Tag Archive for 'HD'

A whole lot of TV… in the new

Published
by
Anthony Thompson
on July 6, 2008
in Interesting, Media, Movies, Technology and Television
. Comments

Recently, I’ve been watching a lot of TV shows.  Shows like 30 Rock, Eureka, The Office.  A whole heaping helping of shows that I’ve been told are good, but just haven’t watched for one reason or another.

Turns out that I really like them.  So, I decided that instead of watching them on a TV or getting the DVDs from Netflix, I would just watch them on my HTPC.  The first three seasons of The Office, I watched on Netflix’s Instant Player and the fourth, I watched on Hulu.com.  The first season of 30 Rock, I watched on Netflix and bought and downloaded the second season from Amazon Unbox.  I got the first season of Eureka from Amazon Unbox and am working on it as I type.

So, how many of you are slowly or even quickly moving to an Internet-based television experience?

If you could pay $2 per episode for all of the shows that you watch on a regular basis, would it be more expensive or cheaper than what you are paying now for cable or satellite service?  What would you think about a system like that?  Would HD be a must?  Should HD content be more expensive or the same?

Personally, I would love a system like that and I think that it would be less expensive than what we are paying now for satellite, but truthishly, I haven’t crunched the numbers.  I think that HD content should be the same price as standard def content.  Nowadays, every major TV show is shot in HD and then conformed to the old SD standards, so there isn’t any extra work needed to produce HD.  I think there is just this feeling of “privilege” that is surrounding and staining the true, blu potential of HD content.

Yep, that missing ‘e’ was intentional.  That’s for you, Kody.  ;)

Sony and Blu-Ray Sittin’ in a Tree

Published
by
Anthony Thompson
on May 15, 2008
in Media, Movies, Technology and future
. Comments

I’m not sure that title joke is actually appropriate seeing as Sony is the parent of Blu-Ray… meh.

So, Sony is sitting pretty with Blu-Ray being the one HD format to rule them all.  Until THIS! (dun-dun-dun)  Pretty much saying that Blu-Ray players aren’t moving and most consumers who didn’t get in during “the war”, still won’t get in on Blu-Ray.  Really, I’m not surprised.  Blu-Ray (BR) players are still up around $300.  DVD didn’t REALLY become popular until you could get a player for around $100.  I think those 35% with HDTVs are waiting for the prices to come down.  Sony or other BR manufacturers, however, don’t feel the need to bring those prices on players or media down because, dammit, they won and they are going to milk this tit as long as they can.

BR is a fantastic format, don’t get me wrong.  I love the crap out of it and my PS3 is a great DVD/BR player.  Though, the interesting thing is that the PS3 is adhering to more of the BR standards than the standalone players are, without being the best BR player available.  You are hard-pressed to find a BD player that supports BD 2.0 or BD Live.  Then when you do, you are looking to shell out $3-400 on it.  Not appetizing when you look at the actual movies running around $35 at BestBuy.  Though, admittedly, if you shop around, you can get new BR discs for close to the same price as new DVDs.

Sony is shooting itself in the foot and bleeding all over the consumer.  They are grossed out and kind of confused.  If the media becomes cheaper, more accessible to the consumer, I think Sony will start putting some gauze on that ugly bullet wound.  BR will eventually explode and replace DVD, but right now the consumer is confused, doesn’t really know the difference between BR and DVD, and is scared off by the high prices of all things BR.  HD specs are full of numbers and letters they never had to deal with before.  1080p through HDMI and all that.  Those of us who can follow and understand the jumble are okay and loving our BR players.

Once prices come down, if they come down, BR will start moving.  The first hurdle for the format is HDTVs.  The second, the format war, which is still scaring consumers for some reason.  The final is price.  Once all three of these are leaped, BR will become a giant and we will look at DVD the same we do VHS now.

Lets not talk about digital downloads.  Let’s suffice to say that the majority of consumers still want to hold a piece of plastic in their hands to show they bought something.  Also, the HD quality on downloads doesn’t come close to that on BR.  That may change, but I think the tangible product will keep winning for several years to come.

I’ve had my piece.  Now, you, Disqus.  Heh.  Reference to the new comment system I re-implemented.

CableCARDs

Published
by
Anthony Thompson
on February 23, 2008
in Computers, Technology and Television
. Comments

tivo_cablecard.jpgAs I understand it, some of you may be shackled to your cable company’s crappy DVR. Well, it turns out that, if you didn’t know this already, you have an option. Some would say satellite, and that is indeed an option, but what if your landlord won’t let you put a dish on the unit or even in the yard? Maybe you can’t get line-of-sight to the right area of the sky? What if your house is really only wired for cable or some craziness like that? Well, let us say that you have resigned to the cable way, but you really, really hate their DVR. Well, have you heard of CableCARDs? These little credit card-sized cards go into the back of newer third-party DVRs. The cards are essentially tuners that receive all the channels that you subscribe to via your cable provider. They are designed with digital cable in mind and will decode these digital channels, allowing you to watch and record them. DVRs you can use these with include TiVo and Niveus devices. These two companies’ devices (along with many others) are on the list of CableLabs certified CableCARD devices. This means that if the cable company says they don’t support TiVo and you can’t use it on their system, you have just been lied to. The FCC requires all cable companies to support and offer CableCARDs to their customers. You may still have to pay a “rental fee” for using the CableCARD, but research and articles suggest this price will probably be much, MUCH less than the “DVR fee” the cable companies currently charge you. So, you may have to call TiVo if the unit itself breaks, but if the CableCARD craps out, then that is the cable company’s issue.

So, now you want yourself the beauty of a TiVo HD and to dump that shitty 20Gb Motorola DVR the cable company gave you. I would suggest reading through this set of articles before you go demanding your CableCARDs and doing some research into the DVR system you are wanting to get and what CableCARDs it supports. That article focuses around the newer M-Cards or Multistream Cards, but I think the message is still very much valid. M-Cards do the same job as that dual-tuner box you watch TV through now, meaning you can watch one thing while recording another and all that. Normally, you would have to get two single stream cards to the job. This may still be the case in some TiVo boxes, so I would keep your eye out and check the specs of whatever you buy.

If you are feeling especially spry, you could try building your own PVR out of a spare computer and MythTV or Windows Media Center and use a CableCARD reader (or two), but personally, I am not that self-confident and don’t have the expendable income to experiment. If you choose this method, keep in the mind that processing HD content requires a LOT more horsepower than SD content. An Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 has a hard time decoding and processing HD. I’m not saying they can’t or won’t do it, but it will/can be taxing to the system, so keep that in mind.

There you have it. I hope this inspires at least a couple of you to give the boot to crappy DVRs and go with the good stuff. Remember, the first hit’s free.