Posted by 010081
Tech
Friday, March 26th, 2010
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All that talk of UFC not “getting” the Internet? Yeah, it’s time to put that idea to rest. The company’s longtime TV partner, SpikeTV, launched ultimatefighter.com earlier today, a place where mixed martial arts fans can watch the entire Ultimate Fighter library online. For free. Let that sink in—still think Dana White hates the Internet? In addition to serving up all 231 fights in the show’s history, fans can also interact with each other on social networking services like Twitter and Facebook . Not a bad job, really. The site mirrors MTV Networks other “verticals,” like those associated with The Colbert Report and The Daily Show . Full episodes can be streamed, or fight fans can pick out individual fights from the 11-season library. Perhaps you fancy seeing Kimbo Slice’s first fight again? Or maybe you’re a newcomer to the sport, and want to see how Forrest Griffin made his name? It’s all there for you, free of charge. Oh, and the videos are fully embeddable. Handy. The site serves advertisements à la Hulu , so be prepared for the occasional U.S. Marines commercial. Gotta pay the bills somehow, folks. Web sites don’t build themselves. One thing to note: season 11, which begins next week on SpikeTV, won’t be available on the Web site for a little while. The current rough plan is to make the episodes available after the season’s conclusion, to sorta bridge the gap between season 11 and 12. In the meantime, though, fans can check out the Web site after every new episode that airs on TV to watch exclusive coverage of said episode. Terribly constructed sentence, yes. You know, things like post-show analysis (Dana White chips in after the first episode), unseen footage, etc. And not just “meh, lame” bonus footage, either. We’re talking full fights that, for whatever reason (time constraints, I’d imagine) never made SpikeTV in their entirety. Twitter, darling of the Internet, has been integrated into the site pretty visibly. On the right-hand side is a small box that monitors UFC-related hash tags, including #UFC, #TUF, #DanaWhite, etc. This might not seem to exciting on a random Thursday afternoon, but during UFC events—pay-per-views, The Ultimate Fighter, SpikeTV Fight Nights, and so on—the trash talking should really fly. Just as easily accessible is the show’s Facebook page, where you can view photos and post comments about, I don’t know, how amazing GSP is, or whether or not you think Frank Mir is a jerk. (He is, but he’s the greatest jerk in history.) The very idea of UFC giving away fights is pretty much unthinkable, when you consider that three-quarters of the company’s revenue comes from pay-per-view buys. In the kick-off meeting this morning, SpikeTV explained that it took “many meetings” to convince UFC brass to go along with the idea of putting fights—any fights!—online for free. We all know that UFC actively pursues people who go offer illegal streams of their events—the company just recently sued the owners of two Web sites that were offering illegal UFC 111 streams —so finally making at least some of its content available online is a move that should be applauded. Remember, this is a company that lived and died (well, mostly lived these days!) on its pay-per-view buys, so giving away fights for free may felt a little strange at first for Dana White & Co. And now we wait for Frank Mir to choke out Shane Carwin, setting up Lesnar v. Mir II. That has pay-per-view buys written all over it.
Posted by 010081
Tech
Tuesday, March 23rd, 2010
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Like many FPS gamers of a certain age, I started with the WASD keyboard/mouse control system. As such, I have issues with using a controller to play games on a console, and really wish that someone would come out with a keyboard and mouse control system. There’s been a few that come close , and the XScorch 360 looks like another also-ran. Bannco, the company that makes the XScorch 360 also makes a similar controller for the PS3, so this isn’t their first time trying to make this kind of product. My concern lies in the video, and is twofold. First, the video says Halo Reach . Anyone who follows the Halo universe will recognize that the demo is running through on Halo 3 . Halo Reach isn’t even available as a playable demo yet. Second, the video shows some serious lag between the mouse movements and the on screen action. If this is the case, then it’s pretty much unplayable. It’s also possible that this demo is from the future, which is why it’s showing Halo Reach, and the lag is from the time-shift dilation effect. Suggested retail is $79.99, and is currently available from Bannco’s website , or at selected retailers. [via TG Daily ]
Posted by 010081
Tech
Wednesday, March 17th, 2010
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Apparently it’s illegal in Canada to copy music from a CD you bought to an iPod (or whatever). It’s simply not allowed, even if you’re not breaking any DRM in the process. (In the U.S., it’s illegal to copy a DVD to your computer’s hard drive because you have to circumvent the copy protection in the process.) Solution? Some sort of levy, which would ensure that “artists” make money even though you’re not re-buying their music. The deal now is that an MP up there wants to introduce a CAN$75 “iPod levy” that would effectively legalize copying music from a CD you bought to your iPod. The levy has just been proposed, but if the Canadian legislature is anything like its American counterpart it’s going to be a little while before anyone even raises the issue again. The idea of a levy isn’t new, per se—there’s already a levy on blank media (CD-Rs and the like) that supposedly help to make sure