Rumor: T-Mobile entering Canadian market, 2009

From Boy Genius Report:

Deutsche Telekom has been pre-approved for a financing and protocol agreement which will allow them to introduce T-Mobile to the Canadian market (subject to restrictions in all provinces except Ontario during a 6, 12 and 18 month trial period that expires in 2010), and also pre-approves them for testing roaming, cell tower reception and international data agreements.

More details from the source, but the information seems credible – and after all, isn’t another wireless player in Canada what we’d like?

The most common complaint I hear about T-Mobile in the States is their lack of coverage compared to AT&T or Verizon, but realistically, another GSM carrier would really only give people options. The ability to roam on Rogers towers for brief periods of time – especially if government mandated cooperation occurred – could also improve the coverage situation drastically.

Public service announcement: Run a virus scanner, people

I’ve been getting random IM’s from infrequent contacts on Windows Live Messenger (MSN). These all have a weird domains or “viewprofile.php”-style links, which is usually a good indicator that your system is presently compromised with a trojan or worm. Run a virus scan if you’ve been getting complaints. Stinger will probably even take care of things.

Since I run a MacBook using That Damned Quacking Duck for instant messaging, my own smug sense of superiority is enough to prevent infection.

The !grammys: Worst Rap Song – Soulja Boy

When having one of my brief IM conversations with Phil, the subject of the atrocities committed in today’s modern music came up and. Both Phil and I have musical interests that can be represented in the following Venn diagram. Members of the jury, Exhibit A clearly indicates that while Jake may be a poor judge of music, he does know something truly awful when he hears it.

Jake listens to Bullet for my Valentine. What a loser. ;)

Thus, Phil and I have decided to collaborate on a project called the !grammys, which is read as “notgrammys” using a Borat Sagdiyev accent. These awards will be given out to the truly horrible songs being shoveled as “top 40 hits” to an unsuspecting public. There is no actual prize awarded.

With this, I give you a preliminary set of awards. The following content is for parody purposes only and you should be ashamed if you take any of this seriously.

Worst Rap Song: Crank That (Soulja Boy) by Soulja “DeAndre Way” Boy
The ringtone-esque “Crank That (Soulja Boy)” was actually nominated for Best Rap Song in this year’s actual gramophone-esque awards, which I can only presume was the result of a sordid backdoor three-way affair between Doug Morris, CEO of Universal Music Group; Jimmy Jam, Chairman of NARAS/The Recording Academy; and a major corporate sponsor – let’s say Lowell McAdam of Verizon Wireless, since his company charges approximately 2.49 and 2.99US for a thirty second snippet of the song in question. In any event, it’s safe to assume someone and someone else conducted a Lemonparty with a third participant, eventually achieving a remarkable feat of bribery, collusion and flexibility under extreme duress.

What Soulja Boy brings to the table is a completely illogical entrée of sexual positions set to a horrific steel pan background track. It’s impossible not to wholeheartedly agree with the parents expressing moral outrage this time. Children going around imitating a song that advocates super soaking a ho’ or completing a robocop is more than the usual moral decay that politicians harp on about.

Observe that in a four minute track, DeAndre Ramone Way is capable of humilating a girl in three unique erotic positions: none of which can be found in the Kama Sutra, and all of which require climax to be effective. Even Shiva would be exhausted, and using Cialis is just cheating. To be accurate, Soulja Boy cranks off in or on that ho’ nineteen times, or sixteen if we assume that background vocals are firing genetic material independently.

For pedantic listeners wishing to debate the number of cranking transactions, it is presumed that the segment mentioning roosevelt refers to the urban dance move. This implication is based on the fact that nowhere else in the song features a sexual encounter in a wheelchair. Also noteworthy in this definition is that a ho’ must be involved in the transaction at hand, disqualifying the two alternately accepted definitions of the verb.

Supersoaking ho’s with maximum efficiency.
original image by Travis S., used under CC license

If one believes that a song can be judged by its quality of listeners, then consider that Soulja supporters have posted the following text of what is presumably their own free will:

HEY I FINK THE SONG IS GREAT

i love dat song and i love soulja boy.

Calm the heck down people! Of course kids are going to know what these words mean at the right age. They will find out eventually. I happen to think it’s better than the kids dancing killing somebody or robbing a store.

