Sundries

For the most part I have given up watching TV about 2 or 3 years ago and I don’t miss it a single bit. I even gave away my old 27″ tube TV as it was just sitting around collecting dust. Because of that it may seem strange that I just purchased a brand new 42″ LCD TV and I’m loving it.

I’m not watching TV now, that hasn’t changed, but I am basically using it as a very large computer monitor. Almost everything I watch is a download from the Internet with the exception of some DVDs from Netflix. I plan on canceling that account in week or two so it will be Internet only soon. The only show I could watch on broadcast TV but download instead is Heroes. Most of what I watch is anime, Japanese TV shows, or technical shows.

I think we all know what anime is so I won’t bother explaining that. Japanese TV shows are just what it sounds like, TV shows made in Japan for a Japanese audience. Some of my favorite places to get these shows are SARS and E-Addicts. They copy TV shows that aired in Japan and then add subtitle translations to the shows. The quality is usually excellent and many of the shows are incredible, better then most American TV shows at least. I know, that’s not saying much.

You do need a bittorrent program (client) to be able to downlod these shows. There are many different programs that you can use but my suggestion would be to try out uTorrent. It’s free, very small, and very stable. Make sure you open a port on your router to let the bittorrent program use to help increase download times. You can Click Here to see their information on opening a port number so your download speed increases. For new releases of popular anime shows such as Bleach or Naruto I usually get 500kb – 800kb downloads and can get a complete episode in about 10 minutes.

Finally I watch what I can technical shows, also downloaded from the Internet. These include things such as Techzilla or PixelPerfect at Revision3.org. As well as videos to learn Japanese, study Photoshop, or drawing manga. As you can see, these are not shows you would find on regular cable TV so since the don’t offer what I want I go elsewhere.

I have a pair of 19″ LCD monitors for my computer and that makes watching shows on my computer very comfortable but I wanted something a little more interesting. I had a little extra cash saved up and I’ve been thinking of buying a large LCD TV to use for a 2nd computer and now that the prices of these TVs had gone down a good deal I figured it was time to buy something.

After searching for a while and finding a great deal thanks to the store my Sister works at I was able to get a 42″ LCD TV with 2 HDMI inputs for just under $700.

Polaroid 42″ LCD TV

This TV seemed to have everything I wanted, I was going to get a 37″ with only 720p because that was more in my price range. I really wanted to get 2 HDMI inputs on the TV if I could as well. Thankfully because of the deal I got I was able to “upgrade” to a this 42″ with 1080p resolution with the 2 HDMI inputs.

I first tried connecting a spare computer using Linux Kubuntu system and then worked on trying to load the Linux MCE (Media Center Edition). I’ve worked a little with Linux before and it’s not bad if you don’t mind putting a little work into learning a new way or using a computer. The big problem I had was that I could not get Linux MCE to load onto the Kubuntu system

Eventually I downloaded the Linux MCE quick install DVD which is a single image that installs both the Kubuntu operating system and the Linux MCE during the same install. This worked pretty well but I soon discovered that Linux MCE has a lot of rough edges. After working with it for a short while I gave up on it. I just don’t think it’s ready for “prime time” at all.

I ended up breaking down and installing Windows XP Pro (Thank you Pirate Bay LOL) and it’s working flawlessly. I setup file sharing on my main computer to the drives that I store my anime or other media on, that’s close to about 2 terabytes of data I’m now sharing.

I also purchased the Gyration wireless keyboard and “air mouse” to control the new computer and I’m surprised at how well it works. The mouse is designed to be able to be used on a flat surface liken any other optical mouse but it also can be held in the air, not needing to be on a surface at all.

Within a few short hours the new system had all of my codecs, media player, and other various software installed and I was able to start playing media from my main PC without any problems. Ahhhh – what a beautiful experience….

Above is a beautiful shot from the new ecchi anime called Kodomo no Jikan. I wont get into the subject matter of this story as it’s getting it’s fair share of attention from many other places on the Internet now.

What’s great about this image is it shows the entire screen being used. Since Japan has been showing wide screen format shows for such a long time now most of what I watch fills the entire screen. Unlike in America where so much of TV is still in the old 4:3 format.

Even if the show is in 4:3 format such as when I’m playing Bleach (above) the screen is so damn big that I don’t mind the missing space on the sides.

The one problem I did have was my DVD player was a standard DVD player, not an upconverting player. That means the image it put out was only a 480i image (the “i” stands for interlaced):

480i represents 720 pixels displayed across a screen horizontally and 480 pixels down a screen vertically. This arrangement yields 480 horizontal lines, which are, in turn, displayed alternately.

