glmtblog

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.

Just when you thought it was safe to buy a new HDTV: Sony and Panasonic have just announced plans to release three-dimensional TV sets in 2010. ESPN is testing 3-D production, promising to “have football players appear to jump out of the screen”. Of course, special glasses would be required when viewing.

The new 3-D sets won’t come cheap, and some critics argue that there is not enough bandwidth available to broadcast 3D programming. No surprise there, considering that there still isn’t enough bandwidth available to broadcast true 1080p HD content.

These new televisions would be able to play shows in 2-D or 3-D, and 3-D video games.

Blu-ray has also said to be working on a product that would play three-dimensional movies at home.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13845_3-10285229-58.html

Some will go ahead and say “Optical Disc is Dead.” Some will point to the music industry and the shrinking number of brick and mortar music retailers as proof of this doomsday assertion. iTunes has made revolutionary advances in its product offerings as the “AppStore” is celebrating its one year anniversary this July.

Proof in the alternative can easily be found in the video game industry. Here we have the most technically savvy consumer and yet the most effective distribution of content is via optical media. However, a totally optimistic view of optical disc product expansion is likely misguided.

There are certain situations where digital delivery makes perfect sense. Sub-1 gig applications like music, casual games, and ring tones are perfect examples of this. In the consumer market, as we recover from this economic crisis, our insatiable hunger for rich entertainment applications will intensify. Boundaries will be pushed instead of retracted as has happened in the past 5 years. The need for larger tangible storage and delivery solutions will continue to outpace the necessary bandwidth needed for digital delivery of these rich applications.

Corporate promo videos and applications likely aren’t perfect for digital delivery. Email marketing is becoming less and less effective, so how do you steer people to your download space with high rates of success? Packaged media provides savvy marketers two avenues for promotional real estate- the media and the packaging. Proof can be found in the “As Seen on TV” market. How many free DVD offers do you see now?

There will be effective uses for both methods over the next 10 years. Great Lakes Media Technology will be positioning itself to help with both methods. Currently we offer solutions for your developed or undeveloped content to be delivered on disc or web. No matter how you need it done, we’ll help deliver it.

Marketing Downloadable Content as “HD”

A Suspicious Value Statement

It is logical to assume that in the future we have a “mystical box” that pipes in high definition movies and games to any television/monitor in the house. This HD content will be relayed wirelessly to our cell phones, maybe even our virtual reality visors. We will command it by voice, it may even have a name, and it will know us, and download movies it knows we’ll like without command. This “magic box” will sense our every entertainment want and need and predict, download, and present it in glorious high definition on any type of screen we want. The cost of this box? Nothing. The cost to download a movie? Zilch. Writers will never strike and meaningful HD content will be bountiful.

As we step back to planet earth we see industry giants capitalizing on this ideal of entertainment utopia. At CES 2008, Apple announced its “HD” version of Apple TV. You can download “HD” programs to your XBOX 360. Some of the major networks are even letting you download “HD” video versions of their sitcoms. The problem is that none of these downloads are truly HD and marketing them as such is potentially fraudulent.

George Ou, a technical Zdnet.com columnist, confirmed the industry-wide misrepresentation in “Don’t Believe the Low Bit-Rate Lie.” The article draws a clear distinction between resolution and bit rate, which few understand. As a review, resolution is simply the physical number of columns and rows of pixels creating the display. Bit rate refers to the actual amount of video data being transferred per second to the display. The true measure of whether something is HD should be measured first by bit rate then by resolution. This confusion has led to many media conglomerates taking advantage of the bewildered consumer.

When the consumer goes shopping for an HD display, they are pursuaded to choose between resolutions as a measurement of quality. There is a price disparities between resolutions. For example, a 1080p display will command a premium over a 720p display. However, the amount of video data being transferred to that display is more important.

What is more interesting is the fact that a standard definition (480i) DVD played on a 720p display with a bit rate of 8 mbps will look better than the “HD Movie” downloaded on your computer, XBOX Live, or your Apple TV with bit rates less than 5 mbps. DVDs are not marketed as “HD” despite the fact that they can be scaled to display on any TV resolution. The fact that some digital downloads advertise themselves as “HD” when really it is worse than DVD quality is puzzling.

The HD bit rate has been set by the next generation formats as being a minimum of 36 mbps. This is why when you view video presented in HD-DVD or Blu-Ray it is spectacular in comparison with all other forms of HD.

It is suspicious that Dish Network and Cable frequently wage war against each other on the amount of HD it offers. What is lacking in the battle is a discussion on quality of HD. However, when a digital downloading service is advertised as offering “HD”, and the quality is less than the standard definition DVD quality, it should remove the “HD” label altogether. Offering something that transfers 9 times less video data at a resolution often used by HD video should not be labeled HD as consumers associate “HD” with high quality.