Month: January 2006

Canon EOS Beginners’ FAQ This is a fairly informative FAQ for Canon EOS SLRs. If you recently received an Digital Rebel or other Canon digital SLR for Christmas or if you are considering buying one, this would be a good place to start learning more about the camera and the EOS system.

ESPN, ABC Sports, more come to iTunes Music Store: “The Disney ABC Television Group announced today that it plans to add a slew of new programming to the iTunes Music Store. The new offerings will come from ESPN and ABC Sports, ABC Entertainment and Touchstone Television, ABC Family, ABC News, Buena Vista Television, Disney Channel, SOAPnet, and Walt Disney Feature Animation. The content will be a mix of free and paid downloads.”

WHO IN THE WORLD IS GOING TO PAY TO DOWNLOAD ALL THIS STUFF?

“Classic animated shorts produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation and featured on Buena Vista Home Entertainment’s upcoming “Disney at the Academy Awards,” including the 1933 Academy Award-winning “The Three Little Pigs” and the 1935 Academy Award-winning “The Tortoise and the Hare,” will also be available.

In addition, free video podcasts from ABC News will be available on iTunes, including daily segments from “Good Morning America” and the “World News Tonight” webcast, as well as ABC News Now’s “Money Minute,” “Medical Minute” and “Buzz Cut.” “

Plus you are going to get bowl games a day after they are played.

THIS THING IS GOING TO FLOP SO HARD.

Or, as Digg user aMillionAndNine puts it, “it is good to see more content available but it just more stuff that does not interest me.”

Times Leader | 01/02/2006 | Return of Tony Soprano’s family leads TV highlights of new year: Is it too early to start a Soprano’s countdown yet?

“By the time Tony Soprano and his family, friends and enemies resurface, it will have been nearly two years since HBO’s mob drama aired its last original episode. That’s one long hiatus, but creator David Chase is legendary for taking his time putting together a new season — which may be part of the reason “The Sopranos” has been one of the best shows in the history of television. Originally, this was supposed to be the series’ last hurrah. That changed when HBO started waving money and Chase started wavering. Now, there will be 12 episodes starting in March and eight more that won’t be seen until January 2007. Generating almost as much buzz: HBO’s sure-to-be controversial new drama “Big Love,” about a Utah man with three wives and families. It will air right after “The Sopranos” on Sundays.”

PaidContent.org: January 02, 2006 Archives

Om Malik on Broadband — Niveus Media’ Big Honking DVD JukeBox Om’s got a post on some news out from Niveus on their, “Big Honking DVD JukeBox.” I’ve been interested in these DVD jukeboxes ever since seeing the first one out a while back with the Sony Vaio XL1. Although I can’t tell from the Niveus announcement, I’m hoping that like the Sony model this unit can also mass rip CDs. Even more exciting for me than the DVD usage would be the ability to say go out to the CD store, pick up 200 CDS, put them all in the player, press rip, and then go to bed and wake up in the morning with all your music ripped. At present I have to rip each disc one by one and this is tedius and time consuming.

Niveus is a name of course that I’m more interested in than Sony as they tend to focus on the higher end (albeit more expensive) Media Center PCs.

The Long Tail: The decade the blockbuster died Chris Anderson is out with an insightful post comparing the number of Top 100 albums of all time by five year chunks. The conclusion? 2000-2005 has sucked for the recording industry. Go figure.

The number one selling album in the U.S. of all time by the way? Well you sure can’t hide your lyin’ eyes, The Eagles, Their Greatest Hits (1971-1975).

Techdirt:RIAA Using Scare Tactics On Grokster Site Tech Dirt is out with a story about the RIAA’s latest tactic now that they have taken over Grokster to warn users that their IP address is being “LOGGED” whenever they visit.

“Back in November, we noted that the RIAA had taken over the Grokster website as part of the settlement with the company and posted a note that was wrong and misleading (claiming the Supreme Court said something it hadn’t said). Now, apparently, they’ve gone even further, though in a somewhat hilarious manner. Visitors to the site are being shown their own IP address and told that it was “LOGGED” (in all capital letters) — as if there’s something illegal about visiting the website. Rather than worry people, this is mostly just causing people to laugh at the RIAA. Still for folks who want to quickly check what your IP is, you can now add Grokster.com to other favorites like IP Chicken, while getting the added satisfaction that you’re IP address has been LOGGED by the entertainment industry.”

As we all know visiting websites is illegal it’s nice to be warned in advance.

Provider of TV Movie Channels Looks to Expand to PC’s and Video Players – New York Times So there’s a lot of buzz out this morning (top story on Memeorandum, chatter at Digg, etc.) regarding the new service that Starz Entertainment Group is rolling out, a $9.99 per month subscription service that will allow people to download movies from the Internet and watch them on their computers, portable video players and TV sets.

“The new offering, called Vongo, comes at a time when movie studios and television networks are rapidly expanding their efforts to distribute their content over the Internet, experimenting with both paid and advertiser-supported models.

“We see a market out there of people who are saying, ‘I want to choose what I want to watch, control how I watch it and watch it wherever I am,’ ” said Robert Greene, a senior vice president at Starz, which operates pay movie channels under the Starz or Encore name and is owned by Liberty Media, the company controlled by John C. Malone, the cable entrepreneur.”

My question is (and I hope I’m not killing my freedom to do this) why would I pay for a service like this when I can just record shows off of Starz or HBO or the networks or wheverever for free (or more correctly included in the price I’m paying already for my content) and then copy the files over to my laptop and watch them on the road whenever and wherever I want?

I’ve been doing this for a number of years and while I don’t get to pinpoint a specific download file per se, I would assume that the movies that Starz is hawking are the same ones that it has the rights to as a broadcaster and why not just tell your Media Center PC to record the shows for you and then transfer the files across?

So what worries me about Vongo? This: “Starz will shift to technology from Microsoft that will allow movies to be downloaded and watched on portable video players using Microsoft’s software.”

Microsoft needs to walk a delicate balance between providing software and tools for content providers while at the same time empowering consumers to use their technology to have their TV anywhere anytime. Will Microsoft sell me and my ability to copy shows from my Media Center PC over to my laptop out to Hollywood for a quick turn of a DRM buck?

I’m worried that the freedom that I’ve had to copy all of my TV over to my laptop with Media Center in the past is going to be nixed by Microsoft in the next Vista version of Media Center. I suppose because Media Center has not been widely adopted yet that they’ve probably let early adopters like me get away with this, but I worry that with the DRM coming in the next version of Media Center that my days of transfering programming to my laptop for free may be over. A sad day if/when it comes to this.

I also wonder how Microsoft/Starz will address things like Orb that allow me to take content from my Media Center and view it remotely for free.

So will I need to maintain TWO versions of Media Center in the future? One version on an XP PC to record shows DRM free and copy unrestricteda and a second version of Media Center Vista in order to get the newly announced CableCARD support which will finally give me HDTV PVR support through Media Center? And will this strategy even work or will Microsoft change the file format on all TV recorded on Media Center even with XP to prevent me from making unrestricted copies to my laptop? Or am I completely over-reacting here and will I still have control to transfer my recorded TV files in Vista?

I think Digg user James Wilson has a good point when he asks, “so if I am paying a Starz subscription fee already to my cable company to legally watch these movies whenever I want, why should I pay $9.95-a-month to watch them with DRM at lower quality?

BitTorrent sounds like a much better, more natural option. If I pay for the content already…..why would I pay for this?”

Update: Paid Content has read the Vongo terms of service agreement and it leaves me even more wanting to skip the whole thing and continue recording off my Media Center for free:

“– “Please be advised that the Vongo Client will only allow you to have 10 Content files in your download list at a time.
— Except for Pay Per View Content, each Content file downloaded will allow you to have 10 24-hour periods to view the Content, provided that the Content does not otherwise expire due to availability.
— For Pay Per View Content, you will be provided with 1 24-hour viewing period, which period shall commence when you initiate the viewing of the Content.
— Please be advised that not all Content may be available for all purposes. For example, some Content will not be downloadable to some or all personal media devices, and some Content may be available on a Pay Per View basis but not on a subscription basis, or vice versa.”

Who needs all these restrictions when you can get all the same stuff without any?

So I’ve been looking for a way to get better wi-fi reception with my laptop and stopped by CompUSA on the way home from work on Friday to see what they might be able to suggest. The sales clerk at CompUSA (I know, perhaps the last person you should ever listen to) suggested that I try the Netgear RangeMax Wireless USB 2.0 Adapter. On the box the RangeMax Wireless USB 2.0 Adapter claims, “up to 1000% more coverage and speed than standard 802.11g.” It also has a claim to “turn dead spots into hot spots.”

My experience? The thing is completely useless. It works no better than the built in wi-fi that my laptop already had. Even when I plugged in the long USB cord and stuck the USB adaptor on the end of it (I assume so that the cable would act as an antenna of some sort), I still received no better reception.

In teeny tiny print on the box is a disclaimer by Netgear that reads, “maximum performance when used with WPN824 RangeMax Wireless router.” When I asked about the requirement to use this so called WPN824 RangeMax router at CompUSA the sales clerk said yes that it would be better with that but that it should boost reception for any signal. I didn’t actually need 1000% more coverage. I just needed a little more coverage to get the free wi-fi signal that now is being run in the Ferry Building (that I’ve yet to be able to connect to by the way even within proximity of the router which I’ve been told sits near the Ferry ticket stand downstairs — I can see the signal downstairs but it won’t connect).

So with this adapter I still can’t even see the free signal being broadcast inside the Ferry Building from the Ferry Building itself and it looks like I’ll need to make one more stop on my way home from work today to return this $110 gizmo back to Comp-USA.

I might not be as bummed about this except the last time I had to return something to CompUSA (a Seagate 300 gig external USB storage drive that was completely non-functional) it took me over 45 minutes to do so.