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One of the major issues with the current packaged media formats is copy protection. Home media, commercial applications, parts catalogs, and corporate presentations all questioned the actual reliability of current copy protection encryption. With Blu-ray declared as the tangible media of the next generation it is important to examine the merits of its copy protection capabilities.

Blu-ray copy protection uses 3 major layers of copy protection:

1.   Advanced Access Content System (AACS). AACS is similar to CSS, which was used with DVD, and works like a secret handshake between the disc and the player. The major benefit is that the “handshakes” are renewable and transparent to the honest media user. It has been publicized that this technology has been hacked, but the renewability of this scheme makes it difficult to compromise it completely.

2.    BD+. This technology works like a virtual machine that monitors the system to detect modification or “modding”. “Modding” evolved out of the gaming industry as systems were easily modified to play pirated games. BD+ keeps a memory of the hosting environment and can detect and render a system useless until normal functioning is restored.

3.   BD ROM Mark. A licensed replicator of the media will be required to use a unique watermark on the disc. The Blu-ray player will look for that watermark before playing the disc.

These three layers of control will hopefully manage the amount of piracy in the industry and allow content providers to feel confident that their distribution is contained. Content security is important to entertainment content, but also to those looking to contain their brand and disallow manipulation and unauthorized use. The 3 layers of copy protection used by Blu-ray aim to protect those interests.

Last week, Sony announced they will no longer manufacture 3.5″ floppy disks, signaling the nail in the coffin for this antiquated technology.  You mean they were still making those things?  I don’t even own a computer with an “A drive” anymore.  1.44 MB of space doesn’t get you far these days.  As a matter of fact, at my rummage sale last summer, I couldn’t even sell an 8MB compact flash card.  While I don’t think this news story will ruffle anyone’s feathers, it does give us an opportunity to wander down memory lane and remember life in the “old days”…

FLASHBACK:  Summer 1993:  Our family gets a shiny new Compaq 486 PC (that’s pre-pentium, folks), to replace our well-loved Commodore 64.  Time to install Microsoft Office (some crazy new program that’s supposed to be way better than Word Perfect).  The installation package came with TWENTY-FIVE floppy disks.  Being the youngest of 6 kids, naturally it was my job to baby-sit the computer all day long, feeding it disk after disk in 20 minute intervals.  To make things interesting, the Compaq engineers thought it would be a good idea to place the eject button right next to the power button.  All went smoothly until disc 17, when I absent-mindedly pushed the wrong button.  5 hours wasted.  Thanks floppy disks!

Today, that program would fit 1000 times over on a standard blu-ray disc, and install in about 25 seconds.  Despite this perspective, I’m sure we would still complain that it wasn’t fast enough.

I am relieved as we leave another Earth Day behind.  I get very irritated when I see the messages all around, calling me a criminal for throwing my recyclable goods in the trash.  Sometimes, when I’m feeling especially rebellious, I like to throw my junk mail and empty cans in the garbage can.  Is it apparent yet that I like to live on the wild side?

So why do we need a special day for this?  A day to remind people not to throw their recyclables in the trash, to put those newspapers in the bin, to buy organic, or to say, down with pesticides.  Does it make people feel good to focus on how responsible they are being for just that day?  How about just that week?  Really, does it last through the month?  I think overall the being green is a trend that makes people feel good about their actions that day.  I think a lot of people suffer from the “herd mentality” and follow what they are told to do to be environmentally conscious.

We are told to buy organic everything because it doesn’t pollute the earth and leave that nasty human footprint.  Does it?  I mean, if it’s organic it has to be good, right?  I saw an ad a few days ago telling people to buy the company’s 100% organic products.  These products are great.  Shipped directly to your front door from your friendly overseas neighbors.  Sure, the materials were grown naturally in a field somewhere, using no pesticides, and were handpicked before being processed and turned into your feel-good green product.  But what about the energy required to get it to your front door?  How was it packaged?  Does it use lots of plastic or paper made from an endangered tree?  How much raw material was discarded before gathering enough material to create your green product?  How much were those children paid to pick the materials for your green product?

We are told to buy a hybrid car by people sipping water out of plastic bottles.  Get rid of your incandescent light bulbs and put in the energy-efficient cfl [mercury] ones, brought to you by the people who have their furnace set to 75 degrees and their air conditioner to 65 degrees.  Or how about the people who look down their nose at others for buying things at Walmart yet they stuff their garbage full of things that can be composted?

