Recent Comments:
Research finds that people still heart physical discs, greatly prefer Blu-ray to streaming {Engadget HD}
Nov 15th 2008 8:53AM Good grief, is reading comprehension at an all-time low, even for EngadgetHD staff? Stop, go back and RTFA again.
There is no mention of 2000 HDTV owners. There is no mention of 2100 HDTV owners as someone up above claims. The article says, "1,600 HDTV owners in the U.S., U.K. and Japan." The sample was people who owned HDTVs, not people who owned both HDTVs and BD players. Have we really come to the point that supposedly intelligent people can no longer read a short 7-paragraph article and retain none of the actual details from it?
Now that we've got that out of the way, on to the actual discussion. What's wrong with a healthy mix of streaming and physical BDs? When there's a movie that we know for sure that we want, we buy the disc. When it's a movie that we're not inclined to buy, but would like to see once, we rent it on the AppleTV. When it's amovie that we're on the fence about, we rent it on AppleTV, then I put up a wishlist entry on half.com for a price I'm willing to pay. Invariably, within 3-6 months, someone puts up a new or "like new" copy of the movie in question at the price I'm looking for. Just yesterday, I scored a BD copy of Cars for $12 in like-new condition. It was viewed once.
When 100 Gbps downlink speeds are *commonplace* for the average Internet connection, and we've got players that have terabytes of storage, maybe. To me, the biggest difference between DVD and BD is the sound. PQ is certainly better, and definitely noticeable, despite my lousy eyesight. It's the sound that's the thing. Lossless audio formats are definitely perceptible, when compared with DVD-friendly compressed formats. Don't believe me? Pop in The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe, and switch back and forth between the PCM and the DD 5.1 tracks. You don't need to spend tens of thousands of dollars to hear the difference either. We've got a $400 Onkyo receiver that supports Dolby TruHD and DTS-MA HD and a 5.1 Polk speaker setup that I paid about $600 for back around 2000. There is a perceptible difference.
Downloads are much more compressed than stuff from physical media, in almost every instance. When the average Internet link speed increases greatly, streaming has a chance to take over. I don't see it happening for at least 5-10 years.
Netflix finally brings 'Watch Instantly' to Macs via Silverlight {Engadget HD}
Oct 27th 2008 8:38AM "Like a normal person"? Is that what the menu really says? Please tell me they're not actively insulting their customers.
It's a fake, I hope.
Verizon's FiOS TV expansions: August 23, 2008 {Engadget HD}
Aug 23rd 2008 10:17AM While fios tv isn't the ultimate in tv nirvana (and nobody's there yet), it's not as bad as this guy makes it out.
First off, never use the cable company's DVR, it always sucks. The only CC DVR I'd think of using is the Comcast one that's getting rolled out with TiVo inside. That's why when we got our HDTV back in June we dumped DirecTV. Taking their half-baked crappy HD DVR didn't even enter our radar. And with our other option as Comcast with their over-compressed not-quite-HD, that left FiOS. We're using a TiVO HD with a pair of Cable Cards. Works great.
As for the 4-digit channel numbers, we just got the guide for the new lineup here in South Jersey (rolls on 9/8, supposedly). The only 4-digit channel numbers are for:
1. PPV & Subscription Sports
2. International Premiums
3. Spanish Lanuage Channels (La Conexion)
4. Those stupid digital music channels
Do you watch a lot of TV in Mandarin or Farsi?
Poll: With over 100 HD channels, are you switching to satellite? {Engadget HD}
Aug 2nd 2008 5:40PM I'm totally with the hotdog man here...
We've been TiVo users for years. From way back when on the S1 and S2 with Crapcast, then onto DirecTV with a DirecTiVo dual tuner unit. Back in June, when we got our HDTV, we decided to take DirecTV out back and shoot it. Why? Their crappy HD DVR that's miles behind TiVo. Make it a TiVo again, and we'll think about coming back.
For now, we're totally happy with FiOS TV with a TiVo HD.
DirecTV HD DVR? Three Thumbs Down.
BlackBerry Connect ominously missing from E66 and E71 {Engadget Mobile}
Jul 29th 2008 9:19AM Nokia's call, for sure. But, remember, there are huge licensing fees associated with BB Connect, not to mention that BBC licensees are always second-class citizens in RIM's eyes.
That's certainly RIM's prerogative, after all, it's their ball, they can make the rules. I think that's the key driver here. Why make a substandard experience on a fantastic device?
Consider this.. What do the vast majority of BES installations connect to? Exchange. So, put your IT Manager hat on for a minute. You've already got a site license for Exchange, and don't need to purchase additional seats, since mobile access is covered by your existing CALs. You've got a choice to make. You can continue paying tons of $$ each year for support on your BES installations, and pay $20-45 more per month for each user's data plan, or, there's an alternative. Install a single Exchange Server in your DMZ area, and let your users use freely available ActiveSync clients. BES licenses aren't cheap either. A 500 user license pack has a list price of $27,499. That kind of money doesn't come as easily in today's economy.
On Windows Mobile, it's part of the core OS, same for iPhone 2.0 and PalmOS. On S60 phones, there's the free Mail for Exchange client, or if you want some more advanced features, $50 gets you a single license for RoadSync (right now it's on sale for $30). There are also volume license deals for RoadSync. RoadSync also works on UIQ and most J2ME phones.
All of the ActiveSync solutions sync at a minimum your inbox, contacts, calendar entries and task items. Several of the clients sync your entire folder hierarchy as well.
Take a look at a company with 1,000 mobile email users. You've got upwards of $50k in BES license costs, plus annual support on it. You're paying $45-50 each month per user on top of voice plan for a BB Enterprise plan. That's another $45-50k each month, or another $540-600k per year in data use. Don't forget to add in annual BES maintenance too.
Flip over to the other side, ActiveSync. Your users can now use data plans like the AT&T MediaNet Unlimited at $15/month, or the PDA plan at $30/month. That gives you annualized data costs of $180-300k. Ok, Mr. IT manager, think you might get a raise with the $300-420k you just saved the company?
Of course, this fails to address device cost, but you'll note I didn't factor that in for either side. For customers with 1,000 users, carriers are willing to negotiate deep discounts on devices, of course. As an alternative, you can offer your users the option to buy a device from a pre-defined list, and offer them a reimbursement allowance.
You still have lots of centralized policy enforcement with ActiveSync, including remote wipe capabilities. Your users still get their email, you get a raise, and everyone's happy.
Satellite customers more satisfied than cable customers? {Engadget HD}
Jun 27th 2008 9:36AM We dumped Comcast in favor of DirecTV back about 5 years ago. Comcast's "Digital" signal was simply awful. And it went out like 3 times a week for hours at a time. At our former house, DTV never had any trouble. It took a hurricane to knock out signal, and only for about an hour or so.
After moving to our current house (2 years ago), DTV wasn't as good here. It got knocked out by most thunderstorms, even after a visit from the DTV repair squad (who really just checked connections and re-aimed the dish (it seems it was off by about a degree or 2, it still went out a lot.
A week ago, we kicked DTV to the curb, in favor of FiOS TV. So far, it rocks. It's also our first time having an HDTV (we had the TV for like 2 weeks with SD DTV), and it's just stunning.
Why didn't we keep DTV and go HD with them? A couple of reasons... 1. The frequent outages and 2. Their HD DVR is no longer a TiVo. I could get the older DirecTiVo HD, but wouldn't get any of the MPEG-4 channels on it -- not going to happen. All of the accounts I've read online, as well as personal accounts from a couple of friends with the DTV HD DVR proclaim it as pretty much "wishes it was a TiVo".
We opted for a TiVo HD on the new HD set, and took a SD STB for the kids old tube tv in the playroom. I upgraded the internal HDD on the TiVo HD to a 1TB drive, and it's working very well, though Amazon Unbox seems to have gone MIA, at least on our unit. The Apple TV works better anyhow, and lets us rent in HD.
AMD smells a comeback with ATI All-in-Wonder HD {Engadget HD}
Jun 26th 2008 9:56AM And cue up the LL Cool J..
"Don't call it a comeback!"
Seriously though, I used to think ATI was the bee's knees of video cards. What's the deal with them? I was loyal. I waited and waited and waited for them to bring AIGLX to their Linux drivers. I waited for eons. Finally, after I couldn't stand the wait any longer and jumped ship to Nvidia, they come out with drivers that do AIGLX. And reportedly, an ok job of it even, though I've no reason to complain about my GeForce 8800 GTS...
I'm waiting for Nvidia to deliver the deathblow.. Unfortunately, this will come at a price of no real competition for Nvidia.
Stargate-themed home theater saves you a trip to space {Engadget HD}
Jun 19th 2008 8:50AM Hey, I like Stargate just as much, or more than the next guy, but yeesh. That's just tacky.
Ask Engadget HD: Using a HDTV to distribute audio {Engadget HD}
Jun 18th 2008 8:04PM Were it not for our Harmony One, we'd have 5 different remotes to fart around with (TV, Receiver, DVD, TiVo HD and Apple TV). It makes a HUGE difference in the WAF (Wife Acceptance Factor) Department.
Devices get out of state now & then, but the Help button fixes that right up straight away. We've been Harmony users for years now, and the Harmony One replaced the Harmony 659 we just retired and sent downstairs to the kids playroom.
There are occasions that I pull out the other remotes, like when I need to adjust some obscure setting in the receiver or the TV, but for the most part, they sit in a drawer.
Little Big Disk Quadra {The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)}
Jun 17th 2008 7:14AM Let's all take a moment to congratulate Greg on becoming the new poster child for irony...
