Watching TV online + encoding DVD’s for Apple TV

We recently joined the big kid world & got a new 50 inch plasma TV!

It’s been about 3 years since we’ve had cable or a TV that didn’t require bunny ears. However, even now that we have a legitimate TV, i’m still reluctant to plunk the money down for a bunch of cable channels that we probably won’t watch, when we can watch our regular shows online or on DVD.

Right now we watch TV by hooking up our Macbook to the tv with the apple remote, but pretty soon we’re going to hook it up permanently to a Mac Mini so it can be a full on wireless media center. The Mac Mini is a little more expensive, but it can do a lot more than an Apple TV. With the iPhone Remote app we can even wirelessly play our music throughout the house.

Watching TV Online:

Here’s a few resources for watching TV online:

• Hulu Desktop – Hulu has a new desktop application that you can run on your Mac & control with the Apple remote. It’s still not perfect (sometimes, the streaming hangs, and they don’t have all tv networks online yet), but it’s a pretty promising start. It definitely feels like cable tv’s future replacement.
• ShowsRSS + Transmission – I used to use the TVShows app (which let you subscribe to shows and would automatically download new episodes), but when their rss tracker went down, the application stopped working. ShowsRSS is a good substitute. It lets you subscribe to your favorite shows, and creates an rss feed letting you know when new episodes are online. If you use Automatic, you can configure the episodes to download automatically, similar to the TVShows app.
• If you can’t find the show you’re looking for on ShowsRSS, check EZTV or Mininova – probably the two best resources for TV torrents out there.

Encoding DVD’s in Apple TV format

There’s a few tools you need to digitize your DVD library. I wanted to make sure mine were actual DVD quality and would play full screen on our plasma tv. There’s a few tricks to it, and here’s what I learned:

• Handbrake – First up, you need Handbrake to encode the DVD.

  

  • Presets – The best way to ensure DVD quality is to use the AppleTV preset (.mp4 format/2500 bitrate).
  • Deinterlace – Make sure to set the Deinterlace to Slow or Slower. To learn more about what Deinterlacing is, you can read about it here, but if you don’t deinterlace, you’re going to see a lot of annoying lines every time there’s motion in the video.
  • Picture Settings – In order for the video to display full screen on a Plasma/LCD tv, the Anamorphic resolution needs to be 854 x 480. Many movies are already in this resolution, but most TV shows are 640 x 480. If that’s the case, you’ll see black bars on the side of your TV screen. If it’s 640 x 480, go ahead and encode it that way & we’ll come back to that later.
  • Cropping – some movies in widescreen format are burned on the dvd with the top/bottom black bars as part of the video. To get rid of it, go into Picture Settings and set Crop to Automatic

  Encoding with the above settings in Handbrake will get you DVD quality video, however, if the resolution isn’t the full 854 x 480, it won’t be full screen on your TV. The only way to get it full screen is to ’stretch’ the video (which is what most DVD Players do when they play back on your TV). Some people like this approach since it gets you true fullscreen, but others don’t since technically, it’s distorting the video to stretch the image taller or wider. I prefer it stretched, so here’s how you do it.

• Quicktime Pro – In Quicktime, open your .mp4 movie.
  • Go to Window > Show Movie Properties
  • Click on Video Track
  • Uncheck ‘Preserve Aspect Ratio’
  • Set the Scaled Size to 854 x 480
  • Make sure the ‘High Quality’ box is checked in the lower right corner
  • Click ‘File > Save As’ – it will force you to resave the video as .mov format

  

  Once this is done, you’ll have your video in fullscreen! Now the only thing left is to add the movies to your itunes library so you can play them in FrontRow with the apple remote. I use the Set Video Kind iTunes script to easily organize my movies/tv shows in my library. Saves a ton of time.

  Now all you need is a big enough external harddrive to store all your movies, and say goodbye to all those DVD’s cluttering up your bookshelf

Furniture Wish List

Half the fun of owning a home is drooling over stuff you can’t afford.

Case in point, the Thomas Wold Block Party Book Case over at Design Public.

Clocking in at a mere $3990!!, this is one of the coolest book cases i’ve ever seen. It’s designed to partially display/hide objects in the shelf. Some of the panels slide back and forth, while others open like doors.

Meanwhile on the affordable front, Ikea’s launching their new eco-friendly PS line August 1st.

The Woven Palm Vava Lamp ($70) has been getting tons of play all over the internet courtesy of Inhabitat

Looks like it would be a good affordable replacement for the pink flower chandelier in our bedroom that we haven’t gotten around to replacing yet!

