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News, Analysis, and Opinion on Microsoft Digital Media Technologies (and TGB News!)
December 2006 - Posts
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All that happened was the method Cyberlink to decrypt AACS used was
semi-compromised. Their implemention kept the key in memory, a key
which is needed to legally decrypt the content protection. What is likely
going to happen is that specific key will be revoked, and Cyberlink
will have to issue an update in order to play newer titles. CSS didn't
have a good way to revoke the keys, AACS does.
Waiting to see what Cyberlink and AACS said happened, but I don't see that AACS was cracked.
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With Best Buy
and Exceptional Innovation pairing up with a $15,000 home automation
package, there are lots of people thinking that $15,000 is a clear rip off for
what you get. I don’t think it’s a rip
off, but I think the concept could use some work.
Best Buy and Exceptional Innovation have a good idea, but
Best Buy is trying to get into a new market here. I think one of the
biggest problems with this is the fact that their average customer is not in
this new market yet, of course with Best Buy tagging on the product/program
this is a good way to start getting them in it.
At $15,000 the price is less then that of most Crestron, Control4, AMX,
etc setups. However, anyone going to
Best Buy to purchase home automation products likely doesn't know of these
companies or the large(r) price tags that come with professional installs. It isn’t cheap to have a full Crestron setup installed
in your home, but how many Best Buy shoppers even know what Crestron is?
Life|ware is expensive, I don't have exact prices on me but I'd factor in $3500
for Life|ware installed. Much of this price is going to come from the
fact that Life|ware needs configuration far from what the average user is going
to be able to do. It's not consumer friendly install software, it’s meant
to be installed by a certified Life|ware installer. Once installed, it's
rock solid and in my opinion is simply the best home automation software that
works with Media Center.
When you look at ~$5000 for Life|ware+z560 it's not too far from what a basic
Crestron controller+software is going to cost you. Of course, the person
going to Best Buy isn't going to know this. Best Buy isn't really in the
market of selling "Control Systems" which is really what Life|ware
is, just with a Media
Center twist.
Here's my basic price breakdown of what you will be getting.
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HP z560 - $1600
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Life|ware - ~$3500
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Xbox 360 - $400
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Two Panasonic Wireless cameras - $800
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RCS Communicating Thermostat - $400
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Ethernet/powerline adapters (x2) - $300
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Five dimmers - $200
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Five switches - $200
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Two keypads - $120
All together, that's around $7500 for the basic hardware costs which leaves
$7500 for installation/setup/programming of everything else. I don't
think that's too outrageous if you compare it to other control system
installs. I’m not an installer, but just
basing this comment off of other products you can have installed in life,
double the price of the hardware/parts isn’t that uncommon.
There are several advantages that come with Life|ware over Crestron, Control4,
AMX, etc. For starters the hardware is a whole lot more open. If
you want to add switches/dimmers/keypads to a Crestron install you are going to
be purchasing Crestron controls and that's it. With Life|ware, you can
pick what you want. It supports Z-Wave, INSTEON, Vantage, Leviton,
Lutron, etc. Same thing goes with A/V Products, Audio Distribution, Shade
controls, etc. You can pick and choose what you would like.
I can't say I would pay $15,000 for it, but I think it's a step in the right
direction. Life|ware is great software, and I think when you look at
everything it can do it's amazing. However, at $15,000 it's just too
expensive for a large majority of people to look at, especially those shopping
at Best Buy. To get Media Center into peoples home we need cheaper
methods of getting this stuff done.
What I would like to see is Exceptional Innovation take a more modular design
with Life|ware. Give me the basic package to control just lighting for a
few hundred bucks. Add in a package for whole home audio for another few hundred
bucks. Add in IP camera support for $50. Add in control of my
fridge and washer/dryer for a few more hundred bucks. Make it more
scalable on a price basis; the software itself is already very scalable itself.
Best Buy and Exceptional Innovation have a great idea, and this is another step
to make Media Center and home automation more
mainstream. However, the price tag is
going to hold it back. Get the price down, and this will have a better chance
of really succeeding.
