T-Mobile Confirms Google Android Phones In 4Q2008

Posted on Thursday, April 24, 2008 by MegaZone

This is something I’m personally excited about. I’ve been a Palm OS user since 1998, and I currently use a Treo 680, but I have to admit that Palm OS is getting a bit long in the tooth and it is getting hard to overlook its shortcomings. And Palm’s new Linux-based OS has been repeatedly delayed and now won’t hit devices until 2009 – unless it is delayed again. At this point I haven’t seen anything from Palm to encourage me to wait. Actually, I haven’t seen anything encouraging from Palm in ages, period. At least for my use, the Centro is a nice phone and I do recommend checking it out if you want an entry level smartphone. For the price it is a great smartphone.

On the other hand I’ve been impressed by the previews of Android, and it already has more industry support than Palm OS – before it even releases. I’ve tried Windows Mobile and Symbian S60, but frankly I’d rather stick with even ragged old Palm OS than use either one. Android is the first alternative I’ve seen that has tempted me to switch. More than tempted really, at this point I’m pretty sure I’ll be jumping to Android this year unless something goes drastically wrong with the devices.

So I’m happy to see T-Mobile confirm they will have Android-based phones available in 4Q2008. Personally I use AT&T, but since they’re both GSM odds are any phones available for T-Mobile will also be available for AT&T, or at least in a non-subsidy-locked model that I could use. I want a GSM/HSPA smartphone with a decent touchscreen and a good physical keyboard, like my Treo, but with an OS that isn’t five years out of date like Palm OS or clunky like WinMob and Symbian (IMHO, of course). Yeah, I’ve tried RIM too, I’ve never liked any of the Blackberry designs and find the OS to be kind of clunky too, and I prefer something more open.

It’s been a while since I was eagerly anticipating the release of a new product family, I just hope Android doesn’t disappoint.

Picked up from Engadget.

Posted in Android | Tagged , , , | 14 Comments

Samsung Ups BD-P1500 Blu-ray Player Specs, Keeps Price The Same

Posted on Thursday, April 24, 2008 by MegaZone

I reported on the Samsung BD-P1500 from CES in January. At the time the $399 MSRP player was announced as a Blu-ray Profile 1.1, aka Bonus View, player due in June. Well, as the Blu-ray competitive landscape is rapidly evolving, Samsung has decided to make the BD-P1500 ‘BD-Live Ready’. It will ship with BD Profile 1.1 support, with BD-Live support to come via a firmware update. Also due via a firmware update later in 2008 is DTS-HD HR (High Resolution) audio support. The press release doesn’t mention DTS-HD MA (Master Audio), which is the highest DTS standard. That could be a simple oversight in the press release, since it is pretty much unheard of to have DTS-HD HR and not have DTS-HD MA. If it does indeed have DTS-HD MA then, once the updates are received, the BD-P1500 would match the PS3 on features and press, plus the ability to bitstream the advanced audio codecs. Of course, I think the PS3 is still a better value since it is a top-end game system as well, but if you prefer a conventional AV component look then the BD-P1500 might be the box for you.

Picked up from EngadgetHD.

Posted in Blu-ray/HD DVD, Press Release | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

SuperSync 2.3 Adds TiVo MP3 Streaming To iTunes

Posted on Thursday, April 24, 2008 by MegaZone

On Tuesday SuperSync 2.3 was released, the new version adding a server to stream MP3s from your iTunes collection to TiVos on the local network. SuperSync is a software application for Mac or Windows which allows you to synchronize iTunes collections between multiple machines. So if you have music on one PC (or Mac) and different music on another PC you can consolidate the collections to have all the music on both machines. TiVo serving is not the only new feature:

SuperSync 2.3 added a number of product enhancements, including:
* A new help system – searchable and also online
* Improved transfer statistics
* Made iTunes playlist transfer more intuitive
* Added compatibility for access by other DAAP music players such as Rhythmbox
* Improved ease-of-use of some features (such as the filter table.)

You can download SuperSync and check out the trial mode for free and if you like what you see it is $29.00 for two machines (after all, it doesn’t make sense to ‘sync’ with less than two machines), $39.00 for five, and $59.00 for ten.

