Engadget HD Podcast 098 - 08.20.2008
By Trent Wolbe 
posted Aug 20th 2008 12:56PM
posted Aug 20th 2008 12:56PM
We kick things off with a little Olympics, and based on our poll, we're not the only ones talking about the Chinese HD smorgasbord. With so much content, it's only natural that we talk about DVRs, and Verizon is looking to score a win with its DVR promotion, which would go great with the its plans to make NFL interactive via TV. Speaking of Verizon, only last week it took issue with tru2way, and the war of words spilled over to this week. We talk a little Blu-ray with the upcoming re-release of "Casino Royale" and Paramount's rebate plan to upgrade you from DVD to Blu-ray on select titles this holiday. If you're not into buying, how about rental? That's normally synonymous with Netflix, but not this past week. Mail carriers missed the daily flow of red envelopes, but everything was righted by week's end. If internet delivery is more your style, maybe Vudu can get you interested with its $0.99 rental promotion. But considering the price of entry, maybe not. We wrap up with talk about disc spinners from Sony, Panasonic and Toshiba. Two of them are blue, one not so much; guess which ones we're enthused about?Get the podcast
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Hosts: Ben Drawbaugh and Steve Kim
Producer: Trent Wolbe
01:46 - Comments from Engadget HD Podcast 097 - 08.13.2008
13:41 - Poll: Due to HD, have you tuned into the Olympics more?
16:55 - Verizon pushes HD DVRs in new FiOS TV promotion
19:34 - Verizon and the NFL get serious about interactive television
25:19 - tru2way camp reassures FCC this is the open standard they are looking for
28:40 - EchoStar lines up to make tru2way boxes too
32:42 - 007: Casino Royale Collector's Edition first Blu-ray Disc to double-dip
36:49 - Paramount to offer $10 rebate for select Blu-ray Disc upgrades
38:54 - Netflix shipping systems act a fool -- have you been delayed?
40:33 - Netflix shipping woes fixed, rentals flowing freely again
41:00 - VUDU announces $0.99 extended rentals, "99 for 99" movie channel
47:38 - Sony BDP-S350 review
50:14 - Panasonic prepping DMP-BD35 and DMP-BD55 Blu-ray players?
52:50 - Toshiba stubbornly launches the un-Blu-ray, XD-E500 DVD player
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I live in Laurel, MD and we've got Redbox in all the local grocery stores.
I have to say, my family does the laptop while watching TV a lot of the time. We always laugh about how geeky we would look to others if they saw my, my wife and daughter all watching a show or movie with a laptop in our lap.
My wife is addicted to IMDB when watching a movie or show by the way.
"Benavision" I'm sure I misspelled that ;) is sort of being done with American Idol and text messaging your votes, but I agree studios should add websites that interact with the show. Even with sports that could be pretty cool.
I am a gamer and every since they started streaming all the E3 conferences online, that is the only way I want to watch them. Chatting with the community about the conference live is probably the most fun you can have watching a boring power point slide show.
Also is it possible that Benavision could have Smell-O-Vision as well?
ben speaking about that media center podcast last week I think one quote in particular was spot on.... and that was where they said with all of these little problems and not improving media center (other than these few additions) since vista's release there is immense pressure on the ehome team now. Windows 7 has to be 99.9% perfect for everybody now. There is no more wiggle room if 7 isnt perfect its game over. And I completely agree with that statement.
I also think it was one of the biggest mistakes ms has made making media center tied to windows.... its limited the ehome team far too much. It should have been released as its own product (like office) and not tied to vista at all. this would have allowed ms to make even more money (because they could charge an upgrade fee for each subsequent version) as well as be able to give us regular updates (like the xbox 360 2 yearly dashboard updates). but maybe the biggest reason would have been we could have had windows home server support by now (i still find it horribly ironic that sagetv works on whs when ms's own media center doesnt)
I believe Planet Earth BBC was 1080p/24, at least that is what RipBot264 reported when I recompressed it for storage on my NAS.
Ben, the reason Verizon FiOS TV is not Tru2way compatible is because they use IP for the return path, not RF. They also use IP for Video On Demand. Tru2way doesn't support using IP for the return path.
I understand that is how they do it now, my point was that if they can do RF overlay one way, why not twoway? Are you telling me that it isn't technologically possible to do two way RF overlay on fiber?
The other thing that doesn't add up is that FiOS uses RF for its IP. In fact, I have a CAT5 cable ran from my ONT to my FiOS router and the installer told me they don't use it, and that they use coax instead. So the DVR connects to the router via RF over IP using MOCA, and then its RF to the ONT too.
So my question is, with all this RF going around, although it's different from QAM, what's so hard about creating one upstream RF QAM channel for tru2way?
What abut video on demand? That's IP-video, not QAM or MoCA.
MoCA is just a form of IPTV and what they are actually using to deliver VOD.
"Benavision" was already attempted in a pretty cool way by Microsoft. Back in 2001 they released "UltimateTV", which was a DirecTV dual tuner DVR with Microsoft software. They had a TV integration component (Interactive TV) that, when available for a show, would pop up a prompt while you were watching the show. You could then connect and the show would be playing in the middle of the screen with lots of interactive content around it. For example, they had integration with CSI where they would provide details about real CSI techniques that related to the content of the show at that time. The BIG problem - it was dial-up. Way slow. They didn't sell many, and MS abandoned it within a couple years. I believe most of those developers ended up on the eHome team. BTW - Everyone who had one LOVED it. I still feel it was the best DVR experience I have had. The UltimateTV.com site is still out there I guess because people are still using it. I wish it had survived.
I was under the impression that as of this year all upscaling DVD players for the U.S. only did 720 and 1080 output over HDMI. My Samsung upscaling DVD player only does 480p over component. Major ripoff by the way. HDMI sucks.
Anyone know when the Sony BDP-S550 is coming out? All I can find is "Fall 2008", anyone have anything more solid?
I am waiting for the S550 to get a BR player for the analog 7.1 out, profile 2.0, and all the other good stuff it will have.