My browser dedicated to Tweetdeck has been Opera. I also do some other LAN maintenance using that browser. After a recent automatic update, Opera seems to go into a state of thermal runaway on random occasions. All eight cores of my CPU go up to about 65% usage for extended periods of time. There is something funny going on in Opera and I could not put my finger on it. That's what made me look for a substitute.
Somebody, maybe a couple somebodies, told me they were using Vivladi browser. So, when I saw it in the list of popular browsers I downloaded it and replaced all the Opera tabs with Vivaldi. They seem to take pride in the fact that it is a very complicated setup. It reminds me of those Linux people who simply are in love with the complex of esoteric settings that "customize" their experience. That's the main reason I suspect you, Gary, may have mentioned it in the past. I know you like customization and have had issues with other browsers. If you have any pros and cons to share, I'd love to read them. Otherwise, I'll let you know how this current experiment pans out for my purposes.
Vivaldi
Re: Vivaldi
I use Google Chrome for almost all of my web browsing.
I used to use Firefox, but Chrome added features I really liked and used daily.
Seems I had Opera installed for a long time, but there was something about it that prevented it from working at some websites I frequented.
Honestly, I've never heard of Vivaldi.
When I'm doing some serious web searching for research I will use WebCrawer or Bing, rare on Bing though.
What I don't like about WebCrawer is it always brings up what it want's to, and not what you requested, and it has no button like Google for search for what you asked for instead.
A quick example: If I used WebCrawler to look up StoneBroke Manor, it brings up dozens of pages for StoneBrook anything. so I have to go back to the search and type -stonebrook behind the search criteria to get what I want.
The good thing about WebCrawler is it can find things Google Chrome cannot seem to find at all.
I think we do vastly different things on our computers.
Most of my work is either playing Farm Town or Writing books, with a little bit of other things but not much, like doing genealogy, creating book covers, or organizing photo's, and that's about it.
I used to use Firefox, but Chrome added features I really liked and used daily.
Seems I had Opera installed for a long time, but there was something about it that prevented it from working at some websites I frequented.
Honestly, I've never heard of Vivaldi.
When I'm doing some serious web searching for research I will use WebCrawer or Bing, rare on Bing though.
What I don't like about WebCrawer is it always brings up what it want's to, and not what you requested, and it has no button like Google for search for what you asked for instead.
A quick example: If I used WebCrawler to look up StoneBroke Manor, it brings up dozens of pages for StoneBrook anything. so I have to go back to the search and type -stonebrook behind the search criteria to get what I want.
The good thing about WebCrawler is it can find things Google Chrome cannot seem to find at all.
I think we do vastly different things on our computers.
Most of my work is either playing Farm Town or Writing books, with a little bit of other things but not much, like doing genealogy, creating book covers, or organizing photo's, and that's about it.
Re: Vivaldi
There never was a doubt in my mind that you and I use computers for different purposes. That is one reason you favor Linux and I find it irritating. I now have six browsers installed on my Windows 7 desktop. I tried to uninstall Internet Explorer, and it says that it is uninstalled. However, when I sweep the system for junk files, Internet Explorer has the second highest count. That's interesting given that it is no longer installed. Opera will be the next one to uninstall. At least I know THAT one can be removed entirely. I'll give Vivaldi a few days test drive before I make any drastic changes.
I'm more or less using browsers for dedicated tasks. This chat site and all the social media I frequent are on WaterFox - a derivation of FireFox without all the unnecessary frills. I use Chrome for all things Google, such as their cloud storage, mail, Instant messaging, and connecting to my clever phone. The Opera (now Vivaldi) browser has all my LAN devices permanently displayed. In addition to that I added Tweetdeck which is my main source of current events news. It's the Tweetdeck page that is overloading my CPU. I've been doing this with Opera for several years now and for some reason the latest upgrade is causing a problem. The odd part is that it's only a problem with Tweetdeck, which I happen to use a lot.
Two people told me about Vivaldi. One is Pilvikki, who no longer comes to this website. I thought that somebody else was you, but apparently not. I don't know if it would suit your purposes or not, but it seems to be a well developed and reliable browser; I can say that now after using it for an entire 4 hours.
I may look into WebCrawler out of curiosity. Like Bing, and Google, and Yahoo and DuckDuckGo (yes, that's for real), all those things do is provide a way to search the web. The browser you use may favor one or the other, but I tend to stick with Google search engine. Every so often Google "improves" their algorithm. They are highly focused on making search results relevant. To that end they save to their cloud every, yes EVERY, web page you ever visited. They use that history to determine what you want to see in your search results. Google used to get it right most of the time, but lately I've been having a hard time zeroing in on something specific. The alternative to these relevant searches is what you see in WebCrawler. Apparently they don't track you or your interests so that they have no way to guess what you really want to see in your search results. So they give you something literal tied to your keywords. I used to like that when Google did it, but they have changed their idea of what a search engine is. Now it's all relevant and barely more useful. I never could get those Boolean search engine modifiers to work correctly. I read articles on how to do it, yet when I try the examples I still get "relevant" results and not what I'm trying to filter out.
I'm more or less using browsers for dedicated tasks. This chat site and all the social media I frequent are on WaterFox - a derivation of FireFox without all the unnecessary frills. I use Chrome for all things Google, such as their cloud storage, mail, Instant messaging, and connecting to my clever phone. The Opera (now Vivaldi) browser has all my LAN devices permanently displayed. In addition to that I added Tweetdeck which is my main source of current events news. It's the Tweetdeck page that is overloading my CPU. I've been doing this with Opera for several years now and for some reason the latest upgrade is causing a problem. The odd part is that it's only a problem with Tweetdeck, which I happen to use a lot.
Two people told me about Vivaldi. One is Pilvikki, who no longer comes to this website. I thought that somebody else was you, but apparently not. I don't know if it would suit your purposes or not, but it seems to be a well developed and reliable browser; I can say that now after using it for an entire 4 hours.
