Category: Tech

Hot Links Stink

I’m being hotlinked. Argh. I knew it would happen eventually, and for still pictures I don’t care. But videos are another matter.

Hotlinking is when a Webmaster uses a picture or video from another site, by referring to its absolute address, rather than taking it by downloading and putting it on their own server. It’s bandwidth theft, and bandwidth used to be so precious that a hotlink to a lowly JPG was annoying. Nowadays, it’s video that’s a concern.

Some FLV files I posted have been hotlinked for streaming video. The owner of the site is using Dreamhost, the same service that hosts Mark Evanier’s sites, so it isn’t as if this guy is short on storage capacity or bandwidth.

Up to now I haven’t tried to block hotlinking, because I assumed people would download the files. That’s now changed. I’ve edited the .htaccess file for the site with some code that should greatly cut down on the potential hotlinking of FLV files. It won’t prevent it entirely, and I’m not about to say under what circumstances it doesn’t block. With a little more tweaking I should be able to tighten the screws some more.

The MMMS Records Remastered

Since it seems I’m the primary provider on the Net for the audio from the two flexi-discs that Marvel Comics produced in the 1960’s, I thought I’d offer them with superior sound compared to what I posted five years ago. Here they are, remastered for the best possible audio fidelity.

The Voices of Marvel

Scream Along With Marvel

Technical notes:

  • Technics turntable, Shure cartridge, AGI pre-amp, AKG headphones.
  • Captured using Audacity from pre-amp line level output.
  • 24-bit resolution, 48 kHz sample rate.
  • Click removal used sparingly. No other noise reduction or equalization.
  • A dimple in the flexi-disc causes a recurring thump between 3:15 and 3:35.
  • The left channel in each recording was deemed better, forced into 2-channel mono, then exported as lossless WAV files.
  • WAV files converted to MP3 at 256 Kbps CBR.

JW Flash Player 3.11

I took the site offline for a little while to update the JW FLV Player from 3.6 to 3.11. At the same time I updated the WordPress plug-in I use for it, FLV Embed, to version 0.3.2.

It’s working, but I have the same complaint I had before, when trying to update to JW FLV 3.7. The parameter $flv_overstretch: fit doesn’t work. It’s my assumption for now that it’s a problem with the plugin not properly telling the player what to do. I’ll pursue that angle again, like I did last time to no avail. For now I’ve gone back to JW FLV 3.6 and everything is once again AOK.

No Buddy From Netflix

On a whim I checked the free Video On Demand offerings on FiOS TV, and spotted a movie with the description “Norwegian comedy” so, what the heck, I pressed OK. The movie is a serio-comic romance from 2003, called Buddy. Carol and I really enjoyed it.

Netflix has both the DVD and the option to play Buddy online, but sitting together in front of the computer isn’t an option, and getting video from the computer to the TV is an annoying and unreliable process. Fortunately, getting TV to the computer is much easier, so here’s a 3-minute scene from Buddy, as played on FiOS TV V-O-D.

[flv:http://www.dograt.com/Video/SEP07/Buddy.flv 400 300]