Engadget HD Podcast 146 - 07.15.2009

There's a good spread of topics on the podcast this week, while staying light on the HTPC, Blu-ray and broadcast news. What does that leave? For starters, a bunch of news under the streaming, online and download headings. Continuing the theme of news from unexpected places, TiVo popped up twice in this week's show; unfortunately, no news about a revamped, mind-blowing new model or service. We saved our favorite stuff for the end of the show, as we trumpeted plasma over LCD, dispelled conspiracy theories about Blu-ray being an evil plot, and talked about how even though we love lossless audio, we don't hate the PS3. Well, at least not for the lossless audio performance.

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Hosts: Ben Drawbaugh, Steven Kim, Richard Lawler

Producer: Trent Wolbe

Program
00:53:00 - Comments from Engadget HD Podcast 145 - 07.08.2009
00:11:40 - Blockbuster OnDemand en route to Samsung HDTVs, Blu-ray players, and home theater systems
00:18:36 - HBO, Cinemax coming to Comcast's On Demand Online
00:19:40 - Starz jumps on Comcast's On Demand Online trial, promises HD on the way
00:19:53 - CBS, Comcast On Demand Online partnership faces off premium vs. free internet streaming; 17 cable channels jump onboard
00:26:55 - Silverlight 3 out of beta, joins forces with your GPU for HD streaming
00:33:05 - 85 percent of the 14 billion videos downloaded last year were illegal
00:45:10 - TiVo asks court for a billion dollars in EchoStar case
00:54:00 - TiVo and Best Buy alliance to yield co-branded DVR, TiVo software on Insignia and Dynex TVs
01:00:23 - Numbers be damned, plasma eats LCD's cake in DisplayMate's tests
01:07:10 - Poll: Would you buy a TV running ChromeOS?
01:11:30 - Wal-mart rolls back cheap Blu-ray player price to $98
01:18:40 - So is Blu-ray really ripping off consumers?
01:22:50 - LPCM is not always equal to bitstream


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[S4Rs Posted Jul 15th 2009 3:43PM]

The PS3 annoys the crap out of me, cause games and Bluray movies are all bunched together in the settings. It loves to make 5.1 audio into 7.1 PCM because it knows my receiver can handle it. But I have no idea how its adding the extra 2 audio tracks. No way can it do as good of a job as good as my THX Ultra2 Onkyo Receiver can too.

Also with games. Most of them are all 720P, but the ps3 loves to upscale to 1080i. If I dont want it too, I have to configure its outputs so that no content gets played at 1080i, or that no PCM tracks come out as 7.1 Why should I have to reconfigure my PS3 for what I am playing?

Do you think the new Slim PS3 rumered will/should have bit-stream out and IR capabilities?

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 15th 2009 3:46PM]

I was recently thinking about the simultaneous release concept for movies, and trying to work out how to limit the piracy rates and I came to this conclusion. First there is no way to stop the cam versions of movies and screeners. But in regards to rips from dvd and blurays, I've noticed that on average rips from the actual retail copies don't start appearing for download till
about 2 weeks prior to release in stores. Which sounds like the stores are receiving the shipment of discs in advance to allow time for all stores to receive shipments for same day launch and employees are ripping and leaking the movies. So if studios wanted to try the release concept and limit piracy they just need to cut the shipping time to 1 week then release the disc version after 3 weeks of the movie being in theaters. This would give the movies 2 weeks of theater time/profits (which is usually the time a movie is most seen) then lead into disc sales on week 3. I bet this would stop people from buying cams and screeners and cut out a week of downloads. Anyways love the show keep up the good work.

[Widowmaker Posted Jul 15th 2009 4:57PM]

Steven, I don't blame you one bit for ripping disks instead of downloading. It isn't just about the quality difference of the lossless compression for me. If I ever want to reencode my music I am not making a lossy copy of a lossy copy. I can take the original lossless version and reencode as many times as I want without concern that I am degrading the quality to a noticeable level.

[Picasotriggerfish Posted Jul 15th 2009 6:36PM]

If anyone actually makes those "Did You Know..." shirts, I would totally be willing to go down to Best Buy wearing one.

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 15th 2009 8:38PM]

Why is the Engadget HD podcast not available for subscription from the Zune Marketplace?

[Daki Posted Jul 16th 2009 10:40AM]

Just wondering if the legal vs illegal download poll was US only. Here in Europe or at least in the Nordic countries there is no way the legal download quota is that high. I have never heard a person downloading stuff legally in Sweden (movies, I might have heard of someone purchasing one song,.. once). And we have a lot faster internet connections then you have (100/100Mbits ~$6/month :) ), the problem we have is that there are no real legal options when it comes to movie downloads (just streaming to the computer, IE), no Itunes, netflix, XB-live, PSN.

Sucks DB!!

@S4Rs, jupp that sucks, but the up scaling issue should fix itself you unselect 1080i as an output option. I have never had my ps3 upscale games to 1080i even though my projector supports 1080i.

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 16th 2009 2:12PM]

On Plasma v. LCD:

The issue is not, and has never been, whether plasma was better. We all know plasma is better. The question is two-fold:

1. Whether the quality difference is worth the price difference?

2. Whether plasma can sustain itself as a significant player in the marketplace, regardless of quality.

I think both of these come down to whether LCD quality continues to increase and plasma prices continue to decrease. But I have never heard any arguing that LCD's are better quality head-to-head, so that is a strawman.

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 16th 2009 5:16PM]

Anyone know of a device that would let me use my TVs built in speaker(s) as the center channel in a 5/7.1 setup?

I'm not sure how to jury-rig this with HDMI going to the TV, maybe someone has an idea?

Provided the OEM speaker(s) are decent quality, this seems like the cleanest way to "add" a center channel.



Lucas.

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 20th 2009 6:58PM]

love the thought about vhs netflix

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 20th 2009 7:34PM]

also love the knock knock joke, Richard

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 21st 2009 1:40PM]

Hi guys,
I’ve been a long-time listener from the UK, stumbled across the podcast one day and noticed it was in Ogg Vorbis and been a subscriber since…
Wondered what your motivation was to produce the file each show, better quality at lower file sizes? for Linux users?

… But I digress: Have you been following the HTML5 codec discussions? So far Firefox 3.5, Google’s Chrome (dev channel) and Opera all support Ogg in the audio tag, so vistors to the Web site can listen along to the podcast without loading Flash! (something I know causes you humorous mocking for its less than brilliant performance)

Things arent all perfect for web developers, Microsoft still hasnt joined the html5 video/audio party, and Apple are pushing h264 hard in Safari (unacceptable for sites like wikipedia and archive.org), though they have a comparatively small share compared to Firefox - it appears soon SD media on the Web wont need plugins.. ..onwards towards HD media next!