I may look into WebCrawler out of curiosity. Like Bing, and Google, and Yahoo and DuckDuckGo (yes, that's for real), all those things do is provide a way to search the web. The browser you use may favor one or the other, but I tend to stick with Google search engine. Every so often Google "improves" their algorithm. They are highly focused on making search results relevant. To that end they save to their cloud every, yes EVERY, web page you ever visited. They use that history to determine what you want to see in your search results. Google used to get it right most of the time, but lately I've been having a hard time zeroing in on something specific. The alternative to these relevant searches is what you see in WebCrawler. Apparently they don't track you or your interests so that they have no way to guess what you really want to see in your search results. So they give you something literal tied to your keywords. I used to like that when Google did it, but they have changed their idea of what a search engine is. Now it's all relevant and barely more useful. I never could get those Boolean search engine modifiers to work correctly. I read articles on how to do it, yet when I try the examples I still get "relevant" results and not what I'm trying to filter out.
Re: Vivaldi
My memory is not like it used to be. I may have used Vivaldi and mentioned it to you, but if so, I sure don't remember it.
We finally found out what the guy across the street and down one house is doing, besides what he already told us about the business contracts he handles.
And it explains why he had Fiber Optics brought from Chapman Highway all the way to his house.
It also explains why he has such a huge server farm in his house too!
And why there are two more air-conditioning units behind his house.
He is part of a chain of Fixed Wireless ISPs, mostly used by business, but he is locking in on the rural areas that only have Dial-up or DSL, but no Cable. He has a few that do not even have landline telephone service, which is the first area he leased tower space on. Fixed Wireless is less than half the price of Satellite.
Although there are only 50 in the state of TN, 24 of them are right here in Knoxville.
Why so many? The high cost of Cable here due to kickbacks to the poly-tick-ians.
Like you mentioned in your article above, when his clients access a website, it is stored in his cache just in case they access it again. Somehow his system knows if the web page accessed has changed and if so provides the latest version.
Turns out, the reason he moved here, rather than someplace else in Knoxville, had to do with running a non-traffic business from a residence. A home based business that is basically clerical which now includes data and telemarketing, is allowed to be run from a home built prior to 1955 in the newly annexed areas of the city, of which this area falls. We were not annexed until 2004. My little tabletop business is considered a publishing business. There is more home-printed paperwork in my outbound orders than actual product, hi hi.
I should note that Fixed Wireless Internet is NOT WiFi. It requires a special gigabit modem and a microwave antenna on your home or business that is in a direct line of sight to the antenna on a tower within the operational range.
A remote tower relays the information to a tower that has access to the Internet which brings the users request through to his servers via fiber optic cable, of which he is connected to the Internet through the same fiber optic cable, and he does belong to a Network, but didn't get into that end of the wire, hi hi.
Now most of his business clients have their own Internet connection and are not a part of the Fixed Wireless system, which is a totally separate operation. He is an ISP on the Fixed Wireless System.
He was over at my house, in my garage office, and said if I was not so old, he would get me set up as an ISP handling some of the Fixed Wireless communications. It would take at least a 10 grand investment for the equipment alone, and about 3 to 5 years to pay it off before I would realize any profits from it. Plus I would have to go out and get accounts, install modems and antenna's, none of which I appear able to do. Oh Well, I really wasn't interested in doing it anyhow.
I just wanted to know what he was doing REALLY, hi hi.
We finally found out what the guy across the street and down one house is doing, besides what he already told us about the business contracts he handles.
And it explains why he had Fiber Optics brought from Chapman Highway all the way to his house.
It also explains why he has such a huge server farm in his house too!
And why there are two more air-conditioning units behind his house.
He is part of a chain of Fixed Wireless ISPs, mostly used by business, but he is locking in on the rural areas that only have Dial-up or DSL, but no Cable. He has a few that do not even have landline telephone service, which is the first area he leased tower space on. Fixed Wireless is less than half the price of Satellite.
Although there are only 50 in the state of TN, 24 of them are right here in Knoxville.
Why so many? The high cost of Cable here due to kickbacks to the poly-tick-ians.
Like you mentioned in your article above, when his clients access a website, it is stored in his cache just in case they access it again. Somehow his system knows if the web page accessed has changed and if so provides the latest version.
Turns out, the reason he moved here, rather than someplace else in Knoxville, had to do with running a non-traffic business from a residence. A home based business that is basically clerical which now includes data and telemarketing, is allowed to be run from a home built prior to 1955 in the newly annexed areas of the city, of which this area falls. We were not annexed until 2004. My little tabletop business is considered a publishing business. There is more home-printed paperwork in my outbound orders than actual product, hi hi.
I should note that Fixed Wireless Internet is NOT WiFi. It requires a special gigabit modem and a microwave antenna on your home or business that is in a direct line of sight to the antenna on a tower within the operational range.
A remote tower relays the information to a tower that has access to the Internet which brings the users request through to his servers via fiber optic cable, of which he is connected to the Internet through the same fiber optic cable, and he does belong to a Network, but didn't get into that end of the wire, hi hi.
Now most of his business clients have their own Internet connection and are not a part of the Fixed Wireless system, which is a totally separate operation. He is an ISP on the Fixed Wireless System.
He was over at my house, in my garage office, and said if I was not so old, he would get me set up as an ISP handling some of the Fixed Wireless communications. It would take at least a 10 grand investment for the equipment alone, and about 3 to 5 years to pay it off before I would realize any profits from it. Plus I would have to go out and get accounts, install modems and antenna's, none of which I appear able to do. Oh Well, I really wasn't interested in doing it anyhow.
I just wanted to know what he was doing REALLY, hi hi.
Re: Vivaldi
I've read about wireless networks similar to that which your neighbor is providing, but run by the neighborhood itself instead of the ISP. Essentially people put dishes on their house which act as relays so that you don' t need a cell tower to do the same thing your neighbor is doing. Of course, somebody has to have that connection to an Internet switch, and that somebody could be a company like your neighbor. The difference being an entire local neighborhood shares one broadband link for a way lower price than the fixed wireless provider could give individual customers.
I had to 'Google' what your neighbor is doing in order to clarify my understanding. Here's an interesting article that says it all in very simple language: https://www.androidauthority.com/what-i ... et-831394/
I had to 'Google' what your neighbor is doing in order to clarify my understanding. Here's an interesting article that says it all in very simple language: https://www.androidauthority.com/what-i ... et-831394/
Re: Vivaldi
That explains it fairly well, except I'm sure he said his system requires a special modem they provide which is a radio transmitter/receiver (transceiver). It has a coaxial connection at one end that goes to the antenna, and a LAN connection at the other end to go to your Router or Computer. It also uses a lot more power than a Cable Modem does.
I do think the guy has more money than sense too. Although I'm certain he must have another house elsewhere, because I don't think he would live in our lower class area permanently. I'm starting to see that usually only one of the three cars are there at any given moment. There were always two cars and a truck all the time, now only one car. So I'm thinking he must have employees or partners who are there on 8 hour shifts.
He also mentioned his computers once before this conversation. I didn't believe him, and thought he was over bragging.
If you had a computer with 4 memory card slots, and had 64 gig memory cards, that would only come to 256 gigs of RAM.
He said his computers are 10 and 12 core with 1024 gigs of memory each. That's a terrabyte, so I just figured he was pulling my leg. I looked that up now too, and they do have 1 and 2 terrabyte computers, expensive as all get out though.
He already told me his system was running on four computers, so this dude must be super rich, hi hi.
I've not talked to him again since the other day. But apparently Fixed Wireless is taking over in areas where folks were relegated to Satellite.
Apparently the equipment used at the tower itself takes up little space. A cell tower is best since they usually have an Internet connection available. But he and others in the network also have space on a water towers, tops of buildings, radio towers, etc. They type of antenna he uses is not omni-directional, but the signal does fan out like a cone so covers a wide area. They are only mounted as high as necessary to reach his subscribers in an area, which is only about 1/3 of the way up a cell towers normal height.
I'm trying to learn more about this Fixed Wireless system. Especially why 24 of them would pop-up right here in Knoxville without my ever hearing about it. As I said earlier, there are only 50 in the state of TN and half of those are right here, where we have Cable, DSL, and Fiber Optics to some homes. I don't know if only a few or if all 24 are part of the same network of ISPs. I got to thinking also, it might be like telemarketers, hi hi. The more folks he can get into becoming an ISP on the network, the more money he makes, hi hi.
On a different note: Also around Knoxville, Comcast is installing WiFi on utility poles in certain areas. If you recall, they tried the Open Modem channel on modems leased from them to subscribers, and anyone who has Comcast Internet can access the open modems if they are near one. Apparently too many subscribers are turning off the public access channel, so they started installing them themselves. I don't doubt once they have enough of them up, they will start charging a higher rate on your Cable bill to have access to WiFi when mobile. Plus they are adding cell phone service here now too, but I have no idea how that works. Heck, it may work through the Internet WiFi since most cell phones will connect to WiFi now too. Who knows what the Big Guns are up to, hi hi.
I do think the guy has more money than sense too. Although I'm certain he must have another house elsewhere, because I don't think he would live in our lower class area permanently. I'm starting to see that usually only one of the three cars are there at any given moment. There were always two cars and a truck all the time, now only one car. So I'm thinking he must have employees or partners who are there on 8 hour shifts.
He also mentioned his computers once before this conversation. I didn't believe him, and thought he was over bragging.
If you had a computer with 4 memory card slots, and had 64 gig memory cards, that would only come to 256 gigs of RAM.
He said his computers are 10 and 12 core with 1024 gigs of memory each. That's a terrabyte, so I just figured he was pulling my leg. I looked that up now too, and they do have 1 and 2 terrabyte computers, expensive as all get out though.
He already told me his system was running on four computers, so this dude must be super rich, hi hi.
I've not talked to him again since the other day. But apparently Fixed Wireless is taking over in areas where folks were relegated to Satellite.
Apparently the equipment used at the tower itself takes up little space. A cell tower is best since they usually have an Internet connection available. But he and others in the network also have space on a water towers, tops of buildings, radio towers, etc. They type of antenna he uses is not omni-directional, but the signal does fan out like a cone so covers a wide area. They are only mounted as high as necessary to reach his subscribers in an area, which is only about 1/3 of the way up a cell towers normal height.
I'm trying to learn more about this Fixed Wireless system. Especially why 24 of them would pop-up right here in Knoxville without my ever hearing about it. As I said earlier, there are only 50 in the state of TN and half of those are right here, where we have Cable, DSL, and Fiber Optics to some homes. I don't know if only a few or if all 24 are part of the same network of ISPs. I got to thinking also, it might be like telemarketers, hi hi. The more folks he can get into becoming an ISP on the network, the more money he makes, hi hi.
On a different note: Also around Knoxville, Comcast is installing WiFi on utility poles in certain areas. If you recall, they tried the Open Modem channel on modems leased from them to subscribers, and anyone who has Comcast Internet can access the open modems if they are near one. Apparently too many subscribers are turning off the public access channel, so they started installing them themselves. I don't doubt once they have enough of them up, they will start charging a higher rate on your Cable bill to have access to WiFi when mobile. Plus they are adding cell phone service here now too, but I have no idea how that works. Heck, it may work through the Internet WiFi since most cell phones will connect to WiFi now too. Who knows what the Big Guns are up to, hi hi.
Re: Vivaldi
I'm not sure what the status is today, but a few years ago there was a government program designed to bring high speed Internet to rural areas. Read that to mean free money if you were into that kind of thing. Your neighbor may not be as wealthy as he appears to be if he is being subsidized.
Intel recently started to sell a 24 core processor for something like $1500. That's a lot of computing power for the price and you know it will be cheaper as the number of units sold increases. I never heard of a 10 or 12 core processor, although it's not a technical challenge to build one. Like memory size, cores in a processor tend to increase exponentially, in powers of two. I think that's just a convention and not a rule. Anyway, the big advantage of Fixed Wireless is cost. From what I read it's about half the price of a satellite system and not nearly as prone to weather interference. It's all line of sight too, which might be the reason the tower antenna are not omnidirectional. Your lneighbor is aiming to reach specific territory for whatever the reason.
A few cities are experimenting with public WiFi. I think Chicago is one of them. I'd be very leery about using such a network, although it might be useful for VOIP phone communication - if you don't mind that anybody in the whole city can listen in on you should they really want to.
Intel recently started to sell a 24 core processor for something like $1500. That's a lot of computing power for the price and you know it will be cheaper as the number of units sold increases. I never heard of a 10 or 12 core processor, although it's not a technical challenge to build one. Like memory size, cores in a processor tend to increase exponentially, in powers of two. I think that's just a convention and not a rule. Anyway, the big advantage of Fixed Wireless is cost. From what I read it's about half the price of a satellite system and not nearly as prone to weather interference. It's all line of sight too, which might be the reason the tower antenna are not omnidirectional. Your lneighbor is aiming to reach specific territory for whatever the reason.
