Unsuccess. Is that really a word? For some reason when I typed that word, it felt unreal to me. But I looked it up, and yup, it’s a word. I need to use that word so that the title could be similar to another recent article, 5 Reasons for HDTV Success, this article’s anti-article.

Philip Swann over at TVPredictions.com first did an article stating 5 reasons why HDTV will succeed, and now he does the opposite. What do you think of this list?

Why HDTV will not succeed:

1. Price
2. Not Enough Programming
3. Industry Confusion & Chaos
4. The HDTV DVD Disaster
5. People Still Have Their TVs

Hmmmm. Yup, yup, yup, yup, and yup. Those are all problems that HDTV faces, sure. But do they add up to a big “Return to Sender” sign on the HDTV package? I don’t think so. There is still a lot of programming in SD, which is annoying. But more is coming to HD all the time. Eventually there will be a winner in the format war. Etc etc etc. So while these are all problems, I think they’re sumountable ones. HDTV sales, despite the price, are doing quite well. One day it’ll be in all our homes.

HDTV: 5 Barriers to Bigger Sales

Sony’s PS3 has been hyped as potentially the first HDMI 1.3 device. It is being released November 11th in Japan and November 17th in North America. So it may well be the first HDMI 1.3 devices in those regions. But not in Europe! In Europe the honour looks to go to the new HD DVD players from Toshiba. The HD-E1 is due for release in mid-November, while the HD-XE1 is comes out in December. The latter is the one with HDMI 1.3 support, beating the PS3 by several months in Europe. (The PS3 has been delayed to March 2007 in Europe).

The HD-XE1 has HDMI 1.3, 1080p support (both HD DVD and DVD upconversion), analog 5.1 outputs, and digital coax S/PDIF. The HD-E1 has none of these things. Which is too bad. The HD-E1’s MSRP will be 599 Euroes, while the higher-end HD-XE1 will go for 899 Euroes. For 599 Euroes, you’d expect at least a digital coax output and analog 5.1 outputs. I can understand leaving the whole 1080p and HDMI thing for the higher-end player.

The high-end HD-XE1 will also have deep-colour support, something new to the HDMI 1.3 spec. I’ve seen manufacturers tout their displays’ 1080p capabilities. Now it’s time for them to start talking about deep colour as well!

Toshiba Announces first HDMI 1.3-enabled HD DVD Player for European Market

TVPredictions.com has an article discussing five reasons why HDTV will boom. They list:

1. Lower Prices
2. Popular Shows Now In HD
3. Cable & Satellite Expanding HD Lineups
4. More Advertising
5. The Digital TV Transition

Funny thing. I don’t see higher resolution on that list. Or picture quality.

5 Reasons Why HDTV Will Boom

So sitting on the back of UWB (UltraWideBand) Tzero Technologies and Analog Devices has supposedly come up with a way to get rid of your cables between your players and video systems.

So will this technology really work and will manufacturers be willing to put in a proprietary technology into their players and projectors?

For now I will let this one play out in the marketplace and see where 802.11n (MIMO) comes into play.

Slashdot | Wireless HDMI Prototype Announced

Seems that companies are having big problems filling the orders for blue diodes to run their HD/Blu-ray players and recorders.

This shouldn’t be a problem for Sony and it’s PS3 because they are making their own, but it could be a problem for other companies. Especially HD-DVD ones. This could be why many companies have had to push back their introduction of players.

Blu-ray and HD-DVD to freeze competition until 2007 due to laser diode shortage

The HDTV conference was last week and a flurry of activity happened. Mostly it looks like displays will be getting larger and cheaper. Some high points

I don’t know. Seeing how trepid many are on HDMI 1.3 coming this year. The fact that Sony hasn’t even produced 1 PS3 yet, and the fact that the last dev kits just went out last week makes me believe that we won’t see the PS3 till spring next year. Just watch, pressure and stories will mount in the next few weeks that Sony isn’t ready.

Ultimate AV: The State Of HDTV

So it looks like DirecTV is serious with it’s new HD DVR. It just may be enough for me to trade in my HD-DirecTivo. Here are some quick specs.

• HDMI output - Doesn’t say if it will be 1.3
• Dual Sat and Dual OTA tuners - Naturally
• Ethernet - Nice addon
• USB Port - Does it work or does it need to be hacked like the DirecTIVO?
• 300Gb SATA drive with external SATA connector - Will I be able to add external drive space?
• RF remote (but IR can be used)

One thing in the specs that made my heart jump:

Moving the items around in the prioritizer is nearly instant… no lag when moving the items up and down the list…

badda bing. In fact it says that many tasks are much faster.

Also, it seems to cache some menus so interacting is much quicker and smoother plus:

FF 1x,2x,3x (no 4x)
RW 1x, 2x, 3x (no 4x)

30s SLIP and Jump Back

Single Live Buffer - 90 Minutes, with autosave.
…

The TrickPlay works fantastic… fast, very quick responding, to start the action, and return to playback.
In most cases, it is nearly instant… A few times there was less then 1 second delay for audio to return

The Jump Back appears to be consistent, and the 30s Slip is just as good

The only drawback I see that I use all the time is having 2 live buffers where you can watch two channels without recording and just jumping around the last hour or so of a show. That will be a bummer if it isn’t implemented.

So am I now more excited to get moved up to this? Heck ya!

HR20-700 - The Review - DBSTalk.Com

For the tech geeks out there like me, we just want the best picture and the least amount of interference between our source and display.

Now comes UDI (Universal Digital Interface) with the potential to stuff more data down a pipe than HDMI and with licensing fees far lower than HDMI. So will HDMI go the way of MCA and SCSI which were far superior computer interfaces, but because of licensing are found few and far between.

