What’s amazing about the numbers is that 15% more adults are watching online videos than using social networking sites. Another number that’s amazing is the “near-universal” use by 18-29 year olds (old media beware).

I work with a lot of communities who still think that “broadband” is just high-speed internet and nothing more (which granted, all this online video viewing is occurring over today’s broadband). I often coach them on the fact that broadband will deliver all of your telecom services in the future including services we don’t even know about yet as well as those we do (like cable TV, telephone, etc.).  As more and more folks experience video online, they will pressure their local community leaders to become active in promoting broadband availability and broadband adoption so that they can experience the same services that those of us who live in more urban or suburban areas do.

Personally, I watch videos on my TV over Netflix from my Tivo, but also have a MythTV computer acting as a video server where I have ripped most of my DVDs and downloaded (mostly legal) videos.  I also watch plenty of youtube, google video and plenty of old media sites (like comedy central).

If you don’t have broadband, why not?  Is it too expensive or is it not available?  If it’s not available, contact your local elected officials and ask what they are doing to bring broadband to your area. It’s not just for browsing the web anymore and has serious economic development impacts on your locality.

The first order of business was to update my Mac and iPhone and they were pretty easy and benign (and the latest iPhone upgrade rocks).  I applied all the updates to several Windoze computers or Virtual Machines, and performed all the updates for the various flavors of Linux running around the house.  No problems with the basic updates.  Everything went as planned.

The next order of business was to upgrade my desktop to Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid Ibix) from 8.04 (Hardy Heron).  This didn’t go as smooth as I had hoped and was not as smooth as my previous experiences with Ubuntu release upgrades (I had even upgraded a virtual machine running on VMWare Fusion on my MacBook at work with zero problems).  It turned out that my video cards (it’s a gaming machine pulling double duty as an Ubuntu desktop) were configured in SLI and the driver installed with 8.10 didn’t support my cards (2x Nvidia GEForce 8600 GT).  It took quite a bit of messing around, but I finally determined I needed to download the latest (beta) driver from Nvidia, compile and install, and also make one change to the configuraion file (I needed to add a BusId “1:0:0″ line to the Device section of my /etc/X11/xorg.conf file).  This complete, I upgraded to OpenOffice 3.0, installed Songbird, Gnome Do, Avant, and a few other odds and ends.  Overall was not too big of a hassle, but I can imageine if I wasn’t familiar with downloading drivers and compileing them I would have been up a creek.  With that said, at least there were drivers…

Even though I had that problem with the desktop, I upgraded my MythTv box (Mythbuntu) and another Ubuntu desktop with no problems.  I decided to leave my Webserver (blackcow) as it is running Ubuntu 8.04 which is a LTS or Long Term Support release and the laptop isn’t doing much but sitting under my desk serving up the occasional blog entry.

I did upgrade my WordPress version on blackcow with no problems (which prompted me to write this blog entry).

HDTV

So, I’ve been configuring my Mythbox as I have time.  Some of my hardware arrived late, but I put together the basic PC the first weekend, installed Ubuntu and did a burn-in (I am very happy with how quiet it runs).  My HDHomerun arrived a few days later and decided to interrupt my burn-in. I installed Mythbuntu and attempted to configure it. I hooked up my coax cable to the HDHomerun and ran a Cat5 to my switch and I was able to see it immediately in the MythTV configuration utility. I did a channel scan and was surprised to have 80 unencrypted hits. My jaw dropped, I had 80 HD channels over basic (analog) cable?

I need to backup here a bit and explain what I had learned through the internet and from a flier that I picked up at the local Comcast office, but even with the flier in my hand, I could not get a Comcast salesperson to give me a straight answer. It clearly states in the brochure that:

HDTV broadcast signals are included with subscription to Limited Basic Service. To receive other HDTV signals provided by the Company, an HDTV capable television set (not provided by the Company), Standard Service and an HDTV digital converter and remote are required. In addition to receive Expanded Service, Digital Starter, Digital Classic, Digital Preferred, Sports Enterntainment, Package or premium (i.e., HBO, Showtime) HDTV signals, a subscritpion to that service is required. (sic)

However, the salesperson was adamant that I needed to rent a digital cable box to get any HD (I did check and there is a Firewire out on the Scientific Atlanta box) even though it clearly states in the brochure that HDTV is included with the analog (limited basic) service (only the broadcast channels (NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox, and PBS)).

So, I was surprised and vindicated when I had 80 unencrypted hits. Unfortunately, I was soon to learn that some of those must be placeholders (for what I can’t imagine). I also can find NO information which channels are the networks, Fox, and PBS so I had to slowly change channels through all 80 and hope Myth didn’t crap out when there wasn’t actually any content on that channel. I have found the 5 19×8 (i) channels and plenty of upconverted 4×3 channels, but getting them to match up with the schedules from Schedules Direct is still somewhat of a mystery (help would be appreciated … please leave a comment). I do have to admit that watching the last few days of the Olympics in HD was very sweet … I’m still using a computer monitor as I haven’t convinced the wife to let me get an HDTV yet but the picture quality is great.

The remaining tasks are to install an analog capture card to get non-HD channels, figure out how to get the BlueRay drive working (if possible), get an HDTV (if possible), get the schedule to match up to the HD channels, and a few other odds and ends.

If anyone lives in the Blacksburg, VA area and has been able to decrypt the Comcast HDTV signals over the analog (limited basic) service, please drop me an e-mail or leave a comment here.

Mythbuntu

My DVD player, which is a Sony and only about 5 years old, is on the fritz.  My Tivo, likewise 5 years old, is showing heavy pixilation which I’m going to assume is related to it’s hard drive being 5 years old and having run 24×365 and starting to go (over 43,000 hours).  My (current) TV is standard definition, but I plan on upgrading to HDTV this Christmas (or sooner if my plans pan out). I wasn’t looking forward to the price of a set-top Blu-Ray player nor an HD Tivo, both of which would be limited to playing content only on the TV they were attached to, so I decided to go it alone and build a media center computer.

I poked around a lot and have setteled on an Ubuntu implmentation of MythTV called Mythbuntu. I seriously considered adding some stuff (a video capture card, larger hard drive, HDMI output, etc) to an older PC which I had just decomissioned and was planning on donating (wiped the hard drive and installed Ubuntu Hardy). However, after doing some research I decided to build a decently powered frontend/backend combination which will later be the hub of my content.  I’m going to be assembling the system this weekend and plan on tinkering a few days with it before moving it into the living room. I did my research and setteled on the following hardware:

• Micro ATX Case (Ultra Micro Fly) … may be a bit large, but I wanted plenty of room. I’m also concerned with the noise as I’ve returned a Ultra power supply in the past as I couldn’t think over the noise.
• EVGA e-7150 which has onboard HDMI, DVI, VGA as well as Optical and Coax S/PDIF
• Intel Q6600 (Quad @ 2.4GHz) as I want something with some horsepower which will not require a massive fan to keep it cool
• ZeroTHERM CPU Cooler
• 2GB 800MHz RAM
• 1TB Hard Drive
• Lite-On Blu-Ray Burner
• PCHDTV-5500 as one HD OR only SD capture card
• HDHomerun for 2 other HD captures

I plan on spending some time this weekend assembling and will blog my experience with setup of Mythbuntu, hardware and driver setup and the like.

Check back for more info soon….