Silverpac Touch Thermostat
And all this time I thought my thermostat was cool. Little did I know. Today when I was googling for a touchscreen thermostat that was also zigbee enabled I came across this little beauty.
It's called a it's called the SilverSTAT 7. From what I can gather it'll be released around June for about $600. So for those who are home home automation enthusiasts and have a few bucks to throw or for those who just like to drool over the possibility of maybe one day touching such an item, like myself. Here is what you get.
- 7" Touch Screen
- Built in WiFi
- Z-Wave
- Zigbee protocol
- streaming photos, music and other content
- A full week's worth of programmable temperature
- weather conditions
- home's energy consumption
- power usage on a per-appliance
- time management with a calendar and scheduled alarm notices
- stocks
Here are a few more pictures to keep you drooling.
HDMI-CEC and Control4
I've always been a big fan of home automation. Now that I work at Control4 I can't help but try and figure out how to get my stuff to work better with their systems. One thing I thought was really ugly and kind of annoyed me was all the IR bugs you had to put on everything to make everything work together.
About a month ago my wife and I bought bought our first TV after two years with out having anything at all. I know, i know. You're thinking a guy who hasn't had a TV in two years shouldn't be blogging about video and home autmation what could he know. well, a lot actually. This has all been part of a plan to redo our basement and set it all up properly. We plan on having two screens. One in our living area and another in a work out room. all equipment will have a central home run or what some people call a head end. This head end will control all speakers, tv's and anything else in the house.
So getting back to the IR bugs and how they annoyed me. The last thing i wanted to do was running another IR so I could put this bug on my nice looking TV. All I wanted to do was run a couple of HDMI cables and cat5. Nothing else. So as I started investigating into a better solution to the IR problem I came across a technology called HDMI-CEC.
What HDMI-CEC does is lets all your devices be controlled by each other if they are all connected via an HDMI cable. There are some problems though. Not all HDMI devices have the feature and not all talk nicely to each other. But for those that do have it. I have stumbled upon a cool Google code project that lets you control CEC commands from an Arduino device. All you would have to do is add a zigbee module. Program it up. Create a Control4 driver and your done. Control any device in your house through an HDMI cable.
I'll post more here when I have my own working module actually working.
< CEC Arduino />
Quake2 and HTML5
This really made my jaw drop. When I first read the article I thought they were talking about Quake 1. I thought, wow thats cool. But iIve already seen the same quake 1 engine ported to flash so not too amazing. That was all before i actually went to the site and found out this engine is actually a port of Quake 2.
All i can say is JS / HTML5 is going to be fun. Don't get me wrong. I'm a flash guy and do almost all my work in flash / flex. Still with that said. I'm excited for what opportunities this will end up bringing.
< Quake 2 GWT Port />
Missing in action
It's been a while since my last post on this blog. Believe it or not, I actually have a good reason this time. During the past few months I've been contemplating the idea of switching jobs to find something that I thought would be more stable and be able to fit with my interests. That last part is usually the hard part. Getting a job at any place isn't really hard. But to get a job at a place that you actually are interested in is at times more difficult.
So today I'm pleased to announce that I have finally moved on from Move Networks. Move was a great place to work and I learned a lot there. Their technology was revolutionary and changed the way of how we watch TV online. I hope their switch to IPTV is successful for them. I loved working with their technology and playing with video streaming. It always looked great.
But as time went on I decided it was time for a change in pace and to go to another place that would be able to challenge me in different ways. So now I've been at Control4 working with home automation technology. Home automation is very cool. it's been a secret desire of mine to be able to come home and say, "Ziggy, turn on the lights" and the lights come on.
I've done some cool thinks with home automation before Control4. Such as taking a iBook. Adding a touch screen to it and sticking it in the wall as way to control the house. I hope to be able to post more fun home automation projects online in the future and still post lots about video too.
So here is to a future of automation and video editing, streaming, quality and anything else I find entertaining and amazing. Cheers!
MakeMKV 1.5.0
The latest version of MakeMKV (1.5.0) has been released with a bunch of new updates that seem really cool my favorites are UPnP support, decrypting a backup and better messaging support. While rummaging around with the new release I found these new flags that I thought might help others.
makemkvcon [options] Command Parameters
General options:
--messages=file
Output all messages to file. Following special file names are recognized:
-stdout - stdout
-stderr - stderr
-null - disable output
Default is stdout
--progress=file
Output all progress messages to file. The same special file names as in --messages are recognized with additional value "-same" to output to the same file as messages. Naturally --progress should follow --messages in this case. Default is no output.
