Fire TV

After much mulling about whether to go for Amazon’s Fire TV box I ended up plumping for their offer – largely as it wasn’t going to cost me much. As well as their half price offer, I also had a pre-paid credit card which I received for signing up with the AA so I only had to spend out £9 on it. I also tried out having the package delivered to our local Post Office after having a few parcels going AWOL lately. That seemed to work quite well and as it is located in the local Spar and I can (apparently) pick up parcels any time up to 10 at night.

The Fire TV box itself is quite tiny – about the size of a small cigar box. It comes with a wireless connection but I connected to the internet using the Ethernet cable that had been feeding the TV (and, latterly, the Blu-ray player) and connected to the TV via an HDMI cable. Initially it updated the software which took about 15 minutes and then it bust into life – seemingly recognising my Amazon prime account without prompting which I found a little disconcerting. I’m assuming that Amazon put the device’s MAC address into their system when they dispatched it.

First impressions are actually very good. Aside from having a working Amazon Instant Video connection, I was amazed at just how fast the whole thing is. Using either the smart TV or Blu-ray connections was glacial. The Fire TV box responds almost instantly to the simple remote. I downloaded a couple of apps and found the fast response to be replicated on the iPlayer which had been a torturous click-wait-click-waitsomemore procedure previously.

One of the tricks of the Fire TV box is that it has a voice enabled search. This actually only works on the Amazon products which is a little annoying but I can see that it would be awkward to program this as a standard input device. However, it works very well. I tried a few searches and it picked up everything I said perfectly. There is an old joke (mostly true) that voice recognition doesn’t work with Scottish accents so I thought I’d put this to the test by inflicting the kids’ Falkirk accents on the box. Happily it dealt with requests for “Toy Story”, “Paddington” and “Doctor Who” without the slightest of issues. Also, on the subject of kids, the parental controls appear to be quite thorough on this – just as well as the Amazon side of things ties into my credit card details.

I wanted to push the voice search to the limit so I decided to see what it would make of Eddie the talking whippet. I managed to get him to say something into the speaker and it resolved this as “Rom Com”. For all these years I had thought Eddie was wanting to discuss the global geo-political situation, interpretations of quantum mechanics or Friedrich Nietzsche’s atheistic existentialism. As it turns out, he simply has a desire to watch a series of disappointing movies starring Jennifer Aniston or Hugh Grant.

Where the voice search did fall down is when looking for foreign movies. I tried seemingly simple searches for “Das Boot”, “Abre los Ojos” and “Le Retour de Martin Guerre”. OK, my pronunciation may not be perfect but it made almost no sense at all of what I was asking for. I suppose it might work a bit better if the English equivalents were used but then it is equally possible that it will merely default to English language remakes. It does have a text input method for the search but this is a dreadful thumbwheel type affair which I would rather avoid.

 Now for the downsides. Generally, this appears to have a well written operating system but I have experienced a Blue Screen of Death whilst browsing. This is actually a mixed blessing as, whilst any catastrophic software error is unwelcome, at least this doesn’t just freeze interminably requiring switching off and on at the wall of which many home entertainment devices seem to suffer. The reboot is also very swift. Rather more annoying, considering I was hoping for a one-box streaming solution, is that it doesn’t have the Channel 4 catch up player, All-4 (previously 4OD). It does seem to have some of the Channel 4 content available via Amazon so maybe this is a commercial decision but it is very annoying.

So overall, I’m quite happy with this – especially given how little I had to pay for it. However, this does appear to be a gateway into Amazon’s universe in a similar way that NowTV ties into the Sky empire, Apple TV will tie into the Apple-sphere, Chromecast into Google and so on. I suppose this all comes down to the lack of standards for streaming devices but that appears to be the nature of the beasts: ultimately, someone, somewhere is trying to sell you something.

Inevitable Obsolescence

I bought our current living room TV back in November 2011. It is a Smart TV: that is a television that has internet connectivity built into it. On the face of it this is a handy thing to have as it allows online streaming services such as the BBC iPlayer and film services such as Amazon and Netflix to be accessed directly from the set. However, the whole thing relies on up-to-date software to work and I have had a rather patchy relationship with such integrated devices in the past.

