Last Year's Phones: Nexus 5 and Moto X

The Lay of the Android Land

These phone comparisons have been done to death, so I'm going to come at this from a different angle. The touchscreen smartphone market has matured. In the Android space, the new Samsung Galaxy S5 and HTC One M8 are both rather incremental improvements over their predecessors. With unlocked prices well above USD $600 for these new flagships, one might reasonably consider paying half that amount for one of last year's finest.

Personally, I'm a stickler for a near-stock Android experience. Samsung provides a hodgepodge of their own multiple UI efforts along with the mandated Google pieces. Other vendors provide their own enhanced experience. All of this equates to lock-in. After many years of Apple's iDevice, iTunes, App Store lock-in, I refuse to go back. Thankfully, we have our Google Nexus branded devices, Google Play Edition devices, and soon Android Silver. Google's acquisition of Motorola Mobility aided the demise of the Motoblur UI in favor of a value-added, near-stock Android experience. Let's hope Lenovo, as the new owner of Motorola, stays the course.

Anyway, enough background. As an early adopter of the LG-made Nexus 5, I'm now transitioning to the slightly older and lower-spec Moto X. My home's metal siding and roof make for very poor indoor signal. Republic Wireless provides a clever solution, and their customization requires a Moto X or G. Thankfully, prices on the Moto X have dropped significantly since its introduction. Both the Moto X and Nexus 5 are in the $300-400 range without contract. Now, on to the phones.

Aesthetics and Philosophy of Use

Nexus 5 (left) and Moto X (right)

With its 4.95-inch display, the Nexus 5 is a somewhat larger device than the 4.7-inch Moto X. Some have critiqued the N5's "lack of style." To this, I must respectfully disagree. The Nexus 5 is a debadged, dechromed, monochromatic slab of a device. This in itself is a style statement. This is a device that exudes power without ostentation, making some competitors look like they're overcompensating. The only other distinguishing features are the the circular ear hole speaker and the unfortunate bezel "chin" extending below the display. The slightly rubberized back are sides are nicely grippy, if a little bit wide and angular in the hand.

The Moto X, on the other hand, has an understated class... and sexy curves. Its slightly rubberized back has a simulated carbon fiber look. The curvature not only feels perfect in the hand but is practical as well, encasing a stacked battery. The front glass extends to the sides, making them somewhat more slick than the N5. My only complaint would be the slightly too obvious microphone hole in the lower left of the front glass. If the N5 is a muscle car, the X is a sleek luxury coupe.

Upon use, the relatively minor size difference between these two devices appears to magnify. The ~5-inch display and full HD resolution bring the N5 into borderline phablet territory. Phone apps can feel like they're underutilizing the display. As an example, the Amazon store app feels limiting in a way that it just doesn't on the Moto X. The N5 is crying out for the ability to choose between phone and tablet apps. Thus, in the current state of the Android ecosystem, the Moto X is great as a phone and the Nexus 5 is a near-phablet that can't run tablet apps. Here's hoping that Google figures this out. This issue may not be obvious to users until they've had their phone for a while.

Display Comparison

Aside from the 0.25-inch size difference, display resolution and technology contribute to the perceived differences mentioned above. The N5's 1080p IPS LCD display makes small text and detail highly visible. Extended periods of reading are not a problem. The front glass is a perhaps a little more reflective than ideal, and the backlight can only get so dim for nighttime use, a typical issue with LCDs.

The Moto X sports a 720p AMOLED display. Text is less clear than on the N5, partly owing to the lower resolution and partly to obvious color fringing around object edges. It's not clear to me whether this is more an artifact of intentional anti-aliasing or the nature of the AMOLED subpixel matrix itself. The AnandTech review of the Moto X is informative.

Thus, the Moto X is definitely no e-reader. That all said, AMOLED has some benefits that are put to good advantage by Motorola. Blacks are black (no backlight), and display power draw is proportional to the number of subpixels lit. This sets the stage for Motorola's exclusive Active Display feature. With the display off, motion sensing and software are able to detect when the user has picked up or unpocketed the phone. The display then kicks in to show the current time and notification updates in white on an otherwise dark background. Just pick up or nudge the device and you'll get status without touching a single button or tapping the display. This is both useful and seriously cool.

