iPhone facts from the first reviews

-from Engadget

Posted Jun 26th 2007 8:19PM by Ryan Block
Well, the first reviews are in. But you may have missed some of the more interesting factoids unearthed by the trio of gadget reporters deigned worthy by El Jobso to get a pre-launch iPhone. Here’s a few fresh n’ interesting iPhone facts right off the presses:

* The mobile version of OS X or whatever it is the iPhone runs takes up 700MB of the device’s capacity. Damn son!
* There’s no way to cut, copy, or paste text! WHOA! Big, big mistake.
* No A2DP support. That, friends, is such a huge bummer right there.
* Sorry, music can’t be used as a ringtone — even if it’s just a raw MP3. No additional ringtones will be sold at launch.
* On a PC the iPhone syncs with Outlook for calendars AND addresses! Noice.
* It supports Exchange in some capacity, according to Walt, but he doesn’t exactly say how.
* Pogue again confirms document file reading — but not editing — for PDF, Word, and Excel (only).
* Adobe Flash support is officially out. It’s just not in the browser. Neither is there any other kind of embedded video support. Sorry everybody, that’s that.
* It will take snaps, but won’t record video. How can Apple love YouTube as much as it does and not realize cellphone-shot movies make up a sizeable chunk of the crazy crap you find on there?

More after the break!

* Oh, and no MMS. And sorry, no voice dialing, either.
* Contact groups can’t be emailed as contact lists.
* Apple sez between 300-400 charges the iPhone will lose battery capacity — you’ll send it in and get the cell replaced for a fee. Meh. We knew this would be the case, but still, meh.
* Apple can (and supposedly will) be rolling out periodic updates — no surprise there.
* Battery life is, somehow, almost as mind-blowingly good as Apple claims for calls, music, and movies.
* As we suspected, users are prompted with lists of WiFi networks if you’re not nearby a trusted hotspot. We’ve seen this on other phones, and we’re afraid this would get friggin annoying.
* It’s said to be very scratch resistant. The facade both front and rear apparently just doesn’t pick up marring like regular iPods do.
* Voice quality is said to be good — not great.

Anything else we missed from in there?

Zune Reviewed

Ok, sorry this has taken so long, but between school and work, it’s been hard to do anything. I know there are tons of reviews for the Zune already out there but I just wanted to write one on my own.

First off the software took two or so lifetimes to install and update. When it was done I had my 3rd player (Itunes, WMP, and Zune) but what I liked about this was the interface of the Zune player. It didn’t make copies of my entire library like Itunes did. The library was nice and split up into 3 categories, music movies, and pictures. First thing it did after i told it what music to upload, was to sync that music. The biggest issue I had with this was that if you reformat your comp then your Zune losses the feature of automatic syncing. Unless you want to delete everything on the Zune to change it’s home. I blame RIAA and DMCA for that…
Next videos are good to watch on the Zune. I mean the quality is good, and everything. My issue here is that I haven’t found a decent video converter so my movies or clips have a nice metallic tone to them. other than that The sideways interface it perfect. The whole menu was good, a bit laggy in parts but still good and easy to navigate.
The wireless feature is very cool in my own opinion, my friend has a Zune and we share music and movies. The 3 plays in 2 days thing is horrible, but I can flag it so next time I get on the marketplace I can find and buy the song. Another cool thing is if you close the player you can still charge the Zune and you can listen to your music at the same time. The remote doesn’t seem to work if it’s not dock with the computer though so it was kind of pointless to buy it unless, you have good computer speakers.

Size is a big issue for some people, for me not so much since I make sure my pants have big pockets. But the Zune is considerably larger than the Ipod even though , the screen is a bit bigger.
All in all I’d give the Zune 8.5/10

Review of Dell XPS 410n with Ubuntu Feisty preinstalled

-From the Ubuntu Forms

I received my XPS with Ubuntu today. The first thing I will say is that when the Fedex guy delivered it he asked if Dell was having some kind of liquidation sale because he has delivered more Dells today than ever before. He told me that he had already delivered five and there were eleven more on the truck. (Just throwing that out there.)

First impression:

Opening the box I was immediately met with a glaring view of the Windows Vista logo on the giant instruction poster. The instructions detailed how to use the remote that comes bundled with Vista for use with Vista Media Center (among other things.) Uggh. I quickly discarded that to the side. I rifled through the other documentation provided searching for any sign of a Quick Start pamphlet for Ubuntu…no luck. Nothing whatsoever in the paper documentation mentioned Ubuntu in any way and nowhere did I even see the Ubuntu logo. In fact, the Dell XPS 410 Owner’s Manual offers a significant amount of information for troubleshooting drivers, but it was all Windows-specific. Nowhere in the box was an Ubuntu 7.04 “Feisty Fawn” install disc. No discs of any kind.
UPDATE:
After being contacted by Dell, I was informed that I should have received an Ubuntu install disc with the system. I did not, however. And after reviewing some others’ experiences with their machines, I realize that I am in the minority of those who didn’t get the disc.

Specifications:

XPS 410n, Intel Core 2 Duo Processor E6420 (2.13GHZ,1066FSB) with 4MB cache
2GB DDR2 SDRAM at 667MHz
NVIDIA GeForce 7300 LE
500GB Serial ATA II Hard Drive(7200RPM)
16X DVD+R/RW CD-RW Combination Drive
Integrated Audio
No monitor (I use an ACER AL1916W 19″ Widescreen with DVI)
375 Watt PSU

First Power-On:

I hooked up my gear and powered it on. This machine is remarkably silent. The disk spun up and the Dell BIOS screen appeared. I was required to accept the DELL EULA by pressing “any key” in order to continue the boot process:

GRUB flashed it’s 2 second warning then the familiar Ubuntu Feisty bootsplash appeared. After a few seconds I was met with a new user wizard set against the default Feisty wallpaper. This wizard asked me to choose a username/password and a timezone. I entered the data appropriately and was then sent to the GDM login. I entered my information and the Ubuntu desktop appeared. The hostname is preset as dell.

