consumer-electronics on S Anand

Streaming audio to iOS via VLC

Sat, 13 Oct 2012 15:50:59 +0000

You can play a song on your PC and listen to it on your iPhone / iPad – converting your PC into a radio station. As with most things VLC related, it’s tough to figure out but obvious in retrospect.

The first thing to do is set up the MIME type for the streaming. This is a bug that has been fixed, but might not have made it into your version of VLC.

Go to Tools – Preferences.

Click on “All” to see all the settings.

Under Stream output – Access output – HTTP, set Mime to audio/x-mpeg.

At this point, you should restart VLC.

As I mentioned earlier, you might not need to do this if you have new enough a version of VLC that auto-detects the content’s MIME type.

Re-open VLC, and go to the Media – Stream menu.

Click Add and choose the file you want to stream. Then click on Stream.

Click Next.

Select HTTP and click Add.

Select Audio – MP3 and click on Stream.

At this point, the audio is being streamed at port 8080 of your machine. You can change the port and path in the menu above. (To find your local IP address, open the Command Prompt and type ipconfig.)

Open Safari on your iPhone or iPad, and visit http://your-ip-address:8080/

I haven’t figured out the right codec and MIME type to do this for videos yet, but hopefully will figure it out soon.

Comments

Shibu 19 Sep 2014 10:12 am: You should try out any of the light weight DLNA servers….

Laptop power usage

Sun, 07 Feb 2010 18:09:29 +0000

I just got a digital wattmeter. Had no idea about these until Google PowerMeter, but now, they’re all the rage. Mine’s a pretty simple model and all I plan to do with it is play around with a few household gadgets.

My first target, obviously, was my Dell Latitude E5400. The statistics are interesting:

Power	… when…
0.3W	Laptop is switched off. The adapter must be consuming the power
1.3W	Laptop is on standby.
12W	The lid is closed, and no applications are running.
18.5W	The laptop is on, the lid is open, and no applications are running
25W	The laptop is writing to the hard disk
34W	One CPU is fully utilised
41W	Both CPUs are fully utilised

Looks like the display and hard disk each consume about 6.5 watts each, while the CPU consumes a whopping 15 + 7 = 22 watts.

One interesting observation is that the colour of the display doesn’t make much of a difference. From my CRT monitor days, I’d remembered that a black screen consumes less power, and is less likely to wear the screen off. So my desktop background has always been black, and most of my applications use a black theme. But it turns out that on LCDs, it makes absolutely no difference. A full white screen uses the same power as a full black screen. So I’ve really been wasting my time the last 9 years. (There is a good reason to have a black screen, sometimes – it’s much easier on the eyes when reading without lights.)

Another lesson was that turning off the wireless had no effect whatsoever. (It worked quite well for my Blackberry, though. Increased the battery life quite a bit. I thought the same might apply for laptops, but looks like it doesn’t.)

I’ll do an audit of some of my home appliances and post it out here. Wonder if there’s a repository of power usage for appliances…

Comments

Dibyo 8 Feb 2010 3:15 am: I have always run a laptop battery longer by putting the wireless off, the difference is immediate, so this is NEWS TO ME! This is how I figured it - point at battery icon (e.g. 50 mins left) - switch off wireless - point a min later (1 hour left). What was I doing wrong?
JB 8 Feb 2010 5:25 am: Informative. I should buy one as well as show this to my roomies, who leave their personal laptops lid-opened throughout the day and night while sleeping or away to office. Thanks.
Nikhith 8 Feb 2010 5:44 am: I have one doubt about the way u conducted these tests and deduced the results Mr. Anand. I’m sure u could use the power meter only to check the power usage when u connected the charger. But the power strain on the charger due to white background and wireless on, is much less significant as compared to the power strain on the batteries alone. So i guess there will considerable increase in the battery backup due to black background and wireless off. I’m just hypothesizing this, and this must answer u r question too Dibyo
S Anand 10 Feb 2010 5:06 pm: @Dibyo: just to be sure, I tried it again. Definitely no change in power consumption when the wireless is turned off. Not sure if the problem is with how Windows calculates the power consumption, or whether your laptop’s wireless is different somehow…
S Anand 10 Feb 2010 5:09 pm: @Nikhith: If that were the case, changing the display’s brightness shouldn’t have affected much either. But for every notch that I darkened the display, the power consumption fell visibly by about 0.5W. So I suspect the actual usage of the laptop is directly transmitted to the mains, and the battery doesn’t really do much of a buffering. (At least when it’s charged, I guess. Mine was fully charged.) This means that the the wireless power consumption really is insignificant compared to CPU usage, brightness, or hard disk usage.
Amit 22 Mar 2010 3:32 pm: thanks Anand for sharing the experiment result. As per my understanding, with wireless switch on battery consumption is higher. many times my laptop’s battery has dried very fast because by mistake I have left the wireless switch on. you can also validate this by just leaving machine for sometime on battery power with/without wireless switch on ( dont use the ac power).
Rajesh 25 Mar 2010 11:13 am: Where can I get this gadget in India?
S Anand 25 Mar 2010 4:18 pm: You know, I’ve been hunting all over Bangalore and Chennai for it. Yet to find one!
Raj 24 Feb 2011 7:10 am: Wonderful information. No one has given this much clarity on this topic. Keep going. Thanks R@J.