Oh yeah, did I mention that UDI is not saddled with a copy protection scheme like HDCP? Now if UDI has overcome the distance limitations that HDMI has, I’m sold.

Universal Digital Interface favoured over HDMI

OK so the title is a little misleading. I love the HTGuys podcasts and Ara Derderian and Braden Russell are quite knowledgeable in all areas HT and HD. I just wish I had the time that they do to play with new stuff.

Anyway, the article is really one on how does a podcast make money without looking like a “sellout”. I’m glad that the guys have said no to many ads that don’t have to do with HT (like webhosting companies)

I do hope some of the companies in the HT arena (Sony, Pioneer) will help these guys out and be sure to send them all their new gizmos to try out so we can get a flavor of how they can work in our own HT.

Frank Barnako: How to make no money with a successful podcast

The HT Guys

Actually I don’t watch the nightly show near enough. Maybe it’s because Jon Stewart is a dweeb because he wears his political views too much on his sleeve.

Anyways, this little segment from Ed Helms is very funny. Check it out.

“Plasma is so called because to afford one you are going to have to sell your blood”

YouTube - Digital Watch with Ed Helms - HDTV

OAR or Original Aspect Ratio has been a big debate on many different HD forums for years. OAR basically is showing a movie the way the director envisioned. Not cropped, squashed, pan and scanned, etc…

So what is it? Well if you have and HDTV and you rented or bought a movie that is “Fullscreen” you have black bars on the sides with huge faces in the middle (this is usually known as ‘Pan and Scan’). If you have a 4:3 (square) TV and you bought or rented a “Widescreen” movie and you have all these black spaces above and below your picture, that is also experiencing the OAR effect.

So to start you have your 16:9 or 1.85:1 and 20:9 or 2.35:1(CinemaScope) ratios. These are most common ratios used for modern movies. Most standard movies use 1.85:1 and larger productions use the 2.35:1. If you want to see a movie that uses both in the same movie, check out Disney’s “Brother Bear”

The problem presented to content providers like HBO, Showtime, and HDNet are:
Do I show the movie in its OAR or do I crop the movie to fill the screen?

In other words do I take a movie like “Lord of the Rings” which is 2.43:1 and crop it down to fit a 16:9 HDTV or do I pan and scan it to fit a 4:3 TV?

Seems that people will complain no matter what happens, but I do support showing the movie in its OAR. Most HDTV’s have the ability to zoom or fill the screen with its own technologies. Let these consumers choose to stretch or crop their movies if they so desire.

By the way, HDNet always shows the OAR. Showtime does most of the time and HBO is notorious for cropping. TNDHD seems to depend on what they want to do that day. Some movies I have seen cropped and stretched, a couple I have seen in their OAR.

So what is your opinion? Do you want movies packaged for the masses or do you want to see the move the way the director intended?

AVSForum 2.35 constant height forum

Premium HD Channels & Aspect Ratios: Home Theater Blog | Home Theater News & Reviews

This is a good read from TGDaily. It is an interview with Jerry Pierce who is the senior vice president of technology at Universal Pictures. Jerry hits one out of the park by saying:

“DRMs enable business models, they don’t stop piracy”

and

I don’t think DRM is about a certain technology, DRM is about usage rules

Amen to both of these.

So Jerry is saying DRM is a way for studios to make money. Period. He admits it isn’t to stop piracy, just stop the casual Joe Blow consumer from ripping his HD DVD collection and sending it around the neighborhood.

So there is one executive who gets it. So does this help us? Not really. There are still too many executives that want you to pay for each and every time you watch their content. Also most studios do not offer replacements for damaged DVD’s, forcing us to rip them as soon as we get a new DVD.

Also with all these schemes like HDCP, the consumer will lose because of issues such as the lockups people with HDMI switchers and HD DVD players are experiencing now. The only solution hardware companies have come up with is to “hack” the HDCP. This kind of stuff makes no sense to me.

Lastly, Jerry says DRM is about usage rules. That is a fairly new concept in the movie business and DRM in general. Basically Jerry wants us to be able to stream a movie around the house, but not let us copy the movie for the neighbors. This is a very complicated scheme, and I think it will catch a lot of people who are trying to do the right thing and making them out to be criminals. I sure hope the MPAA treads very carefully, they don’t want to be the fodder of jokes and derision like the RIAA.

Universal Pictures: “DRMs do not stop piracy” | TG Daily

So CEDIA is starting in Australia. So far I haven’t seen any news to write home about.

MediaCenter? Yawn VIIV? Huge Yawn.
Waterproof displays (for your bathroom). Yawn.
Total Q girls. OK they are good eye candy, but what does that have to do with HD?

I hope that when we have CEDIA here in September there will be some big announcements on receivers and processors that can decode the new audio formats that are supplied with Blu-ray/HD DVD. Else we need to wait for CES in January for any real news.

CEDIA sizzles

I guess I have to say I do watch more TV and since I can scan through HD stuff coming up, I do watch more movies off the satellite, but I don’t watch as many commercials.

It’s nice to squeeze in 2 Mythbusters and a Treasure hunters into an hour and a half instead of 3 hours.

The Times asks: “Does a DVR boost viewing hours or not?” - HD Beat

NYT article

A new product from the popular gaming enhancement site XPloder promises to upconvert your PS2 games to HDTV resolutions. The settings are loaded via a CD-Rom and then stored on your memory card. You can choose from 1080i or 720p, and even 480p if you so desire. A release date is not yet available. It will be interesting to see how this effects the gameplay itself. Hopefully it will not cause any slowdown due to reprocessing of the video. This could be a big bonus for those not wanting to pay $600 right away for a PS3, but still want high resolution gaming from a Sony console. We shall have to keep our eyes and ears open for more information on this one…

Article from Club Skill