LG Backs Away From Frankenstein HDTV DVD Box

July 31st, 2006 Davis

As an early adopter, I’ve always been surprised at how long it takes the rest of society to catch up. Whether it’s that even today, less then 20% of the US uses a PVR or that even five years ago, less then a third of the US had a DVD player, it’s always a bit discouraging to see technology catch up only after it’s been left behind. Nowhere has this been more evident then in the current HDTV format wars. Because the studios cannot agree upon which format to support, they’ve put consumers at risk of owning an obsolete box or in delaying adoption of the technology. One solution proposed by LG Electronics and by Samsung was to create a box that could play Bluray and HD-DVD. I find this solution laughable and I think it’s a terrible idea to make early adopters pay for similar technology twice, just because the studios can’t agree to support both formats (or even a single format for that matter).

While I’m sad to see LG Electronics move away from support of HD-DVD, I am pleased that they are now backing away from the hybrid solution proposed to end the format wars. Backing away from the device could be a political move or could be a smart business strategy to not create an expensive soon to be obsolete piece of equipment, but frankly I’d rather see LG not produce anything then to come out with a Frankenstein HDTV box. I might continue to be disappointed at the slow pace of the HDTV format wars, but I’m glad that LG thought better then to create such a monstrousity.

Posted in HDTV DVDs | No Comments »

You Know You Have A Gambling Problem When . . .

July 31st, 2006 Davis

I’ve always been fascinated with gambling. They’ve actually done studies on compulsive gamblers and have found out that their brains are hard wired differently then the rest of the population. Historically, I’ve been pretty good at avoiding gambling, but if you stick me in front of a craps table I lose all control over the money in my wallet, for whatever reason I just can’t resist the dice. Gambling, like anything can become an obsession for some, but by and large most people seem to be able to handle the risks associated with it. What I find most interesting about gambling though is that people will find anything to bet on. The lastest crazy betting idea is that you can actually bet on what you think the #1 blog will be on Technorati by the end of the year. BetUs is hosting the contest and they are offering odds on most of the major blogs, but not surprisingly they don’t offer odds on technorati’s current #1 blog. As a blogger, I’m not exactly sure what my #1 pick would be, but in a world where MySpace can become a #1 site in less then 2 years or where Digg can rival the NY Times in terms of influence in less then a year, I think that this would be a hard contest to actually bet on. All it takes is for a popular blog to find the next Sony root kit or to have the right controversy and you can see traffic spike. I’m sure that BetUs has a way that they are spreading out their risk, but this is one contest that I wouldn’t even begin to know how to handicap.

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

It’s A Good Time To Be A Film Fanatic

July 31st, 2006 Davis

Over the past few months I’ve been trying to find an alternative to Netflix’s movie ratings system. My general complaints with Netflix’s current system is that they limit my queue to only 500 movies, it’s impossible to interact with friends through the service (without first having friends to begin with that is), and that their ratings do not take into account my personal movie preferences. What I mean by this is that there is a self selecting bias to the way that Netflix does their ratings. If you look at Netflix’s ratings on Anime films for example, you’ll find many films that have 4 and 5 star ratings. These ratings are, on average, well higher then some of the more popular mainstream films. This doesn’t mean that these films are better, but rather that anime fans really enjoy those movies and have created a self selecting bias to the rating. As a non-anime fan, the actual rating to me is substantially lower, yet there is no way for me to take this into account on Netflix’s website. The Netflix ratings are useful if you want to know the best movie of a certain genre, but if you don’t care for Westerns, the ratings can be misleading in that, a relatively unknown Western can get ranked higher then something you might personally enjoy more. Netflix does offer a personalized suggestion service, but because of their 500 cap it’s made using the service less then ideal because if I find something I like, there is no way to bookmark it so that I can see the film further down the line.