My previous television was bought in 2001 and was a widescreen CRT unit which was one of the earliest integrated digital TVs (IDTV): it came with a terrestrial digital receiver built in as well as a slot for an On Digital decoder. It also came with built in Dolby surround sound. This was a TV that could seemingly do everything and was described as “future proof” as it could have its software updated by the manufacturer. Unfortunately, it started to fail a component at a time: first On Digital (then rebranded as ITV digital) ceased trading rendering the decoder redundant. Half the features of the digital receiver never worked and it eventually ceased to function altogether as the software updates from the manufacturer never materialised and the Dolby sound stopped working reducing the rest of the TV to a large monitor.

The problems with my old TV were down to one simple thing: software. TVs are effectively several components packaged into a single unit: a monitor, a receiver, an amplifier, speakers and, potentially, a streaming device or other software based interface. Where the TV is required to work within fixed standards (PAL reception, SCART or HDMI inputs etc) there is little that can go wrong provided there is a suitable input to work with. This is why prior to the digital switchover many people had TV sets that were potentially 20 or 30 years old. They conformed to a standard and, subject to the lifespan of the electronic components, they could work indefinitely. Once software is introduced into the equation with its moving target compatibility the concept of “future proof” should be really seen as “inevitable obsolescence”.

The Smart TV function on our living-room set has always been rather hit and miss. After the initial novelty of being able to use the iPlayer and (as was) Lovefilm Instant on the big screen the service has been a bit variable. Some services that we did try initially would be removed after a while: possibly due to a change in the service providers’ business plan but often because a change in the software meant that the TV could no longer support it. YouTube was a case in point as it stopped working and then was removed with little notice after a new feature in their software made it incompatible with what the TV could support.  Another problem was with Amazon Instant Video (rebranded from Lovefilm) which seemed to suffer from an existential crisis for a few months until some software (I’m not entirely sure if theirs or Samsung’s) was updated.

The last straw for the TV’s software dilemmas emerged a few weeks ago when we discovered that high definition films on the Amazon service wouldn’t play correctly on our TV. Rather than showing everything in letterbox mode it reverted to full screen. This is fine if the film was made in 16:9 but when we started to watch The Imitation Game we discovered that Benedict Cumberbatch had been stretched out into a wafer thin stick insect whereas Keira Knightly had practically disappeared due to the messed up aspect ratio. I contacted Amazon who said that they would investigate the problem…

Amazon did investigate this for me and they do appear to have tried out various solutions. However, the eventual reply from them was that they have decided to discontinue their streaming support for Samsung Smart TVs built in 2011. There are a few other apps that still work on the TV (iPlayer, for example) but it looks like the smart functionality on the 4 year old set is reaching the point of “inevitable obsolescence”. I do have a workaround at the moment as we also have a Sony Bluray player which has smart functionality and the Amazon streaming service still works through this although the sheer slow clunkiness of the interface rather indicates that it is heading inexorably towards its own demise.

In fairness to Amazon they have made a reasonable offer of a workaround to this which is to buy their Fire TV streaming box (a similar idea to Apple TV) which they are offering to me for half price. Whilst I’m rather put out at having to fork out for yet another piece of home entertainment hardware this does appeal to me in one particular sense: it is a stand-alone, dedicated device which is not dependent on riding on the back of a TV, Bluray player, games console or any other device with needlessly packaged software. If it was to go wrong or hit its own point of obsolescence it is the only thing that would need replacing and given the rather cheap discounted price it isn’t going to break the bank even if it does nothing for the flow of defunct electrical devices to our local recycling site.

The only fly in the ointment as far as I am concerned is that I have run out of connection points for the TV. It has 4 HDMI slots and they are currently being used by the PVR, Bluray, German Satellite decoder and Wii games console. Something would have to go or, at least, share a connection. Maybe it would be nice to have a streaming device for the bedroom but do I really need all this hassle? I’m starting to long for the days of 3 channels and a decent book.

Bo'ness Motor Museum

I have often seen signposts for Bo’ness Motor Museum but never quite worked out where it was. Out of curiosity I plugged it into the Sat-Nav system and took the boys along to have a look around. In fact it isn’t that hard to find but it is a bit further away than the railway museum that I had always assumed it was next to.

Lotus Esprit from The Spy Who loved me - Works in water (allegedly)

The museum is relatively small but packed with exhibits. However to call it a motor museum is something of a misnomer. It certainly has plenty of cars on display but these are not merely restored classics of yesteryear but are mostly tied in to film and TV appearances including an impressive array of James Bond’s vehicles, a DeLorrean (best known from Back to the Future), the flying Ford Anglia from Harry Potter and even Del Boy’s Reliant Regal van from Only Fools and Horses.