Apart from the aneurysm-inducing application of poor logic in the last contribution, we can already determine that ebonics make a prominent placement in the track without even consulting the lyrics. These aren’t typical Jay-Z Umbrella-style chyeah callouts, though. “Crank That” is truly engineered around the core principles of

  • Segmentation into thirty second clips, for ringtones, and
  • Alluding to sexual innuendo, yet maintaining ability to be censored for radio play

With these two qualifiers, it becomes significantly easier to understand the obnoxious repetition and call/response structure of the track in question. Ho’, a word that when combined with nappy-headed ruined Don Imus, can easily be interpreted as “Oh”. The action of cocking on a partner’s bitch ass is likewise fairly easily removed, and fails to interrupt the act of catching DeAndre at a local party.

As the song progresses past the unreasonably mass-marketable chorus, listeners are dragged forward to the slurred outro of the first verse. The first three lines are possible to interpret without the aid of a street-savvy teenager, but the fourth provides a confusing and frightening shock to upper class, likely-monocle-wearing citizens.

You catch me at your local party
Yes I crank it everyday
Haters getting mad cause
“I got me some bathing apes”

Apes, bathing. A series by Jane Goodall.
original image by EverJean, CC licensed

Individuals who are not attuned to urban culture might incorrectly construe bathing apes as a racial or sexual reference, when in fact it is neither. In a complete about-face from the song’s other incomprehensible inferences, bapes are allegedly a Japanese brand of sneaker that might be preferred by Entourage’s Turtle.

No truly awful rap song would be complete, however, without a catch phrase. In Crank That‘s case, cranking is the predominant activity, but YOOOOOOUUUUUUUUU is the gift that keeps on giving – the shaft.

It is my pleasure to award Soulja Boy the !grammy for Worst Rap Song.

Don’t all stampede through the comments section at once, now.

MKV to Xbox 360 conversion: custom tool inbound

Update: MKVOfDeath now has a new name: XenonMKV – and a new site to match. It’s also ready for use and is open-source under the General Public License. Please post any questions, compliments, comments or flames in the XenonMKV Forum. Comments are now closed on this post. Thanks to everyone who’s helped out so far!

There’s been a fairly lively discussion ongoing in the GOTsent tutorial post, describing how to convert high-definition MKV files to properly play on the Xbox 360. The general consensus is that GOTsent is throwing errors for no discernable reason, and failing to produce files containing both audio and video on a regular basis.

Having experienced this issue myself, I’ve decided to look up the actual video demuxing, encoding and remuxing process and implement a tool to take over the GOTsent functions. I usually have better results when I write utilities myself, and I have several gigabytes of MKV files that I’d like to have functional on the 360.

Here’s a teaser screenshot at present to actually demonstrate that I’m working on it. 🙂 No expected release date, but I don’t expect the technical implementation to take much longer.

MKV Utility Screenshot

Technical details: This frontend is presently written in Visual Basic 2005, because I’m most comfortable with it for simple utilities, and it compiles out to an .exe file without too much nuisance. Hate on VB all you want, but it’s serving the purpose. I plan to add single file and batch file support, as well as a command line interface later on. The application will need the .NET Framework 2.0, and likely CCCP and AC3Filter.

I’m using the MKVtoolnix suite at present, and will be implementing Nero AAC encoder and MP4Box support shortly to finish off the process. I don’t plan to open source this utility unless one of the original authors of the included utilities indicates that I’m violating a license – and it’ll have to be an actual developer, not a Digg fanboy claiming I’m worse than pond scum by ignoring the GPL or whatever.

Any better suggestions for the name, other than “MKVOfDeath”? I thought it was going to be witty but it’s hard to come up with any more “red ring of death” jokes when all the popular Xbox 360 blogs have essentially clubbed that poor horse beyond recognition.

Rogers revamping BlackBerry/PDA data plans

Rogers now considers themselves the premium carrier in the Canadian marketplace, with a 45% increase in earnings – and let’s face it, no other GSM competition in the country is a significant contributor to this state of affairs. One of the most PR-spun phrases I’ve seen since the Todd Holmdahl Xbox 360 interview needs some attention:

“We’re not fans of unlimited plans,” Rob Bruce, the president of Rogers’ wireless division, told analysts during a conference call.

“We want to make sure … that we create plans that are helpful and don’t become barriers to adoption.”

