Chasing the Catamaran Dream: Directv, On Demand, Photo, Music, Video's Sling Box

Tuesday, April 8, 2008

Directv, On Demand, Photo, Music, Video's Sling Box

Thought I would share the recent flood of techie stuff that I have learned lately. DirecTV customers listen up. So what does this have to do with Catamarans. The catamaran of my dreams will have all the conveniences of home. The information below could be used to improve life on your boat or your house. Check it out.

The HR10-250 is one of the 1^st HD DirecTV receivers that came out a couple years ago. It is similar to a TiVo box so you can record and pause live TV. It comes with an Off-Air receiver on it. Many of us are in the process or have already upgraded to the HR20 and HR21 DirecTV receivers. Don’t throw away your old HR10-250. Did you know the HR10-250 will function as a free off-air HDTV receiver and you don’t need to pay for DirecTV service to use it? It will still allow you to pause, rewind and FF live TV. You don’t need to have it activated as a receiver through DirecTV to use the Off Air receiver capabilities. I fumbled through the steps to get the unit working without instructions so it is not difficult. You will need to go through the setup and let the system know that you only have an Off-Air antenna. You will need to go through the step of identifying the off air channels in your area and then it should work. I apologize that I don’t have more detailed instructions. There are Help Forums out there like http://www.dbstalk.com/ that will more then likely have the instructions somewhere. You just have to search for them. If you don’t have any luck, send a comment to this post and I will see what I can find.

If you have gone through the recent upgrade to the DirecTV HR20 or HR21 you may already know this, but it is not widely known or advertised since I believe they are still in a beta phase. DirecTV now has On Demand. This is great when there is nothing on TV to watch. Go to On Demand and you can usually find something you want to watch. You will need an Ethernet connection to the Internet connected to your DirecTV receiver. Your best bet is a direct Cat 5 connection from your Internet router to the DirecTV receiver, but in my case I am using wireless. I purchased a Linksys WGA600N which isn't difficult to install. It is marketed towards networked gaming machines. It is a dual band Wireless-N adapter so it will work with the older wireless networks or the newer and faster network standards. It was easy to setup, however in my case I skipped over one step that I shouldn’t have skipped over. The step that advises you to update your wireless routers firmware. This turned out to be a requirement. Don’t skip this step. There is a ton of information here which should point you in the right direction regarding setup here.

Once you have On Demand working you can also share Photo’s, Music and Videos from your PC so you can watch them on your TV through your new DirecTV receiver. The music and photo’s are working great. You can have a slide show while listening to your mp3’s through your TV. It’s great for gatherings and parties. I have not been successful with Video yet which I presume is due to a wireless bandwidth shortage. I have an older Linksys that transmits at a maximum of 54mps and the receiver is not close to the wireless router. It will play for a few seconds and pause or cut out altogether. My plan is to upgrade to the new Linksys WRT600N Dual-Band wireless-N gigabit router. I hope this is the solution, otherwise I will have to try running cat 5 to the TV. Also keep in mind from what I have read and from my experience the Video’s must be mpeg 2’s.

Once the above is working, then the I plan to pick up the Sling Box. This looks cool. Since I work from home a lot and spend a lot of time in the office it would be nice to watch TV there. With the sling box, as long as you have an Internet connection I can watch TV. You could be on you boat connected via Wi-Fi and watch your TV at home. If you are in a Hotel, or Wi-Fi enabled coffee shop you can watch your TV. Pretty cool. The only issue is, whatever you are watching on you PC is what will be shown on you TV, so if you are at home and someone is watching the TV and you want to watch TV on the PC then you will have to fight over what you will be watching. This might not be the case if you have cable since I believe one of the unit’s has a cable tuner in it. This way the TV could be tuned to one show and the Sling Box is tuned to a different channel.

Photo's courtesy of http://www.aeroyacht.com/Yapluka/Sail/main.htm, www.linksys.com and http://www.sunreef-yachts.com/

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Cat Statistics and Performance Ranking Table

