Yesterday’s other big news was the beta release of DVD Jon‘s DoubleTwist software – that aims to be the Swiss army knife of multimedia conversion, sharing, and syncing. The feature (rightfully) garnering the most attention is the behind-the-scenes conversion of DRM-ed iTunes into unprotected MP3s for playlist synchronization onto non-iPods. Though, being a video geek … Read more
With the exception of ~1 million owners, the HD DVD story pretty much concluded today when Toshiba pulled the plug: Toshiba Corporation today announced that it has undertaken a thorough review of its overall strategy for HD DVD and has decided it will no longer develop, manufacture and market HD DVD players and recorders. Toshiba … Read more
Last week I paid tribute to Hallmark and jolly old St. Valentine. Or something like that. Melissa has said her iPod Mini is “too big.” Though she couldn’t tell me exactly what it’s too big for, I did replace it with a diminutive Nano “fatty” – doubling her storage capacity (8GB) in the process. We … Read more
Yep, ZNF finally gets a redesign. WordPress is a great open source blogging platform for managing content, but customizing the look and feel requires a decent amount of effort plus a bit of skill. I tried to offload some of this about two years ago – long story, short: I was out a few hundred … Read more
If you happen to live near a Micro Center, swing by this month for a great deal on USB memory sticks. I picked up an 8GB model yesterday for $30, although they also have 4GB ($20, black) and 2GB ($14, blue) capacities available. These aren’t as sexy as some of the major brands and don’t … Read more
If you weren’t already convinced the next-gen optical disc battle was over, Wal-Mart has announced their intentions to dump HD DVD and exclusively stock Blu-ray. There’s also murmurs that Toshiba is about ready to throw in the towel… The quicker they do so, the better – a single format and less consumer confusion will lead … Read more
Vudu has thrown down the gauntlet… They contacted me yesterday to emphasize their “quality of HD video is better” than what Apple TV provides. The claim is based on Vudu’s resolution of up to 1080p versus Apple’s 720p. Of course, the pixel count doesn’t tell the whole story… How well are these movies compressed and … Read more
The BBC received a demonstration of Sony’s upcoming PlayTV accessory which will offer PS3 owners over-the-air tuning (DVB-T, abroad), OTA EPG, DVR functionality, and PSP placeshifting. Looks pretty cool (other than the UI load time)… Though, I wonder if we’ll ever see this in the US – is the PS3 OTA ATSC market large enough … Read more