Voice Controls: Ok Google (Now?)

Both the Nexus 5 and Moto X allow voice control of a number of phone and search operations. With the N5 switched on, unlocked, and at the home screen, the Google Now Launcher will respond to a spoken command of "Ok Google" followed by a directive or query. This experience is awkward to say the least. Once one has pressed the button to wake the phone and exited the current app by touching the home icon, is it really helpful to speak to the phone instead of just use it?

Once again, Motorola adds a feature that addresses real world use cases. The Moto X contains a subprocessor that is always listening for the phrase "Ok Google Now." It's necessary to train it, and perhaps the additional "now" was added to further prevent this feature from triggering accidentally. Still, this turns voice control from a novelty into a truly useful feature. I'm even finding myself saying "Ok Google Now, launch app-name" as I reach to pick the phone up from the desk, saving precious seconds. Can you tell I like this feature yet? I'm hoping this works decently with background noise in the car.

Miscellany and Conclusion

Cameras on both phones are passable, not great. It's a pity that so many OEMs are cutting costs and corners on sensor elements, optics, and imaging software/firmware. There are many reviews and comparisons out there with images taken from these and competitive phones.

Processing performance on both the N5 and Moto X seems entirely acceptable. They are subjectively faster than the 2013 Nexus 7. Benchmark results are available out there. The Moto X loses the spec war by having only two general purpose processing cores versus the more common four (or eight) in today's flagship devices. I can attest that browsing with Chrome, an activity that benefits from parallelism, does appear faster on the four core N5. For other activities it's kind of a wash. Looking purely at specs yields little practical information, as mobile processing is severely limited by power and cooling constraints.

Battery performance is somewhat low on both of these devices. The Moto X should do slightly better than the N5, but I don't have enough data yet to draw any conclusions. I'd generally accept a little more thickness and weight on all fixed battery devices to reduce mid/late-day charging hassle.

To draw some final conclusions, the Moto X is a great last-gen phone with some very unique features. Discounts have allowed this device to stay appealing despite it's age. The LG-made Nexus 5 is a very capable near-phablet with great potential. One hopes that future firmware updates will permit the N5 to come closer to realizing the potential of its hardware.

BeagleBone Black Exploration

The BeagleBone Black is an inexpensive ($45 US), ARM processor based hobbyist/developer board that runs Linux. This board is similar to the better known Raspberry Pi, enough so that's it's hard not to compare them. The BBB employs the embedded control oriented Texas Instruments AM3359 Sitara SoC, while the RPi employs the video oriented Broadcom BCM2835. I have both boards, so I'll definitely be comparing them.

I ordered the full BeagleBone Black (Rev A5C) starter kit from Adafruit including the 5V power adapter, prototyping breadboard and backplate and jumper wires, and "cape" PCB. I also recommend a microSD card to boot/install alternative Linux OS distros and a microHDMI cable/adapter and USB keyboard for debugging networking configuration.

BeagleBone Black and ChronoDot RTC on Prototyping Breadboard

The BBB comes standard with Ångström Linux on its onboard 2GB eMMC flash storage. Nod to the BBB over the RPi here. The Raspberry Pi requires a prepared SD flash card to get started.

For my purposes, I immediately loaded Arch Linux ARM onto a microSD card, booted from SD, and installed Arch onto the eMMC. I have to give a lot of credit to the developer(s) who produced the Arch image: it's nicely pre-configured to bring up wired Ethernet and SSH using DHCP. Arch thus allows a completely headless install and configuration. Alas, I messed up static IP configuration and had to attach a display and keyboard to work through it.

During the installation process, I felt motivated to benchmark both the eMMC and my microSD card (ADATA 32GB UHS-I).

Device	Read MB/s	Write MB/s
2GB eMMC	21.2	3.9
32GB μSD (BBB)	4.3	1.7
32GB μSD (PC USB2)	19.6	19.2

The SD interface is incredibly slow. The same card performs tremendously better on my PC monitor's USB2 adapter. I wouldn't want to run the OS from SD anyway, as reliability is always questionable. The microSD interface is clearly intended primarily as a means to load alternative distros onto the eMMC. Even using an SD card for a data/media filesystem takes a bit of effort.

