5January2009
Posted by andybeach under: Ramblings.
It’s the first week of January and in the past that has often meant a trip to San Francisco for Macworld SF. This year, sadly, I’m not heading out for the conference - much of the work I’m doing these days is less Mac focused and much more video compression focused (both mac & pc, plus the whole network infrastructure of it). And this is no doubt surely to be an exciting one - at least form the perspective of seeing the drama play out that has been discussed ad infinitum since early December. For those who don’t religious watch Mac news - this is the last year Apple will take part in Macworld (an IDG event) and Steve Jobs will not be giving the lauded keynote speech. The last bit of news set off a flurry of Steve Job’s health watches that have cause stock prices to dip, speculation on even mainstream news sites, and finally a letter for the man himself today. While I expect little int he way of actual announcements this year, the Soap Opera style drama surrounding it would have made for interesting conversation over beers with my geek pals.
But of course, MWSF isn’t the only thing happening this week - in fact, if you could care less about Apple related gossip, you’d say the big event of the week is really the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. This show highlights a variety of consumer gadgets & technologies from the worlds leading companies and includes keynote speeches from Microsoft (last year of was Bill’s last - this year Steve Ballmer steps into the role). Due in part to my lack of Microsoft related work before Inlet (or perhaps my large amount of Apple related work) I never went to CES, opting instead for MWSF.
So i’ll be tuning in virtually, like many others to see what both shows have to offer in terms of announcements. I am curous to see what new online video announcements come out of CES, as I’m quite sure this is going to be a hot topic (once again) for the show. And I’m also rooting for Phil Schiller (Apple’s VP Marketing who’s stepping into the Keynote void made by Job’s). I’ve always liked Phil and hope the crowds show him the same excitement the show the man himself during steve-notes…
29December2008
Posted by andybeach under: Ramblings.
I mentioned this on Facebook the other day, but wanted to post it here as well. With it being the holidays, there’s nothing to watch on regular TV, so our Netflix instant queue has been getting a good working over. Initially, because we’ve just moved and not everything is hooked up, we were trying out the new netflix app on the Tivo Series 3. Its very nice to have the app right on our regular set top box, but i was mildly annoyed by the slight clunky feel of the interface. pushing a button doesn’t immediately result i a re4sponse, cauasing you to click repeatedly at times (over steering). Next i noticed several movies wouldnt play at all. They would start, then skip randomly and rebuffer constantly. Still, for the most part we were able to watch a variety of TV shows and movies on the netflix app and satiate our viewing.
On Christmas day i decided to finally crack open the box the Roku was packed in and set it up. Before the move we hadn’t used the Roku much, so this was almost a relearning in some ways. Right away I was struck by how much more peppy and responsive the roku interface is than the tivo one. Every button click has an immediate feeling response. Then I was really surprised by the quality of the image - The Roku image quality was noticeably better than the tivo’s. We had just watch an episode of Friday Night Lights on the Tivo and it rebuffered several times during playback and was plagued by blockiness throughout the playback. Watching the same episode on the Roku showed none of the problems. I can’t be quite sure, but i think the Tivo was displaying the 480p version of the stream while the roku was able to playback the 720p (again, i havent done any rigorous documentation here as yet). One other quick test was La Vie en Rose - which has subtitles throughout. On Tivo, the subtitles were very blocky and obviously scaled up (in a bad way). The roku had much smoother, much more legible subtitles.
Bottom line for me is the Roku is doing a much better job of streaming the netflix content than the Tivo application is. I am not exactly sure the reasons - true it has been out longer, but then i believe it was performing about the same straight out of the box. I do wonder if its taking advantage of some hardware scaling perhaps that the Tivo doesn’t have in order to get the better quality, but that wouldn’t explain the roku’s ability to lock onto higher quality streams and stick with it.
23December2008
Posted by andybeach under: Ramblings.
Awesome - now if we can just convince the primetime shows to lose those obnoxious pop up ads for other shows (I’d love to call one out, but they are all culpable here).
The crawl, as it is called, the unending stream of news capsules that have inched relentlessly across the bottom of cable news programs for seven years, disappeared from CNN last Monday.
via Finally, the Crawl Stops Inching Across the Screen - TV Decoder Blog - NYTimes.com.
23December2008
Posted by andybeach under: Ramblings.
Roku Adds HD, Updates for Non-Netflix Content « NewTeeVee.
As a Roku owner, I’m very happy to see it getting some upgrades. It’s not that I don’t like what it does (quick and easy streaming of videos from my Instant Queue on Netflix) however the biggest complaint of the service by me (and others) has been the imited collection of content available. Netflix has done a good job of slowly rolling out more material, but seeing the addition of HD content by them, plus the promise of other content providers for the box means my $99 investment will continue to be useful - expecially now that netflix instant options are cropping up everywhere.
22December2008
Posted by andybeach under: Industry News; Links.
One of the last major distributors of VHS have shut down their distribution of the medium, according to the LA Times.
“It’s dead, this is it, this is the last Christmas, without a doubt,” said Kugler, 34, a Burbank businessman. “I was the last one buying VHS and the last one selling it, and I’m done. Anything left in warehouse we’ll just give away or throw away.”
While I don’t doubt this statement in the least, Kugler ended with another quote i disagree with wholly:
“The DVD will be obsolete in three or four years, no doubt about it. Everything will be Blu-ray,” Kugler said, anticipating the next resident at his pop culture retirement home. “The days of the DVD are numbered. And that is good news for me.”
No way do I buy that. First off, look how long it has taken VHS to die off. Secondly, people are super slow to adopt Blu Ray - the price has been too high (still) and even though it beat HD-DVD, it has Digital Downloads to contend with. So I think DVD is here for the foreseaable future and when it does finally get shoved aside, it will probably be for a digital option, not a physical one.
via VHS era is winding down - Los Angeles Times.
