media addict

Entries in the Category "Technology"

Netflix Streaming and Physical Media

Since Netflix launched their movie and television streaming service there has been a lot of speculation about the imminent death of physical media. Consumers don't want to have stacks of discs around just to listen to music or watch a movie. When I read tech blogs, all I hear about is that people only stream movies and have DVDs and Blu-rays sitting around for months. My experience with Netflix streaming is the exact opposite and I have noticed two key shortcomings of the service that never seem to be part of the discussion.

1. Catalog Stability - In addition to the limited catalog of titles available, those that are available are often only available for a limited time. Multiple items in my streaming queue have expired and can no longer be watched because Netflix's rights agreement have expired with the content owner. This is easily the biggest issue with any media streaming service. Content availability is everything, and having a catalog that is constantly in flux is a big problem.


2. Stream Quality - I have a standard cable internet connection with a download rate of 6Mbps. When I initiate Netflix's service I typically get a 4 bar quality rating for my stream. When available this also gives me the HD stream. This sounds great, but the fact is that even the HD stream is basically DVD quality. To compare this with a Blu-ray is laughable. To make matters worse, virtually every time I stream a movie the quality regularly starts high and then drops to 3 and sometimes 2 bars, rendering it a far less enjoyable experience. I realize that this is due to my internet connection, but that also means that others with similar connections are suffering the same problems. For this to be a legitimate replacement for physical media, this issue needs to be resolved.


3. Transfer Quality - Quite a few of the streams I have come across in Netflix's system are not in widescreen format, even when a widescreen version is available on DVD. Others are presented in letterbox widescreen and appear as a small rectangle in the center of an HDTV. This is unacceptable for a service meant to replace physical media.

Don't get me wrong, I love Netflix. I have been a subscriber for over five years and it has allowed me to become a voracious consumer of movies (I have rented over 1100 movies since June 2004). The death of physical media is coming, but not for many years. Many areas of the country still have only dial-up or slow broadband connections available. The time when the average consumer has enough bandwidth to stream 1080p content is several years, if not a decade, away.

Fun with Blog Analyzers

I read a post on Mano Singham's blog this morning about a couple of websites that analyze blogs. The first uses the blog text to perform a Myers-Briggs analysis on the author and the other guesses the author's gender. Since I have two blogs, this one and another on the various electronic and computer projects I have done, I decided to run the two tests on each to see how and if they differed.

The first test, Typealyzer, gave me the following results:
My Tech Addiction - ENTP - The Visionaries

The charming and trend savvy type. They are especially attuned to the big picture and anticipate trends. They often have sophisticated language skills and come across as witty and social. At the end of the day, however, they are pragmatic decision makers and have a good analytical abilitity.They enjoy work that lets them use their cleverness, great communication skills and knack for new exciting ventures. They have to look out not to become quitters, since they easily get bored when the creative exciting start-up phase is over.

High On Solder - ESTJ - The Guardians

The organizing and efficient type. They are especially attuned to setting goals and managing available resources to get the job done. Once they´ve made up their mind on something, it can be quite difficult to convince otherwise. They listen to hard facts and can have a hard time accepting new or innovative ways of doing things. The Guardians are often happy working in highly structured work environments where everyone knows the rules of the job. They respect authority and are loyal team players.

Like Mano I also did a survey type Myers-Briggs analysis here to compare to the typealyzer results. The survey told me that I was an INTJ with 22% I, 50% N, 75% T, 33% J. This translates to slightly expressed introvert, moderately expressed intuitive personality, distinctively expressed thinking personality, and moderately expressed judging personality. I found it interesting that the only thing the three analyses agreed on was that I have a thinking personality. I wish that typealyzer also gave you the percentages for each personality type since this would give a better indicator as to how close the three tests really were.

The second test GenderAnalyzer, however, is where things really got compelling. I received the following results:
My Tech Addiction - 75% Man
High On Solder - 93% Woman

I think this demonstrates a flaw in the gender analyzer algorithm. I imagine that it uses some sort of writing pattern analysis to determine the author's gender, so how can the same person have such different results? I was also amazed at the High On Solder result since the subject matter of electronics, computers, etc. is generally not something women are associated with. This means that gender analyzer must completely ignore the subject matter. If you're a blogger try these out, if nothing else they are good for a laugh.

Playstation 3

A few weeks ago I wrote about my debate over whether or not to buy a PS3. Last week Target ran a deal where if you bought the 40GB PS3 you got a free $40 gift card. This combined with the announcement that Toshiba will no longer produce HD-DVD players, resulted in me buying a PS3.I have owned an XBOX 360 for over a year and I have to say that from a hardware standpoint the PS3 is in another league. From the design, to the capability, this is one slick machine.