Once running from the eMMC, the BeagleBone Black feels subjectively quick, certainly quicker than the Raspberry Pi. This is no surprise. The TI Sitara contains a more recent, higher-clocked, superscalar processor core with DDR3 RAM support.

My intended use for the BBB is as an internal network services (DHCP, DNS, NTP) and home automation controller. Like the RPi, the BBB doesn't have a battery backed real-time clock (RTC). I easily added one via the ChronoDot RTC and Lemoneer's excellent guide. The BBB has no lack of I/O and should be awesome for monitoring and control. There are even two dedicated PRU cores for true real-time control. I haven't explored this yet, but the PRUs may eliminate much of the need to attach Arduino microcontrollers a la the Raspberry Pi.

For my purposes, the BBB looks to be solidly better than the RPi. That said, the RPi still has some key advantages. There is a huge Raspberry Pi installed base and community. The RPi camera module is appealing. The RPi is decidedly superior for graphics and especially video tasks like XBMC. At these prices, there's something to be said for having one (or more) of each.

A Night and a Day on Backup Power

Power Management for Home Computing and Networking

In this installment, I discuss strategies by which computing enthusiasts may reduce power and retain or improve availability of home network services.

TL;DR TBD ;-)

Low Power Computing

There's never been a better time for low power computing. A lot of us are optimizing electricity use, not just because power is expensive, but because we've become mindful of waste. Smartphones, tablets, and ultrabooks use a lot less power than desktop PC setups. Mobile devices train us to be aware of power use. We can't always plug in, and it's inconvenient to plug in, so we optimize and prioritize around battery life. For those of us geeks who run home servers, more networking than a single WiFi router, whole house DVR backends, and home automation, it may be time to apply our power management skills to the home. I have some additional motivation: disruptive power outages that take my home off-grid, ranging from momentarily to minutes, hours, or several days.

On-Demand Battery Backup

I've owned a number of small UPSes from APC and CyberPower. These are a great help for those whose power is less than reliable. For many, this is all the power protection they need. Check out the recent "line-interactive" models with "active PFC". These are typically the best match for modern electronic devices where UPS cost is an issue.

If your equipment is mission-critical, especially sensitive, or you need to run on dirty power (as from a generator), you should be considering a "double conversion on-line" UPS. These units rectify current to charge batteries and feed an inverter that produces stable AC output. On-line UPSes are more expensive and less efficient than their line-interactive counterparts, but they serve their niche.

Generating Electric Power

If you live in remote or disaster-prone area, you may be considering the ability to generate your own power. You may be considering a photovoltaic solar installation even if you live in a center of civilization. Make no mistake, generating reliable AC power is a challenge. Some small or remote installations may be better off sticking to DC power and equipment. I won't write more about DC here, but may blog about in the future if I get around to implementing my dream DC system.

Typically, generating your own power means getting a generator setup that runs on fossil or bio-fuel. Good generators are expensive. Around here, some people spring for whole-house standby generators with automatic control systems and transfer switches. These setups usually run on natural gas or propane and cost $10K USD or more. Many more people have smaller "portable" generators that they backfeed into house power, a manual transfer switch, or just replug equipment into the generator itself. If backfeeding, it's critical to turn main line power off at or before the breaker/fuse box.

My generator is a 6500W (max) tri-fuel (gasoline, natural gas, or propane) unit that cost about $2.5K. It's got electric start, but I need to manually engage the key switch, flip switches in the basement, etc. to bring it on line. The generated AC power isn't very clean. I've seen frequency range from 60-64Hz and voltage from 115-130V. If I had an oscilloscope, I could see the ugliness of the "simulated sine wave" output. AC motors will sometimes vibrate on generator, lights flicker, A/V equipment exhibit audio noise, and cheap UPSes beep and refuse to charge their batteries or pass generator power through.

Real UPSes That Work

I can deal with most of the downsides to dirty, generated power. It's temporary; most things work, just not optimally. UPSes that discharge during the initial outage then refuse to charge or pass generator power are a huge annoyance. You'd have to shutdown, unplug, and replug each piece of equipment on each UPS to switch to generator power, then repeat the process to switch back to the UPS! This somewhat defeats the purpose of having a UPS in the first place. It took me a few years to take the hint and solve the problem.

My solution was to purchase a double conversion UPS with extended runtime battery pack. My critical equipment plugs into this UPS and will continue to run on generator power. Non-critical equipment that would suffer from unexpected outages goes on cheap, line-interactive UPSes. This non-critical equipment either survives short outages or stays off until line power returns.

• SU1500RTXL2UA Double Conversion UPS
• BP48V24-2U External Battery Pack

I went with Tripp Lite instead of APC because the equivalent (SURTA series) APC UPS was literally $400+ more.

Data for a Case Study

So now that you've heard the rambling details of why and how I addressed my problem, here are the specifics from recent testing. This takes us to the title of this lengthy post. I spent the night with the UPS unplugged to see how long it would run my critical equipment. Much of the next day was then spent on generator to 1) ensure batteries would charge and equipment run, and 2) determine how long it would take batteries to charge from 10% to 100%.

Equipment consists of:

• Comcast Business Class network gateway
• D-Link DIR-825 running as dedicated firewall/router
• Asus RT-N66U running as WiFi access point and network switch
• Raspberry Pi running critical network services and monitoring
• Thin Mini-ITX Intel "Ivy Bridge" PC running as DVR backend
• HDHomeRun network-attached dual digital TV tuner

I don't have exact power consumption figures all devices individually or all devices together. The UPS won't guess loads under 100W, so I know this is less than that. My back-of-envelope guesstimate is an average draw of ~60W. The runtime figures bear this out.

The equipment ran for just over 12 hours on battery. I was hoping for closer to 16 hours, but there are optimizations left to try. The UPS batteries charged well from generator while equipment continued to run. During the just over 5 hours it took the batteries to charge from 10% to 100%, there was one 19 second interval where input power went out of spec. The generator kicked up to 64Hz and 130V during this time and engine RPM and generator whine were obviously increased. I have no idea why. Anyway, I'm happy enough with these results.

Power Optimization Tips and Tricks

So, how to get from 12 hours to my goal of ~16 hours on battery? Tripp Lite has a nice calculator. Basically, I need to stay closer to 40W than 60W. To PC gamers that probably sounds impossibly low. Well, good thing I'm not gaming on batteries!

Most obviously, functions can sometimes be consolidated onto a single device. For instance, I'm running a separate firewall/router and WiFi access point. Most home users don't do that. Ah, but there's a method to my madness! During some extended power outages cable internet will go out; not always at first, but eventually power backup goes out at the cable headend too. In these situations I want to be able to "shed" the load of my Comcast gateway and firewall/router. And sometimes I just want to be able to power cycle them without taking down my internal network.

So separating and assigning related services that fail together into power/availability groups is sometimes useful. I have an "internet connectivity" group and a "home networking" group. Now, how to lower overall power use?

My PC-based DVR backend and TV tuners pull a decent amount of power. Yet when it comes down to it, DVRs only need to be powered up when they're being used.

Wake-on-LAN/Timer to the Rescue

Some PC-based equipment simply doesn't need to be fully powered up at all times. Modern PCs can generally be put to sleep (suspended to RAM for reduced power draw and quick resume) or hibernated (suspended to disk for no power draw and slower resume). Failing that, systems can be shutdown and booted back up when needed. This is all possible because modern PCs can keep a trickle of power going to a clock and system/network controllers while the PC is still plugged in.

Think of this like your TV. When the TV is off, it's really in "standby". A sensor and controller are powered and waiting to detect your press of the "on" button on the TV remote.

Let's go back to my PC-based DVR example. If this system drew a lot of power, it might make sense to keep it powered off until it's needed to record or stream content. Since my particular system only pulls 15-45W, it's more convenient to keep it on and immediately available. That equation changes when I'm running from battery. This calls for a little automation:

1. When line power is available, power on, stay on, and run normally. Done.
2. When running from battery and the system is idle, set the wakeup timer to just before the next scheduled event. Go to sleep or hibernate.
3. When the pre-set timer goes off, wake up if sleeping or hibernating.
4. When receiving a magic network packet, wake up if sleeping or hibernating.

