James Galvin » TV

You Don't Snipe in Carentan!

James — Sat, 11 Aug 2007 22:11:59 +0000

Call of Duty 2 in the Office (U.S.):

A Song of Ice and Fire – the Ideal Cast

James — Sat, 21 Jul 2007 22:38:42 +0000

A few months ago (here), I mentioned the fact that HBO might be making a TV series of George R. R. Martin’s “A Song of Ice and Fire”. This fan has matched each character with the actor he would like to see in the role (good call on the clerk from ER as the Greatjohn). Just looking through the lists I’ve forgotten half of the characters…hope I’ll be able to follow it when the fifth book, “A Dance with Dragons”, is released (probably later this year).

Bono on American Idol

James — Fri, 04 May 2007 22:35:42 +0000

I went off to Africa to work in an orphanage and when I was leaving, this man came up to me and said “please take my son because if he stays here he will surely die, but if he goes home with you I know he’ll have a good life. And I didn’t take him… and emmm.. but I have in other ways”.

Joost – TV anywhere, anytime (except now)

James — Wed, 11 Apr 2007 01:43:05 +0000

I spent some time today setting up a new TV the old fashioned way, scanning through the frequencies with the remote control. I confess that I was gripped by an eager anticipation as RTE 1 materialised on the screen – a residue of the excitment from the old days when one guy would be up on the roof adjusting the aerial, while the fella in the living room shouted up the chimney whenever the blob of dots on the screen began to resemble Gay Byrne. Somehow its still a surprise when TV3 and TG4 pop up on the box.

If you had asked me in 2001, I would not have predicted that six years later we would still be fiddling with bunny ears and coat hangers in Ireland, trying to tune in Network 2 without losing RTE 1. In the rising tide of media centre PCs and wifi enabled gaming consoles, surely this next six years will see major changes in the way we watch the television. TV over the internet has been a long time coming, but at last, it is safe to say that we’re nearly there.

The first step is modernising is increasing the definition, and just about everyone I know bought a HD-ready LCD TV this year, but none of them have actually gone so far as to watch anything in high def. Extra hardware requirements and monthly subscription costs for a couple of HD channels on Sky renders that service impractical. And with BlueRay still volatile in its infancy, I expect that only those of us rich enough to own a Playstation 3 will be experiencing that in the short term. This is why I see ~~Zudeo~~ Vuse, from Azureus, as being a great service. “A radically new way to discover and watch popular TV shows and hard-to-find videos – Hi-def and full screen” is exactly what the doctor ordered, and with BBC having pledged tons of content, this is a resource that is destined for very big things.

There has been plenty of news lately about Babelgum – a next generation TV provider with a Long Tail philosophy who recently set up shop in Dublin. Babelgum sounds promising, but it has been overshadowed a bit by Joost who are that bit closer to launch. I was pleased to receive my Joost invitation today, apparently they have been very busy fine-tuning it for me. They’ve even given me this here image which makes me so proud:

There’s no Linux version just yet, but they have released a client to run on my new Macbook Pro. I had a very quick tour of the software earlier, and it is impressive to say the least. The problem with beta software is that it doesn’t always work, and this is exactly what is stopping me from examining the service further. The Joost support forums are hopping at the moment with people unable to connect, and unfortunately one of them is me. First impressions – it looks great, but in a country where our ISPs think 128k upload is standard for broadband, do we have the bandwidth for it? I’ll come back to that…

HBO Making A Song of Ice and Fire

James — Wed, 17 Jan 2007 18:52:52 +0000

This will come as great news to any fan of George R. R. Martin’s heptalogy-to-be, “A Song of Ice and Fire”.

The series will begin with the 1996 first book, “A Game of Thrones,” and the intention is for each novel (they average 1,000 pages each) to fuel a season’s worth of episodes.

This is a series that lends itself to TV more than most in its genre, since much of it is driven by George Martin’s own passion for the history of the middle ages – authentic battles, knights, jousting tournaments, castles, etc. Keeping the dragons and pookas to a minimum is advisable, since they so often end up looking cheesy. The books are so steeped in cruelty that it will take a courageous director to maintain the spirit – I’m glad its HBO at the reins.

