01.31.09
Are you ‘really’ ready to Vudu?
Netflix Player, AppleTV, and Vudu; the battle of the digital media wars. All three have their strong points, all have weaknesses. But do I care? In fact, I really don’t at all. I bought a Vudu box during their Christmas sale for $100, where the current price is and was $300. If I can give you one word of advice, it is this: Do not buy the Vudu for more than $100, lest you be dissapointed. For $100, I can argue its purchase. For $300, save your money and buy something else that is more fun. It gives me something to do during those “I want to watch a movie but don’t want to go out and buy/rent one” moments, but nothing more. It does indeed have the best HD offerings and quality over the latter Netflix and AppleTV players. With that said though, and I state again, the extra $200 for HD content is still quite ridiculous. Lets not waste time and get to the pros and cons that I’ve noticed after about a month of owning this device.
Pros:
- By far the best picture I’ve experienced on my 42″ 1080p TV. * But read con below.
- Vudu Labs “On Demand” allows users to watch pre-selected videocasts.
- Titles You Might Like – works pretty well I’d say.
- Users can rate movies.
- HD and HDX rental options cost exactly the same. HDX will take longer to buffer before you can watch though, which is understandable.
- The controller transmits via radio and not IR, so line of sight isn’t an issue. Not only so, but it’s simple and easy to use.
- USB connections for future expansion, such as an external hard drive for extra storage, and hopefully viewing video and listening to music already stored on the drive.
Cons:
- 99 cent rentals are for standard definition only.
- New movie offerings are usually available to buy only for at least a few weeks before you can rent.
- Buying movies is most often the same price, if not more expensive than buying the DVD.
- A lot of movies are only available to buy, especially older movies
- My Insignia NS-LCD42HD will only display up to 1080i when used with this box. I read through the Vudu forums and the whole “my TV will only display up to x” discussions pop up and are dismissed describing that the quality will not increase anyway because of the refresh rate used. Newer, more expensive TVs should go up to 1080p, but appearently my TV isn’t that great. With that said, the picture is still leaps and bounds over DVD.
- On Demand TV freezes and makes the device reset sometimes. This isn’t exactly a valid complaint though since it’s considered in beta testing.
- For those “adult” movie watchers, 95% of AVN titles start off at $7 to rent and $20 to own. Personally I think adult titles are ridiculous to throw money at in the first place, but this gives the word ridiculous new meaning.
- A lot of older, especially “cult flicks” are not available. You can request them or wait for them to be released at a later time, but there may be a lot of wishful thinking involved.
- Movie navigation has a lot to be desired. Fast forwarding and going back is an art that even after a month I have trouble with. You will most likely get frusterated and comprimise by skipping a part of the movie you missed or watching a whole scene over again.
More about the “On Demand TV” Vudu Labs offers; Think Miro, except you’re limited to very few feeds. You can watch episodes of Hak5 and Systm in HD. In addition, you can watch some TED videos, The Digg Reel, G4 videos, Diggnation, Tekzilla, Attack of The Show, and various other feeds from cooking to news to sports. Unfortunately you’re only limited to the last 15 entries from each feed, and there are no screenshots or previews. Honestly if it weren’t for the On Demand TV feature, I probably would have returned the box. I’d like to be able to add RSS feeds manually in the future, or at least have a larger selection selection though. In fact, if this is all the box did, I’d be happy. I like watching interesting stuff for free.
If you’re looking for something where you can save money, Vudu is not for you. As stated, movies aren’t any cheaper to rent or buy than anywhere else. In fact, now that Netflix has its own streaming media box, you should get one of those over a Vudu if you like watching movies more than a few times a month. New 99 cent rentals are thrown into the mix, but only 5 a week, purging the 5 oldest 99 cent rentals. The 99 movies for 99 cents thing is pretty cool, but just think about the amount of movies you can watch with little restriction for only $10 a month with Netflix. Since I’m at work 50 hours a week and on the road about 8 hours a week, I watch about 4 movies a month, which I can afford to do with the 99 cent movies (yes, I’m that cheap). Watching an HD movie will still be a special occasion (once a month deal) as I cannot yet justify in most cases $6 to rent an HD movie. I can buy the darn movie in a few months on DVD anyway for $4 more and watch it unlimited times on any DVD player anywhere without worrying about a company managing my license.