A few cities are experimenting with public WiFi. I think Chicago is one of them. I'd be very leery about using such a network, although it might be useful for VOIP phone communication - if you don't mind that anybody in the whole city can listen in on you should they really want to.
Re: Vivaldi
Satellite puts heavy restrictions on usage, aka bandwidth. Cross a defined amount and the price skyrockets.
Right now Fixed Wireless has no restrictions, but I'm sure as they grow they might. But since it uses Fiber Optics also, perhaps not.
I was looking around for something else, which I'll ask you about in a bit, and found 900 mHz data transceivers and antenna's with coaxial or fiber optic output, one or the other not both.
AMD makes some CPUs that have 32 cores. This could be two CPUs on a dual-CPU mobo too.
I'm thinking most programs cannot access or use more than 4 cores and then only if written to do so.
I'm sure my neighbor is no programmer, hi hi. For that reason I suspect he is part of a larger group supplying the necessary software and remote equipment.
OK, here are the questions I wanted to ask you, and how I ran across the 900 mHz data transceivers.
Our house is only 6 miles (as the crow flies) from Sharps Ridge where all the TV station towers for Knoxville are located.
My neighbor does not have Cable TV or a Dish, yet gets all the local HD stations clear as a bell.
He is using a cheap $10.00 indoor antenna that clings to his den window, it has no signal booster on it either.
I started looking on-line at both indoor and outdoor antenna's, many boasting 200 mile ranges and come with signal boosters.
DirecTV has dropped channels 6 and 8, which I thought they had to carry by law, since they are broadcast over the air. I come to find they have to pay a high fee for redistribution of the free airwave signal over their various services.
An antenna is great to get those stations back.
However, the frau likes to record her shows to watch later.
Gone or the days of VHS and DVRs are now almost all subscription service devices.
I looked into several makes and models and TiVo seems to be the best, but requires a subscription, an Internet Connection and WiFi on each TV.
So I thought, why not just use one of my computers, namely the frau's new computer she's not using as a Home Theater Computer.
I found programs like KODI which keep track of all your shows, and MythTV which allows you to set up to record.
To record directly to a computer it appears I need a TV Tuner.
DVRs come as single channel, dual channel, and four channel, and you pay to get a program guide and other features.
The more I look into Cutting the Cable or DirectTV, the more confused I'm getting.
The Frau does have a Roku stick on the TV which receives signals via WiFi.
However, it cannot receive data from a computer. It looks like I need a FireStick for that purpose.
But if I understand even a little of what I'm reading. If I had a FireStick, I could send any data from the computer to the TV, which would mean photo's, video's, recorded movies, and perhaps even live streaming from the computer.
I thought Kodi and MythTV were both only software programs, but then I see Kodi boxes for sale with remotes to use directly from your TV, also warning that many of them are sold by hackers so beware.
So I'll ask this in this way.
If you wanted to get rid of Cable TV and/or a Dish and receive only OTA.
How would you go about recording at least 4 stations at once while watching another on the TV.
I asked one other fellow this and he said he has an HD-PVR to send the signal over WiFi to all of his TVs.
He is paying for a 4-channel TiVo along with a lifetime subscription, and using cloud storage.
Needless to say, I can't afford to go that route.
Any thoughts?
Right now Fixed Wireless has no restrictions, but I'm sure as they grow they might. But since it uses Fiber Optics also, perhaps not.
I was looking around for something else, which I'll ask you about in a bit, and found 900 mHz data transceivers and antenna's with coaxial or fiber optic output, one or the other not both.
AMD makes some CPUs that have 32 cores. This could be two CPUs on a dual-CPU mobo too.
I'm thinking most programs cannot access or use more than 4 cores and then only if written to do so.
I'm sure my neighbor is no programmer, hi hi. For that reason I suspect he is part of a larger group supplying the necessary software and remote equipment.
OK, here are the questions I wanted to ask you, and how I ran across the 900 mHz data transceivers.
Our house is only 6 miles (as the crow flies) from Sharps Ridge where all the TV station towers for Knoxville are located.
My neighbor does not have Cable TV or a Dish, yet gets all the local HD stations clear as a bell.
He is using a cheap $10.00 indoor antenna that clings to his den window, it has no signal booster on it either.
I started looking on-line at both indoor and outdoor antenna's, many boasting 200 mile ranges and come with signal boosters.
DirecTV has dropped channels 6 and 8, which I thought they had to carry by law, since they are broadcast over the air. I come to find they have to pay a high fee for redistribution of the free airwave signal over their various services.
An antenna is great to get those stations back.
However, the frau likes to record her shows to watch later.
Gone or the days of VHS and DVRs are now almost all subscription service devices.
I looked into several makes and models and TiVo seems to be the best, but requires a subscription, an Internet Connection and WiFi on each TV.
So I thought, why not just use one of my computers, namely the frau's new computer she's not using as a Home Theater Computer.
I found programs like KODI which keep track of all your shows, and MythTV which allows you to set up to record.
To record directly to a computer it appears I need a TV Tuner.
DVRs come as single channel, dual channel, and four channel, and you pay to get a program guide and other features.
The more I look into Cutting the Cable or DirectTV, the more confused I'm getting.
The Frau does have a Roku stick on the TV which receives signals via WiFi.
However, it cannot receive data from a computer. It looks like I need a FireStick for that purpose.
But if I understand even a little of what I'm reading. If I had a FireStick, I could send any data from the computer to the TV, which would mean photo's, video's, recorded movies, and perhaps even live streaming from the computer.
I thought Kodi and MythTV were both only software programs, but then I see Kodi boxes for sale with remotes to use directly from your TV, also warning that many of them are sold by hackers so beware.
So I'll ask this in this way.
If you wanted to get rid of Cable TV and/or a Dish and receive only OTA.
How would you go about recording at least 4 stations at once while watching another on the TV.
I asked one other fellow this and he said he has an HD-PVR to send the signal over WiFi to all of his TVs.
He is paying for a 4-channel TiVo along with a lifetime subscription, and using cloud storage.
Needless to say, I can't afford to go that route.
Any thoughts?
Re: Vivaldi
OTA was all I had up north. I could do that because all the Chicago stations were within a light of sight of my home antenna. There were 60+ channels I could receive that way, and some of them even broadcast in English. LOL Down here in O'Fallon I know which direction to look for St Louis, but I think the curvature of the earth is too great for me to receive anything even if I amplified the incoming signals. Not only that, but the blankity-blank HOA would strongly object to me putting a receiving tower in my back yard. So, cable it is. I get Internet and a land line along with a bunch of TV stations all for the low low price of $179 -- this month. Things do change rapidly around here.