Pros:
- Quiet Fans (while the PS3 produces plenty of heat, it does so without the considerable fan noise that my 360 emits)
- Quiet Disc Drive (unlike the jet engine in the 360, the PS3's drive is virtually silent)
- Clean Interface (the blade interface of the 360 is good, but at times can be clunky with too many sub-menus per blade, I found the crossbar on the PS3 to be better)
- Movie Playback (the PS3 has a huge advantage due to its built-in Bluray player, but even the options for upscaling regular DVDs and the interface itself are far superior to the 360)

Cons:
- PSN (it doesn't come close to the content available on XBOX Live & its interface is clunky)
- Game Demos (require an install process which for some reason is not done automatically)

That said I am very pleased with my purchase. I definitely spend more time watching movies than playing games, so my PS3 will see a lot of use from all media.

Buy a PS3?

I have been considering buying a PS3 but I can't quite bring myself to do it. My interest in the PS3 ramped up a couple of weeks ago when Warner Brothers announced they were going Blu-ray exclusive. This solidified my belief that the HD format war was Blu-ray's to lose and that the best that HD-DVD could hope for was a stalemate. I have two primary reservations about getting a PS3: the number of exclusive games that I am interested in and the video quality difference between DVD and Blu-ray.

My first reservation stems from the fact that the only PS3 exclusive that has come out that I am interested in is Uncharted: Drake's Fortune. Some other games on the horizon look interesting (Little Big Planet, and others), but they are at least several months away. The other source of doubt for me is that the difference between DVD and Blu-ray is marginal on a 26" HDTV like I have. That said, I do spend more time watching movies than playing games and while I can definitely tell the difference between HD and DVD, it isn't a make-or-break situation. In order to sway my decision I need more justification to spend $400 than just somewhat better video quality, ie. interesting games to play. The PS3 is also the most future proof Blu-ray player making it the obvious choice for a player if I'm going to buy one.

The wild card in all this is that there are a couple of movies that I would like to buy (Blade Runner: The Final Cut, Planet Earth). But there is no point in buying them on an obsolete format so why not get an HD player already? Maybe I'll wait for my economic stimulus from the government and blow it on a PS3 to do my part for the country. For the foreseeable future, however, I'm going to stay in a holding pattern. But if a couple more PS3 exclusive games look compelling or they drop the price again (come on Sony you know you want to) I'm going to have to cross to the dark side.

eBook Readers

With all of the recent hype about Amazon's new (and horribly named) Kindle ebook reader I decided to add my two cents on the issue.

Ever since Sony first introduced their reader a couple of years ago I have been somewhat apprehensive about this technology. The pros and cons are well documented but these are the few I think are key:

Pros:
- One small device can carry hundreds of documents
- Ability to wirelessly acquire new media

Cons:
- When the battery dies you're screwed
- No universal open format for electronic print items
- Books don't cost much less than paper copies
- Not as rugged or as disposable as a paperback or magazine
- Expensive

At this point, I think the cons vastly out weigh the pros. A fragile, expensive piece of electronics with essentially one function is not a wise use of your money. I also think most of the additional functionality of the Kindle is a waste since it drives up the price of the unit. Being able to download new books and newspapers over Sprint's EVDO service is definitely cool, but I would much rather have device without this capability for less money.

My main argument against this generation of ebook readers is that they aren't that good. Give me a reader that can display color and doesn't have any unnecessary crapware built-in; I don't need it to play MP3s, record audio, browse the web, or display photos. Then get the price closer to $100 ($300-$400 is ridiculous) and I might consider purchasing one.

Bug Labs

I have been following this company and its innovative idea ever since I heard about it via Make Magazine's Blog. After seeing these three videos (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3) this weekend, I am very excited about what they are doing. Bug Labs is about to release a modular, completely open source, hand-held piece of hardware. So with this device you can now design and build your own PDA, GPS, Camera hybrid device. Definitely a very cool idea that is worth keeping an eye on.

Rockbox Firmware for Sandisk Sansa

I recently tried out the open source Rockbox firmware for my Sandisk Sansa e280. I have to say I am very impressed. It removes most of the issues that exist with the default firmware and adds a lot of new capability to the player.

The main drawbacks (for me) of the default Sansa firmware are as follows: slow start-up, requires database refresh on every start-up, limited file compatibility, unable to read m3u playlists, difficult to encode video for player without proprietary software and the inability to load video onto player in MSC mode among others.

