HD DVD / Randomness... : Randomness

What Now?

ptorr — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 22:18:46 GMT

I have had some readers ask what is to become of this blog. Well, it started out discussing Office Development, then it covered Threat Modelling, and most recently it has been about HDi. There have been several posts about the Pet Shop Boys and then there was this little post, too. That's the cool thing about Microsoft; you work on one thing for a while, and if it doesn't work out (or if you decide you want to try something new) then you just go do it.

One thing's for sure – I'm not about to start posting about BD-J authoring :-)

I still have a few script-based posts to finish, but after that I don't know how often I will update the blog because most likely I will be working on the Next Big Thing, and most likely that won't be public (and thus not blog-able). Anyway, thanks for reading and if you choose to stick around then maybe I'll post something cool again in a few months...

http://www.hddvdforever.com/

Peter.

A Concert with PowerPoint Slides?

ptorr — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 20:36:56 GMT

As you may know, Howard Jones played an acoustic show in Seattle last night with Robin Boult on guitar. The performance was fantastic, and the venue (The Triple Door) was actually quite nice with a limited menu coming from the kitchens of Wild Ginger. (Although I enjoyed the food, I am not really a fan of having the waiters walk past every 5 minutes, or of all the clanging of silverware and glassware as people finish their dessert... but I digress).

Anyway, the reason for this blog post is that before many of the songs, Howard gave a little bit of background about the song – what it was about, how it was written, previous live performances, etc. – and at one point joked that he needed a PowerPoint deck to help tell his story. And this got me thinking about what we are doing with interactivity in HD DVD with HDi: although the movie (or TV show or concert performance) is central to any home viewing experience, it is really the "extra" stuff that sets HD DVD away from current DVD or broadcast TV.

A High Definition picture is nice, and lossless surround-sound is pretty sweet too, but as a filmmaker myself I know that there is always more to the story than you can tell in the movie (TV show; song; etc.) itself. And as a movie lover, I know there is often more that I want to know about the story than is available in the movie (...) itself. Standard DVD has the usual staple of vignettes (deleted scenes, making-of documentaries, trailers) but for various reasons they tend to get skipped by many viewers.

You might watch a 30 minute documentary in the hopes of learning more about (eg) the location a movie was shot, only to be disappointed at the end when no information is made available. And since DVD is "set in stone" once it goes to the replicator, there's no way for you to ask them to add that information later. Or perhaps a DVD extra provides a filmography or a gossip about the actors in the movie, but by the time the disc hits your DVD player it is woefully out of date. Problems such as these leave many people underwhelmed by DVD extras and lead to attitude that they're of little value... even though if you actually sit down and talk to those same people, many of them really do want more out of their disc-watching experiences, especially for content they care about (favourite movies, TV shows, or music artists) – and these are exactly the kind of discs they would buy!

With technologies such as HDi in HD DVD, the producers can add all manner of information to the disc and let "you control" which bits of information you to see, and when. No more sitting through hours of bonus material in the hope that maybe you'll get an out-dated snippet of what you're interested in. With true interactivity, you can go straight to the information you want and can be confident that it is up-to-date via connections to the internet. And if the information you want isn't there, why not send feedback directly to the producers that you want to see it added in the future?

On HD DVD, Howard Jones could have his PowerPoint slides (and then some!) and you – the viewer – could decide seamlessly and instantly whether you wanted to dive into the background or just enjoy the great music (or maybe do both at the same time). That's something you can't do on a standard DVD, and it's also something that doesn't require a gigantic TV, elaborate surround-sound system, or expensive disc player to appreciate.

Whenever people write off interactivity as a gimmick or something nobody needs, I think fondly back to the day when a University friend first showed me the World Wide Web. I just shrugged... why would anyone need that? I could get exactly the same information through Gopher, only faster!

How things change.

Good News

ptorr — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 23:02:10 GMT

Not one but two bits of good news this morning!