I am not familiar with most of the terms you were using to describe your situation. That is mostly due to the fact that I'm not a TV fan and don't give a hoot about what they are selling. However, I did give some thought to OTA as an alternative if it were possible to directly receive the signals. My television antenna would at a minimum feed into a signal splitter. Thus I would have several sources for watching or recording television broadcasts. I had three feeds in the old days, but there really is no limit if you use amplifiers.
Sending signals to the computer would require a digital decoder that can speak computereze. I'd be surprised if the decoder didn't have a tuner as well. At that point you would have an analog signal that your computer video chips could process. Most likely one of those esoteric devices you mentioned does all this. Once the video is on your computer bus, then storing it to a hard drive should not be much of a challenge. Sounds convoluted to convert the RF broadcast to digital so that your decoder can turn it into analog from where your computer would digitize it again to store it. But, I believe that's what has to be done.
If I had a need to send computer data to my television, HDMI would be my intuitive method. It all depends on what the television has inside it. There are some pretty smart televisions out there. Perhaps some of the modes you are talking about would require a television designed to connect to your LAN or computer in one way or another. I have a very vague memory of reading about televisions with WiFi and servers built in so that anything is possible. It seems that it does not have to be complicated. But then, I never tried doing it.
The 24 core Intel processor has 32 cores but not all are used for some reason. I guess it's pretty hard to make a chip that large so that the yield for 24 cores is a lot better than that for 32. All eight cores of my 4790K are used more than half the time. Believe it or not it's the Linux OS's that really get into using all eight of them. Some of the malware scanners too figured it out. What used to take 20-30 minutes the old way now only takes 2-3 minutes. That baby runs hot during that time too. LOL
I am not familiar with most of the terms you were using to describe your situation. That is mostly due to the fact that I'm not a TV fan and don't give a hoot about what they are selling. However, I did give some thought to OTA as an alternative if it were possible to directly receive the signals. My television antenna would at a minimum feed into a signal splitter. Thus I would have several sources for watching or recording television broadcasts. I had three feeds in the old days, but there really is no limit if you use amplifiers.
Sending signals to the computer would require a digital decoder that can speak computereze. I'd be surprised if the decoder didn't have a tuner as well. At that point you would have an analog signal that your computer video chips could process. Most likely one of those esoteric devices you mentioned does all this. Once the video is on your computer bus, then storing it to a hard drive should not be much of a challenge. Sounds convoluted to convert the RF broadcast to digital so that your decoder can turn it into analog from where your computer would digitize it again to store it. But, I believe that's what has to be done.
If I had a need to send computer data to my television, HDMI would be my intuitive method. It all depends on what the television has inside it. There are some pretty smart televisions out there. Perhaps some of the modes you are talking about would require a television designed to connect to your LAN or computer in one way or another. I have a very vague memory of reading about televisions with WiFi and servers built in so that anything is possible. It seems that it does not have to be complicated. But then, I never tried doing it.
The 24 core Intel processor has 32 cores but not all are used for some reason. I guess it's pretty hard to make a chip that large so that the yield for 24 cores is a lot better than that for 32. All eight cores of my 4790K are used more than half the time. Believe it or not it's the Linux OS's that really get into using all eight of them. Some of the malware scanners too figured it out. What used to take 20-30 minutes the old way now only takes 2-3 minutes. That baby runs hot during that time too. LOL
Re: Vivaldi
We only live 6 miles from Sharp's Ridge where all the TV stations have their antennas. There is one station south of us that we never watch.
We get perfectly clear HDTV reception from a little ten dollar window antenna about the thickness of a sheet a pasteboard.
We could cut the cord if we had a way to record the frau's favorite shows.
And this is where I'm really running across the problems. Her three favorite shows all come on at the same time, on different channels.
Even with DirecTV being able to record several, it records by show name, which if pre-empted due to a footsball game or something, she misses the end of the show, so always records the show after it too, just in case.
Like you, I'm not into TV. I only watch a show the frau records at dinner if she said it was interesting enough to watch.
I pay 80 bucks a month for a Cable Internet connection ONLY.
The frau pays somewhere around 125 a month for her DirecTV for three rooms WiFi TV connections and multi-channel DVR.
Some of the shows she watches I can get over the Internet directly from the TV station, most don't have a fee.
She complained she didn't want to watch TV on her computer screen, so I plugged the hdmi output to the TV to appease her. But she never uses that connection or looks up what shows are on. She does right now because DirecTV is not carrying her shows right now.
She has ROKU but quit paying extra for it, so no longer gets things like Netflix, but still gets Amazon since she has a Prime account with them. But not Prime Movies or Songs which cost extra.
Years ago, I paid to have a TV tuner in one of my old computers and sadly never used it but a couple of times. You also couldn't record from it back then either. I'm almost certain all it did was act as a tuner with analog output to the CGA monitor I had at that time. Computers were not as robust back then, hi hi.
We get perfectly clear HDTV reception from a little ten dollar window antenna about the thickness of a sheet a pasteboard.
We could cut the cord if we had a way to record the frau's favorite shows.
And this is where I'm really running across the problems. Her three favorite shows all come on at the same time, on different channels.
Even with DirecTV being able to record several, it records by show name, which if pre-empted due to a footsball game or something, she misses the end of the show, so always records the show after it too, just in case.
Like you, I'm not into TV. I only watch a show the frau records at dinner if she said it was interesting enough to watch.
I pay 80 bucks a month for a Cable Internet connection ONLY.
The frau pays somewhere around 125 a month for her DirecTV for three rooms WiFi TV connections and multi-channel DVR.
Some of the shows she watches I can get over the Internet directly from the TV station, most don't have a fee.
She complained she didn't want to watch TV on her computer screen, so I plugged the hdmi output to the TV to appease her. But she never uses that connection or looks up what shows are on. She does right now because DirecTV is not carrying her shows right now.
She has ROKU but quit paying extra for it, so no longer gets things like Netflix, but still gets Amazon since she has a Prime account with them. But not Prime Movies or Songs which cost extra.
Years ago, I paid to have a TV tuner in one of my old computers and sadly never used it but a couple of times. You also couldn't record from it back then either. I'm almost certain all it did was act as a tuner with analog output to the CGA monitor I had at that time. Computers were not as robust back then, hi hi.
