October 18, 2009, 7:51 pm
The second weekend of TRF (1001 Dreams) had wonderful weather, large crowds, and best of all... lots of fae! I started off the day by visiting Moresca for some new lighter weight garb. A quick purchase of breeches, shirt and vest and I was on my way. I managed to catch a couple shows, Shunyata bellydance and the old favorite, Sound and Fury. Met up with friends, and enjoyed strolling around catching moments with my soul stealer. I also managed to get a nice sunburned scalp too. Perhaps a hat is in order next weekend...Texas Renaissance Festival 2009 - 2nd Weekend - 1001 Dreams
October 12, 2009, 9:16 pm
The 2009 season opened with a lovely day on Saturday, or so I hear, however I went on the rainy Sunday. The rain did not present a problem to the people attending the festival, including myself. The crowds that I saw were having a good time despite the rain, and the cast were upbeat and putting on a good show. It was good to be back to festival even when trudging through muddy walkways. I did not manage to catch any shows but did meet up with many friends and had a good day at the festival.Oh, and some pictures were taken :)
Texas Renaissance Festival 2009 - 1st (Opening) Weekend - Oktoberfest
July 9, 2009, 8:13 pm
I just received my Mvix Ultio (MX-800HD) HD UPnP Media Player today. My purpose behind purchasing the device was because I have long used my modded Xbox with XBMC to stream Anime fan-subs from a share on my server to my large screen TV. However with the popularity of HD and the usage of MKV files this presented a problem as the Xbox just didn't have the power to play these formats. I had looked at a couple devices and the Ultio won out because of the price point and the feature list it claimed to have, mainly playing MKVs and support of subtitles. I also liked that they released the source so the community has the opportunity to make improvements to the firmware should the feature set be lacking.
Unboxing the Ultio was easy, you have the unit, power cable and connector cables (USB, RCA, HDMI). I was pleased that it came with the HDMI cable so I did not have to purchase another. I plugged in the device, connected it to the TV, attempted to power it on and... nothing happened. As I was examining the unit to determine the cause, the case starts sliding off to my amazement. Apparently when you order the unit minus the hard drive they conveniently don't put the screws in it to hold it together so you can easily add a hard drive. At least that is what I am going to go with.
At this point I had not thought of putting a drive in it because I wasn't planning to store anything on it at the moment, however I did have a spare 300Gb SATA drive I wasn't using so I put that in the unit. After checking the box, they did include the screws in a little zip lock bag and it was really simple to attach the drive and screw the hard drive in (hint: it screws in from the bottom of the drive not the sides). After assembling the unit and tightening down the screws I attempted powering up the unit again.... And we have power!
It takes several second from power to boot, but when it is up the menu seems fairly zippy when changing selections. I went to the settings screen to adjust the video to 1080P (it defaults to 480P) and to check the other settings to see if they needed adjusting. Overall other than the video resolution I don't believe I changed anything else.
Next was to setup the network so I could test out the video streaming. This is where I ran into some issues. I had to figure out how to add a network source to the "My Shortcuts" area. This was not very intuitive so I reached for the manual. You have to browse to the "My Shortcuts" area under Network and press the "Options" button on the remote (note: after upgrading the firmware, option doesn't appear to work for this function. Rather you have to push the Play button instead now). At this point you can add a shortcut and enter your network user name and password. This is where I ran into some more trouble. I went to add my user name and password and every time I tried to authenticate it would fail. I even reset my password on the server to make sure it was what I thought it was. The issue was the keyboard that the system uses has a shift button, which generally you would assume if you press the shift button, then select a letter it would uppercase the letter... WRONG! The shift button only changes the numbers to symbols and some of the other symbols to their shift counterparts. To enter a uppercase letter you have to turn on CAPS then turn it back off. Once I figured this out I was able to authenticate with the server. Another issues is it shows all shared on the server, even ones with which this particular user account has no access, namely the administrative shares. This adds a lot of extra choices to have to flip through to get to the selections.
Once I had network access to the shares, I started the test with a simple .AVI file. The menu displayed the video preview successfully and it played well when selected. I then moved on to the real test which would determine if I ended up keeping the device or selling it on eBay... the .MKV files with embedded subtitles. I loaded up a .MKV and to my great pleasure it played just fine AND displayed the subtitles. There does seem to be a slight lag sometimes with the timing of the subtitles, however not enough that it was much of an irritant. I also thought the text font could be improved on. It would be nice to have the option of being able to change the font face to something with a wider font and possibly adjust the size also, however this does not appear to currently be an option.