The best time to buy everything

Wed, 13 Sep 2006 12:00:00 +0000

The best time to buy everything: when to buy air tickets, get great deals on electronics, and so on.

Haptic technology

Thu, 03 Feb 2005 12:00:00 +0000

Haptic technology lets you “touch and feel data”.

Surgical-simulation devices are currently the bread and butter of many haptics companies. Recently, haptics have also been finding their way into consumer products. Many video-game controllers, such as force-feedback steering wheels and joysticks, already contain simple haptic devices to enable virtual rally drivers and pilots to feel the bumps of artificial roads or the rumble of machine guns. Mobile phones are next. Just as existing phones can be programmed to play different ring tones depending on the caller, VibeTone allows for different vibrations. Without reaching into your pocket, you will be able to tell whether it is your boss, spouse, or babysitter who is calling.

Companies like SensAble make products that simulate touch for as low as $2,000, and the prices are falling rapidly.

Comments

Amandeep 3 Feb 2005 12:00 pm: Hi Anand - this is aman here ( 02 batch) - how are u doing??
S Anand 3 Feb 2005 12:00 pm: Well, I can always edit comments.
TOPFRAME 3 Feb 2005 12:00 pm: A number of people will be tempted to just type ‘Test’ and press enter.

Wearable displays

Fri, 14 May 2004 12:00:00 +0000

Wearable displays. via Anders Jacobsen

Sony strategy

Mon, 03 Mar 2003 12:00:00 +0000

The Economist on Sony’s strategy. via emergic

Portable solar charger

Mon, 02 Dec 2002 12:00:00 +0000

Geeky gadget of the day: portable solar charger. I can charge your cellphone / CD / digital camera. It will also add a pound to my pocket, in addition to my purse, and cellphone, and digital camera, and office keys, and … my laptop case. Still, might be worth it. And maybe, some day, all my gadgets will fit in my pocket without making me look bloated.

There is no point buying faster PCs

Tue, 01 Oct 2002 12:00:00 +0000

There’s no point buying faster PCs, since there aren’t many applications that need more computing power, says this NY Times article. via Scripting News

In the past, the bulk of PC sales came from replacements. I’ve seen PCs being replaced because they didn’t have enough RAM for Windows 3.1, or Windows NT ran too slow on them. Today, I’d rather spend the money on a digital video camera and an additional hard disk. My 1.6GHz processor is faster than I need anyway.

What I like best is that three years from now, I don’t need to feel embarrassed about owning an archaic 1.6GHz P4. It’s enough for me!

Blog on tech gadgets

Sat, 17 Aug 2002 12:00:00 +0000

A blog on tech gadgets. Love it!

Fuji Finepix 2600

Mon, 15 Jul 2002 12:00:00 +0000

I just bought a Fuji Finepix 2600. Should be getting it in a month.

New iMac

Sun, 20 Jan 2002 12:00:00 +0000

The new iMac was designed by Jonathan Ive. (Aside: Onion spoof.)

Toyfair

Wed, 14 Feb 2001 12:00:00 +0000

Some interesting electronic toys have come up at ToyFair.

CES 2001

Sun, 07 Jan 2001 12:00:00 +0000

Consumer Electronics Show 2001 is going on.

Industry borders blurring

Sun, 07 Jan 2001 12:00:00 +0000

Microsoft makes video games – Sony’s domain. Sony moved into PCs – Compaq’s domain. Compaq moves into electronics – Sony’s domain. Intel moves into consumer electronics – Sony’s domain. With growing technology, industry borders become blurred.