Bottom line? Buy it if you have hope for the Vudu to become cheaper and more innovative in the future. Buy it on sale if you’re smart, buy it at full price if Vudu becomes smart and lowers the price to $150 or $100. Leave comments and questions if you’d like. I know that a lot of people are curious about this box.
Edit #1 (February 26, 2009): I know a couple people with a Roku Netflix box. One doesn’t feel too strongly about it as not enough movies are offered and he has watched “all the movies that interest him” already, and the other claims it to be hands down the best purchase he has ever made (believe me, this guy has everything already). We watched a movie on the Roku box on his far superior 120Hz TV, and I can see a bit less quality in picture. The Vudu box will give you DVD-quality picture with even the SD content, which honestly looks even better than any DVDs I’ve played, while the Roku will give you video with somewhat noticeably blocky artifacts. I’d say the Roku is comparable to Hulu SD content. In all, the Roku currently does not offer as many movies as the Vudu box, but you’ll be paying the price of a movie ticket to watch movies all month. In addition, you’ll be able to watch a lot of the older movies you know and love.
Edit #2 (February 28, 2009): Users are now able to buy HD and HDX movies. Currently it doesn’t seem like you’re going to save a significant amount over Bluray, but it’s a start. Also, the Vudu box appears that it is now going to be set at a price of $150 ($100 for the box, $50 for credits?). People can also buy a refurbished Vudu XL box for $350 (1TB hard drive). The price drop seems to be the Californian thing to do, as I reminisce the infamous price drop with the iPhone. In all, I could be editing this post for a while as it appears that Vudu is now making some big changes and possibly starting to contend with its competitors finally. I think a good start to contend is possibly bringing the accessory prices back to earth. $30 for a controller, $70 for a carrying case, and $40 for a glorified IR sensor with a wire and a plug? When an aftermarket pops up, they will most definitely drop the prices sharply. The technical side of Vudu is pretty good, but the marketing side needs to realize that they’re not going to make millions from millionaires.
Edit #3 (March 5, 2009): As of the 2nd this month, 99 cent movies are no longer an option. This will probably bring my watch count down to 1 movie a month. The way I think of it, for the price I can watch an HD movie, I could spend a few dollars more and have unlimited content with Netflix. In addition, the bottom right corner sometimes shows the following – “Hollywood’s Best Instantly on Your TV”. This got me thinking a bit. Who decides if it’s “Hollywood’s Best”? You can request a movie that is not available in their forums, and it’s up to Vudu employees whether or not they like the idea enough to suggest it to get it added. Most movies are rejected. If your movie is surprisingly a good idea, you’ll never hear about it again anyway until you search for it months down the road. This whole Vudu idea is making me think it was just a bad idea. I may end up unplugging the power so it doesn’t end up costing me more any more than it has to. Good hardware, horribly bad prices.
02.02.07
Windows Vista – Innovation?
So, it’s finally here. We’ve waited for 6 years, and the Microsoft finally unveils their newest operating system. Billions of dollars have been spent, years upon years of testing have been done. So, where do I start? Lack of 64-bit support? Lack of innovation? Well, they seem to go hand in hand, but the 64-bit issue is another article in itself – something that just isn’t going to be resolved anytime soon it seems.
Considering all the billions of dollars spent, you’d expect something that would completely change your computing experience, no? The main advance I see in Vista is that the GUI is accelerated. What does that mean? Well, now your desktop uses your video card directly to draw windows and everything else. All consumer computers now come with accelerated graphics cards. In the past, the cards were only really used when playing 3D video games, watching video, or showing a really cool screensaver. Now you can put your video card to use whenever you’re using Windows. You get better performance, and you’re getting your money’s worth out of the hardware. Mac had this functionality starting August 24, 2002 with their Jaguar release. Microsoft is only 4 years behind on this one. Linux has the functionality, but I still see vast improvement to be made making it easily installable and stable. When it does work in linux though, the results are nothing short of amazing, and it makes Windows Vista look like something your kids should be playing with.