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Linksys WMCE54AG
Wireless Media Center Extender (Woot) | Woot has got $99 Refurbished Linksys
WMCE54AG Wireless Media Center Extender’s today. If you are interested in something that can
handle SD playback and only works with Media Center 2005 this is your product. This will not work with Vista Media Center, just FYI before your purchase.
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Exclusive
Details: Best Buy, Exceptional Innovation and ConnectedLife.Home (CE Pro) |
Julie has been lurking with the details of a new package from Best Buy,
Exceptional Innovation and ConnectedLife.Home.
For $15,000 you can walk into Best Buy and pick up a package everything
you need to connect your home with Media
Center and Life|ware as
the core.
- One z560 Digital Entertainment Center
- Life|ware
home automation software from Exceptional Innovation,
- One Xbox
360 (which doubles as a Media Center Extender)
- Two
Panasonic wireless cameras
- One
communicating thermostat from Residential Control systems
- Ethernet/powerline
adapters from Corinex
- Other assorted
devices—five dimmers, five switches, two keypads--that communicate over
the powerline via Insteon technology.
Read
the full story here. Merry Christmas
and happy holidays to all.
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Taipei, Taiwan----December 22, 2006----CyberLink
Corp. (5203.TW), a world leader in digital home solutions, today launched the
HD DVD and Blu-ray version of its industry-defining movie player software,
PowerDVD. Featuring optimized hardware acceleration for graphics processors,
and compatibility with leading HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc drives, PowerDVD Ultra
delivers the ultimate high-definition movie experience on both desktop and
notebook computers.
New features for
PowerDVD Ultra include:
- Support
for HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc playback on leading drives, including the
Microsoft Xbox 360 HD DVD external drive
- Playback
of high-definition Hollywood movie
content
- Optimized
performance for playback of high-definition video content on graphics
cards featuring NVIDIA PureVideo, ATI Avivo, and Intel Clear Video
technology
- Support
for new next-generation disc features, like Picture-in-Picture movie mode,
networking, interactive BD-J and iHD features, bookmarks, and advanced
disc navigation
- High-definition
audio with support for Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby TrueHD, and DTS-HD
technologies
- 6.1-channel
surround sound, ensuring compatibility with home theater audio systems,
and audio expansion of up to 8 channels
- Support
for double-layer HD DVDs and Blu-ray Discs
- Conformance
to the High-bandwidth Digital Content Protection (HDCP) specifications for
the playback of premium content through DVI and HDMI connectors
- Support
for BUS Protection ensures premium content protection via VGA systems.
PowerDVD Ultra also
offers leading player features:
- Say-it-Again
– one-click DVD dialog looping
- Read-it-Clearly
– moveable DVD subtitles
- See-it-All
– automatically activated DVD time stretching for when mobile PCs run low
on power
- Power-saving
settings for notebooks and an onscreen battery meter
- Five
control modes, a choice of skins and interface colors
- UPnP
media player support.
"CyberLink PowerDVD Ultra prepares consumers for the
huge next wave of PC-based entertainment: high-definition content delivered on
HD DVDs and Blu-ray Discs," said Alice H. Chang, CEO of CyberLink.
"In doing so CyberLink is offering a totally new experience, with even
more ways to access and interact with movie content, as well as new support for
audio technologies that help users maximize use of their home theater audio
hardware."
Product Availability
CyberLink PowerDVD Ultra English version is available
online, and the following languages: Chinese (Simplified and Traditional),
German, French, Italian, Korean, and Spanish, will be launched next week.
- CyberLink
PowerDVD Ultra USD 99.95/Euro 99,95
For more information, please visit: http://www.cyberlink.com/multi/products/main_112_ENU.html
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Jason points to
the documentation that v2
Extenders will not be supported in MCE 2005. This is just what we all needed, for
those are not ready
to move to Vista will be to stuck using the Xbox 360 as the only HD-compatible
Extender.
“The Media
Center Extender Platform Adaptation
Kit enables partners to build Extenders for use with Windows Vista.
