This Star Trek?

OK, you can argue about whether Kirk and Uhura were forced to kiss in that episode. But how does anyone look at Star Trek - with its women on the command bridge, anti-colonial stance, and mixed-race crew - and not think it was a bastion of progressive causes? Star Trek is explicitly political. It isn't hidden in the subtext. You don't have to search for clues as to what the writers were trying to say.

Star Trek isn't complicated.

But some people only see the laser guns and exploding space ships. They're not looking at the text, they're barely even comprehending the narrative journey; they only see the flashing lights and gaudy costumes.

After digging through a lot of copypasta, I finally found Kenny Boyle's brilliant thoughts on the subject:

Kenny isn't wrong. But I am disturbed by the sheer number of people who don't have even a surface level of understanding of the media they're consuming. I know that lots of people don't get satire, but most TV isn't trying to bamboozle its audience.

I think there is a fundamental disconnect between people who consume and people who understand.

Despite all the hype about how transformative streaming would be for the industry - there's one thing which never really seemed to take off. It's almost impossible to find "foreign" TV on Netflix, Apple, Prime, and the BBC.

Outside of a few breakout movie hits - like "Space Sweepers / 승리호" - there's a dearth of non-English content for me to watch.

Take Der Tatortreiniger. A hugely successful German comedy⁰ which was remade by the BBC into "The Cleaner". Despite having half-a-dozen streaming options available to me, it is nowhere to be found. If I used a VPN and told Netflix I was in Germany, there are no English subtitles available.

The only way for me to watch it is to buy the US region DVDs.

Even if German comedies are too niche for mainstream Anglophone viewers, isn't that the whole fucking point of the "long tail"?

The extra storage costs for a couple of GB of video are a rounding error to Netflix. An extra entry in the database is nothing. So what's the problem?

In my naïvety, I assumed that streaming services only paid royalties on a per-minute basis. But it seems that it is a lot more complicated than that.

And even if streaming services could accurately report on how popular shows are, lots of media companies are bound up in territorial thinking. Shows are sold to countries and regions. They are explicitly locked behind geographic firewalls. That's what determines the shows you are allowed to view. The Internet is meant to obliterate borders. You can sell to customers all over the world! No barriers!

I know the Long Tail Theory has been mostly discredited. And I know that the ALGORITHM is going to suggest shows which are more profitable rather than more entertaining.

I just wish the world was more open. I want to watch an Iranian sit-com, a Kiwi Biopic, a Korean melodrama, a French documentary, and - yes - a weird German comedy.

I don't want my viewing choices to be artificially restricted.

In the background, a chorus of disgruntled viewers start chanting "Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!"

That's a situation which continues over a decade later. If you watch iPlayer on your laptop, you're stuck with 720p quality. If you want 1080p and above, you need a specially certified device.

Well, that's what everyone thought!

A few weeks ago, I found this curious forum post which said

Yes, iPlayer 1080p is possible, not as simple as just using one of these webUI tools but its certainly possible with youtube-dl and a good look around.. audio_eng_1=128000-video=12000000.m3u8

There wasn't much information about it that I could find. And then I stumbled onto this GitHub issue for youtube-dl.

With a bit of faffing around, I was able to patch my YouTube downloader (/usr/local/lib/python3.9/dist-packages/youtube_dl/extractor/bbc.py) with this code:

for fmt in formats:
   if '-video=5070000.m3u8' in fmt.get('url', ''):
      formats = [
         {'url': fmt['url'].replace('-video=5070000.m3u8', '-video=12000000.m3u8'),
          'height': 1080, 'vbr': 12000,
          'abr': fmt.get('abr'),
          'protocol': fmt.get('protocol'),
          'preference': fmt.get('preference'),
          'format_id': fmt.get('format_id', 'hack') + '-really12M',
          }, fmt]

(To be clear, this is a horrible hack. It changes the iPlayer download function so it only downloads 1080p. It also doesn't rename the file properly once reconstructed, so you'll have to do that yourself. This is a quick hack - not for production!)

And, with that, I was able to download iPlayer in 1080p.

Sadly there's no surround sound - AAC stereo only.

Learning from history

Back in 2008 (!) I was blogging about the BBC's ridiculous decision to restrict iPlayer streaming to iPhones. And in 2012 I blogged about how the BBC's insistence on using Flash had misfired. The BBC (and, to be fair, the video rights-holders) are desperately trying to avoid their content being shown at high quality on "unsanctioned" devices.

