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Take control of your recordings with Beyond TV

The bad news came when we ordered a new computer to serve as our home-brew digital video recorder (DVR). We had happily used an old Windows XP machine to do the job, but I wanted a faster machine, better capable of handling the demands of up to four shows recording at once, better capable of compressing GBs of video. I bought an Acer Q6600 and loaded it with 4 GB RAM since, as we all know, more RAM matters more than more CPU speed for most home computer users. Sadly, our TV tuners had a different idea.

After several hours of trial and error and a bit of reading, I discovered that the Hauppauge PVR-150 TV tuners we had used for years wouldn’t work on a 64-bit system with 4 GB RAM installed. Worse, rather than simply refuse to work, the tuners would randomly drop frames and freeze at random instants, making it difficult for me to isolate the problem. It took over six hours.

At that time, I worked around the problem by removing 2 GB RAM from the computer. Bear in mind that I had specifically asked for the RAM upgrade for this computer, and so I had essentially sunk some multiple of $100 into useless RAM and the wasted day getting things to work.

That was over a year ago. My, how times have changed.

Not long ago, I came across a short article that described a potential remedy for the problem. It suggested I configure Windows Vista to voluntarily boot with less RAM. It would never in a million years have occurred to me that Windows would do such a thing. I’d never used an operating system capable of voluntarily using less RAM than available. Before encountering the confluence of 64 bits, Vista and the PVR-150 tuner, it never occurred to me to want or need such a thing. With trepidation and excitement, I tried it.

1. Install the RAM and make sure Windows Vista booted fine. Don’t expect the TV tuners to work.
2. Configure Windows Vista to voluntarily boot to 3712 MB (3-5/8 GB) RAM. Run ‘msconfig’ from the Command Prompt, then choose the Boot tab, then choose Advanced Options…. You’ll find a “Maximum Memory” option you can enable and set the RAM Windows will boot with.
3. Reboot. Even though System Properties reported 4.00 GB RAM, I ran Beyond TV and it worked.

I include this, hoping that it will help you out there. I can’t believe I had to give up 384 MB RAM to make this work. My first five computers could run on 384 MB combined.

Convert voicemail to email

Earlier I wrote about my unfortunate experience trying to try out (yes) PhoneTag.com, a service that transcribes voicemail and forwards it as email and SMS messages. I came across PhoneTag.com in my reading of The Four Hour Workweek, and I really like the idea of reducing the number of inboxes I need to monitor. After my initial trouble setting the service up, PhoneTag.com’s CEO, Thomas Lesnick, offered me a 30-day free trial of the service, which I couldn’t pass up. I wish I could call the experience entirely smooth, but I also want to make sure PhoneTag.com gets a fair reputation for the good points they’ve earned, so I’ll describe my experience as evenly as I can here.

Rogers: elevating customer service to below the floor

First, I found out that I’d have to drop voicemail from Rogers Canada to use PhoneTag.com’s service. This turns out to reflect Rogers’ service, and so counts as a point against them, rather than against PhoneTag.com. Sadly, Rogers Canada managed to give me false information in my quest to cancel voicemail from my service. When I stopped in to a Rogers Wireless store, I asked someone to tell me how my plan price would change if I dropped voicemail. After a few clarifying questions, they told me my plan would decrease in price by $2/month. I told them a few times, “I just want to make sure the cost won’t increase because I’d go from a bundle to a-la-carte services.” Imagine my annoyance when I spoke to a CSR at Rogers on the phone, who informed me that replacing a bundle with a-la-carte services would increase my monthly costs. I managed to show just the right amount of exasperation, because a moment later, the CSR told me she could “make voicemail not work” without charging me any extra money. While I expected a decrease in price by $2/month, no change in price satisfied me, so I went along. I canceled voicemail.

Next, I forwarded all my unanswered, busy, and unavailable calls to the PhoneTag.com service’s phone number. PhoneTag.com was good enough to secure a 902 area code number for me to use. Now since my Rogers Canada plan includes pay-as-you-go call forwarding, each forwarded call would cost me about $0.20/minute, but I considered that reasonable cost to pay to try PhoneTag.com, so I went ahead. Setting up the service took only a few minutes, and I called myself through SkypeOut to test the transcription.

