Gear: LG Chocolate 3 Review

Despite my techie/gearhead leanings, I've always preferred to have a cell phone that was just a phone. No crazy internet access, no GPS navigation system, not even a camera (though I relented and my most recent phone had a camera). I just wanted something simple to stick in my pocket without a lot of crazy features. I didn't think that I needed -- or wanted to pay for -- any extra baggage.

The problem I've discovered after having gone through two 2-year contracts with phones at that level is that they're generally terrible phones. There's no money to be made on basic phones so cell phone manufacturers don't put any special engineering design or high quality batteries into them. Exhibit A: my most recent phone's battery wouldn't hold a charge worth more than 5 minutes of talk time with about 6 weeks to go on my contract. I happen to hate talking on the phone, so in certain cases this wasn't a bad thing! Still, more often it was very annoying.

When my Verizon contract was up in September and I was eligible for a "new every two" discount, I decided to skip the low end and at least look at the middle of the road phones where some solid design and components might be used. After looking around for a while, I honed in on the LG Chocolate 3 (VX-8560).

Things I liked from my research:

• It's good as a phone. Several sites lauded good general phone capabilities. One even decided to start using this phone as its gold standard for comparison to other phones. General phone use is what I was always after, so big plus here.
• Charged via USB. Notice the USB symbol on the bottom edge of the phone? The charger for the phone is actually an AC to USB port adapter. The phone comes with a USB cable and you can either plug it into the adapter or just plug it into a USB port on a computer. Cool idea.
  
• Decent 2.0MP camera quality. My line has always been, "I don't need a camera on my cell phone, my regular camera works just fine." I have to admit, though, there are times when you're out somewhere and being able to grab something at least decent can be very useful (my previous phone's camera was horrid). It can also be very useful when you lose your regular camera.
  
• 1GB capacity MP3 player built in. I've had an iPod for years but I've never had much use for it. When I'm at a computer (home, work, HTPC) I use Rhapsody to stream music from the internet and when I'm driving somewhere, I listen to CDs or the radio. Maybe having the MP3 player right on a device I'll always have in my pocket will change my use paradigm?
  
• FM transmitter built in. I have an FM transmitter for the iPod but I've found it too klugey, too cumbersome and too poor sound quality to be of much use in the car, particularly when most of my downtown trips are 5 minutes or less -- it's really not worth the hassle of getting the transmitter running for trips that short. This one is built right into the phone and has a nice simple interface that might overcome the shortcomings over other solutions. However, for various reasons (mostly due to FCC limitations on their broadcast strength), FM transmitters are a flaky technology and I didn't hold out much hope that this one would be any better. If it worked, though, it would be a nice bonus.
• Slim flip-phone design. Not exactly a feature that stands out anymore, but I've had chunky/clunky cell phones for so long that changing to a slim design would be nice.

SOLD! I purchased this cell phone about a month ago and I have to say that I love it. Some things are less than perfect, but overall it's an extremely solid phone. Obviously, as you've seen around here, the camera is at least passable. The MP3 player is a nice addition to the basic slim design and the FM transmitter is about as good as can be expected. I'm not sure the music package is going to change the way I listen to music in the car -- even the relatively simple interface for initiating FM transmission is a little too much work for a quick car trip (you also have to turn it back off when you're done) -- but I've found the external speaker useful in certain places where I wanted some background music and had no other sources and the FM transmitter has worked well on some longer car trips.

One feature that I'm a little unhappy about is the USB charging. I was under the impression that the USB cable was a standard USB --> mini USB cable similar to the kind found on most cameras. Turns out LG used a proprietary mini connector on the phone end, so I'll have to buy an extra cable to stash at work for an emergency charge instead of being able to use the USB --> mini USB cables I've got sitting around everywhere. It's not a big deal since it still charges from any USB port, but it would have been nice if they had used an existing standard on the phone side. Otherwise, job well done LG!

Gear: The Camera Buying Decision

It's been almost two weeks since I last saw my camera. I've been holding out hope that I would open a drawer or move a pile of things and find it sitting there. My hope is quickly fading -- at this point, it's probably gone forever.

On the one hand, it sucks that I lost a camera that I was accustomed to using and it further sucks that I have to spend money to buy a replacement. But, on the other hand, that camera wasn't perfect and this provides an opportunity to evaluate exactly what I liked and disliked about that camera so I can get something a little better this time. As a way of gathering my thoughts, I'm going to bullet point the pros and cons of my camera. For reference, this is the camera I had, a 2.5 year old Canon A75 (anybody seen a slightly beat up one of these around?).


PRO

• Four AA battery compartment makes a nice grip
• Four AA batteries provides long life between charges
• Manual controls available at a level between point-and-shoot and high-end SLR
• 3.2 mega pixels was fine for my purposes
• Has optical viewfinder (useful in bright outdoor situations when you can't see the screen)

CON

• Tiny viewscreen (by today's standards)
• Four AA batteries is too heavy
• Four AA battery compartment makes grip that's a little tough to slip into your pocket
• Shutter delay can be incredibly long, particularly in low light
• Compact Flash not as popular anymore? (not a dead format, but it seems to be getting phased out in favor of smaller formats)

Anybody have any advice about features I should be considering on newer cameras (or features that are not worth paying for) or any stores around town that might be good for information gathering?

Gear: Netflix Roku Streaming Video Service

Netflix sent out an email this morning advertising their new set-top streaming video device from Roku (an excerpt):

You can now get some movies and TV episodes streamed instantly to your TV via the Netflix Player by Roku, available for purchase today for only $99.99.

This is great on many levels. First, it recognizes that HTPCs are not and will never be the mainstream method to get online video to a TV. The concept has been around long enough that if the public were going to embrace HTPCs, they would have already. Second, the price is right. No one wants another box sitting under their TV no matter how small. But for $100, a lot of people may say, "Eh, what the hell." This is going to put the online, on-demand streaming world right at the fingertips of a lot of people that wouldn't have otherwise considered it. Third, the remote (right) has just nine buttons, a pretty good indication that this device is designed with simplicity in mind.

Netflix already operates a web-based streaming service called Watch Instantly that's packaged as a free extra with any subscription. Unfortunately, it's relatively useless without an HTPC to get the video to your TV. However, if you do have an HTPC, it's a very nice service. After a one-time application download, Watch Instantly is pretty intuitive and easy to use. The movie selection is a little weak but the TV show selection is decent. Every once in a while, I'll throw on an episode of the A-Team and relive my childhood. (Wow, that show is awesomely cheesy!) Quality depends on both the source (e.g. A-Team is an old print and doesn't look very good) and your internet connection speed. Any level of broadband connection is likely to get you their highest quality stream, which is a touch below DVD-quality.

It's probably a fair assumption that the Roku box will just port directly into the Watch Instantly system, so interface aside, it should function very similarly.

A couple questions:

Does the simplicity hinted at by the basic remote make it's way to the visual interface? It better.

HD-quality streaming may still be years away, but can this device handle it? Or will a new device be necessary? Unless Netflix is subsidizing the price, at $100, my guess is the latter.

Who designed this sucker? The design is way too clunky. Did they even glance at the Apple TV box? This isn't a direct competitor to the Apple TV, but it's in a similar market. Sure, small is important, but people want sexy/sleek/shiny/stylish in their living room, not drab and blocky. Hopefully future iterations improve on the exterior.

I'm excited to see what kind of market there is for a device like this.

UPDATE (8/7): I probably should have googled this product before writing because it appears that it's been out, at least for media reviewing, since the end of May. There's a particularly good review by David Pogue over at NY Times. He answers my first two questions above: yes, the interface is very simple, and yes, it's capable of decoding and displaying HD-quality streams in the future. WOW. For only $100, this is a pretty impressive piece of technology.

Gear: $50 For Free From Amazon

Ok, let me get this straight:

1. I bought an HD-DVD player from Amazon in November when the format was alive and reasonably healthy, but knowing full-well that the format could die.
   
2. The format died and now I can get tons and tons of HD movies for incredibly cheap prices.
   
3. I'm perfectly ok with this.
4. For all this "heartache," Amazon wants to give me $50, for free!

If you figure that the $50 credit from Amazon will buy about four HD-DVDs, the $199 I spent got me a perfectly functional HD-DVD player and 14 free movies. Or maybe I got 14 movies for $199 and a free HD-DVD player. What some people may think of as a very stupid purchase looks just dandy to me!

This n' That

Indiana Avenue Restaurant and Lounge: Exterior work continues. They've added three more windows to the Indiana-side roof in addition to the one I showed previously. A number of windows have also been added to the new third-floor space on the North St. side.