I get that they don't want to lose revenue. But anyone with a USB stick can record HD off air. 4K rips of every movie appear on the Internet 5 minutes after they're released. Trying to restrict who can view your content is a losing battle. It only takes one person to figure it out, and then the genie is out of the bottle.

What's the technical overhead of trying to manage this complicated infrastructure they've created? What is the tangible loss if someone watches a 4K stream from their browser rather than the app?

At some point, surely, media companies will have to realise that making easy access to their content is more powerful than blocking off every creative use. Right?

Bah. I'm off to count the pixels on the latest episode of Doctor Who.

This book demonstrates how popular culture can be successfully incorporated into medical and health science curriculums, capitalising on the opportunity fictional media presents to humanise case studies. Studies show that the vast majority of medical and nursing students watch popular medical television dramas and comedies such as Grey’s Anatomy, ER, House M.D. and Scrubs.

This book is currently free on the Springer website - and it's a brilliant read.

I thought this was going to be an "Everything I know about X, I learned from watching Y" type book. You know, Philosphy/Buffy, Physics/Doctor Who, Law/The Bill. But it isn't!

It's a thorough look at whether people learn about medicine via popular media (they do!). It also covers what they learn and how it can be misleading. There's a great discussion about the medical ethics shown on TV and how that influences clinicians to behave.

I found it fascinating just how deep our prejudices go - even when discussing fictional characters.

There were also eight mentions that a character was overly emotional, annoying or ‘whiny,’ but these criticisms were exclusively directed at female characters.

And, while we're living in the age of pandemic, there's a nice little look to the future:

When looking at release dates we realised there was a possible link between ‘zombification’ cause and global health events.

To test our hypothesis, we mapped the year of release of pathogenic zombie films against the World Health Organization’s list of infectious disease outbreaks. This demonstrated a correlation between the two, with an increase in the release of infectious biohorror films in the years following outbreaks such as SARS and pandemic influenza . So it appeared that global health threats have an impact on pop-culture media. This is also reported in the literature, where horror films are identified as a barometer of society’s fears, anxieties and cultural consciousness.

An excellent and timely collection of essays.

Here's the problem:

Why am I getting the error "This content can not be displayed because your TV does not support HDCP 2.2."?

I have four pieces of kit in the mix, all of which claim to support HDCP's Digital Restrictions Management:

• Amazon Fire TV Stick - the new 4K version
• Toshiba 49U6863 - a 4K TV
• Denon AVR-X2500H - a 4K surround sound amp
• HDMI 2.0 cable - an 18Gbps rated cable

Easy, right? No!

Here's what does work: Fire -> TV If I plug the Fire Stick directly into the TV, it works! I get 4K HDR. So I'm confident the TV does support HDCP.

Here's what does not work:

Fire -> Denon -> HDMI cable -> TV Causes the Denon to display the "your TV does not support HDCP 2.2." error message when 4K content is played.

Is it the cable?

The HDMI cable claims to support 4K video. The Denon has a built in cable tester which confirms that the cable meets the "4K (6G)" specification.

The cable is short - under 2 meters - so shouldn't run into any latency issues.

Is it the TV's config?

I don't think so. There is an HDMI Full Range settings, which I have enabled.

I've set the HDMI input to "Advanced".

The Fire seems to think the TV is compatible, and lets me switch to 4K, even when it is going through the Denon.

To be clear, Fire -> Denon -> HDMI cable -> TV (Enhanced) does not show an error on the Fire but shows an error on the Denon about HDCP..

Is it the signal pathway?

Despite Denon's marketing material claiming that every port can do 4K HDR, their support pages tell a different story!

I've tried plugging the Fire stick into the closest HDMI port - but it made no difference.

Is it the amp's settings?

There are dozens of permutations of settings, but I think I've narrowed it down to the essentials.

I've turned off all video processing and set the amp to "bypass" all video processing from the HDMI video path.

I think this is where the problem lies - the 4K Signal Format setting.

If I set it to "Standard", I can watch 4K video without HDR.

As soon as I set it to "Enhanced", the Denon shows the HDCP error.

The Denon shows the TV as accepting 4K HDR.

Can you strip the DRM?

Possibly. Devices like Dr HDMI's HD Fury claim they can fix these problems. But I'm loathe to spend another €90 to fix a problem not of my own making.

Conclusion?

I have no clue! Either the Fire or the Denon are doing the HDCP handshake incorrectly. Or, perhaps, the TV doesn't handshake when connected to an amp.

You'd think it would be simple to pass a digital signal from one device to another, via a 3rd - but the paranoia of DRM means paying customers have to put up with all manner of user-hostile limitations.

Next steps?

• Both the TV and Amp were purchased from RicherSounds - so I might give them a call to see if they've any ideas.
• Amazon support don't think it is a problem with the Fire but will pass my comments onto their engineering team.
• I've contacted Toshiba - but they outsource their manufacturing to Vestel, so who knows if I'll ever get an answer.
• Denon have promised to contact me in 48 hours.

Is it my fault for being a media snob?

Well, probably. I should spend less time watching the picture quality, and more time watching the show.

But I'm an innocent customer. I've spent good money to watch high-def media and I'm being stymied because of DRM.

I'd love there to be an open source AV amp so I could actually be in control of what I watch.

If you've got any smart ideas for how to fix this - please drop me a comment!

Update

I returned the Denon thinking it was faulty and got the Pioneer VSX-933. Sadly, it also has the same error! So, next steps are to find another 4K HDR source to see if that works, or... I dunno!

WOW! Right! Nature is Coooooool! Or is it? If "The Planet Today" were a reputable source of news, they would tell us who the photographer was. Or where the shot was taken. Or... well... anything about the photo. But they're just a clickbait farm, so we have to go digging ourselves.

A "Reverse Image Search" site allows you to send it an image and it will find all the occurrences of it on the web. Nifty! My favourite is TinEye.com but you can also use Google Image Search.

Using TinEye, we can sort for the oldest image on the web. That's a good way to track where it came from.

Here we can see that the uncropped photo first appeared in 2014 - and it has bounced around the Internet ever since, variously being cropped, filtered, captioned, and misattributed.

The original seems to be from this imgur user, who has only ever uploaded one photo. What happens when we search for the uncropped image itself?

That quickly takes us to websites where people claim that this is a still from the film In The Heart of the Sea.

They're thematically similar - but not identical. Within the discussion, one of the contributors says:

Posted this before but it looks a lot like this image.

Auroren on Reddit

That does look strikingly similar to the original image. Let's compare them side-by-side:

The boats are the same. The foam in the bottom left is the same. The waves are the same. But one image has had a whale digitally inserted into it. I wasn't able to conclusively find the person who took the original photo - but it is safe to say, the image on Facebook has been manipulated.

I don't think this specific Facebook group is trying to convince people to vote for their political party, or sway opinion about a matter of importance. But I think they are teaching people to be unquestioning about the media they consume.

Tracking down this image took me less than two minutes using my phone. It doesn't take a lot of skill. Ideally, media producers would take a little bit of time before they go fishing for clicks. Alternatively, platforms like Facebook could attempt to link back to the original images. Or, just perhaps, people could take a moment to check before sharing content.

You can see more of Jason Shulman's works

Is there a way to automate this process? Yes!

Here's my attempt at a "Long Exposure" of "Taxi Driver".

It's not the same as Shulmans's process, but I think it is rather charming. Here's a timelapse of how it was constructed.

I experimented with several different different methods (code at the bottom of the page) - here are some of my other experimental results.

Taxi Driver

The Muppet Movie

I also managed to create something similar to the originals.

That's a mid-point of the movie, heavily blended with previous frames.

Moana

Terence Eden is on Mastodon

@edent

Replying to @edentMoana is, unsurprisingly, very blue.
Still need a way to stop overly bright scenes washing out everything. Darken first, perhaps? pic.x.com/bamxfyc0ft

---

HOWTO

There's a couple of different ways to do this. These example work on Linux. Doing a digital average of all frames produces a different effect to Shulman's analogue process - but they are just as pleasing to my eye.

Naive and Slow

First, let's extract all the frames from a movie:

avconv -i movie.mkv -r 25 -ss 00:00:06 -t 01:23:45 %06d.png

• -r 25 this extracts at 25 frames per second (for PAL movies). Use avconv -i movie.mkv to see which framerate you should use.
• -ss 00:00:06 starts at 6 seconds in. This avoids the studio's logo.
• -t 01:23:45 captures 1 hour, 23 minutes, 45 seconds. Useful to avoid the credits at the end.
• %06d.png the extracted images will be numbered sequentially starting at 000000.png

To convert all those images to an average image, we use ImageMagick:

convert -limit memory 200MiB -limit map 400MiB *.png -average average.jpg

I've artificially limited the memory that the process can use. You can remove or adjust -limit memory 200MiB -limit map 400MiB depending on the speed of your system.