I think Adam said it best recently:

Why do they have to make this so complicated? I don’t keep track of my usage of e-mail and Web to the MegaByte, and why should I? Ugh… No company is getting a dime from me for data usage until a true unlimited plan is released.

So if unlimited plans aren’t in Rogers’ future, what’s this entire post about? A recent HowardForums thread gives the lowdown on some upcoming changes to BlackBerry and PDA plans, which eliminate the current packages and replace them with a tiered system. Thanks to Tyler_QB and O_ssie for the information. Check out the original post if you’re interested in PDA or Windows Mobile data rates.

Effective March 25, 2008 – or more than likely a few days afterwards – Rogers will begin offering two different BlackBerry packages that support both BIS and BES. Prices and details are subject to change before launch, but seem realistic in my opinion.

BlackBerry “Flex” Plan: 3-Year Contract Required
This package is only available with a three year data term. Early termination fees are either a maximum of $100, or $5 per month for the number of months remaining in your term (minimum $25.) Data contracts start and end independently from your voice plan, unless you sign up for both of them at the same time.

Possibly the most interesting feature of this plan is its tiered structure. The base package costs $15 per month, for up to 10MB of data. If you use more than 10MB in a month, you are bumped into the next plan bracket; use less than 10MB in a month and pay $15.

Data Usage Monthly Rate
Up to 10MB (Tier 1) $15
Up to 50MB (Tier 2) $30
Up to 200MB (Tier 3) $50
Up to 500MB (Tier 4) $65

Usage over 500MB is charged at 5 cents per MB. Therefore, blowing through 2GB of data on a BlackBerry would cost $65 for 500MB, plus $77.40 for the extra 1.5GB – totalling $142.40.

BlackBerry Plan: No Contract
For users not interested in signing a 3-year data contract, a month-to-month plan is also scheduled for introduction. These plans do not automatically transition to the next tier and have significantly increased overage rates, which makes sense given that there’s no required level of consumer commitment.

Data Usage Monthly Rate Overage Charge
Up to 10MB $15 $2.00 per MB over 10MB
Up to 50MB $30 $1.00 per MB over 50MB
Up to 200MB $50 $0.50 per MB over 200MB

For comparison purposes, the cost of 2GB of BlackBerry data on a non-commitment $50 plan would be the original $50, plus $924 for 1848MB – a total of $974. Considering that the maximum data cancellation fee is only $100, heavy users will definitely want to grit their teeth and sign for three years.

The Extras
Allegedly, both these plans will also include unlimited email through BIS and instant/PIN messaging – so only actual Web browsing or application data (for example, Google Maps) will contribute to your usage for the month. This isn’t really a huge deal for most people, since email is significantly compressed before arriving on the device. I’d also be willing to bet that attachments aren’t included in the “unlimited” portion, but it might save heavy email users some precious kilobytes.

So what’s the score? I’m reasonably impressed with the changes but at the same time, Telus has the superior data package for $45 per month, with unlimited data and text messaging included. If you don’t mind SureType and CDMA, picking up the Pearl (8130) for under $100 seems to be one of the better options in the marketplace today.

Telus $15 “unlimited data” plan replaced with alternatives

For those of you who got in on the Telus $15 IM/Personal Email plan back in December through to January, it was a wise move. Telus recently released a new set of data plans which distinguish between purely email and Web usage.

Essentially, Web browsing on a Windows Mobile or BlackBerry device now costs an extra $15 per month; or for the same $30, you can have email, BlackBerry Messenger, unlimited text messaging, caller ID and voicemail (without the Web.) Bumping up to a $45 data plan gives all the fruit (Web/IM/text/CID/VM/email), which is actually a very reasonable deal in the spectrum of Canadian wireless pricing.

The related HowardForums thread indicates that existing clients on the pre-February $15 Unlimited IM/Personal Email rate plan will be able to keep the “unlimited on-device browsing” bonus for the duration of their contract. Changing rate plans (for example, going to the $30 email/text/CID+VM package) at this point will remove the bonus, as noted in the conditions post.

What’s interesting is that the Telus plans are specifically set up to charge $8/MB for data usage over and above standard email/Web access; this would indicate that clients on BlackBerry devices are being set up as fully functional subscribers with the BIS-B (BlackBerry Internet Service – Browsing) service enabled, and that Telus is doing the necessary work to distinguish different types of traffic.

