Entries Tagged 'Hardware' ↓

PC World’s Harry McCracken has some questions about Apple’s new Boot Camp software, which lets Intel-based Macs run Windows XP. Like: “Does Boot Camp let you run Windows Media Center?”

Microsoft’s Sean Alexander has some answers:

MCE (and an unreleased player) are running like champs.  I’m hearing reports of Vista running as well.  Battery life still stinks compared to my sony but hey, this is a desktop replacement riight?

Windows Vista running on Apple hardware? The mind boggles:

Venkman: This city is headed for a disaster of biblical proportions.
Mayor: What do you mean, biblical?
Ray: What he means is Old Testament, Mr. Mayor… real Wrath-of-God-type stuff. Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies.
Venkman: Rivers and seas boiling!
Egon: 40 years of darkness, earthquakes, volcanos.
Winston:The dead rising from the grave!
Venkman: Human sacrifice, dogs and cats, living together… mass hysteria!

PC World also has more details on the new $50 virtualization software from Parallels, which claims to allow Intel-based Macs to run Windows XP, several flavors of Linux, and even OS/2 Warp in a virtual machine without dual-booting.

I just received a 60GB black video iPod, so my comparison of the iPod (and iTunes) with my Creative Zen Vision:M (with Windows Media Player and Media Center).

First a physical comparison: Both units are impressively sleek looking, with a shiny black face and some minimal controls below the identical 2″ x 1-1/2″ video displays. The iPod has its round clickwheel, with a button on the center and buttons at each of the four major compass points. The Zen Vision:M has a slider in the center, with four illuminated controls at the corners.

Width and height are nearly identical at 2-38″ by 4″. That size is defined by the hard disk. The iPod, at 1/2″ thick, is a little slimmer than the Zen Vision:M. The iPod weighs 5-1/2 oz, which is 1/8 oz lighter than the Zen Vision:M.

Both turn on almost instantly - the iPod when you tap any button, the Zen Vision:M via a switch on the top of the player. The screen is sharp and easy to read; Creative chose a slightly larger font than Apple for its menus, but my 50-year-old eyes had no problem reading either one.

From a purely physical standpoint, there’s little to distinguish the devices except the slight difference in thickness. They both look sleek and modern.

Next up: Getting music and video onto the player.

As part of the research for Windows Vista Inside Out, I’m immersed in Vista’s Windows Media Player 11 (about which more later). It’s not unpleasant research at all, and it offers plenty of excuses to listen to music, watch videos, and fiddle with shiny gadgets.

When Windows Vista comes out later this year, an awful lot of people are going to want to plug in their iPods and stay in sync. I seem to be completely immune from Apple lust, but that doesn’t mean I can ignore the hardware. I’ve been blown away by how smoothly the Creative Zen Vision:M and the latest beta of Windows Vista work together; I’d like to see how that experience compares to the latest versions of the iPod and (shudder) iTunes.

Any iPod experts out there who can tell me which iPod I should get? The 30GB video iPod, at $275 or so, seems like the most logical contender, especially for a head-to-head comparison with the Zen Vision:M. Do you have a better choice? I’m all ears.

I’m looking forward to replacing at least one of my first-generation Media Center Extenders with an Xbox 360. I’m not a gamer, though, and at $399 for the Premium console (in the comments to an earlier post, Peter Near makes a strong case that this is the right choice for an HD-ready extender), I’m already feeling pinched.

I’ve been using the Xbox 360 Tracker at Ben’s Bargains to spot when hardware is available for sale. And for the last few weeks anyone who wants to buy an Xbox has to buy it as part of a bundle, at prices ranging from $600 and up. In some cases, way up. (A week before Christmas, Target.com was selling the Xbox 360 Platinum Ultra Bundle for a mind-boggling $2180!)

Am I ready to pay a premium of several hundred dollars for something that will probably be available at a slight discount from its retail price once the initial wave of hype wears off? No way. My target price is $360, and I bet I see that price by the end of April.

Anyone else want to place their bets?

I swear, every third booth at CES is filled with iPod add-ons, some of which are really cool.

Almost makes me want one.

In the race to determine the next big DVD standard, HD DVD appears to be winning.

Jack Schofield at the Guardian Unlimited Technology Blog passes along a report that HD DVD players will be available in March at prices as low as $500. At a press event, last night, I talked with a Panasonic rep who was working at the Blu-ray booth. He said Blu-ray hardware would be available sometime in the summer, and a Blu-ray spokesperson said she was doubtful we’d be able to see hardware before mid-July.

The Blu-ray picture sure did look good, though!