In looking for solutions, I found a number of different sites that help to solve the Netflix problem, but none that I would consider the perfect system. The first site I looked at (and my personal favorite of all reviewed) is a DVD social networking site named Spout. The best way to describe Spout is that it’s like Flickr except for movies. On the site you can tag films, you can post blog entries and you can correspond with other members in various groups. Overall, Spout has been my favorite of the DVD sites because of the community that has developed around the films. Using the tags to find interesting films is a lot of fun and I’ve found the service to be a great place to discuss how much you liked a film or in the case of my Worst Movie Ever group, how much you hated a film. The biggest drawback to Spout is that there isn’t a quick payoff to users. While the site has many great community features, if you just want to see a quick review or find out information about films, the benefits are more limited. There is no formal recommendation system and while the tags provide for a more robust search process, there are still limitations when searching for actors, directors and studios. What I’ve noticed about Spout though is that it’s the type of site that gets better the more you use it, so if you are a heavy user you’ll have a greater appreciate for the services, then someone who just wants to get a taste of the current buzz on a film. Because of it’s site design, it offers you better ways to connect with people, but if you are a casual internet movie surfer, then there are probably better solutions out there for you.

One of those solutions is the grandaddy of all movie sites, the Internet Movie Database. The IMDB is probably the most comprehensive of all the movie review sites and has a ton of fantastic information about the films listed in their database including photos, professional reviews and great cross referencing information on actors and producers of films. The IMDB is run by Amazon and they’ve hired professional writers, which helps keep the reviews clean and the information accurate. From a pure data standpoint the IMDB offers the most rich and comprehensive collection of film data on the net and should be the first stop for anyone who is trying to research background information on a film. Because of their pure size advantage, we’ve also seen the open source community embrace the site by creating plugins like a greasemonkey script that allows web saavy surfers to connect their Netflix account directly to the site. What the IMDB lacks though are any community tools to help their users connect. There is limited message board capabilities, but when it comes to social networking, the IMDB still has a ways to go.

Where the IMDB leaves off however, Film Affinity thrives. Film Affinity is a site that uses recommendation based technology in order to help their users find new films that they might enjoy. Basically, Film Affinity looks at what movies I have in common with other users and then allows me to look through their profile for films that they’ve seen that I may have missed. So far I’ve found the results to be a bit mixed. On one hand I’ve found a number of great films, including a recent favorite Memento, but I’ve also stumbled onto a few duds including Jim Carrey’s Fun With Dick and Jane. The big plus for Film Affinity is that they provide and easy way for me to quickly browse for films that may be of interest, but the drawback is that their reviews are limited at best and you get a lot of duplicate films recommended to you because the popular titles tend to show up in profiles a lot. The closest pure competitor to Film Affinity would be a site called Criticker.

Criticker also has a bias towards popular films and they use a similar recommendation service as Film Affinity, but overall I prefer their interface and the personal statistics that they provide as you rate films. Film Affinity also gives some personal stats, but their stats tend to be focused more on genres that you like vs. the more detailed stats that Criticker offers you. I also like how Criticker integrates metacritic film reviews into their site which helps to improve the overall quality of the movie reviews, but still maintains the grassroots flavor of community movie reviews.

Of course the best site on the net for grassroot community movie reviews has to be Rotten Tomatoes. Rotten Tomatoes has an endless supply of user generated content and does an excellent job of tracking the latest upcoming films and new releases. The site offers quite of bit of background information about films, but it’s bread and butter is it’s Tomatometer that measures the overall rating that a film receives. They don’t make personalized recommendations, but they cover movie news above and beyond just information about the films being listed. The site also offers some box office information, although if you are looking for box office statistics, then the site to check out is Box Office Mojo.

Box Office Mojo has a lot of pop-up ads and it isnt’ very friendly from a user interface perspective, but it offers access to some of the best data on box office receipts out there. If you are interested in tracking the lifetime international gross receipts of a film, then this is the place for you. Each weekend, they update the site to include the latest information on the film industry. While the site doesn’t have a lot of community networking features and their reviews seem much more limited then other DVD recomendation sites, it’s pure industry focus is nice for those seeking to find out what’s hot and what’s a flop.

Overall, all of these sites have their unique advantages and disadvantages, but my preference is Spout, if you are looking to create relationships with other film fantatics or Criticker if you are looking for recommendations of films that you might enjoy. The other sites listed are still good and they hold their own amoung the countless number of review sites out there, but I’ve found these two sites to have the best blend of social communities and the quality of information. While the sites listed are on my list of the best DVD sites on the internet, I do think that there are a number of other great resources that users can turn to. Whether it’s one of the many high quality DVD blogs or even some of the more mainstream sites like Yahoo! movies, the sheer number of options means that it’s never been a better time to be a film fanatic.

