May 19

I back up my DVDs. I rip them to H264 using handbrake and then store the originals in a DVD holder and hopefully never have to touch, or scratch, them again. But I occasionaly run into a DVD that I can play, but I can’t copy. Shoot Em Up is a good example. So here is how to dump the stream to an mpeg that can then be used in handbrake with mplayer.

mplayer -dumpstream -dumpfile test.mpg -chapter 1-17 dvd://1

Should be pretty obvious, but chapter is the title chapters and dvd://1 is your dvd drive title number 1.

May 8

WHIA V2 has anemometeres, current transformers, a seeduino mega and a bunch of other goodies coming together.  The new baby has slowed things down pretty dramatically, but I had enough time to put together another little project I’m calling Vroomba.  It’s not a toy, it’s a labor saving device.  I’ll have that page up later on tonight.   In the meantime, check out the Dune Bug-E.