The "magic packet" allows another computer or device to wake or boot an otherwise unavailable system from a standby state on demand. There are a number of utilities available to send magic packets through a manual UI or scripted interface. Some systems also support the ability to wake on keyboard/mouse activity or selective USB activity. These are very cool and underutilized features outside the world of portable PCs.

Power Control Hacks

I also mentioned that I'm running a network-attached digital TV tuner. Logically, this is part of a "DVR" power/availability group. The tuner box only needs to be powered when the DVR backend is recording or streaming live TV. Unfortunately, the tuner box doesn't support power management. It's either plugged in and on, or unplugged and off. Some devices are like this.

A little research shows that the HDHomeRun tuner runs on 5V and under 2A. My PC-based DVR already contains cables that can supply the proper voltage and current! Let's say that I hacked a SATA power cable to provide 5V at 2A to a barrel connector that could be plugged into the tuner. Now (in theory) I have a tuner that can power off and on as the PC sleeps and wakes.

Software/Firmware Power Tuning

Intel, AMD, and the various ARM vendors have gotten pretty good at making the hardware and firmware recognize demand and selectively power up/down functional units and communications buses. This used to be done with software (if at all). Still, there are sometimes power saving drivers to install or driver options to tweak to save a little juice. A blunter approach is to disable (in the BIOS/firmware) or remove devices that aren't needed. Underclocking and/or undervolting CPUs, GPUs, or RAM is also an option.

Consolidation and Virtualization

As I stated before, sometimes combining and consolidation is detrimental to sensible grouping and availability of services. Oftentimes, consolidation is brilliantly appropriate. System and container virtualization can make consolidation even more applicable. Let's say I want to add a software PBX like Asterisk to my mix of services. I could easily install this on the DVR system, preferably under virtualization to isolate it from the DVR system image. The PBX would go up and down as the DVR system wakes and sleeps during outages. That said, my voice-over-IP (VoIP) provider already forwards calls to my cell phone when my PBX is down. This makes the PBX a useful but not critical service. And there are potentially ways to proxy voice service and wake the PBX system on incoming calls.

Roll Credits

If you made it this far, I admire your fortitude. Believe me, I wasn't planning to write such a voluminous tome. As always, questions and comments are welcome via Google+.

Repurposing the HTPC

Several month ago, I built a slim form factor Windows 8 PC to act as a media streaming frontend. Notes here:
http://travesh.blogspot.com/2013/03/super-slim-intel-htpc-build.html
http://travesh.blogspot.com/2013/03/super-slim-htpc-followup.html

Total overkill as an HTPC for everything but games, yet I hadn't found a better solution to stream MythTV recordings, Netflix, Amazon Instant Video, etc. to single frontend. Android solutions were flakey or slow. Netflix uses Microsoft Silverlight, so good luck getting that on Linux. After a while, I added Aereo and Plex to my streaming requirements. Windows 8 on a small PC can do all of this, but it can't do it like an appliance with a unified UI. I bought a Roku 3 and the PC sat for a bit.

Having torn down my big MythTV backend when the summer TV doldrums went into effect, I'd been starting to feel the pressure to put MythTV recording back into service. Aereo's cloud DVR has mostly worked for me, but not 100%. Fundamentally, their service is a legal and technological hack; I'll enjoy it for now, but can't totally trust it.

So the now unused PC frontend has become the new DVR backend. The SDD got replaced with a 500GB 2.5" 7200rpm drive for video storage and Windows 8 got wiped in favor of Mythbuntu. My goal this time around is low power recording. When I lose electric service (as I often do), I want my DVR to keep recording on UPS and/or generator. There's also just the cool factor of the low power x86 and ARM trend. Everyone is starting to care at least a little about heat and power.

All said and done, the new DVR backend idles at 16W. That's insanely good! And this is Ivy Bridge, so who needs Haswell? And especially, who needs Atom? My old Atom 330 always idled at about 35W. The later Mini-ITX Atom boards were better, but never great. ARM isn't quite there as a DVR backend; disks over USB, 10/100 Ethernet on most boards, weak transcoding speed and support. I was planning this elaborate sleep/wake configuration for the Myth backend, but I might not bother. Always-on is just easier.