Firstly, TWICE reported on Toshiba's plans for HD DVD this year. Probably the biggest news was that the entry-level HD-A3 player will have a new recommended price of only $149 and that the higher-end models will get similar price cuts.

And in other news: Howard Jones is coming to Seattle!

What I’ve Learnt about Coffee Lids

ptorr — Mon, 17 Dec 2007 08:04:50 GMT

When I first moved to the US over eight years ago, I thought it was very odd that people put lids on their take-away coffee. I found it quite strange to drink through a hole in a lid rather than to just drink directly from the cup, and routinely discarded the lids in order to enjoy my beverage the old-fashioned way. I thought it odder still that people would walk and drink their coffee at the same time, but it didn't take long for me to realise that this was a supremely useful activity afforded by the afore-mentioned lids.

The annoying thing was that although the lids generally did a good job of keeping coffee in its place, every so often a small amount of coffee would escape from the cup and drip onto my clothes. And with Murphy's Law in full effect, it typically happened when I had on a clean white shirt. Before a meeting.

Initially I thought it was just random manufacturing defects in the lids, or that the lids weren't on well enough. But one day I investigated further into the drippage and uncovered the culprit: the seam in the cup where the cardboard is joined together. If the lid is placed in such a way that the mouthpiece is more-or-less directly over the cup's seam, chances are that the seal will not be completely air-tight, and when you tilt the cup to take a drink the coffee will drip out of the cup and onto your freshly-laundered shirt. The solution? Simply rotating the lid to ensure the mouthpiece is directly opposite the seam appears to solve the problem – at least it has never happened to me since I started being more vigilant about lid placement.

I've never really thought this was much of a revelation – it seems like common sense, really – but having explained it to two friends recently I decided maybe it's not that obvious after all, and hence this completely non-HD-DVD-related blog post :-)

Wikipedia editing

ptorr — Sun, 30 Sep 2007 21:43:59 GMT

Short post: In the interests of full disclosure, I've started editing Wikipedia on various topics related to HD DVD. Initially I made several "anonymous" edits, but decided to create an account for transparency and so I can "watch" pages as they change.

Basically I am just posting this here so nobody "discovers" my edits in the future and claims this is some "hidden agenda" by Microsoft to "lend credibility" by faking "grass roots" spin. Whatever.

Anyway, I'll still be doing the majority of my posting ("Haha," some of you might say, "not so much lately!") on this blog. The Wikipedia editing is mostly about keeping the pages interesting, up-to-date, and accurate.

Tech Acronym of the Day

ptorr — Fri, 09 Mar 2007 03:01:01 GMT

TPM (Trusted Platform Module): noun. A dedicated chip that performs cryptographic operations and cannot be inspected or tampered with unless you have frickin' sharks with electron-tunnelling microscopes attached to their heads.

OK, so it made someone laugh. Real definition available here.

Paperless

ptorr — Sat, 20 Jan 2007 10:06:21 GMT

I fly pretty regularly, but in the past seven years I've never had a paper ticket.

I always just zip through the electronic check-in counter, passing mild looks of disdain at those other people milling around with their pieces of paper stuck in long winding queues. And they always seem to be anxious and worried and beholden to the service desk clerks.

Which made tonight's little adventure awfully embarrassing for me.

You see, about a year ago I volunteered to be bumped from a flight and in return I got one of those BONUS TRAVEL TICKETs for a free round-trip flight. Although I travel quite a bit, almost all of it is business travel so there was no need for me to use the BONUS TRAVEL TICKET. The couple of personal trips I did take seemed "cheap enough" so I always paid for them with real money.

And none of them used paper tickets.

But then the BONUS TRAVEL TICKET was about to expire, so I figured I should use it anyway. But of course you can't book normally over the web; you have to call them up on the phone. And then you don't actually get a ticket; you get a reservation and you have to turn up to the airport with your BONUS TRAVEL TICKET to get your real ticket.