I’ll keep a close eye on my personal bill to see if there are any extra charges for services – like many other new subscribers in December and January, I was told that “unlimited data, provided it’s not abuse or tethering” was fully included for the duration of my rate plan.

While I don’t think 2008 will be the year of truly unlimited BlackBerry data plans (including BES access or tethering), things are definitely looking up for consumers.

Inside Xbox now available for Canadians

Up until this point, Inside Xbox (a new feature of the Fall 2007 dashboard update) was restricted to American and UK accounts – although not ISP-locked, since my American profile could access the content with no problem. Now, the feature seems to be available for Canadians, and actually offers some exclusive Canadian content in the blades. Here are a few pictures of the interface and updated dashboard. Click for larger versions.

Inside Xbox TN 01

Inside Xbox TN 02

Inside Xbox TN 03

Inside Xbox TN 04

Note that the official Xbox.ca site doesn’t seem to have details on this development yet, but it’s welcome news for Canadian accounts (which previously had Messages and Friends as two separate UI icons, as before the Fall Update hit in the US.)

Also, new WordPress security update (2.3.3)

As per the main WordPress site, another upgrade has hit. The security fix refers to our wonderful friend, xmlrpc.php. I highly suggest disabling this file (just delete it from your WordPress directory) if you’re maintaining a locked down installation of WordPress. This file seems to be present in every security issue lately, and a brief scan of the source seems to indicate that it offers support for pinging update services, sending pingbacks and allowing remote control of the service – none of these features are generally critical for sites valuing security more than blogosphere wankery.

DreamHost doesn’t seem to be offering the official upgrade yet, so I’m just downloading the fixed xmlrpc.php file for my installations requiring it, and replacing the file until the one-click install option comes online.

Vista SP1 and file copy changes

The big news today (well, yesterday by the time this goes live) was that Windows Vista SP1 had released to manufacturing. Annoyingly enough, this doesn’t mean it’s available for public download yet, and end users will have to wait until in mid-March from Windows Update, or mid-April through Automatic Updates. I’ll keep my eye out for a validated copy from sources with access to the original MSDN files, because SP1 allegedly fixes some of the network copy issues I’ve been having recently.

As background, the network copy issues seem to involve Vista’s auto network tuning utility. I have a gigabit Ethernet connection between my Windows Home Server box and my primary Core2Quad system, and get about 40-50MB/s read speed without tweaking them using XP SP2 or Leopard clients. Vista, on the same Core2Quad and a 10K RPM Raptor drive, taps out at about 9MB/s and is often much slower than that, which is incredibly painful when working with 4+GB MKV files.

SP1 releases, at least with recent Microsoft products, have heralded new standards of stability and less crashiness. (SP2 really went above and beyond in fulfilling this role for XP, but it was an exception since it added additional security capabilities.)

The more interesting post of the day, though, is from Mark Russinovich’s blog in which he discusses the lower-level details of file copy operations. It’s definitely worth a read if you’re of the computer science mindset, and goes a long way to explaining some of the more intricate changes to Vista SP1.

Playing x264/H.264/MKV on the Xbox 360

Update 03-30-2008: If you follow this tutorial and find that GOTsent isn’t for you, please check out XenonMKV, a custom utility I’ve written to replace this process. I highly suggest you check it out! Questions and concerns can be posted on the XenonMKV Forum. I’ve also stopped mirroring any new custom GOTsent packages.

With the release of the Xbox 360 ‘Fall’ Update, MPEG-4 ASP support (commonly known as DivX or XviD support) has been added to the integrated video player.

ilmlivebladefall2007.jpg

The primary missing feature is the ability to play high-definition H.264/x264 MKV streams. While H264 support was added in the previous Dashboard upgrade, unfortunately, the decoding implementation isn’t perfect: the dashboard doesn’t natively read MKV. As well, high definition files can only contain a 2-channel AAC soundtrack, not full 5.1+ surround. This prevents using the Xbox 360 for most H264 content available on the Internet.

There is still a way to view HD content (with 2 channel sound) on the Xbox 360: transcoding the audio track and repackaging the MKV file into a MP4 container. This process takes significantly less time than converting both video and audio, and the visual quality is maintained. You do lose the additional 3.1 channels, but it’s better than having to install a Core 2 Duo E6750 under your TV just to play these files.