Because Extender technology is a superset of the PlaysForSure device program,
these devices will also be able to connect to Windows Media Connect/Windows
Media Player Network Sharing running on Media Center 2005 PCs. They will not, however, connect to Media
Center 2005 as Extenders.”
So now that new Extender
HDTV that so many of you like will only able to connect to Vista. Will this
change your purchase, or are you moving to Vista
once released? CableCARD
driving anyone?
So many questions, so many upgrades with unsupported
products afterwards. When will Microsoft
get the point? I’ll gladly beta test
this hardware that is likely be to garbage two years after, but at least send
it to me for free instead of having me drop hundreds of dollars on all of
it. If you want me to purchase the
hardware, and build me home around it (which I want to) then make it worth my
investment.
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My Movies - Home | Brian
pushed out a new pre-release of My Movies 2.20 today, and among the features
are barcode scanning support from your webcam.
You can also just type in the UPC code from the back of your DVD and My
Movies will search for the title too.
I tried the barcode scanning with my LifeCam VX-3000, but
couldn’t get it to work. No problems through,
it’s a pre-release which means you should only install it if you’re an advanced
user and don’t mind the potential of something getting messed up on your
machine.
Download
it here, and standard disclaimers apply. When you can’t watch Joe Dirt tonight because you didn’t backup
your My Movies database you will understand what I mean. Also, "You cannot roll back your database version to a previous
release, so be sure to manually backup your database before installing
pre-releases."
Thanks to Richard
for the tip.
Update: I’ve made
some progress in barcode scanning thanks to Brian’s comment on manual
focus. Now all I have to deal with is a data
lookup problem. I’ve started a thread in the My
Movies forums about it.
This is going to be amazing when it gets released. The scanning takes less than a second, and so
far it’s been 100% accurate. And yes, if
you must know that is “Mean Girls” and no I don’t know why I have it. It was in the Game Room and contains “Sexual content, language, and some teen
partying” so you know it’s good.
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Pika,
the next generation of Media Center Extenders (MCX) are due out next year, and one
of Microsoft’s goals for some time has been to integrate Media Center Extender
technology into LCD/Plasma HDTV’s.
Since it looks like Pika will actually be introducing this years
after the initial concept, I’m wondering how many of you would be interested in
purchasing one of these? If there were
HDTV’s with Media Center Extender’s built-in, would you rather purchase one
over an HDTV without it? Any features it
must have before you would purchase?
Anyone else thinking an Extender TV at this point is a
little late to the market?
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With the digital media, digital home, and media center
market continuing to grow, why not advertise here and reach your market more
effectively? I’ve
introduced text based ads through AdBrite to better help those interested
in marketing their products reach their targeted audience.
Marketing here will help you reach an average of 60,000+
unique visitors per month, contributing to an average of 100,000+ page loads
per months.*
Ads
can be purchased through AdBrite in 1-day, 7-day, and 30-day allotments. The two ad locations on the site are the top
banner, and the left-side navigation bar.
Both are static and appear on all pages and entry points throughout the
site.
Great introductory pricing, so act now and reach your
customers more effectively.
Questions or comments?
Feel free to contact
me for more information.
*Stats provided through StatCounter.com,
assumes average traffic patterns. Unique
visitors based on a single page view.
Marketing applies to http://msmvps.com/blogs/chrisl
only. Click
here for TGB marketing information.
In related news: Study:
Niche Sites' Ads More Engaging (MediaPost Publications)
"Kate
Riegner, Media Screen's director of research, said that smaller sites often
have a tighter focus, and so are better able to capture consumers' attention.
"People are more engaged and more involved in the smaller sites that speak
to a topic of keen interest to them," (emphasis mine) she said. "If you can connect
with a customer on a level of great attention or great involvement, they'll be
more interested in the ads you have.""
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Charlie Owen is
out with a new post about Why
Our Look & Feel Isn't Available To Applications. It’s always interesting to see the thought
that goes into decisions like this, however I don’t agree at all that people
think it’s “boring” for third party to flow with the rest of Media Center. From everyone I have talked with, they would
rather see third party applications have UI’s that resemble the rest of Media Center.
Anyway, be sure to
check it out.
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