Aston Martin DBS from OHMSS

It’s not just cars either as there is a TARDIS (which is a mode of transport, I suppose) and various other film props including many of the iconic Bond gadgets (such as the Golden Gun from the film of the same name). In addition there are also hundreds of classic models and merchandise including many of the Dinky miniatures. All of this adds up to it being a display that is primarily a collection of film and TV memorabilia. I loved it - I felt like a kid in a toy shop again.

Citroën 2CV from For Your Eyes Only - not all the Bond cars were state of the art

Reliant Regal van from Only Fools and Horses. Built by Brummies, driven by plonkers.

DeLorean DMC-12 from Back to the Future. Supposedly a time machine (they do have a TARDIS prop there as well)

The Weasley's Ford Anglia 105E from Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. The muck and rust is actually painted on.

Inside Out

I always have a sense of trepidation when taking the kids out to the cinema. On the one hand I want them to be suitably amused (i.e. bums to the seats and mouths shut for two hours) whilst at the same time I hope to be reasonably entertained myself for the duration. I think that’s why I have enjoyed the Pixar films over the years because they are intelligently written, well-acted, beautifully animated and often take the possibilities of cinema in  new and intriguing directions. At least, that’s what they manage at their best – at the other end of the scale (and let’s face it, I’m talking about the Cars films here) I am at least guaranteed some quiet children and I can easily endure the proceedings with most of my brain-cells intact.

I’ve noticed that the Pixar films seem to be split between what the film-makers themselves want to produce (Ratatouille, Wall-E, Up and possibly Brave fall into this category) and those that are driven by the bean-counters at Disney (any of the sequels, to be honest). I wasn’t sure what to expect with their latest offering, Inside Out, but it seems to fall into the first category: one that Pixar had imagined themselves and it is no coincidence that it is directed and produced by Pete Docter and Jonas Rivera who devised Up.

The premise for Inside Out is examining the workings of the mind of 11-year old Riley, a happy girl from Minnesota whose life is turned upside-down when her family have to relocate to San Francisco due to her father’s job.  The bulk of the film centres on the anthropomorphic manifestations of Riley’s emotions, Joy, Sadness, Fear, Disgust and Anger controlling her mind from an engineering style console. This concept actually rang a few bells with me as it is very similar to the Numskulls cartoon that used to appear in the Beezer comic (I’m wondering if someone at Pixar is a fan of Dundonian comic strips).  With Riley’s new experiences causing conflict amongst her emotions the dominant Joy is lost amongst the labyrinthine mind along with Sadness leaving Fear, Anger and Disgust to steer Riley’s personality, causing her to have something of a meltdown in the style of 11 year old children everywhere.

In a way, this is familiar territory for Pixar as the two characters finding their way back home could just as easily be Buzz and Woody from Toy Story or Nemo and Dory from Finding Nemo. However, what I found intriguing about Inside Out is that it found a unique way of representing the mind that could only ever really be achieved via animation. The workings of the mind are explored with “personality islands” showing core identities and concepts such as imaginary friends and nightmares explored in unexpected ways. The look and feel of the animation is somewhat atypical as well, falling between the psychedelia of The Beatles’ Yellow Submarine and the idiosyncratic anime of Studio Ghibli.

This may sound like it is all very high concept and “not really for the kids” but it’s actually far from the case and my children enjoyed it at their own level: from my 7-year old daughter who liked the idea of a person’s mind being a squabbling morass of conflicting characters through to my 13-year old son who appreciated the plot subtleties and the idea that a happy individual is one whose emotions are in balance (he also seemed amused by the portrayal of a teenage boy’s mind on meeting a girl – I didn’t enquire further). As for me, I enjoyed the film greatly and would be happy to watch it again once it's out on DVD - which I suppose is a ringing endorsement for family entertainment.

Coda

After Led Zeppelin decided to disband, following the death of drummer John Bonham, they were left with a contractual obligation to produce one more album (and not, as many suspected, an appointment with the tax man). This obligation resulted in the 1982 release of the album Coda – a short collection of outtakes and oddities from the band’s career. I bought it not long after its release and I must have played the entire album no more than half a dozen times since. When I finally got round to replacing my old vinyl Led Zeppelin albums with their remastered CD equivalents, I didn’t bother with it as it really wasn’t worth spending out again on a collection that really wasn’t that good - at least I hadn’t bothered replacing it until this week.

