SuperSatellite ||

By now, you might have heard of the new Adobe Integrated Runtime, otherwise known as AIR. AIR is aimed at allowing developers to create rich internet applications that are capable of running on a user’s desktop, regardless of operating system. Think Java, but geared more towards self contained web applications. It also results in comparatively superior looking applications. I mean come on, anyone else think Java is generally ugly?

The Adobe® AIR™ runtime enables you to have your favorite web applications with you all the time. Since applications built for Adobe AIR run on your desktop computer without a web browser, they provide all the convenience of a desktop application. Companies like eBay and AOL are using Adobe AIR to create exciting new applications that allow you to use their services on your desktop. In short, Adobe AIR means applications that are easier, more powerful, and more fun to use.

With AIR, you can slap some XHTML and Flash together, and create an application on it that can run independent of a browser. It’s finding wide adoption among crowds like Twitter users. Groups that are looking for applications to plug into a web site’s API (Application Program Interface). Check out Twhirl for an example, it’s what I use to keep up on Twitter. So, this is all super neat, right? Applications install with little more than a couple clicks, and can auto-update themselves to boot. Nice in Windows, but this could be invaluable in the Linux world. Can you guess why?

I run Ubuntu 8.04b on my laptop (I love installing 20 updates every day!). My desktop dual boots XP/Ubuntu (it swings both ways). I’m slowly transitioning to the geek side. But, I fall far short of calling myself a Linux guru (you may still refer to me as Sir, though). I can do anything in Windows, but in Linux…well…I’m like a sixteen year old boy on prom night. Actually, I’m getting much better than that, but for years the largest barrier to entry for me has been installing software. It has gotten easier with RPM’s, apt-get, and Ubuntu’s Add/Remove Applications interface, but if something isn’t listed you might find yourself jumping through a number of hurdles to get things going. And let’s be honest, how many “average” users could master the art of ./configure, make, and make install? Easy for a geek, hard for Grandma Jane (don’t hit me grandma!).

That’s where this whole AIR thing caught my attention. Turns out, Adobe has got an alpha version of AIR for Linux released. Keep in mind, it’s only for testing and not fully functional (like your mom), though I’ve only noticed a little graphical quirkiness so far. First off, the install is fairly painless (though must be done through the command line):

user@system:~$ wget http://download.macromedia.com/pub/labs/air/linux/adobeair_linux_a1_033108.bin
user@system:~$ chmod +x adobeair_linux_a1_033108.bin
user@system:~$ sudo ./adobeair_linux_a1_033108.bin

The installer pretty much does it’s own thing. From there, you can now find and open up an .air file for an application that you want to try out. Sizlopedia has got a nice list of 10 good AIR applications that you can start with. That’s where the whole gap bridging takes place. It’s almost like running your basic install.exe file. The browser will ask if you want to open it with Adobe’s handler (hint: you do), and it runs and installs like a Window’s app would for the most part. Painless. Simple. Easy (hint: also like your mom). And what makes it more perfect is that the process doesn’t differ between using Windows or Linux, so if you’re transitioning, it’d be completely familiar to you.

Which is why I ask the question: could this be part of the key to really mainstreaming Linux? It has always been my opinion that application installation has been the single largest barrier to entry Linux has faced in the general market. If this concept could be passed along to general application installation (like an RPM, only better), I think things would change rapidly. Naturally, that’s just my opinion. But it does make the OS and AIR based applications immediately useful, without any guessing, and that’s really what the install.exe-bred users need to smooth a transition to a new and foreign OS.

Storing video can be one of the single most space consuming tasks you can do on a computer. If you do any video editing, you know the pain of storing 6+ hours of uncompressed DV footage for composition (not to even mention work in HD). That’s bad enough. At least once you are done with it, you can archive the footage on its original tapes, or select out the best bits and pieces for a scratch file to be used later, and dump the rest. Where I am running into more and more problems is backup of TV shows I record on my tuner and such. Rather than setting my VCR to record, it’s all too easy to keep up with a show’s torrent RSS. Once I’ve watched them, I tend to not get rid of them however (at least if I like the show), because once in a while I like going back and watching it over.

