Brad Ideas - Media - Comments

I got a new tv last christmas

TV fix — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 00:12:31 -0700

I got a new tv last christmas, and and wait to see all the channels I wanted to watch. But when I turned it on, there was something off, the whole thing was streched and the sides are cropped off(the shows are 16:9 but thinks my screen is 4:3) and the only person that can help is my dad. He did not know about the problem and 6 months went by until I showed him the sports channels and he notices that he hates it because its wierd(In other words, "Streched") and fixes it. You know what, show some people their favourite channel, the ones that they watch all day, that are either 4:3 or think your tv is 4:3 and they will not love it.

Yes, especially with

Jon — Sun, 25 Sep 2011 20:07:17 -0700

Yes, especially with animated shows. Apparently it's okay to stretch out cartoons. Nope, sorry, even animated people look like football heads when stretched out.

At the moment I'm stuck with a hotel TV that not only stretches out the 4:3 signal, but it's zoomed in past 16:9 so it's painful to watch.

It would be nice if we could

Anonymous — Sun, 31 Jul 2011 20:32:29 -0700

It would be nice if we could just arrest and lock up people who have their TVs displayed incorrectly. It would definitely cut down on the amount of stupid people in the world. Pretty much everyone who pays for cable should be locked up too.

Video Wall benefits to Medicine

Michael — Thu, 26 May 2011 17:59:25 -0700

As a physician, the thought of walking into a patient's room - and suddenly one of the walls dissolves to show all the patient's x-rays, EKGs, and other relevant data to the encounter is tantalizing.

If the patient could see the Wall too - suddenly, just as useful as the stethoscope might be the laserpointer - as the clinician points out all of the salient clinical facts related to the patient's current condition.

It seems like this could be a very straightforward calculation as to what year the cost per pixel to cover an average wall might reach say $1,000. Anyone know where to find cost per pixel data from the last 50 years? (Seems like a very Kurzweilian type of forecast...)

Close to what you had in mind

speechles — Tue, 17 May 2011 09:50:43 -0700

I've already got something like this rolling. It uses eggdrop. See below:
The eggdrop scripts to use -->> http://ereader.kiczek.com/twitter.zip
The support thread for this -->> http://forum.egghelp.org/viewtopic.php?t=17556

Entire Wall Touch Screens for Programming

Randy — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 11:57:05 -0700

Twenty years ago when I was designing large software projects, I wanted the entire wall to be a screen so I could see more code at the same time.

Randy

Frosted glass

Adrian Hon — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 12:09:42 -0800

I've long thought that telecommuting would really benefit from an always-on window that, critically, was frosted for most of the time. No-one wants to think that they're being watched continuously, but it is useful to see whether someone is in their seat or not; therefore, you could have a screen that was frosted and showed the general shapes of your colleagues. As you approached the screen, their images would become sharper, but they would also see you approaching.

More spooky

brad — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 09:14:54 -0800

I was trying to stay away from the spooky, privacy-invading apps but yes, I can see parents and others wanting this on their 4th screen. I do like the Harry Potter idea. There’s no question that famous SF shows like Star Trek have sometimes inspired developers to build fictional technologies. It would indeed be strange if they didn’t start getting inspired by Harry Potter, since that’s the most popular fantasy of this generation (perhaps of any generation.)

Family locations and status

Anonymous — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 07:03:18 -0800

Location and a "mortal peril" indicator for each family member.

http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20021209.html

A new paradigm!!

DensityDuck — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 16:06:26 -0800

Maybe instead of the robot turning into a car, the car turns into a robot!

They are working on that

brad — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 07:07:03 -0800

There is a spec that does IP over HDMI, and there are already also protocols for devices to generally find themselves and communicate over IP (since many have ethernet in them now.) My google-TV Blu-Ray talks IP over ethernet to my Dish Network receiver and does lots of fancy stuff — including forwarding remote control codes.

One remote to control them all

Anonymous — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 05:27:33 -0800

I like your analysis. I have been using Logitech Harmony remotes at home for a few years. They are great because of how simple they make the process of switching modes. Unfortunately, they are delicate computing appliances. They often get out of sync with the appliances they control, nor do they take the same amount of abuse as their "dumber" counterparts. I would like to see all A/V appliances communicate through IP. Your stereo receiver, or DVR, could have an Ethernet switch built-in, and stream video from the BlueRay to the TV, along with the remote control instructions. This would benefit office conference rooms the most. The projector, TV, video camera, computer, document camera, and phone all have different I/O cabling, makeing for a mess of wires running under the table.

Rubik's Cube

Nathan — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 17:37:00 -0700

I thought for such a long time that this was just a South African problem. I'm actually kinda horrified to learn that that's not the case. I used to say that giving a widescreen tv set to a South African is like giving a Rubik's cube to a slightly dim two-year-old. The pretty colours are great but they'll never quite get what it's for.

To the earlier commenter who feels cheated - that's what you get for going out and buying something you don't understand. Yes, you could've gone to a pawn shop and got a giant Cathode Ray Tube from the seventies, set your set-top box to crop wide content (most still seem to do that by default anyway) and all your stories would be nice and big and fill up the entire screen. And the really sad part is you'd be happy.

I think people should have to pass a license exam in order to be allowed to purchase widescreen sets.

Yes, this topic brings out the angry sarcastic misanthrope in me.

This wave effect you're

Anonymous — Sat, 14 Aug 2010 12:04:52 -0700

This wave effect you're seeing: my PC's player (PowerDVD DX) calls it "CLPV", and the other option is "letterbox", in the settings where it asks what to do with a 4:3 frame on my widescreen monitor.

It is noticeable any time a camera pans or zooms (mostly panning), and I leave it off.

Different version of Stretched - slightly more palatable

N1JDU — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 11:46:41 -0700

I also hate watching a 4 x 3 image stretched out to fill a 16 x 9 screen. Recently I have noticed that some TV's have a (slightly) better option. The "stretching" is done mainly at the edges of the screen. The center of the image is "normal" and the distortion gradually occurs as you move left or right.

I still don't like it, but it is certainly more tollerable to watch.

What also bugs me is that I recently upgraded my cable box to HD, and now I find that some channels that broadcast a SD show will stretch it out on the HD version of the channel :-((