My Digital Life

NETFLIX’s Blu-Ray Tax

I am a big fan of the NETFLIX service. The entire process of selecting, receiving, and returning DVDs is pretty mindless and with my ROKU box streaming works very well (NETFLIX just needs to keep pushing to add more content). On the mail side, NETFLIX started charging $1 per month for Blu-Ray disk service last November, although I did not like the charge, it was reasonable. Now less than 6 months later they have decided to double the fee to $2 per month on my 1 DVD at time subscription plan starting April 27^th. At this point, I am not sure that Blu-Ray is worth an extra $24 per year, especially with the letterbox aspect ratio matter I described in this post. The bigger problem has been the availability of Blu-Ray disks (one of the reason stated for the price increase), I have had wait over a month for some recent titles. On that front, it does looks like NETFLIX is delivering; this morning Quantum of Solace became available (now status) in Blu-Ray less than 3 weeks after release while the DVD is on short wait. I have two more weeks before making my final decision and will monitor availability. I love the image quality of Blu-Ray, but is it that much better than DVD. I would have to say no, it is not like going from VHS to DVD which was a no brainer.

		Your Account | Queue | Help
	Dear Stephen, You are receiving this email because you added unlimited Blu-ray access to your account for $1 a month. The number of Blu-ray titles has increased significantly and will continue to do so. As we buy more, you are able to choose from a rapidly expanding selection of Blu-ray titles. And as you've probably heard, Blu-ray discs are substantially more expensive than standard definition DVDs. As a result, the monthly charge for Blu-ray access is increasing for most plans and will now vary by plan. The charge for monthly Blu-ray access on your 1 DVD at-a-time (Unlimited) plan will increase from $1 a month to $2 a month. The price of your 1 DVD at-a-time (Unlimited) plan is not changing and remains at $8.99 a month. The new charge for Blu-ray access will be automatically added to your next billing statement on or after April 27, 2009 and will be referenced in your Membership Terms and Details. If you wish to continue unlimited Blu-ray access for $2 a month, you don't need to do anything. If not, you can remove Blu-ray access anytime by visiting Your Account. If you have questions about this change or need any assistance, please call us anytime at 1-888-923-0898. -The Netflix Team
SRC: 20090330_BRPC_M

Why do some Blu-Ray movies display in letterbox?

I am a very big proponent of letting the content creator determine how it is streamed to my 16:9 HDTV. I have adjusted all my devices to stream content in their native mode. If the source is 1080P it shows up on my HDTV as 1080P, if it is 720P it shows up as 720P, and so on. Unfortunately when I view certain theatrical (movies) HD content from Directv or my Blu-Ray player, most of it displays in a letterbox with black lines on the top and bottom.

After extolling the virtues of HDTV and Blu-Ray to my family and friends, I get a lot of questions about this effect since the elimination of letterboxing was one of the features often touted by HDTV proponents. Everyone believes that there must be something wrong with their settings. At the beginning, I thought there that as well, however the issue is not with the setup; it is with the content. Well it is not a problem, it is by design. Most theatrical content is filmed in an aspect ratio of 2.40:1, while the aspect ratio of HDTV is 1.78:1 (commonly referred to as 16:9). To display the 2.40:1 content accurately on a 1.78:1 display, the HDTV is forced to produce bars at the top and bottom.

You would have thought that the HDTV engineers would have taken this into consideration when they settled on the 16:9 ratio, well apparently not, and we are left with viewing theatrical content not filmed in 1.78:1 in a letter box. Yes, we can always use our HDTV or Blu-Ray player functionality to expand the image, but the anamorphic conversion is never perfect. As a consumer, I am less than happy not be able to use all of the 46 inches of my HDTV to view movies as the director intended them to be seen. I think that is a pretty sad commentary on an industry that currently makes most of its income from DVD sales. There is artistic value in the wider aspect ratio, but the question still remains why the HDTV standard did not take that into consideration.

For further information this article from Home Theater magazine is good. If you have the watched the Blu-Ray version Dark Knight and noticed that the screen switched from letter box to full screen (at first I thought there was something wrong with the disc), this article explains why.

Directv looses one of its major advantage of viewing a PPV movie for more than 24 hours

As of today Directv subscribers will no longer be able to view a Pay Per View (PPV) movie purchase for more than 24 hours (link). The ability to watch a movie in several sittings has been a major plus for my wife and I over the last 12 years as Directv subscriber. When I upgraded to HD, this was one of the major selling points for us to stay with Directv. This weekend we watched "Into the Wild" and it would have been a drag to watch the 2 and 1/2 hours in one evening. Watching a movie over multiple sittings may be heresy to movie buffs, but I find that it allows you to ponder the story.