Other fantasy epics that I would like to see coming to our screens:

Tad Williams: Memory, Sorrow, Thorn
Stephen R. Donaldson: The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever

From the Mailing Lists

James — Fri, 18 Aug 2006 00:05:11 +0000

A couple of interesting Linux-related tidbits from the mailing list today. Conor on ILUG linked to a very valuable wireless card database. I have been forced to use ndiswrapper on all four of my linux boxes that have wireless cards, since none of my randomly chosen wireless cards were natively supported.

Elsewhere, on the Freevo Users list, there is discussion about the ivtv_xine_tv plugin, which allows you to record live TV on your Linux box. You’d need a few hundred megs of disk space, but it looks like a very nice feature.

All the fiddling with Freevo has made me think about compact PC’s, which has unfortunatley given me a crazy desire to build an in-car computer for myself. I spent some time on the MP3 Car forums today, and the idea is very firmly rooted in my mind now and I am struggling to shake it.

Celebrity You're a Star

James — Wed, 02 Aug 2006 00:02:54 +0000

You’re a Star. You’re a waste of my TV licence fee more like. The best thing RTE has produced in recent years, Reeling in the Years, didn’t cost them a penny and is now repeated more often than the Simpsons “Timmy O’Toole Trapped Down the Well” episode. But they continue to play it safe with more cop-out reality TV, and mock us with their complete lack of creativity or common sense.

Celebrity You’re a Star… I turned it on because I wanted to hear John Aldridge singing. How could I have been such a fool. You’re a Star has been a source of so much anger for me in the past, its back and worse than ever. How can they continue to do this to us? The people at RTE – they axed our favourite radio shows and now they continue to torture us with the four most despised faces on RTE:

Famine

Linda Martin: I have heard nothing but complaints about her. Who is this bag of bones and who does she think she is, telling that contestant that he has no talent? According to RTE, she is “one of Ireland’s most professional ladies of song and has a track record to prove it.” Since when does winning the Eurovision once with a Johnny Logan song qualify you as one of Ireland’s most professional ladies of song? Perhaps RTE haven’t spent a lot of time browsing through the ‘Linda Martin’ section in HMV lately. The second most annoying woman on TV, apparently she also worked behind the scenes on X-factor. She should stay behind the scenes.

Death

Twink: Irish people have been praying to be rid of her for 30 years. “Barbie’s grandma”‘s personality shone through on RTE’s Celebrity Farm, where she was the first contestant to be evicted by the public, dumped out of the house like a sack of extremely annoying spuds. In terms of popularity, she ranks just above Hitler.

Pestilence

Louis Walsh: Nausea incarnate. I won’t feed his ego by mentioning him anymore.

More Pestilence

Derek Mooney: The only reason Derek Mooney is merely disliked, as opposed to hated, is because the public don’t know him well enough yet. Slowly taking over our screens, he’s the next Marty Whelan, but not as likeable. That says a lot.

The fact that the show is a success despite these huge obstacles hints at the potential it could have, given some halfway acceptable presenters. RTE – please conduct a survey to prove me wrong. Honestly, I don’t think its possible to do worse than you have managed with this cast. I would sooner watch a dozen Ant and Decs co-presenting with Ryan Tubridy. What would it take for you to listen to your viewers?

Freevo Home Theatre Platform

James — Thu, 13 Jul 2006 21:35:52 +0000

Today my boss introduced me to Freevo – an open source home theatre system for linux, written in Python. Record your TV shows and save them for later, accessible via the web interface if you’re at work and you forgot that The Return of Howard the Duck is on. A localised and accurate TV guide is provided on the system by XMLTV.

Play mp3′s, dvd’s, divx, and whatever else your average media centre does. Maybe install it on a modded Xbox for the ultimate entertainment system. I like the sound of Freevo, I think I will have to give it a bash.

Michelle Wins

James — Wed, 10 May 2006 21:17:53 +0000

Despite her best efforts – picking the worst team possible, and getting soundly beaten in the task. The contest was sewn up last week by her good performance in the interviews. The badger softened slightly towards the end, and actually gained my support at the final hurdle, but it was the dark horse who triumphed, thanks to the “working three jobs in one day to support your family” Tim-factor that Sugar loves. Ruth returns to her day job of digging for grubs and beatles.

Bruno at EvilFest

James — Thu, 04 May 2006 08:18:54 +0000

This is probably an old one, but its the first time I’ve seen it, Bruno interviews the neo-Nazis at EvilFest in England: