Hey Ben,
Thanks for the great post. I just bought myself a Tivo Series 3, and now I am very tempted to upgrade it; just got to pay it off first and buy myself the $199.99 HD-DVD add-on for my X-BOX 360.

I miss the podcast, are you not doing one anymore?

Joe L

None yet, though will need one soon for my tivo.

Satellite and OTA ATSC

Enterprise on HDNet. Never got to see it during its first run due to lack of a local affiliate. The show has great visuals.

Even though Cringley has valid points and I think that most of his article could happen. I just don't think that this is the only reason why Apple hasn't included any kind of hi-def optical device in any of their products.

I think in a drop of the hat Apple could incorporate hi-def recorder support into any of their software. The software that is out their already, from Final Cut, Final Cut Express HD to iMovie HD, and DVD studio; all are practically waiting to include this final step. The real problem why Apple has not gone all guns blazing to supply a solution to hi-def optical recording demands is a supply issue.

Toshiba and Sony are not making enough blue laser devices fast enough. Can you imagine Apple went ahead and offered a Blue-Ray recorder in a MacPro with DVD Studio support. This would be one popular system, so popluar that I think Apple at this time would have a difficult time finding a supplier that could fulfill all the demand.

If Sony can't secure enough Blue Lasers for their PS3 and if Toshiba is trying to make enough for their own drives along with the XBOX addon drive, who is going to supply Apple with the drives they need?

I am waiting to see about the price/performance of the xbox 360 add-on. If it performs decently for around $250, I will probably buy it. Any higher than that, then I would wait for the 2nd gen.

Hmm....A lower priced Blue Ray Drive. I wonder if this might end up in the Intel PowerMac that is going to be announced in August? Apple is on the Blue-Ray side of the fence and they always seem to like to go with the bleeding edge technologies (DVD-RAM) for the PowerMac lines.

I just listened to this show, I loved the information you guys provide. One thing though...lay off the pharmacist bashing. I am a pharmacist for a major nationwide chain pharmacy.

While I agree that 2 hours is too much time to fill one prescription, usually that one prescription is not the only one being filled. The biggest trouble with filling a prescription now is not typing up a label, or counting out 30 little pills, but dealing with insurance companies. Especially now with Medicare Part D, a lot of the time your one little prescription is stuck behind everybody elses one little prescription that won't go through their insurance. These people then want the pharmacist to call their insurance company up to find out what is covered and then call their doctor to get something that is covered.

This is kinda like you Matt having a customer come in to buy a TV. They come in knowing what they want and have it written down. You write up the sale and go to process their credit card, but the credit card denies the sale because they will only pay for Samsung TV's not Sony TV's. Now the customer has to go back and make a new decision on which TV to buy and you have to process the whole sale again.

So next time you guys go into a pharmacy, please show a little patience. If the pharmacist is goofing off then you have a right to complain. If you don't want to wait for your prescription, just leave it there and go back later to pick it up. If your lucky your pharmacy might have a drive-thru, just go back later and pick it up at the drive-thru.