Channel Four - a mouthpiece for hatred

In keeping with being the 'stylish' face of UK terrestrial television Channel Four has given over it's Christmas message to Iran's president;

...a Foreign and Commonwealth Office spokeswoman said: "President Ahmadinejad has during his time in office made a series of appalling anti-Semitic statements.

"The British media are rightly free to make their own editorial choices, but this invitation will cause offence and bemusement not just at home but amongst friendly countries abroad."

Labour MP Louise Ellman, chairwoman of the Labour Jewish Movement, said: "I condemn Channel 4's decision to give an unchallenged platform to a dangerous fanatic who denies the Holocaust, while preparing for another, and claims homosexuality does not exist while his regime hangs gay young men from cranes in the street.

"Who will deliver next year's alternative Christmas message? Will it be David Irving or Robert Mugabe?"

Conservative MP Mark Pritchard, a member of the Commons all-party media group, said: "Channel 4 has given a platform to a man who wants to annihilate Israel and continues to persecute Christians at Christmas time.
"This raises serious questions about whether Channel 4 should receive an increased public subsidy for their programmes."

Israeli Ambassador Ron Prosor said: "In Iran, converts to Christianity face the death penalty.

"It is perverse that this despot is allowed to speculate on the views of Jesus, while his government leads Christ's followers to the gallows."

He said Channel 4's decision to broadcast the message was a "scandal and a national embarrassment" and in "its search for ratings and shock factor, Channel 4 had lost its ethical way".

Human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell joined the attack, calling the president a "criminal despot, who ranks with Robert Mugabe, Omar al-Bashir of Sudan and the Burmese military junta as one of the world's most bloody tyrants".

Channel Four's F***-You attitude is amusing when it's to do with their own chav/celeb offerings (Big Brother etc.) but I really hope this puts pay to them getting their hands on any of the license fee. I'll be annoyed if that mob in Horseferry Road get any of the money I happily pay every year for the Beeb.

WFM7100 screen grabs

I'm currently prep'ing some training notes for video, audio & QC test and measurement. I've often said it, but Tektronix really are the best-of-breed for television signal monitoring. People only buy Hamlet, Harris, Videotek etc. because they won't stretch to a Tek.
So, here are some screen grabs - handsome!

Christmas 2008 family newsletter

The Guardian's Simon Hoggart lists the seven sins of writing a round-robin newsletter;

...including boastfulness (dazzlingly clever children who play the saxophone and ski for Britain); smugness (their job, their house, their holidays are all perfect); tiny-mindedness (do we really need to be told how to start a jigsaw by looking for the straight bits?); whimsy (letters written by pets or babies); and the dreaded over-sharing, in which every illness and operation is described in minute, unwanted detail.

I hope we've avoided that and manage to raise a smile (Sarah is going to be a stand-up when we're done with all this parenting).

do a right-click save on the link - my server is not doing MIME type properly

The 'amazing'(!) Shakti Electromagnetic Stabaliser

Having offered my beloved Harbeth speakers for sale (lots of interest so far!) I came across this bit of nonsense online. Audiophiles really are gullible fools with too much money to spend.

SHAKTI Noise Reduction Technology (NRT) absorbs and dissipates Electromagnetic Interference (EMI). Automotive Computers (ECUs) and audio/video components self generate a radiated EMI field that degrades signal transfer functions. The word SHAKTI means "energy." Through an energy conversion, inductive coupling process, the "antenna-like" circuits within SHAKTI attract and then resistively convert EMI to non-interfering heat.

The upshot is - pop one of these bad-boys on top of your amplifier and it will sound better! They even do little ones to sit on top of your speaker cables. They even claim that strapping one to your engine management module will make your car go faster! I emailed them to suggest that a few stuck on top of the UN building in New York would do wonders for world peace.

But wait - they have an even greater innovation - The Hallograph;

The Hallograph Soundfield Optimizer consists of two arrays that are easily placed behind each speaker near the corners of the backwall. Each array is engineered with proprietary technology (patent pending) and made with exotic hardwoods, consisting of staggered activated panels that are mounted on an elegant base that beautifully blends into any style room environment.

That's £1000 a pair to you chief!

