August 18, 2008

There were 4 posts published on August 18, 2008 (this is page 1 of 1).

Carolina Beach

I can’t let the night go by without telling about our beach trip, so here goes.

We arrived Wednesday afternoon, leaving home right after my meeting was done. It rained on us from Raleigh to Carolina Beach, so rather than checking in immediately we drove further south in an effort to visit the aquarium. Big mistake! More than half of the vacationers in the area were at the aquarium. We drove around jam-packed parking lots before throwing in the towel and heading back to our condo.
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The ultimate MythTV box?

My experimental MythTV server has been deemed a success. In fact, its a necessity! We watch so little live TV anymore that it took until Wednesday to notice the cable connection I put on our main TV a few weeks ago is bad!

Now that my surplus MythTV backend server has proved its mettle, its time to plan the next Myth setup: one for HDTV. So, let me put it out to my readers: how would you build the ultimate MythTV frontend and backend systems?

As for me, the backend’s only requirement is the ability to house multiple tuner cards. It should use PCI-E slots for this. I’m considering AVerMedia AVerTVHD MCE A180 HDTV PCI cards for my tuners.

I’m a little pickier about the frontends. I want both analog and HDMI connections so I can drive both analog and HDTV sets. I also want them to be quiet and unobtrusive. What would you use for these?

Fay to the rescue?

Western North Carolina is so dry now. During last week’s vacation, we stirred up huge clouds of dust as we drove up gravel-covered mountain roads. We failed to find any critters on Chimney Rock’s Nature Adventure trail. In fact, the only critters we saw during the whole trip was perhaps two deer, one bat, and one hummingbird. Nature up there is hurting right now.

That’s why I’m glad to see Tropical Storm Fay on a course that will take it over our mountains, especially since the winds that accompany it should be weak enough not to cause much damage.