For a while, AAC recoding has been somewhat of an arcane art, known only to those who’ve spent years looking on the Doom9 forums. I’d looked into this a few months ago and wasn’t too impressed with the available solutions. Skimming the Xbox 360 information thread from the Something Awful forums today, though, I found a solution that should work for people prepared to install a few free utilities.

Getting Set Up for Encoding
You’ll need a few free utilities to get your system in the best shape possible for repackaging the MKV contents into an MP4 container. Here’s the sequence I followed on a fresh XP installation:

    • Download and install the newest version of CCCP, which includes a stable version of ffdshow and Haali Media Splitter. A new edition was released on January 24, 2008 so I’d advise an upgrade if you’re running something older.

 

  • Download and install AC3Filter, which is a good utility to have anyway if you’re planning on listening to 5.1 audio or outputting optical/coaxial audio from your sound card.

 

 

  • Download a copy of Nero AAC Encoder and extract the contents of the win32 folder where you can find them later. If you use the package I provide below, the files are already included.

 

 

The Magical Tool of Whimsy
The tool that makes Xbox playback possible is called GOTSent, which boasts “easy and fast x264 .MKV to PS3 and XBOX 360 compatible MP4 and PS3 compatible VOB/AC3 conversion.” It’s essentially a wrapper around several open source video encoding utilities, but it certainly does the job as intended. The current version is 0.23B10, which has been mostly stable in my experience. Make sure you’ve already downloaded and installed Nero AAC Encoder, CCCP and AC3Filter before grabbing this file.

Before You Begin: AC3Filter Gain Level
In my experience, the AAC audio in the newly muxed file is at a significantly lower level than most non-HD sources, so you may have to increase your volume to properly watch the videos on the Xbox 360. The more permanent way to solve this issue, though, is adjusting the gain control in AC3Filter. These instructions assume you’ve installed the newest CCCP and AC3Filter already.

    • Start the original H.264 video file that you’d like to convert in Windows Media Player, Media Player Classic, Zoom Player, or any other player that uses DirectShow media filters. (Most players except VLC fall into this category.)

 

  • In your system tray, right-click the red FFDshow icon – highlighted in yellow in the following image. Select AC3Filter from the popup menu.
    ffdshow tray icon

 

 

  • In the AC3Filter dialog, slide the Gain slider up until the sound from the original video file matches your normal system sound or MP3 volume. Try seeking to a loud section of the video to get a good idea of where this setting should be. I needed a fairly hefty boost on my system (which has onboard Intel HD-compatible sound to standard stereo out, on an Asus P5B Deluxe motherboard) of about +16.6dB to match standard iTunes output, but going any higher resulted in clipping and distorted sound.AC3Filter Gain ControlAs you adjust the slider, you should immediately hear the difference in the video file. Ideally, make this setting as close to 0dB as you can tolerate to avoid distortion. Looking at the input levels equalizer may also help in determining the right setting.

 

Once you’ve selected your gain level, click OK and close the current video file.

 

GOTSent Tips and Tricks
You’ll definitely need to use the “Split >4GB option” so that the Xbox recognizes the output files, and try converting one file at a time to get a general idea of how the process works. I’ve been able to avoid using the MPEG2 Recode, Safe Sync, Mux to Vob (PS3) and 25 FPS options, so leaving them unchecked should work.

Once the GOTSent process is done, rename the output file to Filename.avi – while the Xbox 360 should detect the original .mp4 extension from Zune or Windows Media Player 11 sharing, Windows Home Server standard media sharing requires .avi extensions for the files to be properly seen. Add the faux-AVI files to your video library as usual, and you should be up and running watching HD content from your Xbox 360.

Caveats and Setbacks
Not all files I’ve found will work with GOTSent, but it’s certainly got a high level of compatibility with exotic downloads. For example, certain x264 HDTV files simply cause GOTSent to chew up CPU and refuse to enter the demuxing phase of the job. You can tell if this is the case, because a command prompt window appears in the tray during the first step GOTSent takes.

It appears as if all the tools included with GOTSent are single-threaded and Win32 binaries; for those of you with high end 64-bit systems intending on taking advantage of extra CPU cores, there’s not too much optimization coming your way with the utility. You’ll still be able to perform normal computing tasks while the program works, though, so not all is lost.

I’m looking forward to any new updates and fixes for this program, and will keep you informed as to any developments I’m aware of. sentry23 (the original author) has done a great service releasing this tool and it’s certainly sped up the process of converting files for me.