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so, mythtv is working pretty decent now. it recorded motd properly this morning. “and there was much rejoicing”. it really further solidifies  my current theories about what the next generation internet entertainment system should be. however, what mythtv doesn’t do is fixing a hugely annoying problem. right now, “match of the day 2″ should be showing on bbc 2, but it’s not. the fucking snooker world championships are still on. next, they’ll be showing paint drying.

at any rate, i’m sure you’re all waiting for some more django complaints. well, i don’t have any. i’m sure those you know me are thinking, “that can’t be, no complaints?”. there’s a simple reason, i haven’t been messing with it. i’ve been finishing reading a book on common lisp, “practical common lisp” that i haven’t had time to finish. i really think common lisp could be the best language in the world. the key feature of lisp is supposed to be macros. not macros as most programmers would imagine. reading this bit from the macros chapter should give a good impression. i’ll have more comments later.

the development environment for emacs is called “slime”. after starting the mode, the message at the bottom is: “connected. , this could be the start of a beautiful program.” i thought it was funnier than it probably is.

i finally got mythtv installed and working. i think. it’s not the latest version, but it’s what was in the ubuntu repositories and i’m lazy. so hopefully, i will actually get “match of the day” recorded. i almost did tonight, but there was issues with the fact that my system clock was still set for “america/chicago” timezone. luckily, they replay it tomorrow morning.

there’s nothing pleasant about installing mythtv. i really don’t like the ui either. it also records (even when it should just be copying the mpeg-2 file off the air) into a weird container format. i’m not sure what the point of that is. (update: this turns out to not be true. the mpeg-2 is actually stored as an mpeg program stream. it’s only mpeg-4 and analog captured video that is in the nuv container. they just still use the nuv extension on the file name even though it isn’t. why do they have an extension on the filenames anyway?)

another key bit of information is that your dpi should be set to 100-ish or else the fonts overlap. you also shouldn’t have your display resolution at 1920×1200 or else it’s excessively slow. i setup the mythtv user’s desktop so that it uses 1024×640 (why are computer monitors 16:10 aspect ratio?). the digital t.v. here broadcasts 720×576 anamorphic (like pal dvds) which is 1024×576 when unanamorphiced (word?).

1024×576 non-anamorphic should have been the choice for initial mpeg-2 based digital t.v. in the u.s. well, really 1024×512, but if they insist on retarded 16:9. eventually i’ll get my full atsc rant out of my system.

i was able to record this show “forty years of f***” on bbc one. it’s pretty interesting. it’s unbelievable that the broadcast networks here are less sensored than the u.s. (why is it the boob tube if you can’t show boobs?), but run by the government. you just haven’t to wait until after 22:00 or something. unedited movies with no commercials over the air. nice. my personal preference in the u.s. would still be that they shouldn’t show any movies edited. if you can’t show it, you can’t show it.

upcoming this week is also a bbc special “when lineker met maradona“. looks like it wil be good.