Posted in DVDs, Disclosure - I own stock in co. mentioned, Netflix | 1 Comment »

1, 2, 3, 4, I Declare A Dice War!

July 31st, 2006 Davis

YesButNoButYes linked to a really cool flash game called Dicewars. The game is a cross between Risk and Poker Dice and while the rules of the game are pretty simple, the game itself is remarkably addictive. After playing the game a few times, I’ve yet to win so I’m not sure that I would have made a good dictator in real life, but the game is still a ton of fun. With the graphics on video games stopping at nothing short of amazing, it still surprises me that some of the most addictive games out there are the ones that lack the bells and whistles that the big time console games have. Even though I could be playing the Xbox 360, I still find that Yahoo Chess and Monopoly online are still two of my favorite ways to spend my time online.

Posted in Video Games | No Comments »

TiVo We Need To Talk - It’s Time To Take Our Relationship To The Next Level

July 28th, 2006 Davis

TiVo recently announced that they were going to start selling second by second usuage information about a sample of their user base to advertisers, in an attempt to help marketers get a better understanding of what works and what doesn’t work in their ads. Some have expressed some concern over the practice and see it as TiVo planning on tattling on users who might be failing to live up to the social contract of advertisement sponsored TV, but the truth of the matter is that TiVo is restricting this program to anonymous aggregate information and the end result of this data should help marketers to create more effective advertisments. While not everybody is 100% comfortable with the solution, including advertisers, I’m very comfortable with TiVo using this data to improve my television viewing experience.

In looking at the coverage of this program, I’ve found that MediaPost seems to have understood the potential better then anyone to date. In an article discussing how this data might be used, Max Kalehoff writes

“The reality is that TiVo’s customer base of 4.4 million household subscribers represents a highly biased, yet valuable and elusive sample. As a market researcher who spends long days uncovering trends in online discussions among passionate affinity groups, I view the TiVo customer base as a goldmine of consumer insights that media and marketing execs should drool over. Industry execs should put aside the short-term ad-skipping issues (at least for a few seconds), and embrace this fervent community for all it’s worth!”

It’s true, I’m biased, frankly TiVo could do just about anything and I’d probably still love them even more for it, but one thing about this program that I don’t love is that it doesn’t go far enough. Now normally I’m the biggest privacy nut out there. I don’t want anyone knowing what I watch, who I call or what internet sites I visit, let alone businesses that will use that information to try and sell me something, but I trust TiVo. This trust hasn’t come overnight, it’s been built over the years by watching them always err on the side of consumers when it comes to the controversial aspects of their software, even to the detriment of their business.

When TiVo initiated their poison pill program, it might have been bad for investors because it took away the possibility of a hostile takeover, but it was great for consumers because it meant that TiVo would continue to set the ground rules for the TiVolution, even if the networks tried to buy the company just to disable the software. When they were pressured to set exlusivity agreements with various cable and satellite operators, they held firm to their belief that they needed to be able to service everyone and not just one company. These sorts of business decisions might not mean a lot to some people, but to me I’ve seen a clear demonstration that TiVo really is willing to listen and protect their customers, even when they are working with advertisers.

Because of this trust, I don’t mind if TiVo uses my information to improve the end experience. In fact, I actually want TiVo to track and report my TV usuage because it will lead to personalized advertisements that are more entertaining then another “not so fresh” commercial that has no relevance to me. Instead of forcing me to see the same ads over and over again, they could keep track of things I’ve seen before and limit the number of times I’m shown that ad.

In Austrailia, OpenTV actually digitally inserts ads into programming based upon what it knows about the users of their boxes. I think this is scary, but really neat too. If TiVo offered me a way to let advertisers show me ads of interest, I believe it could change advertising as much as Google search changed the concept of ads.