Being green begins at home.  Shop local.  If it comes from India chances are the trip over here outweighs any good done by being organic. Turn off your lights.  Do you need that light on in the other room so your furniture can see?  Read the fine print.  If it’s recyclable, great.  Can you toss it on your compost pile?  Even better, buy it!  Live through real sustainability, not by following popular trends, and certainly not just for one Earth Day.

As a lifetime fan, I was very excited about Disney’s The Princess and the Frog coming out.  I am somewhat of an art snob, and am fairly particular about animation.  The new graphics coming out, while pretty cool from a graphic-computer point, just don’t do it for me artistically.  I prefer the hand-drawn look, the rich colors, the uneven, natural shading.  Watching a “real” Disney movie makes me happy and at peace, and takes me back to when I was a little girl.

However, a Disney movie must be more than just visual.  For the experience to be complete it must touch on both vision and hearing.  The music and the singing must be present, and done well to guide you smoothly through the scenes. In this, I must say, they succeeded rather nicely.  The voices of the cast are fantastic.  Each character’s voice has a unique personality.  The inflections are exaggerated and just perfect; be it a more general southern accent, one from New Orleans, or the most fascinating Cajun dialect.

I thoroughly enjoyed watching this movie, so much so that I will be purchasing this today on Blu-ray.  The art was beautiful, the music and voices fantastic, and the story so enjoyable and relevant to today.  Everything was done to perfection [as if I would accept anything less.]  To top it off, I was able to see this movie at a small little theater in Cedarburg, Wisconsin.  The Rivoli is a small hometown theater that plays just one movie per week.  I took my son to see this and would not trade the experience of sitting in a [packed] movie theater with an audience of mostly squeely and excited children.  I can’t wait until the next one!

The New Media department of Great Lakes Media was honored to create a digital highlight reel for high school athlete, Lewis Smith. Lewis is the Nephew of Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer extraordinaire, Chad Smith.

The digital highlight reel is a great way for high school athletes to capture the attention of college recruiters. The video is a simple 2-3 minute piece, highlighting the athlete’s abilities and stats. It can be uploaded to youtube, a website, or put to DVD.

The video can be seen here, and is part of our New Media March promotion. We are offering 20% off digital media services. We are now also offering new services, like the digital highlight reel, and encoding for portable media devices.

A few years ago when my son was born I would get up every few hours at night for the first few months, trying to get my tiny baby to eat.  Rapidly becoming a creature of habit, my son would wake up every night around the time Conan O’Brien came on.  Through these often mind-blowingly exhausting feedings, I would laugh my butt off.

I was very happy when Conan got the job on the Tonight Show.   This show would entice me away from Fox around 10pm.  I wanted to make sure I didn’t miss the monologue and through the wonders of Hulu I was able to watch the rest of the show as well.  Conan O’Brien is not for everyone.  I do think he is like whiskey; an acquired taste.  It takes a bit, but once you have the taste of this in your system, it’s hard to let go.

Sadly, his short run is at an end.  I will miss Conan.  I definitely will not make it a point to watch Jay Leno.  The whole fiasco leaves me  feeling a little peeved with NBC.  Back to Fox it is.

Go Conan!

Corporate DVDs and Windows Media Player

In the past week we have received 2 calls claiming their “DVD’s would not play in Windows Media Player” on office DVD players.

2 theories were proffered by our NewMedia staff:

  (1) Windows Media Player does not have the DVD function installed in its version and therefore not recognizing the file format used in all DVD Videos.

 (2) The IT department at various companies purposefully disable DVD-Video funtionality within Windows Media Player to prevent employees from watching Hollywood movies.

Let us know if you have heard anything to the contrary.

Admittedly I’m trying to stir it up a little.  Our last post was in October so I’m looking for a fight.

5.  The Wii.  Seriously?  The only good game for the Wii is Wii Sports which comes with the system.  All of the other games I have tried to get into require way to much motivation when the only time to be playing vids is during relaxation time.  Admittedly, I’ve heard anectdotal evidence of major weight loss from Wii Fit, but as far as an entertainment system, it is incredibly overhyped.  I prefer my active immersive experiences to be real, like outside on a real bike.

