TV Shows

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While it’s particularly apt from the prospect of making a TV series, I think Mike’s description of the right button is a beautiful explanation of LCARS. The configurability and software defined nature is kind of the in-universe approach to 24th century man-machine interfaces, and it’s darn practical when combined with how the Okudagrams just “Flow” versus how abstractly buttons are labelled.

On one hand, I think many times people attempt to make an interface derived from LCARS, so rarely does it come out that well. Folks tend to try and capture the style rather than the intent, or any real practicality of using the thing. But on the other hand, I think that Mike and Denise’s effort to make panel designs flow like it could actually do that, often came through.

Also, not going to lie–hearing that they were involved in For All Mankind as technical advisors, really makes me want to go watch that… lol

The great parting between VLC and my TV

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A while back, I did a bunch of video tests when ripping one of my favorite movies didn’t yield the usual results. This was actually, so crappy, that it lead me to reverting to x264/AVC encoding for later rips. Yes, it was that disappointing. But, I think I’ve come to conclusion the problem isn’t with x265–it’s somewhere between VLC and its handling of iOS based platforms.

One thing each of these tests shared was its reference view: my TV downstairs streamed via VLC. And lo-and-behold, it would rear its ugly head again. Recently, two projects for home improvement have come up.

First, is looking for a VLC replacement on iPad. The USB related woes I posted about with iPadOS 26.2 boiled over, causing me to both cease using VLC+USB on my iPad. It’s just so fucking bad. I’m inclined to believe this is either Tahoe or its support for APFS externals, anyway, it’s a road block enough to drop VLC. Something that’s been a staple since my Android -> iPad conversion now quite a few years ago. This lead me to adapting Infuse Pro as a viable replacement candidate. It experiences the same USB problems, and testing points the finger at Apple’s biscuit eating operating system in that regard.

However, that lead towards project number 2: I recently finished watching Picard seasons 2 and 3. Also, one of the few times I’ve used an actual Blu-ray player. After enjoying that, I opted to splurge on Star Trek: The Next Generation while The Complete Series edition Blu-ray set was near its 90 day low price. It’s one of those really-wants but never-gets. Because it’s expensive. Even on a great sale, we’re still talking like $100. I’ve only waited like a decade or so!

Well, watching the first disc or two on Blu-ray player wasn’t so bad. But of course, me being me, the longer term goal remains file server -> stream all the things. Honestly, the box set is a pain to jockey discs around. We’re talking about 6 BDs per season, packed line sardines, and with two or more discs per spindle. Yeah, screw that. It’s also a enough of a slog to rip though, that I created a new HandBrake preset with a modified audio selection scheme to expedite the processing.

So, imagine my surprise when I start to notice artifacting issues–using the same x264 reference. We’re talking wtf is this kind of artifacts. I nearly switched Hide and Q over to disc by the time the Enterprise-D reaches Q’s barrier. That’s circa the first 5 minutes. I wasn’t happy.

This lead to some further testing comparing video playback on my laptop (perfectly fine) and streaming to the Android version of VLC on the younger TV upstairs, perfectly fine. I’d consider choking up the latter to how modern TVs post-process video, but the same can’t be said for my PC monitor, which like many PC monitors doesn’t have those goodies. That testing was also dominated with IINA, basically a Mac version of MPV that isn’t annoying to install. My PC based laptop also had no issues. The only problem was the Apple TV, in VLC.

Deciding to try things a bit more scientifically, I made a reference conversion with x265 (HEVC) and a few encodings with Apple’s Video Toolbox in various H.265 and H.264 mode, to compare to the original x264 reference. I also uploaded the original MakeMKV rip, i.e., the full unadulterated Blu-ray video quality. It too sucked ass and artifiacted when played in the tvOS version of VLC!

Now, that’s where both home improvement projects intersect. Deciding to try Infuse on the Apple TV was going to be an experiment, and the Plex like TMDB integration made it worth installing for later testing. Faced with the issue with my ST: TNG rips, I decided to test this again. It’s there, why not try another data point? I really wanted to try another video player for comparison at this point.

This was followed by shouting and cursing, because it played fine. All fucking versions. As long as I didn’t use VLC to do it!

The outcome of this experiment has also lead to an unexpected shift. Since eliminating VLC from the picture solved the artifacts, I took a closer look at the hardware encoded files. The winner of which was made with one of HandBrake’s built in presets on Mac, which configures a 10-bit H.265 encode at CQ60 in quality mode. Not as high as the Video ToolBox tests I did with Pacific Rim in speed mode, but sufficient that ST: TNG looked good enough across data points to consider worthy of adoption. So, I’ve integrated a variant of the same profile I was using with this in place of x264. I was always a little miffed about the HEVC thing, but I now am pretty sure it just amounts to never use VLC on anything iOS-derived. Sorry, good ol’ x265. But on the flip side, I’ve also changed gears.

Results? Encoding time dropped to an average of about 4¼ minutes from around 20+ minutes per episode, while presenting similar quality and file sizes curtesy of the newer codec. This is a fairly drastic shift, delivering the joys that are +200 fps to encoding times but not having to tank file sizes to maintain the quality. Based on the results for my ST: TNG tests, sans VLC, I’m considering adapting this as my new ‘standard’ for video encoding instead of returning to my x265 reference point or sticking with my older x264 reference point.

Picard Season 2

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Catching up with my backlog of Blu-rays, I have to admit that season 2 panned out much better than I expected. If the first season serves as a view of why Jean-Luc is such an enlightened individual, season 2 paints a picture of what shaped him. One, that it’s hard not to here quotes of Kirk about pain, as it unfolds.

