Netflix has announced that they are now supporting set-top appliances that work with their instant (on-demand) movie service. The first appliance available is one The Netflix Player from Roku (who makes the SoundBridge) and it retails for $99.



Ash and I have been using the Apple TV for about 3 months now (since we kicked Comcast cable TV to the curb) and we really like it. The only pain is getting existing DVD titles into Apple TV format; it takes some time and a somewhat above-average knowledge of video transcoding. I think we would both agree that it would be nice to have access to (free*) Video on Demand content like this offering from Netflix since we already have access to this with our Netflix account.

* because the iTunes quality vs. cost is a very bad deal. Typically, TV shows are encoded to iPod quality, not 47" TV format. It makes more sense to buy the DVD and transcode it yourself

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So, if Ashley buys one I hope to learn a few things about this device.

• What format does the content come in? Are they are licensing hardware decoding for the same video technology they use to stream to the PC (DRM with WMP) or does this use a new format available at another location (like youtube mp4 content).
  
• What kind of hardware is in this puppy? Embedded windows? linux?
  
• Because Roku has no recurring revenue for this device, what kind of product support do they plan? What does the roadmap for HD/+ look like? (I suppose 100$ isn't much to shell out for a few years worth of supported playback)
• Are we going to see support for anything other than Netflix Instant Queue on any of the Netflix appliances? I really like how Windows Media Extenders work and the plug-in architecture there seems really tight. The distinguishing factor for the Apple TV for me was the iTunes store support from within the device. If Microsoft can pull off something similar I would think about moving to Windows Media Center (IPTV!).
  

technorati: Roku, Netflix Movie Player, Instant, Netflix, apple TV

Created 208 weeks, 1 day ago

I was watching some TV program last night and I heard them mention these to companies. A quick read of their literature and I am convinced. Check them out.


Konarka (lightweight photo cell technology)
http://www.konarka.com/

Solucar (solar heat turbines)
http://www.solucar.es/





Created 237 weeks, 6 days ago

I don't watch much TV, and I watch even fewer channels, but I am happy to see the return of the man's man to television. I ain't talking about no motorcycle loving baldies, I mean a real tough-ass.

Here are my top three picks:

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1. Mike Rowe



Yea, I'm sure everyone expected Mike to make the list. So we will agree that he generally is a kick-ass. Except for when it comes to snakes.

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2. Bear Grylls



I saw him eat some crazy shit. And he killed a snake outright on TV. Plus, I don't think he is afraid of falling from heights. This dude is tops in my book.

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3. Colin Ferguson as Jack Carter in Eureka



Way more Andy Taylor than Barny Fife, but seemingly more bad-ass since he has to solve more difficult problems. Also, I am glad Eureka got another season.

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Anyone else got some guys I just don't see in my channel surfing?


technorati: Mike Rowe, Bear Grylls, Colin Ferguson, Man vs Wild, Dirty Jobs, Eureka

Created 248 weeks, 6 days ago

Recently I got a new Philips 42PF9630A/37 plasma TV and yesterday I got a new Phillips DVP5960/05 HDMI DVD player.

I had been using the Xbox with Media Center on it as my DVD player but the Xbox wasn't capable of doing 1080i High Definition playback, video upscaling or progressive scan.

So the new DVD player was a purchase to take full advantage of the TV capabilities.

I knew that I needed to use the High Definition Multi-media Interface (HDMI) connection on the TV as it is the only digital connection provided (Phillips didn't put a DVI on this set). The HDMI cable was a 120$ purchase (yowza) but it was super simple to install.

Popping in the first DVD (Lord of the Rings : Fellowship of the Ring Extended version) and playing it across the HDMI cable, right away noticed that some of the movie wasn't being shown and the DVD menu was not centered on the screen.

After some research the problem is that with High Def, Anamorphic widescreen or other media resolutions approaching 2.40:1 resolutions, the Philips TV must crop some of the content to preserve the aspect ratio of the movie.

Why Philips ships the TV with the cropping occurring all the way to the left side boggles me. I even tried updating my TV with the newest firmware at the time (BX23U-1.3.0.0_01481) to see if that fixed the cropping issue. It didn't.

Get the latest Philips firmware for the 42PF9630A/37 at Philips customer support site.

It turns out there is a simple way to solve the problem. You cannot get the TV to show the entire movie as that would compromise the resolution and cause the image to be squished. Therefore you must recenter the picture on the screen. Here are the steps to center the picture on the Philips 42PF9630A/37.

1. This image shows the picture with the default cropping mode that the Philips 42PF9630A/37 shipped with when used in HDMI 1080i mode.

2. This image shows how much of the image was being cropped.



3. Use the remote and the click-wheel to center the image on the screen. I counted how many clicks wide the image was (16) then clicked back half again as many (8) to center the image.




4. The image was now centered and I was able to see more of the movie.


It seems the set retains the centering settings for the next movie and after being turned off.

I hope this fix works for you if you are having this same problem.





Created 303 weeks, 2 days ago