This is pretty good looking if you are still using a regular tube TV but as I was putting it on a screen that was able to show 1080p (the “p” stands for progressive):

1080p represents 1,080 lines of resolution scanned sequentially. In other words, all lines are scanned in progressively, providing the most detailed high definition video image that is currently available to consumers.

Basically “p” (progressive) is better then “i” (interlaced) and the more lines of data the better. In other words, my old DVD player put out an image that looked like crap on the new TV. I ended up buying a 1080p upscalling DVD player, basically it connects to one of the HDMI digital connections on the TV and adds lines of resolution to bring the image from the 480i to the 1080p and it makes a huge difference.

The player I got (at Circuit City) was only about $50.00 brand new and it does a great job. I’ve never heard of the name before (Element Electronics) but it got some good reviews and it was cheap.

This is a very good investment, the quality in the images improved a great deal. I don’t use my DVD player much as I mostly watch downloaded files but when I need it I know it will work great. I have no desire for a Blue Ray or HD player at this time. I’ll wait for the format war to settle out and then prices to drop further.

Finally, if you are thinking of setting something like this up, make sure to use the best connection available. From my computer to the TV I used a DVI to HDMI cable so I could get the best signal to the screen I could. Please, please, please don’t buy our cables at an electronics store or department store (aka – Target, Circuit City, or Walmart). You could easily pay $40 or $50 for this type of cable but if you go online, even a to a place like Newegg.com and you could get one for $8. I think I only paid $6.00 for a 6 foot long HDMI cable there. Don’t get screwed and buy the first one you see, it’s worth shopping around.

**James.

I’ve been playing around and learning Adobe Photoshop for 5 or 6 years now. Nothing serious, I don’t use it in my work at all but just for personal stuff and to have fun. Lately I’ve been watching more of the training videos from Lynda.com which is an incredible site to get training on some of the best, and many times complicated, programs you can find.I’ve been spending more time trying to learn the power of adjustment layers, using channels, and getting more comfortable with masks. After going through a number of training videos I’ll load some of my own images or ones I get from the web and play around. Here is a before an after example of a girl Cosplaying as Rei Ayanami from the anime Neon Genesis Evangelion:

I made level and temperature adjustments, corrected some blemishes in the skin, adjusted the color of her hair to resemble the hair in the anime a bit more. I also just prefer the look of the ‘blue-er’ hair. I then adjusted the brightness around the eyes and lightened the skin tones.

In the Anime this character is an emotionless, socially withdrawn clone. Not a figure of speach, she is really a clone, there are many versions of her so she is more like an animated corpse then a living human. I didn’t think she should have such a rosy complexion so I lightened her skin out some but trying to keep her from looking like a ceramic doll.

Finally I burned down the edges and surrounding details to bring the emphasis on her alone. If I wanted to spend more time I could remove her from this background or just get rid of the person she’s standing next to. I decided to darken the edges to call attention to her, not her surroundings.

For those who are not familiar with this anime here is an image of Rei from the anime itself:

I’ve also spent time scanning in old family photos and trying to work with them but I’m having a harder time with that so far. I need to read some tutorials on restoring old images some more. Some things like adjust color aren’t too bad but so many of my old images are out of focus and blurry.

Here is an example of a picture of me when I was a “wee little tot” shortly after we just moved to Florida. The image had some very poor coloring leaning heavy on the magenta side:

The focus isn’t very good as well and I don’t think there is much I can do to help that out. After a minute or two in Photoshop I ended up with a much more realistic photo with the magenta toned down. I do think I need to lower the greens a bit though:

It almost looks like this photo was taken on Earth and not Mars. I’m guessing this image was from about 1974 so it’s been sitting in a box for many years just slowly getting worse. It’s great knowing that Photoshop can help bring some life back into these old memories.

Another example is a picture of myself with my brother and two sisters (I’m the youngest of 4) and again you see this strong color shift along with part of my brothers arm and the top of my sisters head are not in frame:

The color was pretty easy to adjust again but the focus is still not too good and aside from cutting out some of the lost space on the right and bottom there is not much I can do for people being out of frame.

The original scans I took were much larger so showing them at this smaller size helps to keep the focus problem from standing out too much. I didn’t spend much time on each photo as I scanned about 30 or 40 of them in one day only making quick adjustments to each. Once I do some study in photo restoration I’ll try again to see how much I can improve these.

**James.