Rank	Brand	Model	Aprox Price US	SA/D	D/L	BOA/ LWL	LWL ft	BOA ft	SA sq ft	Min Draft ft	Disp lbs	Bridge Clear-ance ft	Mast Height OWL ft	Payload lbs
2	NG Yacht Design	HIVA'OA 45		44.33	68.11	54.3%	46	25	1667.8	4	14850
2	Outremer	50 Light	$610,000	38.99	55.11	47.0%	50.00	23.50	1,505	4.2	15,432
4	Fusion Catamarans	40	$400,000	33.21	63.30	59.3%	40.00	23.70	900	4.2	9,075
5	Outremer	45	$525,000	34.13	78.56	52.3%	44.00	23.00	1,292	2	14,991		60
6	Outremer	50 Standard	$750,000	32.85	72.00	51.4%	50.00	25.70	1,515	4.2	20,160
8	Outremer	42	$550,000	30.56	80.98	53.3%	42	22.4	1076	1.9	13,440
10	Gunboat	48	$1,600,000	29.79	81.14	50.6%	48	24.3	1371	1.1	20,100
10	Switch Catamarans	51	$825,000	29.91	81.25	54.2%	48.00	26.00	1,378	4.2	20,128		79
13	Dolphin Catamarans	460	$480,000	27.61	91.60	52.7%	45.90	24.20	1,260	4.2	19,842	Good
16	Fountaine Pajot	Salina 48	$1,000,000	28.94	106.17	54.9%	46	25.25	1463.36	3.60	23,149	Good
17	Fountaine Pajot	Orana 44	$780,000	27.92	106.27	57.4%	42	24.11	1177.77	3.94	17,637
18	Knysna	440		33.11	118.24	59.4%	39.67	23.58	1338	3	16,535
18	Voyage Yachts	500 Standard	$630,000	26.48	96.82	57.5%	47.10	27.10	1,320	3.9	22,660	Good	68
18	Fountaine Pajot	Bahia 46	$469,500	27.31	105.67	53.9%	45.11	24.30	1,324	4.2	21,728
18	Fountaine Pajot	Mahe 36	$197,000	26.87	104.60	53.8%	36.10	19.41	829	3.62	11,023
19	PDQ Yachts	Antares 44i	$775	25.88	94.26	50.2%	43.6	21.9	1086	4	17,500
19	Robertson & Caine	Leopard 43	$385,000	27.90	109.89	53.8%	42.60	22.90	1,238	4.2	19,030
21	Aeroyacht Edel	H42		24.42	85.02	51.9%	42	21.8	888	3.00	14,110
22	Robertson & Caine	Leopard 46	$459,000	30.58	120.99	53.9%	44.70	24.10	1,593	4.5	24,206			13,271
22	Chantier Catana	43 Ocean	$750,000	39.49	130.60	56.6%	42.40	24.00	1,948	3.9	22,300	2.70
23	Lagoon	410S2	$350,000	25.67	105.47	57.2%	40.70	23.30	1,012	4.2	15,928
24	Alliaura Marine	Privilege 445	$635,000	27.09	116.97	55.0%	42.15	23.20	1,227	4.43	19,620		62
24	Alliaura Marine	Privilege 495		26.84	113.80	52.2%	46.06	24.05	1,425	4.43	24,910	Good*	65
25	Chantier Catana	47 Ocean	$884,000	33.51	132.55	55.8%	45.30	25.30	1,905	4.1	27,600	Good	64
25	Fountaine Pajot	Belize 43	$700,000	26.71	116.08	54.8%	42	23	1195	4.30	19,264
25	St. Francis Marine	50	$760,000	27.27	118.50	56.0%	47.00	26.30	1,549	4.2	27,558	2.80	71	9,500
26	Admiral Yacht Manufacturers	50	$595,000	24.20	105.44	55.0%	49.30	27.11	1,399	4.2	28,300
27	Gemini	105Mc		26.39	118.27	43.9%	31.9	14	690	1.5	8,600
28	Maine Cat	Cat 30	$174,000	24.30	106.49	61.4%	29.30	18.00	500	2	6,000	2.20	48	2,250
30	Admiral Yacht	38	$395,000	22.79	103.00	60.4%	38.10	23.00	775	4.2	12,760
31	Nautitech Catamarans	47	$592,500	23.75	111.96	56.3%	46.00	25.90	1,244	3.11	24,411	2.60
31	Broadblue Catamarans	385 Sport	$380,000	25.16	119.79	51.0%	38.60	19.70	971	3.5	15,432
32	Broadblue Catamarans	435	$570,000	23.33	110.43	50.5%	43.60	22.00	1,088	4.1	20,502
34	Fortuna Catamarans	Island Spirit 401	$310,000	24.71	122.19	57.2%	39.50	22.60	1,012	4.2	16,868
36	Chantier Catana	52 Ocean	$1,311,200	27.43	155.63	56.2%	50.20	28.20	2,131	4.5	44,100	Good	71
36	TomCat Boats	9.7	$150,000	19.52	103.54	50.0%	32.00	16.00	470	4.2	7,600
39	Robertson & Caine	Leopard 40	$309,000	25.20	141.26	53.5%	37.60	20.10	1,030	3.1	16,820		61	16,820
39	Voyage Yachts	440 Standard	$426,000	24.22	131.10	61.2%	41.00	25.10	1,120	3.5	20,240		62
39	Nautitech Catamarans	40	$355,000	23.37	124.69	54.9%	38.80	21.30	936	3.11	16,314	2.50
40	Maverick Yachts	380		25.73	147.50	69.2%	35.11	24.28	944	2.62	14,300	Good	49
40	Broadblue Catamarans	415		23.67	129.94	53.7%	41.00	22.00	1,088	4.1	20,061
41	Royal Cape Catamarans	50	$635,000	22.05	118.51	58.4%	49.30	28.80	1,378	4.2	31,808
42	Seawind USA	1160	$389,000	22.86	125.29	56.3%	38.00	21.40	881	4.2	15,400
42	Lagoon	440	$500,000	24.74	148.54	61.6%	41.1	25.3	1249	4.3	23,100
43	Broadblue Catamarans	385 aft	$371,000	21.71	119.79	51.0%	38.60	19.70	838	4.2	15,432
44	Maine Cat	Cat 41	$394,000	22.31	128.08	56.7%	40.60	23.00	996	2.6	19200	2.67	60	7,000
44	Alliaura Marine	Privilege 395	$476,000	21.88	122.29	55.1%	39.20	21.60	883	4.2	16,500
45	Lagoon	500	$710,000	23.30	137.71	53.2%	51.00	27.11	1,722	4.2	40,920
45	Seawind	1160		22.86	135.73	57.8%	37	21.4	881	3.90	15,400
45	Lagoon	500		23.73	142.82	57.1%	49	28	1659	4.7	37,639
47	Manta Catamarans	42 MkII	$389,950	20.64	123.23	53.7%	39.10	21.00	833	3.8	16,500	2.00	60
49	Fountaine Pajot	Lavezzi 40	$288,750	22.09	140.73	53.8%	39.00	21.00	969	3.5	18,700	Good
50	Nautitech Catamarans	44	$460,200	22.31	141.50	56.0%	40.00	22.40	1,033	3.11	20,286
50	Dean	441		23.10	160.59	55.8%	43	24	1345	4	28,600	High
50	Lagoon	380S2	$280,000	21.80	136.83	57.9%	37.11	21.50	850	4.2	15,664
51	Royal Cape Catamarans	45	$600,000	22.43	148.87	63.6%	45.30	28.80	1,378	4.2	31,000
57	Multihull Manufacturing Group	Jaguar 36	$230,000	21.28	179.33	63.6%	36	22.9	935	4.2	18,742
58	Lagoon	420 diesel	$380,000	20.01	166.82	61.1%	40.4	24.7	1055	4.2	24,640
58	Admiral Yacht Manufacturers	40	395000	18.30	163.82	64.7%	37.10	24.00	804	3.9	18,739
60	Lagoon	420KW		17.73	199.74	61.1%	40.4	24.7	1054	4.2	29,503
	Manta Catamarans		$389,950

