iPhone and Bluetooth

I still having lots of fun playing with my iPhone. Today, I just have my iPhone to pair up with my bluetooth. Somebody told me that iPhone will only works with apple bluetooth. So I tried it with my Plantronic Voyager 510. (Follow the link to how to pair your Plantronic device.) The pairing was so easy and the sound quality is good.

Too bad, the bluetooth only works with the telephone call, not the iPod song play. I also had the chance to install many games and utilities. Apple iPhone can do a lot more than I thought. Syncing with my Outlook Calandar and Contact is so easy via iTune.

Just having fun.

iPhone

I had just bought an iPhone from ebay. The item was shipped to me via express delivery by USPS. It was incredibly fast. The model that I bought was the iPhone with firmware 1.1.1 and have the sim unlocked.

After the first unwrap, I was so please with the condition of the phone. I spent many hours on Sunday try to configure the system with Thai localization. I successfully configured it to play the any converted ringtone so I won't be limited to a very small choice of Apple pre-supplied ringtones. Apple try to sell every contents from their iTune store including ringtone.

Anyhow with a few patch installation, I also get the Thai font loaded. It was not as hard as I think. Now even if I upgrade the firmware to 1.1.2, I still have the capability to read Thai and play around with Ringtone krub.

By the way, I also found the iPhone Browser is a helpful tool from Google Code to transfer ringtone as the iTune will not accept the coverted .M4R file. iPhoneBroser will allow you to upload the file directly to the Library/ringtone folder, bypassing the iTune.

Here is the code of what to do to get the iPhone work in Thai with any GSM mobile operators and ringtone capability. Enjoy the show.

Danuisoft DVD Ripper

I spent yesterday afternoon browsing for information on the problem I encountered with ImToo. Finally, I found this excellent ripping software. It's called Danuisoft.

It's the kind of software that can convert the DVD to many formats, including MPeg4 and H.264. It even has the specially made format for all kind of Appple gadget, including iPod, iPod Classic, iPod Nano, iPod Touch, iPhone, Apple TV. It also has the format for the high resolution upto 1,280x720 dpi.

Timing that used for conversion depend on the output resolution. For 1,280x720 could take 6 hours to rip a 2-hour DVD, while for iPod normal H.264 would take only 45 minutes for the same movie. The above sample shows the size after ripping. I ripped 3 minutes of a Korean Movie with Thai Sub-Title decoded. The different format shows the differnt in size.

The program also have the merge into a single file option when converting a multiple files. Be sure to set the title option, if you want to have it decoded and imprinted on the file. The title option must be set on every files that are ripped, otherwise only the first file will have the subtitle and the latter won't.

The DVD ripper cost US$40. Anyway, be patience as the payment clearance would take a big while until you get the registration code back.

I would strongly recommend this software. the convereted picture and sound is very nice.

ImToo v.4

I had been using ImTOO for the movie ripping for iPod for more than half a year now. Lately, I found thethe content inside the DVD had changed. From the list of chapters/Titles found on the DVD, there will be a file that display over an hour of play time. I bet it's the main movile title file. Before this, the list always show series of files in a shorter play time of each.

Anyhow, I set the conversion to iPod 640x480dpi - excellent. It took me hours to rip a movie and to find out that the converted file format is not recognized by Quicktime. That's also not importable to iTune. So I tried changing the format to 320x240MPEG4-Excellent. The result MP4 file is smaller and it can be imported to iTune.

I tried to contact ImTOO for the support, but find no channel to do so. The files when played on Apple TV is excellent. I may find some other tools to help me with the ripping to H.264 with excellent High-Res soon.

Apple TV and YouTube

Apple TV can connect and browse YouTube. What I needed to do was to update the firmware of the Apple TV. After rebooting, the YouTube menu was up there. So I spent hours browsing through the YouTube site with my login credential. I just hope Apple would come up with more features to browse through sites like this or even the Internet itself. Then the TV and the Internet are really converged.

Now about the sound system connection, Do you still remember what I said yesterday about using the optic fiber to connect to my sound system? My NAD home theatre system gives priority to the sound that connect using the Optic Fiber Cable. That is even if the Apple TV stays idle, my sound processor amplifier do not switch the source to use the input from other video source. Even when I switch off the Apple TV, the light source stays connected. The only way to have my amplifier to play sound from the DVD was to pull off the plug of the Apple TV.

So what I did to my DVD player was I switched the Optical Cable fiber back to connect the DVD to my amplifier, and use the stereo pair monster cable to connect to the Apple TV. By doing this, when I do not use the DVD and switch it off, the sound source will be switched to the stereo cable. This means that for my DVD, the light source is off when the unit is switch off as well. I can then have both units stay connected to the system at all time.

My next trial is to use anothe Optic cable to connect both units to my amplifier. It might not work, but it worth the try so as to know if my amplifier do have precedent setting on both of the optic fiber port.

One thing that I found with the Apple TV is the heat. It rather hot when the unit stays on power for sometimes. I may need a cooling pad/device to help on this.

Apple TV

During the last week end, I happened to buy an Apple TV. It started from just wanting an in car FM broacaster system to transmit all my music from my iPod with the FM signal to my car radio reception. And since my daugther has her new iPod nano, this system should be easily sharable. Belkin has this little gadget that comes with the car cigarett lighter plugin iPod holder with FM transmitter. So I bought one at 4,000 Baht. It didn't work. I can only hear a very thin voice on my radio.

So I just brought back the unit to the iStudio Mac shop for a trade in with other products. There was nothing else that was a close substitue to what I wished for. So I decide to switch with an Apple TV, which I long had an eye on. I ended up paying 11,000 Baht extra. This is silly, isn't it?

Anyhow, what I did was I configured the Apple TV to connect to my unbroadcast wireless network. I just typed in the SSID of my WiFi Access Point and key in the WPA key manually. It was so easy. It obtained the IP address from my existing DHCP pool.

Apple TV works in 2 modes, the Sync mode and the Streaming mode. The Sync mode allow only 1 PC/Mac to connect to Apple TV, while the streaming mode allow upto 5 machines to stream the movie from. I sync my Windows XP PC with my 40 GB apple TV. I bought the 40GB model because I wish to store all my movie, songs, etc. files on my drives on the network and will only sync/stream when only I wanted to. With technic like this, I won't need the large disk space on the Apple TV. Another added advantage is that I can store and index all my converted entertainment in the digital media format which can be easily search.

I used component cable (RGB) with Optical Cable for sound. I hooked it up to my home theatre system. The sound and picture quality is great. If you have older system that support the composit video only, Apple TV is not right for you yet.

Apple TV can load movie trailers and the Top Ten DVD teaser direct from iTune Store. It's very nifty. So I had a great time playing around with it. I think this is the pre-hiostoric version of the Internet TV. Next thing that I wish to try is the viewing of contents from YouTube. I'll let you know how things goes.

Kik's Birthday

Today is my wife, KIK, Birthday. It was not that exiting birthday as expected. We all both had works to do and I could not join her for the dinner as well. So the planned dinner will be on Friday for the make up. We will go to see CATS, the stage play.

Actually this year is the year that she turns 40. It would be some kind of remarkable year for her. At 40, we still are energetic and still have many wonderful ideas and funs.

I wish her a very very happy birthday just as ever. Hope all the best may comes to her. I am not wishing to have the best from me as I will always stay aside to share all the goodies and the baddies and that's predictable. So the wish is just for the best from all others surrounding her.

Happy birthday with tons of love (if that can be weighted.)

KK Birthday

So today is my daugter birthday. She turns 13 today. Her name is KhongKwan, which means present in Thai. When carrying her, the due was between my and my wife's birthday. So we decided to named her "KhongKwan" as she is the present for my wife and me.

We sometimes call her "KK" or sometimes even "K" for short. KK is a good student. She always comes home after the exam with ranking of not more than 5 in class. She is very very tall for a Thai girl now. At 13, she is already 165cm.

Time passed by so quickly. I still remembered her as a little girl crying out lound at night. I still remember taking her first trip abroad to England to visit her aunt when she was doing her Ph.D. there. Even though now if you asked her if she had any fond memory of going to England, she would say no not at all. Istill remember when we madly singing Karaoke at home, she kept dancing around or showing us what she had learnt from her Piano class.

Now she is going seriour about her study. In the next few year she will have to take multiple of exams to get a place in a medical or dentistry.

She wish to have an iPod for her present. So I just bought an iPod nano 2nd generation for her. The bad news is, there is no Thai language on the piece. We might have to wait a while till someone come up with Thai enabled on this firmware. Uncle Mac bought her the FM radio extension on iPod. Thanks to him.

Well, just want to see how proud I am to have her as a daughter. So glad being a dad. Happy birthday K.