Ranting Kenya

I only bring this up because recently I heard somebody actually say that “Yes, this is HD, but my good Monster cables are downstairs and I should hook them up.” Here’s the real deal. There is no, let me repeat, NO benefit to using Monster (or any other “high end” brand) cables. Engadget reported that users couldn’t “see the monster difference” when the cables were compared to a coat hanger. Here’s the link for Audiophiles can’t tell the difference between Monster Cable and coat hangers.

I don’t really watch a whole lot of TV programs anymore. I used to watch 2 to 3 shows every weekday night. Now, I consistently watch Lost. This is the only show where I freak out about missing an episode. I frequently watch Star Trek reruns, but I don’t care if I miss an episode because I’ve seen them all 5 times anyway. I watch The Office if at all possible. I catch a good amount of reruns Family Guy, American Dad, and Southpark. Then I watch sports.

Now aside from my many complaints about Shaw’s HD-PVR (the same as Comcast’s HD-PVR, that horrible Motorola box), and my complaints about my inability to get HD (or digital) channels on my Windows Media Center computer (i.e. The “Canada and the cablecard” issue and Shaw’s (my cable provider) encryption of digital and HD channels), I’m still going to rant about something else. Watching TV shows online.

On March 24, Gizmodo reported that all the Southpark episodes are online legally. Sweet. That adds to Hulu.com’s great content and implementation (from what I hear), and also ABC’s online episode viewer.

There’s really only one big problem for me, and my fellow non-Americans… NOT AVAILABLE IN OUTSIDE THE US! I understand that us Canadians (and other countries, but I will speak from a Canadian perspective) have different laws, and different content agreements. But seriously, these shows are already available in Canada. They are, legally. I can already see all of them on my 50 inch television. They’re on all the time, plus with my PVR (or my media center computer) I can watch them whenever. I even skip the commercials *gasp*. I can download them “illegally” from a torrent site and watch them all that way, without commercials. I can goto Blockbuster and rent and entire season on DVD for a fraction of the cost of buying (or even paying for cable/satelite), and even duplicate the discs (I don’t do this, but there are plenty of people that do).

Now imagine if I could just watch them when I want, online from the network’s website. As with the Southpark implementation, you’re forced to watch a couple quick ads, so the ads will be played (unlike with the torrents, PVR recordings or DVDs). I don’t have to worry about missing episodes, I can’t download and keep them forever (nor do I need to since they’re available day or night online), I’m not blowing as much bandwidth as downloading/uploading torrent files, I don’t need to “hide” from the authorities, the networks can actually gather viewer statistics about how popular their shows actually are, they can pilot an infinite numbers shows and keep them available (let’s face it, content is their real issue, not piracy), the networks can reach their viewers more consistantly, they can reach a greater audience and word of mouth can now spread wider and faster (you know all that social phenomenon… facebook and all). What’s better that TiVo’s recommendation feature? How about “Your Friends Recommend”? In fact, it’s a win win solution for everyone.

Now I know I can use a US proxy server, but so far, I’ve had little usable success. I’m going to try a few different methods in the next couple weeks, so perhaps I’ll update this post. But I shouldn’t have to work around these types of issues. This is all content that we all have access to already, this is mearly another delivery method. My only hope is that the South Park Studios changes their “Coming Soon” image to some great laughs soon.

Now that my new computer has arrived, I’ve had a chance to play around with Windows Media Center included with Windows Home Premium. I have clicked around Media Center before, so I had some idea of what to expect. I would also like to preface this by saying I haven’t used a TiVo before.

Media Center immediately makes me mad angry at my cable provider. I can’t get the digital channels, and obviously that includes the HD channels. That is a huge let down, because this product is excellent. It has features for every possible contingency. The guide is snappy, the interface is efficient and good looking, the program loads quickly, it’s generally very good all-around.

One thing I’ve noticed, is that the PVR functions are working without any hitches. On my Motorola 6416 PVR, which works just good enough that I don’t run it over in my car, pausing usually skips a couple frames, same for pressing play afterwards, sometimes the sound goes down, or the picture goes wonky. None of that happens in Media Center. It’s very polished by comparison.

Sports

As a sports fan, I suppose I could complain since there’s not dual tuners for PIP or using two channel buffers. However, this is pretty much as good as it gets with only one tuner. In the sports section, you get to watch a sporting event in a “windowed” screen. But, around the reduced size video, is a ticker of the other sports games across the top. So you may be watching the Calgary Flames game, but you’ll have the instant updates for other NHL games, the NBA games, MLB, NFL, Tennis, Golf, whatever is on. If you click on one, you go to that channel to watch the game.