4.  Ipods.  I have yet to hear good quality MP3 or lossless formats that can be put on external speakers and not sound like junk.  I realize that if you have it blaring in your ear via headphones you can’t tell, but I have conducted experiments with the best encoded MP3 quality over speakers at my house, with the most amateur listners.  Better yet, the new iPod Nano I bought takes video…  Sort of.  I finally spent $60 on a cord that can connect it to my tv at the highest quality possible and the people looked alien and blurry.  Ipods serve a purpose but my guess is that American spending has overhyped this product.

3.  LCD-  Seriously?  What is the rub?  What happened to plasma?  The blacks and refresh rate are like 5 times better  with plasma and no one seems to care that plasmas are going by the wayside for inferior, more expensive LCD screens.  I demand answers!

2.  3D-  Dear Cable and Dish Companies…  Are you seriously considering making us wear goggles to watch football?  I can think of a million other things that would make watching sports better… Like higher bit rates, currently over dish you are running 4-5 megabits per second and claiming it is “HD”.  DVD is 8 mbs, Blu-ray is up to 50 mbs.  You haven’t even mastered HD yet, and now your spending all of this money on a technology that will force us to buy a new TV?  You can’t even deliver the goods to my TV now!  C’mon Man!

1.  Streaming Movies via Netflix.  In theory this would be awesome.  I could get Netflix Blu-rays and then while I’m waiting I can download movies in my queue to my PS3.  So I signed up.  Hook, line, and sinker.  Number 1- the “hd” is like YouTube quality on a 58″ TV.  Number 2- I’m pretty sure the only moves they have available for Streaming are available on TNT and AMC- skip it and set your DVRs folks.  Weak selection.  Somehow, I thought that I would have access to the entire Netflix catalog.  Fail. 

Keep in mind, I think some of this stuff has value…   but I believe it is over valued by the consumer.  Stay tuned for the Top 5 Most Underhyped Consumer Tech of Today.

With my (almost) 3 year old Moto RAZR on the fritz, it was time for me to look into a new cell phone. I checked the offerings of most of the major carriers, but eventually succumbed to the Apple/AT&T iPhone. I admit, I was sucked in by the sleek interface, digital media capabilities, and various applications. My major reason for the purchase, however, being able to combine a iPod-like device with a phone.

After 2 weeks of using the iPhone, I have mixed feelings about it (most are positive). First the positives: My initial fear was that the “phone” portion wouldn’t be that great. I’ve been a AT&T customer for several years, and the reception on my RAZR was ok, but not great.  I’m pleased to report the “phone” in the iPhone has actually been very good thus far. Zero dropped calls and some people telling me that they hear a “major” improvement” in voice quality when they are talking to me on my iPhone.

Another positive is the “all in one” capabilities. It is now my iPod, PDA, GPS, etc. I really like having all these features in one device. I’ve also found that the iPhone is actually helping me become a more organized person (something I desperately need!).

Now for for the negatives: Being constantly “connected” at all times.  I can now check my email, facebook, etc. wherever and whenever. Do I really need access to these things at all times? No. And what’s worse, I can longer use the “I didn’t get you message until now” excuse when tardy on replying to messages (ha-ha).

At this point, I’ve used my iPhone as a iPod first. Followed by a messaging device, phone, www, and (lastly) apps. I’ve only scratched the surface with “apps” and I will blog some reviews as I discover and use more of them. I will also blog on the camera and video capture capabilities at a later time. Thus far, these features are quite impressive.

If anyone else has an iPhone, Blackberry, or any other “smart” phone, please feel free to comment on your experiences.

CNN recently published this article suggesting digital alternatives to the business card:

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/TECH/10/01/digital.business.cards/

Are we seeing the last generation of paper business cards?  Or is this just a fad?  CNN seems to suggest that the business card is yet another casualty of the conversion to all-digital media.

Each of the digital suggestions in this article have their own unique merit – the ability to record where you met someone along with their contact information, and endless customization possibilities, for example.  Certainly for someone in a fast paced, technology centered industry, any of these would make a great addition to her virtual identity.

However, I don’t see how digital business cards can render the paper version obsolete.  There’s always merit to something tangible.  I believe it creates a lasting impression where a digital substitute cannot.  It gives the feel of exclusivity – a personal invitation to contact someone again.  If I were told to simply “Google” someone, this would not make me feel special.  Anyone can find that information.  However, if you hand me your business card with 3 different contact phone numbers, I feel like you’re making that extra effort to ensure that I get a hold of you again.

Sometimes the newest, flashiest product isn’t always the best choice for every situation.  At least that’s my opinion.  Feel free to disagree