My initial overall impressions of the device are positive. It won't be ending up on eBay at least at the moment. I shall follow up with further impressions if they alter to any degree.
Unboxing the Ultio was easy, you have the unit, power cable and connector cables (USB, RCA, HDMI). I was pleased that it came with the HDMI cable so I did not have to purchase another. I plugged in the device, connected it to the TV, attempted to power it on and... nothing happened. As I was examining the unit to determine the cause, the case starts sliding off to my amazement. Apparently when you order the unit minus the hard drive they conveniently don't put the screws in it to hold it together so you can easily add a hard drive. At least that is what I am going to go with.
At this point I had not thought of putting a drive in it because I wasn't planning to store anything on it at the moment, however I did have a spare 300Gb SATA drive I wasn't using so I put that in the unit. After checking the box, they did include the screws in a little zip lock bag and it was really simple to attach the drive and screw the hard drive in (hint: it screws in from the bottom of the drive not the sides). After assembling the unit and tightening down the screws I attempted powering up the unit again.... And we have power!
It takes several second from power to boot, but when it is up the menu seems fairly zippy when changing selections. I went to the settings screen to adjust the video to 1080P (it defaults to 480P) and to check the other settings to see if they needed adjusting. Overall other than the video resolution I don't believe I changed anything else.
Next was to setup the network so I could test out the video streaming. This is where I ran into some issues. I had to figure out how to add a network source to the "My Shortcuts" area. This was not very intuitive so I reached for the manual. You have to browse to the "My Shortcuts" area under Network and press the "Options" button on the remote (note: after upgrading the firmware, option doesn't appear to work for this function. Rather you have to push the Play button instead now). At this point you can add a shortcut and enter your network user name and password. This is where I ran into some more trouble. I went to add my user name and password and every time I tried to authenticate it would fail. I even reset my password on the server to make sure it was what I thought it was. The issue was the keyboard that the system uses has a shift button, which generally you would assume if you press the shift button, then select a letter it would uppercase the letter... WRONG! The shift button only changes the numbers to symbols and some of the other symbols to their shift counterparts. To enter a uppercase letter you have to turn on CAPS then turn it back off. Once I figured this out I was able to authenticate with the server. Another issues is it shows all shared on the server, even ones with which this particular user account has no access, namely the administrative shares. This adds a lot of extra choices to have to flip through to get to the selections.
Once I had network access to the shares, I started the test with a simple .AVI file. The menu displayed the video preview successfully and it played well when selected. I then moved on to the real test which would determine if I ended up keeping the device or selling it on eBay... the .MKV files with embedded subtitles. I loaded up a .MKV and to my great pleasure it played just fine AND displayed the subtitles. There does seem to be a slight lag sometimes with the timing of the subtitles, however not enough that it was much of an irritant. I also thought the text font could be improved on. It would be nice to have the option of being able to change the font face to something with a wider font and possibly adjust the size also, however this does not appear to currently be an option.
My initial overall impressions of the device are positive. It won't be ending up on eBay at least at the moment. I shall follow up with further impressions if they alter to any degree.
June 2, 2009, 9:48 pm
While I was in the St. Louis area to visit friends, I saw that there was a renaissance faire going on and since I had some time to spare, my father and I paid the GSTLRF a visit. Unfortunately I did not foresee visiting as a good possibility beforehand, so I did not have any garb and went in my mundane clothes.It was smaller than TRF and Scarby, but like Scarby it has its own character and I rather enjoyed the environment. The abundance of vegetation and creeks lent well to the overall experience of the faire. The cast were abundant, however the interaction seemed a little lacking compared to the cast at TRF. I did enjoy a brief interaction with the Scottish carver as he told me the stories of his carvings. I also enjoyed the Chuvani Bellydance show quite a bit :)
Overall it was a nice experience and a good way to spend a couple hours. Of course I had my camera in hand to take some pictures, so I hope you enjoy them and get a glimpse of the visit I enjoyed.
Greater St. Louis Renaissance Faire 2009 Pictures - Saturday, May 30th
May 24, 2009, 10:42 pm
Well I returned for the Saturday of closing weekend at Scarby, although I had not originally intended to. A couple things drew me, good company and a new lens to try out. I drove up Saturday morning and spent the day hanging with the McLotofus crew and wandering taking pictures. Other than the heat and a late afternoon shower it made for a great day. Of course the after faire dinner and hanging at the pool was a nice end to the day.Scarborough Renaissance Festival 2009 - Closing Saturday Pictures
