Steps foreward in internet TV

Last night I decided to force Internet TV to work for me. You know, get all mad and then find a way to force all the content providers to offer it in a format I want. I started on my plan of subversion and remembered my friend called "mplayer" or more specifically the app that comes with mplayer called mencoder. This app will trancode anything to anything because it is written outside the USA in a free country that allows software developers to actually do innovatinve things. Granted this app is actually a violation of some federal law in the USA to have it because it steps on the toes of someone's IP rights. So the following is probably a violation of federal law, will get you labelled as a terrorist or enemy combatant and will get you either executed or sent to a concentration camp.

The videoblog federator is a fun one to watch but is in the m4v format, useless to anyone but a ipod video owner or computer. I want to watch it on my DSM-320 in the comfort of my leather chair on the 32" TV... so I make mencoder fix it for me...


mencoder federatorvideo.m4v -o federator.avi -ovc lavc -oac lavc -ffourcc DX50 -lavcopts acodec=mp3:abitrate=128

Voila! DSM-320 is happy with it! so now to script that conversion on every download and fixes the all over the road file formats into one format I want and can use.

You have to love technology!