Month: November 2005

The Washington Post doesn’t think Front Row’s all that – Media PCs – mediapcs.engadget.com Rob Pegoraro reviews Apple Computer’s Front Row: “While Apple works to fix the defects and fill the blanks in this software, it also needs to put Front Row on more of its computers — and in particular the Mac mini. That machine is cheap and small enough to be a second computer, and it includes a digital video output that connects to many high-definition TVs. When you can show off your vacation photos on a 42-inch plasma screen, a program like Front Row will be a much easier sell.”

I totally agree Rob. “Requiring” that people buy an iMac, which has that hideous built in monitor, in order to get Front Row is a mistake. As you mention (and as we’ve already seen through the hacks) this software is much more suited to the Mac Mini.

Understandably this is Apples first foray into the living room and hopefully they will get this better in the future.

As a side note, Pegoraro does take issue with Microsoft Media’s Center including photo editing functionality with Media Center. I agree. This is almost laughable. Please, let me edit my photos in Photoshop or at least on some other PC in my home than my Media Center PC. I’d much rather Microsoft be working on something like, ummm ohhhh.. HDTV or even filtering photos through keywords, etc. than photo editing functionality within MCE.

Digg This Story!

Internet Outsider: What Microsoft Should Do Buy AOL, combine it with MSN and spin it off.

Today Prince Charles visited the Ferry Building in San Francisco arriving by Coast Guard Cutter and welcomed by San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom and Kimberly Guilfoyle. The Prince was visiting the Ferry Building which is a central market for organic produce in San Francisco to talk about environmental issues.

I took some photos of the proceedings including a decent close up of Oakland Mayor Jerry Brown. As I infiltrated His Royal Highnesses’ talk without any press credentials to speak of, after a bit of shooting I was promptly escorted out by security.

To see my photoset of the Prince’s visit click here.

DirecTV Sells NBC Shows For 99 Cents Dave Zatz is out with a post on a new arrangement between NBC and DirecTV whereby people will be able to pay 99 cents to download commercial free NBC television shows with a new DirecTV DVR.

Perhaps I don’t get it, but if you have a DirecTV DVR why not just record the show yourself and skip the commercials and not pay 99 cents. I suppose there always may be the case where you accidently didn’t record your favorite show, but it would seem to me like an unlikely service to be used. I could see it being sold on DirecTV units without a DVR, but then again this is probably just the first step on NBC’s part of experimenting with selling downloadable TV. Although not many details are provided, perhaps DirecTV plans to cripple their next version of DVR or somehow limit it’s potential in order to make these new show downloads more attractive.

I also did not see anywhere what kind of quality we might expect. Will these downloadable shows be in high def? Somehow I doubt it. Then again, anything would probably be better than the low res TV downloads currently available through iTunes and these are even at half the price.

Update: Not to be outdone, CBS and Comcast have now also announced today that they too will sell some of their programming on demand. “Beginning in January, Comcast Digital Cable customers in markets served by CBS owned-and-operated television stations (including the top 7 US markets)will be able to view episodes of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, NCIS, Survivor and The Amazing Race on Comcast’s ON DEMAND service. The on-demand programs will be available as early as midnight following their broadcast on the CBS television network. Each episode will cost 99 cents, and customers will be able to view the episodes anytime they want for up to 24 hours from the time they order them. Certain Comcast systems also may make CSI and NCIS available ON DEMAND in high-definition for customers with HD-enabled Comcast digital cable set-top boxes.”

Update: Jonathan Greene adds his thoughts here. JupiterMedia Analyst Michael Gartner offer his thoughts as well.. ArsTechnica picks it up here.

Michael Creasy’s blog – Akimbo for Media Center Michael Creasy tried the new Akimbo for Media Center service this weekend and says that he’s pretty impressed with the service.

I haven’t tried it out yet myself but I think it holds promise as a future method of delivering content via Media Center. I did start to try it out but abandoned the project when I found out I needed to give them a credit card number to take a test drive. Personally I’d prefer they let me try out the service, even if only for seven days, without having to enter my credit card information and set up an account with them for billing.

Creasy says that the program quality is on par with standard definition recorded shows.

The service costs $9.99 per month, but some have expressed concern that even after paying the $9.99 per month that you still are charged additional fees for downloads. Personally, instead of teh $9.99 plus download charges I’d like to see two alternative pricing models. One that charged a higher amount but had no pay per use charge (similar to cable television) and another that charged no monthly fee but charged seperate fees for the download.

NPR : RSS Feeds Podcast feeds from NPR. Thanks, Jonathan!

The Media Center Show Awards Ian Dixon is accepting nominations for The Media Center Show Awards in a number of different categories. If you have a chance, check it out and vote!

flickrcast: flickrcast – Episode 3 Deletme Uncensored gets a mention on the latest Flickrcast.