Richard Lawler
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Richard Lawler is used to being on the bleeding edge of technology, he can usually be found with a cellphone that does everything except make or receive phone calls, an Xbox that no longer plays games, and a car that's not running, but has slightly more speakers than the indigenous North American language "Onandoga". He can usually be found extolling the virtues of the Phantom game system for any and all who will listen on the High-tech boards of Okayplayer.com that he also moderates. He's not as much of an HD addict as Kevin, but he's probably seen Sunrise Earth on Discovery HD more times than he's seen a real sunrise in the last year.
by Richard Lawler, posted Jul 5th 2008 at 3:27PM
What we're watching tonight:
- NBC (1080i) brings U.S. Olympic Track and Field Trials at 5 p.m. and U.S. Olympic Swimming Trials at 8 p.m.
- ESPN HD (720p) presents AFL playoffs with New York/Philadelphia at 7 p.m.
- TNT (1080i) presents NASCAR Sprint Cup series @ Daytona at 6:30 p.m.
- Cinemax (1080i) premieres Live Free or Die Hard at 10 p.m.
by Richard Lawler, posted Jul 5th 2008 at 2:22AM
Warrior football fans will need to watch their next QB to put up incredible college numbers and proceed to a career as practice squad NFL QB in standard def for the next season or two. Local station KFVE/KHNL just doesn't see it being feasible to put its PPV University of
Hawaii games in HD yet (although the local cable channel on Oceanic already shows high school games in HD). The good news (we guess) is that HD is on the way, someday, unfortunately the cost of the necessary new facilities -- despite the
Hula Bowl managing to go HD -- has put it on the back burner at the moment.
by Richard Lawler, posted Jul 4th 2008 at 9:09PM
Buried under predictions that
2012 will bring dominance for Blu-ray over DVD and breaking news that the PS3 just may have had a
hand in winning the format war the Entertainment Merchant's Association 2008 Annual Report on the Home Entertainment Industry holds survey results showing 87% of PS3 owners reported they watch Blu-ray movies on their console. That's a stark contrast to
last year's NPD survey indicating 60% of owners didn't even know it played them. We don't know what's behind the jump, be it better marketing/consumer education, or something wrong with how one the surveys were conducted. You can mull that one over during the fast money round while also peeping results that say 22% of HDTV owners think they're watching HD programming, but in fact are not -- not like we haven't heard
that before.
[Via
PS3 Fanboy]
by Richard Lawler, posted Jul 4th 2008 at 7:41PM
Ready for another concert series from HDNet? This time around the 1080i, 5.1 surround series is titled
Hard Drive HD and has been created in partnership with AOL Music. The idea is for concerts to air Sunday nights on HDNet, then Monday on AOL music when the show airs regularly starting in October. All 13 concerts come from the House of Blues in Atlantic City, the sneak peek coming July 13 at 8 p.m. features Good Charlotte, ahead of HDNet's usual Concert Series.
[Disclosure: Engadget is owned by AOL which, we're going to go out on a limb here, probably also owns AOL Music]
by Richard Lawler, posted Jul 4th 2008 at 4:23PM
What we're watching tonight:
- PBS (1080i) presents Capital Fourth at 8 p.m.
- NBC (1080i) starts off with U.S. Olympic Swimming Trials at 8 p.m., followed by the Macy's 4th of July Fireworks Spectacular
- HDNet (1080i) has July 4th Fireworks Celebration at 6:30 p.m., followed by MLS action with Kansas City Wizards/FC Dallas at 7 p.m. and NASCAR Camping World Series @ California at 11 p.m.
- My Network TV (1080i) presents Heroes Among Us: The 2008 Hero Awards at 8 p.m.
- USA (1080i) brings U.S. Olympic Track and Field Trials at 11 p.m.
- CW (1080i) tosses in WWE Smackdown! at 8 p.m.
- ESPN2 HD (720p) has NASCAR Nationwide Series @ Daytona at 7:30 p.m.
by Richard Lawler, posted Jul 4th 2008 at 3:20AM
By now, if its available in your area you're probably familiar with
Start Over, basically a network DVR letting people see the beginning of a TV show they might have missed. Of course, all of that's only useful if it actually works and captures everything, so Concurrent has announced its latest advance for the backend is the Real Time Pitcher 2000, using reliable multicast to ensure no loss of video capture due to network or component failures and give it the big five nines of reliability. We certainly wouldn't want anything less tha a 99.999% chance of catching the first five minutes of The Closer, would you?
by Richard Lawler, posted Jul 3rd 2008 at 5:07PM
In good news for castle dwellers everywhere,
Suddenlink is throwing seven new channels into the mix for Eureka, California area customers effective July 16. Say hello to Fox 29 as a clear QAM channel, while
TBS HD, USA HD, FX HD, Travel HD and Sci-Fi HD are added to the HD Basic tier, and History HD slots into the HD Plus level. We TV and Chiller are also being added (sure to excite Bogge and Quagmire), but really, SD? We have standards.by Richard Lawler, posted Jul 3rd 2008 at 4:12PM
What we're watching tonight:
- TBS (1080i) lines up The Bill Engvall Show at 8 p.m. followed by My Boys
- NBC (1080i) drops in Fear Itself at 10 p.m.
- CBS (1080i) has Swingtown at 10 p.m.
- ABC (1080i) has Hopkins at 10 p.m.
- TLC (1080i) brings Miami Ink at 10 p.m.
- ESPN2 HD (720p) throws in MLS with Houston Dynamo/Real Salt Lake at 10 p.m.
- USA (1080i) features Olympic Trials Swimming at 8 p.m. and Track and Field at 11 p.m.
by Richard Lawler, posted Jul 3rd 2008 at 4:01PM
Possibly in response to competition from
Verizon's FiOS or just as part of its general expansion plans,
RCN put ten new stations in its NYC lineup today. Starting with the usual HD VOD expansion, the new channels are
Discovery Channel-HD, Animal Planet-HD, The Learning Channel-HD, HGTV-HD, The Science Channel-HD, Lifetime Movie Networks-HD, Food Network-HD, Travel Channel-HD, VERSUS/Golf-HD and NFL Network-HD. RCN's New York City service covers parts of Manhattan, Queens and Brooklyn. Sounds to us like its time to invite Lord Tariq and Peter Gunz over to watch some TV.by Richard Lawler, posted Jul 3rd 2008 at 3:22PM
In case you didn't
get the message, Sony's due
sooner-rather-than-later
27-inch OLED is going to be priced for the Mark Cubans, Bill Gates' and other people not you of the world, at least for the next couple of years. Even with recent massive
investments, U.S. head Stan Glasgow tells CNET OLEDs in the future could be seen as a premium alternative to LCDs, but don't expect Sony to jump on smaller screens while they wait for the technology to catch up, HDTV is the focus. As for the upcoming standard def-streaming
Hancock experiment? The first of many, if things go well, while at the same time he acknowledges format war winner Blu-ray may not penetrate to the same level as DVD since "a lot of people may be happy with an
upconverting DVD player" -- which would be music to Toshiba's ears.by Richard Lawler, posted Jul 3rd 2008 at 2:15PM
Further
capitalizing on its new
45nm process, Panasonic unveiled a version of its
UniPhier chip family meant for digital TVs capable of decoding MPEG-4 AVC and h.264 streams, and Dolby digital audio in order to meet European broadcast requirements. This design is apparently compatible with 98% of the world's digital TV standards, including Japan and US cable providers, meaning no matter where you get your next Panasonic, it'll be a MN2WS0052 inside. Sample shipments are starting any day now so we'll wait for the next refresh of Panasonic's HDTVs to see exactly what it's capable of.
[Via
AV Watch]
by Richard Lawler, posted Jul 3rd 2008 at 1:45PM
DISH Network just keeps on cranking down the
list of its 22 markets
slated for an HD upgrade in the summer/fall, with four going on line today: Albany - Shenectady - Troy, NY; Chattanooga, TN; Lansing, MI; and Syracuse NY. Hope the recent thunderstorms didn't knock anyone's power out, becuase now you've got one mroe reason to stay inside. As usual, we don't know what city will be next, but we expect more markets to be added soon.
by Richard Lawler, posted Jul 3rd 2008 at 11:48AM
Silicon Image is back and its latest chips aim to offer improved video quality and innovations in connectivity. The SiI9251 and SiI9261 processors are destined for TVs and receivers, respectively, supporting up to 4 HDMI 1.3 inputs with x.v. color, as well as "InstaPort" technology that claims to enable high speed switching between HDMI jacks. Silicon Image's own Mobile High Definition Link (MHL) tech is in there too, as well as ChromaViv to ensure accurate color calibration. These chips may find themselves buried deep within your next consumer electronics purchase, and will quietly go about their business of HDMI input switching and color correcting (hopefully) without a peep.
by Richard Lawler, posted Jul 2nd 2008 at 10:26PM
Almost as good as the ongoing Tigers win streak is the news that
Bright House is delivering a new pack of channels to its Motor City-area customers. With the news that half of its digital customers now enjoy HD service, it's launching Discovery HD, Animal Planet HD, The Learning Channel HD, History HD, Science HD, HGTV HD, and Food HD on the basic lineup for no extra charge, while MGM HD jumps onboard the $6.95 optional HD Package. Expect more updates as the company continues to unleash new channels to its customers across the country, so if these aren't exactly the channels you wanted, just wait a minute, they'll change.
[Thanks, Dean]
by Richard Lawler, posted Jul 2nd 2008 at 5:43PM
Despite the apparent
tru2way lovefest between cable ops and electronics manufacturers,
ABI Research isn't convinced. Add together the cable operator's unwillingness to forecast exact tru2way deployments, and a lack of focus on interoperability testing portend a future where customers can't be sure their equipment will work across different cable systems. Without that, electronics manufacturers could drag their feet supporting it, as has occurred with CableCard, leaving operators (and customers) with expensive and distinctly unglamorous set-top boxes. Despite all that, the report predicts half of all cable customers will have
tru2way by 2013, but it won't be easy.
