My Old TV: Rejuvenated by Roku

Posted on April 19, 2021 by Maria Langer

I get a new Roku for my old TV and it’s like getting a new TV.

I’m not a big TV-watcher. I probably spend less than 10 hours a week in front of the tube, and a lot of that is watching late night TV hosts and educational content on YouTube. I don’t have cable or satellite TV and can’t bring in any over-the-air channels. I subscribe to Netflix and Disney Plus, have Amazon Prime video because I want free Amazon shipping, and recently added a one-year free subscription to Apple TV+ because it came with my new iPad.

I got my wasband’s circa 2008 45″ Samsung HDTV in our divorce. (It’s a funny story how I got it, but I blogged about that in passing elsewhere.) At the time — 2013 — it was still a decent TV and it had a surround sound system that worked great when I watched DVDs. I used the Roku stick that I got with it to connect to the Internet for my content. It was slow — like push a button on the remote and wait for Roku to react — but good enough.

I eventually sold the surround sound system on Craig’s List, bought a Blu-Ray player for the TV, and got a Samsung sound bar. (The TV had terrible sound without it.)

Time passed.

After seeing bigger, better TVs in the local Fred Meyer’s electronics department for two years, I finally broke down and bought one. Fred Meyer sells previous years TV models for dirt cheap; I bought a 65″ Samsung UHD smart TV for less than $500 when I combined the sale price and the “senior discount” I got for buying it on the first Tuesday of the month. I felt that I got a pretty good deal on something I would use less than 10 hours a week.

My new TV — which is at least two years old at this point — sits in the corner of the living room. I had to swap the coffee table for the TV table to get it to fit; the legs have quite a spread. The reflection is my red leather sofa — also an unexpected divorce acquisition — with the pillows and dog bed on it.

What to do with that old TV? Well, I wound up putting it in my bedroom, right across from the brown leather sofa that had (ironically) been in my old house’s TV room. I had to buy a table for it that matched the furniture. I attached the sound bar I’d bought for it to the new TV so it had crappy sound again, but that didn’t matter. By that time, the Roku was so agonizingly slow — especially compared with the new TV — that I lacked the patience to use it. I should add here that other than the little black and white TV I’d had in my first apartment after college (circa 1982), it was the first time I’d ever had a TV in the bedroom so I wasn’t accustomed to watching TV in bed anyway. But what else would I do with it?

Time passed. I rarely used the TV in the bedroom. The Roku stick made it unbearably slow.

I started talking to a neighbor about giving it to her. Literally giving it to her. She had a TV in her guest room that was on the fritz. Although my old Samsung was a lot bigger than what she wanted/needed, she said she’d take it. We just needed to wait for her husband’s cousin to get into town to help us carry it downstairs.

But I started thinking about other possibilities. It seemed to me that the thing that was slowing the TV down and making it an ordeal to use was the old Roku stick that was now 13 years old. Maybe a newer Roku would speed it up?

I asked on Twitter. Some folks said it wouldn’t be any better. Someone else suggested the Roku Streambar, which combined a sound bar with a Roku receiver. I looked it up. It happened to be on sale for $109 (from a normal price of $129) with free shipping and a 30-day money-back guarantee. I had nothing to lose. I’d give it a try and if it was still slow, I’d return it and get rid of the TV.

The Roku Streambar and its remote. It’s actually pretty small and doesn’t sound nearly as good as my Samsung sound bar on my new TV, but it’s good enough for me.

It arrived last week. I set it up Thursday night.

And I was (eventually) amazed.

After a few tries, the Roku connected to my 5G wifi network. (I’d tried connecting it to the two other networks first and it apparently didn’t like them, even though the signals were stronger.) I went through the setup process. It worked great — super fast, too — and even configured itself with the same channels I’d had set up on the old TV. At first, it didn’t play sound through the speaker and I couldn’t figure out why. I fiddled with the TV settings and cables and other stuff, and then restarted the Roku by mistake (I pulled out the wrong cable). When it started running again, the sound came through the Roku speaker. It worked just as it should.

The TV could be controlled by the small Roku remote — although I assume I’ll have to change the source with the TV remote if I ever want to watch a DVD. The remote even has a push to talk voice controller for switching channels and changing the volume.

And did I mention that it was fast?

I’m not exaggerating when I say that it was like getting a new TV.

My old TV in the bedroom. Yes, I do have to clean up those wires. The reflection in the TV is the window behind the sofa; you can see the top of my head, too.

Unfortunately for Terry, I’m going to keep the TV, at least for a while. I suggested she check out Fred Meyer. They’re still selling great TVs for great prices and she’ll likely get a better one than mine.

Adding Power to My Utility Trailer

Posted on December 29, 2020 by Maria Langer

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I splurge on batteries and an inverter for my utility trailer/mobile jewelry shop.