I’d also like to have personal access to my own information via my TiVo. What if TiVo could show you the average amount of TV you watch per day or what percentage of programming consumed is dramas vs. comedies. Just like consumers benefit from Google’s opt in personalization service, I believe that the data that you could get back from TiVo would make it worthwhile to let them track everything that you do. I know that I’d love to see what programs in my season pass I have a tendacy to not watch and have TiVo create a sample list of TiVo priorities that I could play with. In the end the applications are only limited by our own imagination, but the most obvious application would be a way that I could vote for ads with one to three thumbs up or down. This would allow me to communicate directly with a marketer about what I like and don’t like and would give TiVo a way to compare demographic data with the success of programming and advertisements.

To date, TiVo has been too paranoid that people would see this as an intrusion of their privacy to launch these sorts of programming, but after having dated for this long, I’m ready to commit. Now TiVo might not be willing to make a life time committment with me anymore, but at the very least they should give me an opportunity to let them get to know me a little better and for me to get to know myself better (how does TiVo know about my weakness for Matlock anyway?)

In the end, not everyone is going to embrace this idea, but if they gave users like myself a way to opt into this program, I don’t see how it would be controversial. Kalehoff, points out that TiVo users tend to be early adopters and while the data that we could provide wouldn’t be representative of the overall population, such a program could be a goldmine of information for consumers and marketers. By letting us opt into personalized television, TiVo could take their TiVo Suggestions program to an entirely new level. Given the sheer passion that TiVo evangelists seem to express, I think that there are many of us TiVo fans who would be willing to give up a little bit of privacy to help the company and to improve the quality of how TiVo interacts with the customer. In the end it’s important that these sorts of initives be done on an opt in basis, but when you’ve dated TiVo for as long as I have, you don’t really have many secrets that you want to keep from them.

Posted in Disclosure - I own stock in co. mentioned, TiVo | No Comments »

Blue Monday

July 28th, 2006 Davis

Blue Monday Hosted on Zooomr

Posted in Photos | No Comments »

Real Network Needs To Get Real

July 28th, 2006 Davis

Real Networks reported their 2nd quarter earnings last night and had some pretty choice words for Microsoft. During the conference call Real CEO Rob Glaser took issue with reports that Microsoft’s Zune player is going to compete directly with Real’s Rhapsody service.

“Apple’s success with the iPod and iTunes has raised a fundamental question — is this going to be an industry based on proprietary vertical platforms, each from a single company, like the video game console business, or is the industry going to be based on interoperable platforms that separate hardware and software, like the PC, CD and DVD players? This issue got even more focus last week when Microsoft in effect announced that it is flipping its strategy from the latter to the former, i.e. from horizontal to vertical. It is one of only three companies in the PC space with end-to-end media distribution technology.”

I understand the issue that Glaser is trying to bring up here, but to hear Real Networks trying to rally people around this cause is laughable. Real’s DRM is some of the worst out there. If you want to take music that you purchase from their service onto your portable devices, you actually have to pay them more money to be able to listen to your own music when and where you want to. Why Microsoft agreed to settle their lawsuit for $761 MILLION dollars is beyond me, but without their payments for the next few quarters, Real would be hemmoraging cash right now.

Throughout the conference call, Glaser keeps trying to spin Microsoft’s Zune as an opportunity and not a competitor, but he is clearly worried about having to fight a new force in media distribution when it comes to Microsoft. During the call, Glaser also boasts that over the last 2 years that they have distributed over 100 million pieces of bloatware to internet users. While this might be attractive from an earnings perspective, it’s strange to see the company begging for the blog community to help them sell their music and then talking about how much crap they make you install at the same time.

“we also launched the distribution of our Rhapsody ActiveX control within MSN Messenger in June. This means that consumers who are using Rhapsody Web Services through MSN Messenger will have a friction-free experience when encountering any Rhapsody-powered music playback, whether on rhapsody.com, a blog or site, or on a partner’s site.”

Friction-free, what a freaking joke. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to uninstall their software from my computer. Everytime I swear off their Real player, some clip comes along which I need their proprietary software to use. It’s neat that Real wants to put an end to DRM that locks consumers into proprietary systems, but I’d like to see them address their own service before they complain about big bad Microsoft. The biggest joke about it all is that Zune isn’t even going to prevent Real from playing their songs on the device. In their settlement with Microsoft they got a 10 year license to their DRM. Makes me wonder if Glaser is really worried as much about his customers being able to use their music on Zune or if he’s more concerned about protecting the pitiful 1.625 million customers that they’ve convinced to use their Rhapsody service.

