Engadget HD Podcast 097 - 08.13.2008
Not much exciting news this week but plenty to talk about, as the Olympics have been occupying much of our time with all the HD goodness that's on almost 24 hours a day. The other topic that got more than its fair share of time this week was the TV Pack. We talk up the good and the bad and although we are enjoying the new features, we still don't understand why it is OEM only. Finally we really show our age as we take a walk down memory lane and tell our sad stories of college -- sans HDTVs in our dorm room of course. Get the podcast
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Hosts: Ben Drawbaugh and Steve Kim
Producer: Trent Wolbe
02:54 - Ready to watch the 2008 Beijing Olympics?
08:25 - Olympics viewership through the roof, HDTV / internet to thank?
10:46 - Hands-on with the Vista Media Center TV Pack
22:43 - Did Microsoft intentionally break commercial skipping in Media Center?
27:14 - DISH Network might attempt DirecTV merger again?
28:24 - SlingPlayer 2.0 enters public beta -- without Clip+Sling
37:47 - Poll: Do you still visit the store for movie rentals?
40:30 - Colleges throwing in high-def amenities to lure in millennials
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Mitchell @ Aug 13th 2008 3:22PM
Ben,
MythTV has had the channel priorities for years. Welcome to 2006 :-P.
On my Myth box I have my two ATSC HD tunners and a SD tuner OTA all on the same channel. Then i give priority to the ATSC tuners and if i need a 3rd tuner it will use the SD tuner.
If i ever add a HDPVR or any other feed I can add it to the channel group. Really this boils down to some pretty simple SQL queries.
Mitchell
Matt Busche @ Aug 13th 2008 8:29PM
Redbox is a movie rental system that is in a lot of McDonalds and HyVee (Grocery stores) in the midwest. You rent a movie for a day from a kiosk for $1. If you don't return it within a day you are given a penalty on your credit card. Very good deal.
IMBigWillie @ Aug 13th 2008 11:29PM
Ben,
I loved your comments about using Netscape to launch installers/other programs that were restricted. I used to do similar things as well. In the Windows 95/98 days some systems were setup with poledit (policy editor which only let specific executables run), but you could just rename an exe to an exe that had access and run it no problem! At another school, they were a bit more locked down, but they did have MS Office. I just wrote a Visual Basic Macro that would let me launch my progams.
-Will
Brent @ Aug 14th 2008 12:57AM
Love the show guys - keep up the great work!
It amazing me how many hoops Microsoft makes VMC users go through for basic functionality. Seriously, take away CableCard and the glossy UI, I can't see what makes people choose VMC over the competitors. With the HD-PVR, there really isn't much reason remaining.
I agree on the clip-n-sling. I barely understood what it would be used for practically anyway. Slingbox has a nice thing going, but I'm happy with SageTV's placeshifting solution - It's integrated with my HTPC so I can watch liveTV (w/program guide), recorded shows, movies, music etc stored on my server. I use it some from the office and a lot on the road. I do miss the better HD quality I get from home though.
I never go to the movie store - I've used Redbox (a movie rental in a vending box) two or three times when I wanted a new release without the one-or-two day wait.
aaron @ Aug 14th 2008 9:34AM
i dont even care about cablecard but the ui is the most important factor outside of it working with basic tv stuff.... and thats the one area nobody has been able to come even close to yet (sagetv with the media center theme included)
that is what is keeping people with media center (along with the potential you wont be seeing elsewhere..... native directv tuners, etc). i do think at some point people will give up on ms though. they have really really botched vista media center as a whole. i really want to see them break media center out on its own (like sage,beyond and others) and charge for updates like they do.
scottM @ Aug 15th 2008 11:48AM
The Media Center update was probably restricted to OEM because of the dumb accounting rules that Sarbanes Oxley puts on companies. Microsoft can't distribute it for free the same why the iTouch updates cost money. They didn't account for them on a subscription basis.
Jim Mallory @ Aug 19th 2008 6:15AM
And MS could have gotten by that by simply charging for the upgrade ala the iPod Touch. I would have happily paid $50 for it if it came with support. Same thing with 802.11n, Apple just created an installation CD and charged a minimum amount for it.
But since it breaks WebGuide, I would have probably thought long and hard about installing it. I guess the advantage of Windows 7 is that hopefully all this stuff works together.
I have long thought that Media Center was treated like the redheaded stepchild over in the eHome division, I think this just proves it. Unfortunate, as this is a Microsoft product that even a Mac user like myself love. It has so much potential beyond just being a fancy DVR.
PaulF @ Aug 15th 2008 1:03PM
TV Pack RE: Ed Bott on The Media Centre Show = Tap Dance.
VMC users got hosed, go listen to it.
My favorite part (paraphrasing): EB: TV Pack is mostly for other than USA
ID: H.264 isn't there
EB: DirecTV Problem, not MS
ID: But the UK FreeSat is H.264...???
LOL