UPDATE:
The GRUB menu lists an entry for booting to a recovery environment, which I assume is /dev/sda2 (see below).
Here’s the /boot/grub/menu.lst

Problems:

Screen Resolution
My native resolution of 1440×900 was not recognized immediately. While I don’t think this should be a surprise to anyone with a widescreen monitor, I was slightly disappointed. Since I did not order a Dell monitor with this machine, I cannot say whether it would be the case with those also. I do, however, think that Dell took some steps to attempt resolution autodetection for some of (their) monitors since the default /etc/X11/xorg.conf file included many resolution modes which I don’t think it would have otherwise. X did not see fit to use mine (though it was listed) so it defaulted to 1024×768. This was an easy fix by going to System -> Preferences -> Screen Resolution and changing it, which took effect immediately and without further tinkering.

Restriced Drivers Manager – nVidia
Didn’t work. It said it was doing something and showed the nice little download and install meter, then it asked me to reboot…then it killed X when it came back up.
I had to do this manually:
Code:

sudo apt-get install nvidia-glx

Code:

sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg

Select nvidia as the driver, not nv.

This worked like a charm on the first try (which happened to be while I was in a console after X died.)
UPDATE:
In my contact with Dell, I was told that the process of installing the proprietary nvidia module via Restricted Drivers Manager was tested pretty thoroughly. And from my review of other accounts with similar hardware, this problem was, again, uncommon. I am not willing to rule out user error though I followed the obvious steps to enable this functionality. I will do a system restore in the coming days to re-test this process and will report back.

UPDATE:
I have run through a reinstall from the Recovery Console (which was a breeze – took 12 mins to get a factory-default system back. That’s impressive.) Unfortunately the same problem with resolution detection cropped up again. This time it defaulted to 1400×1050.
Here’s the default /etc/X11/xorg.conf
Here’s the /var/log/Xorg.0.log
You might notice that X thought I was attached to a KVM…which wasn’t true. I tried both DVI and D-SUB connections, both with the same results. I believe these files are from a D-SUB connection.
The good news though, was that Restricted Manager did install the proprietary nvidia module without hassle the second go around. (I wonder if this was related to DVI vs D-SUB and the improper resolution detection? I wish I’d kept the logs from the first time.) When the machine came back after the nvidia module was installed, the proper 1440×900 resolution was present in the System -> Preferences -> Screen Resolution menu, and changing it was trivial.

The standard kernel 2.6.20-16-generic is installed.
here’s the config

Dell’s configuration of my disk:

Code:

ben@dell:~$ sudo parted
GNU Parted 1.7.1
Using /dev/sda
Welcome to GNU Parted! Type ‘help’ to view a list of commands.
(parted) print

Disk /dev/sda: 500GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: msdos

Number Start End Size Type File system Flags
1 32.3kB 49.4MB 49.3MB primary fat16
2 49.4MB 2204MB 2155MB primary fat32
3 2204MB 2410MB 206MB primary ext3 boot
4 2410MB 500GB 498GB extended lba
5 2410MB 5059MB 2649MB logical linux-swap
6 5059MB 500GB 495GB logical ext3

(parted)

You might be wondering what the two vfat partitions at the front of the disk are:
/dev/sda1 mounts to /media/DellUtility
Code:

• ben@dell:/media/DellUtility$ ls
  Adaptec2.mdm DELLBIO.BIN IMchEcc.mdm Nic.mdm System.mdm
  Adaptec.mdm Dellboot.exe INT15_88.COM Parallel.mdm UsbBist.mdm
  ami_raid.mdm DELLDIAG.COM IoApic.mdm Pci.mdm UsbDevID.mdm
  AUTOEXEC.BAT DELLDIAG.EXE IR.mdm Perc2Ada.mdm USBEHCI.mdm
  AUTOEXEC.UP DellDiag.INI Keyboard.mdm PM.MDM UsbKbd.mdm
  BiosMp.mdm DELLRMK.BIN LSI.mdm Pnp.mdm UsbMass.mdm
  CABLES.mdm DellSys.msm Memory.mdm Raid.mdm Usb.mdm
  Cache.mdm DELLTBUI.EXE MiscPci.mdm Scsi.mdm UsbMouse.mdm
  COMMAND.COM DIR.LST Mouse.mdm SEAL.EXE USBOHCI.mdm
  CONFIG.SYS Diskette.mdm MpCache.mdm SEAL.INI UsbTm.mdm
  CONFIG.UP Disk.mdm mpmemory.exe Serial.mdm UsbUfi.mdm
  COPYUP.BAT Dvd.mdm NbBatt.MDM Smbios.mdm USBUHCI.mdm
  Cpu.mdm GenAudio.mdm Nbfan.MDM SMBus.mdm Video.mdm
  DDInit.mim HDAudio.mdm NbSvc.MDM Smi.mdm
  DDINIT.MLM Iaudio.mdm Nbtherm.MDM SYMTREE.INI
  DELL IEEE1394.mdm nic8254x.MDM SYSBDMON.mdm

What is this??
UPDATE:
I wont be clearing this partition after all, since magicfab pointed out that it is a Dell hardware diagnostics environment implemented in DOS. I have the tendancy to jump to conclusions when I see anything .EXE

/dev/sda2 mounts to /media/OS
Code:

• ben@dell:/media/OS$ ls
  autoexec.bat COMMAND.COM DELLBIO.BIN initrd.gz misc ub704img.tgz
  cmd.cfg debs DELLRMK.BIN LINLD.COM scripts vmlinuz

The debs directory is empty. This partition contains a couple utilities to rescue your system like fdisk, vim, etc.