--debug[=file]
Enables debug messages and optionally changes the location of debug file. Default: program preferences.
--directio=true/false
Enables or disables direct disc access. Default: program preferences.
--noscan
Don't access any media during disc scan and do not check for media insertion and removal. Helpful when other applications already accessing discs in other drives.
--cache=size
Specifies size of read cache in megabytes used by MakeMKV. By default program uses huge amount of memory. About 128 MB is recommended for streaming and backup, 512MB for DVD conversion and 1024MB for Blu-ray conversion.
Streaming options:
--upnp=true/false
Enable or disable UPNP streaming. Default: program preferences.
--bindip=address string
Specify IP address to bind. Default: None, UPNP server binds to the first available address and web server listens on all available addresses.
--bindport=port
Specify web server port to bind. Default: 51000.
Backup options:
--decrypt
Decrypt stream files during backup. Default: no decryption.
Conversion options:
--minlength=seconds
Specify minimum title length. Default: program preferences.
Automation options.
-r , --robot
Enables automation mode. Program will output more information in a format that is easier to parse. All output is line-based and output is flushed on line end. All strings are quoted, all control characters and quotes are backlash-escaped. If you automate this program it is highly recommended to use this option. Some options make reference to apdefs.h file that can be found in MakeMKV open-source package, included with version for Linux. These values will not change in future versions.
Message formats:
Message output
MSG:code,flags,count,message,format,param0,param1,...
code - unique message code, should be used to identify particular string in language-neutral way.
flags - message flags, see AP_UIMSG_xxx flags in apdefs.h
count - number of parameters
message - raw message string suitable for output
format - format string used for message. This string is localized and subject to change, unlike message code.
paramX - parameter for message
Current and total progress title
PRGC:code,id,name
PRGT:code,id,name
code - unique message code
id - operation sub-id
name - name string
Progress bar values for current and total progress
PRGV:current,total,max
current - current progress value
total - total progress value
max - maximum possible value for a progress bar, constant
Drive scan messages
DRV:index,visible,enabled,flags,drive name,disc name
index - drive index
visible - set to 1 if drive is present
enabled - set to 1 if drive is accessible
flags - media flags, see AP_DskFsFlagXXX in apdefs.h
drive name - drive name string
disc name - disc name string
Disc information output messages
TCOUT:count
count - titles count
Disc, title and stream information
CINFO:id,code,value
TINFO:id,code,value
SINFO:id,code,value
id - attribute id, see AP_ItemAttributeId in apdefs.h
code - message code if attribute value is a constant string
value - attribute value
Examples:
Copy all titles from first disc and save as MKV files:
makemkvcon mkv disc:0 all c:\folder
List all available drives
makemkvcon -r --cache=1 info disc:9999
Backup first disc decrypting all video files in automation mode with progress output
makemkvcon backup --decrypt --cache=16 --noscan -r --progress=-same disc:0 c:\folder
Start streaming server with all output suppressed on a specific address and port
makemvcon stream --upnp=1 --cache=128 --bindip=192.168.1.102 --bindport=51000 --messages=-none
Lego Stop Motion
I've always been a fan of stop motion movies. When i saw this one all i could say is WoW. Great job!
A Digitally Engaged Lifestyle
I wonder how long it'll be until our lives are constantly connected in a digital way such as presented in this video.
I would love to be able to help develop parts of this system in the future. But i have to say, even with all this connectivity. Their is something nice about being disconnected from it all at the same time.
New Unity Shooter Demo
Just saw this great new project demo over at the unity blog.
Besides particle effects, physics, ragdolls, and more, this demo shows animation techniques such as realistic foot placement, procedural aiming and head turning, and how to smoothly turn procedural adjustments on and off while reloading.
< Read More />
< Download The Demo />
< Watch The Video />
Google Fiber for Communities
This came as a nice surprise today.
Google is planning to launch an experiment that we hope will make Internet access better and faster for everyone. We plan to test ultra-high speed broadband networks in one or more trial locations across the country. Our networks will deliver Internet speeds more than 100 times faster than what most Americans have access to today over 1 gigabit per second, fiber-to-the-home connections. We'll offer service at a competitive price to at least 50,000 and potentially up to 500,000 people.
Introducing Xuggler 3.4
I have to say I'm rather pleased to find this bit of information cross my way. It appears Xuggler has released a new version 3.4. Xuggler is a java based projected that uses FFMPEG to encode content into flash friendly content. One of the great new features that I'm excited about is the new ability to stream while only using Xuggler. That means if you are just serving video you can do it with out using Red5, FMS or Wowza.
Grab the goods here