Paying for Digital Download of TV Shows, Part 2

I just don’t understand why I never have time to write. Its like all I do is wake up, go to work, come home and eat, watch Daily Show, Colbert Report, Tonight Show, and Conan and its time to go to bed.

So starting up where I left off last. I have since bought 3 episodes of "Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles." That does confirm that you can indeed buy shows from the American iTunes store even if you are coming from a non-U.S. IP address. All they care about is a U.S. billing address on the credit card.

As far as the show goes, believe it or not I’m watching them on my iPod screen. I used to laugh at the thought of watching videos on a little iPod screen. On one of my recent plane trips the guys next to me asked me how the video was on the iPod screen and I told him I hadn’t watched any. He said that somebody had told them that it was much better than you would expect. So long story even longer, I tried it and it is so watch-able!

I was lying in bed watching it and it occurred to me that from the distance I was holding it up it was actually be the same size as a decent sized television across the room. I tried to take a picture to illustrate this, but it didn’t work out due to lighting issues. In the old days I would have started dragging lights around, but I figured you guys would get the concept. To be honest, it was about halfway through dragging the lights around and taking some test shots that didn’t work out too well I figured you guys would get the concept.

I was explaining it to my friend Brad at work, showing him how good the video looked. He held it up to get the 'tv across the room effect' and then took it one step further. He held it even closer and "BAM! You got yourself a 40 inch plasma baby!"

Anyway, it’s so cool to have a portable television. I’m waiting for Jeremy to arrange to get his mattress delivered at the Ikea and am I bored watching some 5 year old bang his head repeatedly into the soda machine? Nope, I watching Summer Glau kick some ass! Granted the kid was kind of entertaining for a few minutes.

Oh and that reminds me… Cameron, not only is issue #12 of "Buffy: Season 8" out, but so is the first issue of the new "Serenity: Better Days" mini-series.

iTunes Artwork LIES!

I was going to write up part 2 of "Paying for Digital Download of TV Shows" but although I did succeed in buying and downloading the second episode of "Terminator: The Sarah Conner Chronicles" (which the internet seems to have settled on the acronym "Terminator:TSCC" which I will adopt) with my U.S. iTunes account, I haven't actually watched it yet. I just checked that it played, which it did although appeared to be stuttering slightly. That may just because my machine needs a reboot after running and updating the giant memory hogging ComicBase comic book data base. Its also my older, less powerful machine as my newer one isn't working after the move to Perth. I looks like its the motherboard.

Anyway I copied the episode over to my new iPod and it appeared to run on that fine. Better than fine actually, it looks really good on the tiny iPod screen. Much much better than I expected.

Now as to why I haven't watched it yet is because all that messing with iTunes has got me looking into why iTunes can't import the album artwork for the CDs I've imported. I can find them on Gracenote (aka CDDB) , which is where iTunes gets its track and art information. But even if I copy the album and artist information over exactly, iTunes still complains it can't find the album artwork.

For example I have The Eagles - Eagles Greatest Hits Volume 2 which I had entered originally entered as "Eagles Greatest Hits, Volume 2" -note the comma. I changed it to match Gracenote and still iTunes fails. I don't have a lot of CD's imported, maybe 35ish if you count each CD for some compilations and all the CDs included in the Monty Python Instant Record Collection CD version (which has different sketches than the original vinyl records). It wouldn't take too long import the artwork in manually for the 25ish it pretends it can't find artwork for. But its driving me nuts trying to figure out iTunes is lying to me and not working automatically.

Also Foxtel is up and working and The Daily Show and the rest of my shows are one. I still don't believe its actually working... in both rooms. The guy had to run new outlets for each AND he installed a phone line in my computer room which had an phone extension running across the hall from the bedroom. Now the only thing that I need to cover with one of those rubber "cord you are running across the hallway" protectors is the power extension cable because there is no outlet on the wall where I have the TV entertainment center set-up in the living room. The point being he did it all, wham bamm, done and he was out of here in no time. Installation in the apartment in Brisbane took all day!