Fast and Pythony

We can use OpenCV to extract frames from the video. We can use PIL to average the difference between frames.

I tried several different options, but this produced the most pleasing results.

from PIL import Image
from PIL import ImageChops
from PIL import ImageEnhance
import cv2

#   Video to read
vidcap = cv2.VideoCapture('test.mkv')

#   For saved images
filename = "test"

#   Which frame to start from, how many frames to go through
start_frame = 600
frames = 180000

#   Counters
count = 0
save_seq = 0
first = True

while True:
   #   Read a frame
   success,image = vidcap.read()
   if not success:
      break
   if count > start_frame+frames:
      break
   if count >= start_frame:
      if first:
         #   Extract the frame and convert to image
         average_image = cv2.cvtColor(image,cv2.COLOR_BGR2RGBA)
         average_image = Image.fromarray(average_image)
         old_image = average_image
         first = False
      if (count%100 == 0):
         #   Every 100 frames (4 seconds @ 25fps)

         #   Extract the frame and convert to image
         image = cv2.cvtColor(image,cv2.COLOR_BGR2RGBA)
         image = Image.fromarray(image)

         #   Calculate the difference between this frame and the last
         diff = ImageChops.difference(image, old_image)

         #   Store the image for use in the next itteration
         old_image = image

         #   Convert to greyscale and use that as the alpha channel
         gray_image = diff.convert('L')
         diff.putalpha(gray_image)

         #   Pick one!
         #average_image = Image.blend(average_image,image,0.1)
         #average_image = Image.alpha_composite(average_image,diff)
         average_image = ImageChops.lighter(average_image,diff)

         if (count%2500 == 0):
            #   Every 100 seconds (assuming 25fps)
            print("saving "+str(count))

            #   Darken the image slightly to prevent it getting washed out
            average_image = average_image.point(lambda p: p * 0.9)

            #   Show a preview of the image
            average_image.show()

            #   Save Image
            average_image.save(filename+str('{0:03d}'.format(save_seq))+".png")
            save_seq += 1

         if count == frames + start_frame:
            break
         count += 1

#   Save the very last generated image
average_image.save(filename+str(start_frame)+"-"+str(count)+".png")

On my cheap and crappy laptop, a 90 minute movie took around 15 minutes to render.

To create a timelapse of the images, with two frames per second.

avconv -r 2 -i example%03d.png example.mp4

To crossfade the images in the timelapse

ffmpeg -framerate 2 -i example%03d.png -vf "framerate=fps=30:interp_start=64:interp_end=192:scene=100" example.mp4

Got a better / faster / more beautiful way to do it? Let me know in the comments!

BBC Radio 2

@BBCRadio2
BBC

We discuss controlling all the devices in your home with your mobile phone. #r2vine pic.x.com/O9hx7aTFpp

---

But! There was a twist. Could I demo some of my tech on the radio?

Most IOT kit is portable - but is usually tied to a specific WiFi network. I wondered about the logistics of reconfiguring several bits of kit to work with the BBC's guest WiFi network. Setting up the gadgets can be a laborious task even under optimal conditions. And I'd only have a few minutes to get into the studio to prepare.

A brainwave struck! I'd seen Sam Machin present some home automation hacks at #BathCamp - he'd cunningly used a portable MiFi. All his toys connected to its WiFi, and then used the mobile signal to reach the internet. Genius!

So that's what I did. The night before broadcast I reconfigured a Lifx bulb, a WeMo switch, a cheap IP camera, and my Roomba to teather off my mobile phone. Everything worked! Well, after a bit of bodging.

The Lifx needed to be connected to my main WiFi first in order to get a firmware update - then it happily connected to the phone. The Roomba was a bit temperamental - and is quite bulky - so I dropped it from the list.

Of course, that was at home. In the true spirit of Tomorrow's World, I was sure that something would go wrong! The phone signal would crap out? The configs would reset? The power would blow up?

The technology spirits were smiling on me that day! All the bits and bobs worked flawlessly! The lights dimmed, the power toggled, the camera swivelled! Hurrah!

You can listen to the broadcast - it starts at about 1 hour, 41 minutes in.

If you'd like me on your show, podcast, or event - please get in touch.

Listen to me on BBC Radio 4 - about 47 minutes in

Want me on your show or podcast? Give me a call!

You can read more about my IoT adventures, including:

• Singing to my lightbulbs.
• Hacking my vacuum cleaner.
• Hacking my electric car.
• Getting hacked by my light switches.
• Securing my security cameras.

