Greener Tech

Problem: When ripping video from DVD and re-authoring it, the Line21 Closed Captioning (CC2) data is lost.

Solution: Demux to “Headed M2V.”

Notes: With a same-day shipment deadline looming on the clock, I had to remove hissy noise from a DVD and re-burn it before duplicating and sending it out the door. I used MPEG Streamclip to “Demux to M2V and AIFF,” cleaned up the audio in Soundtrack Pro (very handy), and used Toast 8 to re-burn the DVD. The Closed Captioning, however, was gone. After some frantic Googling and guesswork, we tried re-ripping the video using the “Demux to Headed M2V” option as this seems to include more of the original header data from the source. I also noticed that when re-burning in Toast, it merely re-multiplexed the tracks before burning (rather than re-encoding as it had the first time, which I had chalked up to it doing more muxing). This time, the captioning was present.

Problem: Quicktime Broadcaster gets stuck on “Prerolling” and never starts Broadcasting.

Solution:

Add “:554″ to the end of the “Host Name” field.

Notes:

This was a puzzler. I tested on multiple machines under multiple conditions and got mixed results before I found the fix.

- MacBook behind firewall - failed
- MacBook direct to router - failed
- Mac Mini G4 1.4Ghz behind firewall & DMZ’d - failed
- Mac Pro behind firewall - successful
- eMac behind firewall - successful, but too slow
- PowerBook G4 1.4 Ghz behind firewall - successful

I took the PowerBook G4 to the broadcast site (behind uncontrolled firewall) and started the broadcast successfully. I stopped the broadcast to change audio settings, and then got the “Prerolling” issue again. Tried all combinations of settings and still no luck.

Finally called Akamai (our CDN provider), and they suggested adding “:554″ to the end of our entry point IP address, so the host name looks like:

72.246.3.2:554

Worked fine. Went back and tried it on two MacBooks behind firewalls, also worked. Strange, since the default port is 554 if you check “Broadcast over TCP” (which I had), but I guess this forces past a QuickTime bug related to firewalls.

Problem: User has a Treo 700p and needs a local copy of the Global Address List (”Public Contacts” in Kerio) on his MacBook to sync with.

Fix:

Unfortunately requires Windows with Outlook and Thunderbird. Haven’t tried it with Entourage.

1. Install Kerio Outlook Connector and open Outlook.
2. Export a CSV (Windows).
3. Import the CSV into Mozilla Thunderbird.
4. Export as LDIF.
5. Import LDIF into Apple Address Book.
6. HotSync the Treo.

Notes:

I took the basic idea from Paul Thurrott after having similar CSV import problems. I also tried Thunderbird for Mac, but the field mappings were off and about half were missing. Also tried CSV2LDIF, but that’s only useful if you speak LDIF-ese.

I also tried VersaMail’s sync feature to directly sync with Kerio Mailserver. The rub there is that even though Kerio claims you can view the Global Address List (GAL) from VersaMail, it’s only email address lookup. No numbers. On a smartphone. Useless.

VersaMail will sync the phone’s contacts with your personal contacts on the server, but there’s no way to sync the public contacts (or calendar) with your phone. Furthermore, the “mini” version of Kerio Webmail that shows up when you try to log in via Treo is also email only; no contacts or calendar.