For the past five winters, I’ve been traveling south in my truck with a slide in truck camper on the back. It started with “the Turtleback” in 2016/17. That was a very large and rather deluxe Lance model with all the bells and whistles, including an onboard generator and a slide-out to expand living space when parked. Then I downgraded to a smaller, newer rig, “T2,” which was roughly the same length, not quite as deluxe, and lacked both the slide and generator. What I gained in the swap was a 400-pound weight loss and a lot more inside storage space.

Why a Utility Trailer?

Over time, however, I started bringing more additional items south than I could fit inside the camper or truck. Normally, I’d have my portable Honda generator in the truck, along with my bicycle and wrangle my plastic kayak onto the roof of the camper. In 2017, I brought my little jet boat south with me and loaded it up with extras, including that kayak, for the trip south. It was nice to be able to store extra stuff in a trailer.

In 2018, on my way to my first camp, I stopped in Lake Havasu and bought an inflatable Hobie pedal/paddle kayak. Sure, the 11-foot boat deflated and fit into a bag with wheels, but that bag was both bulky and heavy. I shoved it into the entranceway of my camper for the rest of the drive to camp, but quickly realized that dealing with it in transit was going to be a royal pain in the ass.

Here’s my truck, camper, and original utility trailer not long after I bought it. Note the dent in the upper corner.

So I got on Craig’s list and bought a 12-foot cargo trailer. It was a bit “rough,” as I blogged not long after acquiring it. I hooked that up to the back of my rig and stowed all the extras I’d crammed into my truck and camper. It had two axles, but I had trouble getting the tow ball height just right to distribute weight evenly on both of them. It was also a bit rickety and had me worried about long distance driving with it. But it made it back to Washington intact. I wasted no time selling it to a friend who was looking for a tool trailer that could be parked on job sites.

Here’s my current rig. The newer trailer is in much better condition than the original one and includes a toolbox on the tow hitch.

I went hunting for a new one. Literally new. My search brought me down to Yakima, where I stopped in at the Lance dealer for a part I needed for my camper. I mentioned that I was going to look at some utility trailers at a dealer down the road. Mike, the co-owner, mentioned offhand that he and his partner brother had a utility trailer that they never used and would consider selling. I took a look. It was almost exactly what I wanted. I looked at the new ones, then called Mike back and started negotiating for his. About a month later, at the tail end of a trip to Tacoma, I picked it up.

I started customizing the interior almost immediately, adding E-track to the walls so I could secure various items to it. The goal was to turn it into a sort of mobile jewelry shop that could also haul the things I needed to do jewelry shows and camp. I loaded it up and secured everything, but wasn’t very happy about its setup as a shop — I had to take out too many things and set up a workstation on folding tables and then be sure to stow everything before moving. Boxes were big and piled up and difficult to access. The IKEA drawer units I’d put in had limited storage space for the weight they added to the rig. It was uncomfortable and inconvenient and it just didn’t work out the way I’d imagined it would.

So this year I built the tables and shelves I needed to make a real shop area in the front of the trailer, leaving the back wide open for show equipment and camping stuff.

Here’s a brief video I shot the other day that shows off my mobile studio space while I’m parked. It also includes a glimpse of my new inverter. And did you know that I maintain a YouTube channel for ML Jewelry Designs? Find it here.

My Power Needs

Before I discuss my needs, I need to make it clear that I camp off-the-grid. I’m usually not in a campground, but if I am, that campground usually does not have any utilities running to the site. That means I need to be self-sufficient with power (as well as water and sewer). I rely primarily on solar power but also travel with a 2kw Honda generator, just in case I have cloudy weather or unusually high power needs in my camper.

What I’m discussing here is my jewelry-making power needs.

My primary jewelry-making tool is a flex-shaft. The popular brand name is Foredom and that has become a bit of a generic term for that kind of tool, but mine is a Eurotool brand. It’s basically a hanging drill motor attached with a flexible shaft to a hand piece that can accept Dremel sized tools. You turn it on and off with a foot pedal that controls the speed of the motor. Because this tool requires AC power and the only way I can get continuous AC power while camping off the grid is to run my generator (which I don’t like running because of the noise), I didn’t bring it. Instead, I brought my battery operated Dremel, with its spare battery and charger.

I also use a small rotary tumbler quite a bit, as I discuss in this blog post. That also requires AC power, but it only needs 36 watts. Unfortunately, sometimes I need to run it for hours at a time. I was able to run it with a portable 150 watt inverter attached to the power port in my truck or in a battery pack I’d bought primarily to run my telescope. I quickly ran down the battery pack and had trouble getting it charged back up. And the idea of draining my truck batteries to run a tumbler was not very pleasing.