Did I mention I haven't had a paper ticket since I moved to the USA?

So of course I go to the airport tonight ready to zip through the electronic check-in counter, only to receive a boarding pass that says I need to see a service representative.

Oh.

No.

That stupid BONUS TRAVEL TICKET.

I left it at work, because I've never had to worry about stupid dead tree products at the airport since, like, last century. After waiting in line for a while (not too long; being a frequent flier does have its occasional perks) I beg and plead with the service representative, but there's nothing they can do (clearly not perky enough). The flight is full, so I can't even buy a normal ticket to get on it (despite the fact that, uh, my other reservation is now cancelled). Even getting on the next available flight would have cost about 2.5x the normal ticket price due to the last-minute booking. So much for free travel.

So here I sit, back at home, not on an aeroplane and not getting a weekend away. Nevertheless, this cloud has a silver lining; you can extract some pearls of wisdom from my gross stupidity and ineptitude. Just remember these four simple steps and you can avoid following in my silly footsteps:

Never volunteer to take the next flight; let some other poor soul take the fall and have their day ruined. It's just not worth it
If you failed to heed the advice in Step #1, use the ticket at the first possible opportunity. Don't wait for that "big, expensive trip" to come up because it probably never will
When you do book your ticket, forget everything the last decade of airline travel has taught you and remember to take the stupid coupons with you!
When you go to the airport, get there an hour or two earlier to check in, because you'll be stuck in the other people's line... behind some fool desperately trying to re-book their flight... because they forgot their coupon...
(The bonus step) Once you've successfully completed your travel, post a comment here gloating about how much smarter you are than me

Well, that's it. Have a good weekend!

Maybe I'll have some more HD DVD related stuff to write about next week…

iRiver Clix First Impressions

ptorr — Wed, 11 Oct 2006 21:19:54 GMT

My trusty old Rio Carbon died the other day when it fell out of its little carrying case and was abruptly introduced to the cold, harsh reality of a concrete parking garage floor. RIP, Rio.

I needed a replacement (otherwise I can't bear spending time at the gym) but I wasn't going to buy one of these and I also wasn't going to wait for one of these because my requirements are basically "very small," "plays WMAs," and "must be in-stores now."

The Clix meets those requirements and is pretty cute, too. It just arrived and my first impressions (without actually using it yet – how hard can it be to screw up "playing music"?!?):

They definitely learnt from Apple in the packaging department; 100% white cardboard all around. There's nary a flesh-eating plastic moulded case in sight. Great.
It is small and white and cute. Not that it really matters; it's not like I'm showing it off as a fashion accessory or anything. But I'll go ahead and call that a positive :-). Great.
It comes with a CD but why would I want to use it? I plugged the USB cable into my Vista RC2 machine with Windows Media Player 11 and it worked flawlessly. Great.
The USB cable is not the mini-plug style, but rather the flat-and-skinny style. I used to be able to use the same cable to sync / charge my phone as my Rio, but now I will have to take two cables with me. Not great.
I dragged over a bunch of albums from my media library and it's happily syncing. Great.

Well, that's about it so far; as long as it can actually play the music while I'm in the gym, it will have met my needs. If not, I'll let you know more later...

Looks like I'll be down $300 on November 14th

ptorr — Sat, 05 Aug 2006 22:44:36 GMT

But what better way to spend it than 236 episodes of Friends?

Thank you, Warner Bros.

I hope they offer it on HD DVD so I don't have to have 40+ DVDs lying around...

Updates coming

ptorr — Fri, 28 Jul 2006 05:52:24 GMT

I know it's been a while since I last blogged anything -- I was on holiday last week and I've been busy this week. I will try to post more iHD samples (and part 3 of the inheritance series) sometime soon...

Random Post about Music

ptorr — Wed, 12 Jul 2006 03:32:00 GMT

Armin van Buuren's State of Trance 2006 is a must-have CD for any trance fans.

