Engadget Podcast 130 - 01.23.2009: Angry rant edition
By Trent Wolbe 
posted January 23rd 2009 7:33PM
posted January 23rd 2009 7:33PM
Hosts: Joshua Topolsky, Paul Miller, Nilay Patel
Producer: Trent Wolbe
Song: Never Gonna Give You Up
00:01:10 - Engadget's Netflix HD streaming shootout
00:18:18 - Kodak's Theatre HD Player with gyro-based Pointer Remote unboxed and reviewed
00:29:25 - HTC's G2 "Sapphire 2.0" caught slumming in the wilds
00:40:03 - Apple on smartphone competition: "if others rip off our intellectual property, we will go after them."
00:54:19 - Confirmed: Obama gets his BlackBerry, no Sectera Edge in sight
01:01:43 - Best Buy Advice
Subscribe to the podcast
[iTunes] Subscribe to the Podcast directly in iTunes (enhanced AAC).
[RSS MP3] Add the Engadget Podcast feed (in MP3) to your RSS aggregator and have the show delivered automatically.
[RSS AAC] Add the Engadget Podcast feed (in enhanced AAC) to your RSS aggregator.
[Zune] Subscribe to the Podcast directly in the Zune Marketplace
Download the podcast
LISTEN (MP3)
LISTEN (AAC)
LISTEN (OGG)
Contact the podcast
1-888-ENGADGET or podcast (at) engadget (dot) com.
I have not listened yet but the title makes me want to listen even more
you know what would be nice?
if they would get to pushing cupcake...instead of baking brownies
About the Best Buy thing, the worst thing is the employees generally hate doing it too (I know I did, and usually only did it when the bosses were around), but they pretty much fire you if your numbers aren't good enough. That, and the horrible service plans and replacement plans. When I worked there, they wanted us to spend an extra five minutes at the register trying to sell new things when all the customer wanted to do is get out the door. I actually quit when they wanted us to sell magazine subscriptions there (I wish I was joking about that one).
The other thing that's absolutely horrible about Best Buy's business practices has to do with Dell products. If you buy a Dell computer from Best Buy, you are exempt from Dell's warranty because an agreement that Geek Squad will handle all Dell support. So, if you don't buy their aftermarket warranty, then you have absolutely no coverage on the computer. The problem is, you're usually not informed this at the time of purchase. My parents' Dell started dying after two months, and they naturally called Dell about it, only to be informed by a sympathetic person at customer service that if they'd bought it anywhere else, they'd be fine, but since its from Best Buy, Dell can't help. Upon bringing it to Best Buy, they were quoted something ridiculous like $175 or something like that to have it fixed.
Besides that, after seeing how inventory is actually treated when its being unloaded off the truck, I'd never buy anything that's a large purchase from them. (TV boxes being dropped, but then put right out in the store, stacks of things falling over, again still sold with no issue, etc.)
Wow. You guys really need to stay away from politics. You sound like a bunch of rich spoiled kids. It's embarrassing. Cable TV is way too expensive, and so are its competitors. And people without cable in today's world are at a severe disadvantage in terms of information.
You may or may not realize this, but calling us "spoiled" because we're willing to pay for content is actually a very profound philosophical allegation. Yes, people who pay money for cable are at an advantage in terms of quantity of information -- but they've paid for that advantage, which in our society means something very meaningful. The alternative is for all content to be free -- sure, maybe that should be the case, but I believe that people should be paid for their work. Fundamentally, I'm sure you feel the same way. How spoiled are all of us now?
Nilay, can you please cut back on the laughing? It detracts from what could be an excellent podcast.
why do people have to hate on JoshTops, Paul and Nilay and hate on the smallest things?
If you like it, listen to it, if you dont, then don't listen, simple as that.
Its a great show, take it for what it is, sheesh
I've been rickrolled!
Hey guys, great podcast. Glad you're doing them again. You guys are freakin hilarious at times.
I wanted to ask one question, and make one comment.
Do you guys all have multiple mobile phone accounts? Just curious as you all seem to have multiple phones and change phones pretty often. I do too, which is why I stick with ATT as it's more flexible to swap SIM's in and out and I've had decent luck w/ global unlocked phones until recently when I started to rely on 3G more (and need the 850 band). If the Pre turns out to be as cool as it looks so far, I might end up getting a second number with Sprint.
Also, to Nilay, I have had the same crappy experience with Netflix on my XBox360. When it first came out I was ecstatic and it worked on HD almost all the time. But after about two weeks and ever since, I can never get an HD lock any more, and when it spits me back out, it goes in at such a horrible compressed junk stream that I have to restart the feed a bunch of times to get a happy medium.
But what I've learned to do (usually its worst at peak times like prime time) is just use my laptop and use the VGA output, and I almost always get HD that way. It's more of a pain by far but if I actually care about the quality then I take the time, and it looks great.
P.S. the MIDI Rick Astley cracked me up
why did josh's part sound odd? no bass in the voice. Recorded badly? I like all the laughing and camaraderie. I always marvel at how its a hour and it goes pretty quickly. Enjoy the engadget site and podcasts.
ABC's site is awesome for watching videos! If you look at the site closely you'll see a "settings" button. You can enable auto return from commercial (why isn't this the default?). I'm not sure why it has to exit full screen, but that's how it was wayyyyy back in the beginning when nobody had a fullscreen button. Does window 7 include ABC in media center now? I thought I saw this in a screen shot.
The "move networks" player works really well and seems to scale the HD with network traffic. Hulu and fox.com use it for their HD stuff too. Netflix is great, but the picture I get isn't even full SD much less HD. They need to develop a "stream catcher" plugin or something.