I'm planning my next blog post about separating the DVR recording backend from transcoding, archival storage, and streaming. The slim form factor Mini-ITX Sandy, Ivy, and Haswell get a huge thumbs up from me as a near ideal solution for DVR recording. And at 16W idle, you may want to run some other always-on services from this system as well. Power tuning is still in progress. How low can we go?

Developments in Home Streaming

After 10+ years of building and running home theater PC boxes (HTPCs), cheap streaming appliance frontends may finally be good enough to present a variety of local and Internet content on 1080p displays. This blog post provides a brief summary of the hardware and software solutions I've recently abandoned, and some suggestions and hints toward what might approach video Shrangri-La.

In mid-2012 I discontinued use of my TiVo HD in favor of a MythTV setup with HDHomeRun network attached tuners. For nearly a decade, I'd run TiVo series 1 and 3 (HD) boxes for my cable recording and living room display needs. The old TiVo was a life-changer. The original TiVo team built a brilliantly usable interface to fundamentally complex functionality. Unfortunately, TiVo has become something like the Palm Computing of DVRs. The current devices aren't that much more advanced than the original devices in terms of actual interface and practicality. It's like TiVo laid off a brilliant team of engineers and failed to foster partnerships in the industry. When my local cable provider switched to digital-only, I ditched the TiVo rather than fighting with CableCARD and re-committing to TiVo. I will not support the cable industry's lockdown of content by turning every DVR or cable box into an additional source of revenue for the cable monopoly. This is now the age of Ethernet and Internet streaming. I refuse to acknowledge my cable provider as anything but an Internet pipe and source of local broadcast programming. I realize that many get the extended or premium cable TV packages. I'm done with that. I'll get my HBO and Showtime series over DVDs or streaming services long after the programs initially air. Considering most network's proclivities to cancel new programs, I'm willing to wait a couple years for those programs that pass the gauntlet, and receive them at a time-discounted price.

I've run local streaming server and client HTPCs for years. PCs, especially Linux and open source PCs, have offered the freedom to store and stream personally owned/managed content for years. Just as the TiVo was my DVR, my HTPCs happily served up my personal AV archive and DVDs to any display in the house.

This year, I've experimented with devices like the MiniX Neo X5 (Chinese, Android-based TV box) to act as cheap clients to attach to HDMI displays. I also built a new Windows 8 HTPC to access XBMC, MythTV, and streamed Netflix and Amazon content: http://travesh.blogspot.com/2013/03/super-slim-intel-htpc-build.html. In the end, neither Android nor Windows boxes are what I want attached to my displays. I want set-top boxes that work like appliances and have custom hardware and Linux underneath. I don't want to futz with custom Android firmwares and the intricacies of hardware accelerated playback, nor the complexities of a full Windows box with an awkward combination of Metro apps and some (annoyingly) browser accessed content. What I want, and what I suspect many want, is something akin to the old TiVo appliance that can seamlessly access both local media and current Internet streaming services. Nothing else will do. This past week, I repurposed my long-serving AMV/Nvidia (MythTV) HTPC to be a network firewall/router and bastion host. I expect to repurpose my new Windows 8 HTPC as a network server this coming week. PCs are finally becoming overkill for driving 1080p displays; they're still too much like PCs and not enough like appliances.

My current preference for driving displays is the Roku 3. The works like an appliance for the sources I use: Netflix, Amazon, Aereo, and Plex. My Synology box now acts as a very adequate Plex server for my own content, and can be integrated to work with my MythTV backend. Netflix, Amazon, and Aereo can stream at 720p or 1080i/p. The Roku has a great appliance interface and a great remote control. I love being able to attach headphones to the Wi-Fi remote control itself for quiet late-night viewing.

In the end, here are my recommendations: A Roku 3 for each dumb display, a MythTV backend for cable-based content, a Plex server for your personal media archive, and portable devices to shore up any other areas. Aereo may be here for the long haul, or may be a flash in the pan. MythTV and ClearQAM or CableCARD also have an uncertain future. Transcode or pop your archive and TV content onto a Plex server to stand the test of time. The world of broadcast and streamed video is changing rapidly. I generally trust the Roku (version 3) and Plex to stand the test of time. This may change. ;-/. I'll be right there to inform as changes occur. As always, I'd love to hear on G+ what's currently working for everyone else or what direction you're heading. Cable and Internet video is always a moving target. This will presumably settle down at some point, but we're in a period of disruption and business and legal change. I simply hope you AV enthusiasts out there are navigating a path that works for your and your family! I'd love to hear your chosen path(s). Thanks for listening during these unsettled times!

Old New England Homes

[Veering off my normal technical-only discussion today due to impending hot weather forecast for my part of the world later this week.]

My home in New Hampshire was built around 1850 to replace the run-down old garrison just to the north. The story is that some salvaged materials (bricks, timbers, boards?) from the old garrison were used in the construction of the "new" farmhouse. The garrisons were fortified to repel Indian attacks and abductions in the area into the mid-1700s. My family roots in this area run deep, and numerous ancestors were killed or abducted, especially around the time of the Dover, NH Massacre of 1689. Abductees were typically taken north to Quebec and held for ransom. One of my ancestors was a "heroine" of the Dover Massacre; another declined to return to her abusive husband after abduction to Quebec. There's a lot of history here. Of course, documented historical roots don't run as deep here in the New World as in Eurasia. I recall staying at an old, old inn in Wales in 2006 where one corner of the room was obviously several inches higher than the other.

Like many old New England homes, my home has a borning room. This is a small room just off the kitchen/hearth where mothers would give birth, infants would be tended, and the sick and elderly would be provided solace. The hearth was the living center of the old New England homestead. This makes special sense given the history of the Little Ice Age in North America. My home, although not especially large for the time, has a vaulted brick arch in the basement to support the dutch oven and fireplaces on the first floor. My paternal grandparents acquired this home in a somewhat run-down and unimproved state (no electricity, plumbing) in the early 1940s. My 3rd great grandfather had lived in this same home when it was relatively new. Homes "in town" during the same period would have had better amenities, higher ceilings, grander staircases, etc. compared to rural farmhouses. On the plus side, I have almost 500 acres of conservation land in my back yard.

For the past couple years I've been sleeping in the small borning room off the long, farm-style kitchen. This room has space for a small bed against three walls, a nightstand and dresser. It also happens to be cold in the winter and hot in the summer due to a southeast location and little insulation. Many new homes aren't built to last, but at least they're using a sensible layout and insulation. Surviving old homes were built with quality materials, yet impose compromises for modern living. With a warm weather forecast for later this week, I've decided to change to the upstairs bedroom. I've ordered a small window air conditioner to hopefully arrive and be installed before hot weather strikes on Thursday.

When my grandparents acquired the house, the upstairs was largely unfinished. My grandmother had most of the upstairs built out as a separate apartment some years after my grandfather passed away. The current tenant has been there for almost 30 years. I retain one bedroom at the top of the (steep) front stairs with no upstairs bathroom access. This certainly isn't the house as I want it to be. That said, I have a great tenant and will be gradually making practical improvements. For now, I need to figure what should be moved to the upstairs bedroom to make it habitable. I have a bed, lamp, and nice closet but desperately need a bedside stand and dresser. Longer term, I'd love to figure out either a fix to the steepness of the stairs or a separate upstairs bathroom situation. It's all possible, but starts to run into real money. At some point, I run the cost-benefit analysis as to whether it's better to buy/build the home I want and force renters to deal with the quirks of the old farmhouse.

Cutting the Cable?

In this installment, I'll discuss the gradual progression that's been driving my brand of AV enthusiast away from the cable TV monopolies and onto the Internet. I'll also focus on Aereo's local broadcast DVR service in both a mini-review and in the larger landscape.

The more you tighten your grip, the more star systems will slip through your fingers.

- Princess Leia

This quote often springs to my (admittedly twisted) mind when discussing the lengths to which media distributors and cable monopolies such as Comcast, Time Warner, etc. will go to maintain control in a world of cheap recordable media and broadband Internet service. On the Internet, everything is just (potentially encrypted, unrecognizable) data. The media genie has long escaped the bottle. Somehow the RIAA and music distributors (MB/song) got the message, but the MPAA and cable companies (GB/video) are still refusing to give ground. I recall being young and poor and not wanting to pay for intellectual property I couldn't afford anyway; this is still the third world argument for rampant IP piracy. It's not a terrible argument. If duplication/distribution costs are negligible and legal distributors won't operate in your region, why should distributors be able to restrict your access to information and entertainment? Is infotainment for the producers or the audience? It takes both!