Posted in DRM | No Comments »

Cinema Now’s Burn On Demand Still Has A Way To Go

July 26th, 2006 Davis

We are starting to see the first reviews of Cinema Now’s burn on demand program start filtering into the blogosphere and the reaction is a bit mixed. Video Business went through the process of downloading a $10 movie and burning it so that they could watch it on a TV.

The good news is that this is a much faster way to get delivery of a film then DVD by mail, but the bad news is that the process still took a mind numblingly slow 5 and a half hours to complete. I’ve got to assume most of that time was spent downloading and not burning, but between having to pay at least $10 for a film, needing your own equipment and discs, having to wait 5.5 hours & still getting quality less then a traditional DVD, it’s clear that this program has a ways to go.

I love that Cinema Now is trying to innovate, but I really think download to burn in the home is the wrong way to go. VOD and downloadable movies to a set top box makes a lot of sense, but immedietely you are limiting the number of customers who can even use the product to those who have DVD burners and those sophisticated enough to use them. While this isn’t a tiny number, it does limit your potential audience and the $10 price tag doesn’t help.

I think a much better solution is download and burn at the video store level. This would make everything on demand much simpler and video stores could maintain digital copies of the most popular movies so that consumers wouldn’t have to wait for the download process. It would also let consumers click on a website and pick up their movies by the end of the day. This might still take 5.5 hours to do, but there is a big difference between having to wait at your computer and making an appointment to stop into a video store to pick something up later in the day. If Blockbuster or Movie Gallery could implement such a program, it would make them more like Kinko’s and less like traditional retail. It would eliminate storage needs and would give a cool factor to going back to the video store again. Overall, I like what Cinema Now is starting to do, but would like to see them expand this to burn on demand kiosks or stores instead of making customers wait 5.5 hours for a low res DVD in the home.

Posted in VOD, DVDs | No Comments »

Fire Escape

July 24th, 2006 Davis

Fire Escape Hosted on Zooomr

Posted in Photos | No Comments »

Movie Gallery Wants You To Buy Insurance For Their Defective Products

July 21st, 2006 Davis

I’ve seen a lot of interesting ways for companies to make money, but my jaw just about hit the floor when I read a complaint on the Consumerist this morning that said Hollywood Video has begun implementing a .25 insurance charge against defective DVDs that won’t play. What blows my mind here is that if I go to just about any business in the US and buy a product and it ends up not working, you can always take it back and exchange it. Even at Blockbuster Video, they’ll give you another copy of the movie if you get a damaged disc. Does this mean that if you don’t pay their .25 tax that they won’t give you a refund on defective products they sell you? The whole policy sounds pretty funny money to me.

In looking through my Netflix history, I’ve had a damaged disc rate of about 3%. Now I rent a lot of movies, so this means that every couple of months I’ll hit a dud. When I do, I tell Netflix, they immedietely send out another disc and while annoying, I get to watch my movie with minimal effort on my part. I don’t know Hollywood Video’s damaged rate, but if you assume a 3% rate and you pay $3 a rental, then insurance would theorhetically break even around .09 a disc. For a customer to breakeven paying .25 per disc, they would need to experience a failure rate of over 8%, which if that’s the case, I’m not sure I’d be renting from Hollywood Video to begin with.

In all fairness to Movie Gallery, they are donating the proceeds from this scheme to charity, but that doesn’t mean their decision to not accept exchanges is right and the Consumerist rightly points out that Movie Gallery does receive the tax benefit of the donation (or at least they would if they made profits) This whole program sounds like another stupid tax to take money out of the pockets of hard working consumers and Hollywood Video should come up with a better way to deal with their defective products then making customers buy insurance. I’d rather see them raise prices by .25 and have the same return policies that most businesses have, then to resort to these types of shady tactics to help boost their revenues.

Posted in DVDs, Disclosure - I own stock in co. mentioned, Netflix, Uncategorized | 6 Comments »