Re: Vivaldi
I think it would be expensive, but it certainly seems feasible to split your OTA signal into three pieces and have a recording device on each leg. That recording device might be three smart TV's with recording capability, which is the expensive part. Of course it can all be done from a central location, such as Dish TV and DVR's, but you are looking for ways to cut the cord. I'm thinking maybe your wife needs a new pastime. LOL
Re: Vivaldi
I hear ya!
Guess what I found out last night studying the newest TVs booklet.
We can record to an SD stick from a USP port marked HDD.
If you go into TV setup, you can format an SD stick to whatever system the TV uses.
But there is no way to set times to record that I've found yet.
If you have the HDD port active and a formatted SD card in it, you can hit the record button on the remote and it will record what you are watching. Or you can hit playback and it will playback what you recorded.
I have not tried it yet, just read about it in the book.
But apparently I could plug a 500 gig external HD into that same slot, but you can only record what you are watching.
Even so, I don't know how many hours a 500 gig HD would hold of recording, but perhaps she could set it to record while she goes to work, and stop it from recording when she gets back home.
The book with the TV is very unclear about nearly everything.
Guess what I found out last night studying the newest TVs booklet.
We can record to an SD stick from a USP port marked HDD.
If you go into TV setup, you can format an SD stick to whatever system the TV uses.
But there is no way to set times to record that I've found yet.
If you have the HDD port active and a formatted SD card in it, you can hit the record button on the remote and it will record what you are watching. Or you can hit playback and it will playback what you recorded.
I have not tried it yet, just read about it in the book.
But apparently I could plug a 500 gig external HD into that same slot, but you can only record what you are watching.
Even so, I don't know how many hours a 500 gig HD would hold of recording, but perhaps she could set it to record while she goes to work, and stop it from recording when she gets back home.
The book with the TV is very unclear about nearly everything.
Re: Vivaldi
You're one step ahead of me. I know those things exist but have no personal experience with any of it. I do have experience with inadequate instructions. I could tell you about the hassle I've been through with my HP printer because nothing about updating the software is documented. I don't know where all this intuitive knowledge about smart devices is residing. It certainly isn't written anywhere I can find it. I do read the reviews before I make major purchases. They describe most of the features but a review is not like actually using the device.
Re: Vivaldi
When my old scanner burned out, I bought a new one. This was about ten years ago and I rarely if every use it.
It takes a programming specialist to even do anything with it.
I get out the book, program the channels I want to listen to, save the line-up, but have no idea how to get it to go to that line-up. Every single button on this thing does three things. If you press a certain button first, it changes what they do to three other things.
When you turn it on, it goes into a scan mode of 2 banks out of 10, and the ignore memory is full for stations with static.
My old unit was simple, the buttons were straightforward, and you could hop between bands, scan the entire band, and simply save the ones you wanted to save. Then you had the option to listen to any one of the 5 bands or all of them. It worked great up until we had the lightning that fried everything up here.
It's like these new Schartz-Fonz, they are putting so much into them, nobody can figure out how to use them.
Oh, they can make a phone call, or take a picture, and post it to Farcebook, but that's about it.
And now half the devices you buy require a Schmartz-Fone to use them.
While looking at TV Tuners and DVRs, nearly all of them do not have remotes, you use a Schmartz-Fone to control them.
Same with the Health Watches. I wanted one to monitor my heartbeat while exercising and my O2 level. Every single one, you cannot even set the time on it without a Schmartz-Fone. For this reason I sent the one back I bought, and have not bought another. Hell, if a Watch cannot work as a Watch without having a Schmartz-Fone, what good is it?
It takes a programming specialist to even do anything with it.
I get out the book, program the channels I want to listen to, save the line-up, but have no idea how to get it to go to that line-up. Every single button on this thing does three things. If you press a certain button first, it changes what they do to three other things.
When you turn it on, it goes into a scan mode of 2 banks out of 10, and the ignore memory is full for stations with static.
My old unit was simple, the buttons were straightforward, and you could hop between bands, scan the entire band, and simply save the ones you wanted to save. Then you had the option to listen to any one of the 5 bands or all of them. It worked great up until we had the lightning that fried everything up here.
It's like these new Schartz-Fonz, they are putting so much into them, nobody can figure out how to use them.
Oh, they can make a phone call, or take a picture, and post it to Farcebook, but that's about it.
And now half the devices you buy require a Schmartz-Fone to use them.
While looking at TV Tuners and DVRs, nearly all of them do not have remotes, you use a Schmartz-Fone to control them.
Same with the Health Watches. I wanted one to monitor my heartbeat while exercising and my O2 level. Every single one, you cannot even set the time on it without a Schmartz-Fone. For this reason I sent the one back I bought, and have not bought another. Hell, if a Watch cannot work as a Watch without having a Schmartz-Fone, what good is it?
Re: Vivaldi
Do I have a lot of empathy for you? YES 
Truth be told, my clever phone (and others like it) is truly smart. Of course it is. It's not a phone. It's a computer that can do a million things including making phone calls. The capability of the computer inside a typical smartphone is astounding. The software, not always so smart. Thus, I have a clever phone, not a smart one. All those devices which need a connection to a smartphone are stupid. Consider them to be the equivilant of a dumb terminal. All the brains is located somewhere else, i.e., in the cloud or on your phone connected to the cloud. Those dumb boxes, terminals, are pretty cheap because they don't have the computing power they need to actually do something useful. That computing power is in your smartphone. There are other reasons we are forced to commandeer dumb boxes from inside a smartphone. All the things you do are being logged and tracked not only by the people who sold you the dumb device, but also their partners. So, when you measure your BP and O2 levels while jogging around the neighborhood, that data is being collected and sold to anybody who wants it. Not only is the dumb device made cheaper that way, but the seller is making money by selling your data to his buddies. Kind of like Facebook does.
In pursuit of cost reduction some potentially useful devices, like my wrist watch, have a single button with which to set the time, the date, and select which mode the chronometer is going to be used for. A SINGLE BUTTON. It all works by how long your finger sits on that button or how many times you press it in sequence. The instructions for how to use that single button are on a sheet of paper 24"x36" using 5pt type in 18 different languages. I don't do digital watches anymore, needless to say.
