Recent Comments:
Study finds that one-third of consumers copy DVDs {Engadget HD}
Jul 9th 2008 11:30AM Interesting enough..
"...77 percent of US respondents would have legally purchased the titles if copying was not available, while 63 percent answered similarly in the UK"
"Most users are making copies of their own purchased DVDs but a significant proportion are also copying movies they've rented or borrowed.... 62 percent of US respondents and 49 percent of U.K... copied a new movie they own, while 38 percent of U.S. respondents and 30 percent of U.K.... copied a movie they've rented"
So, 62% - 49% copy ANY movies... (say 1/3 for ease), and of that 38% - 30% (say 1/3 for ease) copy movies they DO NOT own. So that means of 1/3 of the 1/3 are copying commercial stuff which is only 1/9th of the population, a tab above 10%. So now, only 3/4 of those would actually buy one if piracy was not available. So, only about 7.5% would actually buy one if piracy wasn't around.
Now ask yourselves you damn movie studios and MPAA... would your profits rise more or less than 7.5% if you stopped spending Billions on DRM and calling ALL of your customers pirates and pissing everyone off with it.
Pioneer's 60-inch KURO PDP-LX6090 plasma gets unboxed {Engadget HD}
Jul 3rd 2008 10:28AM Drool.
Now, if only I could sell my sould...
The Media Center Extender shootout {Engadget HD}
Jun 19th 2008 3:23PM Ha! strike that 3... I was originally going to count only Tivo, VMC and Sage
The Media Center Extender shootout {Engadget HD}
Jun 19th 2008 3:18PM Thats great... This demo is like testing the same kind of coffee from 3 different Starbucks locations. I've been looking at setting up a whole house media solution when my house gets built next year and I've been considering the following 3...
Tivo + Stand Alone Extender (popcorn hour... or similar), Vista Media Center, SageTV, BeyondTV, MythTV (Maybe... looks a bit too complicated)
It would be great to see a comparison of all these solutions which would include TV functions, Media functions, Home Automation functions, Audio/Video Distribution functions, etc... After trying nearly all these solutions myself, I was sold with VMC. (Cable Card, DirecTV, Gui, extenders, etc.)
Times have changed though... With the extender from SageTV and the HD-PVR being recently, Tivo's whole house DVR coming in the near future, the tables are starting to turn… If they haven’t alredy
The solution must be rather simple and I don't mind paying for it. MythTV is too damn complicated finicky. BeyondTV has is missing an integrated media feature. Tivo has monthly fees and is expensive at the start and separate media hardware. This leaves SageTV and VMC.
In TV functions, both Sage and VMC do very well. Although, Sage has a nice video converter built and a couple other cool functions. Although, Sage supports x.264 which is absent from the current version of VMC which excludes support for the HD-PVR (which may be the last best hope for DRM-less TV... don't get me started on DRM.) Its practically a tie.
In Media functions, Sage beats VMC to a bloody pulp. The file support in Sage up to snuff and unfortunately I cannot say that about VMC. With evolving media types and with media center being around for a while, you would think Microsoft would throw some damn support into these items, especially since it is support to be a MEDIA center. It looks like format war politics are blinding the VMC people and the user is at a loss. It is quite annoying to have the xbox yell at you that it doesn't support a video format or a picture or whatever else. As the years go on, more media types will be introduced and if MS follows its track record, the user will keep getting penalized. A prime example is when they released DivX support for the xbox360 but gave the extenders a big and proud middle finger. Transcoding doesn't do the job either... (its slow, its cumbersome, it sucks)
Both Sage and VMC support a lot of third party plug-ins and each of them have great features. Although, VMC has more support in the Home Automation department. VMC has the nice flowing GUI which is its golden goose in this whole battle. The Sage GUI has a bit to be desired but with the sageMC plug-in, its actually quite nice and maybe a bit more functional…
To finish the rant, I think SageTV offers more functionality than VMC but VMC has a nice GUI to impress your friends. And what I really meant to say is, Ben, please don’t toot your horn with VMC as you did with your Kuro and give us some kind of meaningful comparison.
Pleo gets thoroughly obliterated by demented ComBot {Engadget}
May 8th 2008 1:41PM Pfft. WowWee Roboquad would have owned him.
Apple has a Wiimote-type Apple TV controller in the works? We wish. {Engadget}
May 8th 2008 11:13AM I see what you did there with the "we"
Intel brings DirectX 10 to integrated graphics, NVIDIA says not so fast {Engadget}
May 7th 2008 2:02AM Well since this is engadget and no one mentioned it... Apple!
Orb plays nice with DirecTV HR21 on video {Engadget HD}
Apr 11th 2008 2:02PM He doesn't download movies from torrents... right...
HD VMD clears up European Union, spring break related rumors {Engadget HD}
Apr 7th 2008 2:01PM I think we should Blend VMD...
Texting generation carrying spelling habits to birth certificates? {Engadget}
Mar 7th 2008 10:39AM omg, xlnt!
