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Digital Media Bytes

A periodic roundup of relevant news… from our other blogs. Widgets are Walled Gardens: Connected Home 2 Go Seven-Oh-Seven Comes and Goes: Connected Home 2 Go Verizon Dodges CableCARD Deadline: Connected Home 2 Go Top 10 Apple iPhone interface mistakes: Rakesh Agrawal

XM Gets A Second Chance

My level of crankiness seems directly proportional to my caffeine intake, and I’ve been cutting back… Perhaps that’s why XM is also getting a second chance this week.

One of the reasons I canceled my satellite subscription last year was due to the encroaching ’80s pop onto some of my favored niche stations (Chrome, Groove). Not that I have anything against ’80s pop (my musical tastes are both eclectic and poor), but I thought the (selling) point of satellite radio is to provide unique content not commonly found on FM… Why would they dilute these musical genres?

Well before killing my sub, in January 2006, I emailed the station programmer at Chrome and this is how it played out:

HD DVD Enables Web Features

Toshiba’s latest firmware update, available via download or mail-order disc, for newer HD DVD players facilitates the viewing of movie-related web content and reportedly squashes the chroma bug. Blood Diamond is the first flick to to enable web access and according to High-Def Digest: Taken as a whole, while the interface is certainly nice and … Read more

Gamefly Gets A Second Chance

Gamefly, the mail-order video game rental service, is getting another chance. The first time around, I didn’t have the greatest experience and Davis Freeberg has also reported subpar service… with two separate subscriptions. However, as I mentioned to my blogging/industry buddy Jeremy Toeman just last week: Anyone I ding is welcome to try and convince … Read more

More Details On Upcoming Moxi DVRs

Between my various work-related missions in NYC the last two weeks, I managed to sneak away to Digeo‘s suite for a briefing on their two upcoming Moxi stand-alone DVRs.

Moxi Home Cinema HD DMR

Digeo had a working prototype of the Moxi Home Cinema unit on display. This is their higher-end (read: more expensive) model that I expressed doubts about, in terms functionality and market position, after talking to CEO Mike Fidler back in January. I’m still not clear on who will buy this device and why. Moxi Home Cinema features ATSC and NTSC tuners for over-the-air and clear QAM tuning, plus an integrated 5.1 audio amp. And no CableCARD support. It sounds like they’re pushing this upmarket, but aren’t those folks interested in receiving digital cable too?

Moxi Multi-Room HD DMR

On the other hand… The Moxi Multi-Room HD DMR has got me totally psyched. It’s a CableCARD unit (one M-Card for dual tuning) that will come bundled with a “Moxi Mate” extender for multi-room viewing. Real-time streaming (including HD!) will utilize the 1394 spec over existing coax, rather than Ethernet or WiFi.

Still Safari Speculatin’

Now that the iPhone madness is somewhat behind us, let’s revisit the public beta of Safari 3… on PC. It was quite the shocker when Steve Jobs announced that Apple ported their web browser to the Windows platform — and the big question still is: Why? While a software suite like iLife has the potential to bring in revenue, these days web browsers are given away. So the move isn’t as simple as selling a piece of software.

The prevailing rational for a Windows version of Safari has been to provide developers a testbed to produce AJAX iPhone applications. Which strikes me as absurd. While all modern browsers have their differences (and quirks), for the most part they (attempt) to follow the same standards and provide similar functionality. And it’s not like browser testing tools, Macs running Safari, or even iPhones are in short supply. So I don’t buy this theory either. Here’s another theory I don’t buy: A few have suggested the Safari browser will contribute to the Apple halo effect — as in Safari is so great, Windows users will trade in their computers for Macs.

Of course, I do have my own theory…

On-Demand DVDs

While some of us just can’t resist endless iPhone coverage :), there are a few other things in the CE world to keep an eye on. Among them, the DVD Copy Control Association has very quietly approved CSS copy-protection technology for use in movie download services and DVD kiosks. What does this mean? It means that companies can start offering on-demand DVD burning of the movies you buy. Instead of figuring out how to transcode video for a portable media player or how to stream downloaded flicks from a PC to a TV, now you can transport media the old-fashioned way. Just take it with you on a good old DVD.

The one major downside? If you’re consumer at home (i.e. not buying from a kiosk), you’ll need a new DVD burner and a new type of DVD-R disc to burn downloaded movies.

In the endless quest to move media around, we’ve come up with a couple of “alternative” solutions in our household.

Dave’s Last iPhone Post (For Real)

I admit it… I just can’t stop touching the iPhone. It’s an engineering marvel on so many levels. However, like Kevin of jkOnThe Run, the iPhone isn’t for me (yet). But before I tell you what I need to make the “switch” I have more iPhone shenanigans to share…

I ran to Kinkos to send a fax ($2/page?!) and since the AT&T store was only a block away, I dropped in for my third 1/2 hour on the device. First off, my thumb typing skills have improved – even without applying Brian Lam’s (slowish) sliding technique. Second, the phone stores text message conversations. An earlier phone number was still on the device, so I took the liberty of texting them “iPhone!” About 30 seconds later, the phone vibrated and the mysterious person with a 202 area code responded, “Take me home!” I assume they wanted me to take the iPhone home. To them. OK, so if you didn’t find that as amusing as I did, go check out this video for a chuckle. Nice job, Mark! That woman’s lucky to only be out $800 and that pompous attitude… I wouldn’t recommend flashing $16k cash in any neighborhood.