On the frustrating front is the Deneb Collection from Design Within Reach.

The frustrating part is that Design Within Reach keeps mailing us their catalog and making us drool over their awesome furniture when it’s nowhere remotely within reach. It’s $1248 just for an outdoor coffee table. I’m not even going to bother pricing out a full outdoor set… sigh.

Before & After: The Office

One of the last rooms we got around to finishing was the guest room/office.

Before:

After:

Laying a Pavestone Patio – Part 3: Removing Tree Stumps

I know I posted a while ago that we were just about done with the pavestone patio… but 6 months later I mean it for real!

Originally we paved around the tree stumps and were going to make planters out of them, but after a while realized that the pretty much killed the space we had to work with. So the tree stumps had to come out. I did it the old fashioned way, with an axe & mattock. Had to dig down deep enough to get to the tap root, then about an hour of chopping and they came right out (i’m making it sound easier than it is)

I averaged about one tree stump per weekend, so this took most of my time (there were 6 stumps to remove). Also, after the rainy season, i’d discovered that my initial pavestone laying job wasn’t so even. There were little dips in the patio where water would collect in big puddles. So I used the tree stumps as an excuse to pull up the rest of the pavestones and re-level them.

This time I did it the right way by using a Vibra-Plate rented from Home Depot. It’s basically a machine with a vibrating plate on the bottom that flattens & compacts the bricks into the sand below it.

Here’s the final outcome

Apparently, I am NOT a plumber

So we had a small leak in our bathtub faucet. How hard could it be to replace the faucet & handles? (Oh my naivete) My first big homeowner lesson is that you don’t EFF with plumbing..

First up, I shut off the water to the house. Then I took off the old faucet & handles & bought a new set from home depot. I was thinking all I needed to do was swap out the old with the new right? Well after a few hours & me thinking i’d done a wonderful job, I turned everything on, only to find a massive leak WAY bigger than before.

Apparently, you can’t swap out any handles- they have to have to have the same base. Also, you need to change out all the seats for the handles (another new plumbing term i just learned). I could link to all sorts of online instructions & yadda yadda yadda… but seriously, just call a plumber. (thanks to flathead’s brother Will for coming out & saving our asses!)

Portland Design Inspiration

A while back we went up to Portland to visit the (future) MacGillivray’s.

There’s so much awesome architecture & style up there that you just don’t see in the OC (surprise!). Here’s some of our favorites:

Inspiration for re-doing our backyard fence. We think we want to go with the horizontal look.

One of the dopest & cheapest vintage furniture store we’ve ever been to – Hawthorne Vintage!

Awesome plant ideas at Pistils Nursery. First up, hanging terrariums

Next, wall art with planters built into it:

We just need to save up money for these projects ($4 apparently)

Plus, Obama says we can do it

Installing Shelves & Expanding Stokke Junior Crib

Socket got a few upgrades to his room! First, he helped install some new corner shelves (courtesy of ikea’s as-is section) which double as bookshelves & a low table to play with his computer/tools – You can see Socket below scanning himself with the stud-finder…

Next thing we knew, we were waking up in the morning with Socket standing by our bed – He’d figured out how to climb out of the crib! Time for the big boy bed… The Stokke Sleepi crib has a pretty cool function, where the front of the crib comes off and attaches to the back, extending it and turning it into a junior bed. Here’s what it looks like:

But of course, after all the hard work, this is how he fell asleep…

So mama took a nap instead

Apartment Renerdvating Project

Friend of the nerds here. I’m planning on renerdvating my 2 bed/1 bath apt so I thought I would post the adventure. I have 2 rules: can’t be too permanent, can’t spend too much unless it’s completely removable/adjustable. Everything I’ve done so far in the place can be scrapped, so to speak. So I’m starting from scratch. I’ve done some research as to what I think could be good ideas. Here’s a summary of my research and most likely what I will be buying. The notes here are mainly for myself so don’t feel like I’m telling you what to do (I’m just telling myself so I don’t forget). I’ll be posting updates/pictures as things progress.