Thanks to Chris Vallance for inviting me to one of the BBC's top secret recording locations.

Terence Eden is on Mastodon

@edent

Replying to @MarcSettle@MarcSettle I can neither confirm nor deny that @radioproducer spent License Fee Payers' money flying me to the Bahamas.

---

Chris Vallance

@radioproducer

Replying to @edent@edent @MarcSettle Bahamas I wish! Just finished editing on a bench before the park attendant threw me out. Glamorous world of radio part VI

---

You can listen again on the BBC iPlayer.

The solar stuff starts at 14m 30s, with my interview at 17 minutes. You can also hear my electric car being charged :-)

Terence Eden is on Mastodon

@edent

Being interviewed by a nice man from the BBC about @Edent_Solar, @OxfordSolarLive and @edent_car!
Thanks @JonDgls! pic.x.com/uvPiXQRM2r

---

The Eye has reluctantly been drawn into the digital age. It has a piss-poor website run by the sort of "tired and emotional" gnomes who struggle with concepts like sanitising user input.

EXCLUSIVE

Push this button to see the Eye's new owner...

If that's a decent website, then I'm a banana!

Note: After much persuasion, Private Eye fixed this problem by... errr... Turning off their search functionality completely!

Private Eye spends a lot of time criticising the people working within the Internet Industries. Perhaps they should spend less time examining the mote in others' eyes - and rather more time on the branch in their own?

I did call Lord Gnome's offices several months ago to report the error. The flack who took my call was a "jolly hockey-sticks" type who struggled to turn on her computer and navigate to her employer's website. I've not mentioned her by name - because I'm not a total bastard - but given Ian Hislop's apparent distaste for employing women, there's only a small pool from which to choose.

Ian - perhaps the reason your website is so atrocious is that you piss all over the sort of people who could actually help you. You've run exposés on public- and private-sector websites being vulnerable, so why don't you stop being such a hypocrite and fix your own site?

This flaw was responsibly disclosed to Private Eye and their web team in March 2014. I discussed it with them again in early September to highlight the flaw.

Take, for example, this tweet and image:

Terence Eden is on Mastodon

@edent

http://twitpic.com/2dhr3 - Loving #mint09 :-)

---

Well... ok... fun at the moment it was taken, but does it have any use beyond that? On the off chance that I become a subject for scholars in the year 3723, perhaps.

Should some media just be declared ephemeral? The word comes from the Greek εφήμερος – ephemeros, literally "lasting only one day".

Services like SnapChat allow you to send a message to a single recipient, the photo then expires after 10 seconds. Perfect for sending sexually charged images which then vanish into the æther.

That's how it used to be. A photograph had to be handled carefully or it would start to disintegrate.

Can we do this digitally? Of course, bits rarely perish. Neither do they lose any fidelity unless we expressly ask them to. And, yes, anyone can save a pristine copy any time they want.

But, conceptually, it's very easy to create a photo sharing service where the images irreversibly degrade every time they are viewed. Until there's little left but a clump of colours.

Imagine, for a moment, that every time a tourist glanced at the Mona Lisa and then walked idly by, a little bit of the image went with them.

Initially, she would be resplendent.

After a few years, she would be a bit dog-eared.

Eventually, she would succumb to the ravages of time.

We could progressively add more Instagram style filters onto an image until it was last behind a miasma of faux nostalgia. (From Instagram "Improves" Art)

We could degrade video quality, add scratches and blemishes, reduce audio fidelity an introduce the crackle of vinyl. Text could gradually disintegrate.

Perhaps social networks should build in The Right To Be Forgotten - make it a core feature, rather than a law to slavishly follow?

As time passes, gradually reduce the remnants of our past until they slowly fade away. Mere ghosts in the machine.

While I was studying at Carleton University in Canadaland, I joined the prestigious(?) Sock n Buskin theatre troupe. Together with "Where's the Soup", we put on an "Improv Superbowl". Basically a team version of "Whose Line Is It Anyway?"

The director - Jenny - and I went on LIVE RADIO to promote our show to all of Ottawa. Somehow, that got recorded onto cassette, and then transferred to an old computer of mine. Here's our comedy stylings...

I must apologise to Jen Vandergraaf for mostly editing her out of the interview. I was trying to cut together clips of my voice for a showreel and the above is reassembled from those scraps. If anyone has access to the archives of a local Canadian radio station, do let me know.

Here's the poster in all its hand-drawn glory.

I also found a mention of the 2000 Improv Superbowl in newspaper archive The Charlton 29.