Archive: Home Entertainment
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November 1, 2007
DIY sneaky surround-sound
In today's O'Reilly Digital Media newsletter, David Battino has a piece on how you can burn your own surround-sound DVDs without spending a fortune on encoding software.
In short, you load six mono WAV files into an AC3 encoder and then drag the resulting file to your DVD-burning program. Depending on the encoder's capabilities, you may need to interleave the six mono files into a single multichannel file first. And in Roxio Toast, which we'll use here to burn the DVD, the secret is to Option-drag the AC3 file.
DIY Surround-Sound DVDs - Link
Posted by Gareth Branwyn |
Nov 1, 2007 04:00 PM
DIY Projects, Home Entertainment, Music |
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October 24, 2007
Infrared remote control receiver for Media Centers
Serasidis writes in -
An RC5 infrared remote control receiver that can be used to handle any function or software installed in your Media Center PC. Further, it can be used to power On/Off your Media Center even it is in Hibernate, stand-by or power-off mode.Infrared remote control receiver for Media Centers - Link.
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Oct 24, 2007 07:00 PM
DIY Projects, Electronics, Home Entertainment |
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High power TV-B-Gone kit - turn TVs off from 100 feet away
The MAKE store will be carrying this new open source hardware kit shortly, but if you can't wait you can get it from Adafruit now... -
Tired of all those LCD TVs everywhere? Want a break from advertisements while you're trying to eat? Want to zap screens from across the street?TV-B-Gone Kit [N. America/Asia v1.0] - $19.50 : Adafruit Industries, Unique & fun DIY electronics and kits - Link.The TV-B-Gone kit is what you need! This ultra-high-power, open source kit version of the popular TV-B-Gone is fun to make and even more fun to use. This version is best used in countries with NTSC: North America & Asia.
This kit comes with all parts necessary. Tools and batteries are not included. This is a very simple kit and great for people who have never soldered anything before.
Power: 2 AA batteries (not included)
Output: 2 narrow-beam and 2 wide-beam IR LEDs
Number of TV power codes: 46This covers pretty much every TV of the following brands, including the latest flat-screens and plasma TVs:
Acer, Admiral, Aiko, Alleron, Anam National, AOC, Apex, Baur, Bell&Howell, Brillian, Bush, Candle, Citizen, Contec, Cony, Crown, Curtis Mathes, Daiwoo, Dimensia, Electrograph, Electrohome, Emerson, Fisher, Fujitsu, Funai, Gateway, GE, Goldstar, Grundig, Grunpy, Hisense, Hitachi, Infinity, JBL, JC Penney, JVC, LG, Logik, Loewe, LXI, Majestic, Magnavox, Marantz, Maxent, Memorex, Mitsubishi, MGA, Montgomery Ward, Motorola, MTC, NEC, Neckermann, NetTV, Nikko, NTC, Otto Versand, Palladium, Panasonic, Philco, Philips, Pioneer, Portland, Proscan, Proton, Pulsar, Pye, Quasar, Quelle, Radio Shack, Realistic, RCA, Samsung, Sampo, Sansui, Sanyo, Scott, Sears, SEI, Sharp, Signature, Simpson, Sinudyne, Sonolor, Sony, Soundesign, Sylviana, Tatung, Teknika, Thompson, Toshiba, Universum, Viewsonic, Wards, White Westinghouse, Zenith
Max distance: At least 100 ft!
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Oct 24, 2007 03:00 PM
DIY Projects, Electronics, Home Entertainment, Open source hardware |
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The TV remote control
"TV remote control" by Philippe Kindelis -
The TV remote control uses the principle of water displacement and the conductive properties of water to connect different cables. It highlights principles and processes that the user can interact with. It is an exploration as to whether water and electricity can be put together to create a new narrative in the way we interact with technological products.Order & Chaos. Design From a Technological Taboo. The TV Remote Control - [via] Link.
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Oct 24, 2007 01:00 PM
Arts, Home Entertainment, Made On Earth |
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October 11, 2007
Black Box lightshow
MAKE Flickr photo pool member Rosendahl writes -
I just finished this yesterday. Based on an original design that I built in college, this is an LED lightshow that plugs into any audio source. (I have it on top of our home entertainment system, so it shows whatever we're listening to or watching.)Black Box lightshow - Link.The display is divided vertically into left and right channels. It displays the top half of the waveform of each channel with their zero levels in the center. The two knobs control the amplitude and the sweep speed.
When set to the right speed, a strong bass note will show up as a floating red bubble. A note an octave up will be two bubbles. Notes inbetween will be a series of bubbles floating up or down the display. Of course, all the other frequencies are in there, too, so you get a much more complicated display, but the bass tends to be the most prominent. Dynamics from drums, etc. cause the width to pulse. It all ends up being quite hypnotic.