I recently learnt that the BBC chose the Pet Shop Boys' track Numb for their World Cup Montage [no hyperlink; it was taken down].

And the Pet Shop Boys will be in Seattle on November 5th!

Yeah baby.

More Interlaced / Progressive Info

ptorr — Tue, 11 Jul 2006 02:12:00 GMT

Seems not everyone believes me when I say that for filmed content (24fps), 30i gives the same end result as 30p. Well, check out the latest review of the Samsung BD-P1000 player for a bit of a hint.

The review very clearly states (and you can confirm for yourself if you search the web) that the Samsung's "True High Definition" 1080p output is produced by, wait for it, decoding at 1080i in one chip and de-interlacing back to 1080p in another chip... which is exactly what your TV will do with the Toshiba output! They even use exactly the same 1080i decoder chip that the Toshiba HD DVD players use; the only difference is that the wire between the two chips is longer :-)

You can also find comments from reviewers that switching the Samsung from 1080p to 1080i produced no difference in visual quality... surprise, surprise (or not).

Don't let the "True High Definition" marketing fool you -- there is no difference for motion picture content. Sony even calls their 1080i equipment "true high definition", so it must be true (check the HDV Recording Format section).

The place where interlaced versus progressive really matters is when you are capturing footage. Footage captured at 30i (60 fields) will not look as good as footage captured at 60p, and will look "differently bad" than footage captured at 30p (the 30i might flicker and the 30p might be blurry).

But for 24p filmed content being output back on a TV from a 1080p source, there's no difference.

Oh, and the review of Blu-ray isn't very favourable... :-)

[Jim: Sorry if this seems like too much of a "marketing" post, but I think educating people about the facts around interlaced output is important and can save consumers a LOT of money]

Dead Man's Chest

ptorr — Sun, 09 Jul 2006 06:52:42 GMT

Just a quickie tonight -- I went to see Pirates of the Caribbean - Dead Man's Chest last night. Brilliant movie! It's a little slow to start, but it soon picks up with pretty much more of the same fun and adventure from the first one. The soundtrack is again brilliant, this time with Hans Zimmer taking Klaus Badelt's original Pirates themes and turning them up to 11. I think my favourite musical cue is near the start when Captain Jack Sparrow first appears; it's like the movie winks at you as you are re-united with an old friend.

If only it were "Coming soon to HD DVD"... <sigh> I think I'll be seeing this one again :-)

In other soundtrack-related news, I see that Halo 2 Volume 2 was finally released back in April... that took a while!

Something About Lies and Statistics...

ptorr — Fri, 02 Jun 2006 05:23:00 GMT

CNet is running a story about reader reaction to the new Windows Media Photo format. From the fine article:

In an unscientific poll asking whether a JPEG competitor is needed, almost half of the 5,621 voters said maybe, "but I'm concerned about it being a Microsoft product."

Kudos for labelling it as "unscientific", but this is really stretching it a bit. The poll results make it sound like 50% of the respondents are concerned about it being a Microsoft product, but the trouble is that the only three choices for the poll are:

No, JPEG works just fine.
Yes, e-mail and Web pages need smaller files.
Maybe, but I'm concerned about it being a Microsoft product.

So there was no ability to say "maybe" without also saying "but I'm concerned about it being a Microsoft product." I think that shows some clear bias on behalf of the poll authors.

My new poll:

Is this blog the best thing you've ever read?

Yes!
No, I want you to poke me in the eye with a sharp stick

Cast your vote below in the comments section!

HD DVD Commercial

ptorr — Sat, 20 May 2006 19:21:47 GMT

This message was sent with low priority.

Toshiba has a cool HD DVD commercial up on their website at http://www.tacp.toshiba.com/hddvd/

Unfortunately it's a Flash page so I can't give you a direct link <sigh> but you can just click on the image of the helicopter on the right-hand-side of the page.