iDallas!“They killed him, you know? They killed Janice, too.” That was said by a middle-aged man with long greasy greyish hair carrying a guitar to a 30-ish woman wearing a lot of loose fabric wrapped around her. I overheard it as they walked by me on Harrison Street in San Francisco.
After dealing with the problems caused by the big power outage today, I left my office to discover my bike had been stolen from the entryway of my office building. There was a painting crew there painting the outside today and I suspect one of them left the door open at some point. I was dumb and had not locked my bike. I figured inside would be safe enough. Silly me!
DreamHost’s network and all of our servers were taken down for about 4 hours this afternoon due to a major power outage in the Los Angeles area. The building housing our data center has redundant battery and diesel generator backed up power, but it didn’t work as expected. When we moved into this data center space we were reassured several times that the power supplied by the building was fault tolerant and would stay up even in a major power outage. We haven’t yet heard their side of things but I’m sure it will be interesting.
As seen on ARS Technica… The next generation of High-Definition (HD) content will be significantly harder to crack and may require a commercial license to be playable on a device or computer. A technology called High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP) will encrypt the signal at the last point of transmission to the television or computer screen. Hardware will have to support HDCP to be able to play the content, and any cracked keys can be revoked so no future content will play. Unless some company decides to try selling a commercial video player to Linux users, the next generation of High Definition DVD content may not play at all on operating systems other than Windows and Mac OS X. Likewise, most of us would have to purchase a brand-new television or computer display to be able to see the content at its native resolution. Additionally the encryption system in the next generation of DVD technology is being designed to be very difficult to crack. All of this doesn’t bode well for our rights to fair use as consumers. Maybe these developments will provide an opportunity for independent content developers to gain a foothold in the industry, but most people will still just want their Will Smith and Jennifer Lopez.
I’ve had a TiVo for about two and a half years now and it definitely did change the nature of my personal entertainment, probably forever. There is no way I will watch television without a PVR/DVR sort of device again. The TiVo is far from perfect, but it does provide an overall excellent interface to what is actually a fairly complex technology underneath. There is one important thing my TiVo is unable to do, though. It can’t record Comcast’s HD channels.
Since I got my HD-capable television I have increasingly wanted to watch as much HD content as possible. It is difficult to go back after experiencing HD video with digital surround sound audio. Split between the TiVo interface and the Comcast supplied HD DVR (dual tuner) service, I decided to go with the one that could record the stuff I wanted to watch. I don’t think I’m the only one who would have made this decision, and I’m pretty sure TiVo knows that. TiVo has signed a deal with Comcast to provide them with a TiVo branded DVR device for use with their service. Knowing that, I figured I could deal with the Comcast DVR interface for a little while even if it really sucked.
Well, now I’ve been using the Comcast DVR almost exclusively for a couple of weeks and I’ve developed some opinions about it. It’s a very usable device, but there are some thorny parts of the interface and some annoyances with how it operates. The main differences I’ve noticed seem to center around the fact that the TiVo is a PVR first and foremost, while the Comcast box is a cable box first and then a PVR second. That makes sense, but it takes some getting used to after a TiVo. Also, there are some inexplicably confusing and strange aspects to the way the interface and menu system work.
Here’s a good example that I think applies to both of my gripes at the same time. There is a ‘My DVR’ button for the Comcast DVR. I assumed it would work like the TiVo button on a TiVo, but it doesn’t really at all. The My DVR button takes you to see your list of recorded shows, and that’s it. You can sort the list by Date, Channel, or Title. To go to your list of series recordings (Season Pass in TiVo-speak), you push the ‘Menu’ button once which brings up the quick access menu, and you select ‘DVR’ from there. That somewhat oddly takes you to a menu where you can choose either ‘DVR Recordings’ (ie, where the My DVR button takes you) or ‘DVR Schedule’ where you can view upcoming scheduled recordings on a date grid, view your list of series recordings in order of priority, or create a manual recording. It is pretty well organized, but why is there no option to create a series recording from that screen? That befuddles me. To create a series recording, you go back to the quick access menu and choose ‘Find’, search for the show and then create a series recording. I probably am TiVo-trained now, but I think it’d be more convenient to be able to pick Search directly from the DVR area instead of having to go back to the menu. It’s not a huge difference, but it still trips me up.
The cable box interface itself is pretty good, but the DVR part feels a little tacked on. From the quick access menu where you can choose ‘DVR’, you can also choose ‘HD’ to explore available HD content (very nice!), ‘Movies’ to see movies playing, ‘Sports’ for sports, etc. It’s pretty handy! Also, the currently playing recording or tv channel continues playing in the upper right-hand corner of the screen while you fiddle with the programming guide, the menus, or the DVR component. TiVo should take some notes from that!
Overall, the Comcast DVR gets the job done and I’m gradually forgetting about the TiVo. The TiVo interface is more intuitive and well-designed, but the Comcast interface is usable and has some nice features I’ve gotten used to. Being able to record and playback HD movies from HBO HD with the full digital soundtrack pushes the Comcast DVR over in my book. TiVo needs to provide a very compelling product for Comcast subscribers in mid to late 2006 or they could be facing a long hard decline from relevance as these competing DVR products mature. At the end of the day, it’s the content that people want and they’ll put up with a lot to get it. TiVo’s interface lead is not enough to keep them going for long.
I’ve always been a sucker for those ‘end of the world as we know it, everyone has to work together against all odds’ movies. I’ll never forgot how I felt the first time I saw Red Dawn, and Stephen King’s The Stand was one of the first not-just-for-kids books I read outside of what I was assigned to read in school. The Day After Tomorrow takes place in a world where the Earth has been suddenly thrown into a second ice age and a few small groups of people have to survive in the harsh arctic environment. That pretty much sums it up plot-wise so if that doesn’t grab you, don’t bother seeing it. If that does interest you, it also has some very nice cinematography and special effects (probably mostly the latter) and you can’t beat seeing Los Angeles destroyed in just a few minutes.
I saw this furry bike and liked it.
Twice in the last two days my home phone has rang and I’ve daringly answered it only to hear a robot tell me to wait until a human has time to talk to me. What kind of shit is that? It should be illegal for a company to call me and put me on hold immediately. They should be paying humans to sit there and wait for ME! I deserve that!
The organization that controls the video game rating system, the ESRB, has decided to revoke the ‘M for Mature’ rating from the GTA: San Andreas. The game cannot be sold in stores until some sort of resolution is found. This all stems from some mods that were released for the game that exposed some graphic sexual content in the form of a mini-game.
Broadband over Power Lines (BPL) is already available in some markets today. Power lines reach deep into rural areas that cable companies have not ventured into and where DSL is not available so there is a lot of excitement about the potential for expanding broadband access. So far BPL has not gained as much traction as cable and DSL Internet and they are still ironing out some kinks, but this infusion of cash should help that situation. It would be very nice to have another way to get the high-speed hookup so I’m hoping it all works out.
Google’s reason for the interest is not totally clear. They say they want to “help promote better access to the Internet” and I think that is a true statement. I’m sure they would also like to have their fingers deep into this new broadband pie when it becomes more universally available so there is an additional financial incentive. I’m all for a company like Google giving the telcos and the cable companies some good competition!