The box... well, it's just a black box I built with a plexiglass front. Suggestions for a sexier box are welcome!
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Oct 11, 2007 06:00 AM
DIY Projects, Electronics, Home Entertainment |
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October 10, 2007
Retro stereo mod for a media center PC
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Shawn writes -
Saw the TV Retro casemod... I made something similar and built a PC and monitor right into it.Retro stereo mod for a media center PC - Link.
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Oct 10, 2007 08:00 AM
Computers, Home Entertainment |
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October 8, 2007
TV retro casemod
Steve Lodefink sent us a link to pics of this 1957 Magnavox set re-used as the cabinet for a modern (CRT) TV and stereo system.
1957 Magnavox TV - Link
Posted by Gareth Branwyn |
Oct 8, 2007 05:00 PM
DIY Projects, Home Entertainment |
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October 1, 2007
Keyless entry hack
Ryan (co-founder of the MAKE NYC group) made a cool keyless entry hack for his apartment awhile back, he writes -
Now don't tell the co-op board, but I crafted a plan to ditch my Mul-T-Lock key for good. My apartment building, of course, uses an intercom system to remotely unlock the front door for guests, deliveries, etc. This keychain upgrade gets me in the front door... keylessly.Keyless entry hack - Link.The mechanism is simple enough, just a momentary button on the panel in my apartment, but the mess of wires in the wall is a little unsettling. I took some meter readings of the terminals and sorted out the door button wiring. You can see where the door button is soldered through the PCB, which made it easier to identify the proper terminals. This panel has a "Door", "Talk" and "Listen" button. The "Door" button is normally-open and the circuit is about 22V. In the following steps we're going to effectively bypass the button with our own circuit.
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Oct 1, 2007 05:00 AM
DIY Projects, Electronics, Home Entertainment |
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September 4, 2007
NSA@home - distributed FPGA MD5 cracker
Here's something fun to do with HD-video electronics... -
NSA@home is a fast FPGA-based SHA-1 and MD5 bruteforce cracker. It is capable of searching the full 8-character keyspace (from a 64-character set) in about a day in the current configuration for 800 hashes concurrently.NSA@home - distributed FPGA MD5 cracker - [via] Link.The cracker is built out of surplus Grass Valley HD video transform boards, scrapped by GV because of defects. A useful tool was developed to assist the board reverse-engineering effort.
The chip design consists of a pattern generator, a hash algorithm and a lookup engine in each FPGA. The FPGAs are connected to smaller "switch FPGAs", which distribute data to and gather results from them. Those switches link to each other and ultimately to an USB port (which had to be added).
A dedicated PC box communicates with the boards through an USB hub. The software running on it post-processes hit indications from the FPGA boards and prepares inputs for them.
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Sep 4, 2007 12:00 PM
Electronics, Home Entertainment |
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August 14, 2007
Home built solid state 300W power amp
I know nothing about homebrewing audio gear, but this DIY 300W power amp, built on six LM3886 chips, sure looks bad ass. Here's how the builder describes the project:
My design uses a PCB to hold 3 paralleled 3886s (i.e. PA150), and then I use the DRV134 to bridge 2 of the PA150 PCB boards. The function of DRV134 is to convert the un-balanced input signal to a balanced signal, so that the non-inverted signal is fed to one PA150, and the inverted signal is fed the another PA150. One of the PA150 is connected to the speaker's positive input, and the other PA150 is connected to the speaker's negative input. Because of this push-pull configuration, the total gain of the amplifier is doubled. Each PA150 has a gain of 20, so the gain of the BPA300 is 40.
DIY BPA300 GC - 300W 6x LM3886 bridged-paralleled power amplifier - [via] Link
Posted by Gareth Branwyn |
Aug 14, 2007 04:00 PM
DIY Projects, Electronics, Home Entertainment |
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July 12, 2007
TV lift cabinet
Troy writes -
How to build a TV Lift cabinet using an off-the-shelf dresser drawers and an off-the-shelf TV Lift Kit from Firgelli Automations. You could easily spend many thousands of dollars on a custom built cabinet with TV Lift, but for about $500. You could spend more, depending on the ready-to-build furnature you buy, but ours was quite inexpensive.TV Lift Cabinet in under three hours - Link.
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Jul 12, 2007 04:00 PM
DIY Projects, Electronics, Home Entertainment |
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July 7, 2007
HOW TO - Make an aux-in for the Bose SoundDock
Will O'Brien posted this short how-to on Hack A Day because he says the site gets quite a few hits on posts about the Bose SoundDock portable speaker system. On my site, Street Tech, the review of the SoundDock also gets lots of traffic, so there appears to be a lot of SoundDock enthusiasts out there...