For sale: Harbeth Monitor 30 (Active) loudspeakers

These are a pair of Harbeth Monitor 30 Active loudspeakers (Eucalyptus finish).
I have owned them for six years but for the last four they have been in storage. I ran them up last weekend and listened to a favorite CD and they still sound lovely. The cones are undamaged and the cabinets have a couple of suffs/scratches but otherwise are fine.
The Active variant is reasonably rare as most people bought the passive model. They have balanced and unbalanced inputs and the internal amps are matched to the speakers. If you've ever worked in radio or TV they are a badged version of the Rogers LS5/9 which you see all over the BBC.
It breaks my heart to let them go but space/family/time means I don't give them the attention they deserve!

The link in the title is to the page on eBay.

DriverBackup v.2 is out

This is a sweet little utility that takes a snapshot of the drivers on a Windows system - XP & Vista in 32 & 64bit flavours. It makes an archive backup of all the driver files and then when you repave the machine you just need to re-install DriverBackup and point it at the archive (which you hopefully backed-up to a CD/USB-stick etc!). Then, one re-boot later and no yellow question marks in device manager!

I have a filmography at the BFI!

Optical cabling - advice to customers

I'm not blogging much at the moment - lot on. However - this is what we're advising customers who don't use us fot their fibres;

• Grade of cable - All current models of film and video SANs make use of multimode connection. OM1 cable is still the preferred grade (62.5 micron VCSEL-optimised glass in accordance with ISO-11801) and since current configurations are 4 gigabit (moving to 8 gigabit) more attention needs to paid to circuit loss than 1 gigabit (the standard when OM1 was introduced). OM2 and OM3 cable is still unsuitable because of the 2.5dBs of loss when going between dissimilar core sizes (62.5 vs 50 microns). This is a function of current host-bus adaptors rather than the response of the cable.
  
• Bandwidth - Whereas 1 gigabit traffic will tolerate up to 8dBs of loss we are now dealing with SANs that demand at least two octaves more bandwidth and so best practise says that we now expect no more than 3dBs of loss on a SAN circuit.
  
• Style of cable - Although tight-buffered cable is easy to install it is never optimal for long runs. For interconnection between equipment within a cabinet it is appropriate and between cabinets if run in protection – Copex etc. For inter-area runs a loose-tube cable is the best solution as it is an order of magnitude more robust and although has an slightly larger install-time cost has a much lower TCO.
  
• Connectors - All contemporary host-bus adaptors and fibre-switches terminate runs in the LC connector. If existing cables are terminated in legacy SC or ST connectors they should either be re-terminated or re-run as adaptors introduce signal loss. SC or ST patch panels are fine so long as run-out cables are SC-LC (to equipment) as appropriate.
  
• Testing – We will ascertain if circuits are suitable for proposed SAN deployment by illuminating them with a calibrated laser tester (850nM wavelength, -19dB(m) signal) and measuring circuit loss – these results will be provided to the customer.

Modern Cryptography

AES, RSA, and Rijndael - if these mean nothing to you then you're clearly not interested in cryptography. If that's the case why are you reading this blog?!
Anyhow - if your an engineer of any kind in this modern world then there are certain things you should have at least a passing familiarity with - how TCP/IP works is another one.
The best primer I've ever come across is episode 31-37 of Steve Gibson's Security Now podcast go from symmetric stream ciphers (the Enigma Machine being a prime example) through to current state-of-the-art methods. It's very listenable and so if you have a spare eight hours (ideal on the commute) you should check out those podcasts from a couple of years ago - link in the title.

The Shield, end of season

Episode 13 of Season 7 was one of the best and most dramatic hours of television I've ever seen. I've been following it since the first year and it is the only cop show that has never lost it's dramatic tension and has never indulged in 'character development' episodes. Compared to the various CSI variants (which I like for different reasons) it shines.

Flobots

I am so far behind what the kids are listening to but after hearing this blaring out of my eldest two's bedrooms and iPods I thought I'd check it out.
I'd had a vague interest in some of the more intelligent hip-hop from the early nineties - Jungle Brother, Tribe called Quest, De La Soul etc. but most modern hip-hop leaves me cold. It seems like all the things I ranted about as a teenager - materialism, violence, mysogyny, and hatred are all required elements for the modern rapper. I found this in a paper by Darren Rhym of The Department of English of The University of Georgia;

In the end, this whole argument boils down to the fact that misogyny is ingrained into our culture and we allow it. We buy CDs and go to concerts where gangsta rappers call black women "bitches" and "hos." It is not just black women who are victimized. Since gangsta rappers disrespect our mothers, sisters, and daughters, every black man is a victim.

Excuses -- "I like the beat," "I don't listen to the words," and "They are only referring to certain types of women" -- are not acceptable. When gangsta rappers disrespect men and women and preach violence and hate to us, we must reject their messages. We cannot buy their CDs, albums, or tapes, or attend their concerts, or appear in their videos, or even support record labels or radio or television stations that advocate gangsta rap in any way. Malcolm X used to preach about the ills of airing "dirty laundry," and that is what gangsta rappers do when they disrespect black women in rap songs.

Rap is not just music; it is our African-American culture. It is the way we blacks perceive ourselves, and the way we are perceived by the world. The content of gangsta rap music in its current form is unacceptable. It cannot and should not be tolerated by anyone.

He should check out Flobots album - not only is it intelligent non-hate-filled lyrics but they are musically an order of magnitude more interesting that Dr Dre et al. Real drums with guitars and even jazz-influenced arrangements. Currently what's on my MP3 player.

Jailbreaking / unlocking iPhone for v2.2 f/ware

If you have a first gen iPhone and it's at v2.02 (at least) you can proceed to doing an iTunes upgrade without fear - the radio firmware isn't changed but apparently battery life and stability are improved (so Joe, my fifteen year-old tells me!)

Friday thoughts

I was out at Pinewood Studios on Wednesday doing some final work in a grading theater - Brian kindly brought me a good cup of brewed coffee (it was around 11:30am and it was my fifth cup of brewed coffee) and it left me feeling very jittery! Consequently I've decided to cut down on the coffee and I only drank tea yesterday - I felt a lot better by the end of the day and I have a feeling I slept better. The problem is I like coffee so much!

Parallels version four is out and I installed it yesterday - very good, a bit faster on the screen handling and startup/close-down of the virtual machine (XP SP3 on Leopard) was a lot faster. Simon didn't find it so good though on his MacBook. It tried to convert the v.3 VM but it failed - however, re-creating a BootCamp VM is trivial.

Good TV - There seems to be a load of good tele at the moment - Lead Balloon (Jack Dee's sitcom) - currently BBC2 are showing season 3 (it used to be a BBC4 show). Outnumbered - BBC1's (again, from BBC4) is hilarious. Little Dorrit - the BBC does a superb job of Dickens again. Star Wars:Clone Wars the animated series - Cartoon Network are showing the latest itteration of that franchise. Mythbusters - fantastic family tele. The Shield - series 7 on FX is the best yet and very exciting.

10mBit broadband - I recently got upgraded and although Virgin Media are hopeless when things go wrong I'm loving being able to torrent an episode of something that aired in the US last night at 3 minutes per half-hour of TV!

I wish I had the nerve...!

Inductive loads and power correction

The power factor of an AC electric power system is defined as the ratio of the real power to the apparent power, and is a number between 0 and 1 (frequently expressed as a percentage, e.g. 0.5 pf = 50% pf). Real power is the capacity of the circuit for performing work in a particular time. Apparent power is the product of the current and voltage of the circuit. Due to energy stored in the load and returned to the source, or due to a non-linear load that distorts the wave shape of the current drawn from the source, the apparent power can be greater than the real power.
In an electric power system, a load with low power factor draws more current than a load with a high power factor, for the same amount of useful power transferred. The higher currents increase the energy lost in the distribution system, and require larger wires and other equipment. Because of the costs of larger equipment and wasted energy, electrical utilities will usually charge a higher cost to industrial or commercial customers where there is a low power factor.

Thinking about power-factors all came from various discussions with the wiremen and engineers whilst working on site over the last couple of weeks - In the case of the kind of builds we do we always ask customers to provide a power supply with inductive rated breakers. This is from our standard Scope Of Works document;

The equipment cabinets will be wired with 14-way IEC mains distribution units. Every circuit is fuse-protected and the mains input is terminated in a 16A C-Form connector (AKA a ‘Commando’ plug) – Root6 requirement is that the client’s electrician provides a separate spur connection for each bay and all feeds are provided via a D-rated 16A MCB. We recommend the area is protected by an Earth Leakage Breaker. We will test all mains installs in accordance with edition 4 of the 16th ed. IEE regulations using a standard suite of PAT tests.

We've fallen foul of a customer who didn't pass this on to their electrician and we've been battling with B-Rated (i.e. resistive-load) breakers not being able to hold an 16A circuit to a bay full of switch-mode power-supplies (i.e. all modern broadcast equipment!). When a strongly inductive load such as a switch-mode/resonant-mode power supply is switched on input surge current which may be several times larger than the steady current flows. It's also why the mains in Soho is nearly a square-wave - all those odd-order harmonics being dumped back out onto the incoming supply.

The idiots have won!

Charlie Brooker's Nathan Barley is still one of the funniest things ever on TV - I know 'cause I deal with a lot of those people - Meeja Fools!

Once the idiots were just the fools gaping in through the windows, now they have entered the building. You can hear them everywhere, they use the word cool, it is their favourite word, the idiot doesn't think about what he is saying, thinking is rubbish and rubbish isn't cool...... Stuff and shit is cool. The idiots are self regarding, consumer slaves. Oblivious to the paradox of their uniform individuality, they sculpt their hair to casual perfection, they wear their waist bands below their balls, and they babble in to handheld twit machines about that cool email of a woman being bummed by a wolf.... their cool friend made it, he’s an idiot too. Welcome to the age of stupidity, hail the rise of the idiot.

Those two fine examples of humanity - Jonathon Ross and the other guy are in trouble for reverting to type on Radio 2. But, imagine my suprise when I was in the newsagents to buy a bag of crisps and I saw this cover of a lads mag - the young woman in the centre of the whole debacle with her kit off - the idiots have won!

Fridge-freezer mains earth defrosting connundrum!

I have an upright fridge-freezer in my kitchen and about a year ago I moved it to clean underneath. Since then every month I've had to defrost it (despite it being a frost-free model) and was getting ready to maybe replace it. However, three months ago I noticed that the extension cable that powers it (from a socket in the lader) had been tugged (I assume when I moved it out to clean) and on further inspection the mains earth had come out in the trailing MK13 socket on the end of the extension. I re-wired it and since then the thing hasn't frosted up once!
I'm at a loss - how does the presence (or not) of a mains safety earth cause this behavior? What about those countries that don't have an earth?

If you've got a thought then I love to hear it - have a party in the comments!

Trying to get enthused!

Despite my first weekend since August when I did no work between Friday tea time and Monday I don't feel very enthusiastic about broadcast engineering - I hoped I'd be refreshed and full of beans but I'm a bit flat. Hopefully the following lecture at the IET will perk me up!

The Beijing games were the biggest and best ever. Paul Mason of BBC Television will describe the technical challenges of delivering multi-media coverage from dozens of venues from the other side of the world. He will cover the planning and technical operation of the Games, including both the Host Broadcaster and BBC operations

I can take guests so if you want to go let me know.

New York tests analogue shut-off

New York City over-the-air analog TV stations went dark for two minutes yesterday. The prescheduled test gave a temporary taste of what's planned when the stations permanently pull the analog plug on February 17, 2009.

My DVB-T television (which runs Linux!) needed a first birthday the other day (the DVB decoder temporarily went AWOL) and so for a day I was watching composite analogue signals from Crystal Palace. I have to say that I now find MPEG2 compression artifacts less objectionable that multi-path/PAL-decoder errors. The analogue switch-off here in Blighty can't come quick enough!
Now then, when's that DVB-T2 HD over H.264 switch-over coming?!

Eyeheight legalisers parameter bugs

I came across this a couple of years ago - if you recall the Rec103 preset the ringing perfromace is wrong!
Here is the email I got from their tech support back in September 2006 and the one I installed a couple of days ago is still suffering!

...this is a software bug which we have just noticed and are now working on. We should have a fix within the next few weeks.

In the interim you could enter the values for the EBU settings you require manually. You could even store these values into memories and label them as explained in....

http://www.eyeheight.com/manuals/systemHardware/evolutionDT_platform_user_manual.pdf

Here are the values for the various presets....

Memory 1 Legaliser On 0% - 100%

Memory 2 1. Set High Clip = 105%

EBU 103, 2. Set Low Clip = -5%

Tight 3. Set Ring Suppression to "MANUAL"

4. Set High Ring Threshold = 103%

5. Set Low Ring Threshold = -1%

Memory 3 1. Set High Clip = 103%

EBU 103, 2. Set Low Clip = -3%

Optim' 3. Set Ring Suspression to "MANUAL"

4. Set High Ring Threshold = 101%

5. Set Low Ring Threshold = 0

Memory 4 Bypass / Legaliser Off.

....hope this helps and we will contact you with the software up-date files which you can flash into your legaliser using the RS232 port of a PC.