I first left a message without choosing the correct microphone setting in Skype, which meant no audio recorded in the message. PhoneTag.com helpfully pointed out that it recorded no discernible audio and would not charge me for hang-ups. Good for PhoneTag.com! Once I configured Skype correctly, PhoneTag.com sent me accurately transcribed messages by email, but not by SMS. This troubled me, because I wanted to receive voicemail by SMS while away from an internet connection for days at a time, if only so that my book-keeper could contact me with urgent questions. At this point, PhoneTag.com began losing my respect.

First, their support system doesn’t integrate with their service system, so I had to create a second account especially for their support system. Without this, I couldn’t track trouble tickets. I don’t mean to put this rudely, but my calendar reads “2009″, not “1999″. I find no real excuse for this inconvenience. What’s more, to sign up for a support account involves specifying my mobile phone provider, and while I can choose “Rogers Canada” for my service account, their dropdown list does not include “Rogers Canada” for the support account. Worse, when I emailed PhoneTag.com support about the issue, they couldn’t decipher my comment and I had to send them a screenshot of their own support system signup page for them to understand what I meant. Here, sadly, PhoneTag.com and Rogers Canada have roughly equally effective front-line support workers, and I don’t know whom that maligns more.

Finally, PhoneTag.com informed me that in order to receive transcribed voicemails by SMS, Rogers Canada would charge me extra, because of the gateway PhoneTag.com uses to send transcribed voicemails by SMS.

This really bothered me.

When I signed up at PhoneTag.com for a service account, they knew I used Rogers Canada as a mobile phone provider. They should have disclosed the extra fees to receive transcribed messages by SMS at that point! I wouldn’t mind them blaming Rogers Canada for the extra fees, but I don’t appreciate finding out after I’d already signed up for a PhoneTag.com account. The fact that they extended me a 30-day free trial makes their lack of disclosure cost me less, but it doesn’t erase the time I’ve wasted setting up their service and dealing with Rogers Canada and their inept customer service. I notified PhoneTag.com and Mr. Lesnick about my disappointment, telling them that this makes it less likely that I will continue to use the service past the free trial. Shame, too, because I like their core service so far.

So I like PhoneTag.com’s core service so far, although I find PhoneTag.com’s customer service and fee disclosure policy a little shaky. If you care deeply about receiving your voicemails as SMS, and you’re on Rogers, then you might find PhoneTag.com too expensive. If you really only need voicemails by email, then you’ll find PhoneTag.com more cost effective. I’ll know more when I see my next Rogers Wireless bill. I don’t look forward to seeing how they screwed it up.

If you’re in Dauphin, Manitoba, and you ordered an HDTV set-top box from Westman Cable TV, you might have received an Atlas M1055 remote and a Motorola DCT3416-I set top box. If you did, and if your remote isn’t working entirely as expected, try entering the remote code 1376 for remote button CBL. Here are the complete instructions, so you don’t have to trundle through the manual.

1. Press CBL, then release.
2. Hold SETUP until CBL flashes twice (about 3 seconds).
3. Enter 1 3 7 6 and see CBL flash twice. (If it doesn’t, try resetting your remote with the instructions below.)
4. Press PWR and see the set-top box turn off. (If it doesn’t, reset the remote.)
5. Power on your set-top box and check that the LIST, LIVE and “BACK UP” buttons work. (They didn’t at first, which is why we went through all this.)

Sarah and I spent about 3 hours trying to figure this out. As of the date of this posting, the Motorola DCT3416-I was relatively new, so none of the printed booklets had the right code. The codes 0276, 0476 and 0810 worked to varying degrees, but not as well as 1376 does.

Resetting your remote

To reset your reset, enter 9 8 2 at step 3 above. If CBL flashes 4 times, you’ve reset correctly. Stop after step 3. Now try the above instructions from step 1.

I hope this helps someone out there. I wish someone had written this on a weblog before today.