Engadget HD Podcast 138 - 05.28.2009
By Trent Wolbe 
posted May 28th 2009 12:03PM
posted May 28th 2009 12:03PM
Mea culpas all around after last week's show -- not our finest hour, but we're not willing to give up on Ustream altogether just yet. Apparently, we're not alone, as several people joined us live this week while we got back up on the Ustream horse again. We get grumpy with Microsoft's efforts this week, and somehow still maintain hope for a Media Center + Windows Home Server future. Don't confuse us with sunny, happy wall-people, though -- there's plenty of grousing to go around as we cover the rest of this week's news.Get the podcast
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Hosts: Ben Drawbaugh, Steven Kim
Producer: Trent Wolbe
00:02:25 - Comments from Engadget HD Podcast 137 - 05.20.2009
00:03:20 - Zune HD is official, heading your way this Fall
00:17:04 - Netflix Watch Instantly comes to Vista Media Center, not Extenders
00:26:15 - Linksys has no plans to add H.264 support to discontinued Extenders
00:34:03 - Is the future of Windows Media Center with Windows Home Server?
00:46:42 - Cablevision on track to deliver Network DVR this Summer
00:58:37 - TiVo Central Online adds Now Playing and To Do lists
01:01:09 - Nielsen stats find 33% of U.S. households with at least one HDTV
01:04:00 - Hands-on with Yahoo Widgets on a Samsung 7000 series HDTV
01:10:25 - Paradigm's Studio 60 v.5 5.1-channel speaker system gets a big thumbs up
01:13:03 - Samsung BD-P1600 Blu-ray player review
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The problem with adding WMC to WHS is that all these WHS boxes out there run on Netbook hardware with full size hard drives.
No way can a 1.6GHz Atom, download 2 HD streams and then stream at least 3 HD shows at the same time to extenders. Any automated transcoding would be horrible too. WHS right now is marketed as Powerful External Hard drive. Although I wouldn't be opposed to putting on a full size rig, what "Ben"ifit do you get in doing that over just installing Windows 7? Other than the file system, which although I really like it, isn't exactly fast. Its meant for efficiency and although I wouldn't be able to easily increase the size easily I think I would rather raid 5 or 6 for its performance gains.
Actually, they don't. The first HP was a low end CPU, and there ARE some Atom-based ones, but for example, the newest HP has a better 2.0Ghz or so P4. But a dedicated chip like an Nvidia 9400 putting CUDA to use, or whatever dedicated encoder chip, would solve those issues right off anyway.
Jesus, once again a better posting system would help, I have more to say.
Anyway, streaming files across a network isn't CPU bound anyway, unless there's transcoding, in which what I said before solves all that.
There's so much a WHS can do, not all of it depends on CPU.
Yeah, after 2 minutes of Podcast 137, I just turned it off. Why did you even put it up ?
While I can understand some of the frustration about the press release for Zune HD I do have keep in it in context. They are probably going to spend 15-20 minutes talking about all of the integration and specs at E3. Plus, there is the inevitable integration into Window's Mobile and Window's 7 later this year.
Let's hope.
We still don't know most of the pertinent details.
Did you see the Blu-Ray joke they made on Reno 911? http://www.comedycentral.com/videos/index.jhtml?videoId=228313&title=blu-ray-player
So true.
Ben I know the Dish boxes are supposed to hook up through ethernet to the Media Center PC, so would they possibly work like a HD homerun where you could use them on multiple machines on your network? Also we will hopefully we see some version 3 extenders announced with Windows 7 but I am preparing for disappointment.
Why does someone creating a business model around something make not buying-in a moral/legal issue? If automated commercial skipping invalidates a business model, either providers change the model or they go away; that's how a free market functions.
There are many examples where a service is tiered to provide flexibility or price discrimination (e.g. pre-cut vs. whole fruit at the grocery store). Convenience isn't free, and it certainly makes sense to charge more for a premium service, but there's nothing wrong (morally or otherwise) with paying less up front and rolling your own solution.
You guys talked alot about why Microsoft isn't getting into complete product ecosystems.
Do you think it might be fear of multi-billion dollar anti-trust suits that seem to pop up whenever they try to integrate anything?
Hey, this came out on my b-day. sweet!
Since I didn't see anyone else mention it yet, I want to say that this podcast really went much smoother even with the chat going on. You guys seem to have figured out how to manage it, going to the chat after discussing an article rather than trying to keep up with it as you go. Much less "dead air" and a much more listenable result. Good job!
I agree completely with Vance. MUCH better podcast this week! Thank you!
I was very critical of the past few weeks (ever since the live uStream chat was introduced), but my criticism came from being a long-time fan of the podcast and I gave several suggestions of how the chat could be used without degrading the quality of the podcast.
I do not know if my suggestions directly influenced this week's improvement, but regardless, Ben and Steve stayed much more focused and attentive to one another during the primary discussion segments, which is a great relief and a HUGE improvement over the past few weeks. As Vance said, going to the chat AFTER discussing each segment improved things immensely.
Good work. I hope Ben and Steve will continue to avoid the temptation to read the chat in the middle of discussion :)
As both a listener and a participant, I can tell you that I'm liking uStream and the way you've worked it into the podcast.
I'm moving off-campus soon, and I plan to set up a media center to watch OTA content with my Xbox360 as an extender (Ben would be proud, I'm sure). I currently own a pair of rabbit ears, and it seems like they require constant adjustment to get proper signals. I also stumbled across a so-called flat antenna claiming 360-degree reception.
I'm curious to know how much adjustment (if any) Ben has to do with his anntenae, and if this flat antenna is really worth the money (it'd cost me another 30 bucks at least)
For those streaming video content, which is the better format for HD content: divx or mkv? I have some HD home movies in MOV, so I am going to have to convert the files if I get the BD390 player and want to stream them. But which would be the better format to stream with this player?
I hate how many hotels have big LCD or Plasma TVs but only have SD channels. Its sad that some people aren't even bothered by the stretch-o-vision.