As far as any other innovation goes, well, I simply don’t see any – at all. I’ve been using Vista for a few weeks now, and instead of innovation, I just get more frustrated. While there seems to be better support for hardware than Windows Professional 64-bit, I’m still confused as to why old 32-bit XP drivers won’t just work with Vista out of the box. It’s like buying a PS3 and not being able to use your hundreds of dollars worth of PS2 games – it just pisses you off. Sony can do it, why can’t Microsoft? Am I comparing apples and oranges? Software and hardware are different, yet it’s a lot more complicated to port software than it is hardware. After all, you’re using the same computer you’ve used for years, so it’s not the hardware that’s changing. You can argue that it’s the vendor’s fault, but really what it seems is that Microsoft is doing this on purpose so that the public is forced to buy new “Windows Vista compatible” hardware. It would have been so much easier if Vista would just use XP drivers. Is it hard to do? Maybe, but that would just mean (gasp) Microsoft has done something innovative. I jumped through hoops to get my video card to accelerate (MSI GeForce FX 5900), and now I finally have my sound working right. It actually took me less time to get both my sound and video working properly in linux with editing configuration files and reading howtos than it did to get them to work in Windows. I still can’t sync my phone, and I don’t think I’ll ever be able to in Vista, because the drivers are written for XP and the phone is no longer made.
Want to talk security? I don’t. In fact, I’m sick of it. If I want to configure anything, I have to acknowledge that I’m not a moron by clicking a button on a stupid little dialog box that pops up all the time. I got rid of it by disabling UAC (here’s how). While this may make my system “less secure”, at least I can be halfway productive without being bothered all the time.
The original Start Menu setup they had going on was extremely annoying. You have to click on Programs to be presented with a scroll box, where you’ll have to scroll down to run any programs that don’t start with the letters A or B. This is very frustrating if you’re not quite sure what the name of that program was in the first place. Instead of having everything right there in front of you, you have to scroll down, read, scroll down some more, read… Needless to say, I’m going with the “classic” start menu.
Icons. The only improvement with the icons is that now they’re vector graphics, and can be scaled up or down to your pleasure. Mac and linux have had this for years. Vista’s icons are just downright gosh-darn ugly in my opinion. They are too complex for a decent glance, and it really makes them look like little pieces of nothing when folders are viewed with small icons. The control panel icon looks like some sort of desktop LCD clock and folders look like yellow cereal boxes when viewed small. When viewed medium or large, none of the folders look the same. Apparently they look different depending on what kind of content is in them, which is something I really don’t need, because they’re all folders to me, and it’s just making them look even more complicated. Linux has had this for a while too, but from the icon sets that I’ve used, you don’t have to squint to see what the folder contains, and they didn’t look so darn butt-ugly. I’m not quite done with icons yet…
Zip files annoy me greatly in Vista. Not only does it take up to 3 times longer to decompress a zip file (I’m serious), but zip files look very, very similar to folders. So this means that when I download a zip file to my desktop and decompress the contents into a folder that has the same name, I’m then trying to figure out which one is the unzipped version, and which one was downloaded. Again with the speed. I know I don’t have a top-of the line computer, but honestly, it shouldn’t take more than 10 seconds to decompress anything under a megabyte, but it does.
What else? I could go on, honestly. Simple gestures would have been nice, like maybe a courtesy update to paint, which hasn’t been changed much in nearly 12 years. In fact, the software is so basic, if you used it for a class assignment or for a project at work, you’d surely get a scalding. For all practical purposes, it’s useless. Maybe Microsoft could take funding from one of their commercials and funnel it into a team of 3 or 4 people to create something else?
Where do you want to go today?
I wanna go somewhere else. Anywhere. Just never bring me back here again.
12.28.06
$50 Wonders
It’s amazing what you can do for $50 nowadays. I remember a 5.1 speaker setup used to cost hundreds of dollars not too long ago. I bought these speakers about 5 months ago I’d say, and I’ve been amazed ever since. Sure, I could do better, but for $50, you can’t go wrong. Logitech makes pretty impressive speakers for the money, and I encourage you to pick up a set of these. Each speaker is hardwired with an RCA connector at the end. You connect all of the speakers into the subwoofer. The right speaker has a serial-port connector that screws into the subwoofer, and contains the volume control. The subwoofer itself has a dial for the bass, and I have to set it down most of the time to keep the neighbors nice. Also, I should state that these are computer speakers. If your soundcard doesn’t support 5.1, you can easily buy one for as low as $7, although you may want to splurge for an $7.50 or $10 card instead. And of course, like most things, the more you spend the better performance you’ll get. Heck, a pretty decent 7.1 card only costs $22 currently. 5.1 is (sigh) being phased out, which is part of the reason why this is so cheap, but hey – most DVDs are only encoded up to 5.1.
The satellite speakers aren’t all that heavy, so don’t expect them to jump through hoops. If you’re really ambitious, you can easily throw in female RCA jacks if you want to use your own wires (ah, that would require real work though). Bottom line – if you’re currently stuck with a 2.0 or a 2.1 setup, do yourself a favor, skip the strip club for a night, and throw some money into some real entertainment. Sure, it’s not THX certified, but who needs to go deaf anyway? With my current (and recent) setup, I don’t hear any noise, and sound is as crisp as I’d ever want it. DVDs sound awesome, 3D gaming has never been better, and my MP3s now surround me. Of all of the stupid stuff I’ve bought in the past, I am definitely glad I jumped on this one. This is money well spent, and I don’t regret a penny. Go on to Newegg.com and get you some fun!
Edit (Jan 12, 2007): Currently the price is now at $60. Is it still worth it? My answer is yes. In fact, I think I actually did pay $60 for these, but the price was at $50 when I wrote this article. I was recently at an upscale mall (Sommerset) and I noticed the Sony store used these speakers to demo one of their water-cooled blu-ray computers along with a widescreen 30-some inch high-resolution monitor. I’m probably looking into this too much, but I wondered why they didn’t use Sony brand computer speakers instead. Would I pay $70 for these speakers? Probably not, but I think you would still be hard pressed to find a better deal even at $70.
Edit #2 (January 21, 2009): These things crapped out on me about a year ago. Basically I was hooking up my computer at my new apartment and accidentally plugged in my 19″ LCD monitor into the subwoofer (subwoofer uses a VGA connector). Stupid mistake, didn’t think it would actually kill my subwoofer. Awesome how the fuse is soldered to the component board on the inside. I found the same fuse online (with pigtails), and now the speakers work, but only 3 of them. Well, I’ll keep the speakers around I guess, but the subwoofer with built-in amp are just about junk now. They were really freakin awesome when they lasted, but unfortunately they’re not really built to last.
Ah, and some specs for those of you who care (from Newegg):
| Brand | Logitech |
| Model | X-530 |
| General SPEC | |
| Configuration | 5.1 |
| Total Power | 70 Watts |
| Satellite RMS Power /ea | Left/Right: 7.4 watts RMS x 2 Center: 15.5 watts RMS Rear Left & Right: 7.4 watts RMS x 2 |
| Subwoofer RMS Power | 25 watts |
| Frequency Response | 40Hz – 20kHz |
| Signal to Noise Ratio(SNR) | >96d |
10.15.06
17″ LCDs at Fry’s
Looking for a cheap LCD? Well, if you’re reading this in time, you can get a ViewSonic 17″ for $99 after a $40 mail-in rebate. If you do your math right, you’re paying $140 up front (excluding shipping of course). The downside? Well, the deal ends this Tuesday (Oct 17, 2006). Also, it doesn’t say what kinds of connections you’re getting, so it’s probably analog. It’s got a 25ms video response, which is kind of high compared to most newer LCDs. Either way, you’re getting a freakin LCD for $100, and it’s a ViewSonic. For those of you who aren’t in the compu-know, ViewSonic makes some of the best monitors you can buy, and they’ve been in business for a long time. This may be an older generation LCD, but that doesn’t mean they skimped out on quality.
The offer I bit though is basically the same deal as above except it’s $20 more, with an 8ms video response and analog and digital inputs. Also, you’re getting a $50 rebate back, so it’s really only $10 more ($110 AR). For ten extra dollars, it’s definately worth it, even if you are just going to sell it again. Get it here.
While we’re at it, there is also a Samsung for $180 after rebate (8ms) that ends on the 19th (Thursday) and an HP for $190 AR that ends January 14th, which is also 8ms. So, there’s the lowdown on some good deals for now.
EDIT: My monitor came in, and I’ve been using it for a few days now. It’s got crappy speakers (they all do), but at least it gives me a way to listen to my other computer because they’re slightly amplified and my KVM switch doesn’t support sound. The digital input is about as bad as my other monitor, but with these monitors, analog usually works pretty well. There is 1 dead pixel that I can notice at the moment, but it’s off to the side and took me a day to actually notice it. I have a lot of excuses, but you can’t ask for much more for a $110 monitor. One thing that impressed me the minute I took it out of the box is how easy it is to get to the inputs on the back, with a removable panel. Can’t say much else about it other than it works, it’s not too dim, and it a freakin $110 LCD that I’m thinking about keeping rather than selling. Well, at least until I get an offer I guess. I decided to break it in a bit so I could tell someone exactly what I’m selling. Also, I’ll have to take the UPC off the box, they weren’t going to get that anyway.
10.13.06
Find Sweet New Music!
Are you getting sick of your same old playlist? There’s probably a bunch of stuff out there you’d just love to listen to, but don’t know where to look. Well, here’s a start – Gnoosic.org. The concept is simple; you type in 3 bands you like, and then the website goes on and recommends others. You click on “I like it!”, “I dont like it!”, or “I don’t know it”. Each recommendation shows a picture of an album they’ve produced (if it can find one) and a link to Amazon.com where you can purchase the album, which is probably how they get away without advertising. At the end, it will display your favorites, which ones you like, which ones you don’t like, and which ones you haven’t heard of before. The more bands you try out, the smarter it becomes, and makes it that much better at recommending music. I’ve got to hand it to these people – it works. If it weren’t for this site, I’d probably be bored with music still. Also, they’ve spun off a site for books and movies. Try it out, it’s pretty cool. And hey, if you don’t like it, you’ve wasted a whole freakin minute.
10.12.06
Theme XP Like Media Center Edition
I finally found a free native Windows theme. It makes Windows XP (any version) look like Windows XP Media Center Edition, which in my opinion looks pretty cool. Download it here from Softpedia.com or google it. It comes zipped up, and contains an executable that will install itself in the right place. The zip also contains 2 backgrounds. As always, no spyware, no hassle, “no freakin crap”. Apparently this is a version that leaked out from beta testing, or something … whatever. Microsoft owes you and me both.
07.25.06
Bump It UP!
This is the future of subwoofers. Part fan, part speaker. Introducing Eminent Technology’s Model 17. Don’t be fooled by the simple name. This thing is so powerful it can move a door half and inch between 1 and 5 Hz! If you ask me, that’s a lot of bumpin power. Most subwoofers can’t accurately reproduce sound below 10 Hz. It’s estimated that humans can hear as low as 16-20 Hz, so this thing is made to reproduce that feeling you get when a jet flies by, a train rolls down the track, or when something explodes and goes BOOM!
The blades move like a conventional fan, but the pitch is controlled by its input. So imagine using a fan in your house on a really hot day. If you’re not careful, you’ll send papers flying. Now you’ll have to use paperweights just watching TV! This thing is so powerful, it uses your whole floor as a resonator!
It all seems too good to be true doesn’t it? Well, don’t get your hopes up. With prices starting at $12,900, you’d be hard pressed to even hear one any time soon. In fact, it would probably be cheaper to make your own. I’m sure when the patent is up on this (patent pending), we’ll see a lot more of these things with prices that actually make sense. Eminent Technology makes other more conventional speakers, and at their prices, they better be damn good. In my experience, I’ve noticed that the lesser known speaker companies (who aren’t located in China) make really good sounding speakers. Anyway, go to their website for more info.
07.24.06
Biomass To Liquid – Cool Stuff
As some of you may know, I’ve always been intrigued by alternative energy. Whether it be solar, thermal, chemical, whatever, it’s always cool to do stuff clean and cheap. Recently I learned about biomass to liquid (BTL). It’s the ability to change biomass, which is basically any carbon lifeform, into usable fuels. If you can burn it in a bonfire, you should be able to fuel your car with it right? The concept is simple, but the process is pretty complicated, which means expensive for an emerging technology. It involves turning the biomass into charcoal and gas, then going a little further and turning those into other gases. In the completed process, 60% of the result can be used directly as diesel fuel, while the rest can be used as gasoline and kerosene. For those of you who didn’t know, diesel cars can get up to mid 60 MPGs with no problem. The problem with us Americans is that we’re kinda stupid. Diesel engines have been around time, but everyone is moving toward hybrids. Diesels are a lot more efficient than gasoline engines, and can also run on a broader range of fuels, such as cooking oil (peanut, corn, rapeseed, soybean, etc). Many American cars have diesel counterparts in Europe, and it’s a shame that we don’t have the same option.
Let me start out with the benefits first. BTL is CO2 neutral, which means when you burn the fuel, it only releases carbon dioxide into the environment that already existed. When we use conventional crude oil from the ground, we’re releasing more CO2 into the environment that isn’t naturally there. What does this mean for us? Well, less global warming, which is a freakin plus. Also, BTL releases virtually no sulfur into the environment, the stuff acid rain is made of. Of course, the big kicker is that we’ll rely less on the middle east for our fuel, and we’ll never run out, because farmers are always growin stuff! Oh dang!
But wait, there’s more! We can turn garbage, wood, straw, corn, and sewage-sludge into gas and diesel! Yes, that’s right – garbage. Remember Back To The Future 2? I guess the professor wasn’t all too off there. BTL isn’t exactly a new technology, but it’s emerging again thanks to Volkswagen and DaimlerChrysler, who formed the company Choren. Choren has developed a patented gasification process, and I’m sure you’ll hear more about them in the future. I’ve read a few things on BTL, but have found this page to be the most informative. If Choren was publicly traded, I’d be all over their stock.
Anyway, this is just one of those things I’m interested in. I’m not trying to push it or anything, but hopefully some other people might be interested. Yep, because I’m a hippy who doesn’t smoke weed.
07.11.06
Just Good Ol’ Screensavers
Tired of those dull screensavers that came with your computer? I was, so I set out and searched for some free, kickass screensavers, and found some. These eye-poppin delights may look familiar to those linux users, because they’ve been standard with xscreensaver for a while, but these beaut’s can also be enjoyed on a Windows box. Most of them work in Windows 98, and they should all work in XP and up. You’re outta luck if you’re not using an accelerated video card, but then again, you probably already hate your computer.
The fireworks screensaver is my personal favorite. It has sound, and amazingly resembles real fireworks. There 11 screensavers in all, each with enough options to keep ya busy tweaking for a bit. There’s even a screensaver that includes an option to turn it into a virtual floating doughnut world! YES TO VIRTUAL FLOATING DONUTS! Alright, all fun aside, the Winders screensavers come in a zip file. Unzip them (easy enough in XP), run OpenALwEAX.exe (installs some DLLs or something), and copy all of the screensavers to the Windows directory (C:\Windows). Go to your screensaver preferences, and thurr ya go! No ads, no spyware, not even documentation! This is grade A Kristoff recommended software that all can enjoy. So go on over to ReallySlick.com and download you some fun!