I now have the money to legally access the media I desire and the value system to resent overly restrictive controls and obsolete business models propped up by bad laws. Here is my manifesto.

1. I will pay for the content I want if the terms are at all reasonable. I have bought (sometimes rebought) much of my digital music on iTunes and Amazon. I pay for Netflix and Amazon streaming.
2. I am reluctant to pay a one-time fee to "own" or stream a piece of DRM restricted content.
3. If the content owner will not sell into a region, I do not believe piracy in that region is wrong. Information wants to be free.
4. I will not pay dozens of monthly fees to get the content I want. There is absolutely a place for content aggregators and streaming services.
5. Whenever one distributor/studio "takes their toys and goes home" by establishing a separate service for their content, I will boycott that distributor. You chose to be difficult; there are other fish in the sea.
6. I will not step back from the functionality of a TiVo to skip commercials or replay content. I will not pay money for locked-down content.

Wouldn't it be great if the industry could just work out a reasonable plan for both DRM-free video downloads and cross-platform video streaming? Kudos to Apple for absolutely forcing this on the music distributors back in the day and actually saving their revenue streams in a changing world.

Then there's the broadcast networks and cable companies still trying to eek out an existence from advertising, cable transmission fees, and monopolies and legal bullying. Since there's apparently no reasoning with all the broadcast networks at once unless you're a cable monopoly, we now have companies like Aereo. In case you haven't followed the drama, Aereo is trying to work within the law to provide each subscriber with their own tiny TV antenna and DVR streaming service in their local broadcast area. Cloud-based DVR streaming already has legal precedent behind it. Aereo's service is especially useful for those viewers on the outskirts of the metro broadcast area (like me) or with physical obstacles in the signal path (like me) or with intractable landlords. Aereo is specifically not for people who wish to receive extended or pay cable channels; it's for cable cutters for whom a physical antenna is difficult or impossible. You're paying Aereo a monthly fee to host your antenna and DVR. There's some interesting technology behind this, but the legality seems fairly straightforward. The lawsuits are flying and Aereo has generally been prevailing. Fox and CBS have threatened to pull their broadcast stations if Aereo ultimately prevails.

If Aereo is able to grow quickly enough to establish a significant subscriber base, they may be able to negotiate with the networks just as the cable monopolies do now. This is certainly my hope. This would also allow Aereo to reduce their resource requirements by storing a single (replicated for redundancy and performance) stream for each provider with whom they have an agreement. It's almost a given that broadcast TV will go away in the next decade, freeing up the spectrum for other uses. The FCC will need to change the regulatory landscape to provide some degree of free access to public news and alerts on TVoIP.

If I haven't mentioned much about the Aereo service itself, it's because it pretty much works as advertised. I'm on the $12/mo plan that provides two simultaneous channels and 60GB of DVR space. I'd love to know more of the technical details behind how they make their system work. There's apparently some serious transcoding going on at recording/viewing time. They're almost certainly not doing data deduplication for video storage; this would add a legal gray area, and they're absolutely trying to stay legal. I've tried viewing both on a laptop screen and across a room on a TV. Close viewing shows very obvious macroblocking artifacts, visible interlacing on some content, and horizontal line artifacts where 1080i content is being naively downscaled to 720p. At TV viewing distances, most issues become "good enough" for this non-videophile. Lack of macroblock dithering/blending for large areas of a similar colors are still visible. It may be possible to eliminate much of this by properly calibrating display brightness levels. I have not observed frame skipping or lengthy buffering problems.

Aereo is presenting a somewhat specialized solution. If you're tied to cable Internet, bundled basic cable may be a better deal. If you want cable/satellite-only channels, you'll need cable or satellite. I'm no longer willing to put a locked-down, slow, and awful cable box on each of my displays. The cable company has tightened their grip with encrypted digital content and threatened removal of unencrypted broadcast content (ClearQAM) formerly mandated by the FCC. The cable companies are trying to drag us back to the bad old days of the phone company ("Ma Bell") when everyone had to lease each and every phone from the monopoly provider. Grasping behavior like that has me slipping through their fingers.