Ennui Blog

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I’m going to be getting my hands on a rather large 38″ TV this week and my wife and I have resolved to turn it into a home theater. The only problem is that the TV is from circa 1998. The picture is great and the TV works great but it doesn’t have any of the new fancy connectors such as HDMI or Component Video.

I’ve been jonesing for an Apple TV. It would work well with my Mac and my existing collection of Apple videos and the network integration is seamless. The only problem is that an Apple TV requires HDMI or Component inputs in order to work. The only solution I can find it to buy an expensive ($130) Composite Video to Component video converter. You can pick up an Apple TV for about $200 reburbed, but combined with the required converter (which may not work) it pushes the cost up significantly. So much, that I’m now considering going the extra mile and getting a Mac Mini.

A Mac mini would provide pretty much the same functionality as an Apple TV. It comes with Front Row for viewing videos and DVD’s. It has a built in DVD player and if we wanted to, we could surf the net, giving our house a valuable second computer. However, Mac Mini’s can be pricey, about $400+. The benefits are clear though, you can hook up a Mac Mini using old school analog hookups. Not only that, we can get a TV tuner for the Mac Mini and use at a free PVR.

Previously, I had hooked up my Aluminum iMac to our other analog TV using an adapter and 50 feet of S-Video cable. The solution worked pretty good. The picture was nice and the sound was excellent. The only problem was that the 50 foot S-Video cables were very fragile and would break after very little use. It was a very unreliable connection that we had to abandon.

Western Digital has just released a product that may do the job I want. It’s the WD TV, it’s a set top box that allows you to hook up your external hard drive to your TV and watch video with a Front Row like interface. This may be the solution we need and it only costs $100 and it will work with ancient connectors. It also supports a myriad of media formats, which is perfect for my video collection.

I’m open to any other TV set top box solution for watching videos from my computer on my TV. I’d like to spend as little as possible and have access to my huge collection of video on my home network.

Does anyone have any ideas?

Here’s a video demonstrating the WDTV:

The hit ABC show “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” always rubbed me the wrong way. It seemed slightly absurd to tear down some poor people’s home and then build them a McMansion.

Well, it turns out that it was actually a bad idea.

Several people who were blessed to be visited by the show are having their sad realities continuing to plague them into their new lives.

One couple that had a massive house built is now having it foreclosed. Apparently, after their mortgage was paid off bye the show and they had a brand new valuable house, they decided to take out a mortgage and start a business; which quickly failed. They are now going through foreclosure.

In another instance, the family could no longer afford to maintain the massive horse complex that the show left them and were forced to beg to the community for donations again.

“Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” exists to sell Sear Appliances and other sponsor’s crap. The show paints a picture of insane wealth that all Americans should aspire to, even if they don’t need it and can’t afford it. This show is everything that is wrong with America. All it does is perpetuate consumerism, which is destroying our society.

You can’t give a hand up to poor people who have no idea how to handle money and then give them a giant house without teaching them how to manage money and take care of a house that large. It’s asking for disaster. It makes for great TV drama, but it doesn’t make for such good real life drama.

There was an article in the New York Times recently about the cable companies. According to a study that was done, cable prices have risen 77 percent since 1996. That’s insane to me.

Most cable packages are high priced and include more channels than a person can ever watch, and the channels usually have nothing even on them. The concept that people should pay for television, then be bombarded with advertisements has always flummoxed me.

If you’re paying more than $100 a month for TV, why should you endure commercials? Thanks to the wonders of Tivo and other similar DVR’s, commercials can easily be zapped out of your life.

The cable companies take over wherever they go. Most communities only have access to one cable company thanks to monopolistic powers granted to them by local authorities. Sure, satelltie TV can compete on price, but it’s been my experience that the prices are just about the same, the selection is the same and you have the unreliability of a satellite signal.

One of the best cable products that has been developed is cable internet access. Anyone who has ever had it, can atest to how great it is. Light years ahead of DSL. I live in the Chicagoland area and it has pretty much been taken over by Comcast. You can’t walk two steps without running into a Comcast ad.

What amazes me is that they feel the need to even advertise. They are the only option (RCN is small potatoes compared to Comcast and is not available everywhere) and they can undercut any competition, while raising prices further down the line. Not a week goes by that I don’t get a gigantic cardboard mailer in the mail advertising Comcast’s latest gimick. You could tile the floor with them. Most people just throw them on the ground. It’s insane. If Comcast didn’t spend so much trying to advertise, they could probably lower their prices.

The big cable companies are also strangling free speech. Being owned by the big media conglomerates keeps out alternative new media that the market is thirsty for. There’s a huge demand for the BBC 24 hour news network on American Cable, yet no cable service will carry it because it would step on the toes of their cronies in big media, who wouldn’t like the competition that commerical free, unbiased news would bring.

I’ll be moving soon and leaving the cocoon of the free WiFi provided by my apratment building. I’ll have no choice but to go with Comcast. I do it with a heavy heart. But hey, at least I’ll have Comcast OnDemand, which is actually a decent product.

I dream of the day that you only have to buy the channels that you actually want and enjoy cable without having to fork out a car payment a month just to watch TV and use the internet.

Oh well. Feed the beast.

Loads of attention is being heaped on the economic stimulus checks heading our way. The media is mostly ignoring another method of the government throwing money at us. I’m talking about the Digital TV transition. Starting next year, old TV’s won’t be able to pick up signals anymore and will need a converter box to pick up the new HDTV channels. To help defray the costs, the government has seen fit to give us each $80, in two gift cards of $40, to buy new converter boxes. Wal-mart has the boxes for $50. So, for $10 you get digital quality TV on your old dinosaur of a TV. Not a bad deal. Be sure to sign up in a spouses name too, so you get more cards. Most house have more than 2 tv’s anyway. Check out the government’s website for more information.