Truth be told, my clever phone (and others like it) is truly smart. Of course it is. It's not a phone. It's a computer that can do a million things including making phone calls. The capability of the computer inside a typical smartphone is astounding. The software, not always so smart. Thus, I have a clever phone, not a smart one. All those devices which need a connection to a smartphone are stupid. Consider them to be the equivilant of a dumb terminal. All the brains is located somewhere else, i.e., in the cloud or on your phone connected to the cloud. Those dumb boxes, terminals, are pretty cheap because they don't have the computing power they need to actually do something useful. That computing power is in your smartphone. There are other reasons we are forced to commandeer dumb boxes from inside a smartphone. All the things you do are being logged and tracked not only by the people who sold you the dumb device, but also their partners. So, when you measure your BP and O2 levels while jogging around the neighborhood, that data is being collected and sold to anybody who wants it. Not only is the dumb device made cheaper that way, but the seller is making money by selling your data to his buddies. Kind of like Facebook does.
In pursuit of cost reduction some potentially useful devices, like my wrist watch, have a single button with which to set the time, the date, and select which mode the chronometer is going to be used for. A SINGLE BUTTON. It all works by how long your finger sits on that button or how many times you press it in sequence. The instructions for how to use that single button are on a sheet of paper 24"x36" using 5pt type in 18 different languages. I don't do digital watches anymore, needless to say.
Re: Vivaldi
I still wear a normal wristwatch, quartz, with Day and Date you can't read at 15 minutes past the hour because the hour hand covers it up, hi hi.
My wife's son bought here one of those health watches. It measures steps walked, and a few other things. Not O2, but a lot of other things. But then too, she has a Schmartz-Fone and likes to see the report the watch sends to the App in her Schmartz-Fone. But as soon as the novelty wore off, she rarely checks anything about the watch anymore.
I have several ways to read my O2, but when exercising I wanted a watch that showed my pulse rate. Simple to do, and they used to have small devices just for that, and fairly cheap. Trouble is, nobody makes simple anymore, the all want to add all kinds of features to up the price, AND TRACK YOUR EVERY MOVE.
Also, it is hard to find good monitors for like BP that work properly anymore.
The one I have the velcro connection is wearing out, so I have to hold it by hand so it don't pop off when it pumps up.
I've used it for years, and it is accurate to what the doctor gets using the mechanical BP cuff and manual pump up.
Bought a new one, nearly twice as expensive as I though it should be. It read about 200 over normal on the high side.
Needless to say, I sent it back.
Tried another one from another company, and had a similar problem, it read way to high on the lower number.
Took it back to the local store.
The pharmacist got out four more brands and tested them on me and himself, along with the normal test equipment in their on-site medical clinic. Every singe one of them was way off in one way or another, so he pulled all of them off the shelf. The shelf is still sitting empty two months later.
My wife's son bought here one of those health watches. It measures steps walked, and a few other things. Not O2, but a lot of other things. But then too, she has a Schmartz-Fone and likes to see the report the watch sends to the App in her Schmartz-Fone. But as soon as the novelty wore off, she rarely checks anything about the watch anymore.
I have several ways to read my O2, but when exercising I wanted a watch that showed my pulse rate. Simple to do, and they used to have small devices just for that, and fairly cheap. Trouble is, nobody makes simple anymore, the all want to add all kinds of features to up the price, AND TRACK YOUR EVERY MOVE.
Also, it is hard to find good monitors for like BP that work properly anymore.
The one I have the velcro connection is wearing out, so I have to hold it by hand so it don't pop off when it pumps up.
I've used it for years, and it is accurate to what the doctor gets using the mechanical BP cuff and manual pump up.
Bought a new one, nearly twice as expensive as I though it should be. It read about 200 over normal on the high side.
Needless to say, I sent it back.
Tried another one from another company, and had a similar problem, it read way to high on the lower number.
Took it back to the local store.
The pharmacist got out four more brands and tested them on me and himself, along with the normal test equipment in their on-site medical clinic. Every singe one of them was way off in one way or another, so he pulled all of them off the shelf. The shelf is still sitting empty two months later.
Re: Vivaldi
Quite a while back my wife bought me one of those popular wrist watch type health meters. That's one of the three that I compared BP readings on. I forgot the name of the product, but the brand is very popular even today. It seemed to do a pretty good job on O2 and pulse, but BP was the worst of the three devices. I never understood how flashing a beam of light on my skin could give a BP reading, but that's how they did it. I moved the sucker to various parts of my arm, including directly over visible veins and arteries. I let it hang loose, tighten and loosed the strap, and pushed down on it with my fingers. The readings were consistently very low. At one time my doctor and I were having a disagreement regarding my blood pressure. It was always ridiculously high in his office but somewhat closer to normal at home. That's when I acquired three measuring machines and did readings on all three twice a day for two weeks before I went to see the doc again. That wrist device with the flashing light was close to correct once in all those readings. The wrist cuff device was closer to normal but always higher or lower. It might have been within the expected margin of error, but I didn't do that kind of analysis. The upper arm cuff device came with a calibration guarantee good for two years. It was closest to being correct every time. The moral of this story is that the upper arm cuff is the best way to measure BP. Plus, the one I have can be calibrated should there be any question. Oddly enough, one of the doctors I see on occasion uses one of these exact machines to check his patients. Well, his nurse does. The doctor uses the traditional stethoscope and hand pump method.
I was buying WalMart specials for $12-$13 wrist watches. They were adequate for about a year at which point the battery gave out and the wrist band disintegrated while washing dishes. Eventually I moved up to the reliable TImex brand of analog watch. The one I have now was about $40, I think, and is working perfectly with one exception. Like your watch I can't see the date at certain times, but it's worse than that. The date and day of the week no longer represent reality. In previous versions there were multiple positions on the stem for adjusting the date. Not so, so it seems, on this Timex. I don't care about the date anyway, but I'm thinking there may be a flaw in the mechanism. The important part works beautifully.
I was buying WalMart specials for $12-$13 wrist watches. They were adequate for about a year at which point the battery gave out and the wrist band disintegrated while washing dishes. Eventually I moved up to the reliable TImex brand of analog watch. The one I have now was about $40, I think, and is working perfectly with one exception. Like your watch I can't see the date at certain times, but it's worse than that. The date and day of the week no longer represent reality. In previous versions there were multiple positions on the stem for adjusting the date. Not so, so it seems, on this Timex. I don't care about the date anyway, but I'm thinking there may be a flaw in the mechanism. The important part works beautifully.