Also, accross the bottom, there’s a news ticker. It’ll scroll news that you’d see on Fox’s sports website. You can scroll down and click on it, and it’ll take you to the article within the Media Center interface. This is excellent since it doesn’t launch a browser so you can read it all from your couch using just the regular remote control.

Along with news stories that appear on the bottom, it’ll also have game highlight updates from other channels. Things like “Sidney Crosby Scores”. When you click on that, it takes you to the appropriate channel. If you’re paying attention, you’ll be on that channel before the televised replay. It’s an excellent feature.

Searching

My Motorola box also has searching, but it’s really an exercise in patience to use it. In Media Center, searching is easy. The numbers on your remote work like the numbers on a phone. Each number has about 3 letters. As you type, you get real-time results. So you can just type until you see the show you want, saving you the most amount of time possible. Excellent.

Searching allows you to look for shows and movies by a number of categories. Title, keyword, genre, actor, director. What’s neat is say you search for “Sean Connery”, not only to you get the movies he’s been in that are playing in the next 2 weeks, you get all the movies he’s ever been in. You’ll see all the cover art for all the movie boxes, which is much nicer than scrolling through a list of text. Now, seeing all the movies at once doesn’t sound very useful. Who cares if he was in “Dr. No” if it’s not going to be on. Well, Media Center allows you to mark shows that aren’t necessarily on in the next two week to record eventually when they are on. I believe this is a stupendous feature. I could program Media Center to record the world movie premiere of whatever movie when it eventually comes out. I don’t have to think about it.

Online Content

Now I haven’t clicked on all my options here yet, but I did find some excellent features. For instance, you can find other related videos to certain content on the web. So, in my case, I was able to find some post-game sports interviews to watch. They stream right off the web. Awesome.

Media Center Extender

I have an Xbox 360, which I’ve finally been able to use as a Media Center Extender. I didn’t know exactly what it was going to be like, especially since I’m running my 360 wirelessly now. If you look at the network connection on my Xbox, the wireless signal is only 3 out of 4 bars.

This, however, was enough for me to stream HD content (on an 802.11g wireless network) to my Xbox with no frame rate issues whatsoever. It was actually quite exciting that it worked so well.

You can stream live tv, recorded shows, pictures, and music to your extender. There are really only two limitations to this interface. You cannot stream DivX videos with the media center interface. You can play DivX videos on the actual computer in media center, or through the Xbox (but not in the media center extender mode).

The other limitation is that you can’t stream a movie from a DVD in your media center computer to your Media Center Extender. But the Xbox 360 has a DVD drive already, why would I care about this? Well, I was hoping that would work because then I’d go buy a Blu-Ray drive for the computer and I’d have Blu-Ray movies on my big screen. Unfortunately, I was not that lucky. So close!

In Conclusion

I’ve really only had my computer hooked up to the analog cable for a day now, and I’m already really impressed. I’m wishing I had another Media Center computer to hook up to my cable box and then eliminate the need to use the cable-box’s software. I’m also wishing that Canada would go cable card or something similar so that I could get my HD directly into my computer. It’s when I see the potential of things like this that I wish I lived in the US.

All in all, I’m going to be looking forward to getting a flatscreen TV and a comfortable couch/chair in my computer room.

Now that the music industry is allowing it’s content go out DRM-free, the music battle is more or less over. I believe that soon, music will be avaiable from all the major labels on all the major services. Apple pioneered the industry, Amazon was the first to fully nail it (in my opinion), and now there’s a baseline from which to judge the rest.

But what about video?

Well, the newest player out there (as of yesteday) is Apple. They started the music revolution (or was that Napster?), and now they look to duplicate that success for movies.

There’s another gorilla out there too, Microsoft (have you heard of them). They’ve been doing this for a while now on Xbox.

Amazon has their unbox service, which has already gone through some major revisions.

Aren’t we on the tail end of a format war right now?

So what’s the deal with all these services? From what I can tell, here is the list of similarities between them:

• They all use some form of DRM.
• They all work on different devices.
• They’re all rental services.
• They’re all unique, just like all the others.