UPDATE:
It was suggested below by the keen eyes of kkass that the ub704img.tgz listed above might be the Ubuntu install image, which turns out to be correct. I missed that. I assume that when you boot to the System Restore console, it reinstalls Ubuntu from this image.

LSPCI
LSUSB

Everything else about the system is rather unremarkable. It works the same way any other Ubuntu system would. Beryl installed and runs great (after the nvidia driver was installed properly.) It uses the default Ubuntu repositories, nothing Dell-specific. There are no Dell logos anywhere on the desktop and nothing in the menus. There is no crapware (AKA unsolicited software trial-versions) installed anywhere obvious. This is basically a vanilla Feisty install. The only tinkering Dell did, (I think), was add some resos to xorg.conf and add some recovery/diagnostic partitions.

All the essential hardware functions properly. This includes (non-accelerated) graphics via the Free nv driver (default). Hibernation and suspend both work out of the box with both the nv driver and the nvidia driver. All sound playback/recording works without hassle. This includes microphone sensing, which has been trouble for some. The CD/DVD-R/W works as it should for burning/erasing discs. I have not investigated CPUfreq scaling, but will soon.

I cracked open the case and had a look inside and was delighted. They’v got some crazy fan-thing on the CPU that spins almost entirely silently. Everything inside is removable just by lifting a lever or two, or by pinching a clamp. It is very easy to add/remove drives etc. Both the hard disk and the DVD-r/w that shipped with it are SATA2. There are a total of 6 SATA channels, 1 IDE channel (if I remember right) for two drives master/slave, 1 floppy, 3 PCI, 1 PCI-E x16, 2 PCI-E x1, 6 rear USB, 2 front USB, 1 rear IEEE1394, front panel mic/headphone jacks. There is room for a total of two 3.5″ internal drives and 2 external 5.25″ drives as well as 2 external 3.5″ slot for floppy or mem. card reader etc. As I said, everything snaps in/out. It is extremely trivial to add/remove hardware.

Final Thoughts:

I think Dell has done a good thing with this system. They obviously made an effort with resolution detection (which was going to be sore no matter what) and did an excellent job of keeping the crapware off the system. If you want a machine that’s going to run all the apps you need and do it well, and without having to research endlessly for compatible hardware to make one yourself, this machine is good for you. I have seen nothing that makes this a deal-breaker for the average user…assuming they don’t want to enable 3D out of the box. That still takes some skills.

UPDATE:
For more information regarding Dell’s Ubuntu machines, they have a wiki and a mailing list (where the Dell devs hang out.)

I want comments!

AFTER THOUGHTS:

There have been quite a few criticisms of Dell and Ubuntu regarding the Restricted Manager debacle killing my X Server when it rebooted. I think this criticism is misguided. It is important to remember whose ultimate fault that was: nVidia’s. Ubuntu’s ability (or inability) to smoothly load a proprietary module is worthless if we can’t support it, if we can’t own it. I am sure the nVidia developers can’t help but agree. They no doubt work hard to get their GPUs up-to-snuff for even the most demanding GNU/Linux user. They are hackers at heart, just like us. But unfortunately the company that employs them sees them as nothing more than ones and zeros. Their paychecks are just an impact on the bottom line. This minimalism strikes deep with every developer of Free software. If we make it, we own it, and we share it to make it better. Every bullet needs to fly at nVidia. Or not. They may never get the clue. They may just decide to keep their secrets and for that they may just find a smaller and smaller crowd singing their praises.
__________________
Linux user, master of mad
Last edited by benanzo : 1 Day Ago at 05:35 AM. Reason: Correct my grammer and add updates
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GPUs & Beryl: What is Needed?

-from Phoronix

We thought it was already clear what graphics processors and drivers work and don’t work with Linux desktop eye candy such as Beryl and Compiz, but it seems based upon the number of e-mails we have been receiving along with messages in community bulletin boards that the line isn’t so clear after all. For those that have never tried out Beryl, it is a compositing window manager branched from Compiz (though Beryl will merge back with Compiz soon) that provides a variety of window decorations and other desktop “eye candy” for X.Org users. In this article we hope to make it clear for you what GPUs will make your Linux desktop look the most pleasurable and what ones just sweat thinking about these desktop effects. We have taken eight different systems, benchmarked them using the Beryl Benchmark, and have our thoughts on these ATI/AMD, Intel, and NVIDIA solutions with Beryl v0.2.

For the ATI graphics processors in this article we will be testing the R200, R300, and R400 series with comments on Beryl for the R500/R600 generation processors. On the NVIDIA side we will be testing the GeFore FX, 6, and 8 series. Finally, we will also be testing the Intel GMA 3000 IGP.

ATI Radeon 9200 (R200)

The GPUs with the best open-source display driver and support for AIGLX the longest is the ATI Radeon R200 series, which consist of GPUs from the Radeon 8500 to the Radeon 9250. While these cards have had the longest support their performance is far from the best. Some parts of Beryl, such as the water plug-in, cannot even function due to the lack of the GL_ARB_fragment_program extension. The R200 system we had tested Beryl on had used an ATI Radeon 9250 AGP graphics card with 128MB of video memory (running at 1280×1024), 1GB of system memory, and a Pentium 4 2.8GHz “C” processor while running Ubuntu 7.04 Feisty Fawn.

Beryl Benchmark is not an incredibly accurate benchmark, but it does serve to show how well Beryl can run on a particular setup. Beryl Benchmark is simply a plug-in that will show a pop-up window that displays the frame rate in frames per second (FPS). Also, keep in mind that with each of these different systems we had used more than just a different graphics card so there are many more variables at play. Our Radeon 9250 system with Beryl v0.2 was averaging 16 to 20 frames per second while the desktop was idling with the Beryl window manager being active and no other desktop effects. However, when it came to dragging around wobbly windows and other subtle effects, the frame rate was consistently less than 5 FPS. For the very basic desktop eye candy an R200 graphics card with the open-source X.Org Radeon driver will work, but anything beyond that will lag your desktop experience.