IUPUI: Research III is shaping up nicely. This is the last in a trio of interconnected laboratory buildings being built on Walnut St. near University Hospital. With the long-term goal of recruiting 90 faculty members -- as well as the hundreds of associated staff members and students that will work in the labs located in this building -- this represents a significant investment in Indianapolis as a life science hub. Work on the north-side facade is virtually complete and they appear to be in the final stages of work on the south-side facade and People Mover connection. The building is expected to be occupied in December. As the weather continues to warm up, expect to see pictures of this project sometime soon. Research III is the taller middle section with the walkway connection in this rendering:


BadaBoomz: Vintage tastings are back! Stop by Saturday (March 29th) and get a taste of Sierra Nevada Bigfoot '00 & '03 as well as Bell's Batch 7000 (imperial stout). $9 gets you a 5oz sample of all three and when they're gone, they're gone.

HD-DVD Update: supplies of players are drying up, indicating that we're just about at the end of the road. The high-end HD-A35 has been gone for weeks and the HD-A30 is now starting to disappear from online shops. Only a handful of shops still carry the entry-level HD-A3 and they won't last much longer. Movies still appear to be widely available, however. My credit card has been getting quite the workout snatching up discs before they're all gone. With a sunk investment in a player, an average of just $9-10 per movie, and a limited-time opportunity, how could I not?! These movies will be MUCH more expensive once they switch over to Blu-ray. Update (12:50pm) Looks like Best Buy just decided to pull all remaining HD-DVD merchandise.

Gear: The Last Domino Falls

And just like that, it's all over.

On Tuesday, almost immediately after Toshiba announced they would be quitting the HD-DVD business, Universal announced it was switching to Blu-ray. This morning, Paramount formally announced what everyone knew was coming: they would also be switching back to Blu-ray production (they were initially format neutral, releasing movies on both formats). With almost no hardware support and zero major studio support, HD-DVD is now dead. Only LG has committed to continue HD-DVD hardware production. Even then, their support will be in the form of their dual-format player, with the idea being that they can transition HD-DVD supporters over to Blu-ray with a player that will play their existing HD-DVD collection.

I initially thought that both formats had lined up enough support that format duality was inevitable. Of course, I didn't account for the possibility that Warner would switch to Blu-ray exclusivity, a move that exposed how tenuous the balance between the formats was. I'm pretty shocked at how quickly HD-DVD fell; it took just 48 days from Warner's announcement for HD-DVD to completely die.

Of course, Blu-ray as the standard is not necessarily a win for consumers. "Standard" can also be likened to monopoly, where there isn't the downward pressure on prices from marketplace competition. The player side will continue to see competition and price drops, though without HD-DVD in the picture, it will likely be at a significantly slower pace than we've seen over the last year. On the other hand, each movie is its own little monopoly and my guess is that we're not likely to see the cost of Blu-ray movies drop noticeably for quite a while. It took several years for DVDs to drop and we're likely to see the same thing here.

Gear: Goodbye HD-DVD

It's officially official: as of March 31st, 2008 -- almost exactly two years after the format was released in Japan -- HD-DVD will be no more. Toshiba has decided to pull out of the business, effectively killing the format. They'll begin limiting shipments of HD-DVD hardware at the beginning of March and cease production by the end of that month.

Time for me to start scouring the internet for people and business trying to firesale their HD-DVDs. I plan to take advantage!

Gear: The End is Near

HD-DVD is a rapidly sinking ship. I reported earlier today that Best Buy and Wal-Mart were both lining up behind Blu-ray. Now, in what is likely the final bell in the format war, rumors are swirling that Toshiba is preparing to formally drop HD-DVD. Without a large hardware manufacturer supporting the format, the remaining HD-DVD exclusive studios, Universal and Paramount, are sure to jump to Blu-ray soon.

HD-DVD is dead. Long live Blu-ray!

(And from a consumer perspective, thank god!)

This n' That

Things are pretty slow in the DIG-B world but here are a couple quick tidbits:

Cosmopolitan on the Canal: site prep continues with lots of digging and a mini-crane on site.

Indiana Avenue Restaurant and Lounge: it looks like work is still going on on the inside, as several cars are parked around the building each day. They're sure being pretty secretive, though, with big plywood panels covering the doors so you can't see anything. No sign of work on the rumored second floor deck yet.

Bell's Consecrator Dopplebock: Bell's puts this limited-release beer out on Fat Tuesday each year. I used to get this with my brother when we wanted to "go big," though I probably haven't had it for two or three years. This year's batch arrived at Alabama Liquor sometime in the last week so I grabbed a 6-pack. Boy is this beer disappointing! I remember it tasting "huge" to us back in the day but now it tastes very thin to me, especially compared to some of the stuff I've been drinking. Could partly be because of my expectations, but it seems very blah. It's similar to my impression of British ales: not bad, just blah. I decided to forgive Bell's when I popped a Hopslam as my second beer of the night.

Everybody going Blu: While Best Buy isn't banishing HD-DVD from their stores, they've decided to "push" the Blu-ray format as a recommendation to customers. It might be about time for Toshiba and the HD-DVD consortium to give it up. There's no way they're going to reverse the industry's slow march to Blu-ray. UPDATE (4:15pm): Wal-Mart also just announced today that they'll stop stocking HD-DVDs by June of this year. This is SO over.

Weekend Plans: My weekend schedule got shuffled a little and was worried that I wouldn't be able to go to Jungle Jim's. Luckily, Ohio does sell alcohol on Sundays -- and liquor stores do just fine! -- so I'll be heading to Cincy then. I'll let you know what I find. Can't wait!

Gear: Netflix Goes Blu

In another knock against HD-DVD, Netflix has decided to exclusively back Blu-ray. Frankly, this makes no sense. I can almost understand the retailer mindset that their shelf space is finite and they'd rather stock their shelves with a product that moves faster. But Netflix operates out of warehouses! Are we really to believe that by not stocking HD-DVDs, they're going to use that space for something else?

On the other hand, you could argue that Netflix is simply trying to hasten the end of the format war. But do they really think their choice is going to be the knock-out blow against HD-DVD? And do they really have that much to gain by ending the format war? On a per-movie-rental basis, they don't make any more money renting hi-def movies. In fact, they probably make less, as the initial purchase price of a hi-def movie is higher than standard DVD.

As a current Netflix subscriber who rents both Blu-ray and HD-DVD movies, I find this quote curious:

"From the Netflix perspective, focusing on one format will enable us to create the best experience for subscribers," the company said, adding that not many customers order high-def DVDs.

I fail to see how NOT offering the movies that some people might want to rent will create the best experience for their subscribers. Netflix' real power is in their ability to stock and ship anything that you might want to rent. Traditional rental stores can't touch this kind of selection. Now Netflix is actively working to limit the selection of movies they offer? That doesn't make any sense.

I'm going to seriously consider switching to Blockbuster because of this decision. While Blockbuster exclusively stocks Blu-ray in their stores -- where the limited shelf space argument comes into play -- their online/mailing service still offers HD-DVDs in addition to Blu-ray.

UPDATE (2:20pm): Further reading shows that Netflix is planning to phase out HD-DVD by the end of 2008. No need to jump to Blockbuster just yet. By the end of 2008, HD-DVD may be completely dead and this decision by Netflix will be moot.

Gear: A New Internet Access Pricing Structure

I came across a very interesting article earlier regarding Time Warner's proposed new internet access pricing. They'll begin limited trials later this year on a pricing structure that charges for internet usage rather than bandwidth.

This concept is so logical, I'm not sure why it hasn't been tested yet. Electric companies don't charge you based on voltage (bandwidth), they charge you for the power you use (internet usage). Water companies may charge you partially for the size pipe into your house but they mostly charge you based on the water you consume. I could see internet service providers (ISPs) moving to a pricing model similar to the water company, with a base service charge and then usage fees.

While this will more fairly distribute the cost of internet use, the more profound effect will be on the download of bandwidth-hogging pirated content. Current limitless internet access essentially makes it free to pirate movies, music and TV. Charge people "by the bit" or at set usage tiers and suddenly there's a very real cost associated with that kind of internet use. You better believe that the MPAA and RIAA will be lining up behind this concept.

Additionally, this presents a way for ISPs to charge consumers for piggybacking VoIP services like Vonage and streaming audio/video services like Rhapsody and Yahoo! Music. In particular, ISPs are none too pleased with Vonage for using their networks for "free," particularly when they offer their own competing internet phone services.

I'll be keeping an eye on this concept to see if it goes anywhere.

Beer/Gear: Krups-Heineken BeerTender

Commenter Indy Steve forwarded me a link to this device last week and I have to say, I love the concept! Krups and Heineken have joined forces to create a mini-kegerator called BeerTender. First released in Europe, the news is that they're now bringing the device over to the US.

I like the concept because few people have the space for a full-on kegerator and even fewer people probably have the inclination to drink an entire keg of beer at home (I think I'd hate even my favorite beer after working through a whole keg of it!). Not to mention you've got to have a significant other willing to allow such a thing into their home. BeerTender, on the other hand, is cool, small and sleek looking. A much easier sell. And using mini kegs, you could change out the beer style much more frequently.

Steve wondered if this would work with the new Two Hearted Ale mini-kegs from Bell's. Unfortunately, it looks like the answer is no. The BeerTender is only compatible with DraughtKeg mini-kegs, and even then, it's designed to use the 4L version common in Europe. A tube attachment will allow it to work with 5L DraughtKegs common in the US, but how many beers are produced in those pressurized DraughtKegs?

Of course, there's another BIG downside: the price on this thing is outrageous. News reports indicate that it will be available at Williams-Sonoma for $400 on March 1 and rumor is that other retailers will have it for approximately $299 on April 1. Who's going to pay $400 for this?! That's approaching the price of a full-sized kegerator.

At $200, I bet they'd do solid business. Bring it down to $100 and it would fly off the shelves. I just don't see this product taking off at $400 or even $300. Think of all the different bottled beer you could enjoy for $300!

Gear: Pursuit of the Silent Computer

Today we've got a guest blogger, my older brother and the family guru on silent computing. This is the first in a small series he's going to write about the concept and pursuit of silent computers. (Also note that Silent PC Review -- the bible for this topic area -- has been added to the 'Gear Links' sidebar.)

With all the noisy things in the world these days (my 9-month old is a good example), it's nice to have a serene place where you can relax in silence. Unfortunately, if you have a computer running in that place, you may have trouble relaxing, due to all the racket it generates.

Fortunately, quieting the jet engine sitting next to you is easier than you may think. Our parents' computer, for example, was a major offender, but with some easy changes, Chris (even without silence as his objective) dramatically reduced its noise footprint -- I'll get to how in just a bit. Hopefully this entry will get you thinking about the all noise your computer makes, or more specifically, all the noise it doesn't need to make.

To start, a little theory. The first law of silent computing:

Heat = Noise

To elaborate: computer parts generate heat, which must be dissipated to prevent damage. Heat dissipation usually occurs through airflow across the parts and their heatsinks. The more heat that is generated, the more airflow that is required. The more airflow that is required, the faster fans must spin and the more turbulence in the airflow, both of which generate noise.

So what is the major source of heat in a computer? The CPU: by far the hottest element in a computer. Fortunately, as CPUs get faster, smaller, and hotter, a lot of engineering has gone into increasing their energy efficiency and mitigating their heat generation. The CPUs available today are much more power efficient (power consumed has a direct relationship to heat generation) than the prior generation of processors. Systems based on AMD's Athlon X2 and Intel's Core 2 Duo can consume less than half the power of the dominant processors of just three years ago: the spaceheaters from AMD (Athlon XP) and Intel (Pentium 4). I won't comment about the performance increase these new processors also offer, suffice it to say it is quite significant.

Which brings me to the change Chris made: he upgraded our parents' computer from an Athlon XP to a Core 2 Duo, mainly for performance reasons. This involved purchasing a new CPU, motherboard, and RAM, with a total cost of around $250. His objective was easily achieved: the updated system runs circles around the one it replaced. But the collateral improvement in the noise generation was what had both Chris and me swooning as our ears breathed a sigh of relief.

So my main recommendation for today: if you've got an older computer, consider an upgrade to a Core 2 Duo or Athlon X2 system. You'll get an impressive trifecta: (1) a performance bump, (2) a noise reduction, and (3) a reduction in the energy you consume.

Is our parents' computer quiet enough for the way they use it? Sure. Could more be done to make it even quieter if they needed to? You bet, and I'll explore silent computing and its tools and techniques even further in future guest entries.

Enjoy the silence!

Gear: HD Format War Update

The HD movie world is very much in flux after the recent announcement that Warner Bros. would move from HD format neutrality to Blu-ray exclusivity. A quick rundown on the news of the last week:

• HBO and New Line Cinema follow Warner to Blu-ray exclusivity. (This was not unexpected given that these are sister studios to Warner and also distributed by Warner.)
• BBC Home Video, despite also being a sister studio to Warner, announces that they will continue to be format neutral, citing stronger sales of their Planet Earth series on HD-DVD.
• Rumors swirl early last week that Paramount is interested in exercising an escape clause in their HD-DVD exclusivity agreement to switch to Blu-ray. The clause reportedly allows Paramount to back out in the event that a major studio switches to Blu-ray exclusivity.
  
• Further rumors indicate Universal's exclusivity agreement with HD-DVD will expire shortly and they are considering a switch to Blu-ray.
  
• Both Paramount and Universal publicly state their on-going support for the HD-DVD format.
  
• Toshiba slashes the MSRP on their HD-DVD players. Street price for their entry-level, 1080i HD-A3 is now as low as $127, while the step-up, 1080p HD-A30 can be had for $164.
  

For now, HD-DVD is still standing. But things are looking increasingly desperate, and even the slightest bad news could be the final bell for HD-DVD. Paramount and Universal were hardly forceful in their public support of HD-DVD and nothing prevents them from backing out in the future. At this point, perception is reality. If people perceive HD-DVD to be dead, they won't buy and the format will be dead.

Gear: The Beginning of the End for HD-DVD?

The big news in the HD movie format war is that Warner Brothers has chosen to release movies exclusively in the Blu-ray format. They expect to complete the transition by May 2008. This appears to be more of a loss for HD-DVD than a gain for Blu-ray as Warner had previously been releasing movies in both the Blu-ray and HD-DVD formats, the last major studio to do so.

Admittedly, my assertion that both formats would continue to exist now has very little possibility of happening. While HD-DVD still maintains a significant lead in the cost of players, from a content perspective, the format war has moved from a 5-to-3 studio lead for Blu-ray to a 5-to-2 lead. Without Warner Bro., it seems impossible that HD-DVD can continue to produce content at a similar rate to Blu-ray. A cash infusion to induce a flood of catalog releases by the remaining two HD-DVD exclusives could keep them competitive for awhile, but they simply won't be able to compete on the new releases front. Further, the handful of movies released by Warner exclusively on HD-DVD because of interactive features available on HD-DVD players (such as Batman Begins and The Matrix trilogy) will move to Blu-ray in May.

I have a soft spot in my heart for HD-DVD because their cheaper player price allowed me to enter the market last Christmas. I recently bought a Toshiba HD-A3 player so that I could more easily play my HD-DVD collection. However, I have to admit that the Christmas sales on players and movies also moved me to purchase a Blu-ray player. My early December purchase of a Samsung BD-P1400 Blu-ray player now seems prescient in light of Warner's decision. I would be lying if I said I saw this coming, but this possibility was definitely in the back of my mind when I made the purchase. At least I'm now future-proofed.

Gear: Vudu

This morning I noticed an AP technology article about an interesting device/service combo called Vudu. Vudu was launched back in October and is a streaming/downloading movie service that works through a proprietary set-top device that they sell. The big news today was the announcement that they will start selling high definition movies through their service, beginning with The Bourne Trilogy.

This is a fantastic service in concept. Movie download sites have largely failed because their business model is movies downloaded to a computer to be viewed there. Unless you're among the handful of people that have an HTPC hooked up to a TV, viewing movies through a computer is a less-than-ideal and certainly uncomfortable way to watch movies.

Vudu's model is to sell a device that directly connects your TV to their movie service through your existing broadband internet connection, wired or wireless. This eliminates the clumsy and cumbersome computer interface from the equation. The movie side of the company currently offers 5000 standard definition movies available for rent or sale. They plan to offer more HD movies over time.

I'm impressed in theory with their roll-out of HD movie downloads. I had thought we were years from this being a reality, hamstrung by insufficient internet bandwidth and movie studios still leery of digital distribution. I'd like to see Vudu in action before passing judgment, but my instinct is that movies will either take a day or more to download -- current HD movie encodings are on the order of 20-25GB -- or will be compressed, slightly-below-HD versions.

The possibility of seeing it in action is hampered by the high cost of entry: the set-top device currently costs $399. I find it hard to believe that the device actually costs that much to produce. Apple sells a similar product called Apple TV starting around $275. For a startup desperate for users and likely hemorrhaging money anyway, they should be selling the player at-cost or better, subsidizing part of the cost to get potential users on board. The alternatives for HD movies are much more appealing right now: HD-DVD players for $225 and Blu-ray players for $299, both with much larger selections of movies.

Given the cost and current lack of HD movies, I won't be jumping onboard anytime soon. But I'm hopeful for the future of the concept and wish Vudu the best of luck.

Gear: The HD Format War (continued)

The Toshiba HD-A3 arrived earlier this week and I promised I was going to write about my experience with it. Unfortunately, the installation of the player was so simple, I don't have much to write. I plugged it in, connected it by HDMI cable to my HDTV and it plays all my discs perfectly at 1080i. A perfectly seamless process, unlike most electronics installations these days. Honestly, I wish I had gotten a player sooner. The headaches with playing HD-DVDs on my HTPC were really not worth it, though I did end up with a much lower price and a boat-load of free HD-DVDs.

Instead, here's some more about the HD format war. With the Christmas shopping season on, things are certainly heating up. Word is that Toshiba sold 90k HD-DVD players during the week that the Toshiba HD-A2s went on sale for $98 at Best Buy and Wal-Mart. Good news for them, but HD-DVD still has a smaller installed base compared to Blu-ray when PS3s being used to watch Blu-ray movies are factored in. The entry level Sony player (BDP-S300) is still selling for about twice the Toshiba HD-A3, so we'll how sales go through the holiday season. Toshiba seems well aware that this time is crucial for HD-DVD.

Disc sales numbers for the week including Black Friday are now in, showing an almost 3-to-1 advantage for Blu-ray, up from 2-to-1 in recent months. At first glance, this might seem odd with jump in HD-DVD player sales, but it's pretty likely that a large number of those players were bought as Christmas gifts. The bump in Blu-ray sales could also be explained by high sales of new releases. January disc sales numbers should prove telling.

In any case, I still hold firm to my belief that both formats will live on. Sony CEO Howard Stringer seems to share my view, having recently said he believes the war will end in a stalemate. Naturally, he quickly backpedaled from that position, but the fact that the head of the company arguably winning the war even hinted that we'll end up with a stalemate is pretty interesting.

Gear: Toshiba HD-A3

I cracked.

I'm not proud to say it, but I've given up on my HD-DVD-on-HTPC experiment. It was fun for a while, getting HD-DVDs to play on the cheap -- Xbox360 HD-DVD drive connected to the HTPC, playing the discs with PowerDVD and output to the HDTV through HDMI -- but sometimes klugey is just klugey and you have to move on.

Things were fine with all discs through the first half of this year, but recently I've been having more and more problems playing HD-DVD rentals from Netflix. Fortunately, I was always able to make them work and I happen to enjoy working through those kind of problems. That is, until Transformers arrived. Whatever they did with that disc simply doesn't like my setup and I was never able to make it work. That seriously pissed me off, since I'm almost sure it has to do with some new quirk of HD-DVD Digital Rights Management (DRM). Goddamn corporations making it so legitimate hardware owners can't view legitimate content...ugh....that's a diatribe for another time.

Anyway, since it finally failed me I've decided I'm sick of futzing around with this setup and it's time for a dedicated set-top box. A couple Fridays ago, Wal-Mart and Best Buy both put the entry-level Toshiba HD-A2 on sale for just $98, apparently trying to move stock to make room for the new HD-A3. Unfortunately, I didn't know about it until it was over. Some other online stores had left-overs in the days after that sale at prices only a little above $98 and I tried grabbing one. They ended up running out of stock as well. Oh well.

Last Wednesday, I received an email from Amazon advertising the HD-A3 for $197 with 10 free HD-DVDs and I jumped on it. Word is that the player is basically the same as the HD-A2, just a refresh of some of the internal components to cut production costs. It differs from the higher end models primarily in that it only outputs video at 1080i as opposed to 1080p. My HDTV is only 1080i, so that's no problem for me. The 10 free discs includes the two in the HD-A3 box (300 and The Bourne Identity), 3 immediately free from Amazon (from a selection of about 15), and the on-going Toshiba promotion for 5 free with a mail-in rebate. Seemed too good to pass up so I went with it.

It should be here sometime this week and I'll have another post talking about my experience with my new toy.

DIG-B Gear Update

You may have noticed that Gear posts have fallen by the wayside. A quick glance at the labels sidebar shows more posts about Buggs Temple than Gear. This blog is obviously still a work-in-progress, but it seems that there are four reasons for this:

• Gear posts take considerably more time to write because there's generally a lot more detail to include and getting things just right is important in case somebody stumbles upon this blog and wants to follow a project.
  
• The few posts I have written don't seem to garner the same interest and response, though I do get a lot of random Google hits from places like Romania and Pakistan that land on Gear posts. I better not be unwittingly aiding the terrorists...
• Whereas there's room to work in local niches of beer and development, there's a glut of national electronics and technology websites doing a far more comprehensive job than I could ever do here.
  
• The biggest reason: this blog seems to have become my new "gear" outlet, taking up all the time I used to spend obsessing about my next project. I haven't even purchased the parts for the last project I wrote about -- an infrared receiver for my HTPC -- let alone worked on the project!

I guess the long and short of it is that you can expect Gear posts to be few and far between. Apologies to those that were interested in those posts. I promise it's not gone forever, if for no other reason than DI-B sucks as a blog name.

Gear: The HD Format War (plus: An Affordable Blu-ray Drive?)

(Note: I assume most people interested in this post already already have a basic understanding of the Blu-ray and HD-DVD formats. If not, I recommend checking out this wikipedia page on the topic.)

A lot has been written in the media about the HD format "war." I have to admit, talking about it right now is a little silly in the first place. Frankly, sales aren't going to reach anything near DVD for a long time for one simple reason: without an HDTV, the next-gen formats are useless. While HDTV sales are booming and prices dropping, market penetration simply isn't there yet (latest numbers are around 30% of US households). This is in contrast to DVD -- the day DVD came out, every household in the US with a TV was capable of using it. Your plain old TV was all you needed to enjoy the dramatically improved picture quality.

I had to laugh when Paramount recently gushed about achieving 190k sales of The Transformers on HD-DVD during its first week. That number is relatively impressive for HD movie sales, but it was obliterated by DVD sales of 8.5 million.

People frequently cite the $200/player price-point as the magical point where everyone will suddenly go out and buy a next-gen player. This belief is based on rapid DVD adoption once player prices dropped to that point. What's being glossed over is the fact that, for a lot of people, the price is $200 plus the cost of an HDTV, which still sets you back a minimum of about $500.

All of that aside, I have a blog and I want to talk about the HD format war! My hypothesis: both formats will be with us for a long time. I have three reasons to believe this:

• The manufacturers and content producers are too entrenched: Sony and its 3 exclusive movie studios aren't backing down from Blu-ray anytime soon. In particular, Sony uses Blu-ray as its PS3 games format, so at the very least, the format will continue to exist for that use. Microsoft and Toshiba, the major backers of HD-DVD, certainly aren't backing down either, having recently added Paramount Studios as a second exclusive movie studio.
• There's an installed base: as I said, the numbers aren't large, but people (including me) have jumped on board and picked a side, or perhaps both sides. The installed base of users will require support in some form.
• The formats have identical dimensions: when discussing the HD format war, the commonly cited format war is Betamax vs. VHS, which VHS obviously won despite being the technically inferior format. Those media formats weren't physically compatible -- you couldn't put a Betamax tape into a VHS player or vice-versa -- but the two HD formats are perfectly compatible, being the exact same size as a DVD or CD. That, combined with the fact that the decoding process for both formats is virtually identical, means the only thing you really need in order to make a dual-format player is duplicate lasers and pickups to actually read the 1's and 0's off the different discs. A handful already exist.

I think the future is those dual-format players. In 5 years, I expect that you'll go buy an HD movie and not even think about the format of the disc -- your dual-format player at home will take care of it all for you. For now, those players are a bit cost prohibitive, though. You can buy the entry-level player for each format for less than the cost of a dual-format player.

All of this gets me back to my original point in creating this post. Since I believe both formats are going to continue to exist and I only have an HD-DVD drive for my HTPC, I'd like to be able to watch any new HD movie that comes out, not just those on HD-DVD. That means I need a Blu-ray drive for my computer.

Unfortunately, Blu-ray drives are quite expensive and there isn't much selection. In fact, if you want a drive that just reads Blu-ray discs (no burning) you only have one choice: the Pioneer BDC-202, which sets you back $260. At this point, there's no reason a bare Blu-ray drive should cost that much and there's no reason there should only be one player on the market (that second point probably drives the first). The HD-DVD equivalent, the Xbox 360 HD-DVD drive, only costs $180 these days and comes with 5 free HD-DVDs.

One of these days, I'll jump on board with Blu-ray as well, but its selection and price has to become more competitive before I do.