February 2006 Archives

Currently in TiVo boxes from DirecTV, DirecTV's internal DVR and many cable DVRs provide dual tuners for a single fee. This means that you can usually record two things simultaneously as well as being able to watch a third pre-recorded program or movie. Under current systems you can only watch one thing at a time from a given set top box and as result the providers only charge a single fee. In the near future this may change however and I have yet to see anyone talk about it. I want to pose some scenarios and theories in hopes of getting discussion going.

With the upcoming Windows Vista Media Center Edition there will finally be an ability to use CableCard enabled tuners to receive digital and premium cable. It has also been announced that there should be a DirecTV add-on to allow that content to get onto a Vista MCE. TiVo also soon will have their TiVo Series 3 out that can use dual CableCard 1.0 cards or a single CableCard 2.0 card to receive cable content directly rather than through a separate cable set top box. I would hope that the MCE computers will have the ability to have two or potentially more tuners in them just as they do today with NTSC and ATSC tuner cards.

A common use of MCE machines is to enable people to watch content on other TV's in a house via Media Center Extenders, Xbox and Xbox 360's or potentially other devices more remotely. With a TiVo you could also have multiple TiVo's pulling shows of a single TiVo, traditionally you would have each TiVo with an input signal to record but it isn't required. Both MCE and TiVo also have the ability to transfer content to computers and portable devices. This brings up interesting scenarios where you could have a single recording device with an input signal and multiple viewing devices. Traditionally the satellite and cable providers have charged based on number of viewing devices, now that model will most likely have to change it would seem.

Will the providers take a step backwards and start charging on a per tuner basis or could it be even worse and they will limit the number of tuners a recording device has or the number of viewing devices that can be attached? There is all sorts of talk about HDCP and what it means to directly attached viewing devices, but what about all the potential viewing devices that are attached remotely via a network or USB in the case of portable devices. I would imagine someone is thinking about these pricing and usage policies but I haven't seen anyone talking about it yet?

For me at my house I could in theory lower my DirecTV bill. If I built or bought a Vista MCE machine and then installed 2 or more DirecTV tuners I could then use Extenders all over the rest of the house and save the montly fees for all my DirecTV STBs. For me it doesn't mean much, but for someone who has 4-5 STBs it could save them $5-30 a month. I don't know if the cable or satellite providers really would like that. It even goes farther with tools like Orb or portable media centers. Another more frightening scenario for the providers is an apartment building or dorm where one device with 4 or even 6 tuners tunes and records content and then 10, 20 or even 30 viewing devices share that recording device to watch content. Most likely a given MCE device couldn't handle that many inputs and outputs today but with RAID and Gigabit Ethernet it isn't that much of a stretch of the imagination.

It is a little after 11 AM and I am pretty much ready for the day to start. Within the next hour people should start arriving and around noon we will start with Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope. I will try to update this post throughout the day.

11:55 AM - EPIV starts
1:55 PM - EPIV Done and now lunch
2:50 PM - EPV starts
4:30 PM - Keith arrives with kids and brother and they watch the end of the movie
4:50 PM - EPV ends
5:10 PM - EPIV starts
7:15 PM - EPIV ends and now dinner
8:10 PM - EPI starts
10:20 PM - EPI ends
10:25 PM - EPII starts
12:40 AM - EPII ends
12:45 AM - EPIII starts - I go to bed knowing I won't make it through, others attempt to watch.
3:00 AM or so - EPIII ends, from what I am told (since I was long asleep) Jim made it to the end and the drinkers may have been drifting in and out of consciousness.

8:30 AM - Everyone has now departed to return home, Jim is driving since even at this point we cannot be sure of the sobriety of the other three. At some point today I will watch EPIII myself just to complete the process. I haven't seen it in almost a year when it was in theaters.
9:15 AM - I start watching EPIII
11:40 AM - I finish watching EPIII. I didn't make it through all the movies straight. However if you give me the 24 hours as a Star Wars day I did succeed.

Now the question is what movies for the next marathon. Roger mentioned Star Trek, but I might vote for Die Hard or some other action trilogy.

Four Movies I can watch over and over:
Garden State
Heat
Die Hard Trilogy
Jurassic Park

Four HD shows I enjoy:
Lost
CSI
24
Higher Definition

Four SD shows I Enjoy:
Pardon the Interuprtion
Scrubs
nip/tuck
Family Guy

Four places I have lived:
Alaska
London
Sicily
Baltimore

Four places I have vacitioned:
Spain
Malta
Switzerland
Florida

Four cool toys:
Toshiba M400 Tablet
Universal Remote Control MX-850
Xbox 360
HD TiVo

Four web sites I visit daily:
NewsGator
/.
Penny Arcade
AVSForum

Four favorite dishes:
Outback - Drover's Platter
Five Guys - Bacon Cheeseburger and fries
Applebee's - Grilled Italian Chicken Caesar Salad
Papa John's Pizza

Four blogs I am tagging:
Mark Cuban
Ed Bott
Thoms Hawk
Aaron Giles

brrreeeport

This is only a test.

