Bart's Blog

Publications - "Low-IF vs. Direct Conversion Receivers for Digital Satellite TV"

2007-10-25T01:01:00Z

http://www.electronicscomponentsworld.com/articleView~idArticle~71967_327401162592007.html

Publications - "Encoding/decoding of BCH / Reed-Solomon error correcting codes"

2007-08-24T20:17:00Z

Article in Dr. Dobb's Journal, December 1994 issue. Article not available online but the C source code which accompanies the article is availabe on the web, e.g. from "The Error Correcting Codes" page, reference #15:

http://fly.isti.cnr.it/software/codes.html

...

Publications - "A method for hierarchical subband HDTV coding"

2007-08-24T20:10:00Z

From IEEE Transactions on Circuits and Systems for Video Technology, June 1995:
ieeexplore.ieee.org/iel4/76/9044/00401099.pdf?arnumber=401099

...

Publications - "Techniques for sampling high-speed graphics with lower-speed A/D converters"

2007-08-24T20:05:00Z

From T.I. Applications Journal:

focus.ti.com.cn/cn/lit/an/slyt184/slyt184.pdf

...

Publications - "Satellite TV front end"

2007-07-05T18:58:00Z

So far only published in Korean. Other languages to come...

http://www.chips-parts.com/index.cgi?action=detail&number=1535&thread=35 ...

Bart's PVR on Snapstream Blog

2007-02-23T04:42:00Z

My PVR setup listed on the website of Snapstream, the company out of Houston with the super-cool BeyondTV Windows-based PVR software:
http://blogs.snapstream.com/category/digital-living-room/

Online photo gallery

2007-01-14T04:28:00Z

There now is an online photo gallery, powered by Coppermine, set up. Access is restricted to friends, family and acquaintances. You can register from the login page; I will need to activate your account before you have access. Once activated you can also create your own photo albums and upload photos directly to the gallery.
Go to my home page and click on the photo gallery link

Bart's Home Media System

2006-11-18T03:45:00Z

Media server PC in living room; ~750GB storage; WindowsXP w Snapstream BeyondTV/BeyondMedia; 1 ATSC tuner (ATI HDTV Wonder) + 1 analog (Diamond Xtreme) tuner. ATSC tuner connected to off-air antenna (Winegard); analog tuner's S-Video input from Time Warner cable box; IR blaster controls cable box; Orb transcoding/web server software for web streaming of recorded content (placeshifting); Silverstone HTPC case with VFD display; LCDSmartie w/ BeyondTV plugin to show scrolling RSS news feeds & "Live/Recording Now/Next" indicators on display.

This is a look behind the TV. Note the TW cable box with the Actisys IR blaster control from the media server; a WiFi access point and router; another receiver for a wireless keyboard to control the media server. There's also an old Voom sat box w/ built-in ATSC receiver. The Voom box is just used to send a DC feed up to the amplified HDTV antenna outside.It's nice from Voom they never asked the box back when they went bankrupt, and it actually still works for ATSC...

Client PC in master bedroom. Nvidia GeForce VGA output to CRT monitor & DVI output to Plasma TV. L/R audio to separate speakers (so the TV doesn't need to be on when listening to tunes...)

Client PC in office. Nvidia GeForce VGA output to LCD monitor + L/R audio to Bose PC speakers.

D-Link DSM320 "MediaLounge" media client in media room. Analog component YPbPr output to Sharp Z9000 DLP 720p projector; Optical SPDIF audio output to Harman Kardon surround receiver w/ Monitor Audio speakers. Client accesses media server files via UPnP.

200 Mbps HomePlug powerline data network (Netgear) between office and living room; Cat5 Ethernet between living room and master BR; 802.11g to mediaroom.
This is a picture of the powerline adaptor behind the living room TV.

The powerline network connects the living room media server downstairs to the Roadrunner cable modem in the office upstairs, see below, where there is another WiFi point with directional antenna, and telephone VoIP modem to cordless telephone base point. The antenna poiints to the media room (the media client there needs a strong signal for streaming video wireless).

Can your Tivo do all this?

Here are some screenshots and feature list....

Record SDTV cable / HDTV off-air onto the media server, and play it back, possibly simultaneously on multiple clients, with independent play/pause control & access to the 5.1 Dolby Digital mix in each room.

Burn recorded content to DVD-video or DVD-data disks

See the TV program guide, and start TV recordings on the server from any room. The max # of concurrent recordings is only limited by the number of analog/digital TV tuners in the server. While I have only 1 analog + 1 8VSB tuner installed, some have built PVR's with up to 10 tuners (using 5 PCI slots with dual-tuner cards and corresponding 10 hardware MPEG encoders in one PC chassis!)