What I find interesting about this whole situation is that we seem to be in the minority. There does not seem to be a major uproar from subscribers. I googled forums on the subject and found very little dissension. I could not even find a post on the subject on the dbstalk.com forum, although they seem to be less and less independent.

For our use this probably means we won't be purchasing any more PPV movies, we may become NetFlix subscribers and it opens up the door to switch to FIOS TV. Since I currently use FIOS Internet, the current triple play promotions is probably a cheaper solution than Directv. I would have to balance the promotion against the purchase cost of a Tivo HD DVR, since it looks like the current FIOS Motorola DVR does not allow the use of the eSATA port for my 1 Terabyte hard disk array. As telecommunications, the internet and television technologies merge, it seems that flexible consumer solutions are becoming harder and harder to find. I understand the fear of piracy, however I feel Digital Rights Management is hampering my legal rights to use the content I purchase.

I can understand movie studios not wanting us to keep a PPV movie indefinitely but 24 hours is a ridiculous time frame.  I think 72 hours would  be more appropriate and would work for us. I agree that if someone wants to keep a movie indefinitely they should purchase a DVD or permanent download.

In the end this is a big step backwards for Directv who has been a leader in providing advanced technology and content to users. It seems to only advantage they have left is for the die hard sports fan. However, as those contracts come to an end and the cable/telcos offers the same packages, Directv may have a real problem on their hands.

Clearing Up Some of the Confusion Over HDTV

David Pogue wrote in usual funny approach an article (link) with some excellent information about HDTV. The statistic I love the best is:

"[D.P. adds: According to a study by the Leichtman Research Group, 50 percent of HDTV owners aren’t actually watching any high-def shows on them… but 25 percent of them *think* they are.]"

I find this to be the case when I discuss HDTV with friends and family. They also have a hard time understanding the different aspect ratios (4:3 for SD and 16:9 for HD) and why they get bars when viewing certain programs on an HD channel. They don't understand that even when a station uses an HD channel they don't always transmit in HD. The broadcasters seem to be way behind curve, I don't think they expected the public to buy into HD the way they have.

Sony KDL46-XBR2 firmware upgrade, as easy as it can get...

Late last week I received my firmware upgrade kit from Sony for my KDL46-XBR2 TV. I had gotten  an email back in December providing me details on how to order the upgrade (link). The upgrade also applies to some XBR3 and XBR4 units. I have been very happy with the TV, so I was surprised to hear of the firmware upgrade. In the past Sony has been very stingy about providing any kind of software/firmware upgrade across their product line. This is definitely a positive development and hopefully one that will continue.

I don't think they could have made the update any simpler. I received a USB Flash drive and instructions. A USB port is located under a cover labeled "maintenance port" on the back of the TV. You remove the snap on cover, plug in the USB Flash drive while the TV is on and the upgrade starts automatically. It took about 10 minutes to complete.

I don't know if it is my imagination, but the picture seems brighter and seems to have more contrast.

The USB Flash drive with the firmware upgrade.

Kudos to Sony on this one, it just made a satisfied customer even more satisfied. They also included instructions on how to re-use the USB Flash drive for file storage purposes. Very nice...

Directv updates DVR software and adds Video On Demand

Last week Directv started rolling out a version 0x1b4 to the HR20-700 DVR which I just received this morning. In addition to general performance improvements (release notes), this version adds Directv's implementation of Video On Demand. The Video On Demand only works if your HR20-DVR is connected to the Internet. From what I understand it starts the download of the program via the Internet connection and starts playing within a couple of minutes. VOD seems to be very popular with cable users. With this new feature Directv can now match cable functionality.

The VOD screen via my Sling Player, the program is still in Beta. As of this morning I had no programs to choose from.

10/31/07 update: Last night when I came home, the Directv On Demand lists were populated. I was able to queue up a program and within a minute start playing it. The technology is pretty cool, however the content needs works (no HD content yet)....Once the show starts to download, it becomes part of the list of shows on the DVR.

Directv's D10 satellite finally up and running

Last week Directv started to officially transmit their new HD channels to all subscribers. At last count they had 27 new HD channels up and promised to have 100 by years end.

The reason I am writing this post is that I have been very impressed with their transition from SD to HD. They took the approach of using the same channel numbers for SD (Standard Definition) and HD. If you have a current HD receiver or DVR the HD channel is automatically selected. Their is no need to learn new channel numbers. The channel issue is probably the most confusing for the non techy. I can't tell you how many times I have been to someone's home with a new HD set and had to explain that they now needed to specifically tune to the HD channels. And even more confusing is when a network transmits the HD logo overlay on the picture and people think that they are watching HD when they are actually tuned to the SD channel on their cable system. They are so disappointed with the picture quality that they think there is something wrong with their set.

