Zatz Not Funny!

Dave Wants His Vista

The question is: How come I’m not running Vista? As an early adopter, I’m a little embarrassed and a lot frustrated in not having a shipping copy of Vista. I did get on board early with beta testing — I distinctly recall loading up a laptop with a TechNet-issued copy of Vista for the August, 2005 Engadget meetup in DC.

I thought I had a good plan in place for acquiring Vista, but I’m somewhat impatient. When we decided to visit a great uncle in upstate NY for Thanksgiving, it seemed like a good time to replace his aging PC with my aging PC. Of course that decision was made the same week it was announced that all XP machine purchases would be eligible for a copy of Vista. Imagine the coincidence! ;) So I bought myself a powerful, though inexpensive, HP running XP MCE in October with expectations of receiving Vista in February.

DEMO ’07 – V in Vogue

One year, every company I worked for seemed to start with a letter at the end of the alphabet… and it appears that “V” companies are in vogue again. Two in particular have piqued my interest from their DEMO debuts.

Vuvox offers a platform for creating and sharing media. That alone isn’t interesting, but the fact that Robert Scoble is rendered speechless by the service is. The best explanation of Vuvox I’ve seen so far is that it’s a heavily enhanced, Scrapblog-type application. If you check out the site, it clearly gives you ways to add professional touches to your own media. However, there’s also some kind of social networking aspect. Look at this photo from a ZNF friend on the ground at DEMO. If you click on it to see the larger version, you’ll notice there’s some kind of user profile and links to groups, blogs and MySpace pages. Can’t wait to hear more.

95% Of Canadians PVR-less

The Cable & Telecommunications Association for Marketing (CTAM) ran a study where they looked at PVR usuage in the US and in Canada and determined that only 5% of all Canadians are currently using PVRs and only 38% were even familiar with how they worked. When they surveyed American consumers, the number of people who have PVRs jumps up 15%, but even at that level, it’s still a pretty small number given how powerful the technology really is.

The crazy thing about a PVR is that it’s really tough to demonstrate the benefits to someone without seeing it first hand, but once a consumer experiences the power of time shifting, it’s very tough for them to go back to live TV.

When I bought my first TiVo, it was actually on accident. I had gone to Best Buy to buy a home theater system, but the sound set up that I wanted was a little too expensive. Rather than go home empty handed, I made an impulse decision when I saw the TiVo and after taking it home was immediately floored with how transformative the technology was. Going from a world where you had to schedule your TV to a world where everything was available on my own schedule had a huge impact on my life and instantly made me an evangelist for the company.

Confirmed: Half Price Xbox 360

After spending time with all three next-gen gaming systems, I finally decided on picking up a Xbox 360 last November. At the time, Micro Center’s deal seemed too good to be true ($200 for a $400 system) and involved playing Rebate Roulette. Fortunately for me, I won — in about 10 weeks I received two … Read more

Windows Vista: Edit DVR-MS With Movie Maker

With all the bitching and moaning going on about Vista and DRM, it’s nice to see that Lifehacker has some good news for us. The updated version of Windows Movie Maker has the ability to edit video files that Vista’s Media Center components record… you know, without DRM. True, you’re probably not going to get at CableCARD content — But this new functionality actually makes at least a portion of Vista less restrictive than XP. So strip out your commercials, put some pretty menus and transitions in, then burn DVDs ’til the cows (or Leopards) come home.

I ordered the Logitech Harmony 550 while Amazon was running a recent rebate, so I’ve only had it on hand for a day… However I already feel like it’s $75 (after rebate) well spent.

Compared to the 520, the 550 seems to have a better build quality. It’s more solid, the buttons respond better, and the back has a nice rubberized coating. I thought the 520 looked pretty sharp, and the 550 looks even better. The 550 adds a few more buttons than the 520. As with the 520, Logitech kindly packaged 8 Duracell batteries — four for now, four for later.

TiVo Sackpack Giveaway

I’m still doing a little house cleaning and reorganization… I came across a TiVo sackpack that I picked up at DigitalLife in October – it needs a good home. Leave a comment today, and I’ll randomly pick a winner tomorrow. Over the next few months, I promise to give out much cooler prizes… such as … Read more

Hands On With SplashCast

The DEMO 2007 conference started yesterday, and I’m terrifically jealous of anyone who’s out there now. Luckily, we’ve been able to make a few arrangements to keep us up to date on any juicy DEMO news. Dave squeezed me into Marshall Kirkpatrick‘s schedule for a SplashCast briefing, and I’ve got a friend on the ground who promises to send on-site DEMO photos.

Here’s the deal on SplashCast: Marshall calls it a “media syndication platform” and Liz Gannes calls it a widget. Whatever the right term is, it’s a pretty cool tool. Simply put, SplashCast lets you string together text, images, audio and video for a multimedia production viewable (and listenable?) on a Flash player. Unlike YouTube-alikes, SplashCast also embeds a menu to provide access to multiple videos from just one embedded web player.

Here’s a sample SplashCast with text and random ZNF photos. More details after the jump.