Forcing HDR / Dolby Vision when not supported

 I came across VideoProcessor.org through a thread on AVSForums. From their own description, this sounded like something that might be of use for me to see how far I could push HDR on my venerable JVC X500 projector;

VideoProcessor turns a computer into a 4k HDR capable live video processor by connecting a video capture card to a renderer and taking care of details such as conversion, timing and HDR metadata.

This allows advanced renderers to do things like 3D LUT, HDR tone mapping, scaling, deinterlacing and much more which can significantly improve image quality on most displays and beamers.

It turned into quite the adventure, and when I finally got it working, I thought I'd write up the settings for posterity....

Mapping additional and network drives inside an unRaid Windows VM

On the unRaid forums recently, I was responding to a user who was asking why his VM gcow2 image did not shrink when files are removed (thread here). I advised that auto-shrink is not standard behaviour, and in the discussion, it became clear that the use case was security camera footage. The user figured out that perhaps saving video files to a network share would be better than to the VM boot / system drive, and I mentioned that I do this with my BlueIris setup. I promised a quick guide, so here it is....

Streamer, with benefits

I've spent a while refining my a/v setup and finally got around to building a decent home for all the kit. It now all rests on a DIY pull-out and swivel rack that allows for access as needed. However, one of the problems with any rack is the proliferation of devices and cables. 

In the spirit of consolidation that underpins this blog,  I thought there must be a way of tidying all that up. So I started with a svelte computer case and starting adding stuff in until I was happy.