Rocket Science

Do you have TivoHD? Do you have a Samsung UN46B8000? Want to know how to use the Picture-In-Picture feature?

Here’s how I did it…

So, I have Comcast Cable (I’ve written about some of the issues) connected to my TivoHD. And the TivoHD is connected to my TV via HDMI–which really is the best way to do it to get a super high quality picture.

But the TV comes with a Picture-in-Picture feature. I’ve been wondering how I might use that feature. Wouldn’t it be great to be watching a DVD/Blu-Ray but be able to check on the incoming blizzard? (Well, ok we’d have to have a blizzard first…knock-on-wood.) Or play a console game, and keep an eye on the news or a sports event? Yep, sure it would. But wait, for some reason the PIP only works using the cable/antenna input. Say what? Grr…

It’s a nice to have feature–but until I get HD quality video directly from the cable without extra processing (HD Tuner or Cable Card), or until I get cable that works on a digital tuner without a cable adapter…it’s, well, useless. I really can’t use the feature without spending more money.

But wait! I’ve figured out a way around it–all thanks to the digital transition. Comcast sent out a “free” “Digital Transport Adapter” to enable my old-fashioned analog TVs to continue to receive the cable channels after Comcast fully switches to digital transmissions in my area. Hrm, I wonder if I can connect that up to the TV’s antenna/cable input and get PIP.

You guessed it, yes I can. So, lo and behold, I can now use the PIP feature, without having to pay extra. The picture quality isn’t great, but the PIP window is pretty small and I don’t notice the *much* lower quality, so it all works out.

Yay!

So, I’ve been doing a bit of organizing and realized that I didn’t have a backup for my photos scanned in 2000-2002. It took me about an hour to copy the photos from the PhotoCDs to my hard drive, and then make duplicate copies on a couple of hard drives. All in all a good idea.

An interesting observation…There were something like 44 rolls of 35mm film I had scanned during the photo developing process. Guess how much space all of those photos take up? About 540MB.

Now adays, the photos from my digital camera use that much space for the equivalent of 8 rolls of film. Of course my new photos are 3456 × 2304 instead of 1536 × 1024, so about 4 times bigger pixel-wise. And, at the time the photo developers scanned those photos, I’m sure they figured they were giving the customers way more than they needed. (Of course each PhotoCD only used 20% of it’s capacity so they could’ve included much higher resolution scans.)

Just an interesting observation.

Sunday, February 7, 2010
Monday, February 8, 2010
Tuesday, February 9, 2010: Rolling Hills 2, 30 minutes, 7.5 miles, 186 calories, 76 watts
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Friday, February 12, 2010
Saturday, February 13, 2010

All of this is done on my Schwinn 231 Recumbent Exercise Bike

Here’s a recent splog post using content from this website.

That’s the number of long-sleeve, “business-casual” shirts; short-sleeve, “business casual” shirts and Hawaiian shirts I have in my closet.

I decided in December, that, “Hey, I have all these shirts I don’t normally wear. Perhaps I should start wearing them.” A bit of history, I normally only wear the long-sleeve shirts at conferences or during the winter when it’s cold. And, as with most things, I have some favorite shirts. I realized that I was only ever wearing my favorites.

I decided that I should make it a point to wear every shirt at least once during the year. I succeeded in doing this by mid-January. I then realized, “Hey, that wasn’t so difficult. Perhaps I should make it a goal to wear each two or three times a year.”

So, I’m on my second run through of shirts. We’ll see how things go.

Now I just need to find a way to find my way to Hawaii. I only wear my Hawaiian shirts there.