Month: March 2005

So better late than never, but I must add my ringing endorsement to the Audiovox SMT 5600 Microsoft Smartphone.

I bought the Audiovox SMT 5600 on Amazon.com a few weeks back for $200. It also had a $150 rebate but I’m not sure if I will end up qualifying for it or not as I changed the type of AT&T; Wireless service that I signed up for.

My main reason for buying the phone was that I wanted something that I could sync up with my contacts in Outlook and even more significantly use it as an mp3 player.

As a phone the unit does a great job. It comes stock with a set of headphones that have a built in microphone. The headphones sound great and the mic works equally well. I’m really happy with the phone part.

Then there’s the syncing to Outlook — an absolute cinch. The software loaded up without any problem and the sync software is really intuitive. Now all of my Outlook contacts are on my smartphone. I was not using Outlook as my primary contact manager before (I’ve been using ACT for years) but will now migrate all my data over to Outlook and get rid of ACT. If I’m looking to call someone I just start pushing the numbers that correspond with the letters in their name and their name pops up and you select it and it auto calls them.

The phone has a camera but I was not very impressed with the photo quality. It’s hard for me to review this though as day in and day out I’m typically using a Canon EOS 10D SLR so most photographs are going to look bad in comparison. The camera feature will really only be used by me if I see something really photoworthy and don’t have my Canon.

The big killer feature for me is Windows Media player on the phone. First off, the sound quality is phenomenal — better than any .mp3 player I’ve ever heard. Better than the iPod in my opinion or other .mp3 players I’ve tried. It is especially good at the high volume range which is where I listen to most of my music on my noisy BART commute. The phone is Windows Media Player 10 friendly and I just plugged it in, randomized my 5 star list and then transferred about 50 .mp3s over. Again, the sound quality is first rate. You just sync to it as an approved device and you are in business. You even get a little photo of the album artwork as you listen to it.

The phone has a speakerphone option and I can play music out loud as well which also sounds remarkably good for such a tiny little phone.

There are lots of other typical smartphone features, email, internet, file transfers, etc. I thought Thomashawk.com looked pretty cool on the little screen when I booted it up.

Thanks to Robert Scoble for piquing my interest in this phone in the first place and thanks Josh Bancroft for hooking me up on the 1 GB chip from Kaitliac! I received it in the mail today and it is more than ample storage for my present needs. I hadn’t been able to find a 1 GB chip but now I’m set. And thanks to two other Microsofters, Sean Alexander and Sam Kamel who let me play with their SMT 5600s as well.

This really is a great phone and if you are in the market for a new one you should definitely check it out.

Gelf Magazine: Mark Cuban on Grokster Gelf Magazine interviews Mark Cuban on Grokster and the Slashdotting occurs here.

New York Post Online Edition: I saw this story earlier on Bloomberg today and just really didn’t want to blog about it. It looks like Time Warner is going to begin offering a service that allows you to start a television show at any time during the airing of the show. From what I understand there are no real DVR features – no fast forwarding through the commercials, no pause, no season pass. A digital idiot box of sorts.

I guess what really gets my dander up is that this is just about the most useless service I think I’ve ever heard of and yet many people, again, the uninitiated, will assume that this is as good as a TiVo or MCE machine when it’s really more typical crap being spoon fed by the cable operators and their evil cousins the broadcast networks.

Matt Goyer ‘s blog – The completely egotistical storyline of my life Matt Goyer cancelled his Millenium Cable today. He only is watching OTA HDTV now. In big bold letters at the end of his post he writes, “I can’t watch standard definition TV anymore.” This is very comforting to hear from someone working on the Media Center team.

Like me, Matt has seen the light.

So my question for Matt is, what video card / tuner combo are you using to capture your HDTV signal? It may be time for old Thomas Hawk to break down and try and upgrade my MCE machine.

My other question for Matt is why not Foundation TV? This is being run in trials in Washington State where you live I understand.

I do have my HDTV TiVo to get me by of course but what I’ve really wanted all along more than anything from Microsoft is my HDTV MCE machine — well that and better support for my large .mp3 library.

Of course the billion dollar question is when will I be able to get HDTV satellite or cable from MCE and although I suspect Matt has a little more definitive answer than I do I wouldn’t except to hear him sharing it anytime soon — loose lips sink ships and all.

Of course it would generate a lot of excitement once Microsoft confirms that cable or satellite HDTV will be a reality and that it’s only a matter of time.

MSN – Video Downloads: Home So what looks like a quiet launch for a video on demand product, Microsoft’s MSN Video Download apparently is going live today.

The service allows you to download video content from places like MSNBC, CNBC, Fox Sports, HGTV, The Food Network, Fine Living and DIY. Although you may not be watching Desperate Housewives or the Sopranos any time soon, it’s an interesting first attempt foray into the world of video on demand for Microsoft.

Although I have not seen it announced yet I would imagine that you would see this in Media Center’s Online Spotlight shortly if it’s not already there today.

At present you need WMP 10 to watch the videos. It looks like they want to charge you $19.99 per year for the service but that they have a free Basic Membership option with a more limited selection of downloadable programs so that you can try before you buy.

Very interesting. I wonder if/when we will see HD content, how long the downloads take, etc.

Thanks, Michael!

I’m thinking about just naming every post that I write about Mark Cuban as Mark Cuban for President for a while. This guy is great. He pays for Grokster’s defense, he does great things to promote the adoption and development of HDTV and other digital technologies. He says that he won’t use the broadcast flag. Heck, he even steps up and pays CBGB’s bills when they can’t. I love it when we see someone make a bunch of money in tech and then use it to do good things. Cuban’s latest challenge is to the RIAA, perhaps the most despised group in digital technology — an easy target.

So I’m no Karl Rove, but there is something about the Cuban/Kahle presidential ticket that sounds really really good to me.

Wired has a piece on The Cuban Revolution and Chris Anderson has a piece on Mark Cuban as the ultimate “Longtailer.”

BetaNews | TiVo Begins Testing of ‘Pop-Up’ Ads Well all I can say is that for all the BS about DirecTV TiVo users being limited and not having the HME or network capability etc., at least we don’t have to put up with this crap.

This is incredibly short sighted for TiVo and will hurt them in the long run. Their advertising revenue represents such a minor amount of profit for the company. I can’t believe that they don’t see that this strategy will only hurt them in the end.

Although it is still in concept phase over at Microsoft Research, it is interesting to look at what they are doing with fast forward / rewind. Hopefully we will see this kind of innovative feature added to Media Center with the next release. For a video demo of the new fast forward / rewind technology click on the 2nd link below. The first link is a .pdf on the technology. Very slick.

smartskipfinal.pdf (application/pdf Object) You’ve gotta love the great folks over at Microsoft Research!

So let’s see, Microsoft with no ads and potentially this amazing new smart skip interface technology or TiVo with ads being shot at me that are so big sometimes that I don’t even know when to stop fast forwarding. One more thing to put on the scale when weighing between a Media Center PC or a TiVo box.

More New MCE Machines Chris Lanier points out two new MCE machines — one from ABS and another from HP.

For what it’s worth as an owner of a current HP Media Center PC I’d discourage anyone from buying one.

The tech support and aftermarket support at HP is horrible and they load the PC up with all kinds of crap software that you have to uninstall. I would never buy another HP unit again.

I’m not saying that other OEMs don’t do the same thing or offer similarly poor tech and aftermarket support but you couldn’t do much worse than HP.

Michael Gartenberg – Orb Networks goes free Well although skeptical, I’ve been aware of Orb for a little while and it looks like I will need to get around to testing and trying their software. They seem to have just made me an offer I can’t refuse.

According to Michael Gartenberg, Orb is now offering their software and service FREE! — that magic little four letter word in the English language.

Orb allows you to stream all of your media to your cell phone or laptop.

More on this after I do a little testing.

Praise Murphy : Bryce Yehl Bryce Yehl traded in his TiVo for a MCE machine in order to get a dual tuner machine last week. But he’s already getting Media Center PC errors and more signficantly his MCE didn’t record a show he scheduled. Now the majority of the problems that I have with MCE are more operator error than anything but Bryce does have a point that the error message returned should probably be more helpful in assisting him in diagnosing his problem.