Re: Vivaldi
The one I have now is a cheap Armitron brand. Been wearing it for several years now.
I've had more expensive brands and some really super cheap brands also.
My cousin Larry cannot wear a Timex watch. Something about his body causes them to stop working in about a day or two.
Not just Timex but a few others too! But Timex sent him a box of five watches for free, all he had to do is write down the time and date he put them on his wrist, and the date they stopped working. For his efforts, they bought him a major brand watch, I think it was a Hamilton. He wore it for several years without a single problem with it.
I had one of the early digital Timex watches, the one with the angled face you had to press a button to see the red digits to find out what time it was.
Ben Cartwright on the Bonanza show, accidentally left his on during the filming an episode. Many people caught this mistake, and in the reruns, a few feet of film was snipped out, hi hi.
When I was in Cardiac Rehab over at the hospital, they used the hand operated BP cuff, ball, and dial on the wall.
I brought my wrist unit with me as a double check to make sure it was accurate.
It was never more than 3 points one way of the other than the reading they got.
Now, if they did theirs first, then I did mine, and then they did theirs a second time.
Their reading was often 3 points different on the upper reading also.
The guy doing the BP readings even wrote down the brand and model of mine.
Unfortunately it is no longer made.
I've had more expensive brands and some really super cheap brands also.
My cousin Larry cannot wear a Timex watch. Something about his body causes them to stop working in about a day or two.
Not just Timex but a few others too! But Timex sent him a box of five watches for free, all he had to do is write down the time and date he put them on his wrist, and the date they stopped working. For his efforts, they bought him a major brand watch, I think it was a Hamilton. He wore it for several years without a single problem with it.
I had one of the early digital Timex watches, the one with the angled face you had to press a button to see the red digits to find out what time it was.
Ben Cartwright on the Bonanza show, accidentally left his on during the filming an episode. Many people caught this mistake, and in the reruns, a few feet of film was snipped out, hi hi.
When I was in Cardiac Rehab over at the hospital, they used the hand operated BP cuff, ball, and dial on the wall.
I brought my wrist unit with me as a double check to make sure it was accurate.
It was never more than 3 points one way of the other than the reading they got.
Now, if they did theirs first, then I did mine, and then they did theirs a second time.
Their reading was often 3 points different on the upper reading also.
The guy doing the BP readings even wrote down the brand and model of mine.
Unfortunately it is no longer made.
Re: Vivaldi
One thing I was told, and it kind of makes sense, is to not take BP readings too close to one another. Wait about 15 minutes for your arteries and heart to return to normal. That could be fair advice if you are looking for lab accuracy. When I do it I'm basically looking to see that I have a pulse at all and some pressure internally. My go to meter is a Vive DMD 1001 and to be honest I can't tell you what I paid for it. Seems like it was %60-$70, but I could be wrong about that.
Strange as it seems I too have heard of people who can't wear Timex watches for the exact same reason. They stop working after a short period of time. Apparently Timex is aware of the problem but I can't think of any mechanism in the watch that would interact with normal human body functions. It has to be some sort of radiation, but the guy I knew who could stop a watch didn't glow in the dark. So, who knows?
Strange as it seems I too have heard of people who can't wear Timex watches for the exact same reason. They stop working after a short period of time. Apparently Timex is aware of the problem but I can't think of any mechanism in the watch that would interact with normal human body functions. It has to be some sort of radiation, but the guy I knew who could stop a watch didn't glow in the dark. So, who knows?
Re: Vivaldi
In my cousins case, I think he causes the mechanism to become magnetized.
More expensive watches use non-ferrous metals, while the lower cost watches have a lot of steel parts in them.
Well, perhaps not in this day and age where everything is digital, hi hi.
I have my dad's old watch with the radium dots for the hours, not the whole face like some watches.
They were outlawed years ago, although I don't know why, not enough radiation to hurt anyone or anything.
Well, maybe the whole face dials did?
If you ever run across an original Mickey Mouse watch, and Mickey has Blue Pants, snatch it up, they are worth several thousand dollars. But NOT the Lorus brand where Mickey has a red shirt and blue pants.
I'm talking about the original Ingersoll-Waterbury watch only here.
IW started making MM watches in 1933 and sold at the Chicago Exposition.
There is a Swiss made MM watch where MM has a Blue Shirt and Red Pants.
So many out there now, and some are knock-offs of the originals.
FYI: IW became US Time in the '60s for a few years and US Time is who became TIMEX.
IW London came up with several MM designs, but IW who made the original MM watches had a short run of MM watches with Blue Pants. There were many rumors about the hows and whys, but most think it was a simple mistake of using the wrong enamel color in the equipment. Nobody knows how many MM watches with Blue Pants were made, but they appear every once in a while and fetch really big bucks often well into the thousands of dollars for $2.98 watch, hi hi.
At the Chicago Exposition MM watches sold for something like $3.25 each, but the price dropped to $2.98 after the 1933 Chicago Exposition closed.
More expensive watches use non-ferrous metals, while the lower cost watches have a lot of steel parts in them.
Well, perhaps not in this day and age where everything is digital, hi hi.
I have my dad's old watch with the radium dots for the hours, not the whole face like some watches.
They were outlawed years ago, although I don't know why, not enough radiation to hurt anyone or anything.
Well, maybe the whole face dials did?
If you ever run across an original Mickey Mouse watch, and Mickey has Blue Pants, snatch it up, they are worth several thousand dollars. But NOT the Lorus brand where Mickey has a red shirt and blue pants.
I'm talking about the original Ingersoll-Waterbury watch only here.
IW started making MM watches in 1933 and sold at the Chicago Exposition.
There is a Swiss made MM watch where MM has a Blue Shirt and Red Pants.
So many out there now, and some are knock-offs of the originals.
FYI: IW became US Time in the '60s for a few years and US Time is who became TIMEX.
IW London came up with several MM designs, but IW who made the original MM watches had a short run of MM watches with Blue Pants. There were many rumors about the hows and whys, but most think it was a simple mistake of using the wrong enamel color in the equipment. Nobody knows how many MM watches with Blue Pants were made, but they appear every once in a while and fetch really big bucks often well into the thousands of dollars for $2.98 watch, hi hi.
At the Chicago Exposition MM watches sold for something like $3.25 each, but the price dropped to $2.98 after the 1933 Chicago Exposition closed.