Author: Randy Stewart

DirecTV and CableCard on Windows Vista Details

Post author By Randy Stewart
Post date January 30, 2006

Thomas Hawk, digital media enthusiast, has a long write up of his recent blogger’s dinner with Microsoft exec, Jim Allchin. In a turn of events, it looks like DirecTV will have less draconian rules than cable as to how their services will work with PCs.

All CableCard enabled Windows Vista boxes will have to be certified by CableLabs, the organization that created the standard. So, not only will manufacturers have to get certified by CableLabs, but each shipping PC must be certified as well. Basically, it means that you can forget about building a CableCard enabled HTPC yourself. This will make it tougher for smaller manufacturers to build these machines, as well.

On the other hand, DirecTV will allow after market cards to be installed by individuals, rather than buying brand new boxes. This will certainly make DirecTV more attractive to tweakers than cable.

No word on pricing or timing, but there are many details of the hows and whys of satellite and cable and how they integrate with Vista.

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(Via HDBeat.)

PVRs Rumors Tivo

Cisco courting Tivo?

Post author By Randy Stewart
Post date January 30, 2006

CNET is speculating this morning about a potential “partnership” between Cisco and Tivo. Could Cisco be Tivo’s potential white knight? Well, the deal kind of makes sense, but I think that this is someone at CNET’s HQ is not-so-secretely wishing in their heart of hearts that their Tivo won’t go away.

Their rationale is that Cisco has been making a bigger push into consumer electronics, specifically with their acquisitions of cable box maker, Scientific Atlanta, and home networking gear maker, Linksys.

In any case, I’m also not-so-secretly wishing in my heart of hearts that Tivo won’t go away(and that they will ship their CableCard Tivo soon), so we’ll be watching this story closely.

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(Via HD Beat)

Apple

Steve Jobs’ Magic Kingdom

Post author By Randy Stewart
Post date January 27, 2006

Businessweek’s cover story today is about the recent Pixar buy out by Disney. The article focuses on Jobs’ return to Apple and his subsequent return to the CEO position, implying that the same may be in store for Disney.

While there has been lots of speculation as to what all of this means, I think that at best this merger could really get the ball rolling for digital distribution (READ: internet) of film and television. With Job’s influence, Disney could become a leader in this brave new world.

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Home Entertainment Portable Entertainment Rumors Sony

AIBO, Qualia Roadkill

Post author By Randy Stewart
Post date January 26, 2006

Sony, in a cost cutting effort, has cut the AIBO and Qualia lines from production, according to Akihabara News. I think quite a few geeks will be sad to see the AIBO line die, but few will lament the passing of Sony’s Qualia line.

Qualia, FYI, is Sony’s ultra high end line of consumer electronics. This line includes a $27,000 projector, $12,000 rear projections television, $3300 headphones, and my personal favorite the $3300 2 megapixel digital camera.

The problems withe Qualia brand were not just with prices, but it was incredibly questionable if there was a market for such devices. Sony wasn’t successful in making Qualia truly aspirational products. I mean, if the incredibly rich don’t want them, why would John Q. Public?

Oh well, no one is crying over Qualia, but AIBO lovers, you might consider the Robosapien or some other more-human robot companion.

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Media Servers and Streamers Yahoo

Yahoo! Music makes Linksys plugin

Post author By Randy Stewart
Post date January 26, 2006

For those of you using the Yahoo! Music Engine, you’ve just gotten a little bit of freedom. Similar to Apple’s Airport Express, the Linksys Wireless G Music Bridge plays music in remote locations (read: away from your computer) and Yahoo! has just wrote a plugin that will work with the device.

Not sure if this will be a free download for the folks that already have this device, but new customers will be able to pick up the device for $99 plus Yahoo! will have a $20 rebate (yay, rebates!).

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(Via eHomeUpgrade.)

Apple Downloads iTunes Portable Entertainment

Beavis vs. Cartman on iTMS

Post author By Randy Stewart
Post date January 26, 2006

The announcements keep coming from our friends over at iTunes. Here’s a short list of everything added to iTMS:

MTV – Beavis and Butthead, Jackass, Punk’d, Gauntlet 2, and more
Nickelodeon – Spongebob Squarepants, Dora the Explorer, Zoey 101
Comedy Central – South Park, Drawn Together, Best of Standup

Looks like Apple must have signed a deal with Viacom. Should we expect VH1, Spike, and BET to follow? And what about Comedy Central’s “news” shows, The Daily Show and Colbert Report? Looks like the encoding monkeys in Cupertino have their work cut out for them.

HDTV Home Entertainment

Netflix + HD DVD = Peanut Butter + Chocolate

Post author By Randy Stewart
Post date January 24, 2006

Two great tastes…(ugh, must not post while tired). Looks like you won’t have to rush right out to replace your old shiny discs with new shiny discs after all. Netflix announced they will have both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray discs when they launch. They don’t expect demand to be too high(I’ll second that), but want to support both formats for early adopters. No word on additional costs, but I haven’t heard anything about the cost of these HD discs.

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(Via eHomeUpgrade.)

Apple Downloads iTunes Portable Entertainment

Oh, and one more thing…

Post author By Randy Stewart
Post date January 24, 2006

Man, no sooner did this deal get done and an Disney’s newest large stockholder is already making some improvements on his investment. Wanna download some Disney shorts for your iPod? 10 new Disney shorts popped on iTMS this afternoon (maybe I should rename this blog iTMSWatch, I spend waaaay too much time there).

Gotta hand it to Stevie for having all his mice… err, ducks in a row.

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Apple General

Disney buys Pixar for 7.4bn

Post author By Randy Stewart
Post date January 24, 2006

Looks like the Disney/Pixar deal is done. The New York Times (reg required) is reporting that the agreement was met this afternoon.

Oh, and sometimes, when I don’t have anything meaningful to say, I channel my inner 9 year old.

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General

Comments are open for business

Post author By Randy Stewart
Post date January 24, 2006

I’ve had some complaints from my audience (thanks both of you) that I needed to open up comments. Fortunately, this blog doesn’t get much traffic, so hopefully it won’t become comment spam bait.

Apple Downloads iTunes Portable Entertainment

Ebert and Roeper, Munsters join iTunes

Post author By Randy Stewart
Post date January 24, 2006

Not the most exciting new additions to iTMS, but Apple is furthering their offerings this morning with “Ebert and Roeper” and “The Munsters”. What is interesting here is pricing. While the episodes remain at the oh-so-simple $1.99, the first season of “The Munsters” (38 episodes) will cost you a whopping $54.99 yet the last 20 episodes of E&R is priced at $9.99. So, Apple is placing a premium on less timely or “evergreen” content than on content that will most likely be viewed only once. Makes sense, but I wonder how Ebert and Roeper feel about it? Two thumbs up?

Ebert and Roeper

The Munsters

Apple Downloads iTunes

Apple mea culpa?

Looks like the Postal Service video that everyone has been talking about went up on iTMS today. An apology from Apple and the video’s directors for blatantly ripping off the band? Only Apple knows for sure.

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CES Macworld

Back to Seattle

Post author By Randy Stewart
Post date January 12, 2006

Whew…. finally made it to the plane. I took BART this morning to the airport and naturally it was late getting me there. I’m finally getting a chance to kick back for the first time in a few days. CES and Macworld were hectic and my social calendar was pretty full while back in San Francisco for the first time since the move to Seattle.

I’m hoping to get the remaining posts up from CES and MacWorld by the weekend, so stay tuned true believers. Also, I’ll have a bit more in-depth look at the new features of iLife ’06 as it should be sitting on my doorstep when I get back

Apple Macworld

MacBook Pro hands on

Post author By Randy Stewart
Post date January 10, 2006

I ran the new MacBook Pro (is it me, or is this a really bad name) through the paces today. My first reaction was that the machine was pretty snappy. I loaded up iPhoto which had about 6k pictures on it, rendered a couple of HD transitions in iMovie and then loaded up a demo in GarageBand and everything seemed to fly compared to my 1.5 Ghz G4 laptop. It wasn’t until I loaded up Photoshop that things began to slow down. Rosetta is pretty amazing, but Photoshop felt about the same speed on MacBook Pro as it did on mine. All things considered, once apps are rewritten for Intel Macs, they will run very quickly, but performance for non-optimzed apps was reasonable, if a little slow.

The big question that remains is battery life. Steve glossed over it with no real numbers attached to performance and the Apple rep that was there said that they are still tweaking it in the lab, but battery life will be “competitive.”

I put my order in this morning, so I’ll let you know when I get it. It’s about time Apple got back into making kick ass laptops.

Apple Macworld