Over the last year, Jimmy Page has been re-releasing the Led Zeppelin studio albums in a newly remastered form with additional material supplied on a companion disk – usually either alternative mixes of the originally released songs or “works in progress”. I’m always a bit suspicious of the whole remastering exercise as it is often merely a ruse to coerce obsessive fans into buying the same recordings yet again. In the case of Led Zeppelin it was a project that was not only worthwhile but which the discerning listener deserved given that the original vinyl albums contained many glaring production errors. At least that would have justified the original remasters – surely after that it merely becomes persistent electronic noodling?

Remasters aside, the companion disks seemed to me to be the most intriguing element of this exercise. Even back in the pre-internet age there were dozens of Led Zeppelin bootlegs that offered an insight into a wealth of cutting room detritus that was often obviously left out for a reason but occasionally offered a glimpse of a stillborn single or embryonic classic. The series started quite well with the live companion material on Led Zeppelin I providing a document of the raw energy that the band possessed in the late 1960s. The later albums also included occasional outtakes but many of them merely proffered “alternate” mixes which could only be differentiated from their previously released versions on close inspection.

In a way, many of these companion disks have been a disappointment although with occasional intrigues: The instrumental La La from Led Zeppelin II, Jennings Farm Blues and Key to the Highway from III, a radically different early take of Physical Graffiti’s In The Light and some evidence that John Paul Jones did take his keyboards to the Presence sessions with the oddly titled 10 Ribs & All/Carrot Pod Pod (Pod): a piano based piece very much at odds with the rest of that album. All of interest but not in themselves a strong case for purchasing an expensive re-release for all but the most determined completest. However that brings us to Coda – the album that was actually meant to be the outtakes collection.

The first disc in the set contains the remastered version of the original UK released Coda album. In terms of the sound quality it is brighter and, having listened to the whole collection for the first time in years , it’s actually far better than I remember it with the highlights being We’re Gonna Groove – a great Ben E King cover, Poor Tom a pleasing acoustic outtake from Led Zeppelin III  and Wearing and Tearing a superb hard rocker from the 1978 sessions at ABBA’s studios. The other tracks are reasonable salvages from the cutting room fodder including a decent live version of I Can’t Quit You Baby and some indulgent bashing from Bonham.

The subsequent discs are where it gets really interesting. Baby Come On Home  was previously released on a box-set only collection and Travelling Riverside Blues was a single from the superior BBC sessions. Hey, Hey, What Can I Do  was the B-side of the Immigrant Song single that has never been officially available in the UK (I bought my copy whilst on holiday in the USA). Also on the first companion disk is Sugar Mama, a track which I have previously heard on a bootleg album but the difference here is that the sound quality is superb. It really shows up the comparison between a badly copied third hand recording and what can be achieved from the original tapes in Page’s vaults.

The second companion disk starts off with the two recordings that Page and Plant made in India. Again, this was material that I had heard before but never with this clarity. The two recordings are of Friends and Four Sticks and are effectively a pre-cursor to the No Quarter project that they would produce for MTV in the 1990s. Also on this was St. Tristan's Sword – an outtake from Led Zeppelin III that was new to me although it seems to contain familiar elements used elsewhere (similar to the manner in which The Yardbirds’ Little Games contains the genesis of many early Led Zeppelin songs). Aside from these there are other rough mixes and early versions of well-known tunes (an early take of When The Levee Breaks is particularly intriguing as well as a killer version of Bring It On Home). It also contains another worthwhile interpretation of Physical Graffiti’s In The Light – similar but at the same time very different from the familiar version that was released back in 1975.

So has Coda now been transformed into the album it always should have been? To a great extent I believe it has, but it is also nagging that there are recordings that are known from the bootlegs that have been passed over. Possibly the top of this list would be Swan Song which was recorded as an instrumental but never saw the light of day on Physical Graffiti. However, that song was eventually completed as Midnight Moonlight from Page’s mid 1980s collaboration with Paul Rogers (The Firm) and releasing an instrumental outtake with long pauses where vocals were required would seem to be a disservice to what was a great vocal performance by Rogers. Ultimately, I think Page has chosen the right point to put the Zeppelin legacy to rest – unless, of course, he was planning a new compilation called “Scraping the Barrel”.