My primary means for surviving the writers strike has been to load up my Home Theater PC DVR with recorded shows and then watch them through Spring and Summer 2008.  In addition to that, I plan to continue to rent movies from Netflix and catch up on some movies and TV shows that I missed out on before and while I'm at it spend some time outside :) 

Still, if I were a TV Network exec (God forbid) and were trying to fill the next several months with worthwhile programming here's what I would do while waiting for the writers strike to be resolved.  It's a pretty easy solution actually and could revive some decent shows that deserved to be saved.

Firefly - Re-run the Firefly TV episodes in their originally intended order and then finish with the Firefly Serenity movie.  Promote the heck out of it and bring in tons of viewers who never saw it the first time.  If it gets good enough ratings, bring it back with new seasons once the writers strike is over and you have an easy hit TV show.

Jericho - With a new, second season of Jericho coming soon albeit only seven episodes they should air the first season one more time in prime-time and again promote it in a big way.  They did this during the Summer but it was right around July 4th when many would-be viewers were not watching television.  Do it again now when it can get the attention it deserves and you bring in new viewers ready to make the second season of Jericho a success.

Heroes - Show Heroes from the beginning, promote it and again bring in new viewers to the show when there is a television audience looking for something quality (read not reality tv) to watch.

Bottom line is you can air re-runs if they are quality ones and you promote them as must-watch "classics" that you don't want to miss - bring in some behind the scenes special clips or something like that and

What other shows out there should the networks bring back for reruns?  I'm thinking shows that have either been canceled or not received the attention they deserved the first time around.  Also, how are you planning to deal with the writers strike fallout?  Let me know in the comments.

 

Related Stories:

How Many TV Shows Remain - Writers Strike

Beat Netflix Throttle - 7 Steps

Jericho Season Two Premier Date Announced!

 

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Flickr had a few significant announcements today including their new flickr uploader 3.0 being released from beta.  More exciting for me is the flickr statistics feature announced today.  It's only for paid, pro members unfortunately, but since I'm a pro member I'm very excited. 

For those of you without pro accounts you'll still be stuck using the less-than perfect Ways to track Flickr Statistics I outlined in a post this past June.  If you're a pro member however, you can view all kinds of interesting statistics about your photos such as referrers, views, most popular, most commented etc. etc.  It's an excellent feature addition and a good way to encourage flickr members to subscribe to a pro account.

Here's how flickr statistics work:

1. First you need to be a pro member so if you haven't sign up and pay up :)

Once you are a pro member, click on the "you" menu and select "your stats".  See the screen-shot below for an example:

 

2. Next, you'll see the statistics introduction page that outlines the new feature.  click on the "yes activate me!" button.

 

 

3. Once you've done that you'll see a page like the one below that says "we will now process your account stats..."  This flashes a few different messages while you wait.  I noted it says to check back tomorrow and things should be ready then", but mine took less then a minute and was ready.  I'm guessing if many people try to add the feature at once, it could take quite a bit longer so they have that message in case it does.

Here's another screen-shot that I took while waiting.  They really want you to know it could take a while I guess....

4.  Once it's done, you'll see a page like this one.  This page is pretty long so this first screenshot is of the top of the page with a graph showing daily aggregate views on your account, view counts etc.

Just below that, you'll see the most viewed photos with statistics on them as well as a thumnail and photo title.  You can drill down to see stats for all photos if you want to.

Next you'll see the referring web pages that brought people to your photos (yesterday and all-time) and again allows you to drill down to all referrers if you want.

At the very bottom of the Flickr statistics page, you'll see a breakdown of your photos that includes photos that are public vs. private, vs family only etc. etc.  Also statistics on those pages that are tagged, geotagged, in sets etc.

Needless to say, I think this is a great addition to flickr.  Great job by the team there!

UPDATE:  AS OF THE MORNING OF DECEMBER 13TH, THE WINNER HAS BEEN CHOSEN BY ZATZ.  I'LL ANNOUNCE THE NAME OF THE WINNER ONCE CONTACTED AND VERIFIED.  THANKS TO EVERYONE WHO PARTICIPATED AND TO SAGETV FOR SPONSORING THE CONTEST.

In honor of the holiday season, the ZatzNotFunny blog and this GeekTonic blog have a raffle this week for the SageTV HD Media Extender (MSRP $199), courtesy our friends at SageTV. Check out The complete  HD Extender review for all of the product details. 

The giveaway will include the extender (the review unit that was well taken care of by yours truly over the past week or so) as well as the SageTV license that comes with all new SageTV extenders.

If you want a chance to win the extender, please leave one comment on ZNF.

In that comment at ZNF, you must provide a link to another comment you’ve left on ZatzNotFunny (excluding contests) or at this BrentEvans Geek Tonic Blog.  If you’ve never left a comment, you now have an incentive. 

