Sunday, July 18, 2010

Fifth Element: Who is Finger?

Just happened to be watching the HD version one of my favorite Sci-Fi movies "Fifth Element" and noticed again the scene where Corbin is talking with his boss "Finger".   At one point he picks up a picture of the mysterious person and it would appear that a bit of the picture is disclosed.   I took a few stills to try and get a glimpse of what the movie producers used as a picture. Looks like it was a legit picture, just never got to see it from the camera angle.

Here they are (Around frame 26,000 if you would like to peak as well):

overviewFront side:

frontside1Backside (translucent).  You can almost make out someone with a handle-bar mustache.

backsidePicture of Corbin Dallas at the time for a frame of reference:

corbinwedding

Thursday, July 8, 2010

2005 Acura TL Door handle cover

The 2005 TL appears to have a design flaw with the door handle cover coming off and getting lost.  If you are under warranty (which I doubt at this point) you can try to get them to fix it under "goodwill", however, for me it is worth the $12 to get it sent to you online from here:

http://www.acuraautomotiveparts.org/acura/jsp/mws/prddisplay.jsp?catcgry1=TL&catcgry2=2005&catcgry3=4DR+BASE+%28NAVIGATION%29&catcgry4=KA5AT&catcgry5=FRONT+DOOR+LOCKS+-+OUTER+HANDLE&ListAll=All&vinsrch=no&systemcomp=&prdrefno=157935&quantity=1&act=additem&hidSwitch=&hidIrno=&vinnoT=&trans=&trim=&view=normal&count=2

Door Cover defect service bulletin:

http://www.in.honda.com/Rjanisis/pubs/SB/B07-043.PDF

Thursday, June 24, 2010

Watching Streaming Video on Android HTC EVO Phone

Trying to figure out a way to view live TV / Movies / Video from my A/V devices at home on my Android HTC EVO Phone.

To play a movie:

Start VLC client on Ubuntu:


# vlc -v video.avi -I dummy --sout "#transcode{vcodec=h264,venc=x264{no-cabac,level=12,vbv-maxrate=384,vbv-bufsize=1000,keyint=75,ref=3,bframes=0},width=320, height=180,acodec=mp4a,ab=64,vb=384}:rtp{dst=,port=4555,sdp=rtsp://server:4555/stream.sdp,mp4a-latm}"




Start Movie Client Stream on Android:
- Open browser
- Browse to "rtsp://server:4555/stream.sdp"
- Watch stream!

To Watch live TV:
vlc -v vlc -v v4l2:///dev/video0 :v4l2-standard=3:v4l2-standard=45056 :v4l2-chroma= :v4l2-input=1 :v4l2-audio-input=0 :v4l2-io=1 :v4l2-width=640 :v4l2-height=480 -I dummy --sout "#transcode{vcodec=h264,venc=x264{no-cabac,level=12,vbv-maxrate=384,vbv-bufsize=1000,keyint=75,ref=3,bframes=0},width=320, height=180,acodec=mp4a,ab=64,vb=384}:rtp{dst=,port=4555,sdp=rtsp://192.168.13.5:4555/stream.sdp,mp4a-latm}"

Start Movie Client Stream on Android:
- Open browser
- Browse to "rtsp://server:4555/stream.sdp"
- Watch stream!

I am seeing about a 1/2 sec lag on audio and am looking into that. Any help would be appreciated!

vlc -v v4l2:///dev/video0 :v4l2-standard=3:v4l2-standard=45056 :v4l2-chroma= :v4l2-input=0 :v4l2-audio-input=0 :v4l2-io=1 :v4l2-width=640 :v4l2-height=480 :v4l2-tuner=0 :v4l2-tuner-frequency=673250

--------
References:

Obtain Streaming Video Player (yxPlayer):
http://mobilesoft.kr/android.html

Try broadcasting from VLC:
http://www.videolan.org/doc/streaming-howto/en/ch04.html

Once I get a working solution, ill update this post.

Saturday, June 12, 2010

1987 Ford E150 - Reading Trouble Codes from computer

My Father-In-Law's van was having issues driving down here, so we decided to interrogate the computer about the issue. Here is how I did it.

http://broncozone.com/topic/14269-code-reader/page__p__74587&#entry74587

http://www.troublecodes.net/Ford/

Install Android SDK Eclipse plugin on Ubuntu 10.04

Started to work on developing some Android applications on my Ubuntu 10.04 (Lucid) machine and ran into a few complications during installation of the Eclipse plugin. Started getting a dependency for "org.eclipse.gef" when trying to follow Google's instructions.

Here is how I did it:
- Ensure Eclipse is installed (sudo apt-get install eclipse)
- Run Eclipse
- Select "Help" -> "Install New Software..."
>>>Repeat the following for the list of repositories<<
- Select "Add"
- Enter the Name and Location of the following
Name: Android Plugin
Location: https://dl-ssl.google.com/android/eclipse/
>>
Name: Data Tools
Location: http://download.eclipse.org/datatools/updates
>>
Name: Web Tools
Location: http://download.eclipse.org/webtools/updates/
>>
Name: EMF
Location: http://download.eclipse.org/modeling/emf/updates/releases/
>>
Name: GEF
Location: http://download.eclipse.org/tools/gef/updates/releases/
>>>
(You should now be in the "Install" Dialog after adding the above)
- Select "Android Plugin" from the "Work With:"
- Check "Developer Tools"
- Select "Next" button and follow to the end

Viola. Hopefully a working Android Plugin for you.