I missed Data by 3%, darn.
Your results:
You are Spock

Spock 64% Data 61% James T. Kirk (Captain) 60% Chekov 55% Beverly Crusher 55% Geordi LaForge 55% An Expendable Character (Redshirt) 50% Mr. Scott 45% Jean-Luc Picard 45% Leonard McCoy (Bones) 40% Will Riker 40% Uhura 30% Worf 20% Deanna Troi 20% Mr. Sulu 5%

You are skilled in knowledge and logic. You believe that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.

My first real party with the basement done was the Fantasy Football banquet which was Saturday January 28th. This party was more general get together than an event to use the basement. We ate and hung out upstairs just as much as downstairs. We only played some Xbox and watched some HD boxing, didn't really watch any movies or anything. Everyone seemed to really like the basement though which was cool. It was a lot of fun having everyone over. Quite a few people made it, Roger, Travis, Kevin, Matt, Jim, Greg and Karri.

The next weekend I had a party for the superbowl. It was a very different event and mostly centered around the basement this time to watch superbowl. This time there were more kids than adults. My friend Karen came over as well as a friend from work, her sister and her sister's boyfriend. Between the three adults other than Karen they brought a total of 8 kids. The ages of the kids ranged from less than 1 to 11 or so. The kid’s reaction to the basement couldn't have been better. They ran downstairs and from upstairs you could hear the "whoa". Then they ran back upstairs to try to get their mom's to come down and see it. The liked the size of screen, the chairs and the popcorn. This event was very different thanks to the kids, lots of energy. I also had to assist them upstairs to play GameCube, Xbox and watch TV. They also really liked the arcade. The one problem with the arcade was that they didn't know what arcade games were essentially. I would say what to you want to play and they would say what types of games are there. Took me a while to adjust to that. Eventually they started playing the Simpsons arcade and they liked that. Although they kept wanting to pause it and couldn't understand why they couldn't. It was a fun time and I even got to watch a bit of the superbowl.

This weekend I just chilled and relaxed by myself. The weather pretty much decided that for me. I wasn't really up for leaving to somewhere else with 12" of snow falling.

Next weekend will be a real theater test. Several friends are coming up for a Star Wars marathon. We are planning on watching all 6 movies back to back in one day. Then the next day some people will hang out and watch the Daytona 500. Should be fun.

So far this winter has been one of the mildest on record. I think January was almost the warmest ever. There was a small snow storm in Novemember but not even really any cold weather since. This weekend that changed. A snowstorm hit the DC/Baltimore Metro as well as most of the eastern seaboard this weekend. In DC the snow totals were about 8-12, up near me they were more like 16-20. At my house I think it was about 18". I spent almost 2 hours digging out my car, the driveway and sidewalk. It appears that I most likely won't even get any days off school with this one, such a waste.

I went back out just before dark to clear my driveway again. The snow plow went by and filled it back in. As I was shoveling the cat decided he wanted to come out. He basically followed the limited path I had created and decided it was not fun outside. At times all I could see of him was his tail, since the snow was so deep. He did not venture into the snow itself.

Since I now have my theater done I will actually be able to watch some movies again. Last Saturday night I watched Flightplan. I had only seen trailers for this movie and not really heard much else. I wasn't sure what to expect. It was a very good thriller, set in an airplane. When the movie starts the story is not really evident. There are some good twists and turns. The look and use of the plane environments is good as well. I recommend the film

Last night I watched Wedding Crashers. This movie I had heard lots about and especially high praise for how funny it was. I think this was unfortunate since I was really expecting a lot. Don't get me wrong, it was good and very funny just not the laugh riot (at least alone) that I was expecting. I would still recommend it as a good comedy.

Almost every year for the last decade or so I have gone to DC auto show. It always had an interesting quirk of being the last auto show of the season prior to the Detroit Auto Show. This meant that often cars weren't shown since they were being released a week later. This year it moved to after the Detroit show so it should have been better.

I didn't get to the DC one so I went to the Baltimore one which was about 2 weeks later. The Baltimore show is similar to the DC if a bit smaller. The problem with both shows is that they are mainly staffed by local dealers. This means that they pretty much don't know anything beyond what cars are on the floor and sometimes not even that.

I went to the show to see basically 3 cars. First was the Honda Accord Hybrid that I am interested in. It was announced about a week ago, but was not at the show and they couldn't tell me when they would have any at dealerships. The second car I wanted to see was the Lexus GS450h Hybrid. This car has been previewed but not officially launched. It was also not there and the Lexus people had no info on it. The third car I wanted see was one a co-worker was interested in was the Nissan Maxima with rear bucket seats. As you can probably guess it also wasn't there.

This show was pretty much a bust for me. Luckily thanks to AAA I got in for free; otherwise it wouldn't have really been a waste.

Today it was announced that Tony Kornheiser will be part of the new ESPN Monday Night Football crew, the announcement is here. I often listen to his radio show at school and was today when it was announced. I sent in an email to the show. They read a bunch of emails at the end of the show daily. Today I was one of those emails. Listen for yourself on this mp3 (really tiny). There it is, my 30 seconds of fame.

This was pretty funny. Hopefully American Express runs with the idea.
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