Yes, Another Blog

The world can always use another blog.

So Monster Cable is lowering prices due to the recession.

Now, founder and "Head Monster" Noel Lee is cutting prices on top-of-the-line cables for high-definition TVs, effective in June. An 8-foot HDMI cable that currently sells for $129.95 at Best Buy will be priced at $99.

$99 for an 8-foot cable?!?! You gotta be kidding me. Go to Monoprice.com and find an 8-foot cable for $11.80 (here). You can also get a 25-foot Professional 22AWG HDMI 1.3a Category 2 Certified Male to Male Cable for $25.15 (here).

This is the coolest cat I have ever seen. Of course he has his own blog (here) and YouTube videos.

This is just too funny not to post. The video (audio actually) speaks for itself.

Although this thing is just a prototype and I am sure that it will cost more than the average house, I still want one. This thing will throw a 100” image at 24” (2 feet) and a 150” at less than 3 feet and with 7,000 lumens, this thing will be uber bright. More details at Engadget (here).

Someone asked me if there was Blu-ray release of Dune and if I had seen it and how it looked/sounded.

Well, there is a French Blu-ray release that you can easily buy (here). Some of the features are in French but the majority are in English. Also, this is the theatrical version and not the David Lynch “Extended” version. Most importantly, this is a Region Free disk so it will work with any player in the US. (Edit: I brain farted the fact that David Lynch was NOT associated with the Extended version, thanks for those that corrected me.)

The 2.35:1 AVC video transfer looks very good in most parts but there are a few scenes that suffer from either soft focus issues or lack of detail. These are definitely “original print” issues and not an issue with the re-mastering.

The audio here is a real treat. I was quite impressed with the DTS-MA 5.1 audio track. Lots of surround and deep LFE to keep anyone very happy. I did find a few scenes that appeared to be center channel heavy but I am sure that this is way that the original track was meant to sound.

(Click to see full version PNG’s)

I saw this movie at the Cinerama Dome in LA when it first came out. I was 10. I thought it was the coolest movie ever. Almost 30 years later it is still a cool movie that still entertains.

The 2.35:1 VC1 transfer is a mixed bag of nuts. Some scenes look absolutely fabulous. Crisp, clean, and downright window like. Some scenes look a little gritty but still look good. Then there is some scenes that look like they were filmed through a Vaseline covered lens. They are not just soft but completely out of focus.

But You cannot blame the Blu-ray transfer for this. This is an original print issue. Those scenes looked like this when they were shot and the incredible quality of the Blu-ray transfer really make them noticeable. I included some of the soft scenes (#2 & #8).

The audio tracks on this disk are very interesting. They include BOTH a TrueHD and a DTS-MA in 7.1 and topped it off with a Dolby EX 5.1 for good measure. I found the DTS-MA a bit better than the TrueHD. The LFE was a bit deeper and the front channel (where most of the movie spends) is also better on the DTS-MA. Don’t get me wrong, the TrueHD sounds great but since it is very rare to find both in one disk you can really compare the two by switching between the two in various scenes.

There is very little rear speaker action and it is mostly used during the jet scenes and the storm scene at the beginning and end.

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Another sign that the people in charge are so out of touch that they do not know what planet they are on.

It seems that the Associated Press (AP) is threatening to sue a Tennessee Country radio station for embedding an AP YouTube channel video on their web page. One small problem here (actually two of them), the radio station is an AP affiliate. Furthermore, the AP has enabled embedding on the YouTube channel so anyone can embed their videos on ANY web site or blog.

Morons.

Here are the two stories:

• A.P. Exec Doesn’t Know It Has A YouTube Channel: Threatens Affiliate For Embedding Videos (TechCrunch)
• and
• AP Threatens to Sue AP Affiliate for Embedding Official AP YouTube Vids (Gizmodo)

So in the spirit of “Sticking it to the man” I will embed one of the AP’s YouTube videos. Why? Cause they allow it.

Gizmodo has a hand-on review of the Acer AspireRevo and they show it playing a Blu-ray disc without breaking a sweat. Granted it is playing under Cyberlink PowerDVD. If you like sub-par video quality and downsampled HD audio go ahead and break out your wallet.

I will wait for the full third party video application to see what this puppy can do.

Acer becomes the first PC maker to launch, or at least announce, an ION based PC/Nettop/HTPC that features the new NVIDIA ION based CPU/GPU combo. Some are saying that this will be the perfect HTPC. I have my doubts.

The New Acer AspireRevo comes with a Atom 230 processor running at 1.6Ghz but comes with a NVIDIA 9400 GPU that is similar to the ones used on the new Apple MacBooks.

Some of the claims are that this little ION system will playback 1080p videos including Blu-ray. There were earlier videos showing Blu-ray playback on one of the ION prototypes but there was no indication of software and how they were playing it.

Questions that I have for this little beauty are this:

• Does the NVIDIA 9400 GPU require dedicated software such as PowerDVD or TotalMedia Theater?
• Will the NVIDIA 9400GPU allow third party apps like ZoomPlayer, MPC-HC, or any others play those 1080p videos with hardware acceleration?

If you can playback 1080p mkv’s from Blu-ray rips with full hardware acceleration then this could be the ultimate HTPC out there.

Like I said before I had been using MediaPortal for a while and all seemed to be going smooth. Lately I have been noticing a lot more crashes and it got to the point that I could not keep the application open for more than 15 minutes without some sort of crash.

So I have gone back to Vista Media Center (VMC) and My Movies 2. The interface of My Movies 2 may not be the prettiest nor does it have fancy backgrounds but it is rock solid.

All you have to do is install it, run the Collection Management, import your titles, and fix any that were miss-named.

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I also keep an Advance File Organizer database of my server in case of drive failure and it also makes it easier to search for a specific file if I need to. Here you can see that the server was holding 10.78TB across 13 drives. There are 3 smaller drives (1 500GB and 2 250GB) but those will be replaced when the rest of the server gets full and I need more room.

First of all, did you actually think I was not going to post today. Check your calendars.

I’ve been telling people about this when I heard that Cox was actually thinking about doing this back in 2007. People told me I was nuts.

Time Warner then went out and actually did it in January 2008 in Beaumont, TX. And now they are rolling it out in four new cities. (DSLReports.com, The Consumerist.com, BusinessWeek, Austin360.com)

Metered Billing Internet is here.

Basically this means that you pay a set price and you are only given a pre-determined amount of bandwidth. More likely it will range from 5 to 40GB per month. If you go over that you will pay an additional $1 per each GB you go over.

Why is this such a bad thing? With the advance in video streaming and especially high definition streaming, your bandwidth will continue to go up and you will pay dearly for it.

Right now, the iTunes HD movies are about 3GB each. Think about it. If your ISP caps you at 40GB for $50/month that means you can only download 16 movies before you are charged extra. That does not count whatever bandwidth you use for regular surfing and email. You will begin to see some serious bandwidth overage charges coming real quick.

Why are they doing this? As my Cox contact told me, ISP have realized that people cannot do WITHOUT their internet and will pretty much pay anything to keep it. Bandwidth is the new Gold and they know it. We have become so hooked on our Internet habit that we cannot imagine being without.

From what I have been told, AT&T is next and Cox is ready with a plan but will wait to see how the others do with their rollouts. I can guarantee that Comcast will match any competitor’s caps or rise their prices if their caps are higher than the competition.

BTW… This is NOT an April Fool’s Joke.