Automatic analysis of the recorded MPEG TS to identify commercial breaks in the PVR timeline for one-button skip from any home TV/PC (not a 30s skip but the actual length of the commercial break). Note the identification of the commercial blocks in the images above showing the timeline.

Automatically re-compress recorded video to DivX or WMV during off-peak hours on the server with different compression presets for playback on PDA's, smartphones etc.

Watch streaming web videos on all TV/PC's, such as CNN news clips and free on-demand content from CBS InnerTube (CBS news, CSI, Survivor etc)

Order Netflix DVD's and manage your Netflix queue right from any TV/PC

Keep your offline DVD library collection browsable by actor, director, genre etc. with movie descriptions (all downloaded from the web). Import ripped DVD's for online access.

Play your music collection, stored on the media server, in multiple rooms, with DFX enhanced sound (compressor, harmonic enhancer). Option to have independent multi-zone audio playback from any client PC if equipped with multiple sound cards

Download song lyrics for any song in your collection and have lyrics show up when you play that song

Sync your iPod from any PC on your home network (get rid of the iTunes restriction of not being able to sync an iPod from more than one PC)

Listen to streaming radio stations, such as BBC, Voice of America etc.

Get the showtimes of movies in theatres around your zip code, watch movie trailers (daily downloaded from the web) and send movies to your Netflix queue!

Watch your photo slideshows on all TV's/PC's

Get pop-up notifications of new emails and read them on your TV

See a localized weather forecast page from the Weather Channel for your zip code

Movies - Netflix recommendations

2006-08-29T06:56:00Z

Up to date information courtesy of Netflix RSS feeds:

Movies - New releases on DVD this week at Netflix

2006-08-29T06:51:00Z

Up to date information courtesy of Netflix RSS feeds:

Click to read the latest news

Publications - "Modeling high-speed A/D converters"

2006-08-29T06:03:00Z

EETimes, April 2004: "Modeling high-speed A/D converters"
http://www.us.design-reuse.com/articles/article7596.html

Publications - "All format analog front ends handle video and PC formats"

2006-08-29T05:54:00Z

Elecronic Design, May 13 2002. "All format analog front ends handle video and PC formats"
http://www.elecdesign.com/Articles/Index.cfm?AD=1&ArticleID=2177

Patents - "Programmable display timing generator"

2006-08-29T05:49:00Z

Patents: "Programmable display timing generator". Filed on Dec 19 2001.
http://www.uspto.gov/web/patents/patog/week24/OG/html/1307-2/US07061540-20060613.html

Patents - "Video correction system and method using logarithmic conversion"

2006-08-29T05:45:00Z

Patents - "Video correction system and method using logarithmic conversion"
US patent filed June 30 2003
http://www1.uspto.gov/web/patents/patog/week19/OG/html/1306-2/US07042523-20060509.html

Publications - "A/D and D/A conversion for HDTV"

2006-08-29T05:40:00Z

Comms Design, May 2000:
A/D and D/A conversion for HDTV"
http://www.commsdesign.com/main/multsupp/0005/0005hdtv.htm

Publications - "System considerations for building a high-performance digital satellite TV receiver front end"

2006-08-29T05:29:00Z

RF Design, March 2006:
"System considerations for building a high-performance digital satellite TV receiver front end."
http://rfdesign.com/mag/radio_system_considerations_building/

Publications - "A practical system model for the AFE of a low-IF receiver"

2006-08-29T05:25:00Z

Wireless Design & Development cover story, March 2005:
"A practical system model for the AFE of a low-IF receiver"
http://www.wirelessdesignmag.com/ShowPR.aspx?PUBCODE=055&ACCT=0028316&ISSUE=0503&RELTYPE=PR&ORIGRELTYPE=CVS&PRODCODE=00000&PRODLETT=A

Also published in Embedded Control Europe:
http://www.embedded-control-europe.com/know-how?cat=436&kid=593

Austin - Living room webcam

2006-08-29T03:01:00Z

Keeping an eye on the house ... (only online when I'm traveling)
http://www.decanne.com/webcam.html

Videos - The Mighty Renegades

2006-08-28T02:48:00Z

MPEG4 file of The Mighty Renegades w/ Ross Sabolcik at Detour Bar and Grill on August 11 2006. This file will play on PC/MAC with Quicktime or on a video iPod - just download this file by right-clicking the link, save it to your disk and add to your library in iTunes. If the extension changes from .mp4 when downloading, rename it with .mp4 extension.
www.decanne.com/MightyRenegades.mp4
The file is 155MB so be patient when downloading.

Welcome...

2006-08-28T02:30:00Z

From the start of the Hill Country in South-West Austin, TX to you.
Welcome to my web log.
Click on the RSS or Atom icon and paste the URL in your news reader to stay up to date on "Bart's Blog".
Enjoy!