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Thursday, January 26, 2012

Samsung LED TV

Since the arrival of our Samsung LED TV, I really enjoy watching my downloaded TV series through it. This TV is the main component of our home entertainment system. The USB WiFi dongle connects our TV to our home network and now I can stream videos, music and photos trough Allshare. It is also a Smart TV and now we can download apps from the Samsung (e.g Google Maps, Facebook, Twitter) and now it served as a giant Galaxy Tablet (minus the touch screen). 
Series 5 LED, SMART TV 40" (UA405500RR) Photo from www.samsung.com


The downside of this model is unavailability of web browser since at least Series 6 (I believe) have this capability. 

Our TV is currently connected to our DVD Home Theater we also bought and a Blu-ray player we got for free and wirelessly to our home network

Saturday, January 21, 2012

Project Entertainment

Recently, we bought a new TV, a DVD home theater and we also got a free Blu-ray player. With it's cool specs, I hooked  it up to our existing home network. Now our home theater step up to a new level and I've decided blog what I've made and have small reviews about our new entertainment system. I'm planning to add a bunch of new gadgets to our network to make it more entertaining.

Friday, January 20, 2012

How to extract and display .mkv subtitles to a Samsung LED TV

We recently bought a new LED TV. It was a Samsung Smart LED TV model UA40D5500RR. I believe this is the cheapest Samsung Smart TV. I really enjoy watching series and anime and the best thing I like about this TV is the Allshare capability. You can stream your movies/videos/music wireless through your home network and recently I had a problem showing subtitles from some of my .mkv files since our TV cannot decode the subtitle embedded into a .mkv video.

The real problem .mkv subtitles are not supported by our TV but now I found a solution how to show those subtitles

Required programs
1. MKVtoolnix (installer)
2. MKVextract (just place this on your MKVtoolnix's directory)
3. VobSub Subtitle Converter (installer)


How to do it:

1. Extract the subtitle from your .mkv video

Open MKVextract
Click "..."
Choose the video file
Output directory
Click "Extract"



2. Extracted subtitle will be saved as ".ass" 

3. Open the extracted ".ass" subtitle using VobSub subtitle converter (subresync.exe)




4. Save it as ".smi" subtitle or you may save it as ".srt" also but in case it didn't work, save it as .smi

5. Rename your converted subtitle (subtitle and the video must have same file name)

6. Refresh your Allshare Server or place your video file on a flash drive and plug it on your TV's USB port

*subtitles can now be seen!

Note :
Probably .srt subtitle will work in some .mkv file but others do not. Use this if subtitles show in your PC/Laptop but not in you Samsung Smart TV.
This is a long method but this works for me.

(Updated May 22, 2013, since some links do not work already)
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Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Hello 2012!



Matagal na din akong hindi nakapagpalamig, masubukan nga muli.


Greetings from Mt. Makiling (Sto. Tomas Trail)! We did a MakTrav(Makiling Traverse) last January 15, 2012. We start hiking from Sto. Tomas, Batangas side then descend to UPLB trail. It was my 2nd climb and 1st major mountain climb. Our trek lasted about 12 to 13 hours (including short water break and short lunch) and yes it was fun and tiring. I was thinking of giving up in the middle of our trek but I have no choice but to continue following the trail. The best part of our journey is the free hot shower at the ranger/registration station in the UPLB side of Makiling. It was a good climb and I can't wait for the next climb! For more info about Mt. Makiling visit PinoyMountaineer's Blog.

Lesson I've learned :

Don't give up, you'll eventually reach the top. Take it one step at a time. There are no shortcuts to the top.