$ ssh remote.machine.com cat sometune.mp3 | mpg123 -

$ ssh remote.machine.com "find Music/ -name *.mp3 -exec cat {} \;" | mpg123 -

$ ssh remote.machine.com mdfind "kMDItemAuthors == '*Isis*'" -0 | xargs -0 cat | mpg123 -

> mdls /Users/filipp/Music/iTunes/iTunes\ Music/Ochre/Lemodie/03\ Sosacharo.mp3 
/Users/filipp/Music/iTunes/iTunes Music/Ochre/Lemodie/03 Sosacharo.mp3 -------------
kMDItemAlbum                    = "Lemodie"
kMDItemAttributeChangeDate      = 2006-09-02 16:30:07 +0300
kMDItemAudioBitRate             = 320
kMDItemAudioChannelCount        = 2
kMDItemAudioEncodingApplication = "LAME 3.96.1 --alt-preset insane"
kMDItemAudioSampleRate          = 44100
kMDItemAuthors                  = (Ochre)
kMDItemComment                  = "Ben034Cd"
kMDItemContentCreationDate      = 2006-06-27 11:13:02 +0300
kMDItemContentModificationDate  = 2006-06-27 11:13:02 +0300
kMDItemContentType              = "public.mp3"
[etc]

MPEG4 video wouldn't play however, no matter what options I tried. Should probably try it with MPEG4IP some day.

on run {input, parameters}
  set args to ""
	
  if length of input > 1 then
    repeat with i in input
      if name extension of i is in {"avi", "mp4", "ogg", "divx", "mkv"} then
        set video to i as string
      else
        set subs to quoted form of POSIX path of (i as string)
      end if
    end repeat

    set args to " -sub " & subs & " -subfont-text-scale 4"
  else
    set video to (input as string)
  end if
	
  set video to quoted form of POSIX path of video
  do shell script "/usr/local/bin/mplayer -framedrop -mc 0.001 -af volnorm=2 " & video & args & " &> /dev/null &"
  return true
end run

* D-Vision 3 - no contact. Not with the AVR's or even the demuxed m2v's. This is surprising because it's supposed to be a mencoder frontend which in turn is based on MPlayer. Quite frankly, I don't understand this program anymore. It used to be good for stitching AVIs and stuff but it just keeps getting weirder and weirder with every release.

* ffmpegX will surely be able to handle the demuxed material, but I just don't feel like messing around with it tonight. Probably won't handle avr directly since ffmpeg didn't.

* mencoder (compiled from SVN), as guessed can crosscode the AVR directly, still no subtitles, but it'll have to do for now:

./mencoder -oac mp3lame -ovc xvid -xvidencopts bitrate=1000 ~/test.AVR -o test.avi

$is_browser = preg_match ("/(^Mozilla|^MSIE|^Opera).*/", $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT']);

Even though it's name suggests XLD only deals with lossless files, it also supports a number of lossy formats. And ofcourse you get to tweak all the necessary parameters, including all the stuff you're used to in iTunes (thanks to Core Audio).

Wonderful stuff. It doesn't get much better than this - something that does exactly what it's designed for and does it well. Wait, it does - there's also a commandline version! ;-)

How it all began

Fragile Media

But it gets worse. The next day, the same channel (Vesti) goes on air with an interview with Andrey Zarenkov, head of the Estonian Constitutional Party (which I had never even heard of, but notice the name!) who claims that the Estonian Police is threatening the life of Dimintri Linter (the head of the Nochnoy Dozor movement) which is just complete speculation (he was arrested, which is completely understandable), that there are soldiers gathering in the streets (completely false, the army was not called in to help. The government was even criticised for this). He then goes on to say that the looting was actually started by the Estonian government who had embedded marauders in the protesting crowds.

Another testament to the hypocrisy of the Russian media is that just a week before this had happened, Russian authorities had removed a WW II monument near Moscow, sorry can't find a direct URL anymore either. All I have left are traces of a Google search.

I think it's completely unacceptable how the media and government in Russia completely obfuscate people's perception of reality.

Here's My Truth

"iTunes U is a free, hosted service for colleges and universities that provides easy access to their educational content, including lectures and interviews, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week."

"One-click iPod support. It’s the only content management and distribution system that offers one-click support for transferring content to iPod."

set podcastFolder to alias "hd:Users:filipp:Music:iTunes:iTunes Music:Podcasts:"
-- first get rid of played podcasts
tell application "iTunes"
  set deleteThese to every file track of playlist "Podcasts" whose unplayed is false
  set dontDelete to location of every file track of playlist "Podcasts" whose unplayed is true as list
  repeat with thisPodcast in deleteThese
    set thePath to (location of thisPodcast as string)
    delete thisPodcast
    tell application "Finder"
      move item thePath to the trash
    end tell
  end repeat
end tell
-- now comb the fs for any rogue shows
tell application "Finder"
  repeat with something in list folder podcastFolder without invisibles
    set fullpath to (podcastFolder as string) & something
    if dontDelete as string does not contain fullpath then
      move item fullpath to the trash
    end if
  end repeat
end tell

- Timecode and closed captioning display in QuickTime Player

It seems this might be tied to Compressor 3's ability to do non-destructive timecode overlays.

Closed captioning has still remained a mystery to me. All I could find was a checkbox in the preferences:

It's a shame that Apple hasn't yet updated the developer docs to explain the new captioning features. Hopefully it will be discussed at WWDC. We can always just do the good old alternate Text Track and View > Choose Language thing, but I think it's high time for something a bit more sophisticated. Especially if Apple ever wants to expand it's movie selling business outside the US. Robust captioning support might even help push QT as a viable distribution medium as well.