Rockbox addresses these issues in almost every respect. It can not only play MP3 and WMA files, but also OGG/Vorbis, FLAC, AAC and others. It starts up in under 5 seconds as opposed to over 10 for the default firmware. Once the database is created (a much faster process than on the default firmware), it does not need to be rebuilt at every restart. All playlists in Rockbox use the m3u standard and as such are very easy to create and edit for use by the player. Rockbox also allows the player to read MPEG video files which was impossible before.

The only drawback so far is that Rockbox does not support the usb connection from the player to your computer. What this means is that with Rockbox running, you cannot connect to your computer to transfer files (you can still charge your player in this manner). In order transfer files you must boot the player into the original firmware; but since it was not deleted from the player this is easily done by holding down a button when turning on the player. It should also be noted that since Rockbox is always evolving, this issue will most likely be resolved in the future (especially since it appears that Sandisk is supporting the Rockbox effort).

MP3 Player Compatibility

I recently purchased a Sandisk Sansa e280 MP3 player and I am amazed at how hard it is to do certain tasks. For basic music capability it is works fine. Set it to Mass-Storage mode (I run Linux on my home computers) and just drag and drop music onto the player, couldn't be simpler. Beyond this, it is nearly impossible to do anything. Just try to add a playlist in MSC mode. For unknown reasons, the Sansa requires playlists to be in a format that no other software on earth uses. I have done a lot of research and found people who went as far as writing their own software and scripts just to convert a typical m3u or pls playlist into a plp/pla playlist for the Sansa. When will companies realize that the easier to use they make their product, the more successful it will be?

The same thing goes for video. I realize that video encoding/decoding is much more complicated than a playlist and that the Sansa is built primarily for music; but why include the feature when it is virtually unusable unless you use their special software on a Windows machine. Getting video manually encoded and playing correctly when loaded onto the Sansa via MSC mode appears to be the elusive white whale for this device.

I don't understand these restrictions especially given that Sandisk and the many other MP3 player manufacturers are not selling a complete "package" the way that Apple and Microsoft are with the iPod and Zune. Why doesn't one of these companies make a completely open player and actually tell the user what specs and requirements the player needs to play audio, video, playlists, etc.? I know that in theory the market for such a device may seem small, but people love to tinker (especially tech savvy people) and would actually welcome the freedom to use a device how they want to. If the internet has proven anything it's that convenience outweighs quality (just look at Youtube, MP3 downloads, bootleg movies on bittorrent, etc).

HD DVD vs Blu-ray

Into the ever compelling format war of HD DVD and Blu-ray, I throw my hat.

I just read a very interesting article about the production costs of both formats. My previous understanding was that the HD DVD format was cheaper to manufacture due to its inherent similarities to the DVD format. This allowed for simpler manufacturing versus Blu-ray which requires a very different process from DVD. This is due mainly to the data carrying layer of Blu-ray being closer to the surface of the disc, requiring different coatings than either HD DVD or DVD. According to this article, however, this is not the case. The article concludes that "...we can see that Blu-ray media replication does not cost significantly more than HD DVD. In fact, we found that Blu-ray is actually cheaper per GB in many situations!"

In my opinion this is the straw that broke the camel's back. To see what I mean, let me weigh the attributes of each format.

HD DVD:
-First to market
-More inexpensive players
-Major hardware support by Toshiba, Microsoft (XBOX 360 add-on), others
-Supported by Viacom (Paramount, Dreamworks), Universal and Time Warner (Warner Brothers, New Line) movie studios

Blu-ray
-More storage capacity (25GB vs 15GB for a single layer disc)
-Built into every PlayStation 3
-Major hardware support by Sony, Dell, HP, others
-Supported by Time Warner (Warner Brothers, New Line), Viacom (Paramount, Dreamworks), Disney (Buena Vista, Pixar), News Corp. (20th Century Fox), Sony (Sony Pictures, Columbia Pictures, TriStar Pictures, MGM) and Lions Gate Films movie studios

This time last year it looked like Sony was shooting themselves in the foot by delaying the PS3 and with it Blu-ray and consequently allowing HD DVD a head start. This head start and any player cost advantages have essentially been nullified by the availability and solid sales of the PS3. One could argue it is to early to call this an advantage, especially since it appears the HD DVD drive add-on for the XBOX 360 is also selling well. As shown above, however, Sony holds a distinct advantage in the content war. In the end their two trump cards may be the exclusivity they hold with their own studio and with Disney. Not only will Sony hold out to the last to relinquish its own studios films to HD DVD, a huge amount of DVD sales are for family movies (Disney's bread and butter).

Meanwhile HD DVD's main advantages, player and disc cost, have not been exploited well enough. As the article mentioned above notes; Blu-ray, in practice, costs the same to manufacture as HD DVD thus eliminating one of it's inherent advantages. The player cost issue is one I personally find amazing. Toshiba's best hand to play would be to introduce the cheapest possible player (under $200 is a key price point) to take advantage of whatever momentum they may have and try to steal the market before too much Blu-ray content is released. This would then force some if not all of the Blu-ray exclusive companies to also put out HD DVD content. By not doing that, Toshiba is essentially letting Sony win by default. In time, millions of PS3s will be sold (along with other players), a huge content disparity will be evident in favor of Blu-ray and in the end it will result in the end of HD DVD. Who wants to buy a player with less movies available for it? Only Universal is exclusively HD DVD.

Having one company, Sony, controlling too much of any market is not good (look at Microsoft). I have also read that the DRM on Blu-ray is much worse than on HD DVD. My above conclusion is very disappointing to me since I feel that due to its blunders Sony doesn't deserve to win this format war. But it looks that thanks to its combination of hardware and content holdings, it will anyway.

The DRM issue with HD content, especially HDCP, I hope to discuss further in a later post.

DirecTV sucks/Wii rules

Saturday was supposed to be a nice day with sunshine and relatively warm temperatures. I was also scheduled to have DirecTV attempt to install my TV service for the third time. Well third-times-a-charm it wasn't. After failing to install my new dish due to weather, then not properly rescheduling installation, and now not bringing the proper ladder to get the dish high enough because the job had been specified incorrectly. The supreme incompetence of DirecTV boggles the mind and it has cost them a customer as I will be canceling my service with them on Monday. All of the shows I really like can be downloaded or streamed off the internet. I have also come to the conclusion that watching sports is a complete waste of time. In the last six months or so I have also come to appreciate the podcasting/vidcasting phenomenon much more, consequently, no TV service will have little affect on me.

As I mentioned in my previous post my newly constructed HTPC will allow me to enjoy said downloaded content in a much more quality fashion. Speaking of which, Saturday night I watched some TV shows I had missed from the previous week using my HTPC and it kicks ass. Conclusion: F-your-face DirecTV (Rupert Murdock has enough money anyway).

Saturday wasn't a complete wash however; my Nintendo Wii arrived. Needless to say I have been overwhelmingly satisfied with it thus far. I was initially apprehensive about the lower graphical power and motion control scheme. These fears were unjustified. While graphics can make an already good game great, they cannot save a bad game. This is due to the simple fact that if a game is fun to play, that's all that matters (just look at Tetris). If future Wii games follow the guidelines (great gameplay combined with creative graphical art design) set by the two games I have so far (Wii Sports and Zelda: Twilight Princess), I can see the Wii competing greatly for my free time with my XBOX 360. Simple, fun, addictive gameplay is what the early game systems solely relied on. Games like Gears of War offer spectacular graphics and textures, but what keeps gamers coming back for more is that it is amazingly fun to play. It's for this same reasons that I played Wii tennis for over an hour today to refine my shots in this deceptively simple game. I can't wait till I get my component video cable to clean up the graphics a little on my HDTV.

First Entry, Wii, HTPC

I finally got around to starting this blog, so for better or worse here goes.

I am really excited today since I purchased a Nintendo Wii last night on Ebay and wasn't completed raped either. I got it in a bundle with the new Legend of Zelda game, which I was planning on buying anyway. I had been planning on waiting to buy a Wii until they were readily available in stores; but that looks more and more like it won't happen until April at the earliest. I also have an XBOX 360, which is a great system, but I have been looking forward to playing Zelda for over a year now. Now I just need to finish Gears of War.

I am also nearing completion of my home theater PC (HTPC). Now I will be able to watch downloaded content (like the various vidcasts and TV shows I regularly download) on my HDTV at native resolutions without dealing with all the S-Video scaling BS. This will be an especially big benefit for the shows I watch which are in HD, since now they won't be downscaled and then upscaled which greatly reduces the quality of the picture. This HPTC will also allow me to play music via a digital coaxial audio connection directly to my AV receiver instead of using a stereo out from my laptop and using Dolby Pro Logic to get surround sound.

I based my HTPC off of a Shuttle barebones kit from Newegg. I used a AMD Athlon 64 3200+ CPU that I already had, same goes for the 80 GB hard drive, 8x DVD burner and NVidia 7600GS fanless video card. I only used 512MB of RAM since Linux is not as memory hungry as Windows and I am not planning on doing much multitasking on this system. My plan is to use Ubuntu Linux on this system to have a very stable and secure setup without a lot of extra junk on it that comes with Windows. I have to see if the NVidia video card drivers for Linux offer the same overscan correction features that they do for Windows.

I think that's enough for today, more later.