SA/D= Sail Area / (Displacement/64)2/3 Higher is Better.
D/L=(Displacement in lbs/2240)/(0.01* LWL)3 Lower is Better.
Disp lbs=This # will vary and has a significant impact on the Ranking. Displacement empty VS loaded is not always avail.
SA=Total Sail area of the Main and Jib/Genoa
BOA=Beam Overall
BOC=Beam Over Centerline
LWL=Length at Water Level LWL is not always avail and as a result may be an estimate
OWL=Obove WaterLine
Formula Source=Catamarans, The Complete Guide for Cruising Sailors. Tarjan
The stats are subject to change and may not be 100% accurate. Report mistakes via email. Include a url to substantiate your findings.

Beaufort Wind Force Scale

Force	Name	Description
0	Calm
1	Light air.	Or just sufficient to give steerage way.
2	Light breeze	Or that in which a man-of-war, with all sail set, and clean full, would go in smooth water, from	1 to 2 knots
3	Gentle breeze		3 to 4 knots
4	Moderate breeze		5 to 6 knots
5	Fresh breeze	Or that to which a well-conditioned man-of-war could just carry in chase, full and by	Royals, etc.
6	Strong breeze		Single-reefed top-sails and top-gallant sails
7	Moderate gale		Double-reefed top-sails, jib, etc.
8	Fresh gale		Triple-reefed topsails, etc.
9	Strong gale		Close-reefed top-sails and courses
10	Whole gale	Or that which she could scarcely bear close-reefed main-topsail and reefed foresail.
11	Storm	Or that which would reduce her to storm stay-sails.
12	Hurricane	Or that which no canvas could withstand.

Resource:	http://www.sizes.com/natural/beaufort.htm

Chasing the Catamaran Dream

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Tuesday, April 8, 2008

Directv, On Demand, Photo, Music, Video's Sling Box

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