I also found myself with lots of other little batteries that needed charging. My camper does not have an inverter; due to limited space, it only has two 12v batteries. (Higher capacity 6v batteries will not fit in the storage cabinet — I’ve already looked into it.) On short winter days with a low sun angle, the 200 watts of solar flat-mounted on the roof can basically keep those batteries charged and let me use DC power ports to charge my phone, watch, and iPad but not much more.

The Solution

Last year, I’d looked into getting a solar charged battery power system installed into the cargo trailer. The trailer has a metal toolbox on the hitch bars and I figured it would make a good place to put the batteries. I already had a Zamp portable solar panel that I could attach to my camper. Why not use that to power a 2kw system on the utility trailer? But the estimate I’d gotten — more than $3,000! — gave me pause. A whole year’s worth of pause

This year I went forward with a less ambitious setup that included just two 6v batteries and a 1kw inverter. I had it installed in Quartzsite, AZ, where there are numerous solar power dealers who work on RVs. (I went to Solar Bill’s, but Discount Solar is another dealer there.) It still wound up costing about $1200. But if I kept the batteries charged, I would have all the power I needed to run my tumbler and charge just about any device that needed charging.

Here are my solar panels in my current setup location. The original location had the panels in full sun from around 9 AM to 5 PM; in this new spot, they get sun at 8 AM but start falling into shade around 3:30 PM. The cable for the panels is only 12 feet long and the plug for it is at the front of the trailer. Poor parking planning on my part, but it’s all good.

Here’s where the panels plug into the side of the toolbox where the batteries are.

Here are the batteries inside the toolbox. There’s a vent hole behind them. I lost about half the box capacity to store things; I can’t put anything on top of them.

Here’s the inverter, mounted in the front corner of my trailer just under one of the shelves. I’ll likely use the area around it as a charging station for various batteries in the future.

I brought it all back to camp, set up the solar panel in a good spot, and let the system do its thing. It was a bit iffy at first. Although the batteries were charged when I got them, I don’t think they were at 100%. My immediate use brought their power levels down a lot more than I expected. But after a few days with bright sun on those panels — including days when I didn’t use the power in the trailer at all — I soon had the batteries fully charged and able to share that power with any device I plugged in without a considerable power droop. I even managed to charge that big battery pack overnight without draining the system batteries.

I’ve since set up a little portable table near the inverter where I’ve parked various battery chargers — for my Dremel, my Ryobi tools/lights, my drone, and even my laptop. It has become the go-to place for charging things and it does a remarkable job. In the future, I’ll probably just use the shelf beside the inverter to set up a charging station.

Since moving my cargo trailer closer to my camper, I’ve also moved those portable panels closer. That means that if the utility trailer batteries are charged up and I don’t need them, I can attach another 160 watts of solar to my camper to bring those batteries up to full.

And yes, I did look into putting 200 watts of solar on the utility trailer’s roof. It would have cost me an extra $1400 for the panels, controller (which is built-into my portable panels), wiring, and labor. Not worth it — at least not yet.

Long Term Benefits

I know I won’t be traveling like this every winter forever. In fact, I’m starting to think the this might be my last year at Arizona’s Colorado River backwaters, where I’ve been coming since 2014. I’m starting to feel as if I’m stuck in a rut and and after living too many years in someone else’s rut, there’s nothing I hate more than that.

I’ve been thinking of making some major changes in my life that includes shifting focus on how I spend my free time. There will come a point when I don’t need that utility trailer at all. It seems a shame when I’ve spent so much time and money customizing it.

But the way I see it, the improvements I’ve made to the trailer make it even more flexible for me or a future owner. I can see converting it into a small living space for rugged camping — there are quite a few people camping in converted utility trailers out here in the desert. My jewelry workbench illustrates how easy it is to build removable structures onto the E-Track I’ve installed. Where I’ve put in a workbench, someone else could easily make a platform for a cot or other sleeping space. The storage shelves in the nose of the camper aren’t pretty, but they do make it possible to store lots of things in a way that can be easily secured in transit. And the power makes it even more attractive for off-the-grid use. All it takes is a need and a little imagination.

Until then, I’m enjoying the upgrade.

The Video Editing Audio Workaround

Posted on June 14, 2020 by Maria Langer

The hoops I have to jump through to get the cockpit audio right on my YouTube videos.

I’m in the process of switching from ScreenFlow to Filmora Pro as my primary video editing software. I needed an editor that could edit 360° videos to add title screens, callouts, and additional audio. To my knowledge, ScreenFlow could not do this. That didn’t surprise me since ScreenFlow was designed primarily as a video screen capture and editing tool and the only reason I was using it was because it was cheap and it supported picture in picture.

I should mention here that in the past, I’ve used iMovie (limited) and Final Cut Pro (the old version was great; the X version is not). I knew that Adobe Premiere would do what I needed it to do, but I was not at all interested in paying Adobe a monthly fee to be able to access the files I created with its software. I believe software should be bought — not rented.

Filmora has a bunch of really good tutorials on YouTube and it was pretty easy to learn — not that I know everything about it yet. And the “lifetime” price did away with the nonsense of software rentals, letting me buy the software just once and get free upgrades and free customer support forever (however long that is). It was $180 after tax, which fit my budget.

But…

It wasn’t until I’d begun using Filmora Pro that I realized that it lacked a feature I really needed: the ability to turn stereo sound into mono sound.

Let me explain.

My videos usually have two sources of sound, each for a different type of sound:

One GoPro Hero7 Black records ambient sound — normally, that’s the sound of the engine and rotors as I start up, fly, and shut down. In the beginning, I left this sound out, but a lot of my fans claimed they liked it. So I made sure I had one camera running to capture that, even if I didn’t use the video that went with it.
Another GoPro Hero7 Black records the sound in my intercom system — normally that’s the sound of me talking to the camera or on the radio or phone. (When I’m on the phone, you can only hear my half of the conversation.) That’s captured through a connection between the camera and my intercom system via an NFlightCam Audio Cable. Channel fans apparently really love my narrations — who knew? — and the sound of radio chatter, so this is an important component of my video setup.

The problem is, the intercom audio is recorded on just one stereo channel: the left. (This is a shortcoming of the cable which, according to the folks at NFlightCam, is a problem with the one part of the cable they buy from GoPro for their products. In other words, according to NFlightCam, it’s GoPro’s fault.) If I use this audio in my videos as is and someone listens through stereo speakers or headphones, they notice that the voice is coming from just one side. And they complain.

When I used ScreenFlow, it had the ability to turn stereo channels into mono. That combined the left (with sound) and right (with no sound) into one channel that sounds like it’s coming from somewhere in the middle. That got the complaints to stop — when I remembered to take the extra conversion step.

But Filmora Pro doesn’t support the combining of two stereo channels into one mono channel. So there’s no solution in this software.

Of course, there’s a workaround — export the audio only, convert it stereo to mono, and import it back into Filmora Pro. Here’s how I do that with the software I already have:

I save old software and I’m very glad I saved this application. My iMac is running MacOS High Sierra; I don’t think this will run under Catalina on my laptop.
Open the video clip with the single channel stereo sound in QuickTime Player Pro 7. (Note that I didn’t say QuickTime Player, which is the current version of the software. No, I’m using the version from 2009: QuickTime Player 7.6.6, which requires a registration code. This was the good version of QuickTime, which allows editing and screen recording and includes all kinds of other neat features. I recovered and saved this version when it was overwritten by the limited feature version that came after it.)
Why can’t Filmora Pro have a Channels pop-up menu like this one?
Use the Export command under the File menu to save the Audio Only as Sound to AIFF. Before exporting, click the Options button and be sure that Mono is selected from the Channels pop-up menu. This is how I convert stereo to mono, but the resulting file is not compatible with Filmora Pro.
Double-click the resulting Audio file in iTunes to import and open it.
Use the Convert command under the File menu to Create an AAC Version.
Drag that version out of iTunes and into a Finder window to export it. I now have a version compatible with Filmora Pro.
Drag the audio file into Filmora Pro’s media window.
Drag the original video file into the Filmora Pro timeline.
Unlink the video file’s original audio track from the video track.
Delete the unlinked audio track from the timeline.
Drag the mono audio file into the Filmora Pro Timeline and line it up exactly with the video track that remains. That will synchronize the two tracks.
Link the two tracks together so they cannot be edited out of sync.
Repeat the above steps for every video clip with a cockpit audio track.

And then…

From that point, all I have to do is add the second audio/video track — assuming I want the ambient sound audio track to play behind the cockpit audio — synchronize it with the cockpit audio/video so the sounds are right, unlink the audio/video from in that second track, get rid of (or adjust the size of) the second video clip, and add subsequent clips, doing the same for each, for the length of the video. I also need to be sure there’s 20 seconds with nothing much going on at the end so I can add end cards. Then I add the title screen with “theme music” and animation and any annotation text, including a reminder that the video description has lots of information that might answer viewer questions.

In all, I think the video editing process takes about 10-20x the amount of time in the video clip. So, for example, a 10-minute video would take about 100-200 minutes to edit.

Rendering varies depending on the length of the video, but at least it doesn’t require any additional effort on my part. Uploading to YouTube also takes a while, but only a few minutes of actual work as I fill in the form with the video information.

So yes, it’s involved.

A lot of folks think flying a helicopter is hard. I think it’s a lot easier than editing a quality video.

An Eclectic Mind

Web site and blog for Maria Langer, helicopter pilot, content creator, jewelry artist, boater, and serious amateur photographer.

Category Archives: Call Me a Geek

My Old TV: Rejuvenated by Roku

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