that “artists” get paid. (My hunch is that it goes right back to the record label’s coffers, but whatever.) Granted, you could be buying blank media to backup your PowerPoint presentation, so it’s not a 100 percent fool-proof thing, but it neatly solves the problem in a way that prevents people from having to re-think the entire concept of copyright in the 21st century. This so-called iPod levy could also negatively affect people who buy iPod but don’t put any music on them—people like me, for example. I have an iPod touch and I dare you to find one song on there. (I pretty much just use it for like 10 minutes a day to check WoW.com before going to bed.) Why should I have to pay CAN$75, which is like US$4,000 these days, to subsidize other people’s habits? Yes, I understand that the number of people who buy iPods and then don’t put any music on there is quite small, but I needed to fulfill my daily complaint quota. Let’s turn it around, make it local to our fair American readers. Let’s say Congress, for whatever reason, creates and passes a law that says you’re 100 percent allowed to copy DVDs (legally bypassing the DRM) that you own to your hard drive, but that from now own all commercial DVDs come with a $10 tax on them to cover the “losses,” so to speak. Would you go for that? Flickr
Posted by Kevin Huffman
Tech
Thursday, March 11th, 2010
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One of the three points I laid out as TiVo’s keys to survival was to partner with more content providers. And just like that, Virigin Media announced it will be offering TiVo set-top boxes to its 3.8 million subscribers sometime this year. This move, along with the Conax partnership , makes TiVo a major player in the European DVR market. See, I told you the company didn’t deserve the deathwatch label. However, Virgin Media subs will not be getting the just-announced Premiere model. It does seem, however, that it will be very similar as TiVo’s CEO Tom Rogers stated that the Series4 hardware “heavily inspire the development work” of Virigin’s model. Most of the features we’ve known here in the states will definitly be included, such as TiVo Search, Amazon, Youtube, along with the addition of BBC’s iPlayer. TiVo won’t be the only new kid in town, though. Sky is also working on an internet-connected device — dubbed Project Canvas — that will offer streaming services as well. However, the project is still waiting BBC Trust approval. The irony here is that Sky introduced the UK to TiVo five years ago but the partnership fell apart and SKY ended up developing its own DVR. The Daily Telegraph report states that the box should hit sometime before Christmas, but there isn’t any mention of expected up-front cost or monthly subscription rates. [ Telegraph via Engadget
Posted by 010081
Tech
Wednesday, March 10th, 2010
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Another day, another electronic book reader not called the nook or Kindle gets a content deal. The Entourage eDGe has signed a deal with Newspapers Direct , giving it access to papers like The Daily Mail , Marca (!), and The Washington Post . This is a great day for people who were waiting to read Real Madrid gossip on the eDGe. The deal works via the Web site PressDisplay.com, which used to have a sponsorship deal with World Football Daily (well, World Soccer Daily at the time), a fine podcast based here in the good ol’ USA. You go to the site, and you get to pick and choose from among 1,500 titles. The way it was sold on World Football Daily was, read the sports papers from your favorite leagues around the world! It was pretty neat, actually, but a $30 monthly subscription to anything online almost seems excessive. That’s pretty much it. I do think the hard reality of electronic book readers these days is, unless you’re the nook or Kindle, you might as well not exist. Not that they’re the end-all, be-all, but because they’re backed by book-selling giants. via Shiny Shiny
Posted by Kevin Huffman
Tech
Tuesday, March 9th, 2010
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Short version: An excellent camcorder with few faults except one big, fat, glaring one: it only records in 1080i. What year is this again? Features: Extremely light and compact 20x optical zoom and two levels of image stabilization 40GB of built-in storage Touch-sensitive controls (not touchscreen) MSRP: $499 Pros: It really is very light and compact Image still sharp at 20x zoom, stabilization works great Focuses extremely close Cons: 1080i is your only video option (several quality levels) Touch controls feel inexact Full review: 1080i is a technology that is, at this point, several years past its pull date. TVs universally support 720p and 1080p, consumer editing software is designed around working in the format you distribute in, and web video (by far the most popular distribution method) is 100% progressive, usually at 30FPS. So it didn’t even occur to me that this JVC camcorder might shoot interlaced video. It doesn’t say “1080i” anywhere in the product announcement — only “Full HD,” — so they can’t be proud of it. And in fact, I didn’t even notice until I shot some sample video for the review and pulled it up to edit. The following picture should not be viewed as representative of the overall quality of the video from this camera, but rather a simple indictment of interlaced video: (click for the full version, where the interlacing is very clear) Believe me, if you care at all about your video quality, that’s all you’ll notice even if you shoot with the best 1080i camcorders out there, of which undoubtedly this JVC is one. But, as the saying goes: that’s like being the thinnest kid at fat camp. But let’s leave that topic for a minute (I’ll address interlacing in a separate post soon) and look at the camera itself. Now, I’d like to be very clear here that apart from the interlacing and some clumsiness in the menu, I found this camera absolutely delightful. Here’s an idea of its size: As you can see, it’s quite a cute little bugger. It’s just big enough that you can grip it normally (like a cold beer, in fact) and it’s just heavy enough that you know it’s there. They say it’s the smallest and lightest traditional-style HD camcorder out there, and I believe it, but the whole class of pocket cams pretty much beats it, though their lenses are garbage one and all. My hand rested on the zoom rocker naturally and the record/stop button is well-placed as well. I tended naturally to support it with the other hand, since the shake of your hands will definitely show on such a lightweight device. Speaking of shaky hands, let’s take a look at a sample video. You may have noticed that this video review is not in 1080i. It’s in progressive HD at 30FPS on Vimeo, and it would be similar (though slightly lower quality, I find) on YouTube, Blip, DailyMotion, or any number of sites out there. Not to mention that H.264 (not AVCHD) is being adopted as part of the HTML5 web standard, and soon you may not need to upload to a web video sharing site at all — that is, after you re-encode your 1080i, a step you could skip if you were shooting H.264 to begin with on one of the many pocket cameras out there. There are four modes: UXP, XP, SP, and EP. They all record the same quality audio, but recording 15 seconds of video yielded file sizes of 45, 32, 26, and 11 megabytes of data, so you can extrapolate that out however you like. It’s difficult to show the difference between the formats without looking at the raw video files, so I’ll just say that quality was significantly effected in SP and EP, but XP looked almost as good as UXP with a significantly reduced file size and bitrate. So you can cound on about 130MB/minute, or a gig every seven minutes. That’s a bit large, but not unheard-of. The GZ-HM340 has 40 gigs of space inside, and the GZ-HM320 has 20GB. Plenty for almost any situation. As for quality, well, it’s interlaced, so it looks nice when things are still and terrible when there’s action or movement. Low light was pretty damn muddy, so like most small camcorders you’ll want to stick to the brights. Skew (the wobbly look of consumer-level video resulting from slow sensor pull-down) is really pronounced when you’re zoomed in, as you can see when I was focusing on the plant in the bottle in the video above. But that’s to be expected. The zoom and image stabilization worked great. The zooming is pretty loud, though; if you’re in a quiet environment the mic will definitely pick it up. There are two levels of stabilization, one which crops the video a bit and realigns it digitally. I found them to be plenty effective and have no real trade-off unless they drain the battery a bit more. Here are some 100% center crops of the recording modes; as you can see, there is some difference but mainly in the details, like type and the cartridge illustration. Then there are grabs from a high-light and low-light situation you can inspect for noise. Click for the full-size version. Not exactly amazing, but it’s decent. You can also record “for upload to YouTube,” which results in a similarly sized file to XP mode. I couldn’t spot any difference, really. The paper and virtual manuals aren’t very enlightening on this point. You can also trim stuff and re-encode for YouTube in-camera, but the interface doesn’t really lend itself to that at all. Note that there are no other modes of recording; it is 1080i at 60FPS or nothing. There are few, precious few ways of viewing interlaced content these days; everything is progressive and nothing uses 60FPS. The camera claims to “upscale” its 1080i to 1080p for HDMI out, which seems specious. If it could create 1080p video, why wouldn’t that be an option to record? I’m guessing it just deinterlaces on the fly. It does have many outputs: HDMI, component, and plain video out. These outputs are easily accessible on the panel behind the LCD, and for charging and PC connection there is USB and power underneath a little hood above the battery. There are no issues at all with these, all functioned well and are conveniently placed. The LCD itself uses what they call “laser touch” for navigation, which is… well, it works for the most part, but four buttons on the side would have been just as functional, and rather less prone to mistaken touches and clumsy movement. You can use any part of the touch panel as a button, or slide your finger up and down it. It’s rather small, though, so you might accidentally pull up the zoom menu instead of changing the stabilization level. The little touch buttons on the bottom are responsive, though. It’s not a big issue, but if you have large hands it could be troublesome. It also includes a time-lapse mode and a auto-record mode that records upon detecting changes in contrast. Handy if you like that, but these things are also available on some point-and-shoots. Conclusion: You may think I’m being a little harsh on this camera. Well, yes, I am – and I’ll be just as harsh on any camera as long as they continue using 1080i. JVC, Sony, Canon, and others still recording to interlaced AVCHD are just running down the clock, trying to sell as many of these outdated cameras before people catch on to the idea that interlacing is something we should have left behind a decade ago. The camera itself is great, and if you truly don’t care that you’ll be recording interlaced video, then you’ll love it. But if I were you, I’d wait for JVC and the rest to get with the program and buy the 1080p version that will probably be coming out next year. Product page: JVC GZ-HM340