1. Walls (Wallpaper? Wallpanels?)
I painted the walls ~2 yrs ago so at least that looks nice/new. It would be better if there was an accent wall though. My better half really wants to do some wallpapering and I think it’d be a great idea. Don’t know which pattern to choose though…
Inexpensive Wallpaper @ DesignYourWall.com
Less Inexpensive Wallpaper @ InsideFabric.com
Angela Adams @ MDCWall.com
Wall Paneling @ Bnind.com (this might be cool in the bathroom)

2. TV, Media Center & Console
2a. 47″ LG LCD TV 1080p 120hz @ Amazon Warehouse (They have some great open box deals here. Stay away from refurbished though.)
2b. XBOX 360 as the DVD player/media center. I’ll be getting an XBOX Harmony Remote. My XBOX is already wireless so I can hook up a Netflix acct and stream through the XBOX. For downloaded movies/music, I’m using 2 Western Digital Passport HDs (get the white one!). *NOTE: They need to be in FAT32 format for the XBOX to read them (Use EASEUS Partition Manager). The beauty is they’re small and USB-Bus powered. P.S. Buy all XBOX stuff on eBay.
2c. TV/Media Console @ IKEA
However, I’ll be getting it in white, with the 2 middle doors as glass doors and the frames in white.
I really wanted to shy away from IKEA, but I think this will look nice. I have the high gloss brown doors right now and they look pretty classy.

3. Floors
Bathroom/Kitchen: Temporary Vinyl Flooring @ DesignYourWall.com
Shaggy carpet @ Flor (a little pricey though @ $25.99/tile – maybe get the Short Shag @ $16.99/tile)

4. Windows
Shades @ Smith and Noble
Etched Glass @ Home Depot (good if you want privacy AND light still coming in)
*you’ll need this kit

5. Bathroom
I like this IKEA hack to cover your cistern.

6. Guest room/Office
This desk @ CB2

If you have any good tips/links, leave a comment! I haven’t started any of this, so I’m still open to ideas (plus we still have the dining room, bookshelves, seating, and kitchen to figure out…)

Replacing a Broken Water Heater

Happy New Year!  I guess our new years resolution should be to get caught up on blog posts…

Here’s one from around Thanksgiving time – we got back from a trip to Portland and discovered our water heater had broken & the garage had flooded…

The first step when you have a leaking water heater is to turn off the water (There should be a lever towards the top of the water heater). Next thing you need to do is diagnose if the heater needs replacement, or if it’s simply a faulty pipe. Good rule of thumb is if it’s leaking from somewhere near the top of the water heater, it’s probably a pipe. Find the leak and replace the faulty part. If it’s leaking from the bottom, the water heater has corroded and needs to be replaced.

Ours was definitely leaking from the bottom and needed replacing. I’d gotten as far as draining the water heater (you can connect a hose water and your plants, wash your car, or fill up a kiddie pool with warm water and let the kids go nuts), then went down to home depot to check out water heater prices ($600-$900!!!)

Luckily Flathead remembered we had a 1 year home warranty when we bought the house and they’d replace the water heater for a $45 deductible. Unfortunately it was a Saturday, so we had to sit out the weekend with no hot water, but them’s the breaks for free stuff.

In case you don’t know the difference between Homeowner’s Insurance & a Home Warranty, the former only protects the structure of your house in case of a disaster, and the latter covers items & appliances within your house (water heater, air conditioner, dishwasher, etc..). I’d think most of the time a home warranty probably wouldn’t be worth the money, but if you’re moving into a new house that has old appliances, it’d be highly beneficial to negotiate it into the escrow agreement. It saved us about $800…

Anyway, here’s what the brand spanking new water heater looks like, complete with an overflow pan which the previous owners didn’t install before:

Since we got the replacement installed for free, I don’t have pictures of the extra steps involved in replacing the heater yourself (it would have been kind of awkward standing behind the repairman taking pictures…), so if you need further instructions, here’s a good resource:

http://www.doityourself.com/stry/h2installwaterheater

Laying a Pavestone Patio – Part 2: Cutting Edger Bricks

It’s been a busy past few weeks since starting the backyard, but we finally have the patio mostly done

Here were the remaining steps:

Step 1: Mark & cut the bricks to fill in the edges around the perimeter of the patio. This was the most time consuming part, as there were literally hundreds of cuts to make. Took about 3 to 4 weekends to finally finish.

I highly recommend shelling out the extra dough for a diamond tipped blade ($80). I tried starting off the cheap way with the $5 masonry blades, but it took about 5 minutes to cut 1 brick (and they wear out quickly). The diamond tipped masonry blade cuts through bricks like butter, and still cuts like new hundreds of cuts later.

Step 2: Brush paver sand into the spaces between the bricks. We had to do a couple of runs – brush the sand in, wet it & let it settle – then after it dries, repeat again. After time the sand hardens like concrete between the cracks.

Finishing Up: We’re testing putting in groundcover around the tree stumps to see if they’ll take. Then we need to get started on building planter boxes & the new backyard fence!