ATI Radeon X300 (R300)

The open-source support for the R300 series had to be reverse engineered (for more information see ATI Has Open-Source Drivers Too) and as a result there remains much room for improvement with this driver, but their performance overall is much higher. In this test we had used an ATI Mobility Radeon X300 64MB (running at 1400×1050) with an Intel Pentium M 750 (1.86GHz) and 2GB of DDR2-533 memory running Fedora 7 Test 4 and the X.Org 7.2 Radeon driver.

In this environment while idling on the desktop Beryl Benchmark was reporting 60~65 FPS, but once we started utilizing the Beryl water effects and other eye candy the frame-rate had dropped to 15~20 FPS. At this rate, the desktop wasn’t lagging nearly as bad as the Radeon 9250, but there is of course much room for improvement. AMD/ATI Radeon graphics cards that are from the R300 series or newer are generally able to cope with Beryl on the desktop without any serious issues.

ATI Radeon X800XL (R400)

While the R400 series is just an extension of the R300 class these faster GPUs offer a much more pleasing experience with desktop eye candy. Using an ATI Radeon X800XL 256MB (resolution at 1680×1050), which is one of the fastest graphics cards right now with open-source X.Org drivers, it had performed extremely well. The desktop while idling and during basic desktop usage was always over 200 FPS and the lowest that the frame-rate had ever dropped during heavy usage was to about 25 FPS. Other system components had included dual Intel Xeon Clovertown quad-core processors and 4GB of RAM with Ubuntu 7.04 Feisty Fawn.

ATI Radeon X1000/X2000

With the ATI Radeon X1000 (R500) and ATI Radeon HD 2000 (R600) series this is where the curve ball comes. There is no support. While the R500 series is being reverse engineered, the only option right now for Linux desktop users running these current-generation graphics cards is to use the AMD Linux Catalyst “fglrx” display driver. The problem with the fglrx driver is that it doesn’t support AIGLX and namely the GLX_EXT_texture_from_pixmap extension. Without this support you cannot run Beryl or Compiz directly. You can run XGL and then run Beryl or Compiz, but that is not a path we endorse. Fortunately, the needed support will come. The fglrx support for AIGLX will also allow R300 and R400 owners to have an improved desktop experience through faster acceleration using this driver. When this support does finally come you can expect a very fluid desktop experience with Beryl or Compiz using the R300/400/500/600 graphics cards. When will this support arrive? Well, stay tuned to Phoronix to find out when these Linux users can finally rejoice.

Intel GMA 3000 (Q965)

While there are only open-source drivers right now for Radeon graphics cards up to the R400 series, Intel’s open-source drivers cover all of their integrated graphics processors and eventually their discrete graphics cards (once they are launched). The Intel IGP we had used for these Beryl tests was the GMA 3000 (@ 1280×1024) with the Intel Q965 Chipset. Along with the Q965 motherboard were an Intel Pentium D processor and 2GB of RAM running Ubuntu 7.04 Feisty Fawn.

When the desktop was idling and not seeing much action, Beryl Benchmark was hovering around 130 FPS. When we had started implementing some of the different intensive desktop effects the frame-rate would jump between 20 and 55 FPS. With the Intel X.Org driver and Beryl in our particular setup we ran into a bug where the windows would be disappear or lose control. Intel IGPs that are with the 9XX series Chipsets should have what it takes to handle Beryl quite well on the desktop. Other GMA 3000 benchmarks from Phoronix can be found here.

NVIDIA GeForce FX5200

When it comes to NVIDIA and Linux all the talk recently has been about the Nouveau 3D open-source driver for NVIDIA graphics cards. While things are progressing very well for this FreeDesktop project and it should get especially interesting later in the year, right now the open-source NVIDIA driver is not at the stage to support Beryl/Compiz as they are still working on the core 3D functionality. However, the official NVIDIA binary drivers already support the GLX_EXT_texture_from_pixmap extension. This support was added in the NVIDIA 1.0-9XXX series.

Our first Beryl test was done with a PCI based GeForce FX5200 graphics card with 128MB of video memory (running @ 1280×1024). Other system components included dual Xeon LV “Sossaman” dual-core processors and 1GB of ECC Registered DDR2 system memory. With this hardware the FX5200 would idle with Beryl at around 70 FPS. However, once we started glamorizing the desktop with various effects the frame-rate had quickly dropped. While a bit better than the Radeon 9200, the frame-rate during desktop activity was generally between 4 and 10 FPS.

NVIDIA GeForce 6600GT

Moving up to a GeForce 6600GT the experience was much more appealing. In this system we had used a PCI Express GeForce 6600GT with 1GB of RAM and an AMD Sempron 3400+ processor running once again Ubuntu 7.04 Feisty Fawn at 1280 x 1024. With minimal desktop effects the system would idle about 75 frames per second and even when we had begin utilizing the demanding water effects we had seen the frame-rate spike at just over 70 FPS. The lowest we had seen the frame-rate go with Beryl 0.2 and the 6600GT was about 30 FPS. Graphics cards in the GeForce 6 series or newer is where Beryl begins to shine on NVIDIA hardware.

NVIDIA GeForce 8500GT

Finally onto our last test system for this article we had used a NVIDIA GeForce 8500GT 256MB graphics card with dual Intel Quad-Core Xeon processors and 4GB of system memory and a 22″ display running at 1680×1050 with Fedora 7 Test 4. Starting out with this new PCI Express graphics card the frame-rate was consistently above 250 FPS and briefly had topped over 300 FPS. With the different desktop effects, Beryl Benchmark had reported the frame-rate at about 80 FPS with a majority of the different effects and Beryl options we had used. The desktop eye candy on this system was extremely pleasing even at this higher resolution.

