Geek Rant dot org » TV

How to fix YourTV.com.au’s annoying Sydney default

daniel — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 23:26:40 +0000

I quite like the YourTV.com.au web site. The TV guide it displays is quite usable, and can be customised to show your correct channels.

But why does it keep forgetting your region every few weeks, and reset itself to metro Sydney?

Very irritating. (Well, if you live outside metro Sydney.)

Using your web browser, you can check the cookies. This article describes how, in various browsers.

That’s where the problem is: it looks like the “TvFixGuide” cookie, which seems to hold details of what region you’re in, is only set for a month.

It doesn’t look like either browser allows you to extend the time range of the cookie, or otherwise modify it. I suppose there’s legitimate reasons for that.

It is possible to hack it by deleting the cookie, setting your computer’s clock, say, a year into the future, before going back to the site and setting the option.

Yep, it seems to work:

Don’t forget to set your clock back afterwards.

USA news clips don’t export well

josh — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 23:59:49 +0000

News clips from the USA are often 4:3 – why? Is it a technologically backward country, or do they only export their news in a universal format? I see work-arounds to disguise this fact, like framing the whole clip in a themed border, or widening the clip by tacking onto the pillar-box sides a blurred-out duplicate of the clip that’s been zoomed, stretched or clipped.

And while I’m noting this, why is it that the watermark on these clips is almost universally blurred out and overlayed with the local broadcaster’s watermark – can’t they get the raw, unwatermarked footage from the provider?

The spinning globe

daniel — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 08:20:34 +0000

I’ve long been a fan of TV idents, and I used to love seeing the late-80s BBC1 globe animation, when it occasionally popped-up on television here. As well as the Alas Smith and Jones spoof version.

Here are a couple of fascinating articles on how it was generated: by a standalone computer, which animated the 12 second rotation, at the PAL standard of 25 frames per second.

(Update: Found a better video)

Election geekery

daniel — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 06:51:48 +0000

If you’ve ever wondered how election results make their way from the ballot boxes onto the screen on the ABC, Antony Green’s written a fascinating post about how it how it all works, and how the technology involved has changed over the years from paper slips to XML feeds.

Bye bye Teletext

daniel — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 22:10:54 +0000

In Australia the 7 Network’s Austext teletext service is to shut down at the end of September, with only Supertext subtitles/Closed captioning continuing to be transmitted. (I wonder if they’ll move them from the current page 801 to the default 100, to make them easier to use?)

Over in the UK, ITV’s Teletext service is to shut down in January 2010.

The BBC’s Ceefax will last until analogue TV is switched off in 2012.

Hardly surprising really. I’m sure demand for text-based news and other information has plummetted since the widespread adoption of the Web. In fact I’m surprised teletext has lasted this long — I struggle to think of anybody I know who uses it.