll not
know that until I can get an external USB HDD.

What's the song by Pink Floyd? *...."16 channels of **** on the TV to
choose from." He should thank his lucky stars! *I've been watching black
and white episodes of On The Buses. :-|

A true classic! Oh wait, what's the other term?

Tony F