So here are my quick thoughts on each service:

Apple

Pros

• Apple’s biggest advantage is that it’s Apple. Their computers continue to sell, iPods are huge, iPhones are even bigger. They have a highly desirable brand in the public consciousness.
• In a close second place, it’s next biggest advantage is that they have all major movie studios onboard. That’s better than the iTunes music store, and a great place to start.
• The quality of the HD video that Steve Jobs outlined sounded excellent. Finally the Apple TV will have some HD content, and also 5.1 digital audio.
• You can rent your movies through the simplicity of iTunes, or another excellent Apple interface via the Apple TV that you access from your couch.

Cons

• However, unlike the iTunes music store, Apple will have a much harder time since other companies are working on the digital delivery model too. iTunes was revolutionary, but others have seen the virtues of Apple’s product and business models.
• Media companies are getting more savvy, and more wary of Steve Jobs. Many feel that he unfairly compensated the recording industry with his low prices. He has been hailed for negotiating some of the most lucrative business deal for his own company (hello AT&T and the iPhone).
• Another problem, you have to purchase an Apple TV to enjoy these videos from your couch. Another couple hundred dollar investment.
• Figuring out what you can do with these videos is also a problem (but not unique to Apple). Here’s an example from Engadget.

Microsoft - Xbox Live

Pros

• Microsoft’s biggest advantage is probably that there is already 10 million Xbox 360 consoles in the wild. As far as getting content from the net to the TV with some propietary box, Xbox 360 is way out front.
• Similarily, they’ve already been selling videos (both HD and SD) on their service for well over a year now. In the Xbox 360 vs PS3 battle, a headstart is clearly a big advatage to have.
• An Xbox 360 console does far more than an Apple TV. It’s not a dedicated media extender/set-top box/service. It plays games, plays HD-DVD (with appropriate attachment), plays DVDs, and a whole lot of other stuff.
• As much as it doesn’t hurt to be Apple, it doesn’t hurt to be Microsoft. They’re huge, they got fingers everywhere, they have excellent technology, huge amounts of cash, and they’ll be in the for the long haul no matter what.
• Xbox 360s, when connected correctly, can upconvert it’s output to 1080p. This is a minor destinction to most, but not all.

Cons

• However, Microsoft lacks full studio support. Content is clearly king.
• You need to have an Xbox 360 console, and it’s more money than an Apple TV.
• You have to use these “Xbox points“. And it’s not a 1:1 ratio with real money. And you have to buy them in bulk. They’re annoying.

Amazon

Pros

• TiVo integration. What could be better than having your videos already waiting for you on your TiVo?
• Amazon got music right. Low prices, DRM-free, huge collection.
• They also have a working video service right now. As far as I know it’s PC only, but they’re in the game.
• I also think that Amazon has some unique possibilities regarding sales. They could sell you the DVD copy, while allowing you to rent or buy a digital copy that you can watch before the DVD arrives in the mail. This also eliminates that whole rental/purchase issue.

Cons

• How do you get it to the TV?
• Doesn’t have the brand recognition in this space of a Microsoft or Apple.
• There is no HD as far as I’m aware.

Final Thoughts

All in all, now that HD-DVD seems to be on its deathbed (at the hands of Blu-Ray), we’re really on the beginning of another “format war” of sorts. How are you supposed to pick between services? Some work with some ipods, some only with specific hardware, all have strict DRM schemes, none of them have anything to do with purchasing content, none inter-operate either.

However, I believe that this is a battle that we can’t afford to sit out. I’m sure if the movie studios see no sales in this digital space, it will delay the roll out of truly good download services by years. Money really is the only motivation that us as consumers can provide for large companies to develop technology and delivery methods that work for us.

This is also essentially the problem the music industry just went through. How do we trust our customers and allow them to enjoy the content they purchase the way they want?

*laughs* Actually, wouldn’t cable card solve a lot of these issues?

It seems that Telus may be set to abandon its ‘Betamax” network and is now ogling the hundreds of millions of dollars in roaming revenue that the GSM carriers enjoy by considering a move to tap into it. Of course, this is merely speculation, but the story does seem to be gaining traction and Rogers shares actually suffered a 2.6 percent drop on this news yesterday. The Olympics are in Vancouver in 2010, we’re thinking if Telus really was going to go for it — and shell out an estimated half billion dollars — that would be a prime time to roll out a hybrid EV-DO / HSDPA network.

CDMA provider contemplating move to GSM: The Telus edition - Engadget

Rogers sales will drop a whole lot more if it’s true. Then Telus could bring the iPhone to Canada.

Tags: telus, mobility, cell, iphone, rogers, wireless

Warner actually wanted to go HD DVD. They gave Toshiba the chance to bring another studio into the HD DVD camp before they turned Blu. Fox was lined up, and told the HD DVD camp it was going to switch to HD DVD, which would’ve also turned Warner exclusively HD DVD. At the last possible minute, it nixed the deal.

Lindich says it’s because Fox received a reported $120 million payout from Sony to stay Blu-ray—Warner then switched and received between $400 and $500 million for its defection. BW says it’s closer to $400 million. In our phone call with Warner Kevin Tsujihara said it wasn’t a bidding war that brought them over—that’s true, in the words of Ben Kenobi, from a certain point of view.

Dirty Business: The Real Reason Warner Went Blu-ray

After reading this on Gizmodo, I’m almost mad. I’ve felt that HD-DVD has been superior, I bought an HD-DVD player, I have probably about 8 movies for it. To think that the crushing news of Warner going Blu-Ray was so close to falling on the other side of the fence stings.

Tags: hd-dvd, blu-ray, format, dvd, warner

Well, I’m guessing not actually. But I did find that if you eliminate a keyboard altogether on your dell order, you get no cost savings.

CBC has a feature section this week about the Canadian wireless industry. Basically it has got my blood flowing again.

I have some thoughts that I would like to add.

In my own experience, even though data plans and mobile plans are getting cheaper, they aren’t getting cheaper for me. They never have. If I have a plan that “seems” to work for me for the last two years, that plan isn’t offered to new clients anymore. Also, there is no plan available that is similar that I could use for cheaper.

I don’t think there’s any doubt that price is what keeps Canadian cell phone subscribers relatively low. It’s really simple economics. Price goes down, demand/adoption goes up. Even Sony’s Playstation division seems to be learning this finally. Bell, Telus, and Rogers have divided up the customers, and there happy the way it is.

Bell and Telus now offer the Blackberry Pearl, the 8130 to be specific. Now the 8130 is the version that has the GPS. RIM also has another Pearl, the 8120. Now the 8120 and the 8130 are identical in every way except the 8120 has WiFi instead of GPS. Now why wouldn’t those cell carriers want the phone with WiFi built-in? Oh yeah, to sell their insanely expensive data plans. Why should the carriers choose which phone I can get when the carry an identical phone with only one feature that’s different?

 In my previous posts regarding Safari on Windows, I was a little underwhelmed. There was no real super feature that made me want to switch. To be honest, I’m too connected to Firefox and all my extensions to leave it on a regular basis anyway. However, I fired up the new update to Safari today. Version 3.0.4. I just wanted to see a couple pages without any cached version available. And I wanted to check my yahoo mail, which for some reason the new version crashes Firefox at my work when you exit it. Anyway, to my amazement, Safari 3 is fast. WAY fast. I was loading fresh pages faster than Firefox was from the cache. I tried different types of pages too. This blog, my portfolio site, digg, Bioware’s website. All loaded so much faster. Not even comparable. It even seems to load pictures faster once they start downloading. On a side note, I had another look at the MacBook Pros the other day. These ones were running Leopard and were brand new. The public hadn’t spoiled them yet. There wasn’t even fingerprints on the screens. Anyway, man, those machines are nice.

Let me begin by stating that I have an HD-DVD player (the Xbox 360 attachment). I believe it’s a better format than Blu-Ray, however I also believe a lot of the differences don’t matter that much. You still get great HD and great sound.

However, now I’m really in the middle. I’m starting to feel the effects of some movies on one format and not on the other. It hurt me way back when after I realized that the Bond movies are Sony properties. Now I’m realizing that Superbad is also Blu-Ray only.

This war really feels like Playstation/Playstation 2 versus Xbox/N64/Gamecube/Dreamcast. There is really little difference in the capability of the competitors, it’s the games that made playstation. Blu-Ray feels the same. There’s just more movies on Blu-Ray. Most of them I have no interest in (Stealth, Hitch come to mind due to their big Blu-Ray campaigns), but there are some good ones.

So what’s my solution? Buy a Blu-Ray player too. Ok. Those Toshiba players are going for 100 bucks in the States, how bad could it be?

Well, the cheapest Blu-Ray player is still the PS3 at $400. The standalone players start at $500. Add the cost of 30-40 dollar movies (there’s lots of Bond movies). So factor in a modest 4 movies and your price tag basically starts at $550 (Blu-Ray has a promotion where you get a number of movies, 5 I think, that come with the player, restricted selection however). That’s kind of expensive.