The TiVo support is nice, but it appears it only works with MP3 files. If you keep your iTunes collection in another format, such as AAC, it won’t work for you. (Of course it won’t work for DRM protected music in any format.) Since the TiVo only accepts MP3 files, servers need to transcode other formats to MP3 before sending them to the TiVo. Since I prefer AAC to MP3, I use Dan203′s plug-in for TiVo Desktop to play the AAC files on my TiVo. (Mac users can do something similar with LAME.)

Posted in Apple, PC, Press Release, TiVo | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

TiVo Website Redesign Breaks Affiliate Links – FIXED!

Posted on Thursday, April 24, 2008 by MegaZone

EDIT: I’ve been periodically checking the links, and at 13:17 EST it looks like the links are working again. Thank you to TiVo for getting the links fixed fairly quickly.

If you find any links to TiVo that are still broken, please let me know so that I can fix them.

A couple of people have noticed that many, if not most, of the links to TiVo on the site are broken – for example the three graphic links on the left, the one the right, the ‘Shop TiVo.com’ link to the upper right, links in old posts, etc. What happened? Well, I usually use links via TiVo’s affiliate program, and it seems that when they launched their new website design last week the changes to the site broke all of the affiliate links. I’ve even checked the current links available through the program, and they’re broken too.

I’ve notified TiVo of the issue and I’m going to give them some time to fix things before I deal with relinking everything. Hopefully they can fix it on their end, such as via redirects to map the old URLs to the new ones. I think that’s the right thing to do anyway, there are links all over the web to pages on their site and breaking all those links doesn’t really make sense – for TiVo or anyone else. So, anyway, bear with me and give TiVo some time to put this right. Thanks, and I’m sorry for any inconvenience.

By the way, is anyone using the Custom Styles for the site? Feedback has been kind of underwhelming.

Posted in Site Updates, TiVo | Tagged , | 6 Comments

Look Who’s Coming To The Cable Show – Digeo, Sling, And More

Posted on Tuesday, April 22, 2008 by MegaZone

When I spoke with Digeo’s then-COO Greg Gudorf back in January, following their cancellation of nearly all of their previously announced product plans, he told me one of the projects that would be continuing was the Moxi HD DVR for Cable, which was then targeted for release by the end of 1Q08. When the end of Q1 came and went with no further word from Digeo, it looked like that box might’ve met an untimely end as well.

However, it seems it was just delayed a bit. Jeff Baumgartner at Light Reading has a sharp eye and he caught something in a press release from CableLabs about the upcoming Cable Show. (I see something about Sling Media in there too…) One of the products they announced that will be on display is the Digeo Moxi HD DVR 3012. CableLabs says:

Digeo will showcase its latest DVR for cable, the Moxi HD DVR 3012. Digeo will be showing the Emmy Award-winning user interface, dual digital tuning capability, and integrated CableCARD. This new DVR includes a streamlined processor and increased hard drive.

Over at Zatz Not Funny, reader ‘cableric’ left a comment with some industry insider information on the new box, which doesn’t sound all that encouraging really.

Oh, and this is what I spotted about Sling:

EchoStar Technologies LLC will demonstrate SlingModem™, the first DOCSIS® cable modem that fully integrates the place-shifting capabilities pioneered in the original Slingbox™. With the SlingModem, customers can easily watch and control their TV programming on any Internet-connected computing device just as they would in front of the living room television. The SlingModem provides the cable customer with both a broadband connection as well as the place-shifting functionality made famous by the Slingbox.

I’ve covered the SlingModem before, most recently from CES in January.

And they also mention Motorola’s SDV Tuning Resolver, the MTR700, which will be demo’d using a TiVo:

Motorola will demonstrate its MTR700 Tuning Adapter which connects unidirectional UDCPs (including a TiVo device, in specific) to a cable network, accessing multimedia content in the cable network’s switched digital video (SDV) tier. Seamless tuning of the TiVo device across both broadcast and SDV tiers will be shown. Motorola will also demonstrate its Integrated CMTS (I-CMTS) and SURFboard® cable modems, in a DOCSIS 3.0 setting using the traditional Motorola 2:8 DS/US Module and new TX32 high-density Decoupled Downstream Module.

That’s very good news, as it means TiVo must have their software well along, which means a summer release will probably happen as planned.

It sounds like there will be a lot of SDV & tru2way demos at The Cable Show, I wish I was going.

Picked up via Zatz Not Funny.

Posted in Cable, Digeo Moxi, OCAP, Press Release, Sling Media, TiVo | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment