Engadget HD Podcast 150 - 08.12.2009
By Trent Wolbe 
posted August 12th 2009 2:00PM
posted August 12th 2009 2:00PM
We started out this week on a good note, looking forward to exciting things for Windows MCE at next month's CEDIA show. The good vibes kept flowing as we discussed over 50-percent penetration of HDTVs and hopeful shifts among the media giants to move towards new business models for the content we crave. We should have stopped there, but we didn't, and our wings of wax failed us. Talking about the iTunes + Blu-ray rumors set us into a downward spiral that ended with us kvetching about broadcasters mangling aspect ratios, crappy TV demos at retail, Ben's sour notes about Harmony remotes, and "new" TiVo features that came to us from the 90s. Trainwreck? Maybe, but you know you want to check it out. Get the podcast
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Hosts: Ben Drawbaugh, Steven Kim, Richard Lawler
Producer: Trent Wolbe
Program
00:00:50 - Comments from Engadget HD Podcast 149 - 08.05.2009
00:08:27 - CEDIA 2009 Windows Media Center predictions
00:22:19 - Xbox 360 officially the only console to stream Netflix -- sorry, PS3 and Wii
00:28:09 - The revolution has been televised: Survey reports 53% of U.S. homes with HDTV
00:32:05 - Media bigwigs declare that free TV "is broken"
00:34:45 - Subscription services like Netflix Watch Instantly generates 20x the revenue of pay-per-downloads
00:43:12 - Roku Video player now streaming live HD baseball games from MLB.TV
00:47:29 - VIZIO VBR100 Blu-ray player freed from superstore confines, unboxed on video
00:50:12 - Toshiba applies for BDA admission, Blu-ray players and laptops coming soon
01:00:13 - Blu-ray support coming with iTunes 9?
01:00:13 - Steven Soderbergh calls out the aspect ratio villains: HBO, AMC - We're talking about you
01:02:15 - Poll: What's the worst mistake HD channels make?
01:06:03 - Don't let retailer's lights distract you from buying the right HDTV
01:10:55 - Logitech's Harmony 900 remote controls components behind closed doors
01:17:50 - TiVo turns on custom RSS video feed support
LISTEN (MP3)
LISTEN (AAC)
LISTEN (OGG)
Ben's comment about WebGuide possibly not coming for Win 7 made me think back to when MS used to have a remote scheduling plug in back in the XP MC days that worked from the MSN TV listings page. So it was integrated into their TV schedule online.
They discontinued support after awhile. I don't think it every made it out of beta, but I used it for awhile with decent success. This was before I knew about WebGuide.
make bzImage
(Would've been on the chat but my sister was visiting.)
MLB network has a great show on at night during the games. The show takes you live to all of the important moments and they follow that up with analysis. I agree that watching a baseball game that does not involve your team is painful most of the time. Now only if the NFL Network would have the redzone channel instead the NFL package. I am a digital cable customer and go to a bar many sundays to watch football. I do not care to watch every football game but would love to watch the important moments of each game.
Ben, your comments about the Logitech remotes are correct. However, I do think they are the best CONSUMER universal remote. I have owned a Sony, two URCs, and a Logitech. The Logitech is the easiest to program and to change. My URCs need a serial connector (they have USB ones now) and requires constant software updates (and the software is terrible, looks like an old program created for windows 95). The benefit to the URC remotes is that you can program anything to do anything, which is great for a custom installer, but not great for a home user. I add things to my setup all of the time and I used to hate changing the configuration of the remote. It often times resulted in me not upgrading components. With the Logitech it is so simple and painless, that I do not mind changing anything around to make it work better. In my opinion, it is worth living with the fact that I cannot customize "exactly" how I want to.
Steve, I would recommend not getting a URC if you make changes to your setup once in a while. They are a pain to reprogram and not worth the hassle. The other rough feature with some URC remotes is that batteries. They are not rechargeable and the thing eats batteries.
Was reinstalling CentOS 5.3 on our backup server when the podcast happened. And when compiling the kernel, do you mean the final stage, all stages, and also, in what Distro?
Ubuntu: make-kpkg --initrd --revision= kernel-image kernel-headers kernel-source
Slackware and others: make menuconfig (configure), then make && make modules && make bzImage
Which reminds me, I'm still using 2.6.29.6. I need to compile 2.6.30.4 and try it out. The ext4 support is supposed to have stabilized. Very nice. :D
Ben,
I think it would be great if the Harmony remote knew what activity you last used and then you could program certain things to turn on when you hit the "Off" button.
Ex. You are watching a Blu-ray, and in your activity you have it set to turn off your lights while you are watching. It would be great to program it so when you hit the off button it would turn the lights back on!
I just wanted to mention something that I caught while listening to the podcast.
In the Xbox 360 / Netflix group viewing feature update it was mentioned that "Only the Xbox 360 brings this experience." It was also mentioned that this was an exclusive.
What was not clarified though, does this mean other consoles won't get streaming? Or does this mean they won't get the "Party viewing" which is the actual feature being released? The podcast discussion made it sound like everyone thought that the Xbox would be the only console getting Netflix streaming in general, which I find hard to believe.
The Xbox360 is the only console to get Netflix streaming for the foreseeable future. If it does come to another console my guess is it would come to the Wii, but not the PS3.
I'm halfway through the episode, but I wanted to post something...then I had to hunt for the podcast. Is there any reason the podcast is not linked off the side at all times?
There is a link on the right, under the sections title.
Thanks I did not see it buried over there.