This adds up. Several seasons of a show will really pack on the gigs into a hard drive. Yes, you can buy it on DVD, that is an option I have exercised more than once. But sometimes shows on DVD are way overpriced, impossible to find, or not even released (has anyone seen the Drive season set yet, or anything past the first volume of Whose Line?). Thanks to my friend Rachel giving me a spindle of blank DVDs for Christmas, I decided to try my hand at burning my shows to DVD to watch on TV, instead of my computer monitor, and also free up the space on my server.

First, go here. It’s a tutorial at the VideoHelp.com forums. Though a tad dated (there’s a new version of TMPGenc Xpress out, and you don’t need Goldwave), it still gets you familiar with the process. It does help if you know a little about video encoding ahead of time. I’ve done a lot with the VCD format in the past, and done my share of editing and exporting. If you aren’t familiar with codecs and bitrates, I suggest starting in some of VideoHelp’s FAQs.

To give you an idea of what I was able to accomplish (I’ll explain my settings momentarily), I can fit 7-8 ~45 minute episodes on one DVD. Caveat: At my settings, the quality is above acceptable, in my opinion. But, I don’t have an HD TV (not that VCD, SVCD, or DVD supports HD in the first place), I’m not hell bent on perfect clarity, and I can probably tolerate more than some people. I actually use formating that falls somewhere between VCD and SVCD, and as far as I am concerned, it’s a fine compromise, but there’s a chance you would disagree. So, preview your transcoded video before burning it, or burn a sample disc, just to make sure you can live with it before sinking several hours of CPU time into settings that aren’t acceptable to you.

First, that tutorial I mentioned says to use Goldwave to rip the audio stream. That is unnecessary, as the new version of TMPGenc Xpress can do this all as a matter of course in one step. It rips it straight to an .mp2 file as well (by selecting “ES (audio + video)” instead of “ES (video only)”), removing the intermediate step of converting the ripped .wav you get from Goldwave into an .mp2. You can still follow the steps as laid out if you want, it just takes longer. Generally, allowing TMPGenc Xpress to do it all takes about half an hour for a 42 minute episode. By comparison, it’s roughly the same the original way, but you have to babysit it a lot more.

For the video encoding, I select MPEG-2 (which is the SVCD standard), but use the VCD resolution of 352×240 (for NTSC people) at a bitrate of about 1500kbps. You can use a bitrate calculator to figure out the rate best for you, or TMPGenc Xpress will show you in the lower right corner how big the output will be. With a DVD5, shoot for no more that 4500MB. On the older VCD standard, the bitrate is 1150kbps. For SVCD, it can vary, with 1600-2000 about normal. I go a hair under depending on how many episodes I’m fitting.  Obviously if it is a shorter season, or you aren’t concerned about spanning several discs, you can stick to SVCD standard encoding. The result is video that looks just fine on a TV, right about what you would get from standard cable.

To create and burn the disc, you can use DVD-lab Pro (which is fairly easy) as suggested, or Adobe Encore, or whatever you are most familiar with. At that point, you can import the elementary streams you have encoded and create menus and whatnot as you desire. Then just build and burn. Before burning, you can also open up your built disc by dragging the folder to most DVD player programs (WinDVD works, or VLC Player can do it too) and test how it looks and runs. This can be handy if you don’t want to waste a disc if the output isn’t what you’d like. Be prepared to waste a disc or two if you really want to tweak your quality, as balance between resolution and bitrates can be a challenge.

Otherwise, this all worked out well for me. I can get a 16 episode season on two DVDs. This would change for half hour episodes obviously, which means I’ll probably be retweaking my settings again, heh. It runs about 4 hours of labor per disc, most of which is time spent transcoding from AVI to MPEG-2, which is a good task to let the computer do overnight while you sleep.

I’d be interested to know if any of you do something different, or have different settings, etc, that you find useful.