Update: The Blu-ray folks need to coordinate with the people from Pioneer Electronics. According to the Seattle Times, Blu-ray hardware will be available sooner than I was told last night:

“A lot of this show has to do with people taking positions and making statements, but where the rubber hits the road is at the retail level, where consumers speak with their wallets,” said Andy Parsons, senior vice president at Pioneer Electronics, which introduced a home Blu-ray player to go on sale in May for $1,800 and a Blu-ray recorder and player for PCs to go on sale by March for $995.

Gates weighed in by demonstrating a Toshiba HD-DVD player for sale later this year for about $500, less than a third the price of first-generation Blu-ray players.

May? Maybe not. Pioneer’s press release says, “The BDP-HD1 will begin shipping to retailers across the country in June under the Pioneer Elite brand.  It will have a suggested price of $1800.” No release of any kind for the PC version.

I’ll swing by Pioneer’s booth today.

I’ve been overwhelmed with pitches from PR people who want to show me tiny devices for watching video, software for downloading video content, and services that will sell me movies and TV shows for a fee.

I don’t understand how these things are ever going to become more than niche products. Yes, gadget-obsessed business travelers might like the idea of the Slingbox so they can connect to what’s on the TiVo back home. And it might be an easy way to keep toddlers entertained on a long car trip. But where’s the rest of the market?

Watching a video clip demands attention. You can listen to a portable music player while jogging, or at the gym, or in the car. But you can’t watch a video clip and keep your eyes on the road. Plus, do people (other than the preschool set) really want to watch the same video clip over and over?

Now, streaming video around the house makes sense to me. I think people will respond to the idea of recording TV shows and movies and then watching them in the kitchen, or the den, or a guest room over a wireless connection.

I’ll be talking to a handful of companies at CES about home networking hardware that is aimed squarely at solving these problems. It’ll be interesting to see how close we are to having networks that real people can set up and use.

I finally broke down and bought a Logitech Harmony 680 Universal Remote Control earlier this month. I finally got a chance to play with it a little yesterday. I’m impressed!

To set up the Harmony 680, you use the harmonyremote.com Web site to identify the components in your home theater system, assemble the codes that automatically map the Harmony 680’s buttons to functions on the original remote for each component, and set up “activities,” which are the equivalent of macros that fire commands to all the equipment involved. When you connect the remote using a USB cable and a simple utility, a server-side application packages your settings into a downloadable file and blacts it into the remote.

The unit is preconfigured to control a Media Center PC. In addition, the Web site has an enormous database of remote control codes for all sorts of components. The Setup program was able to identify all of my equipment (although I had to try several variations of the HR10 model number before it recognized the high-definition DirecTV/TiVo box). I used the predefined activities to define what I want each piece of equipment to do when I push the Watch TV or Listen to Music or Watch a DVD button. To listen to music from the Media Center PC, for instance, I need to: turn on the AV Receiver and set VCR1 as the input; turn on the TV and set Video 4 as its input; make sure the Media Center extender is on; and switch to Media Center’s My Music view. I can use drop-down lists and option buttons to set all these states, no coding required.

I have a few quibbles with the Harmony 680. The buttons are arranged in a very confusing layout, although this is practically inevitable with an all-in-one remote. And for the life of me I can’t see how to program the big green Media button so that it acts as the Green button (Media Center) or the TiVo button on the DirecTV box.

I paid around $105 with shipping and thought it was well worth the price. I purchased it from Comp-U-Plus, which I’ve used several times before with no complaints. Amazon.com sells it for about $10 more.

I’ve used high-end all-in-one remotes before. The Philips Pronto I used from 2001-2003 was expensive, hard to program, and used a finicky touch-screen instead of buttons with tactile feedback. In 2004 I switched to a Universal Remote MX-500. It was a lot less ambitious than the Pronto, but that made it fairly easy to work with. The only downside was the lack of macro capabilities - I had to print out a small series of instructions on mini index cards and keep them near the remote to explain the sequence of manual steps for each activity.

When we moved this past summer, I switched from cable to DirecTV and got a new TV. Somehow, the chore of reprogramming the MX-500 for the new equipment never made it to the top of the stack, and I got used to the good old-fashioned basket of remotes. Spousal Acceptance Factor? Close to zero, occasionally into minus territory.

The Harmony 680 passed a crucial test yesterday. I showed Judy the remote, briefly described how the three main activity buttons work, and placed the remote on the coffee table. When I left, a DVD was playing. When I came back an hour later, Judy was watching a program on the TiVo. With the previous collection of remotes and three separate inputs to adjust, that wouldn’t have happened.

Hey, maybe I should gift-wrap it and put it under the tree.

On second thought … naaaah!

Sean Alexander explains.

I think I’ll wait till February.

Are you seeing Windows Media Center Edition video glitches on a PC with a dual-core AMD processor? Microsoft’s David Fleishman has details on the cause of the problem and, more importantly, how you can fix it.