movies | At Home with Tech

March 6, 2022

How to Pack your Streaming Apps for your Next Vacation Movie Night

After a fun vacation day on the slopes, my family settled in for a movie on our hotel room TV. Here’s how we did that using my existing Apple ecosystem.

I recently returned from a little skiing vacation with my family at Mount Bousquet in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. We hadn’t been on the slopes for a couple years due to the pandemic, so it felt great to practice some downhill again. (That’s our son having fun on a snowboard in my above photo.)

Pack your Apple TV for your Next Vacation
During our time in the hotel room, I tried using a particularly useful vacation tech trick I’d learned a while back. I had brought our Apple TV puck with us with the intent to jack it into the hotel’s WiFi network. This would allow me to access our entire arsenal of streaming apps and create movie nights using the room’s big TV screen. (Doing this effectively sidesteps having to purchase anything additional from a hotel as long as the base-level WiFi can handle streaming.)

Sadly, the streaming apps on my Apple TV didn’t work this time, because the hotel’s WiFi required a multiple-step login process, which the Apple TV couldn’t access beyond the password step.

Fortunately, I had also packed a lightning to HDMI adapter for my iPhone. (It’s always good to have a backup plan, when vacation movie night hangs in the balance.)

Apple Lightning Digital AV Adapter

Using this dongle, I was able to substitute in my iPhone as the streaming source and connect it directly to our hotel room’s HDTV via its HDMI cable. Then, my iPhone effortlessly served up the Disney movies we wanted via its Disney+ app.

Tech Ethics
You could say my streaming strategy unfairly took advantage of the hotel’s WiFi network, possibly slowing down WiFi speeds for others. But my iPhone ended up tethering to its cellular connection using its AT&T wireless data plan. So I don’t have to debate tech ethics here (not this time).

I pay for unlimited data on my AT&T account. So, in a sense, I’m already paying full price for my movie tickets while streaming. That said, I’m very happy not to be concerned about blowing through any data limits while on vacation!

Ensuring that Screen Time = Family Time
And why all my effort to project a movie onto a hotel room’s TV? Can’t an iPad or iPhone screen suffice during vacation? Not for me and my family. If you’re also a parent with kids, I imagine you might agree that screen time is a complicated topic.

The last thing I want to do is generate more opportunity for little eyeballs to stare at little screens, separate from the larger family focus.

If there is to be movie screen time on vacation, it’s great when it’s part of a larger family activity…experienced together.

Vacation Tech Joy
When bringing extra tech with you to create your family movie nights on vacation, please don’t forget to pack up all of the pieces before you leave. (Adapters have a way of disappearing if you’re not careful.)

And do put the hotel TV cabling back together. The next family may just want to turn on the TV without ‘Frankensteining’ together their own mini movie theater.

Nevertheless, I do enjoy screaming “It’s alive!” whenever I get my vacation TVs to work. A little tech joy always adds to my overall vacation experience.

In fact, I highly recommend it.

February 21, 2022

The Hidden Value of Old Tech is the Mystery

Here’s the story of how this vintage Bell & Howell 8mm movie camera found its way onto my bookshelf.

When old tech stops working, we usually discard it, like a malfunctioning printer or Wi-Fi router. While important to maintaining Tech Zen, this gear operating in the background usually isn’t at the forefront of our consciousness. Plus, once it glitches out, it’s entirely useless.

Why aren’t You Retiring It?
On the other hand, we tend to proactively retire other items in our aging tech arsenals when they’re replaced by newer models with more advanced functionality. Technically, this gear might still work, but it’s slower and no longer retains the original shine.

While it’s entirely appropriate to discard this older tech, we sometimes can’t actually part with it.

Why?

I think it has to do with the good memories created from their use.

No, it doesn’t make much sense, but if you’re already prone to holding onto ‘things,’ as a way to retain some of your positive memories, you may be a poster child for this scenario. (I’m certainly guilty of this.)

Owning a Little Piece of History
Another twist to this techno-hording phenomenon has to do with someone else’s old tech that you inexplicably crave.

If you acquire this ancient gear that you’ll never use, what’s the point in that?

No, this tech may no longer have any functional value, but its ongoing existence reflects something potentially more important…

I think it’s about taking ownership of the mystery of how this tech might have been used during a more glamorous bygone era.

This gear contains unknowable stories of the other people who’ve used this gear. You can only guess at the history.

So, it’s this mystery that creates an inexplicable psychological value in what otherwise would be viewed as junk.

From the Back of a Closet to the Front of a Bookshelf
Take, for example my father-in-law’s vintage Bell & Howell ‘Electric Eye’ 8mm movie camera from the 1960s.

He passed in 2008, but while he was alive, I was unaware of this camera or how he used it to document family events decades earlier.

It was buried in the back of a closet, forgotten and effectively lost.

When it was finally rediscovered, this tech relic had no use, superseded many times over by newer tech.

Still.

An 8mm camera from the 1960s. How cool is that?

And as it turned out, nobody in my wife’s family wanted it, and the camera was about to be thrown away.

So I rescued it.

And I placed the Bell & Howell on a bookshelf in my home office.

No, of course I’m not going to ever use it, but I still enjoy looking at it.

