Home Theaters

According to all reports, the bidding is not quite as brisk as was projected for the frequency auction being held by the FCC. One look at the mapping of the proposed spectrum shows that again, the FCC and those who thought up this money grab had no clue of how radio transmission works and how electromagnetic propagation takes place.

look at the way the band is chopped up - this must have been figured out by Bozo the clown and his band of mental patients, using darts and a ouija board.

Looking at this, along with the other failings of the FCC in the last 20 years, makes it possible to decide that some sort of revolt should most definitely take place, as the FCC has no concern for the public good, only the lining of the pockets of its leaders ( and of course, any elected official who successfully hooks up with all the graft and chicanery).

Beyond the problem of the chopping of the spectrum, the entire changeover is a disaster waiting to happen - and it probably will, February of next year. This transition was to take place all at once, moving from analog to digital like the movement of a double-throw knife switch. Not anymore, and it is being reported  that someone wasn’t paying attention to things, and was probably bad with numbers, as many (117) stations across the country will be moved from not only their channel frequency, but also their numerical designator. Oh, I can see the civil actions lining up now, as we all use those numbers daily. Some lawyers are going to be convinced by stations, inconvenienced by channel number changes, that their inconvenience is worth some money (big money).

Now there is talk about ‘unique technical challenges’ that might let some stations cut back power, as long as 85% of their viewing audience is covered. (Just hope you are not in the 15% that get screwed when your favorite shows are no longer available in your area.)

There are so many problems here that the money once allocated to ’sell’ this idea to the masses, may not be enough - especially when those problems start cropping up. 

When things start getting dicey, it’s going to take more than a couple of $40 coupons to mollify thousands of unhappy television viewers.

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Who knows what will happen in the long run with HD DVD, but if you are the of the gambling type, you can really clean up with a purchase of an HD DVD player or more HD DVD discs.

remember this…lots of these were sold at near cost before Christmas!

The loss of each studio, as they have come, one by one, has made the outlook look more and more bleak for the HD DVD crowd. It is especially bad since many of the people who bought or received HD DVD players at Christmas are still awaiting their promised promotional discs.

  remember, there are combo players being sold - the best of both worlds!

The HD DVD booth in Las Vegas, at the Consumer Electronics Show was pretty grim, but adopters of the format must remember the Yogi Berra quote, as all is not over just yet.

The current pricing is pretty attractive on both players and discs, and if you are a ‘glass half full’ person, you can envision the huge numbers of machines sold in the last two months of 2007 as a wedge, that will not allow HD DVD to completely go away. I do think that this is more than a VHS-Beta debate at this point, because as I have said before, HD DVD will surely survive as a storage medium. The question is, ‘Will it receive support by enough studios?’

No on can answer that right now. No one.

I will venture to say that enough players were sold to keep HD DVD players going - so if yours dies, you’ll still be able to get another for quite some time. Or perhaps you’ll be able to buy another new one.

From the sales I have seen in this area (Southern California), it is really tempting to keep buying discs if you have a player. Some of the HD DVDs are showing up at the same price as regular DVDs.

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Last fall, it was reported that DirecTV had heard the rumblings of the many DVR users it has, and that several updates were on the way in January.

Well, some of the units have been pushed further back, to receive their updates in February, but for now, the HR20-700 will be gaining the ability to be programmed from a customer’s cell phone. With so little that is new on television, it is amazing that this was a feature rolled out first, but it will allow busy people another way to avoid missing favorite material.

Strangely, the promised rewards to the DirecTiVo faithful have yet to materialize. No one in customer service seems to have a clue what is being asked, as they know that DirecTV is no longer selling TiVo units.

Since it was reported in several places, and no retraction has come, it is assumed by this writer that the TiVo updates for DirecTiVos is still on the way - just delayed, kind of like the television programming of the second season.  Checks of the 2 TiVos in this house occur at least twice a week since January 1, to discover any updates to the system. So far, no joy.

perhaps a consultation will bring answers to when the promised upgrades will take place!

With the rather large push DirecTV is making right now, with the typical lulls after the holiday season, it is possible that these little updates are not the first things thought of when advertising dollars are allocated. Everyone knows that the already converted are taken for granted, and the holy grail is conversion of all the non-believers.

For those who own the covered model, almost any cell phone with Internet access and the Internet Explorer or Opera browser will enable distant programming of these DVRs.

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Over the past 3 weeks, I have been working on quite a few Dell computers for a leasing agency. I have seen cheap ones, expensive ones, desktops, laptops, and lots of them with Vista installed.

I had the chance to compare a couple of the Dell XPS machines with multimedia setups. One of the machines had Windows Vista Home Premium, and was set up to function as a home theater center, the other was set up similarly, but with Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005.

nice looking case, and it works well when loaded with the right stuff.

Before anyone gets the idea that this is not a fair comparison in terms of hardware selection, I must state that you would be wrong. The machines were identical except for the operating system, and the Vista machine had a second DVD-RW drive, while the other only had one optical drive.

another view of the handsome, but non-standard Dell XPS case.

These are also machines that had been on lease, so it was my job to bring them back to ‘like new’ condition. This meant that the drives were wiped, the operating systems reinstalled, updated with all the hotfixes and other updates to current, and then tweaked to make for the best performance.  By the way, both machines, being XPS models, had Pentium 4 2.8GHz processors, with HyperThreading enabled, and 2GB of RAM.

Each time I had to work on one of the Vista machines, I found myself getting peeved, so I guess you could say there was a bias. However, the bias was totally due to the fact that while one machine looked good and felt peppy, the other, using Vista, felt terribly sluggish, and was hard to wait for, as it took time to accomplish tasks. (Remember, all updates had been applied, so all the knowledge and help from Microsoft released thus far had been brought to bear.) While I hear people talk about the ‘gorgeous interface’ of Vista, I’ll agree that the color schemes are a change for the better, but some of them are simply the look of ‘angry fruit salad’ that as a budding programmer, I was told to stay away from.

As I tried out the machines to assure that they would work adequately on every task I had the chance to time things. In many cases the difference was a factor of two or three to one. The Vista machine was slow in accomplishing every task. I had to keep reminding myself that basically these machines were identical.

At night, when I would come home, I found myself looking at the ‘tips and tricks’ to make Vista faster, and this led to further frustration, as I found I had already, as a matter of course, done these things. (The more things change, the more they stay the same - most of the tricks are identical to the ones spouted by almost every article about how to speed up XP.)

I also read of the difficulties that people had with Vista in common theater setups, many of which had to do with video cards chosen. Most of these problems related to nVidia and the lack of mature drivers. Guess what. Both machines, and I suspect the lion’s share of those delivered by Dell, used a 7300 nVidia card. The problems indicated by the frustrated Dell users were easily duplicated when I tried, showing that the problems still were occurring, and then similar things done on the XPS with MCE showed no difficulties.

Problems with using two screens, such as television and monitor, problems with the television tuner (an ATi TV Wonder Elite, PCIe edition), the general lag induced when any operation is undertaken, all combine to produce a system that is wholly unsuitable for home theater usage.

Perhaps the change to a quad-core machine would make the lags less noticeable, but the problems with the tuner and displays will stay until changes are made in the core of Vista, and the drivers for the video. There is nothing more annoying than trying to quickly change channels on television, in order to catch the very first bit of the program, and having the change be slower than molasses in winter due to the vagaries of the operating system. (Just ask anyone who has Dish Network - these people know about slow channel changes!)

This is not so much a slam of Dell as it is the whole problem with Vista. Dell might have chosen components more carefully, but it also could have insisted that XP MCE be used until Vista gets the bugs worked out.

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With so much information coming from the Consumer Electronics Show, it is easy to be assaulted by the barrage of new items, the buzzwords, and the hype. It is for some, the signal that it is time to pony up the bucks for something new. This is as the advertisers and manufacturers wish it to be.

It must be remembered, however, just how many things introduced at a CES are harder to find than hen’s teeth just one year later. Few things make it to the anniversary date, because so much stuff introduced is just that - stuff.

Look at how things can change in less than 60 days. In October, just around the last week of that month, the HD DVD backers were getting everything into high gear to push that format, those discs, and those players to the point of ubiquity. Players were introduced, and had their entire life span calculated in days (Toshiba HD-A2).  

Movies in the HD format were being given as a part of the promotion, 5 or 7, and then 10, with a player that was being blown out at dealer cost - simply to make a splash into the market, and stem the tide started by the Blu-ray consortium, with its leader, the Sony PS3.

By Thanksgiving, HD players were flying out the doors of retailers, and several pundits were predicting the demise of the Blu-ray player and disc format, simply because one of the movie companies decided to stop dual inventory.

Now CES has come and gone, and in a span of its 4 days, two studios have decided to swing the other way, and Blu-ray is in the driver’s seat, or so it seems. Articles about the long faces of the HD DVD purveyors, at their booths at CES were many.

Now the pendulum has swung the other way, and with some extra momentum. The future of HD DVD

  is not very bright right now, and some people are still waiting for the delivery of those free discs that were promised before Thanksgiving.

Because the world of consumer electronics is so mercurial, and things can change in a number of days, it is wise to evaluate what one has, and the qualities it offers. This is true of home theater equipment, audio reproduction equipment, computers, and anything else using circuitry.

Before deciding to plunk down for that new (insert item here), check to see if what you already have can be upgraded, repaired at reasonable cost, or repurposed - this will make you, your finances, and the green Earth, all happier.

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Usually, the news from the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas is all happy and makes all who hear it feel like this might be one area of human endeavors where everyone wins.

the assumed winner yesterday

This year, news of the early demise of HD DVD brought sorrow to many, as it looked like all the big players were pulling out of the HD camp and moving to Blu-ray country. Now, another day has passed, and it seems the early results, much like political polls, were wrong. Although Warner Bros are still moving to Blu-ray, the bailing of Paramount seems to be incorrect. Perhaps the changes of yesterday were true, and some quick maneuvering was done to keep Paramount in the HD camp - at least for now.

  don’t retire the logo just yet!

So HD DVD is not dead yet, and some quality movies will be available for awhile. This may give the Blu-ray camp less to celebrate, but now, after another day, it seems they have less again to celebrate. Many new Blu-ray players were introduced, and with the announcements were the small, less verbalized ones about the lack of upgrades for older players. It seems that for the best results, Blu-ray and HD owner alike will have to purchase a new Blu-ray player.

Not to be outdone, the third incarnation of high definition (or you might say high density) drive came out to play again. A company called New Medium Enterprises brought out a HD VMD player at the show. This format uses a red laser, making it much cheaper to produce, as only one laser is needed for the VMD and standard DVD formats. (All other high definition players have a blue laser, and a red laser included for SD DVD playback.) The largest problem to adoption of this format would be the lack of a major studio producing movies for it. A quick check of the NME site shows less than 20 releases available.

this appears to be the big selling point, a kids show that no kid I know has any idea about. Too bad, it’s a great idea, and holds as much data as the other two formats.

It seems like the VMD format is doomed, which is too bad, because lower costs, and usage as a storage medium for data should have made it a shoo in .

Next comes the major changes in the viewing screens. The newest technology seems to make all the older, thicker, heavier designs an anachronism.

Hitachi’s 1.5″ (total) depth LCDs

This too, is a problem for those who are devotees of the home theater and high quality reproduction hardware. There is so much change this year that there just won’t be enough discretionary dollars to make all these purchases. Consequently, some things may actually fade away for awhile, as quick adoption rates usually spell success, while slow ones cause new ideas to fade.

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 the Blu-ray camp is feeling pretty satisfied just about now!

The Blu-ray camp has more to celebrate today, as it is reported by the Financial Times that Paramount Studios will jump ship, and discontinue support for HD DVD. This comes not long after the announcement from Warner Bros., and makes it almost a slam dunk for Blu-ray.

 a lot of early adopters are worried about the long term viability of this logo just now, and many probably have not gotten their free discs that were a part of a player purchase.

As for the HD DVD support left, there is only Universal. Universal is a large conglomerate, but in a global economy, no one wants to stand alone on a standard. Those kind of standards become extinct quickly.

On the heels of the Paramount announcement, chipmaker Broadcom announced a dual format large scale integrated chipset which would allow much easier implementation of dual format players at lower prices. LG released one of these well before Christmas, and it looks like the foresight of those who bought will be rewarded. Apparently the left and right hands of many companies were not in good communication. It certainly seemed strange when I reported that the CEO of Sony wished for the format wars to be over. He sounded a bit worried, as the HD DVD camp had opened with a couple of huge salvos.

perhaps the movie studios should use one of these for communication

The war is not completely over, as HD DVD recorders have shown up in some computers, and although the number is small, it is huge compared to the Blu-ray recorders installed. HD DVD may end up as a storage medium for many things while movies stay in the Blu-ray domain. The use of the Broadcom chipset may cause a rethinking of many manufacturers of DVD players, but the story is not over yet, and HD DVD is not relegated to the same part of the museum as the 8Track tape player just yet.

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Logitech strikes a blow for convenience again with the Harmony One All-in One Remote. This thing is amazing in that it is reported to truly be universal. Like many of the other Harmony remotes previously released, the unit requires the user to install software on a personal computer, either Windows or OSX operating systems covered, and download, via a USB cable the codes to operate the items that a person has in their system. 

The remote will control (can be concurrently programmed for) up to 15 devices. This is certainly more than most users will have in one place in the house. The unit will control so many things in concert to make things absurdly simple for the user after proper setup.  For example, Watch A DVD can be used to start the television, the DVD player, the control preamp or receiver, adjust the volume, lower the lights in the home theater, and slow the ceiling fan to sub-audible speed. This is nice!

One thing about this remote that is very nice compared to many other full-featured remotes is that the remote comes with a recharging cradle, which means that if the remote ever dies, the user has only himself to blame - the problem cannot be attributed to the children in the house absconding with the last of the AA batteries!

The item has just been introduced at CES in Las Vegas, and has a few flaws in the way it works, but since the unit uses programmable memory, and not a hard-coded EPROM, the majority of the flaws will be smoothed rather quickly. Other features, such as the number of concurrent things controlled on the screen, which at three is fewer than the previous top-of-the-line units from the company, will probably be changed after a large outcry from dissatisfied users. Since many who use this may not be used to the older units, the want or need may not manifest itself with complaints to Logitech.

If this remote has any fatal flaw, it is the problem of the rather high tech way in which it must be set up to make the operation afterwards appear easy. Anyone who is enthusiastic about the assembly of a perfect (for them) home theater will have the intelligence, or persistence, to get things worked out. Others who simply wish to enjoy the power of the remote from a simple user standpoint might wish to employ the help of the geeky teenager down the street for initial setup.

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perhaps the new logo should have a cape attached, a-la Superman, as Blu-ray seems to be leaping tall movie studios in a single bound!

In a move that really changes the landscape of the high definition DVD market, Warner Bros.,  today, announced that after June of this year, it will cease to produce films in the HD DVD format. Warner will put its faith in the Blu-ray alliance from now on, and that is a major change in the way things are playing out. The CEO of Warner stated that fears of ‘missing the window’ are what caused the change of direction. It does seem that there is genuine concern about the public adoption of a format, rather than movie viewing becoming a system of download and then having the customer choose the storage medium.

The reason cited is the confusion caused by the competing formats, and consumer dissatisfaction with having to choose between formats. Not spoken, but probably a major influence on the decision is the fact that Blu-ray has not been a part of a ‘pump and dump’ campaign to get customers to purchase. Although the Blu-ray camp at Christmas made an effort to compete, the extreme price cuts used by the HD DVD purveyors of both hardware and software were not used. This means that Blu-ray is not a victim of ’slash and burn’ pricing, which, once started is hard to stop. Once the price drops significantly, the buying public expects more of the same, and profit margins stay low for all concerned. Remember that certain Toshiba HD-DVD players were cut to the bone less than 14 days from being released. The idea was to achieve momentum for HD DVD  as a format, and it did, but perhaps it was too much too soon.

there was a lot of HD love shown at Christmas, but the shine is wearing off now - how things change!

Though Warner Bros. is a major player in the market, HD DVD is not without its supporters. As you might remember, Paramount went HD DVD exclusively back in August of last year.

Although nothing has been hinted about yet, the delivery of a quality Blu-ray player, at a median price, from CES would be another nail in the coffin of HD DVD. Everyone is eagerly awaiting what those wacky guys from the Orient have to show us at Winter CES in Las Vegas, just a few days away.

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 If you broke down and purchased a Blu-ray disc player for Hanukkah/Christmas/Kwanzaa, or better yet, if you were the recipient of one -

Here is a great deal for allowing your collection of discs to swell with your pride of ownership. Amazon has 96 Blu-ray titles to choose from that are between $20 and $28 and provide the benefit of the BOGO designation!  (For you new shoppers out there, that’s BUY ONE, GET ONE, or 1/2 off!)

This is much like the announced sale of a few weeks ago, but as you can see, the collection is expanded and different. 

Some of the titles are

Just some of them, but you can see that there are no turkeys, lest you think this is another shopping experience, the dreaded turkey shoot!  Also there seems to be something for everyone, old and new, comedy and drama, real and animated. Seeing Blazing Saddles in high quality again will be great, as it usually replays on those channels on television that have only recently converted to color transmission.

So for those who want to build a great collection on the cheap (relatively cheap, that is)  this sale is for you. It’s nice to see that the Blu-ray boys are pulling out some gems for the new converts!

Extremely happy is the person who received a dual format player, to hedge the bets, and so HD DVD sales will come as I find them.

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With so little for Microsoft to celebrate over the past year, after defeats in Europe and Vista sales a depressing disappointment worldwide, the news breaks that a small bright spot, Windows Home Server, has some serious troubles.

So much a problem that Microsoft has issued a warning to users of the product derived from Server 2003. Something occurred in the derivation process, as now Microsoft admits that during periods of stress (high usage), the WHS product can corrupt files - specifically picture files. The problem is further complicated by the fact that the client side applications that cause the corruption are almost all from Redmond too.

The offending programs are Windows Vista Photo Gallery, Windows Live Photo Gallery, OneNote 2003 or 2007,  Outlook 2007, Money 2007, or SyncToy 2.0 Beta. Other non - MS programs may cause problems, but it is not verified. Anecdotal tales of problems with Quickbooks, Quicken, and torrent applications have been cited.

Microsoft does not yet seem to have a handle on the problem, as the only response from the company is to avoid using the offending programs until further notice.

Clyde Crashcup says caution is the watchword for the new year!

Some might say that WHS was rushed to market, but then who knew that small changes to the solid Server 2003 code would break the model. It does seem to point to either changes in the dumbed-down UI or the strange way that the storage bounds are expanded and duplicated, neither of which I thought was a good idea at the outset.

and Inspector Clouseau is on the case!

Again, the advice from Redmond is cold comfort to those wishing to use the advertised features of the program - “do not use the programs that are listed in this article to save or to edit program-specific files that are stored on a Windows Home Server-based system. You can still use the Windows Home Server home computer backup to back up and restore files from and to your home computers.”

Home theater users may or may not find this a problem, but forewarned is forearmed! Perhaps those ideas about the use of Fedora 8 or any other Linux distribution as the basis of a home server for entertainment and data backup are not so wild after all! Also, Myth TV works better on Linux.

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