Even though I was not that happy with Directv's customer service during the installation process, they almost lost me as a customer of 12 years, my perseverance has payed off.  I love the service, the HR20 700 DVR with my 1 Terabyte external disk has been rock solid (I think I have performed 2 forced reboots since April). My only complaint has been the weak over the air tuner (compared to my Sony KDL46XBR2) and the occasional pixelation (this has gotten better).

It looks like CBS read my rant (LOL) with their Sunday afternoon/evening schedule last weekend they started showing 60 minutes at 7:30pm. This was a simple fix, however I think the networks should still work towards a real time DVR guide update.

The week of September 24th in My Digital Life

I am returning from South Carolina today and was very happy to have access to my Slingbox to watch the Washington Redskins yesterday afternoon (unfortunately they lost). I was  able to connect my laptop to a 27" Samsung LCD TV. The quality was as good as standard definition television, although SlingPlayer had some rendering issues during fast play action. The action was viewable but a bit out of focus. I am sure having my Verizon FIOS 2Mbps upload at home, helped. The bottleneck was probably the DSL connection my PC was attached to.

I used my iPhone quite a bit over the last week. It touch screen is addictive and fun to use. Apple has a ways to go to provide more functionality and applications, but they have a great start. My biggest complaint (other than the lack of Exchange ActiveSync) is the Bluetooth stack (funny ,early Windows Mobile stack were lacking as well). Apple really needs to provide the  A2DP profile for stereo headphones, they also need to provide a filtering mechanism for transferring contacts to an in car Bluetooth phone adapter, as well as caller id and signal data. With the upcoming release of the iPod Touch on the 28th, it will be interesting to see what updates are provided to the iPhone.

My review of Ilium ListPro 5.0 has been published on pocketnow.com here.

This week:

• Finnish my review of the Etymotic ety8 Bluetooth headphones.
• Continue my comparison of Windows Live Search and Google Maps for Windows Mobile.

Posted via Verizon's EVDO Broadband network

The week of September 17th in My Digital Life

It is Monday morning and I have a rant about football, program guides, and technology. Ever since the big viewer outrage (at least 15 years ago) over CBS cutting off a Giants game (I think it was) to start the 60 minutes show at 7PM, all of the networks have allowed premiere sporting events to be viewed until their conclusion, and then start the next show. In today's world of DVRs where you can select a show by title and not have to worry about when it will air, I don't understand why the program guide cannot be updated in real time. I have a Season Pass for 60 minutes on Sundays at 7PM, however during football season it never starts at 7PM, yet the guide shows 7PM. This means that if I do not want to miss a 60 minute story, I have to add minutes or record the show after it. Why do the cable and satellite companies use arcane technology (batch processing) for updating their program guides. The television network control centers plan for the delay and should be able to provide an estimated lag time in real time to the program guide providers and in turn download the update to our DVRs. The DVR can then automatically adjust their recording times. This is not "rocket science"!

I have had fun playing with the iPhone last week. The touch interface and Safari browser are exceptional. It has it shortcomings (more to come on these, even the Apple store associates I have to talked to agree), however it does provide Apple with a truly innovative platform. After my post on the "irate Apple followers", the comments have been thoughtful and have forced me to refine or redefine my thinking about Apple, their products and overall strategy (I am not done commenting...). Even though they are a minor player in the desktop/laptop arena, the fact that they are the undisputed market leader with the iPod gives them a great deal of power in our personal digital lives. I am keenly interested on how they use that power, the iPhone is clearly a projection of that power. It is interesting to note that the Apple web site clearly lists OS X as the iPhone's operating system, yet the iPod Touch has no mention of an operating system. I would have thought that OS X would have also been used for the iPod Touch. Maybe this is just an oversight. If they are using OS X on the iPod Touch, this would clearly show a strategy of projecting OS X to new computing platforms which could be quite significant.

I finished my review of Ilium ListPro 5.0 and it should be published on pocketnow.com sometime this week.

This week:

• Continue my review of the Etymotic ety8 Bluetooth headphones.
• Continue my comparison of Windows Live Search and Google Maps for Windows Mobile.

Sling Media releases Slingbox firmware update

Sling Media released an update to the Slingbox firmware which contains miscellaneous fixes (link). I have not had any problems with my Slingbox Pro, however Sling Media recommends the upgrade to all users. I downloaded it last night. After executing the update on the machine you configured Slingbox with, running SlingPlayer will detect the new firmware version and install it on the Slingbox. This is a very easy and painless process.

I have not noticed any difference yet...