There is a solderless way to hack an aux input for the Sounddock.(1) Go to Wal-mart (or elsewhere) and buy the Griffin Dock Adapter for iPod Shuffle (~$20) and a Belkin Speaker and Headphone splitter (~$4). (The Belkin splitter is needed in order to fit properly over the Shuffle plug on the device, but other cables/adapters might work.)
(2) Remove the existing adapter plate and replace it with the Dock adapter.
(3) Set the switch to speaker. (Very Important!)
(4) Plug in one end of the Belkin adapter and you are ready to go! Any input signal automatically activates the Sounddock. Now you have a fully functional female and male stereo headphone input for your Sounddock.-->Total cost ~$25 and no soldering required.
Hack A Day - Link
Street Tech Bose SoundDock review - Link
Posted by Gareth Branwyn |
Jul 7, 2007 10:10 AM
DIY Projects, Electronics, Gadgets, Home Entertainment, Music, Portable Audio and Video |
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June 27, 2007
Open source community makes YouTube browsing on Neuros OSD
The Neuros OSD is a great linux based media player you can hack up to do all sorts of interesting things, the latest is a YouTube browser...
Neuros announced today that it’s releasing a beta version of a YouTube browser for its award-winning Neuros OSD. With this release, the device can now be used to easily browse and play the entire YouTube video collection on any TV, both standard and high definition. Functionality already in this release includes keyword searching and browsing by category and rating. Future releases will bring user interface improvements and added functionality such as sharing, subscriptions, and much more.YouTube on the TV with the OSD | OdNT - Link.This application was made possible by Neuros worldwide community of open source developers. These developers work closely with Neuros internal team, and their contributions are quickly incorporated into the company’s releases. “Everybody wins with open source”, said Neuros software chief, Michael Gao. “Our users benefit because our products are continuously improving and have built-in obsolescence protection; our developers get their efforts recognized and included in official releases; and, of course, we get to provide a really cool product and user experience.”
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Jun 27, 2007 08:00 AM
Gadgets, Home Entertainment, Online |
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June 15, 2007
Aquarivision
Eric made this great "Aquarivision" aquarium, a Vintage TV he gutted and converted to a fish home - Link.
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Jun 15, 2007 05:00 AM
Home Entertainment, Made On Earth |
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June 8, 2007
HOW TO - iTunes on the Wii
Jenny writes in -
This tutorial will show you how to stream your iTunes music library to your Wii through the Opera browser. The Opera browser can be download to your Wii for free from the "Wii Shop Channel." This tutorial will work with both a Mac and a PC.hackaddict.net: Tutorial: iTunes on the Wii!!! (for free) - Link.Things you'll need:
Nintendo Wii with Opera Browser Installed (free from the shop channel)
iTunes
MyTunesRss (free)
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Jun 8, 2007 06:00 AM
DIY Projects, Gaming, Home Entertainment, Music, iPod |
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New @ MAKE
Making Things Talk
Programming microcontrollers used to require an expensive development environment costing thousands of dollars and requiring professional electrical engineering expertise. Open-source physical computing platforms with simple i/o boards and development environments have led to new options for hobbyists, hackers, and makers. This book contains a series of projects that teach you what you need to know to get your creations talking to each other, connecting to the web, and forming networks of smart devices. Review and buy it now! - Link.
Eccentric Cubicle
Who says office cubicles need to be dreary? In this book, author Kaden Harris of Eccentric Genius introduces aspiring and die-hard Makers to a highly entertaining parallel universe of surreal office-based projects that are sure to pique the curiosity of even the most jaded office mates. From desktop guillotines and crossbows to mood-enhancing effects and music makers, each project presents a different set of challenges and opens new avenues of Maker lore - Link.
Best of MAKE
After two years, MAKE has become one of most celebrated new magazines to hit the newsstands, and certainly one of the hottest reads. If you're just catching on to the MAKE phenomenon and wonder what you've missed, this book contains the best DIY projects from the magazine's first ten volumes -- a surefire collection of fun and challenging activities going back to MAKE's launch in early 2005 - Link.
Illustrated Guide to Astronomical Wonders
Amateur astronomy is now within the reach of anyone, and this is the ideal book to get you started. The Illustrated Guide to Astronomical Wonders offers you a guide to the equipment you need, and shows you how and where to find hundreds of spectacular objects in the deep sky -- double and multiple stars as well as spectacular star clusters, nebulae, and galaxies - Link.
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