I’ve had a DVR for five years now, but I still haven’t picked up an HDTV. Honestly, I have trouble believing I need it and trouble believing it will make that much of a difference in my TV-watching career. Which is why Dave Winer’s recent commentary got my attention: He didn’t offer any great new analysis, but he proclaimed HD is “a life-changer.”

After a short time with my DVR, I started viewing the world through DVR functionality. I’d half hear something on the radio and for a split second think I could rewind it. Or I’d be listening in on a technical briefing and wish I could pause the conversation for a little thought-processing time.

I just don’t see HD having the same effect.

On the other hand, according to analyst Mike Paxton (who, by the way, I happen to respect greatly) 8.5 million households are watching HDTV on a nightly basis, and the number of households with HD sets is approaching 25 million. Can that many people be wrong? That’s a small percentage of Americans overall, but it’s still a decently high number. Nothing to sneeze at.

So I am reconsidering my personal position on HDTV. College basketball season is coming up, and HD games could make me a believer. I never thought I needed a big-screen TV either (sacrilege, I know), but now that I have one I could never go back. Tiny basketball players just don’t compare to their big-screen counterparts. Maybe sharper, clearer, HD-quality players will prove just as important.

Certainly I would have gotten a better photo with an HDTV last year when Bradley played (and beat) Pittsburgh in the NCAA tournament. As it was, my photo of “Brad Pitt” ended up pretty low-res.

Never enough time… Windows MCE Plugin Edition!

• WebGuide 4 provides remote MCE management. (jkOnTheRun)
• Big Screen Headlines RSS reader for MCE. (eHomeUpgrade)
• MCE Tunes supports iTunes DRM playback. (Chris Lanier)

Today the iPod is officially 5 years old. What really broke the seal on the portable MP3 (or is that AAC?) player market was Apple’s intuitive UI and minimalist controls. Despite the initial price premium, they sold a ton and created an industry (iTunes probably also saved the recording industry from itself).

I’ve owned a variety of iPods over the years, including a refurb 3G long since ebayed and a Shuffle collecting dust on den floor. I even had a video-capable iPod for a short while. For the most part, I prefer carrying fewer devices and have made concessions in order to watch video and listen to music through my Sprint 6700.

While my marathoning days are loooong gone (that’s Chicago above, 1998), I’d like to be more active. My 35th birthday is coming up in a few months, and my blood pressure and cholesterol are way too high (blogging doesn’t burn many calories)… It’d be nice if I can substantially reduce those numbers on my own without being medicated. After upgrading my Garmin Forerunner 201 to the 205 model a few months ago, I still had problems in (efficiently and consistently) locking onto the satellites near neighborhood highrises and in densely wooded areas along the Potomac. I also didn’t care for the way the redesigned model sat on my wrist. Off to ebay they went!

The Nike+ iPod digital pedometer has been on my radar for awhile now. I know there have been various complaints (it isn’t super accurate, the battery can’t be replaced), but it just looks like a fun gadget to have while working out. The web syncing also seems pretty cool. Not having to stand around for 10 minutes waiting for a satellite signal is priceless. So I picked up a Nano and the Nike+ kit.

Nike’s haven’t historically fit me that well (more of an Asics or New Balance guy) — I’m undecided if I’ll buy a pair or Velcro the pod onto sneaks I already own. Stay tuned…

I just received a limited time promotion TiVo affiliate email: Now through 10/31 you can pick up a new 80 hour Series2 TiVo including 1 year of service for only $125. This is the lowest I’ve ever seen the 80hr model offered for (and cheaper than the YWCA deal)… wonder if they’re finally closing them out? (In favor of the Series2 dual-tuning model, which is somewhat compliant with next year’s “no NTSC tuner without ATSC tuner” FCC mandate.)

If this had been available a few weeks ago, I could have saved $30 on my mom’s unit. I’m still getting her up to speed… the first lessons have covered VCR controls (pause, ffw, rewind), instant replay, and using the guide. We’ve also gone over the Live TV button as a means to recover if she ever gets lost. Maybe this week we’ll move on to recording!

If you pick up a unit, remember davezatz@yahoo.com referred you.
Read the rest of this entry »

I doubt this will shake up the market much, but it’s nice to see continual distribution innovation in the market. For 20 bucks (ouch), you can order and receive a copy of any World Series game on DVD within days of broadcast. For under $20/mo you could grab all the games with a DVR.

Press Release says: Major League Baseball Productions and A&E Home Video have teamed up with CustomFlix Labs, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Amazon.com, Inc., to offer Amazon.com and MLB.com customers each game of the 2006 World Series(R) championship between the Detroit Tigers and St. Louis Cardinals through the CustomFlix DVD on Demand service. Each game is available for pre-order and shipped within days of the completion of that game.

The CustomFlix DVD on Demand service manufactures DVDs on demand, immediately after a customer orders them. This offers networks, studios, and other content owners such as Major League Baseball Productions and A&E Home Video the ability to offer their content on DVD directly to millions of Amazon.com and MLB.com customers without the cost or risk of carrying inventory.

(Thanks, HDTiVo!)

Folks in San Antonio are getting a free TWC upgrade today in the form of “Start Over,” a service that lets you restart a show in progress using an existing digital cable box. It’s not exactly a full fledged DVR, but it’s an interesting spin on the “network DVR” concept for folks who don’t get (both figuratively and literally) DVRs. Video is not stored locally, but rather stored at the cable company headend. My guess is the service utilizes technology Motorola picked up with their Broadbus acquisition, namely the B-1 Video Server which uses DRAM for denser storage and greater video “ingest” speeds.

“Start Over” has been active in South Carolina field tests for some time and hasn’t drawn the ire of networks/studios like CableVision’s network DVR has — looks like Time Warner has been proactively making deals, rather than making proclamations.

I do wonder why the marketing gurus didn’t come up with a better branding… While descriptive, “Start Over” sounds like an episode of daytime talk or a support group slogan.

San Antonio Express News writes: While Start Over lets viewers rewind and pause programs, they cannot fast-forward or use Start Over to skip commercials. And, initially, only a portion of Time Warner’s programming can be restarted. The company must negotiate agreements with the networks it carries and with content producers like Warner Bros. and New Line Cinema before it can make shows Start Over-enabled. It wants to avoid legal troubles like cable provider Cablevision Systems Corp. experienced this year when studios and networks sued it over a new video-on-demand service. The service, experts said, will appeal to the 65 percent of Time Warner digital customers who don’t pay up to $9 extra a month for the company’s digital video recorder.

Over a several month period, I collaborated on a project with Mari — I came away impressed with her knowledge and opinions of the industry along with her ability to communicate those thoughts. She couldn’t give me a good reason why she wasn’t blogging, so I convinced her to sign on. The focus of the site is not changing: ZNF will continue to explore digital media (even when it’s analog) and the tools we use to consume it.

Mari has this to say about herself:

I’m a tech writer, among other things, with specific background in the broadband and wireless industries. I’m currently living the magical life of a freelancer. I’m pleased to join Zatz Not Funny as a contributor and open the ZNF Philly office.

So now you know more about Mari than you do about me. Perhaps I’ll put together an About page at some point…