I do have to admit though, that I rather loved that Agnes ends up making a difference by being herself and the concept of a new direction for the Borg. Not to mention the finale and motivation of Q.

If there was ever going to be one last snap for Q, I’m glad that’s the one they went out on.

Plus the entire season is littered with things any fan of Star Trek would find notable, particularly those familiar with the 24th century. It’s quite a long list, if you pay attention during the whole season.

The difference between imperial and metric

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I have to admit, this makes me want to look up the series. While I suppose blaming the issue on the French is a bit inappropriate today (but still amusing for those in non-metric countries), I can’t help but enjoy the clip’s finish.

Ahh, dramatic adaptations of history… there are so many opportunities there.

Necromancers: Like a Cleric but Cheaper

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Having watched this series a while, I can’t help but think it an appropriate episode for the halloween season.

And it totally figures that Evandra and the Necromancer are on such friendly terms. The only shocking part is the apology, lol.

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While I can’t say that I never noticed the ABCs joke at the time, I will admit to laughing in retrospect. Reboot was a series that I enjoyed a lot as a kid, one that I always lamented its exit. Just about any chance as a kid, I caught the reruns when I could.

Can’t say that I ever imagined it would face such insanity. Kids shows kind of cleaned up by the 90s, I guess. But when you get to the point that you can’t even say the word hockey, I have to wonder what the hell the censors were thinking. I always assumed that Dot was designed that way, but this video made me glad that they never touched Hex, because Hex was cool (and perhaps a mixture of sweet and psychotic wrapped up in a multiple personality disorder).

While the game cubes that occasionally loaded lead to references to films targeted at adult audiences, such as Mad Max and Evil Dead, the show really wasn’t that bad. Heck, far worse than Reboot certainly aired. Having played the PlayStation game they reference, I would say that it wasn’t very violent or dark compared to many games on the platform at the time but I digress.

Which also makes me remember eons ago when G.I. Joe had a brief rerun on Cartoon Network, allowing me to revisit the series when I was a teenager. It’s a series that I tend to think of as a good hallmark for the era that I grew up in. Episodes of G.I. Joe often involved considerable violence, like I never thought about it as a little boy but at a teenager it was more like wow, how can no one die or be seriously hurt with this much action!? Another aspect that I often look back upon is that cartoons of that era often ended with some kind of moral story or positive advice woven into the plot or as ancillary matter, or as Flint and company used to say, “And knowing is half the battle!”

By contrast, kids shows that came out later in my childhood or afterwards tended to gravitate towards either pumping you full of facts and figures like a text book, or may have intentionally be aimed at rotting your brain. Reboot on the other hand was a show that entertained me a lot as a kid, and that I always found a fascinating concept–it was a fairly good choice of McGuffin having games “Drop” on city blocks, and surprisingly original. While the notion of being “Good” may have been woven into it, often times it focused more on the adventure.

SG-1 and P90s

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I always wondered a bit how SG-1 ended up switching to the P90, as opposed to you know, an M4 style carbine. Had figured it was just the cool space aged thing at the time, and I suppose the P90 kind of was back then.

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For a while now, I’ve resisted Disney+. Often, just barely. I kind of recognized immediately when it launched: if my mother had been alive there would have been no choice in the matter from the beginning. With Star Wars and Marvel joining the house of mouse, that beelines it straight into my interests. I already grew up in front of Disney’s content library being the son of Disney fanatic. Throwing in the franchises that most interest me: that just makes a dangerous recipe for a streaming service, lol.

The way I’ve largely resisted is the notion that I have enough of my budget devoted to such subscriptions, and don’t need another. Less about the cost, more about the principal.

And then I notice how cheaply this can expand my existing Hulu package….and darn it.

For bonus points, not only does this allow me to catch up on recent SW/MCU series, it has quite the back catalog. Including filling in the gaps in my Blu-ray collection. Seeing the back catalog has the old ewoks movies and Spiderman and His Amazing Friends series from the ’80s listed, somehow just makes me feel old more than tempted. But I’m pretty sure we’ve long since passed the point of “Pass the popcorn”. Sigh.

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Starting A Series of Unfortunate Events on Netflix, I’m pleasantly surprised to see Joan Cusack pop up as Justice Strauss.

At first it was hard to place her with that silly wig, but both the voice and the face were sticking out enough that I had to look up the cast. That she’s the voice of Toy Story’s Jessie explains why the voice jabbed me in the face as very familiar. While I’ve seen more than a few of her films countless times over the years, oddly the part I most remember seeing her in is as Robin Williams’ quirky sister in the film Toys. A silly little movie perhaps few remember today, but one I enjoyed quite a bit growing up.
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Watching Day of the Dove over a batch of popcorn, I kind of think this is one of the episode types that The Original Series did rather well.

The Enterprise is lured to a world where it seems a human colony has vanished without a trace, as a damaged Klingon battle cruiser perceives the Federation having attacked them in an act of war. Rapidly it devolves into a battle for control of the ship, and anything that could draw it to a swift conclusion is blotted out by an alien being pulling their collective strings.

Despite the rather swashbuckling nature of the original Star Trek, which was a rather apt nature if you recall popular TV from the period, Kirk and his crew still represent a fairly enlightened humanity. One that fortunately, many of today’s viewers likely have more in common with than our ancestors: who grew up watching Star Trek, and the world they lived in.