...more recent posts
CBS shoots the NCAA to YouTube
Mark Raby, March 16, 2007 10:42, San Bruno (CA) - Bringing March Madness to the online video forefront, CBS today announced a new advertising partnership with Pontiac to bring NCAA game highlights to YouTube.
Nintendo's Still the One
By Fred J. Aun, TechNewsWorld, 03/16/07 11:04 AM PT -- Nintendo blew away the competition in February gaming console sales, according to an NPD report. The company sold 485,000 DS units and 335,000 Wii consoles in the month. Meanwhile, Microsoft's Xbox 360 sold 228,000 units, while Sony continued to struggle as its PlayStation 3 lagged with only 127,000 units sold.
Aggressive Intel Quad-core Price Cuts Before "Barcelona"
Intel is trying to steal AMD's thunder by cutting prices deeply. The Q6600 is a Core 2 Quad with 1066 MHz front side bus (connects to the memory controller chip), 8 MBytes of cache, and 2.4 GHz operating frequency. It will be $266 (in quantity) by Q3 of this year. Earlier this year, the retail price of the 2.93 GHz sibling was around $2k.
Four screaming-fast 64-bit processors for $266. Awesome.
Blu-ray Outsells HD-DVD For Second Month Running
Sells 2:1 against HD-DVD in February.
by Gerry Block
March 13, 2007 - Trade magazine Video Business reported today that Blu-ray outsold HD-DVD in February for the second month running. According to the magazine's figures, roughly 250,000 Blu-ray movie titles were sold in February compared to only 125,000 HD-DVDs. In January movie sales for each format were roughly the same.
Why isn't Viiv working for Intel?
NEWEST MULTIMEDIA PC BRAND HASN'T GENERATED MUCH BUZZ
The most common Viiv approach seems similar to Apple TV. A media adapter gizmo sits next to the TV, and connects to a personal computer. The delay in availability of the media adapter gizmos and a new media-aware OS (i.e. Vista), have taken some of the wind out of the sales of Viiv.
One of the "gizmos" is described in the September 2006 article below -- but it's still in beta and currently only supports presentation of photo and music from the attached PC to the TV: Don't even think about moving media in the other way.
DirecTV's Viiv box almost ready for prime time
I'm still not clear why a PC needs Viiv to do this. Fast boot and power-on via LAN perhaps?
The Great Apple Video Encoder Attack of 2007: Cupertino plans to add H.264 hardware support to its entire line.
Internet Radio on Death Row
Jesse "Doc" Wendel: "The Day The Music Died"
South Park goes HD on 360
First-ever high-definition episode of animated comedy to be available free over Xbox Live Marketplace for a limited time, uncensored episodes to follow next week.
Finally from Sony, a Video Walkman
US Consumers Confused by HDTV
WSJ via AZCentral
Anyone who thinks consumers understand high-definition television should consider a recent survey by Leichtman Research Group.
It concluded that close to one-half of the 24 million households with HDTVs don't actually watch high-definition programs because they haven't obtained the necessary hardware from their cable, phone or satellite operators.
And about one half of those viewers - about six million - don't even realize they're not watching HDTV. Bruce Leichtman, the market research firm's president, figures the confusion is partly because the consumers spend so much money on the set they can't believe they're not getting what they paid for. "This is cognitive dissonance," he says.
Cingular, Verizon Go With The FLO
can you hear me now?
Sony's Internet Video Link Anchors BRAVIA Line
From the article:
The linchpin to Sony's video strategy is the Bravia Internet Video Link. When connected to the back of a compatible Sony TV, the device will allow it to receive video programming from a number of online services, including AOL, Yahoo! and Grouper, as well as Sony Pictures Entertainment and Sony BMG Music, for free. RSS feeds are also supported. Video sharing services, such as YouTube, Revver, or Soapbox, were not mentioned, although a Sony spokesman said the company was in discussions with sites "like" YouTube.
"Stay tuned," he said.
The Internet Video Link will begin selling in July for about $300, Sony said.
I'm not sure that crappy, low res internet video will be compelling on an HD television set. Also, there's no mention of a hard disk. In the US market HD content is going to need caching on disk. We're not like S. Korea with their 100 Mbps internet. Akimbo and Apple TV seem more like the right kind of "internet TV" devices for the average U.S. consumer.
Sony Plans Cheaper Blu-ray Disc Player
Smaller, better, cheaper -- and undermines reason to buy PS3.
Apple TV launch delayed until March I just realized the Apple TV gizmo has a 40 Gbyte disk. That's less than two Blue-ray Discs. And half the capacity of the biggest iPod. I guess they're assuming that a PC computer on the network will serve as the bulk storage.
How Sony Killed the PlayStation3, and NOT Just in Europe
Sony is dropping backward compatability with the PS2 to save costs -- first in the PAL version and soon in the NTSC version. They'll have "software emulation" to support "some" PS2 games. With a lack of ethusiasm for this platform among the game developers, the PS3 will be not much more than a cost-effective Blu-Ray Disc player. (By the way, Blu-Ray HD movies rock!)
This latest strategic error by Sony is the self-inflicted coup de grace for PS3. Microsoft will own the living room within 5 years.
I say that with the same certainty and resignation with which I said "Microsoft owns the office" in 1992.
Is PS3 on the verge of a death spiral?
That was part II, here's part I.
a win for Joost ...
Viacom to Offer Online Video, but Not on YouTube
HD-DVD AACS cracked ...
What Copy Protection? Get AnyDVD