NOTE:  To simplify matters, please enter on the ZNF blog (not here) that way we can keep all entries.   PLEASE leave your comment at ZNF.  Thank you!

 

FINE PRINT:

US Residents in the lower 48 only for shipping reasons.  Dave Zatz will pick the winner in a few days.

Many Home Theater PC users have been clamoring for a silent, easy-to-setup extender that can handle High Definition video - a plug & play box that lets users remotely access their HTPC content from any TV in their home.
UPDATE: THE HD100 EXTENDER IS BACK IN STOCK



SageTV is answering their customers desires by delivering a new HD Media Extender now available with their flagship Home Theater PC software SageTV. I had the opportunity to get a review unit to run through the paces before the extender was for sale so over the past week I've been giving this new SageTV STX-HD100 extender a workout by using it to extend my Home Theater setup. Read on to see how well the new SageTV extender performed.
My Review Setup

• Olevia HD (480i, 480p, 720p and 1080i resolution) TV
• Yamaha Receiver
• Network connected via modified, Linksys WRT54G router
• SageTV installed on a PC running Windows XP in the office (connected to Living Room TV).

Requirements

• SageTV Media Center installed and fully configured on a Windows, Mac or Linux computer.
• TV with AV, S-Video or HDMI inputs
• Ethernet network cable that connects to your SageTV server

What's Included?

The extender is shipped in a fairly standard white box with details about the contents and the SageTV logo on the side.

Included with the extender is the IR remote control, two AAA batteries for the remote, a standard ethernet network cable and a standard composite AV cable. Also included is a small, 10 page setup guide that I read in its entirety in a few minutes time. The setup guide directs the reader to SageTV's website for further detail (which wasn't live at the time of my review.) The setup guide explained the easy setup process sufficiently so I had no need for further instructions. Obviously if you are new to SageTV you'll need to spend some time getting your SageTV server PC setup and working before messing with the extender, but since I already had the SageTV server setup, I had no problems and had it working in less then 10 minutes. While they did include a composite AV cable, It would be nice if they had included some HD cables such as HDMI and component cables. Fortunately I had some extras laying around and used those to hook up to my HD television.
Design

The extender unit is black in color and a little smaller than a typical DVD Player (9 inches deep, 14 1/4 inches wide and just under 2 inches tall). It's very light, silent and would fit in an entertainment center or just setting next to the TV. Looking at the front of the case, there are two USB ports on the front of the unit that are currently not active. Hopefully these will be supported in future firmware updates with features such as usb keyboard/mouse support, external hard drive support etc - keep in mind any future use of these usb ports have not been confirmed or detailed by SageTV thus far.
Both sides of the extender have vents, but no fans so noise was non-existent. After multiple hours of streaming video content the box was still cool to touch as well so heat doesn't seem to be an issue either.

Looking towards the back of the unit you will see the power cord, an on/off switch, the AV connections and the Ethernet Port. Note that the power supply is built-in to the unit so no power brick to deal with. All-in-all the box looks sleek and is small enough to fit in any environment.
STX-HD100 File Format & Codec Support
The HD Extender supports the following file formats:
AVI, ASF, MPEG, MKV, QuickTime, MP4, Ogg, WMV, VOB (including with AC3 audio)
Video Codecs Support: MPEG-1,MPEG-2 MP@HL, MPEG-4.2 ASP@L5, H.264 up to 1080p, WMV9/VC-1 up to 1080p
Audio Codecs: MPEG Audio, AAC, Vorbis (stereo only), AC3 (decode/pass-through), WMA, FLAC, DTS (pass-through)
Remote Control

The above photos include the remote layout, the HD Extender Remote in the middle of the center photo with the Hauppauge MVP remote on it's left and my URC MX-500 remote on the right for size comparison purposes. The last photo to the right shows the top, front of the HD extender remote where the IR emitter is located.

The remote has all of the functions you would expect and several more that any SageTV user would appreciate. The one thing that is missing from the remote is the ability to control your television set. This is unfortunate, but not a deal-breaker.
The responsiveness of the extender for each button press was nearly instant - no noticeable lag. The range however was pretty good as I could control the extender with the remote from more than 20 feet across my Family Room. The remote does seem to suffer from some minor, line-of-sight issues so at times I had to be sure the remote was pointed directly at the box. This line of site problem was less of a problem when the extender was placed lower to the ground so I'm guessing it has to do with the placement of the IR receiver on the extender. UPDATE: SageTV has corrected this problem for any new units being shipped and offered a fix for those units that already shipped with IR issues. Read more HERE
One notable thing to mention while on the topic of remote controls. I was able to control the extender with my hauppage remote control that came with my Hauppauge MVP (now used as an SD extender for SageTV.) I've also heard rumors that the MCE remote is compatible with this extender, bu