The Human Mind vs the mindless march of technology

Check out Cnet's special feature on the ten year old Apple Newton vs the brand new Samsung Q1 UMPC. The Apple Newton wins. Surprise... yeah.

The human mind, if intensely focussed towards creating something bespoke, in this case, a Newton handheld PC, vs taking a mishmash of technology, none of them bespoke, and concentrating on the off the shelf components and trying to keep costs down, it's no surprise:

When a human mind is dedicated towards the creation of a handheld PC, SPECIFICALLY, without heed to cost nor uniformity nor UI conformity nor anything else, the result can surpass 10 years of technology advancement.

Samsung shouldn't be embarassed, being in this case the glorified mindless manufacturer. But Microsoft should be, with their billions at their disposal, and 10 years of standing on the shoulders of giants, and yet not being able even to create an OS interface and subsidiary technologies to approximate the decade-old Newton.

When is this mindlessness going to stop, Microsoft? I'm tired of it.

Creative - watcha gonna do?

Here's a best guess report on the new Microsoft Zune Ipod killer. Seems to be a Microsoft branded product. While not detracting from the Ipod, it looks cool in a bland sort of way.

It's boring, period. The only thing left to speak about, is - what about those guys who used Microsoft middleware and software to make their own Ipod killers? Especially Creative - what are you gonna do now that Microsoft is rolling out their own branded PMPs?

Be a contract manufacturer for Micorosoft? Not a bad idea though, considering the quantum of success Creative's had with their own brands.

JAJAH - free phone to phone, anywhere, any phone

Just take a look at http://jajah.com

Finally, phone to phone conversations, potentially free, between any phone anywhere in the world. All you have to do is to register your phone numbers at Jajah, access a web page, key in your call receipient's phone number, and press call. Phone to phone VOIP, simply!

`Potentially free' is because it's only free if your receipient's phone number is also registered with Jajah. But this isn't an issue. You could simply register your `computer blind' friends with Jajah using other email addresses under your name, and their numbers are registered, not strictly correctly, but sufficient to make free calls to them.

And you can SMS too, through the browser, but at US$0.045 per SMS, even between registered users, I think there're cheaper solutions elsewhere.

So, what if you're out without a computer? Shouldn't be a problem, if your mobile phone has a web browser. I faced issues though, accessing the Jajah webpage gave me parsing errors on my Sony Ericsson M600 phone browser (Opera 8.6). Will be looking for a solution.

In the meantime, just call away.

Update: The thing is that Jajah checks your IP, determines the network location, then fixes your country code. So this limits you to some extent if you try to register for people outside your country. Some countries (specifically Malaysia) have a problem - they can't register. Perhaps Jajah withdrew support for Malaysia.

For the lucky ones in free countries, my M600 is working now, with Opera Mini 2.0, downloadable from http://mini.opera.com

New Firmware released for Starhub's ADB 3800C box

New Firmware for Starhub ADB 3800C box was released last week. After updating, the audio dropout issue has not been rearing its head so far. I'm monitoring and will keep you posted.

Update: I've monitored, the dropout issue is less, but yet, still occurs.

TVUplayer - Peer to peer streaming playback

Imagine a video player, with the capability to suck streaming video from your peers, connected to all the broadcasters of the world. Broadcasters will not need to have huge fat connections as feeds will, after the initial seed is planted in a peer, be fed peer to peer without needing any more service from the broadcaster itself. Stuff of nerd utopia?

Well, this is now reality. TVUnetworks is offering such a player, in beta, for free. How he handles the legality, I don't know. It seems to be legal. He is open to the world, even his address is available. The World Cup was rebroadcasted to tens of thousands using this technology.

What does this mean? The quality is excellent, with a 100kB/s total feed from 15 peers, we have better than Starhub SD quality. Do cable operators have to move up to HD totally just to escape TVUnetworks and its brethen? Even then, there is no theoretical limit to the delivery capability of peer-to-peer streaming. Even 6Mbit/s HD can be delivered now if the upstream datarate in a region is good. With Docsis 3 bonding, wow, we'll have even less limits.

What is sure, is that Slingbox is dead. TVUplayer does not need any configuration, any hardware, etc. Any broadcaster wanting to go it alone, like Mediacorp's Mobtv.sg better review their business plan, perhaps to work with TUVnetworks, solving all their bandwidth issues.

Incredible stuff. I'll keep you guys posted. Now for HBO on TVUplayer.

Audio Dropouts - ADB 3800C HDMI

Since the very beginning of the Starhub HD trial, I faced an audio dropout issue. Every few minutes, the audio would drop for 2 seconds or so, then resume. After the single firmware upgrade available, I still face the audio dropout problem, but less. This problem occurs in HD, and SD channels too. Just to clarify, this issue ONLY happens for me if I use HDMI audio. I did not try the AC3 out - but the stereo jacks don't give the issue.

The last time I faced such an issue with digital video, in digital video editing, this is the problem - I'm not saying that the SCV HDMI audio dropout problem is exactly this problem, but perhaps the problem I faced years ago can raise some ideas on how to troubleshoot among the SCV people.

The old steadfast Sony M1 DV codec chip used in some video editing systems, supports a standard called 'locked audio' in DVCAM systems. In locked audio format, the audio output must be set to exactly 32032hz per second, otherwise the chip will not accept the audio in sync. The Sony consumer DV cameras are also designed to record/output audio in and around that frequency, averaging around 32032hz for every second.

However, in the Canon XL1 the audio frequency changed heavily for every second, sometimes with differences of more than 20 to 30hz between seconds. This caused the average audio frequency was around 32053hz for every seconds. When Canon 32053hz audio mixed with Sony 32032hz audio, in a video editing system using the Sony M1 DV codec chip, the audio sync will be way off, and unusable. The symptom is EXACTLY what I see in the Starhub HDMI audio - dropouts at irregular intervals. I remember the dropouts very well, the resemblance is uncanny. The dropouts will happen once the sync goes to hell and the audio buffers reach their limit, the chip will try to flush the buffers to reset the sync, causing an audio dropout in the process.

The solution: When capturing, the video editing system will look at the first second (store it in the buffer) and measure the sampling rate, and if that sampling rate was outside the range of 32026hz to 32038hz, the editing system will consider the camera as an XL1 and capture audio as 32053hz per second. After sampling as 32053hz per second, it will convert the audio to 48048hz, and then convert back to 32032hz, to create an .AVI file. This is to create an .AVI file that is compatible with other cameras.

Credit to Charles Burmeister in DVinfo.net in jogging my memory.

What this means to Starhub broadcasts, is that the sampling rate of the audio streams broadcasted by Starhub's DVB-C system, may be `slightly' out of the max and min parameters which the set top box's HDMI transmitter can handle. OR, the ADB 3800C box does internal audio conversion (HDMI stage), and outputs the audio via the HDMI which sampling rate are out of the min or max parameters of the TV's audio system can take, again causing a sync issue. Or both, of course. Both ways, it points to the HDMI transmitter chip - since stereo jacks don't have an issue. I've yet to experiment with the AC3 optical out, but Starhub guys can do that, I don't have time for that now.

Because the sampling rate may not be fixed, this will create dropouts not at regular intervals, but irregular intervals. It can range from hours without a dropout issue, or just 30 to 40 seconds.

Starhub officials who see this, may it give you a little idea on how to fix it. Worst is that the ADB box has a stability issue with the system clocks.

If it is indeed an audio sampling issue, the following problems can be eliminated:

1) TV's AC3 decoder problems - cannot be, because everybody here have different TV, and most experience the issue. Anyway, our TVs work fine with the AC3 output from our HDMI DVD players.

2) Source video issues - cannot be. All your source is like that. Worse, I am experiencing lipsync issues with your mediacorp content! Which I did not experience with the old Digital set top box or analog set top box.

3) Cable issues - cannot be. I used 3-4 different HDMI cables already.

4) Signal Strength - Nah. I have 100% quality with very low Biterror rate according to the Starhub contractor.

It might be a HDMI transmitter issue (most probably Silicon Image)... other devices have this issue also: see http://forum.ecoustics.com/bbs/messages/2/162876.html

Anyway, over to you, Starhub.

Edit: With more research, so many similar problems on the net, just search for `HDMI audio dropout' in google. I am indeed quite convinced that the HDMI transmitter chip on the ADB 3800C has some issues. Refer to this link here for best evidence. I quote:

Observation; audio would drop every few seconds and "digital" would blink on amp indicating no optical sync at all. Each time audio would come back there would be a slight glitch in a part of the picture as well. Appears to have been recorded this way as I could replay the problem.

So every audio drop, optic sync is `gone'. The HDMI transmitter is probably emptying its buffers. Then the sync comes back. C'mon, this is a good lead for the troubleshooting!

And I urge Starhub to try with AC3 out (optic) and see whether you have the same issue or not. I would expect that the AC3 out has no issues. If so, wham, you got your culprit - the HDMI transmitter.

Removal of Mr. Brown link

I've had a Mr. Brown link since the Te Kwa days in my small collection of links. I'm removing Mr. Brown's link at this time. I'm disturbed by the implications of Mr. Brown's act of censorship of certain comments in a his comments page where hundreds of people are commenting on the lack of free speech.

mrbrown `Today' column suspended

This has nothing to do with tech.

I don't give much heed to what mrbrown says, as his issues don't concern me much. But he sure is funny. Since I like TRANSPARENCY, and since the entity which suspended him is a newspaper, and since a few thousand people visit this blog, just be informed of the suspension. Original here: http://www.mrbrown.com/blog/2006/07/regarding_today.html

Edit 6pm 7 July 2006: Also in the interests of TRANSPARENCY, I declare that at least 1 comment, by a user who calls himself IRCTP, who posted some comments not in line with that of most of the other commenters on the `regarding today' blogpost, was deleted by mrbrown at or around 5.45 pm today. To be clear, Mr. Brown has a right to delete that blogpost as he controls the site. It shows that in certain circumstances, he does not feel that open debate is the best thing.

Which is similar to the reputed government behaviour of course.

While I am not endorsing any censorship, I merely with to put on record and public view the act of deletion - which he did without notification or explanation.