Sure, 20th century and early 21st century tech can have a certain physical gravitas that today’s lighter, sleeker, cheaper gear long abandoned.

And certain vintage tech has nice “craftsmanship.”

But the real allure is what you can’t really know.

The Joy of Creating the Story
There’s actually not that much mystery to my father-in-law’s camera. I, of course, know the family from which it came. (And yes, there’s also a box of old film reels. So, all of the recorded stories actually do exist.)

But if I had picked up the camera at a stranger’s garage sale or an antique store, then it really would be a mystery.

And that would give it even more value.

The value of an unknowable set of stories from a time long past.

Tales you could imagine from scratch.

When Old Tech Mutates into Art
But you also don’t need to dig so deep into the psychological to justify wanting a piece of ‘junk.’

If looking at a created object pleases you, then how is it any different from owning a piece of art or perhaps an antique?

I’ve got to tell you that having an old film camera on my shelf feels fabulous, especially if visual storytelling is your thing.

And that’s certainly my story.

One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.

The why doesn’t always have to be a mystery, but it helps.

December 12, 2021

The Pain of having to Wait after a Cliffhanger

To quote the original “Lost in Space” franchise, “Oh, the pain… the pain”… of having to endure the wait for a show’s next season.

Cliffhangers are the norm in movie and TV storytelling these days. It’s not unusual to get to the credits of anything without a significant hanging thread compelling you to get to the next episode as fast as possible.

My family and I just watched the third (and final) season premiere of Netflix’s “Lost in Space.” And of course, our 11-year-old son was pleading at the end of the episode that we blow through his bedtime to watch the second episode. (As there are only 8, I held the line to extend the joy over these upcoming viewing weeks.)

Keeping Track of the Jupiter 2’s Course
This fun, non-stop sci-fi series has been constructed on an endless number of cliffhangers, and it’s been especially challenging as a viewer to wait between seasons to see what happens. It’s helpful that Netflix automatically served up a recap of season 2 to kick things off. The writers enjoy dropping breadcrumbs, and you really need to keep track of developing plot points across the seasons.

Yes, it’s been hard to handle the long pause between the second and third seasons of “Lost in Space.” It’s been almost 2 years! (Yes, there were Covid-19 production delays.) But the producers have committed to get the fans to the finish line. (I can’t yet speak to the characters’ success on that important question.)

Danger
You’d think that properly ending any story is an essential technique. But of course, viewership numbers can sometimes kill off a series prematurely and leave the cliffhanger… hanging.

It’s not bad storytelling. Its economics. But ultimately, it actually is bad storytelling.

For a time, I wondered if the new “Dune” would fall into this category.

Why do Movies have Cliffhangers to Sequels that aren’t Greenlit?
The writers and producers of “Dune” wisely chose to tackle just the first half of the book (unlike the 1984 flick, which tried to cram it all in).

The start of “Dune” even includes a title graphic that say “Part One.” And yes, the movie ends on a cliffhanger, although it plays more like a chapter ending. It’s arguably the film’s weakest element. But you accept it, because there’s going to be a part two… right?

Well, after I watched it with my son on the day of its premiere in October, I immediately did some Googling to see when the sequel was coming out, and I was shocked with what I found.

It’s not that they hadn’t shot the sequel yet. It’s that the sequel hadn’t even been greenlit! They were waiting to see how successful the first film is.

I get the economics, but come on!

How Good is Half of “Dune?”
Okay, so they did green-light the sequel a few days later. (The sequel will be released in October 2023.)

But imagine if the box office wasn’t so kind to “Dune.” We would only have gotten half a story.

As it turned out, “Dune” was a big success. And my son and I liked it too.

It’s a perfect family film if you’re regulars in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Sure, there’s lots of action and PG-13-level violence. But If your kids can handle “The Avengers,” “Dune” shouldn’t be a problem. “Dune” is more mature in its storytelling style and more serious in tone. And I think it’s a great next step for a young sci-fi fan.

The Economics can Ruin a Movie Fan’s Day
I can’t dispute economics, but it would have been so much better from a viewer’s perspective if both movies were made back to back, like the second and third installments of “The Matrix” series. (Can’t wait for the fourth one, even though it’s been 18 years!)

Hey, what about a three or four-part “Dune” miniseries for HBO Max? (Yes, again that means covering all of the content.)

Ultimately, If you’re going to tell one story, I feel you’ve got to commit to telling the whole story! Waiting for box office numbers can tragically lead to movies without an ending and very cranky fans.

Patience
On the other hand, maybe you’ve just got to have some faith that things are going to work out the way they should. I’m sure director Dennis Villeneuve had faith that he’d get his shot to direct his “Dune” sequel.”

And remember when the pilot of the “Battlestar Galactica” reboot came out in 2003 with a huge cliffhanger? The actual ground-breaking sci-fi series didn’t show up until 2005. So having to wait is not without precedent.

And then there’s “Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back.” We had to wait another three years to find out Han’s fate.

But in this age of countless streaming options and a glut of great content to watch, fans can be fickle.

If there’s a cliffhanger, please don’t make us wait too long for what comes next.

Category: movies

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: