• Topeak Mini 6 on CoolTools: "This incredibly compact, bike-oriented multi-tool has five different sizes of Allen wrench plus a Phillips screwdriver head, all of which folds up into a little pod about the size of a walnut. Sometimes I'll carry it in my pocket or toss it in shoulder bag; mostly I keep it in the under-seat pouch of my bike. It really comes in handy for quick adjustments...."
• Tapping Your TiVo's Hidden Talents on The Mossberg Solution in the WSJ: "... like any old friend -- or spouse -- who has been around for a while, TiVo has a few tricks up its sleeve that might surprise longtime users and new owners alike. This column includes just a handful of those tricks and highlights some features that may make TiVo more useful. These tips are for everyday users, not serious hackers, and many others exist."
• 1Password. It’s All I Need…And This Remote. on Apple Phone Show: "If there is anything I love more than software that works, it’s software that helps me save time and having to type on my iPhone’s keyboard. This is especially significant when having to type my uber-strong passwords into a login password field. I’ve been using 1Password since Macworld, and I really find it helpful...."

• iPhone SDK, Apple's Touch Platform, and The Next Two Decades on 37signals Signal versus Noise: "What we saw today {at the iPhone Software Roadmap Event} was the spark. The explosion will continue for twenty years. We will all feel the warmth."

  "What we saw today was the beginning of two-decades of mobile domination by Apple. What Microsoft and Windows was to the desktop, Apple and Touch will be to mobile...."



• Behind the scenes of the old school HBO intro, a video on YouTube noted on 37signals Signal versus Noise: If you have time to watch any of this 11-minute video produced by HBO about the filming of an introductory film clip that HBO used as a lead in to a feature film presentation, you will be amazed at the amount of time put into building scale models of a city, town, and countryside. Yes this was state-of-the art technology in 1982. But think of how differently it would be done today.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 5:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I expected to be wowed by Steve Jobs' 2008 MacWorld Expo Keynote a lot more than I actually was. However, I was doing other things while the event was going on (real work), and the products that I was most interested in (mainstream Mac laptops) didn't get addressed in this keynote at all.

Bummer for me. I could have bought my MacBook Pro two weeks ago if I had known that the Penryn upgrade wasn't immediately forthcoming.

Here are my comments on the other aspects of the keynote:

• iTunes Movie Rentals / AppleTV Take 2: Clearly the announcement with the most business disruption potential. I agree with one of the commentators on MacBreak Weekly who suggested that Apple is making a play to be the digital media hub in the house, usurping services like Netflix, as well as Television services providers such as Comcast and Verizon FiOS.
• MacBook Air: This is a machine aimed at people who travel a lot or who want a portable machine that is a shadow of their desktop Mac. I could see some very well off Mac users owning the big iMac and a MacBook Air. The MacBook Air is incredibly thin. It's hard to believe a machine with a laptop-like display and keyboard could be any thinner than this and still be usable.

• Time Capsule: This is an interesting extension to the AirPort wireless base station line. Time Capsule is an AirPort Extreme with a 500G or 1T hard disk in it, functioning as Network Attached Storage (NAS).

  My first reaction was, "Bummer. Kathleen just bought me the AirPort Extreme." But then I realized that I would prefer NAS that used RAID 1 or RAID 5 storage anyway. It also costs more than we want to spend on network appliances at this point.



• iPhone 1.1.3 Update: There's some good stuff here. I loaded it on my iPhone already. The cell tower triangulation in the Maps application works pretty well. That feature makes the iPhone version of RinkAtlas viable. Expect an announcement from me on that front soon.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 1:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (1)

At The Home Office, the week of gadget craziness continued. On Sunday night my son Jimmy wanted to watch Teletubbies on FiOS Video On Demand before he went to bed. (Kathleen suggested it and Jimmy got excited about the idea, so that was the plan.) Anyway, we brought up the FiOS VOD subsystem on the television in the living room, and a message says that On Demand isn't available at this time. Try back in a few minutes.

Kathleen said that this happened a couple of days ago, and I should put a call in this time. I called Verizon and was walked completely through a testing process and a set top box reboot by an automated voice response system. It said that my set top box would reacquire the program guide and all would be well again in a few minutes. But, if for any reason the problem wasn't resolved, my call and the details of what was done would be noted in my account to expedite the process of speaking with a live support person.

"This is progress," I said to Kathleen.

Thirty minutes later, the program guide and our DVR functions hadn't reappeared. Jimmy was watching a DVD instead. Kathleen wanted me to call Verizon back and get the problem straightened out.

When I made the call, the computer estimated that I would be on hold for 41 minutes. The alternative offered was for the system to call me back in 41 minutes when a support person became available. That would have been too late for me, so I hung up.

The set top box didn't reacquire the guide all day on Monday, so I called support at about 9:00pm. The wait was much more reasonable. It turned out to be under five minutes, although the computer's initial estimate was longer.

I went through a guided reboot of my router and my set top box. Eventually the set top box reacquired the guide, so I ended up being happy that the problem was solved.

A new problem developed with our Local Area Network. Apparently the process Verizon used to reset my router and set top box blew away my router's configuration, including its password. I had to troubleshoot my LAN to determine that the LAN's IP address range changed, then I realized that the password on my router changed. Eventually I realized that the router had just been reset to the default settings. So I reconfigured it to the way the network was before the problems occurred, and now I hope that everything is working once again. (I know that the Internet is working, otherwise I wouldn't be writing this article right now.)

The lessons I learned from this process are:

• Don't use FiOS' automated voice response system to troubleshoot your TV while someone is watching it. You will probably temporarily lose additional services for at least as long as an automated system test takes.
• Document your LAN configuration in case Verizon decides to reset your router to its initial state.
• Keep that LAN configuration at your fingertips when calling Verizon FiOS support even if the call is about TV or telephone.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 1:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

• Apple Releases a New "Get a Mac" Ad Co-starring a Football Referee on Apple.com: Pretty good attention to detail. The referee is wearing a white hat and a uniform that is very close to that worn in many college football leagues. What I would add to this is the referee turning on his microphone and speaking over the public address system. [ Seen on TV over the weekend. ]

• Andrea Jung Joins Apple Board of Directors on MacRumors.com: "Apple has announced that Andrea Jung has been elected to Apple's board. Andrea also serves as Chairman and CEO of Avon Products, board member of General Electric, and member of the New York Presbyterian Hospital board of trustees and the Catalyst board of directors."

  Why the CEO of Avon and why now? Speculation is that her board seat at GE will make her helpful in brokering an agreement with NBC Universal to bring them back into the iTunes fold.



• Break a Soda Habit with Better Water on Lifehacker: "Have a serious soda habit? Part of the lure of the stuff is the convenience and fizzy texture, not just the sugar content you can get from lots of other places. How-to blog TipNut details one writer's cheap, simple fix—giving water more appeal." My habit is Caffeine Free Diet Coke, so I don't have the caffeine or the sugar but I still have the soda fix. I just drink way too much of it.


• Chalet Doll House on BabyGadget.com: "...this Chalet Doll House from Plan Toys is like a breath of fresh air with its openness and lack of minuscule plastic parts. With movable staircases and skylights, this doll house comes completely furnished - sans family...." Nice looking, substantial, and modern.


• Philips Blu-ray Player BDP7200 on Ubergizmo: "The BDP7200 is Philips’ first Full Profile 1 compliant BD player that features Dolby® TrueHD and DTS® HD High Resolution Audio, multi-channel audio decoding and digital audio optical outputs. The BDP7200 supports 1080p at native 24 frames per second...." On display at CES.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 8:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

An article called What This Gadget Can Do Is Up to You really caught my eye today when it appeared on The New York Times website. This article describes the Neuros OSD Media Center, a sleek looking video recorder that looks like it could have quite a few immediate applications. What makes it most unique is the fact that its software is built on a number Open Source applications and the MPEG4 video standard. The article begins as follows:

“HACKERS, welcome! Here are detailed circuit diagrams of our products — modify them as you wish.”

That’s not an announcement you’ll find on the Web sites of most consumer electronics manufacturers, who tend to keep information on the innards of their machines as private as possible.

The Neuros OSD reminds me in some respects of the Nokia N800 and N810 Internet Tablets. These are all devices built on Open Source foundations that take a defiantly different approach to meeting customer needs in their space.

I've started talking about hacking the N800 here on Operation Gadget, and honestly hacking is the big attraction of these devices. I'd probably prefer Apple devices for day-to-day use, but I'd learn more from owning and trying to use a Nokia Internet Tablet and the Neuros video recorder.

Just like my friend Lionel is considering using a Nokia N800 as an alternative e-book reader to an Amazon Kindle, I think some people will be looking hard at a Neuros OSD Media Center as an alternative to an AppleTV.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 11:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

PVRblog pointed out that Steve Garfield is blogging about the Comcast deployment of TiVo software on their existing Motorola DVR set-top boxes. I found an article on Steve's site that includes a Ustream video tour of the Comcast / TiVo user interface. Overall, the experience looks similar to the TiVo Series I and Series II experiences that I've had in the past, although Steve is complaining in the video about speed and navigation issues.

I'm sure that there are more good articles on Steve's blog (offonatangent.blogspot.com) that talk about other aspects of the Comcast / TiVo experience. I haven't had time to read them yet.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 3:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

PVRblog pointed out that NBC has decided to pull its programming out of iTunes and move it to Amazon.com Unbox, a fairly new service from Amazon.com that competes with iTunes for video download sales. I think this is a mistake on NBC Universal's part, and it has little to do with the fact that I own an iPhone.

One of the things that entertainment companies should realize is that the device choices that early adopters make will have a big impact on entertainment companies' download sales in the short term. I know that I am a lot more likely to buy video content from iTunes now than I was before I got my iPhone. There are hundreds of thousands of people who bought an iPhone since June 29 who probably feel the same way.

What compelling device will drive new customers to Amazon.com to purchase videos from Unbox?

The list of portable devices that are compatible with Amazon.com Unbox is uninspiring. The most compelling device that's compatible with Unbox is not portable. It's TiVo.

I am a big TiVo fan and a long time user, and I buy a lot of stuff from Amazon.com, but I don't have the capability to play Unbox videos on my unit. (It's a DirecTV-based TiVo, so it doesn't have the Internet networking features of the pure TiVo units that make Unbox available.) Since most of U.S. households don't have TiVo units compatible with Unbox either, I think NBC has limited significantly reduced its potential audience for video download sales.

In a broader sense, I don't see how the Unbox service creates sales momentum for itself based on exclusive content deals alone.

It's possible that NBC's strategic error will become more apparent after Apple announces its new line of iPods this afternoon.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 7:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Taking a look at all of the recent articles on hacking AppleTV that are appearing on technology-related blogs and forums:

• Streaming from URLs on Apple TV
• Apple's not fighting back against Apple TV hacks
• We just got xvid working on the Apple TV

(to name a few)... I'm starting to wonder if there's hope for the same kind of laissez-faire attitude from Apple toward hacking the iPhone.

I've never really believed that the iPhone will be as much of a walled garden as Steve Jobs indicated in his post-keynote comments. I think the process of getting third party apps on to the first generation iPhone will be convoluted, but it will be possible in some form or fashion. Someone will get ssh running on it. Someone will get a third-party Dashboard widget to load on it.

When this happens, the vanguard of the iPhone users will go to the trouble of learning how to do it, and that will be the way that people make their iPhones unique.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 8:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I got back to thinking about AppleTV this morning after I read A week with AppleTV: A Review on PVRblog.com. This cool little set-top box is designed to stream video content from your iTunes account to your HD television. It supports 720p resolution out-of-the-box, but most of the video content available on iTunes is only available in 480p. The question on my mind, and on the minds of most other gadget bloggers lately is: Why isn't iTunes hosting movies and videos in 720p yet?

The rub seems to be the file sizes of 720p content. According to 43 Folders' latest article about this issue, a two-hour movie in 720p format weighs in at about four Gigabytes. This file would take up over 10 percent of the usable space of the current AppleTV model, and take a non-trivial amount of time to download. (Do the math using the effective throughput of your own broadband connection.)

The comments attached to the 43 Folders article are just about as good as the article itself. They raise a number of questions about whether residential DSL services will be adequate for the amount of downloading that people may want to do once iTunes starts providing lots of 720p content. Throughput aside, some residential DSL plans place monthly caps on downloads. If you have a 40-Gigabyte download cap, that would mean you could only grab about 20 hours of 720p content per month before your provider would start complaining to you.

The other thought that came up on 43 Folders was that AppleTV would create a boom in video podcasts available in the 720p format. I can see services like NHL Network and Cycling.tv being beneficiaries of devices like AppleTV and the PlayStation 3 video download capabilities.

I also wonder how long it will be before iTunes and other similar services are extended to provide live or nearly-live video on demand?

Posted by Dave Aiello at 10:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

There was a very interesting article about the Olevia brand of High Definition Televisions in yesterday's New York Times. The company behind the brand, Syntax-Brillan Corporation sold almost $250 million dollars worth of HDTVs in the fourth quarter of 2006 alone.

One of the key reasons that the Olevia brand is successful in the U.S. consumer electronics market is because they capitalize on the huge number of LCD display panels available at the wholesale level. The number of factories in Asia that were built to manufacture these displays was far in excess of anticipated demand several years ago. Although the demand for HDTVs has soared in the last 12 to 24 months, most people looking at the industry still see an LCD display panel glut on which companies like Syntax-Brillan can capitalize:

{Vincent F. Sollitto Jr., Syntax-Brillan's CEO} is essentially taking a ride on the falling prices of flat panels, the main component in the TVs, and the drop has steepened because of a glut. It owns no factories, but buys the panels and has contracts with four manufacturers to assemble the televisions. This keeps costs down but is risky because the company does not control the supply of parts.

It appears from this article that Syntax-Brillan is using this period of rapidly declining prices to attempt to establish Olevia as a name brand for HDTVs in the United States. This would allow them to compete more on features than on price in the future, if the availability of LCD panels is easy as it is now.

The Olevia brand is also greatly helped by the selection of its Olevia 542i 42-inch model as a Consumer Reports Best Buy in the 40-inch and larger LCD HDTV category. [ Free registration required to read most articles in The New York Times. Paid subscription required to read most articles in Consumer Reports. ]

Posted by Dave Aiello at 9:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I was impressed with Walter Mossberg and Katherine Boehret's comparison between the LP-to-CD Recorder Stereo System made by Teac America and the Ion iTTUSB Turntable that was published in today's Wall Street Journal. According to the article, they decided to do this comparison in response to a steady stream of questions from baby boomers who want to convert tracks from their 45s and LPs to digital audio.

They preferred the TEAC LP-to-CD Recorder Stereo System (also known as the TEAC GF-350 Turntable / CD-Recorder) to the iTTUSB Turntable, which seems like an unusual choice at first glance. The TEAC GF-350 won't rip tracks from records directly to MP3s, you first have to burn the tracks onto CD using the built-in CD burner. Their reason for making the recommendation is their impression that the Audacity software provided with the iTTUSB Turntable is not appropriate for non-technical users:

Audacity opened and worked -- but only after we followed the manual's exhausting instructions and got help from the company's tech support. One step had us searching a list of confusing terms to select our computer's sound card, a task that would rightfully baffle any mainstream user. We listened to tracks through our computer's speakers as we copied music onto our computer.

But Audacity's most glaring problem is its inability out of the box to convert your imported vinyl tracks into MP3s -- the main purpose of the product. To do this, you must leave the software program, go to Audacity's Web site, find the URL link for a third party's Web site, download an MP3 conversion plug-in and run it within Audacity. The software never explicitly tells you how to do this.

The biggest issue that I have with their explanation of the Audacity software is that Mossberg and Boehert never point out that Audacity is an Open Source Software project. As such, Audacity will probably never provide an MP3 codec as part of the project, due to the patents that have been issued on the MP3 encoding scheme.

I think that the biggest issue with the Ion iTTUSB is Ion's lack of focus on providing good PC software to date. There's no reason I can think of that Ion couldn't include clearer directions on the use of Audacity to produce MP3s. They could probably even include the MP3 plugin for Audacity on the CD they ship with the iTTUSB without violating Audacity's GPL license.

Instead ION has apparently decided to say very little about software to drive the iTTUSB, other than the fact that it's working on new software for a Spring 2007 launch. The Wall Street Journal says, "Next April, Ion Audio plans to introduce its own software program that will come bundled with the iTTUSB. Ion says this will have its own built-in MP3 conversion program, as well as the ability to automatically detect the start of new tracks."

I agree with the conclusion of this comparison: anybody who want to rip old vinyl to MP3s at this point is better off using a two step process: convert the tracks from vinyl to CD using the Teac stereo unit, then rip the CDs to MP3s on a PC or Macintosh. I'm going to update past Operation Gadget articles that refer to the iTTUSB to reflect this recommendation.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 12:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Verne Gay of Newsday.com wrote a column called How iTunes saved 'The Office' that I've been meaning to point out. Kathleen has fallen in love with The Office in the past few months, but if there's truth to what Verne Gay is saying, the program wouldn't have lasted on NBC's schedule without strong sell-through on iTunes.

The column quotes Angela Bromstead, President of NBC Universal Television Studio as saying:

I'm not sure that we'd still have the show on the air. The network had only ordered so many episodes, but when it went on iTunes and really started taking off, that gave us another way to see the true potential other than just Nielsen. It just kind of happened at a great time.

The article goes on to point out that expected iTunes success is probably going to save 30 Rock for oblivion.

I guess this indicates that the most effective way to support a niche show that you love is to get an iPod and buy episodes, not to write letters to network management.

Technorati Tags: The Office, 30 Rock, NBC, iTunes

Posted by Dave Aiello at 9:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Martin O'Donnell pointed out that Brier Dudley of The Seattle Times didn't like The Sony PlayStation 3 as much as he would have if it had been less expensive. Dudley wrote:

Don't get me wrong. The PS3 is an amazing machine. I'd love to have one sitting beneath my TV. But not for $500 or $600. That's just too expensive for a game console, even one that incorporates a bleeding-edge Blu-ray disc player.

He goes on to point out that he doesn't think that the PS3 will necessarily make a better downloaded movie player than either the XBox or Apple iTV, the forthcoming set-top box from Apple. Is he going out on a limb by making such a prediction about a product that's only been seen in a Steve Jobs demo?

Technorati Tags: PS3, Xbox, Apple iTV

Posted by Dave Aiello at 5:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Earlier today, Jason Fried of the web application service provider 37 Signals reported that he had noticed an improvement in the responsiveness of the Comcast DVR thanks to the most recent software update pushed by Comcast. According to Fried:

I have a Comcast DVR. It recorded on time, the menus and interface were decent (I prefer TiVo’s UI, but Comcast’s is fine), and it was reliable.

But it was slow. Click fast forward and it felt like there was a 1-2 second delay. Hit stop and wait another 1-2 seconds. Sometimes more. The waiting killed the convenience....

... I just noticed that Comcast updated the software..... Now menus selections are sharp, button clicking is crisp, and things happen when you ask them to happen. The experience is finally satisfying.

I agree with Jason when he says that it's rare that products with significant software components get faster as they mature, even as more features are added. Apparently this is one case where a set-top box has actually improved rather than degraded. And, believe it or not, Comcast is the company responsible for this improvement. Will miracles ever cease?

Posted by Dave Aiello at 4:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Last night Kathleen and I watched the latest episode of The Apprentice that we had recorded on our TiVo. The program originally aired on Monday, but we just freed up enough time to watch it.

During this program, GE aired one of its ads in its One Second Theater series. These ads are designed to get Digital Video Recorder users to stop and study the ads closely. What GE did was to embed 5 to 10 screens of information in an otherwise typical 30-second ad for their Ecomagination initiative.

I saw that there was something different about this ad from the first couple of frames that appeared. I started watching the ad at standard speed and saw a series of flashes. I rewound the ad and watched in slow motion, eventually dropping down to frame-by-frame viewing. At that point, Kathleen said I was a "tool of the media," which is a term I use to describe myself, so I wasn't offended.

I think this type of creativity is going to get TiVo users attention, at least in the short term. I'll certainly be looking for more of these ads during programs that we record from NBC.

Technorati Tags: One Second Theater, The Apprentice, TiVo, GE, NBC.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 11:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

My wife Kathleen spent yesterday afternoon at our friend Jen Colangelo's house watching The Chronicles of Narnia on Jen's big, new plasma television. When she got home, Kathleen said the movie (which was played on a progressive-scan DVD player) looked "amazing" compared to movies on our old, analog, 480i TV.

All a progressive-scan DVD player does is transmit images in 480p, the so-called EDTV format, instead of 480i. This is a huge advance in picture quality, which becomes more obvious as the size of the monitor increases. That's why DVDs look so good on HDTV sets.

A new generation of DVD players with higher resolution than 480p is on its way. There are actually two competing standards: HD DVD and Blu-Ray. Both will offer the ability to project images to an HDTV at 720p or 1080i depending on the format that the producers chose for the movie. The questions for many home theater fans is, at what point do I upgrade to a more advanced DVD player, and which format should I choose?

Martin O'Donnell pointed out a syndicated article from The Los Angeles Times by David Colker where he reviewed the first HD DVD players from Toshiba and came away less impressed than he expected. Colker said, "unless you already have a high-definition television at least 40 inches in size, you won't notice much of a difference."

His recommendation to people who have not yet bought the HDTV set of their dreams is to invest the $500 that a first-generation HD DVD unit would cost in a bigger HDTV monitor. "In the time it takes to save up another $500, the price of HD disc players will probably drop and a pending format war may well be decided."

The article includes some surprising revelations:

• HDTV sets without HDMI component interfaces may not be able to display HD DVD movies at anything above 480i resolution.
• Smaller HDTV sets with HDMI don't benefit from HD DVD as much as you'd expect because the difference in resolution is a lot less obvious on small monitors.

The article barely mentions the fact that HD DVD and Blu-Ray movies are virtually impossible to get at the moment. Thankfully, HD DVD and Blu-Ray players are backward-compatible with standard DVDs, so if you did decide to spring for the new technology, you could replace the standard DVD player in the component stack.

Technorati Tags: home theater, HD DVD, Blu-Ray, HDTV, EDTV.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 9:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Alan Lofft of Axiom Home Theaters wrote a great piece for eCoustics.com that offers do's and don'ts for setting up your first home theater surround system. The tips I particularly liked were:

• "Don't turn the levels of your surround speakers up too high because you can't "hear" them. You aren't supposed to hear them in the conventional sense; that is, if they're set at the correct levels, the surrounds should not call attention to themselves...." [ Don't you wish that movie theaters would try this also? ]
• "Don't run your new HDTV (rear- or front-projection), plasma, or LCD panel at its brightest setting and shorten the life of the set (or the projector bulb). In the A/V business, that's called "torching" the set. The brighter you run them, the shorter the longevity of the plasma panel or the DLP/LCD projector bulb...." [ This always concerns me about plasma sets. ]

[ via LifeHacker ]

Technorati Tags: home theater.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 8:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Kathleen and I had lunch with our friend Jennifer Colangelo over the weekend. She is is the proud owner of a huge, new plasma HDTV set that she mainly uses to watch DVDs and play games on her Xbox 360. As we discussed her new TV, I found out that she receives no HDTV channels using it. I asked why, and she told me that she couldn't figure out a way to get HD channels from Comcast without paying at least $70 per month.

Jen said that she would consider paying that much for cable during the NFL season because she thinks HD adds alot to the experience of watching the game, but even then the price is more than she wants to pay.

Jen has a viewpoint that I hadn't considered before. She's very technically sophisticated, and knowingly spent several thousand dollars on a beautiful HDTV receiver without planning to receive HD channels at all. DVDs and video games in high definition were enough for her.

My question to her was: Why not get an antenna to receive HD channels over-the-air?

Back in January 2005, I helped a friend install a home theater with DirecTV and over-the-air HDTV, so I knew this was possible. The difference is that Jen lives in an apartment, so I needed to find an antenna that could be discretely mounted inside or on a small exterior wall that's available to her.

The antennas I found that look promising are:

• Terk TV-55 HDTV Indoor/Outdoor Amplified Antenna
• TERK HDTVLP Indoor / Outdoor HDTV Antenna

I like the clean design of the Terk TV55, but the Terk HDTVLP is a more recent model. LAaudioFile.com has a great review of the Terk TV55 that was published about three years ago. They say, "The TV55 has an operational bandwidth of 54MHz to 806MHz and covers the full spectrum of the conventional antennas found on roofs decades ago. An inline amplifier has a gain of 10dB for weak signals and a bypass mode for the stronger signals."

Other comments about these products indicate that:

• these antennas are very directional, so you need to align them properly with the location of the transmitter you are trying to receive. AntennaWeb's over-the-air transmitter locator allows you to enter your address and learn the orientation and distance of each nearby TV transmitter. Choose "Show Digital Stations Only" for HD transmitters.
• these antennas require the proper cabling. Use RG-6 cable for the antenna lead-in to the receiver, not the cheaper RG-59.

Technorati Tags: HDTV, over the air, antenna, home theater.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 7:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Martin O'Donnell recently visited Costco Warehouse #1 in Seattle, where he saw the following sign:

All Digital TVs at Costco are displaying High Definition content. In order to view the same picture quality at home, you must upgrade to HD programming.

Martin added, "It goes on to explain how a standard definition signal displayed on an HDTV may be 'disappointing'. I'm guessing that the number of returns by 'disappointed' consumers has hit a fairly high level."

This story may have more legs than readers of Operation Gadget realize. According to an article on HomeTechNews.com, a recent survey of HDTV owners commissioned by Scientific Atlanta indicated that 49 percent of HDTV owners aren't taking advantage of the HD features of their sets. This means that they don't receive HD programming because they lack "an HD set-top box, a CableCARD, and/or an {over-the-air HD} antenna".

The article goes on to point out:

• "... 28% of HDTV owners reported that they did not get any special equipment from their service provider to watch HDTV channels because the picture quality was already improved with the purchase of an HDTV."
• "23% of HDTV owners did not invest in special equipment to watch HDTV channels because a message at the beginning of the programs they watch tells them that those programs are being broadcast in HD."
• "... 18% reported that they believed the HD television would give them high-definition channels without additional equipment."

If a relative or friend who isn't technically-oriented suddenly announces that he or she is buying an HDTV set, try to assess their understanding of the technology and equipment and service requirements. If they don't seem to know what they need to know in order to take best advantage of the technology, consider recommending a how to book such as HDTV for Dummies or The Home Electronics Survival Guide.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 1:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Amazon.com just put the Mission M-Cube 5.1 Home Theater Speaker System on sale, bringing the price of the package below $1,000 for the first time.

The M-Cube 5.1 is one of the few home theater systems that uses NXT speaker technology but doesn't emphasize flat cabinetry. NXT technology was designed to radiate sound uniformly throughout the room by vibrating large panels rather than magnetic cones. A lot of audio designers fell in love with the ability to produce flat speakers, despite the fact that cubic NXT speakers sound significantly better. So many flat NXT speakers were produced that the technology itself has been mischaracterized as flat-sounding and tinny.

The M-Cube 5.1 has gotten a number of excellent reviews. A review of the M-Cube in The Daily Mirror said:

Performance-wise the M-Cube really is something of a marvel. The way sound disperses throughout a room when using the system really needs to be heard to be believed. The wide-range of the panels used in the satellites means there really isn't a best-seat in the house as the sound feels balanced throughout the whole room.

Designtechnica's review of the M-Cube said:

The M-Cube system, which comes with five satellite speakers and a powerful 250-watt subwoofer, was engineered using distributed mode loudspeaker (DML) flat-panel technology, which combines wide-ranging acoustics with freedom in aesthetic design.... Mission had the flexibility to team with British designers Seymour Powell to create a compelling cube-shaped housing that measure 3.5 inches in each direction.

The Mission M-Cube 5.1 Speaker System is available with midnight black or ivory cabinetry.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 8:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The ViewSonic VX2025 won a 20-inch Widescreen Monitor Group Test published yesterday at Bit-Tech.net. The VX2025 was judged the best value for the money against the following competitors:

• BenQ FP202W
• NEC MultiSync 20WGX, apparently not available in the U.S. but the closest model is the NEC MultiSync 20WMGX2-BK
• Acer AL2032WA

On performance alone, Wil Harris liked the NEC, but it was 25 percent more expensive than the ViewSonic. Unless you need the highest possible LCD response for gaming, you'll probably find the ViewSonic to be the best buy.

Technorati Tags: ViewSonic VX2025, BenQ FP202W, NEC MultiSync 20WGX, Acer AL2032WA, widescreen LCD monitors

Posted by Dave Aiello at 1:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The other day Cool Tools pointed out a product called the PowerSquid Outlet Multiplier and I'm planning to pick one up over the weekend for my server area in my basement. Down there I have a DSL router, a firewall appliance, a WiFi access point, and two VoIP ATAs plugged into a power strip which feeds into an uninterruptible power supply. (See VoIP Service Stayed Up for Three Hours During Power Failure Thanks to a Good UPS if you want more configuration details.) The AC adapters for those five devices are relatively big. They each cover part of the electric outlet next to the one they are plugged into in the power strip.

A device like the PowerSquid would make it possible for me to use all of the outlets that are attached to it. I think the design of the PowerSquid is very simple and logical, and the price seems to be quite reasonable. I could use one of these around my desk in the Home Office and behind the television in the living room as well.

Technorati Tags: PowerSquid, outlet multiplier

Posted by Dave Aiello at 2:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

A page one article in today's Wall Street Journal discusses the technological threats that are developing to the television industry's business model. One example given in the article is that Major League Baseball's MLB.tv video streaming service collected $265 million from 1.3 million subscribers last year, but still blocked subscribers from watching coverage of their own local teams over the Internet. The reason they did this is because any decrease in the likely audience for a game broadcast over a local cable or over-the-air channel reduces the amount that these affiliates are willing to pay for transmission rights.

The article goes on to point out that The Slingbox (a device that allows you to stream content from your television to your PC and other devices via the Internet) and the Video iPod are considered important new threats to the television industry's business model because of the ability they give owners to place-shift their viewing. Place-shifting is potentially a bigger threat to the television industry than time-shifting because place-shifting seems to reduce the viewer's reliance on a local television station. So, if you choose to buy episodes of Lost from the iTunes Music Store, the local ABC affiliate in your city would probably say that you've decreased the value of that episode to them and their local advertisers.

A lot of people think of themselves as the broadcaster's customer when they watch a television program, but this isn't the case. Access to viewers is a service that broadcasters deliver to their advertising customers.

A year and a half ago, Operation Gadget reported on the battle between the National Football League and TiVo over TiVo-to-Go. Back then, TiVo-to-Go was considered a potential piracy threat because the service was designed to allow up to 10 "affiliated devices" to receive stored content from the TiVo DVR. The thought was that the affiliated devices might not all be owned by people in the same family.

That debate took place before Apple shipped iPods with the ability to play back good-quality video. Now that the TV industry is sensitized to the notion of place-shifting, the loss of program value to the local affiliate would probably considered a bigger issue. [ Subscription required to read many articles in The Wall Street Journal. ]

Technorati Tags: Slingbox, MLB.tv, Lost, Video iPod, iTunes Music Store, TiVo

Posted by Dave Aiello at 7:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Even though I live and work in Bucks County, PA, I still listen to New York City radio stations whenever I can. Most of them are flat out more entertaining than stations of the same format broadcasting from Philadelphia. One drawback of listening to New York radio stations as much as I do, however is that there are some significant gaps in the format map:

• New York has no country station on AM or FM, since Y-107 changed formats in 2003
• New York has no oldies station on AM or FM, since WCBS-FM switched to Jack FM in June 2005

This situation is changing now that several of the major radio station networks are rolling out high definition radio broadcasting, also known as HD Radio. According to an article in yesterday's New York Daily News, HD radio is bringing back the classic formats on the HD2 channels of many big New York stations. Oldies are coming back on WCBS-FM's HD2 channel. Country is back on WKTU's HD2. Modern rock returns to WFNY's HD2 after just recently being displaced by talk on the primary FM channel.

HD Radio differs from Satellite Radio in two respects:

1. HD Radio broadcasts from traditional radio transmitters already utilized for AM and FM
2. HD Radio uses the broadcast economic model: advertising-supported, as opposed to the Satellite Radio subscription model

You need an HD Radio receiver to start listening to these HD2 channels. The hottest selling HD Radio sold through Amazon.com at the moment is the Boston Acoustics Recepter Radio HD High Definition AM/FM Clock Radio. This is the HD version of the Recepter AM/FM Clock Radio. You pay a $350 premium for HD radio circuitry right now-- talk about an Early Adopter Surcharge. I hope this price gap decreases as the number of HD receivers produced increases.

There's no question that my next tabletop radio for the Home Office will have HD Radio circuitry. The questions are: when will I buy it and what will it cost? I still want to try Satellite Radio for a while, and I may buy a subscription to it before I try HD Radio.

Technorati Tags: HD Radio, Boston Acoustics Recepter

Posted by Dave Aiello at 11:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

While researching my article on the White Screen of Death problem my Treo is having, I ran across a recent piece by Stewart Alsop where he asks "Do the vendors choose the color of the death screen intentionally?" He says that the screens of death for his favorite gadgets are:

• Blue for many flavors of Microsoft Windows
• Green for TiVo and DirecTiVo
• White for Treo 650Treo 650 handsets that work on the Cingular, T-Mobile, Sprint, and Verizon mobile networks

Stewart and I both have each of these products. I feel fortunate to be able to say that I've only seen two of the three screens of death that Stewart has seen. (I own two TiVos, but I've never seen the Green Screen of Death.)

I told my friend Chris Nolan about Stewart's story. She laughed out loud when she heard it because she knows Stewart pretty well. Small world. Chris has a TiVo, but hasn't experienced the Green Screen of Death either. She has made other platform choices for her computer and her phone, so those two other colored screens don't apply to her.

Do you know of any screens of death that are notorious because of their telltale color? Let me know by posting a comment and I'll add them to the story.

Technorati Tags: Treo 650, TiVo, DirecTiVo, Microsoft Windows, BSOD, WSOD, GSOD

Posted by Dave Aiello at 6:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The Associated Press reports that Howard Stern bid his terrestrial audience fairwell today and encouraged them to tune in to him on Sirius Satellite Radio on January 9, 2006. According to the article, Stern began his show by saying, "Good morning, and welcome to the last show on terrestrial radio," while the sound of "Taps" played in the background. HowardStern.com has a countdown to the day when there is "no more FCC, no more boss, no more interference...."

Whether you like The Howard Stern Show or not, you have to have a certain admiration for Stern's willingness to walk away from one of the most popular syndicated radio programs in the United States. He will attempt to recreate it in the context of a subscription service.

I'm wondering if lifting the speech and content restrictions that have been the bane of Howard Stern's existence since at least 1995 will be entirely positive for the show and its audience. There will have to be limits, but what will they be? I guess you'll have to tune in on January 9 to find out.

But, before you do, you'll need a Sirius-compatible radio. So check out a few options:

• SIRIUS Sportster Replay Plug-and-Play Satellite Radio, 6-line LCD display, 44-minute memory buffer
• JVC KT-SR2000 Plug 'n' Play Sirius Satellite Radio Receiver, smaller and less expensive than the Sportster
• Sirius S50 Satellite Radio Receiver System Pack, 50-hour recording capability, MP3 capability, built-in FM transmitter

Technorati Tags: Howard Stern, Sirius, Sirius Sportster, JVC KT-SR2000, Sirius S50, Hanukkah gifts, Christmas gifts

Posted by Dave Aiello at 12:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

My father-in-law has gotten back into LPs lately after the family got him a stereo with an integrated turntable. When he got it, the thought crossed my mind that someone who has a big vinyl collection and liked the sound would have all kinds of trouble ripping those tracks to their iPod. Ubergizmo reported yesterday on what sounds like a good solution. The Ion iTTUSB Turntable with USB Record works with USB-enabled PCs running Windows 98, 2000, or XP or Apple Macintosh computers running MacOS 9 or greater. No special USB drivers are required.

The iTTUSB Turntable works with 33 1/3 and 45 RPM records. It has adjustable anti-skating controls, line level RCA outputs, and pitch control for up to 8 percent.

The turntable comes with Audacity, a free, cross-platform sound editor that is often used by podcasters, as well as a trial copy of BIAS SoundSoap 2 which is a similar commercial product.

Update: On December 13, 2006, I decided to recommend the TEAC LP-to-CD Recorder Stereo System (also known as the TEAC GF-350 Turntable / CD-Recorder) instead of the iTTUSB Turntable. The reason is that the Audacity software that ships with the iTTUSB at this time is too complex for many PC users tastes. People who are not expert-level software users should consider the LP-to-CD Recorder Stereo System instead. Read the full article for a more detailed explanation.

Technorati Tags: Ion iTTUSB Turntable, iPod, Audacity, BIAS SoundSoap, LPs, 45s, USB peripherals

Posted by Dave Aiello at 8:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

On Thanksgiving, my cousin Brian Lynch and I exchanged emails about our dilemma as owners of DirecTV Series 2 digital video recorders. Brian said:

My DirecTV Tivo has two USB ports in the back. The instruction book says the ports are for "future use". Do you think I can hook a USB cable from the Tivo to my computer and get movies & shows from Tivo to my computer? My laptop has a DVD burner... So that would be valuable to me.

He and I are in similar situations because I have a Philips DSR708 which was sold to me by DirecTV in July 2005. My response was:

... it's unlikely that {the USB} ports will ever work unless you hack the OS. DirecTV forked the OS before TiVo rolled out many Series 2 features.

I looked into this back in July when we moved to Newtown. Someone has done an unofficial kit to upgrade the DirecTiVo to Series 2 features, but I wasn't interested in doing that level of modifications at the time. We could look at it again now that DirecTV has {stopped selling} TiVo-based units.

I went back and reviewed the information available on the Internet, and found that PTVupgrade.com offers some upgrade kits that enable many Series 2 features. These upgrades are about as plug and play as you can get. You simply open up the enclosure following the instructions, install the replacement hard drive, reassemble the enclosure, attach a compatible wireless network adapter, and restart the DirecTiVo.

Matt Haughey of PVRblog reviewed the PTVnet DirecTiVo drive upgrades back in February 2005, and he was impressed. He includes screenshots of most of the new features that are enabled by the upgrade.

As good as this upgrade looks, it still voids your DVR's manufacturer's warranty, so make sure you understand that you are taking a risk before ordering an upgrade.

Technorati Tags: DirecTV, TiVo, TiVo Series 2, TiVo upgrade

Continue reading "DirecTiVo Owners Have a Pretty Simple Upgrade Option to Get Series 2 Features" »

Posted by Dave Aiello at 11:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

My friend Ralph Guarrieri has a rear-projection standard definition television, wants to upgrade to a new HDTV set, and asked me, "Which HDTV set should I buy to replace my Rear Projection TV?" Like practically everyone I talk to, he had already heard about plasma televisions and asked if I thought buying one was a good idea.

Plasma TVs may be the coolest looking High Definition sets on the market. I tend to see them installed in newly-constructed houses and in houses that have undergone significant additions or renovations. They are capable of displaying images with unbelievable brightness and excellent contrast. They are also extremely thin and light enough to be wall mounted.

My immediate reaction to Ralph's question, however, was to say that plasma televisions are not necessarily the right choice for every home theater for a number of reasons. Here are a few reasons why you may want to consider other technologies:

• Brightness degradation: Plasma TVs are eye-poppingly bright when they're new, but become gradually less bright over time. Most people I know who have conventional picture tube TVs expect them to last for years with little change in picture quality.
• Power consumption and heat production: Consumer Reports warns that plasma sets "use a lot of power and generate a lot of heat". I live in an area with relatively high electricity rates, so I would think twice about buying a plasma set.
• Reflections possible in brightly lit rooms: If you plan to put your HD set in a naturally lit room, plasma TVs sometimes have problems with screen reflections.

Alternative technologies include traditional cathode-ray tubes designed for HDTV use. They are big and heavy, with most large screen sets weighing over 100 pounds. I helped install a 34-inch Sony HD set in a home theater last January and I thought the picture was excellent. Another option is liquid-crystal display technology (LCD). These TVs are thin and light like plasma sets, but become more expensive than plasma at the largest sizes, and can have poor contrast.

I like the Panasonic TH-42PX50U Plasma HDTV if you are in the market for a 42-inch screen. If you have the money to spring for a 50-inch model, you'd be hard-pressed to find a model better than the Pioneer PDP-5050HD.

Technorati Tags: HDTV, Plasma TV, LCD TV, CRT TV

Posted by Dave Aiello at 11:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Many media organizations reported that TiVo announced that the ability to transfer recorded programming from TiVo Series 2 digital video recorders to iPods with Video Playback and PlayStation Portable handheld devices. I emphasize that this capability will be available from TiVo Series 2 DVRs such as the TiVo TCD540040 Series2 40-Hour or TiVo TCD540080 Series2 80-Hour units and not the DirecTV TiVo DVR that I have at my house. Bummer for us.

According to an article that appeared in The Wall Street Journal, recording formats used by TiVo and the iPod differ, so the TiVo Home Media Option will have to be extended to support this conversion and a Windows-compatible PC will be required. As a result, the process is expected to be an overnight synchronization rather than an immeidate transfer.

TiVo is trying to demonstrate the value of a subscription to their digital video recorder service. The Home Media Option that was announced with great fanfare in mid-2003 had little appeal for me, but this feature is far more interesting. I don't need to remind you that I said video playback is going to be a very hot feature of portable media players in 2006, do I? [ Paid subscription required to read many articles from The Wall Street Journal ]

Technorati Tags: TiVo, iPod, PSP, PlayStation Portable

Posted by Dave Aiello at 4:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1)

Toy Wishes Magazine has released its ever-popular Hot Dozen Toys for 2005. This list is intended to forecast which toys will be the most popular during the 2005 holidays. We can safely assume that if the magazine is correct, many of them will also become hard to find in stores at some point in the near future.

Dora's Talking Kitchen: One of my
favorites on the Toy Wishes Hot
Dozen Holiday List. Product photos
courtesy of Amazon.com.

The Hot Dozen List includes (in alphabetical order):

• Black Belts Karate Home Studio DVD: an inexpensive active play set with a video component.
• Dora's Talking Kitchen; My wife Kathleen says that the kitchen play set at her pediatrics office is the most popular toy in the waiting room.
• Fly Wheels Assortment; Couldn't figure out which toy this was, so I'm recommending the Fly Wheels Rapid Fire Launcher for the moment.
• Furby: an electronic friend that comes in multiple color combinations.
• iDog: an electronic dog that dances to music that's being played in the room. Accessories are also available.
• iZ: an interesting combination of cartoon character, speaker for music playback, and music mixing tool. You change the beat of the music by twisting iZ's ears and pressing on his belly.
• Leapster L-Max Learning System: portable version of Leapster learning system. Requires new games, available separately. Works in conjunction with TV, if connected.
• The Magnetix MagnaWorld Series: lead by Magnetix MagnaWorld City. MagnaWorld Clock Tower, MagnaWorld Magna Central, Rescue Center, and Airport also available.
• Pixel Chix: including Pixel Chix Cottage House, Beverly Hills House, and Miami Loft. Interesting electronic house simulators. Kids interact with a Pixel Chix Pal, paying attention to the Pal in order to keep advancing in the game; Ignore and Pixel Chix Pal moves out.
• Shell Shocker Radio Controlled Toy: a toy with a "bio-mechanical design" that can shift from a rolling bowling-ball type shape to a reptillian-looking robot and back. Requires a Tyco Pro Flexpak Battery and Charger and a 9-volt battery, which adds to the cost.
• VCam Now: digital camera / video camera designed for kids. Holds 480 pictures or 7 minutes of video.
• V-Smile Pocket: portable version of V Smile-- a 2004 favorite. Uses the same cartridges as the bigger unit, potentially a big savings.

VTech V-Smile Pocket:
Little brother of the V-Smile Learning
System, which was a big hit in 2004.

If the 2004 Hot Dozen list was heavy with electronics, the list is overloaded in 2005. There are only two toys on this list that don't have a big electronic component: Black Belts Karate Home Studio DVD (also available in VHS) and the Magnetics MagnaWorld Series. I bought a set of Magnetix building toys for my nephew, Ben, a year or two ago, and I really wish they had been around when I was a kid, because they're fun to build with.

Last year, Operation Gadget readers bought a lot of VTech V-Smile, a video game-based learning system for preschoolers. In my opinion, this either means that V-Smile Pocket will be a similar hit, or it will be a dud. VTech has a strong lineup of add-on cartridges compatible with both devices based on Winnie the Pooh, Mickey and Friends, and the Little Mermaid. If these cartridges are entertaining as well as educational, I'm sure parents and grandparents will buy them, and many hours of fun will be had by all.

I'm concerned that the mix of electronic and non-electronic products in the Hot Dozen has tilted too far toward the electronics this year. Will there be hits in the non-electronic genre this year, in spite of the lack of attention? What do you think?

Technorati Tags: Hot Dozen, Toy Wishes Magazine, Christmas gifts, Hanukkah gifts

Posted by Dave Aiello at 4:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (2)

The Wall Street Journal reports in its Tuesday edition that NBC and CBS have struck video on demand deals with cable and satellite TV providers to allow the replay of some of the most popular prime time television shows for a fee of 99 cents. This will allow the subscribers to Comcast Digital Cable and DirecTV who do not own DVRs to time shift their television viewing to some extent.

According to the article:

The distribution deals will allow viewers to order episodes of some prime-time shows -- including hits like "Survivor" and "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" -- for 99 cents apiece. CBS, a unit of Viacom Inc., made its deal with cable company Comcast Corp., while General Electric Co.'s NBC Universal set its pact with News Corp.'s DirecTV, a satellite TV provider.

I think this is a pretty bold move on the part of network executives. They have done what they could to force their audiences to reserve time at night to watch popular programs on the networks' schedules. This policy continued through the beginning of the Digital Video Recorder era, but now they appear to have realized that they need to alter their strategy and maximize their revenue before the majority of digital TV subscribers convert to set top boxes that allow them to record programming for free.

It will be quite interesting to see if this move results in a change in the rate of adoption of DVRs. Will $0.99-per-episode video on demand of the most popular prime time programs be a good enough deal for some subscribers who haven't already brought a DVR into their homes?

Another interesting tidbit contained in the Wall Street Journal article is that Bob Wright, CEO of NBC Universal is reported to have said that his company is "very close" to working out a deal with Apple to provide content for the new video iPod as well. [ Subscription required to read many articles in The Wall Street Journal ]

Technorati Tags: NBC Universal, CBS, Comcast, DirecTV, DVR, PVR, Apple Computer, iPod

Posted by Dave Aiello at 11:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This morning's Wall Street Journal reports that Dell is having trouble competing with electronics superstores in the home theater market. This is most clearly illustrated by Dell's decision to eliminate its business unit that exclusively sold and marketed products aimed at "consumers": regular people who buy electronics for use in their homes.

If you think about the experience of purchasing a flat panel HD television, you can see why this is a hard market for Dell to crack. They want to sell direct to the customer, but this means that they have to use catalogs and ecommerce to make sales and only offer a limited selection of third-party products. If you go to Circuit City or Best Buy, you can see HD sets from Panasonic, Sony, and Samsung side-by-side and make a more informed choice.

My favorite way to shop is to go to a bricks-and-mortar store, find a product I like, then shop for it on-line and see if I can get a better deal. Once in a while, you'll find a great price on an HD set like the Samsun LN-R408D 40-inch LCD HD Television that makes it worth installing yourself.

This is the kind of thing we did when I helped install a home theater with a 34-inch flat screen HD television in January. [ Subscription required to read articles from The Wall Street Journal. ]

Posted by Dave Aiello at 10:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Phillip Swan of TVPredictions.com obtained a copy of the manual for the forthcoming R15 DirecTV Plus Digital Video Recorder. The DirecTV Plus DVR is going to be marketed instead of the DirecTV DVR with TiVo that's currently being marketed by DirecTV. The sales and marketing switch-over is expected to take place in October.

Swann went through the DirecTV Plus DVR manual and identified the unique features of this unit. They include:

• 90-minute program buffer,
• frame-by-frame program replay,
• program bookmarks, and
• caller ID display for incoming phone calls on a connected phone line.

A few of the things that Swann referred to as new features in the DirecTV Plus DVR don't seem like new features to me. One example is the enhancements to the on-screen programming guide. Swann said:

The programming grids include a symbol for when a show is broadcast in the widescreen format or if you have set it to record.

My DirecTiVo has those feature.

The decision by DirecTV to switch DVR platforms is significant to them and to their former partner, TiVo. I'll try to keep an eye on it and report on new developments.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 10:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

If you're cursing the fact that you had to get up this morning to watch the extended coverage of Stage 9 of the Tour de France on OLN because you'd miss it otherwise, maybe it's time for you to invest in a TiVo. You're in luck if you've waited until now.

TiVo has just reduced the price on the 40-hour TiVo Series 2 Digital Video Recorder to $99. This is a pretty nice deal, particularly because you can get two free months of TiVo service if you buy from Amazon.com (normally about $26 when you choose the monthly payment plan).

This is a great time to order a TiVo because tomorrow will be a rest day in the Tour de France. This means that you can get your TiVo through one-day delivery in time for the next day of racing. (Of course you could go down to a local electronics store and pick one up today or tomorrow as well.)

Technorati Tags: Tour de France

Posted by Dave Aiello at 9:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit today invalidated Federal Communications Commission rules requiring the implementation by home theater equipment manufacturers of the Broadcast Flag which was intended to stop individuals from copying certain digital television programs from one storage device to another. The FCC ordered the rules into place two years ago, saying that all video-recording equipment sold in the U.S. on or after July 1, 2005 must support the flag.

I'm obviously thrilled to hear about this decision. The Federal Government shouldn't be placing copy controls on every digital media device because of the acts of some copyright violators. That would be like outlawing cash because some people don't properly report their income and pay their taxes.

I haven't linked to PVRblog in a while, but Matt Haughey has a good piece up already called Broadcast Flag shot down! that provides links to most of the information needed to understand this decision and what it means to each of us.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 4:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Reports are all over the Internet that Comcast and TiVo reached an agreement allowing TiVo to provide Personal Video Recorder software for Comcast's existing settop boxes and network platforms. Such a deployment is expected to take until mid to late-2006 to hit the majority of the markets that Comcast serves.

Most analysts have concluded that this agreement will sustain TiVo for the foreseeable future. In fact the TiVo stock price was up as much as 75 percent on the news.

It's hard to know where to begin in analysing this deal because it puts so many things into perspective. Comcast must have been looking at its current PVR offerings in comparison to the new PVR coming from DirecTV; By this I mean the NDS PVR, not the DirecTV TiVo unit. Could they have concluded that enhanced versions of their existing PVR technology would not compete well with DirecTV's in a few years? Or might they have concluded, as some analysts suggest, that they didn't want to have to drive the development of a premium PVR user interface or directly deal with the more difficult network integration tasks, particularly when a deal could be made with TiVo (and their considerable patent library) relatively cheaply?

I've been a TiVo devotee since the dawn of the technology. I think that most of the analysts and bloggers who had TiVo on a deathwatch weren't PVR uses themselves. Anyone who's seen screenshots of the Scientific Atlanta PVR implementation that's being used in some Comcast markets ought to realize that it's got all the UI refinement of a Microsoft 1.0 software product.

I think Comcast had so many issues to deal with before its PVR lived up to the hype surrounding it that making a deal with TiVo made nearly as much sense for Comcast as it does for TiVo.

TiVo would have had to go Chapter 7 before I would have given up on it. It doesn't seem like that's in the cards now, as if it ever really was in the first place.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 10:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The other day a close friend of mine told me a story about his father. His father has hundreds of hours of video that he recorded on VHS tapes and wants to preserve these recordings for long term archival purposes. My friend said his father would like to convert these tapes to DVD and he was on the verge of recommending that his father invest in a home theater PC, despite the fact that his father has never been a computer user.

I started looking around, and there are a number of options short of buying a home theater PC that will probably do the job quite well.

One of the more interesting options I found is the Sony VRD-VC10 DVDirect External DVD Recorder. This is a device designed simply to convert incoming video feeds to DVDs. You can connect a videocamera or VCR, insert a recordable DVD disc, punch a couple of buttons, and the DVDirect starts the conversion process.

The DVDirect converts video in real time. This means that converting a 30 minute program on a VHS tape to DVD takes 30 minutes.

I think the key to the value of a device like the DVDirect is the simplicity of it. There is a very limited number of options that can be selected from the front panel. You can do conversions with the DVDirect without having to connect the device to your TV and your A/V receiver. I think this is an advantage for people who have sophisticated home theaters but are not themselves technical.

On the other hand, the DVDirect is a fairly limited device in the sense that it does only one thing well. Some people may balk at paying over $250 for a device that they may use for a month or two, then put aside. If you are planning to continue recording programs and archiving them, you probably need something more sophisticated like a DVD recorder component or a home theater PC.

I'm not sure my friend will be happy to hear that a device like the DVDirect is available and is so simple compared to home theater components with DVD recording capabilities. I think deep down he wanted to find a reason to get his father using a computer, even if it's a home theater PC. The truth of the matter is that devices like DVDirect make a computer unnecessary. Whether his father wants to get a PC anyway is another issue.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 5:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Did other Operation Gadget readers see the first episode of the third season of The Apprentice last night on NBC? The goal in the first episode was to promote one of six new hamburgers that Burger King has announced and sell it at one of the Burger King franchises in Manhattan. The winning team marketed the Western Angus Steak Burger.

If you go to the Burger King website today, you'll see that the company has launched a new on-line promotion, offering customers an opportunity to build "an even better burger" than the one that the apprentices promoted.

I suggest that this is one of the best examples of the kind of product promotion that will succeed in the Digital Video Recorder era.

My wife and I watched a 90 minute program on NBC, at least 40 minutes of which could be considered an advertisement for Burger King. The show got us talking about which burger we would choose to market, whether the marketing approaches used by the teams were effective, and so on.

I don't normally eat at Burger King, but I'll probably stop in sometime in the next week or two and get one of these Western Angus Steak Burgers to see how it tastes.

A couple of days ago, The Los Angeles Times published another article about the threat that DVRs pose to the current television advertising model. The title of the article, Looking for New Ways to Make Viewers Pay, implies that the editor of the newspaper doesn't get TiVo or the other DVR products.

I say this because the "younger, more affluent and technology-savvy" users of DVRs don't respond to much of the advertising pushed at us on television today. On the other hand, many of us don't object to the appearance of some product or brand information in a television program or another sort of story, if the story itself is compelling.

The Apprentice Season 2 was all about product placement. From the perspective of Kathleen and me, some of the episodes worked and some didn't. I think more of the episodes would have been entertaining, and successful promotions of the brands involved, if the cast had better chemistry and was more imaginative or entrepreneurial.

The new Apprentice episode was a good start. The cast seemed to work together more harmoniously, and on that show it's particularly important. On the basis of how brand promotions on The Apprentice work, I can see that this technique can be successful. The previous season indicates, however, that this product placement technique is not 100-percent successful and is not entirely dependent upon the strength of the brand or any related product. [ via Engadget , registration required to read The Los Angeles Times article ]

Posted by Dave Aiello at 12:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Chris Anderson writes The Long Tail, a blog that I added to my Bloglines feeds recently. A week ago, he started a posting a really interesting series of articles called Long Tail TV. These are reflections on television that's available in the United States and some of the technologies we can use to view and manage it.

Here's a bit of the first article that Operation Gadget readers may find interesting:

As your thumb crawls through your several hundred digital cable channels, TV may appear anything but shackled. Yet it is. What seems like everything imaginable is instead a very thin slice on the video world. The existing channel structure mostly rewards focused programming with enough depth to fill a 24/7 window every day of the year. So the DIY channel and History en Espanol now pass muster, but the Halo 2 Physics Hacks channel does not. An acceptable loss, you say? How about last year's great season on Bravo, long ago overwritten by your DVR to save space?

Both the channel-centric reality of TV and its ephemeral nature are artifacts of the distribution bottleneck of cable broadcast. TV is still in the era of limited shelf space, while the lesson of the Long Tail is that more is always better. The growth of cable capacity over the past decade pales next to the growth in video creation over the same period and the size of the potential microaudiences for anything and everything. TiVo may have helped by at least taking the tyranny of time out of the equation, but we are nowhere near the iTunes model of being able to download everything ever made, anytime.

If that got your attention, then make sure you check out:

• Long Tail TV,
• Long Tail TV: Part II,
• Long Tail TV: Part III,
• Long Tail TV: Wishlist, and
• Long Tail TV: Conclusion.

BTW, I just made my Bloglines feeds public for the first time in order to point to it in this article. If you've ever wondered which 150-plus sites one gadget blogger tries to keep up with on a daily basis, check it out. As I've said before Bloglines is changing my life. It may be able to help you too.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 2:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Today's New York Times reports that TiVo was in advanced negotiations with Comcast to become their Personal Video Recorder technology provider as late as the Summer of 2004, but backed out of a possible deal because the per-subscriber revenue they would receive was not high enough. This information came to light along with news that Michael Ramsay, TiVo's CEO, will be stepping down from that post but retaining his role as Chairman of the Board of Directors.

The article says that Ramsay was concerned about TiVo's long term viability if it became a software provider to large cable systems, as Liberate Technologies and OpenTV have done. The difference between TiVo and these other companies is that TiVo already had over 2 million direct subscribers. I'd argue that a company like TiVo could straddle the two markets until it became clear which one deserved more of the company's resources.

It's frustrating to a TiVo fan like myself to hear that a deal could have been made. I'd be thrilled if the soul of the TiVo became the basis for future home theater systems in homes around the world. Instead it's quite possible that the system I've chosen for my stack will remain a niche player in the market as less elegant solutions become dominant. [ Registration required to read The New York Times article. ]

Posted by Dave Aiello at 1:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Bryan Greenway of Home Theater Blog and Jonathan Greene of Atmaspheric Endeavors are teaming up to launch a new blog called Mac HTPC to explore the potential of the Mac mini as a home theater system.

A number of people (including me) think that the Mac mini has many of the features necessary to make it an excellent home theater system. It's good that two experienced bloggers have moved to fill the need for a blog in this emerging niche.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 9:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

After last week's HDTV home theater installation article, Operation Gadget got a number of questions asking for an explanation of the terminology used to describe HDTV. Rather than reinvent the wheel, I thought I'd point to a few articles where much of that information already exists:

• Defining TV Jargon by Walter Mossberg of The Wall Street Journal: This article defines the different types of flat-screen televisions (Plasma, LCD, and DLP). It also points out that not all large, flat-screen TVs are capable of receiving HDTV signals.

  Walter Mossberg strangely leaves conventional CRT (Cathode Ray Tube) systems out of his article. As you know if you read the HDTV home theater article, we installed a Sony WEGA KV34HS420, a 34-inch HDTV-capable CRT. This set is a great value if you are OK with its size and weight.

• Fine-Tuning The HDTV Picture by Stephen H. Wildstrom of BusinessWeek: This article explains the difference between the display formats (1080i and 720p). HBO HD broadcasts much of its content in 1080i in order to show the most detailed images available. ESPN HD uses 720p to broadcast a better picture than conventional television with faster on-screen action than the 1080i format can handle.

  We were careful to take pictures of the Sony WEGA KV34HS420 when it was showing both of these channels, so you could see how that TV handles each format. Check out those photos in the Operation Gadget Photo Gallery.
  

Posted by Dave Aiello at 9:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Home Theater with HDTV: We
installed a 34-inch HDTV Flat-screen CRT,
an A/V receiver, a DirecTV HD receiver,
a HiFi VCR, and a DVD player.

See how we did it in in the Operation Gadget
Photo Gallery. [ Photo: Dave Aiello ]

On Thursday, I installed a very nice HDTV home theater at a friend's house in Central New Jersey. The system includes the following components:

• Sony WEGA KV34HS420, a 34-inch, 1080i-capable, direct view, flat-screen HDTV set,
• Pioneer VSX-1014TX, an Audio/Visual receiver,
• RCA DTC210 DirecTV HD receiver,
• a DVD player,
• JVC HR-A63U, a HiFi 4-Head HQ Video Cassette Recorder from the previous television system,
• a 6-disc CD Changer, and
• two stereo speakers that were in used in the previous television system.

This was the first time that I helped install HDTV, so I learned a lot in the process. All I had ever done was watched HDTV at bars, restaurants, and in stores, so I didn't know what 1080i, 720p, and 480i specifically meant. Now I do. I also got some experience installing fiber optic audio which was new to me.

I was really impressed with the quality of picture that the Sony WEGA KV34HS420 receiver produced. This is a great flat-screen HDTV for the price. It intelligently handles the different picture formats it receives, making each format look as good as possible. The 1080i picture we got on HBO HD and the 720p picture from ESPN HD looked amazing.

I wanted to get the first set of photos up on the site and captioned as quickly as possible. I'm going to come back in the next couple of days to add more photos, follow-up comments, and reflections, so check back regularly.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 1:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1)

I will be building a home theater today in Central New Jersey. We can't blog it, because there is no broadband connection there, but we intend to post an article about the experience later on tonight or tomorrow morning.

Update: Here are links to the how-we-did-it article and a photo album that document the key parts of the process.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 7:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

In case you didn't see the outcome of the TiVo giveaway in the Bay Area, The San Jose Mercury News reported that nearly 2,000 TiVo PVRs were given away to Comcast customers who had wanted Comcast PVRs but had not yet received them. More than 2,000 toys were collected for the Family Giving Tree, a San Francisco area charity "dedicated to fulfilling the Holiday wishes of children who would otherwise go without gifts."

As a result of the previous story on the TiVo give-away, Martin O'Donnell pointed out that the TiVo Series2 40-Hour Digital Video Recorder is now less than $80 after the main-in rebate at Amazon.com. They throw in free shipping, provided you are OK with receiving the PVR after the holidays. If you want one and you didn't have time to make the trip to Alviso for the event, this is a pretty nice deal.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 11:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

TiVo announced that they will give away TiVo units to Comcast customers who can get to TiVo's headquarters in Alviso, CA tomorrow between 11:00am and 1:00pm Pacific Time. In order to receive a TiVo, you will need to bring:

• a Comcast cable bill for current service,
• a photo ID matching the bill,
• a new toy or piece of clothing to donate to charity.

Note that you will need to sign up for the TiVo service (either $12.95 per month or $299 for the life of the new TiVo unit). Apparently this is being done to call attention to the fact that Comcast is having difficulty rolling out its PVR service in the Bay Area, and TiVo is attempting to capitalize. [ via Engadget ]

Posted by Dave Aiello at 11:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Martin O'Donnell pointed out this Tech Bargains article reporting that the Philips DVP642 DVD/CD/MP3/DivX Player is in stock at Amazon.com. Tech Bargains calls the DVP642:

... currently the hacker's favorite DVD player. Plays downloaded movies. DVD, DVD-R/RW, DVD+R/+RW, CD, CD-R/RW, VCD, SVCD, MP3-CD, MPEG-4, Picture-CD and DivX 3.11/4.x/5.x, AVI.

... as well as about 7 or 8 other useful formats. The best part is that you can burn files in any of these formats on to a DVD disk and the DVP642 player will figure out how to play them.

The Philips DVP642 is number on on the Amazon.com Electronics Top Sellers List, so it may not be in stock for long.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 1:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Toshiba SD-H400 Combination Progressive-
Scan DVD Player and TiVo PVR: Currently
the least expensive device with
TiVo Basic service. [ Photo: Amazon.com ]

Some people who are interested in owning a Personal Video Recorder don't want to pay for value added services from companies like TiVo. Earlier this year, TiVo rolled out a service called TiVo Basic that lets users of some TiVo-enabled devices record TV programming in a VCR-like fashion with no monthly service fee. (More information about the differences between TiVo Basic and TiVo Plus services can be found on TiVo's Customer Support Site.)

Jaime Villacorte recently wrote a review of the Toshiba SD-H400, a combination TiVo PVR and progressive-scan DVD player. The SD-H400 has the distinction of currently being the least expensive PVR that has TiVo Basic service capability. As such, it's worthy of a look, if only to those in the market for a no-frills PVR experience. [ via PVRblog ]

Posted by Dave Aiello at 11:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Martin O'Donnell pointed out a Reuters article published last week that declared the home video cassette recorder dead. The article cites several reasons for the pronouncement:

• Dixons, one of the UK's biggest electronics dealers, has announced that it will stop selling VCRs after selling them for 26 years,
• British police report that VCRs are often not taken in robberies, and
• 450 million households worldwide will have at least one DVD player by 2008, according to industry estimates.

There are plenty of indications that the VCR is on its way out in the United States as well. Stop by your local Blockbuster and you'll find that there are fewer VHS tapes available every day.

I want to take the VCR off my home theater component stack, but then I wouldn't have a way to archive a program that I've recorded on my TiVo. Maybe it's time to upgrade to a TiVo with a built-in DVD burner, like the HUMAX DRT800 DVD Recorder / TiVo Series2 DVR Combo. This would allow me to burn a copy of a program that one of my relatives missed, like last night's episode of Overhaulin' with Lance Armstrong, and loan it to them. Currently, this is the biggest use of the VCR that's connected to our home theater.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 8:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Roku Soundbridge M1000: A great
companion for your iTunes music library,
except that it won't play secure files
purchased from the iTunes Music Store.
[ Photo: Amazon.com ]

Ever since I started building my iTunes music library, I've been toying with the idea of buying some sort of network audio streamer to allow my wife and me to play songs from our library during parties. There is a large number of these devices on the market now. One of the most heavily advertised is the Roku Soundbridge M1000 from Roku Labs. This is a stylish device that looks good in your high-end audio component stack.

It has a 280 x 16 element blue flourescent display that is visible from some distance away. The display shows the title and album information for each track, sound frequency levels, and timing-related information. The Soundbridge M1000 and its siblings include a remote control that lets you navigate your library using Roku's Fast Browse interface.

Roku claims that the Soundbridge is the "Most Compatible Player" because it supports Apple's Rendezvous and iTunes as well as Microsoft Windows Media Connect and Windows Media Player 10. It is not, however, entirely compatible with iTunes, because it will not play secure AAC files purchased from the iTunes Music Store. This doesn't affect me that much right now, but it is an impediment to total ITMS enjoyment if you buy and install a Soundbridge.

I like the Roku Soundbridge M1000, but I wish more of the reviews I read of it pointed out that iTunes Music Store music doesn't play on it at the moment. That's really important information. If you definitely need iTunes Music Store play-through capability, you have to look at the Apple Airport Express.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 12:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Martin O'Donnell pointed out a CNet report that says superslim cathode-ray tubes will hit the television set market soon at significantly lower prices than flat-panel displays. Pioneered by LG.Philips Displays, these superslim CRTs are at least 20 to 30 percent less deep than traditional CRTs, are expected to be priced at $250 to $500 when assembled into a television and sold at retail in the United States. Superslim CRTs are already being produced in 21 and 30-inch sizes and will go on sale as televisions in the first quarter of 2005 in South Korea and in the second quarter the USA.

According to Riddhi Patel, an analyst with market-researcher iSuppli, "CRTs are not going away anytime soon. They will account for 70 percent of the market in 2008."

If 21 and 30-inch CRTs can be made into TVs for $250 to $500, they will be stiff competition for low-end LCD televisions.

I looked for a photo that would help tell the story of these new CRTs, but none of the ones I've found so far really gave me the impression of the size difference between them, existing flat panels, and traditional CRTs.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 2:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Just in time for the holidays, Amazon.com is releasing a series of five short films that highlight products in their vast catalog. The first film, Portrait, stars Minnie Driver, Amanda Detmer, and a number of products including:

• handheld gadgets:
  • the Jabra FreeSpeak 250 Headset,
  • the Nokia 6600 Mobile Phone, and
  • the Motorola V600 Mobile Phone,
• women's fashions like the BCBG Max Azria Double Face Skirt, and
• Sephora cosmetics such as Sephora WaterColors - Cooling Collection.

According to the Amazon.com press release, "Amazon Theater enables customers to enjoy world-class short films free-of-charge, visit special artist boutiques to learn more about their favorite actors, and purchase products that they've seen in the films -- all in a uniquely Amazon.com environment."

The Amazon Theater films are produced by RSA USA, Ridley and Tony Scott's production company, in conjunction with Fallon Worldwide. They are similar in concept to the BMW Films produced beginning in 2001. The remaining four films will be released on the consecutive Tuesdays.

I watched "Portrait" in Flash and QuickTime and I thought it was really interesting. I'm planning to watch each of them as they are released.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 5:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Buffy the Vampire Slayer--
The Complete First Season is on
sale for $14.99 at Amazon.com.
A number of other first season DVD
series for Fox shows are on sale
as well.

Slickdeals.net reported that Amazon.com has Fox "Season One" DVD Series on Sale for $14.99. The DVD sets on sale include:

• Buffy the Vampire Slayer - The Complete First Season
• Angel - Season One
• 24 - Season One
• Roswell - The Complete First Season
• Futurama, Volume 1
• The Simpsons - The Complete First Season
• King of the Hill - The Complete First Season
• M*A*S*H - Season One (Collector's Edition)

A couple of my friends and family members are big fans of these Fox series, so I took the time to check the price on each of them. Slicknet is right about most of the prices they mention, but a few of them, including In Living Color- Season One and Millennium - The Complete First Season are not currently priced at $14.99. The other DVD series I linked to in this article are priced at $14.99 at the moment.

I have no idea idea how long this sale will last, so stock up if these DVDs fit a loved one's wishlist. By buying two or more of these products, you can also qualify for free shipping.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 11:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

PVRblog reports that Netflix and TiVo formally announced the development of a "joint entertainment offering", which is expected to be an on-demand movie service with content delivered securely via the Internet. The service is expected to debut sometime in 2005. This venture joins two of the most popular consumer-oriented entertainment technology companies. Netflix is already the number one on-line DVD rental company, with approximately 2 million subscribers acquired since 1998. It's service currently delivers DVDs to its customers via the U.S. Postal Service.

TiVo also brings about 2 million subscribers to its service to the joint venture. TiVo subscribers will almost certainly need a TiVo Series 2 Personal Video Recorder or because it has internet connection capability. A number of other devices would probably also work, including the Pioneer DVR-810HS DVD Recorder which also contains a TiVo-compatible Digital Video Recorder.

This offering might be enough to make me upgrade my TiVo. My wife loves movies and may be one of the biggest fans of TiVo because it makes it possible for her to timeshift many of the programs that she wants to see or that we watch together. We are not currently Netflix customers, but I could see becoming one if content was delivered directly to our TiVo. We have the broadband connection at home already.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 9:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

PVRblog pointed out that TiVo has released version 1.1 of TiVo Desktop, a PC and Macintosh media server software-utility that's compatible with TiVo Series 2 Personal Video Recorders with network adapters installed. This means that TiVo users with recent-model PVRs can steam MP3s and view photos through their home theater systems without purchasing any additional hardware.

Streaming of music and display of digital photos are two of the features in the add-on product formerly known as the Home Media Option. TiVo stopped charging extra for the Home Media Option several months ago.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 5:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Operation Gadget first mentioned the SkyBox Personal Beverage Vending Machine from Maytag back in February. At the time, my thought was, "Who wants this sort of thing in their home theater room?" I'm starting to think I was wrong. Back then, the product was just rolling out and I hadn't seen it in stores. It's doing well at local stores like The Home Depot, apparently playing a part in a number of home upgrade projects.

But the most interesting recent development in the SkyBox story is the development of a SkyBox weblog within the Diversified Services Group at Maytag. The site is called Ka-Thunk.com and debuted on June 25 with an article that ought to appeal to many technology fans (they called their first blog entry Hello world!) Webloggers of the world take notice-- they built it on WordPress, which leads me to believe they either knew a lot before they started or got some pretty up-to-date advice. They're even producing RSS feeds and touting it as a feature.

So far, the weblog's been used to talk about new panel designs (so you can put your favorite team's name and logo on your SkyBox), credit to their web designer, stories about promotional events on radio and TV stations, and mentions they've gotten on other weblogs. It looks like Maytag "gets" corporate blogging as many of us have suggested it ought to work. I wonder if Doc has seen this.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 10:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

CNET News.com reports that Sam's Club plans to begin selling TiVo Digital Video Recorders beginning with the HUMAX T800 Digital Video Recorder, a TiVo Series 2 model with 80-hour video storage capacity.

TiVo is also planning to offer a $100 rebate on TiVo DVRs purchased between August 11 and September 30, 2004. This will bring the price of some new 80-hour TiVo Series 2 DVRs down below $200.

The addition of Sam's Club, a subsidary of Wal-Mart Stores, is an excellent new distribution channel for TiVo. TiVo DVRs are already on sale at Costco, so TiVo now has distribution in the two largest warehouse clubs in the USA. This should help the company grow its customer base substantially. Previously, TiVo has said that it wants to double the number of subscribers to its service each year for the next four years.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 9:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

PVRblog has repeatedly pointed out the increasing possibility that DirecTV will stop offering its customers settop boxes with TiVo capabilities. The latest development occurred on Monday, when DirecTV announced that it would offer an alternative settop box with PVR capabilities in early 2005.

Some analysts believe that the direct satellite broadcaster will shift its marketing to emphasize the alternative settop box/PVR combo, from a British firm called NDS. Some people take it one step further, suggesting that DirecTV will drop TiVo entirely when the agreement between DirecTV and TiVo expires in 2007.

There are a couple of flaws in this reasoning from my perspective, and they have to do with the fact that these companies really need each other. DirecTV has to overcome some issues associated with the fact that it does not own a physical broadband connection to each subscriber's home. For instance, it cannot reasonably expect non-rural customers to use it for high speed Internet access at this point in the technology cycle. This means that in order to generate additional profits, it needs to offer the best possible PVR experience and hope that as many customers as possible subscribe to such a service.

Although I am a committed TiVo user, I see no reason why DirecTV should deal exclusively with TiVo for PVR technology. An NDS settop box may be a good alternative that provides some but not all of the TiVo experience at a lower price point. That may be attractive to more price-sensitive TiVo customers. I doubt that NDS will be able to provide all of the features that TiVo can. But, more power to them if they can.

TiVo needs DirecTV somewhat more than the other way around. DirecTV customers make up the fastest growing segment of TiVo users. TiVo should and probably will jump through hoops to continue to be a value added service choice for DirecTV customers.

On the other hand, DirecTV already has over 1 million TiVo-enabled customers. Even if they offered a free trade-out to get their PVR customers to adopt NDS instead, dropping TiVo would create a customer churn event that would rival the first days of mobile phone number portability. This is why I think DirecTV will think very carefully before severing its remaining ties with TiVo.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 11:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

PVRblog reported on the preemptive attempt by the National Football League and the Motion Picture Association of America to stop the marketing of TiVo-to-Go, a product that has not hit the market yet, despite the fact that products such as the Microsoft Portable Media Center and PC-based video recording software that are already on the market have more features.

These organizations are up-in-arms at the fact that TiVo hopes to produce technology that would allow digital content to be transferred between up to 10 affiliated devices which could be PCs, portable video players, and other digital video recorders. The organizations argue that a technology like this should be prohibited because there is no guarantee that the affiliated devices are all owned and controlled by the same person or household.

I think the amount of control that the MPAA and the NFL are seeking is excessive. The digital content distribution technology should not be crippled because rights holders fear that everyone is a potential video pirate. The vast majority of Americans know that they should respect the performers' and producers' rights to make a living, and that reasonable fees should be paid for certain programming. This is the foundation of pay-cable channels like HBO, services like NFL Sunday Ticket, and value-added channel tiers on cable and satellite.

Before the FCC even considers the NFL's objections to a service like TiVo-to-Go, I'd like to see them make a counter-offer. Would they consider allowing NFL Sunday Ticket subscribers to have the rights that TiVo plans to offer TiVo-to-Go users? That might be a reasonable compromise, since paying for the Sunday Ticket service would make the person who wants to transfer video of professional football games to various devices that he owns a direct customer of the National Football League. That transfer capability could be one of the enhanced rights that the NFL grants to Sunday Ticket subscribers.

In order to make this happen, however, a digital rights management regime allowing different rights to be assigned to each program would have to be implemented. A lot of people are really wary of the introduction of a technology like this. If it were to be implemented, it would have to be controlled by companies that are not affiliated with rights holders, just like Apple Computer controls the iTunes Music Store.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 4:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Reuters reports that Amazon.com has begun taking pre-orders for Microsoft Portable Media Center devices including the Creative Labs 20 GB Zen Portable Media Center and the Samsung Yepp YH-999 20 GB Portable Media Center.

Both units will cost about $500 and include 20-Gigabyte internal hard drives, bright color displays between 3.5 and 3.8-inches, rechargeable lithium-ion batteries, and USB 2.0 support. They will store audio and video in MPEG4, MP3, JPEG, and Windows Media formats. The devices also allow you to connect them to a standard TV via a composite video port.

According to Microsoft, which made the announcement in conjunction with Amazon.com and the devices' manufacturers, the Creative Labs Zen is expected to be available in late August, while the Samsung Yepp model will ship in September.

I prefer the outward of the Yepp a bit to that of the Zen. But, I would need to do more research before making a final choice between them.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 2:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Matt Manzi is the superintendent of The Orchards Golf Club where the 2004 U.S. Women's Open was contested over the weekend. My brother Scott Aiello is one of Matt's best friends, an assistant superintendent of a course himself, and spent the better part of a week working for Matt as part of the course maintenance crew.

On Wednesday, Scott called me and asked me to TiVo all of the live coverage of the Open that was shown on ESPN and NBC. I was glad to do it, but I was in for trouble because the Open coverage overlapped the beginning of the Tour de France. Luckily, OLN's wall-to-wall coverage allowed me to record the Tour stages live on Saturday and Sunday before the Open coverage began in the afternoon on NBC.

With that issue behind me, the remaining problems were:

1. TiVo Series I recording capacity, and
2. permanent recording capability of my home theater.

My TiVo is one of the museum pieces that only has 20-hour recording capacity. The Women's U.S. Open coverage was 14 hours in total. This meant that I needed to stay vigilant and copy the daily coverage off to a VHS tape each night.

My best VCR has stereo and S-Video capability, and it makes beautiful recordings when the recording heads are functioning properly. Although I've cleaned it regularly, the video has produced recently looks like I'm recording broadcast TV captured with set-top rabbit ears. My second VCR, which was hooked up to my wife's TV when she was in medical school, is producing a better picture, but it only records sound in mono. Tough life, right?

What I wanted, and what I will probably get soon is a DVD recorder. This would allow me to burn a digital copies of programs that I have on my TiVo. I want this for the durability of the media and the image and sound quality. No matter what format a DVD recorder uses, the DVDs that they produce have a shelf life equal to or better than VHS recorders.

If you are looking for a DVD recorder that's a good value right now, I'd recommend checking out the Akai DVDRW120 Progressive-Scan DVD Player/Recorder. It's currently rated number 13 on Amazon.com's Early Adopter Audio/Video List. When a DVD recorder gets this high on the Early Adopter list, it usually means that the deal hunters like it.

Another reason I want a DVD recorder like the Akai DVDRW120 is that I want to burn DVD copies of the videos I've shot with my Mini DV Camcorder. For a long time, I've wanted a complete video editing system, built around an Apple iMac. But for about 1/7th the price, I can burn the unedited video to DVD. That would be worth it for a lot of my video.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 10:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Even if you think that watching cycling on television is boring, I urge you to turn on the Outdoor Life Network sometime this month and watch some of the coverage of the Tour de France. The coverage of the race on the road is particularly interesting when you think about how it's assembled.

Every day for three weeks, the Tour de France conducts a race known as a stage. The stages are up to 150 miles in length. In order to show the race on television, many production elements have to be mobile for up to 8 hours at a time. The cameras that capture the images of the Tour are held by cameramen who ride as the second person on a touring motorcycle. The typical motorcycle used is a Kawasaki 1000 GTR.

France Television produces the live video coverage, which it syndicates to international partners like the Outdoor Life Network in North America. Syndicators add commentary and graphics in their home country's language.

France Television typically operate five moto cameras on the road with the cyclists. Two additional motos carry France Television commentators that perform the same role that "sideline" commentators do at NFL games.

The moto units transmit their video and audio to one of two low-flying helicopters above the peleton. The helicopters, reportedly Eurocopter Ecureuil AS355N's with Wescam units, relay the signals to the mobile production facilities co-located near the finish line of the stage. The production facilities operated by France Television and their partners are quite similar to the production trucks seen outside stadiums during sporting events throughout the world. The difference is the number of producers and directors assembling their own unique feed for transmission back to their home networks.

The main announcers for each syndicated broadcast are located in mobile booths with a strategic view of the finish line. They do most of their commentary by watching the race on television.

People who watch cycling on TV all the time have become accustomed to seeing smoothly produced programs where the cameras always catch the stage winner, the look of joy, pain, or despair on the leader's face, and the surprising crash of multiple riders on the open road. But, the technology and the skill necessary to bring it all into our homes is amazing. [ images courtesy of Kawasaki and Eurocopter ]

Posted by Dave Aiello at 10:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

MacCentral reported that TiVo is making the Home Media Option a standard feature on TiVo Series 2 DVRs. Previously, the Home Media Option had cost an additional $99 per DVR. The re-christened Home Media Feature allow TiVo users to take advantage of the following services:

• media server capability for browsing photos and playing music stored elsewhere on a local area network,
• stored program sharing for playing of programs recorded on any other TiVo Series 2 DVR in the house,
• on-line scheduling to allow customers to alter the To Do List on their TiVos by accessing the TiVo.com website.

TiVo has been under increasing competition from cable providers who are rolling out their own DVR units that have recording functionality, but smaller feature sets compared to TiVo Series 2. By making the Home Media Feature free, TiVo is demonstrating its superior value to the cable company-provided DVRs, which are available in some areas of the USA. TiVo is smart to do this because cable companies often provide the DVRs at no charge, but they often charge a similar monthly service fee to that of TiVo.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 5:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This evening, I recorded 2 1/4 hours of the funeral procession and state funeral for Ronald Reagan. These were historic moments-- the first state funeral since the death of President Lyndon Baines Johnson in 1973. It was also, obviously, the first state funeral to take place in the TiVo era. So, I used my TiVo to record the events while I was out to dinner with my wife.

There were so many impressive aspects of this event that I can't possibly list them. The outporing of love and respect for President Reagan, his wife, and family surprised me. I expected the route of the procession to be lined by thousands of people, but I didn't expect the crowd to be silent when the caisson passed. I had begun to believe the idea suggested by some in the media-- that because 10 years had passed since President Reagan announced that he had Alzheimer's Disease and he lived a full life, that the intensity of the moment would be less than it actually was.

It was possibly the most precisely-timed public event I've ever seen. The last words of Vice President Dick Cheney's eulogy were delivered almost exactly two hours from the moment that President Reagan's casket was transferred from the hearse to the caisson. This made the procession and state funeral ceremony one of the most TiVo-friendly live events in recent memory.

Speaking of Vice President Cheney's eulogy, if you haven't seen or heard this 7 1/2 minute speech in its entirety, it is well worth taking in. This may have been the best speech he has ever given, and was a worthy tribute to President Reagan.

In choosing how best to record this, I consulted the Outline of Funeral Events published on the website of the Reagan Presidential Library. Since the schedule said that the formal funeral procession would begin at 6:00pm, followed by the state funeral ceremony at 7:00, and the beginning of the lying in state at 8:30, I decided to set the TiVo to record the Fox News Channel from 6:00 to 8:00pm. This turned out to be just about enough, because the last eulogy ended seconds before 8:00.

My manual recording ended just before the U.S. Air Force choir sang. I arrived back home a few minutes after the TiVo stopped recording. I saw that Fox News' coverage was just ending, so I pressed the "Record" button on my TiVo's remote to capture what was in the cache. As a result, I got the U.S. Air Force choir singing "America the Beautiful", the benediction, and the moment where Nancy Reagan approached the coffin and touched it. These were all moments I would have been sorry I missed.

I'm glad I recorded the procession and the state funeral. It's something I really wanted to see, because I will be unable to travel to Washington to personally witness any of the events. I will make a VHS tape so that I can show parts of it to some relatives who didn't watch it, and refer back to some of the speeches in the future.

This is another televised event that made me glad I own a TiVo. There's no doubt I am a better, more informed citizen as a result.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 12:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Slate published an interesting article on the increasing dominance of the wide screen format as measured by DVD sales. This has been confirmed by the fact that Blockbuster has publicly stated that it prefers to have wide screen (aka letterbox) format DVDs on its shelves for rental and that most of the top selling DVDs at Amazon.com that are movies are either exclusively sold in wide screen or are significantly more popular in wide screen than in full screen.

A good example of the situation is the recent release of Miracle from Walt Disney Pictures. I think this film has some of the best sports cinematography ever recorded. There has never been a non-documentary film about ice hockey where the scenes of game play has been this realistic. In my opinion, purchasing this film in the full screen format would be a real mistake, even if you don't have a sophisticated home theater.

If this film had come out even three years ago, it would have been difficult to find in wide screen format, on VHS or DVD. Now, it's hard to find on VHS in the first place, and the DVD in full screen format is probably only going to be promoted if the wide screen DVDs are sold out.

If you are looking for confirmation of this trend in your neighborhood and you don't frequent Blockbuster, take a look at the DVD racks at your local Target or Wal-mart next time you are shopping.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 1:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Matt Haughey of PVRblog pointed out that the Los Angeles Times has published an article declaring the television rerun dead. I'm with Matt when he says that the end of reruns as we knew them is a good thing, and that Digital Video Recorders like TiVo played a role. I have a few suggestions for the new world order:

1. Repeat all of the prime time shows on a predictable schedule during the overnight period.

   NBC ran a few week-old episodes of The Apprentice on Wednesdays, and this was said to be an attempt to "build awareness" of a show. In addition to doing that, encourage affiliates to re-run the entire prime time schedule from 2:00 to 5:00am, so that one-tuner DVR users can resolve some conflicts.

2. Get rid of the program expansion gimmicks.

   I've pointed out on several occasions that the network programmers played games with their schedules in order to wring an additional station break or two out of the finales of Friends and Frasier, and did it more often with shows like ER. This rendered TiVo Season Passes rather meaningless at times, forced DVR users to study the schedule to tweak their recorders' settings, and still bits of the beginning or end of the target show were often missed.
   

One of the most interesting parts of the L.A. Times article is some first run to rerun audience comparisons. Reportedly, audiences for reruns of The West Wing drop 42 percent when compared to the original airing. Audience percentage losses are also documented for CSI, The O.C., and Alias.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 12:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

My sister and her husband returned from their honeymoon about two weeks ago. They spent part of their trip in Prague and brought home a comercially-bought DVD with highlights of the city. The problem is that the DVD is Region 2 encoded. This means it can be played on DVD players sold in Europe, Japan, South Africa, and the Middle East, but not North America. Last time I spoke to her she said, "Maybe we can send this DVD to someone we know in Europe" so they can watch it.

There is another alternative. If you live in North America and you have DVDs from outside Region 1, you could buy a "Region Free" DVD player. The problem is that the electronics industry is more or less compelled to ship DVD players that are Region 1 by default, but many of these players are not Region 1-specific.

A good example of such a player is the Philips DVP642. It's an inexpensive progressive-scan DVD player that handles a lot of different formats, including:

• DVD,DVD+RW, Mpeg4, Dvix4 video, and
• CD and MP3 audio formats.

The DVP642 rocketed to the number 1 on the Amazon.com Sales Rank chart this week on the basis of articles like the one that appeared Wednesday on Gizmodo. Among other things, the article says, "it can be region unlocked with the remote--no firmware hack needed."

I started looking looking into what it took to unlock the DVP642 so it will play DVDs from any region by doing searches like "DVP642 region" on Google, I found a lot of information. Most of the information on the web indicates that the DVP642 can be programmed to play disks from any region simply by using the remote to enter a three-digit code, press OK, and then selecting "from what appears to be several different model numbers and region settings".

Since there is so much information on the web indicating that the DVP642 is a "region-free" DVD player, I would first try playing a non-Region 1 DVD without making any changes. If that didn't work, read your DVD player's manual and see if region settings are documented. If not, refer to region reprogramming resources on the Internet like the ones I've discussed here.

Keep in mind that information like this is generally coming from other DVP642 owners and non from Philips itself. I doubt that you will be able to get phone technical support to help you if you try one of these techniques and lose your original configuration. (When in doubt, take notes.)

It's kind of scary, but the more I look at the way most electronics companies have implemented DVD region limitation, the more I am reminded of the way mobile phone carriers lock handsets to make it difficult for customers to switch carriers.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 9:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Comments in response to the PVRblog article NBC Tries to Outsmart TiVo indicate that maximizing advertising revenue is most likely the reason for schedule changes that added time to the beginning and the end of final Friends episode. Late last week, I reported that the accuracy of NBC's schedule for May 6 was likely to be a problem for many DVR users. But the real reason behind the monkey business is only now coming to light.

By adding time to the beginning and end of the program, NBC's advertising sales staff was able to schedule two more sets of commercials. This probably resulted in millions in additional revenue for the network.

My strategy for recording both hours of Friends programming was to record the first program (a retrospective) and continue that recording 60 minutes after the program's scheduled end. This should have allowed me to capture the final episode in its entirety. Unfortunately, this was not the case, as NBC extended the ending by several minutes.

Had my wife and I not set our TiVo to record ER, and had we not been watching anyway, we probably would have missed the end of ER, which extended well past its scheduled ending.

So, if I didn't actually miss any of the programming that I wanted to record, what's my beef? It's primarily that network programmers rub our noses in the fact that the television viewer is not the real customer when they make ad hoc changes like this. Don't we deserve more respect than that?

Posted by Dave Aiello at 1:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Earlier today, my wife asked me to look at the TiVo To Do List because it didn't appear that the TiVo intended to record both hours of the finale episode of "Friends". I strongly dislike this show, but I love my wife, so I took a shot at it.

After playing with the TiVo for 15 minutes, I realized that it could not automatically record both hours of the show because:

1. The two-hour finale that is being advertised on NBC is shown on the TiVo schedule as two one-hour programs.
2. The end time of the first hour of "Friends" overlaps with the start time of the second hour.

The broadcast networks have increasingly been playing around with their schedules to make it difficult for DVR users to automatically record exactly what they want. They do this by starting shows like ER at 9:59pm Eastern Time instead of 10:00. This means, if your To Do List has a 9:00-10:00 show on it with a higher priority, ER doesn't get recorded.

If network programmers weren't already playing games, I'd think that they didn't do this intentionally. Maybe it's a clerical error. But, after what they've done this year, I think the schedulers threw in a gotcha to see if were paying attention. Spare us, folks. If you continue to play this game, you'll totally lose my respect.

I finally decided to take the first segment of the "Friends" Finale and have it stop recording 60 minutes after the program's scheduled end. So I'm earning my keep around the house, and my wife will be happy on Thursday. But, why should I have to spend the time verifying that my To Do List is what it should be, when we're talking about the biggest scheduled TV event of the May sweeps?

Posted by Dave Aiello at 11:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

PVRblog reports that Hughes has begun shipping an HDTV-compatible TiVo DVR for use with DirecTV. The retail price is about $1,000 at the resellers that have listed it on their sites already. In the article, Matt Haughey said, "Yesterday I heard that BestBuy put their first shipment of 200 units up on their website and sold out of them within a few hours."

Posted by Dave Aiello at 10:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

An article in the New York Times today documents the huge profits that movie studios are generating from the rental and sale of DVDs. According to the article:

Not since the advent of the videocassette in the mid-1980's has the movie industry enjoyed such a windfall from a new product. And just as video caused a seismic shift two decades ago, the success of the DVD is altering priorities and the balance of power in the making of popular culture. And industry players, starting with the Writers Guild, are lining up to claim their share.

There's good cause. Between January and mid-March this year, Americans spent $1.78 billion at the box office. But in the same period they spent $4.8 billion-- more than $3 billion more-- to buy and rent DVD's and videocassettes.

The article cites as an example, the 1999 movie from 20th Century Fox called Office Space. This movie made only $10 million in theatrical release, but is said to be a hit on DVD. At this writing, Office Space has a DVD sales rank of 98 on Amazon.com , meaning that only 97 DVDs sell are selling more quickly than it is.

It's hard to reconcile the picture that the Times paints of a movie industry awash in profits with their stance on DVD burner deployment in home theater systems. A couple of weeks ago, Operation Gadget reported on movie and TV industry opposition to DVD burners in settop boxes and the effort these industries are making to cripple any devices that actually ship to cable and satellite TV customers.

My view is that people will continue to buy DVDs as gifts for friends and family as long as prices are low, titles remain available, and a steady stream of entertaining programming continues to be produced. In the next few months, I'd like to pick up copies of Miracle and The Apprentice TV Series. I'd also like to replace some of my favorite movies that I have previously purchased on VHS. So, I imagine I am going to spend $100 or more on DVDs in the next two or three months. That represents a lot of money when you extrapolate to the revenue that will be produced across the country.

I think there are major differences between the movie and TV industries and commercial software and popular music, where piracy is thought to be widespread. The movie and TV industries need to focus on filling the distribution channel with innovative products, including entire series of episodes of popular TV programs. If they emphasize this and back off on the notion that the average TV watcher is a pirate waiting for network attached storage prices to come down, they will make more money than they know how to use.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 11:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

My wife and I have been regular viewers of The Apprentice TV series since we heard about it, three weeks into its run. During that period, we noticed that the set designers had attached a very large flat panel display to the PC that the cast members use in the suite where they live in Trump Tower.

It turns out that the PC used in "The Suite" is significantly more sophisticated than I thought. A page on The Apprentice Web Site identifies the PC as a Tek Panel 300 all-in-one 30-inch wide screen PC. This machine includes:

• 2.4-Gigahertz Intel Pentium 4 processor,
• 120-Gigabyte IBM ATA100 7200RPM Hard Drive,
• 30-inch WXGA LCD/TFT Full Color ACTIVE MATRIX with a 176 degree viewing angle,
• ATI All-In-Wonder Radeon Graphics Accelerator, and
• Bose MediaMate Sound System w/dual inputs and source mix controls.

It also has a built-in TV tuner, a CD-RW/DVD-ROM drive, and connectors for every digital input and output that I could think of. Oh yea, I almost forgot, it runs Microsoft Windows XP Professional.

This is a great system, at least as a PC for the living toom or home theater room, but it isn't getting shown off to the extent that I think Hytek Manufacturing might have hoped. I wondered what the configuration of the PC was, but since I never saw the cast using the advanced multimedia features, I never got that interested.

I found a lot of details about the machine through an article on eHomeUpgrade.com. FiringSquad.com did a comprehensive review of the Tek Panel 300, including a number of good photos that show the excellent color reproduction of the flat panel display. Seeing these photos in the context of a review made me think that this PC may have been chosen for its technical features rather than its good looks. The Tek Panel 300 website provides links to a number of other reviews of the machine.

I think the Tek Panel 300 is an interesting multimedia PC. At over $6,000, it's not something I'm running out to buy for myself, but, I know that our readership includes people that spend big bucks on things like this. For a single unit that could conceivably be used as the HDTV in your home theater and a state-of-the-art multimedia PC, the price is not unreasonable.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 1:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Stephen Manes writes the Digital Tools column for Forbes Magazine. In the April 19 issue he strongly suggests that it's time to trade in VCRs for DVD recorders. Manes says:

A dusty shelf of home videotapes of your child's early years sparks an idea: If you transferred them to DVD, you might actually watch them once in a while. At minimum you'd be preserving them for posterity on a more stable medium. So how hard is it--and how expensive?

He goes on to suggest the GoVideo VR4940 DVD Recorder+VCR for making the process of converting VHS tapes to DVD+R and DVD+RW formats relatively simple. He also discusses the Gateway AR-230 Progressive-Scan DVD Player/Recorder which he thought was OK as the DVD burner component of a VHS conversion effort. However, Manes characterized the AR-230's progressive scan playback on HD-ready televisions as "easily the worst I've seen".

I'm not as concerned with converting existing VHS tapes to DVD unless they are irreplaceable. But I like the idea of owning one of these DVD burners as part of an existing home video system that already includes a Digital Video Recorder. I move programs from my TiVo to VHS tape on a regular basis, and I am less and less satisfied with the result. In my opinion, if you can buy a DVD recorder that can produce two hour disks that look good on NTSC televisions, it's probably worth spending $250 to $300 to do it.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 2:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Amazon.com is running sales in its home theater-related departments until April 11, 2004. The deals include:

• up to $500 off flat panel and tube TVs, and
• up to $100 off DVD players, recorders, and combo units.

Now might be the time to spring for the upgrade you've been thinking about.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 11:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

PVRblog points out that the movie and television industry are fighting against deployment of DVD burners in cable and satellite settop boxes. Since they have already decided that resistance to any sort of DVD recording capability in settop boxes is futile, they are working to cripple any DVD burner that is ultimately included. Matt Haughey wrote:

It really astounds me that Hollywood copyright maximalists never learn from their own mistakes. They railed hard against the VCR, saying it would kill the movie business, and yet today DVD and VHS sales account for a huge chunk of their profit. Now people want to record movies and shows from their TV onto recordable DVD for playback later, and the studios are saying the same thing -- that people shouldn't be allowed to freely record shows. This time they want the playback to be limited to just that DVD drive that recorded it. So if your set-top box dies and you get a new one, or if you move, or change providers, those shows you recorded will be useless.

I think that cable and satellite customers should be free to choose their own DVD burning technology, rather than have to take burners that are embedded in settop boxes that most people only rent. They should be able to choose the features of the DVD burner, so if they want a TiVo user interface they can have it. We should also remember that a small but significant percentage of DVD burner buyers will be re-recording content captured from their own digital video camera, and they should be able to burn region-free DVDs to be used in any way that they wish.

I think that a broadcast flag should be implemented for entertainment programming, but only in such a way that any second-generation copies (meaning a duplicate of what was recorded on your TV) should be prominently marked by the device performing the re-recording. This way, people could make copies for theselves or for a friend or relative, but it would be obvious if programming was resold illegally.

It's important to remember that the battle we are discussing is taking place over future devices and not those that are on the market today. In terms of DVD burners that work well with existing broadcast technology, units like the Panasonic DMRE50S DVD Player/Recorder are an excellent choice in terms of features and cost.

Although this DVD recorder has some of the features of a Digital Video Recorder like chasing playback (allowing you to watch a recording in progress from the beginning), it doesn't have a built-in program schedule, like TiVo and ReplayTV units do. This makes units like this a good choice for people who want to use it as a stand-alone recorder or as a component of a larger Home Theater system that already includes a DVR.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 11:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The Washington Post ran a great article on Friday about the Senate Commerce Committee hearing that took place on Cable TV channel selection and the technological and contractual obstacles to driving such decisions all the way down to the individual household.

Imagine what true a la carte channel choice would mean in this country. If my wife and I decided that we want Fox News and MSNBC but not CNN, we could theoretically pay less than we do today. I say "theoretically" because my sense is that some channels would have to be more expensive if cable and satellite companies didn't force people who never watch them to take them anyway.

My cousin works at ESPN. I don't think there's any way that they could run the number of channels that they do without receiving a flat payment for each subscriber from cable and satellite systems throughout the country. Could they produce as much HDTV programming as they do already or plan in 2004? I doubt it.

I'd pay for ESPN if they organized themselves differently. If they segregated the major sports, so that you could buy a channels devoted to football, hockey, basketball, or baseball, I'd buy some of them and leave others off. I would definitely pay for the Outdoor Life Network so I can watch the Tour de France, the Giro, and the Vuelta.

I know my wife would want many of the broadcast networks, so long as they keep producing programming like ER or The Apprentice-- one of the few entertainment shows that I like.

But, I guarantee that true a la carte channel selection would change the economics of programming a channel much more than TiVo or the Internet. We might truly be surprised what the cost of channels we like would be if we had to buy them all separately.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 1:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

DigiTimes.com appears to be the ultimate journalistic source of the report that Wal-Mart intends to sell a line of flat panel televisions (plasma display panels and LCDs) to be manufactured by Tatung. Here are a few examples Tatung's their existing LCD TVs. It's safe to assume that Tatung will make a lot of them and they will sell at low prices.

No real details on this deal yet, apart from the fact that Wal-Mart intend to call their product line ILO. Since this happens to be the phonetic spelling of my last name (Aiello), maybe I should send Wal-Mart a friendly letter warning that their brand name might make people think that I am endorsing them.

I saw pointers to this in several places, all attributing different sources. Some attributed the story to another source which attributed the story to DigiTimes. I figured I'd cut out the middleman.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 6:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

CNET News.com reported that TiVo said its annual revenue was up 85 percent for the fiscal year ending December 31. More importantly, TiVo signed up 330,000 new customers in the fourth quarter, about three times the number of subscribers it signed up in the holiday period in 2002. Over 1 million households now have a TiVo attached to their television.

TiVo is listening to customers who are asking for more capacity in their line of Digitall Video Recorders. They recently shipped a TiVo-branded 140-Hour DVR which PVRblog says is a Series 2 TiVo with bigger hard disk. As a long-time TiVo user, I can tell you that bigger is better.

I'm thrilled that TiVo's business is improving. This company is changing television for the better. The more market share it accumulates, the more leverage it will have to bargain with the Entertainment Industry. I believe that they have represented individual viewer interests pretty well since they came on the market.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 11:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

CNET just published an informative review of the Sony VPL-HS20, an HDTV-capable, LCD television projector. A lot of A/V freaks prefer projectors to rear-projection sets because the projectors themselves are a lot smaller and can be installed in a number of different ways. The key to making something like the HS20 work is a home theater room that can be made sufficiently dark.

The HS20's native resolution is 1,386 x 788, making it a good choice for 720p HDTV content. It can also handle images from 1020i down to traditional NTSC, but the displayed image is scaled up or down accordingly. This projector also has tons of picture-enhancing features and connectivity options.

The thing that CNET didn't like in this unit is black-level performance. Displaying black is difficult for a lot of LCD projectors and this one is no different, although the review says, "the HS20's ability to deliver darker images represents a significant improvement over previous versions and is among the best we've seen with LCD projectors."

In reading about the HS20, the thought occurred to me that this product would be ideal for a technology sales person who needs a projector to demo products during the day, but wants a home theater for entertainment purposes. I'd love to be able to write off a TV like this.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 11:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

PVRblog reported that TiVo is soliciting customer opinions before completing the feature set of the TiVoToGo system that was previewed at the Consumer Electronics Show in January. The PVRblog article contains a pointer to the survey, which I urge all TiVo users to complete. But, the article also has some interesting reader comment attached to it, including things like.

• MPEG formats that would cause some users to buy additional DVRs instead of network-aware DVD players, and
• PC-based video editing features and why support for them would be important to some TiVo customers.

I could see doing my own highlight DVD from sports event programming like the Tour de France. I'd like to be able to talk about tactics in graphics and/or in voiceovers that occur during live action, and burn the resulting program to DVD. (I can see my wife rolling her eyes at this one.)

This could also revolutionize certain types of video-based training by allowing people to repurpose snippets of video without having to resort to purchasing much more expensive editing workstations. Of course, the examples I gave here would only be appropriate for non-commercial, personal use. Otherwise, you'd end up spending a lot of time and money getting clearance for the video clips employed in this fashion.

Anyway, the survey opened my eyes to some things that would make me want to own a Series2 TiVo and perhaps upgrade my computer-based video editing capabilities.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 11:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

CNET News.com reported on a new trend in consumer electronics: selling flat panel TVs with classic American brand names. Good examples of this trend are the Westinghouse W33001 30" Widescreen LCD HD-Ready TV which also comes in 27-inch, 20-inch, and 15-inch versions.

People who read business magazines are probably aware of the fact that Westinghouse has gone through a number of restructurings in the past 10 years. Now, it's primarily in the business of making components for nuclear power plants. So how did Westinghouse get into the business of making flat-panel TV's? CNET tells us:

...in 2002, the company created a 15-employee digital electronics unit to make televisions and similar products, with the first TV sets going on sale in November 2003. The shift came about because Westinghouse realized its name still rang positive notes with consumers, according to {Douglas Woo, president of Westinghouse Digital Electronics}.

"The brand had unaided recognition close to 90 percent, and in the 18-to-35 (age group) it had over 70 percent," Woo said. "There is going to be a huge turnover in the players in the TV industry."

This is probably better name recognition than Sharp and Samsung, companies that really manufacture the devices and don't outsource all of their manufacturing to other companies.

Operation Gadget readers are smart enough to know that they should buy high-quality televisions that deliver good value, regardless of what brand gets put on them. I think that flat-panel TVs with brands like Westinghouse and Polaroid on them will only succeed in the value category. There is no way that a company without any fundimental design or manufacturing expertise in the field is going to be able to get true gadget fans to pay a premium.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 4:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

The Washington Post published an article last Friday called With DVD, TV Viewers Can Channel Their Choices that talks about the group of TV fans who don't bother to subscribe to TiVo, cable, or satellite TV. This group buys or rents DVD collections of popular TV series such as Law & Order Special Victims Unit, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and Six Feet Under, and watches recorded programming exclusively.

One of the companies that is benefiting most from this new trend is the on-line DVD rental company called Netflix. Ted Sarandos, Netflix's Chief Content Officer, made a couple of really interesting points in the article:

The DVD is becoming a fifth network that [viewers] get to program themselves. Appointment TV doesn't work like it used to.

No one who cares about live events such as sports or news is really in a position to get rid of their set-top box and the attendant monthly fees. But, I've heard from a few people who are either thinking about getting rid of their cable or satellite subscription, or have already done it. They don't seem to be doing this out of some sense of protest. They simply don't think that the monthly fees are worth it for the limited number of programs that they would actually watch.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 10:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Last week, I cheered the inclusion of TiVo stats in USA Today TV ratings reports. But, after watching The Super Bowl, I wonder if this is a good idea after all.

Everyone I know who has a TiVo recorded the Super Bowl yesterday. TiVo gets a lot of publicity from reporting how the TV recorders are used during this particular event. Their report indicates that the moment when Justin Timberlake ripped off a part of Janet Jackson's top was the most actively watched part of the telecast. The most watched commercial was the offensive "Sleigh Ride" ad for Bud Light when a horse pulling a carriage experiences digestive distress.

Marty Yudkovitz, President of TiVo said:

In fact, the half time show during the Super Bowl is now running a close second to the commercials as the most compelling content for viewers. The actual contest on the field continues to be the secondary event during the Super Bowl.

I recorded The Super Bowl on my TiVo, but did not watch it because my wife and I watched the game at her parents' house. I'm deleting the program without reviewing the moments I missed because I don't want the NFL, CBS, or any advertisers to conclude that I enjoyed the production. There was too much vulgarity and bathroom humor for my taste.

Ironically, the game itself was one of the most exciting in history. I feel bad for the New England Patriots whose victory will be remembered for what happened while they were in the locker room. Hey Paul Tagliabue, put the emphasis back on the game.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 4:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

PVRblog pointed out that USA Today is publishing a list of the most-recorded TV programs by a group of 20,000 arbitrarily-chosen TiVo users. The data is being provided by TiVo through the long-standing program where they collect anonymized PVR use data from subscribers. The TiVo Most-Recorded Shows of the Week list that appeared in USA Today on Wednesday was published along with the Nielsen ratings for the 18-to-49 age group.

This is a coup for TiVo in that it calls public attention to the preferences of their customers, a self-selected group of sophisticated people from sought-after demographics. With a lot of television executives struggling to figure out what the 18-49 age group is doing instead of watching prime-time TV, TiVo data can help illustrate which programs that age group is time-shifting instead of watching live.

My wife and I have recently begun watching the NBC program called The Apprentice. We time-shifted both the Wednesday and Thursday night broadcasts slightly, since we were doing other things at the time the programs started. We're not a Nielsen household, so our failure to sit in front of the TV at the appointed time would not have had an effect on the program's ratings. Yet, it is possible that the TiVo most-recorded ratings partly reflect the fact that we are recording each new episode. ("The Apprentice" ranks fourth in the top ten TiVo Most-Recorded Shows of the Week.)

For the past few years, I've "taken Nielsen ratings with a grain of salt", since I don't think their methodology captures the television viewing habits of typical Americans. But, I believe that TiVo use data is significant.

When someone chooses to record a program on TiVo, they think that they're going to want to watch at least part of it at some point. It would be nice if TiVo could tell us which programs their customers recorded and watched, rather than simply having recorded it. For instance, I record FoxNews Sunday each week, but I haven't actually watched it since before Chris Wallace replaced Tony Snow.

While we're on the subject of things I wish that TiVo would do, I'd like to see data about the most-recorded programs of the past week appear someplace on my TiVo itself. This would be like seeing the most-played tracks in iTunes, wouldn't it?

Posted by Dave Aiello at 11:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

A fairly well known weblogger named Robert Scoble has posted a relatively long article making the case for Windows Media and strongly suggesting that people who have not yet purchased an iPod or a TiVo think twice about doing so.

Scoble suggests that by 2006, Microsoft will have a comprehensive set of multimedia technologies that will be deployed and accepted on every sort of device that an individual might want to use to watch video or listen to music. He suggests that the ubiquity and synergy of Windows Media-related software in portable audio, home theater, and in-car systems will make customers of the iTunes Music Store and TiVo regret the fact that they use them.

Without rebutting each point Scoble makes, this is one of the more egregious attempts at engendering FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) in the minds of prospective customers for non-Windows Media devices that has made the rounds recently. Remember that Apple sold close to 1 million iPods in its 2003 Fiscal Year. This figure was in before the holiday shopping season ended.

Current iPod users didn't think about the potential synergies of Windows Media devices circa 2006 when they bought their iPods. They bought because they wanted a portable music device that lets them carry a substantial part of their music collection with them wherever they go. The iPod is the best device ever built for this purpose.

If there was no iTunes Music Store, the vast majority of these people would still have bought iPods. They just would have ripped their CD collection to MP3s and synced the resulting files to their iPod. The fact that iTunes made a lot of iPod users comfortable with buying music one song at a time was an unexpected bonus.

iPod and TiVo users get value from their purchases everyday. If you want to enjoy the benefits of digital media technology today, I recommend that you choose from products that are available today or have been recently announced. If you like devices that support Windows Media, buy them. But, don't allow yourself to be scared out of buying the gadget you like best just because someone who works at Microsoft says you'll be sorry someday.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 9:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

On Thursday, Walter Mossberg of The Wall Street Journal took a look at the Sound Blaster Wireless Music System from Creative Technology. He liked it because its large remote-control unit provides a display and a full set of controls. This means that Sound Blaster does not need to be connected to a television in order to work properly.

As a result, this wireless music system can be moved from room to room, wherever set of speakers can be repurosed. About all that is needed when you relocate this device is power, wireless connectivity, and some sort of audio patch cable to plug the wireless music system into the device that "owns" the speakers.

Mossberg points out that a piece of Creative Labs digital audio library software must be loaded on the PC where you keep your MP3 collection. Obviously, that PC must be running at all times when you are using the Sound Blaster Wireless Music System. I wonder why systems like this cannot be made smart enough to browse a shared file systems itself, looking for music, instead of depending upon a Windows application to retrieve and queue files that are being played.

The Sound Blaster Wireless Music System is a little cursed from a naming perspective-- its name is too close to a line of aftermarket audio systems for PCs that is made by the same manufacturer. If you start talking about this system and call it a "Sound Blaster", people who have a lot of PC experience will be confused.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 10:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

My wife and I got married a little over two years ago, and since then, we've been watching things like Who's Line is it Anyway? on a trusty 20-inch television with a traditional cathode ray tube. The TV sits at the foot of our bed and, because of the height of the footboard, both of us have to prop ourselves up in order to see the bottom third of the screen.

Now, if there were any financial planners in the Operation Gadget readership, they'd probably say that we should get a taller TV stand so that we can see the TV without piling the pillows behind us. But, we revel in solving problems by upgrading around here, so I decided to look at flat-panel TVs to see what it would cost to replace our current TV with one of similar size.

The best all-around deal I've found so far is the 20-inch Sharp AQUOS LCD Flat-Panel TV. This is a TV that weighs only 34 pounds and is less than three inches thick, so we could probably hang it on the wall and do away with the TV stand entirely. The AQUOS line is a significant improvement over earlier LCD-based TVs: it has 170 degree field of view and it is bright enough to be placed near windows and other light sources. The version shown here is a 4:3 model, so it's not made for HDTV.

Amazon.com has a really good deal on the 20-inch versions of the AQUOS, as I write this. It comes in three colors: white, silver, and black. I'm torn between the white and the silver, but, I'd probably lean toward silver if it were to be hung on the wall of my bedroom. Before I do that, I probably ought to ask my wife....

Posted by Dave Aiello at 9:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Kudos to Cory Doctorow of Boing Boing for providing an honest reaction to yesterday's TiVo's TiVo-to-Go announcement. He hates it:

The TiVo execs I've spoken with about this have expressed TiVo's philosophy as "reasonable compromise" -- delivering features that customers want, so long as it doesn't make the Hollywood companies too unhappy. This is usually presented as a business-person's realpolitik: look, kid, we know your ideals say that crippling the stuff we sell you is bad, but we've got a company to run here.

What's funny about this is that it's the exact opposite of the traditional way of running a disruptive technology business: no one crippled the piano roll to make sure it didn't upset the music publishers, Marconi didn't cripple the radio to appease the Vaudeville players -- hell, railroad barons never slowed their steam-engines down to speeds guaranteed to please the teamsters.

I agree with him to a large extent. But playing devil's advocate, I have to point out that TiVo devices are just boxes when they have no programming on them, and the people that develop and present the programming have rights that deserve respect. I think most people that feel like I do think mostly in terms of putting a few reasonable restrictions on copying so that the value of the programming itself is not artificially deflated, as opposed to allowing the producers of programming to dictate the way people across America watch video or listen to music.

To an extent, I also agree with Doctorow when he says "There is no market demand for TiVo's {digital rights management} -- or anyone else's. No TiVo customer got out of bed this morning and said, 'Damn, I wish there was a way I could do less with my videos.'" No end user goes out shopping for something that restricts their right to use anything, but they will shop for things that don't seem like they are crippled by DRM.

I can only think of a few products that have DRM in them that seem to have reasonable use restrictions: iTunes Music Store, Audible, and the non-portable TiVo devices, as long as I am willing to sit in front of a TV in my house that a TiVo is connected to. Most other solutions offered, including photo-degrading DVDs, DVD's with embedded use counters, and copy protected CDs are really an insult to the customers who would pay to enjoy them if they weren't so crippled.

Once you start building devices that make programming portable, you have to decide what compromises you are going to make with the customer in order to make your DRM solution seem reasonable to them. If your DRM regime doesn't seem reasonable in actual use, then it is destroying the value of your device.

Obviously there will be far fewer buyers of devices where the perceived value is significantly compromised by DRM. So, I hope that TiVo evolves TiVo-to-Go into a flexible solution that lets customers play their content wherever and whenever they want, if what they announced yesterday isn't really capable of making that happen immediately.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 11:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Our friends at PVRblog have done a good job of covering the announcements that TiVo made at the Consumer Electronics Show on Thursday. It's hard to know which of these announcements TiVo fans will consider more important.

TiVo and DirecTV announced an HDTV-capable digital video recorder that will reportedly be available in the first quarter of 2004. According to the article, "The DIRECTV HD DVR will incorporate a 250 GB hard disk drive" (seems incredible to me), will have component and digital video outputs, and will support 480i, 480p, 720p, or 1080i formats. Amazingly, the unit will simultaneously record up to two DirecTV or ATSC programs while allowing playback of a third program. The article also points to useful information on TiVo's website that explains features and required equipment in as much detail as is possible to know right now.

The other announcement from TiVo is TiVo-to-Go, a video extraction solution that allows TiVo users to copy recorded programming to PCs or DVDs. Apparently, this includes some digital rights management mechanism that is intended to make it very difficult to play the recorded programs in any way that would not be considered private use. I'll have to keep an eye on this to see if more details emerge, because I don't fully understand this service yet.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 2:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I missed this article when it first appeared in the San Jose Mercury News, but yesterday The Seattle Times ran a column by Mike Langberg that discusses the large variety of inexpensive DVD players available at consumer electronic resellers. DVD players were offered as loss leaders on Black Friday this year, with a low end model going for $29.87 at Wal-Mart. The floor of market prices at the moment seems to be around $40.00.

The big question Operation Gadget readers ought to ask themselves before they buy an inexpensive DVD player is, why wouldn't I want the cheapest model available? Here are a few reasons:

1. Lack of output options. The least expensive models often omit S-Video and component outputs. If you have a high end NTSC television, don't buy a cheap DVD player without checking to make sure the model you want to buy connects to your TV at the highest-possible quality.

2. Lack of support for secondary formats. Every one of these DVD players support "Region 1" DVDs. If you want to view JPEG CDs, listen to audio CDs, CD-Rs, CD-RWs, or play VCDs, make sure the model you want to buy supports the disk formats you have.

3. Lack of progressive scan support. If you have HDTV, you need a progessive scan DVD player. The lowest cost models are not progressive scan DVD players.

4. Limited or non-existent quality assurance. User comments have indicated that some of the least expensive DVD player models have high defect rates. The big issues experienced are player freeze-up and playback stuttering. You're on fairly safe ground if you assume that major consumer electronics brands require more final assembly testing before each DVD player is boxed and shipped.

5. Lack of customer support. In reviewing user comments on a number of sites, it appears that the "no-name" electronic manufacturers are skimping on customer service. This won't necessarily be apparent to you until you experience a problem or have a question. Some people have reported that the lowest priced models have customer service telephone numbers that are not toll free, and that they have waited on hold for a long time to receive assistance.
   

Looking at all of the options available at Amazon.com, my choice for a low cost DVD player is the Samsung DVD P-230 Progressive Scan DVD Player. For about $70 you get S-Video and component outputs, progressive scan support, Dolby Digital and DTS capability, a wide range of secondary formats, and a unit that will look pretty good in your home theater component stack. Best of all, Samsung is a major consumer electronics manufacturer that has supported its products whenever I have had a problem. [ via Slashdot ]

Posted by Dave Aiello at 9:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Martin O'Donnell pointed out this Associated Press article that retells the story of the fiasco that ensued when ReplayTV promoted a $149 price for their 40-hour recorder with three years of programming service included, only to reneg on the deal after many units were sold by Amazon.com and Circuit City. There are a couple of reasons why this deal never appeared on Operation Gadget:

1. It sounded too good to be true. I thought that this might be a despiration move by a company that was running a distant fourth or fifth behind TiVo and several cable providers whose DVRs aren't even out yet. Anyone who fully understood what a Digital Video Recorder is and bought one of these units assuming that ReplayTV could honor a three year service commitment at a give-away price ought to stay away from places like the Brooklyn Bridge for a while.

2. Operation Gadget loves TiVo. This company, through all its trials and tribulations, has earned my respect. All they have done is delivered an outstanding service that has performed as advertised, with few if any surprises. I'm happier paying for my TiVo subscription than I am paying my cable bill.
   

I am not in a gloating mood over this. Whether ReplayTV actually used bait-and-switch tactics is for others to decide. But, their behavior in this case introduces more uncertainty into an area of the consumer electronics market that needs clear choices and consistent manufacturer behavior.

Operation Gadget reiterates its advice to gadget fans in the United States. If you are interested in owning a DVR, the best products on the market today come with the TiVo service mark on them.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 12:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Yesterday, PVRblog mentioned that DirecTV is having difficulty meeting demand for their TiVo-enabled set top boxes thanks to a holiday promotion that has lowered the price of each unit to $99, including installation. No wonder they are having trouble keeping up-- that's a great deal.

The shortage of "DirecTiVo" boxes came to light as a result of a sad story of the death of a stand-alone TiVo. From what the author said, this will have a tremendous impact on his family, who has become used to being able to precisely control their TV viewing experience. God forbid the TiVo in my living room fails in this fashion.

If you are interested in taking advantage of the $99 per-set-top-box deal from DirecTV, keep in mind that it expires on December 31, 2003. Right now, we have Comcast at home, but I will probably place an order next week if I find out that the promotion is not going to be extended into the new year.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 1:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

PVRblog has come up with more details about Comcast's impending rollout of a settop box that will provide DVR and HDTV reception. Matt Haughey seems to think that this "could be another huge setback for TiVo's financial future" and he may be right.

But, as a Central New Jersey Comcast customer, I'd like to point out one factor in my decision making process that doesn't seem to come up too much on PVRblog: my monthly bill. My wife and I pay $73.37 per month for a package of services that includes LTD Basic Service, Expanded Service, Value Pac, and Digital Plus. We pay for access on two TVs with settop boxes and remote control. Our bill also includes $0.30 per month for Cable Guard, a service that means that Comcast comes out to fix any wiring problems at our house.

My cousin, Brian Lynch, and I talked about this bill in several emails about two weeks ago. He works for ESPN and I was complaining to him that for $73.37 per month, Comcast didn't even allow me to watch ESPN Classic. We compared channel offerings and came to the conclusion that my wife and I could save significant money by switching to DirecTV or the Dish Network.

DVR fans talk about cable company DVR offerings without any idea how much the cable companies will charge for the priviledge of renting a DVR unit to us. It's pretty safe to say that Comcast will charge more than the $3.75 per month that they currently charge me for each settop box and remote control. How much more?

I believe that I can save $10 or more per month by switching to DirecTV or the Dish Network. Even if I add together my TiVo subscription payments, a comparable package of channels, and access from the same number of sets, I'll still save money. If I can save at least $10 a month, I don't care how good the DVR functions of Comcast's settop box are. I also don't think that HDTV service, where cable may have a temporary advantage, is worth paying a significant premium for. If I don't get what I want over satellite, I'd take my chances with over-the-air HDTV reception.

I've had TiVo for more than three years now, so I'm as big a DVR devotee as anyone. But, I have to ask, how much more do cable companies think we are willing to pay than we are paying now? Why shouldn't we be looking for ways to lower our bills? At least two options seem to be readily available at this point.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 2:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

In an article likely to disturb many early adopters Reuters suggests that flat panel TV fans wait until next year to buy their dream display. According to the article, "Shoppers looking for deep bargains on expensive flat-panel televisions will find only marginal discounts as the holiday season heats up, but experts say prices will tumble by some 30 percent in 2004.... Despite the buzz, flat panel sales are less than 3 percent of the entire TV market, dwarfed by cheaper cathode ray tube-based TVs." [ via PVRblog ]

Posted by Dave Aiello at 12:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Matt Haughey has done a terrific review of the Gateway Connected DVD Player, a device that combines a progressive scan DVD player with a wireless media server. The best part is the price: the entire package is available for $179.98, plus tax and shipping, with a widely available Gateway on-line coupon.

Haughey has been looking for an alternative to the TiVo Home Media Option since he switched from a TiVo Series 2 DVR to DirecTV with TiVo, which does not support the Home Media Option. The Gateway Connected DVD Player was his device of choice after surveying the available media server-type devices.

The PVRblog article contains lots of screenshots of the Gateway Connected DVD Player's user interface. These pictures helped me to understand the capabilities of the Connected DVD Player.

It's important to understand that the media server capabilities of this device require access to a Windows PC that is running the Gateway media server software. At my house, I have a Linux server running Samba that has my digital photos and MP3 library on it. In order to take advantage of the Connected DVD Player's network capabilities, I'd have to leave a PC on all the time, in addition to my server. That's not the greatest option, but at least I can do it. Macintosh users and Open Source software purists are out of luck in this regard.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 9:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

MacDevCenter.com, part of the O'Reilly Network, published a holiday gift guide yesterday called Gifts and Gadgets for the Geek Minded. The author, Terrie Miller, published a similar guide at this time last year. Although the choices are oriented toward Macintosh users, there are a number of cross-platform picks.

I thought the most interesting suggestion was the Griffin Technology PowerWave USB Audio Interface & Amplifier. This is the kind of device that appeals to an audio enthusiast who has a Mac or a PC and wants more audio options than they can get out of the box. The PowerWave lets you separate the computer's audio output from typical sources of interference by externalizing it. The audio comes out through the USB interface into the PowerWave, which has a built-in 20-Watt-per-channel amplifier. From there, you can go directly to a set of standard stereo speakers, if you wish.

This built-in-amplifier is also a great way to hook an MP3 player up to a stereo system.

The PowerWave also serves as an integration point for a number of devices that are typically difficult to connect to your computer system. You can connect turntables and cassette tape players to the PowerWave in order to convert older recordings to MP3 format. Griffin has a Mac application called Final Vinyl that helps convert tracks from LPs to MP3 format. I can also see applications for integrating external audio during digital video production.

I'm really glad I read through Gifts and Gadgets for the Geek Minded and considered each one. I haven't thought about an external audio device like the PowerWave in a while. But, I have prosumer DV camera that's gathering dust at the moment, and I could see wanting to get a PowerWave into the mix if I decide to produce a DVD for my family.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 4:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Forbes Magazine reported that some analysts have concluded that TiVo needs to find a partner in the cable industry in order to avoid becoming a marginal player in the television technology market. The article says that Forrester Research analyst Josh Bernoff believes that TiVo risks evolving into a company like Apple Computer: a niche player with strong customer loyalty and high profitability on a per-unit installed unit basis.

In PVRblog's coverage of this story, readers have pointed out some potential flaws in this analysis. One major component of the conversion to digital television is the elimination of the need for a free-standing set top box. As consumers begin to adopt HDTV, they will have the opportunity to replace their set top box with a digital television receiver. This device could easily contain embedded video recording technology powered by TiVo. So, cable company-provided set top boxes with video recording functionality might turn out to be transitional, not permanent additions to the home.

Another issue is that many cable companies may prefer to sell video-on-demand services to their customers, rather than leasing them personal video recorders (PVRs). Video-on-demand would better satisfy many producers of TV content, and would probably maximize marginal revenue. Video-on-demand is unlikely to ever truly replace a PVR in a home theater because the PVR could function as a media server that stores and plays home videos, digital photos, and music.

The features that exist in "Series 2" TiVo units, particularly the Home Media Option are valuable, available today, and unlikely to be duplicated any time soon. If you are on the fence about whether to buy a TiVo-powered PVR, opt for your cable company's non-branded solution, or survive with the video-on-demand services on your cable system, I would say that you will be most satisfied by buying and owning a TiVo -powered device.

The only reasons I can think of that would make this untrue is if you have a philosophical problem with paying for the TiVo service or recording HDTV signals on your PVR is something you will want to do before the end of the first quarter of 2004. If you either of these issues concern you, then you may be best served by making one of the other choices.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 8:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Martin O'Donnell pointed out an article from New Scientist that says Nerotek has developed an integrated home theater speaker system that delivers surround sound from a single point in the room. According to the article, the Niro 1.1 Pro achieves the surround sound effect by placing five speakers in the same box and using signal processing to alter the sound so that you hear it coming from different places.

I had to Google around to find info about this company. They're at www.niro.net.

Posted by Dave Aiello at 10:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)