So What’s Needed?

In this article we only went through eight different systems and graphics cards, but we have used Beryl and Compiz on dozens of hardware configurations at Phoronix. While a Radeon R200 will work for some of the basic effects, to really enjoy Beryl on ATI hardware you will need an R300 or R400 generation graphics card. To much dismay, R500 owners or anyone else using the fglrx driver is stuck without support. XGL can be used, but we would recommend steering away from it when possible. The much-awaited support for AIGLX in the fglrx driver is still not here but by year’s end we should hopefully be able to share a much brighter story.

Intel’s IGPs are certainly not the fastest but using a GMA 3000 or newer GPU should be able to provide a clean and fluid Beryl/Compiz experience. On NVIDIA hardware using the 1.0-9XXX or 100.xx.xx series driver, a GeForce 6 series graphics card or newer should be able to efficiently handle Beryl/Compiz.

These GPU recommendations are not only based upon the different systems mentioned in this article but from all the different hardware systems we have tested up to this point. You can share your experiences with Linux desktop eye candy in this Phoronix Forums thread. When the time comes we will have an article dedicated to ATI/AMD graphics cards with the fglrx driver using Beryl and Compiz.

Don’t buy an HDTV without reading this first

-from ZDnet

Forking out a few thousand dollars or even just a few hundred is a serious investment and the last thing you want to do is buy an HDTV with lousy color rendition. Navigating the minefield in consumer electronics is a confusing proposition even for the seasoned gadget geeks so I created this survival guide to help you make a wise decision. I’ll explain the various types of HDTVs as well as cabling and testing the color depth of your display.

Projection HDTVs:
These typically use DLP, LCOS, or LCD technology (don’t confuse LCD in this context with an LCD flat panel display because this refers to a small LCD chip being used in a projection HDTV). The advantage of projection technology is that it’s relatively cheap for a very large HDTV. For example, you can get a 72″ projection HDTV that has 1920×1080 resolution from $2500 to $5000 depending on the brand and model.

The disadvantage is that they don’t have as good a viewing angle and they’re not as bright compared to LCD or Plasma. Sometimes the resolution isn’t quite honest because they may advertise “1080p” non-interlaced capability but you’ll be surprised to find that the it will only take an interlaced signal via the HDMI or analog component ports. The other problem is that they’re often over-scanned which means the edges will be chopped off and I found out the hard way that even my Windows Start and Task bar was completely chopped off at the edges. I actually had to use some neat driver tricks in my NVIDIA video card to compensate for the over-scanning by telling the driver where the image was being chopped off. The color depth on projection HDTVs is also lacking compared to the LCD flat panel displays though the higher end projection models don’t trail as badly. Another problem I need to point out is that projection TVs take a lot of power. My own 72″ DLP uses about 250 watts of electricity when I hooked it up to the power meter. The lamps also need to be changed every 4 years or so and they cost about $200.

The bottom line is that you get a lot of size for your money when choosing a projection model, but the quality can’t compete with the quality of LCD flat panels. Note that when I say the quality is lacking, that’s only in comparison to LCD/Plasma flat panels but projection is still vastly superior to older HDTV or TV sets. The main advantage of larger displays isn’t necessarily because it looks bigger, size allows you to place the HDTV further away from the audience which means you can have more people viewing it. If you don’t mind sitting a little closer to a smaller but higher quality LCD flat panel, it will look just as big but it can’t be viewed by as many people and it may not work for larger living rooms even if there aren’t that many viewers.

Plasma HDTVs:
Plasma displays can come in very large sizes equal to projection HDTVs but they cost a lot more money for a given size. They can easily cost two or more times per inch than an equivalent DLP. A current 65″ Plasma HDTV that supports 1080p costs anywhere from $6000 to $10000. The viewing angles, color depth, and brightness on plasma displays are vastly superior to projection displays. You also get true 1920×1080 non-interlaced resolution.

The problem with large plasma is they can cost as much as a cheap automobile and the price is constantly dropping. I wouldn’t be surprised if the price dropped 30% next year while the quality goes up. I know people who forked out $10000 two years ago for a smaller sized 1366×768 resolution plasma and they’re probably kicking themselves now. Unless you just have too much money to burn, I can’t recommend a large plasma display. Another word of caution is that there are some really cheap smaller plasma displays that have 1024×768 resolution that might sound like a good deal but you’re getting something that doesn’t have square pixels. If you try to hook up a computer to it then it will look ugly and distorted making everything look fat. Any model that has a resolution of 1024×768 or less is obsolete and I would stay away from them. [Update – I forgot to mention that plasma displays have burn in problems. I’ve seen first hand how bad the burn in can be within just 2 years when the displays were used in a datacenter for monitoring mostly static images. This isn’t as bad a problem when used for displaying video but it can still be problems when there’s letterboxing on the sides or top/bottom.]

The bottom line is that you can get a large high-quality plasma display but at very high cost. There are cheaper smaller versions but you’re better off getting an LCD flat panel HDTV for about the same money and at better quality.

LCD HDTVs:
LCD HDTVs are typically very high quality and very expensive for a given size but they have recently grown in size and dropped in price. You can easily find 32″ LCD models with 1366×768 in the $500 to $800 range. 42″ Models with 1920×1080 (1080p) resolution can be $1200 to $2000 while 52″ LCD 1080p models go from $2300 to $3500. There are 60 plus inch models that are priced out of this world at even higher prices than plasma displays. Larger models will eventually come down in price but now is not the time for anything over 52″. So for the cost of a 72″ projection HDTV, you can get a 52″ LCD model that has vastly superior image quality with none of the interlacing and over-scan problems.

If you’re willing to place the display closer to you, the smaller LCD will look just as big as the projection model but it will look much better. The quality won’t be as good as a high end 20″ computer LCD but it beats any other HDTV on the market. It’s so good that you can even use it as a computer monitor without eye strain. The only word of caution is that the 1366×768 resolution isn’t universally supported and you need to make sure your video card and drivers can support that resolution or else things will look very ugly because of resolution rescaling artifacts. Personally if I had to do it all over again I wouldn’t have gone for the big cheap projection DLP and gone with the LCD.

ATSC tuners and free HDTV:
All newer HDTVs have built in ATSC tuners which means you can get free high definition content over the air. I’m one of those people that don’t watch that much television and I refuse to pay for cable or satellite. If the HDTV you’re looking at purchasing doesn’t have an ATSC tuner or it doesn’t have HDMI or DVI input ports, then skip it. All you need is an outdoor antenna though indoor models can still allow you to receive most of the digital channels especially if you live in an area close to the broadcast towers. There’s also no such thing as an “HDTV antenna” and any old antenna will work. Reader Zoraster pointed out that HDTV operates in the UHF band which is all the channels above channel 13 whereas VHF is channels 2-13 but there are some instances where HDTV is broadcast over VHF. If you have an old TV antenna on the roof with all the coax cabling in place, it will work fine if it supports UHF. I bought a $40 out door antenna and it brings me about 15 digital channels many of which are high definition. All the major broadcast networks are available over the air in HD and even if you intend to pay for cable or satellite, it’s still a good idea to have the free HD content over the air so that you don’t have to pay for local channels and HD.

Monster cable rip off:
Consumers need to get the concept of “monster cables” out of their minds since they DO NOT apply to the digital world. There is zero difference in quality between the cheapest $12 HDMI to DVI cable versus the $100 gold plated “monster cable”. Monster cables are a hold over from the analog era where signal leakage results in a degraded image or sound. In the digital world, a data cable either works 100% or it doesn’t work at all and there is no degraded middle ground. Since nearly all digital cables work (return the rare ones that don’t), there isn’t a shred of difference between the cheap cable or the expensive monster cable. If you can’t find an HDMI to DVI cable for less than $30 in a retail store, you can google “HDMI to DVI cable” and there will be plenty online vendors selling them for $12-$16 plus shipping. Don’t be shocked to find HDMI cables that cost $60 to $150 in a typical retail outlet; just don’t fall for it. The only place monster cables have any use is for the transmission of analog signals such as the connection between your amplifier and your speakers.

How to test the color quality of an HDTV:
Once you decide what kind of HDTV you want to buy (read below to ), you’ll want to test the HDTV before you buy it. I was discussing the issue of HDTV quality with colleague Justin James who was in the process of buying a new LCD HDTV and we discussed how daunting it was to figure out the differences between an expensive and inexpensive model. Making matters worse, the stores usually don’t show you an optimal image with the proper digital HDMI high-resolution video source. Even when a clean digital signal is used, it still isn’t easy to judge the quality of an HDTV. HDTVs are often placed in worse glare conditions than others and the ones that the store wants to sell most are often conveniently placed in to more favorable lighting conditions. Another trick is that some HDTVs are set to a very high contrast mode so that the images look vivid and bright but the reality is that the shadow detail and/or highlight detail is sorely lacking. Even to the trained eye, judging the color depth on a monitor without a color gradient chart is difficult so I’ve gone ahead and created some red, green, blue, and grey scale charts optimized for different resolutions for you to download.

Armed with the color gradient chart and a laptop with high resolution output, Justin James planned to go to the store to check the quality of the HDTVs before he commits his hard earned dollars. The down side to that option is that you won’t be able to test the digital HDMI or DVI port and many people may not have a laptop with a good enough graphics card that supports 1366×768 or 1920×1080. Another option is that you can buy the HDTV from a retailer that lets you take it back with no penalty though this becomes difficult if the HDTV is extremely large. You can try to get the sales person to show you as much as possible so that you can make a fairly good decision but warn them that you will inspect the product at home and return it if it doesn’t live up to expectations.

To test your HDTV, download the following image files and display them at full screen. Find the resolution appropriate for the model you’re considering.

* For 1080p (1920×1080) resolution models
* For 768p (1366×768) resolution models
* For 720p (1280×720) resolution models
* For computer monitors that are 1680 pixels wide

The idea is that you should ideally be able to see distinct square color blocks from left to right and top to bottom. Realistically you won’t even see all of them even on a good computer LCD much less an HDTV. The only thing that will display all of them is a bulky CRT monitor. Computer LCDs can’t normally match the color depth of CRTs unless you pay three to four times the cost of a normal LCD display for a very high-end LCD. With most LCDs you can tilt them forward and back to see more shades of color at either end of the spectrum but not without losing color depth at the other end of the spectrum. The real question is how many color tiles can you see when you’re at the optimum viewing angle without any adjustment and how many colors and shades can be displayed at once at a given viewing angle. Using these test patterns side by side is the only way most people can tell which display is the better one. Fortunately with LCDs or Plasma displays you don’t really need to worry about screen geometry distortion so there’s no need to do the grid line test.

While there may be some quality difference between more expensive and cheaper LCD models, just keep in mind that the cheapest LCD has higher quality than the best projection model. Assuming it passes the quality test, I personally tend to favor the cheaper LCD models than the more expensive LCD models because I can’t see the more expensive models being worth nearly double the price if the cheaper model has the specifications and features I want.

Apples and Oranges Hands-On: Apple TV vs. TiVo Series3 HD

-From Gizmodo
there are a lot of pictures at the end but I’ll put the link for the slide show HERE

Maybe you’ve had a snootful of Apple TV, but here’s a comparison with a twist: We’re going to compare Apples and oranges, pitting Apple TV against the TiVo Series3 HD Digital Media Recorder. From the outset, realize that the Apple TV is not a personal video recorder, and can hardly compete against the mighty TiVo Series3 HD on that playing field. For instance, you’re going to have an awfully difficult time watching something like the Super Bowl in HD on the Apple TV.

But there are some things both systems can do, and that’s where we’ll compare Apple TV versus TiVo. For example, how well does the TiVo Series3 display photos compared to the Apple TV? How about playing music, or displaying downloaded content from iTunes compared to TiVo’s downloaded content from its latest partnership with Amazon and its Unbox service?

Downloaded Content
It’s now possible to download TV shows and movies with TiVo, using Amazon’s Unbox service. Both Unbox and the iTunes Store don’t have enough movie and TV show content for our taste, and both can’t deliver HDTV movies or TV shows. So in our mind, for now, they both suck. In fact, the content from both is hardly even DVD quality. We downloaded this season’s first episode of 24 from both Amazon Unbox on the TiVo (pictured above, at left) and the iTunes Store (both were $1.99). Take a look at one versus the other, and you might agree that both are just fugly. TiVo has a slight quality edge, where its widescreen picture isn’t scaled all the way out to the edges of the screen, but had decidedly better color saturation. The Apple iTunes TV show we downloaded looked washed out by comparison. Advantage: TiVo

User Interface
But when I looked at their attendant software and user interface, Apple sucks less. It has better-looking graphics and a pleasing subtlety that’s missing on the TiVo user interface. For instance, when you push the Play button, Apple TV dissolves to the program, and then dissolves out the position indicator bar after a few seconds. Not so with the TiVo, which merely takes the shot from one source to the other, and pops out the superimposed titles. Advantage: Apple TV

Remote Control
What about the remote? Apple has made a valiant effort with its tiny pack-of-gum-sized remote, but it doesn’t come close to that of the TiVo, with its famed ergonomics and lightning-quick response. Apple TV’s remote responds quickly, but it’s about a half-second behind TiVo’s remote. However, both remotes are exceedingly powerful, not requiring you to point them directly at the box in order to control it. Still, TiVo wins in the battle for the remote. Advantage: TiVo

Photo Display
Displaying photos is a clear win for Apple TV. Where TiVo lets you team up with its TiVo desktop software and import pictures (and a beta version will soon let you import HDTV-rez pictures), Apple has this photo display thing down pat. TiVo’s interface just feels downright clunky next to Apple’s smooth and artful photo display routine. You can pick a music playlist as accompaniment, and then Apple TV will show you a beautiful Ken Burns effect with each of your photos in a slide show that’s extensively configurable. Plus, your photos show up in a beautiful montage screensaver effect throughout the Apple TV interface. It’s gorgeous, and slam-dunks TiVo. Advantage: Apple TV

Playing Music
Here’s another win for Apple TV, where music is easier to get to with Apple’s ergonomic sliding-style interface, with better graphics and easier classifications. Even when you don’t have any album art, the Apple TV looks better than the bare-bones TiVo music interface, if you could even call it that. However, it’s clumsy to get to large music libraries on either the TiVo or Apple TV, and add to that TiVo’s disadvantage of not being able to play back any songs you bought on the iTunes music store. Advantage: Apple TV

HD, DivX and XviD Files
We’re not crazy about the fact that neither can handle XviD or DivX files right out of the box (yeah, you can hack them, but that’s not easy to do), and both are locked up tighter than a drum with DRM. Apple TV files download faster from iTunes than the Amazon Unbox ones do (notice the “Can’t Play Now” label on the TiVo screen above). That said, both seem to be taking baby steps toward bringing online content to the living room, and both are shying away from HDTV downloaded content now, which is almost a deal breaker in our book. Both are full of potential, but are relatively lame so far, compared with what they someday will be able to do. Advantage: Neither (Xbox 360)

Verdict: Which is Better?
Playing music, displaying photos, and playing video files via a network seems to be an afterthought for the TiVo, and Apple TV bested it in each of these categories. However, TiVo completely outclasses Apple TV when it comes to having two CableCards on board, being able to record HDTV and play it back perfectly. TiVo Series3 is a PVR, and is a far more versatile machine, as its $800 price tag reflects, versus the $300 price tag of Apple TV. Advantage: Not Comparable

Which to Buy?
Apple TV and TiVo can coexist in a home theater system, and it’s not a zero-sum game. If you’re interested in watching downloaded video from iTunes, seeing photos and music in your home theater, and don’t care about HDTV, Apple TV would be a great addition to your playback arsenal.

But if you care about HDTV, TiVo Series3 would be your best choice now, and maybe its comparatively plain user interface will serve your needs as far as Internet television, photos, and music are concerned. Apple TV just feels like an unfinished box that’s full of potential, and as soon as it’s able to download and play back HDTV, all it’ll need is a couple of CableCards inside to seriously challenge TiVo’s Series3.

Until then, we’re thinking the ultimate solution is to have both these set-top boxes sitting side by side in your home theater. Advantage: You Need Both. – Charlie White

Check out this gallery with enlarged views of the user interfaces and more comments and captions:

Xtorrent 1.0 Review

-from TorrentFreak
You can Download it here Xtorrent
Written by Ernesto on March 26, 2007

Xtorrent, the highly anticipated BitTorrent client for the Mac, is finally out of beta with a shiny 1.0 release. Here’s our review of it.

Xtorrent, the new BitTorrent client for Mac OS X, just rolled out of the beta phase. In September, we reviewed the first public beta, which initially looked like a promising application. However, issues like the problematic libtransmission library, and the intrusive shareware policy make this client a lot less attractive.

The first major drawback of Xtorrent is that it is not free, which is extremely unusual and awkward for a BitTorrent client. In addition, Xtorrent has a very intrusive shareware policy. If you do not register the application, a floating window that you cannot close gets stuck on your screen, and searches randomly start to fail. To make things even worse, it seems like the application throttles the available bandwidth to 10kbps after an hour of usage.

The second drawback is that Xtorrent’s core is made up of the libtransmission library. This library is known to hammer trackers, and is banned from an increasing number of them, which makes Xtorrent useless for members of Oink, for example.

If you decide to buy Xtorrent you’re mostly paying for the (stunningly) beautiful user-interface, not because its download speeds are the best or because it is the lightest BitTorrent client available for the Mac. Azureus still leads by a wide margin in download speeds, and Transmission is hands down the lightest BitTorrent client for the Mac.

Xtorrent looks good, it integrates well with iTunes, has iPod support and subscribes to RSS feeds. But to be completely honest, it just doesn’t seem like it’s worth the money. Perhaps that’s just because I’m a Windows user. Paying for software just isn’t in my blood.

Apple TV vs. Xbox 360: Media Center Showdown

-from Gizmodo
Apple TV vs. Xbox 360: Media Center Showdown

Walt Mossburg said in his review that “Apple TV’s most formidable competitor is the Xbox 360 game console from Microsoft, which, in addition to playing games, can also play back content from Windows computers on a TV.” The Times’ techmeister David Pogue also calls up the 360 Media Extender in his review, as well some other gadgets.

In our head-to-head, we took Vista Ultimate and used a 360 as a Windows Media Extender. With this setup, we came to the conclusion that the hulking white box ekes out the slimmer, shorter Apple TV—unless you have a standard XP computer with Media Center, or copious amounts of Apple iTunes DRM’d content. Why?

Setup
Both are easy as pie, quite frankly. Turned on the 360, my Vista Media Center found it instantly. Same for iTunes/Apple TV. One catch here, however, is that if you want to wirelessly stream to your 360, you’re going to need a dongle than runs $100 for the official one, which is quite frankly, obscene. Apple TV’s lack of cables isn’t much better. Both the 360 and Apple TV provide a code for you to punch into your Media Center and iTunes to authenticate, not long after which you can start moving content. Woohoo. The 360 warns you if you’re moving content wirelessly on both ends, however, recommending that at least your computer be hardwired to the network.

Interface
Both have attractive interfaces, obviously. Apple TV looks simply fabulous in HD, with crystal clear text and vivid icons. Granted, this is a downside if your album art sucks, as mentioned before. Media Center’s no slouch either, with a heavy emphasis on live previews. Text-wise, I prefer Apple TV, simply because I find white text on a black background easier to read than light blue and white on dark blue, which dominates the interface.

Apple TV is also much snappier—Media Center felt sluggish both on my laptop and on the TV itself. When that sluggishness is paired with scrolling in four directions, I found it to be a bit awkward to get where I want to go. That said, both use a modified “folder metaphor” as its major schematic, and I’m not overly fond of it. It takes too long to access content. God forbid you ever have to the onscreen keyboard to get anywhere with either of them. (You don’t really, as of yet.) I don’t know what the solution is, but surely there’s a better way to make content and options more quickly and easily accessible. Live previews are excellent, I do know that.

Moving Content
Media Center lets you customize which folders you want it to “watch” to import into your library. That content you can then stream to your “Media Extender,” the 360. If for some reason the 360 won’t play a video in your library, it won’t give you a thumbnail preview, which is a nice way to let you know. Apple TV, because it syncs (ports content to its hard drive) from your main computer rather than simply streams, thankfully it has a fairly customizable set of syncing options. It still annoys me that you can’t manually delete or add content, though. Be warned, just because iTunes will play a video doesn’t mean that Apple TV will, as you can see in the screenshot below.

Apple TV plays H.264 and protected H.264, iTunes Store purchased video and MPEG-4, whereas Media Center handles MPEG-1, MPEG-2 and all WMV. Not being able to grab content straight from the iTunes store is a bummer, especially since it pulls trailers from the intertubes directly, so the 360 one-ups it here with its built-in direct access store. So both use proprietary formats in some manner. Bleh. But Media Center gives you more options than Apple TV does, so a check for the 360 setup.

Apple TV also does not stream photos—meaning you can only store them on the drive, you can only pull pictures from your main computer. Media Center, since it only streams, obviously streams photos, but I prefer the way it presents them, actually. No problems loading up my music library, which is comprised entirely of MP3s, and the corresponding album art, on either system.

Playing Content
I find the Apple TV remote to be a little crummy. Sometimes fast-forwarding and rewinding was a little wonky, getting ahead of itself. Using the Xbox 360 controller (not remote) wasn’t better, largely because there’s no dedicated pause button, though I appreciated using the triggers as FF and RW. Weirdly, when you go back to the menu in Media Center, a live thumbnail preview keeps playing, and there’s no easy way to shut it off, which was kind of frustrating when I wanted a video to stop playing.

Otherwise, both played beautifully (if they were able to play the content), with no hiccups when streaming with either, despite using wireless G networks in both tests. (If you’d like to donate to the Giz wireless N fund, let us know.)

Conclusion
If you use iTunes as your primary media software and want to get your content on your widescreen TV, it’s not a bad way to do it, but that’s all it does (for now). If you already have a 360 and don’t mind Media Center, I see little point in blowing $300 on Apple TV if all that concerns you is bringing content stuck on your PC to your TV. You already have a $400 machine that does more than port media, it plays games. Great ones. And soon it’ll be an IPTV box to boot.

Apple TV is a bit more elegant in its presentation, I think, and it’s slightly easier to get to content with it, but it could do better. More importantly, it doesn’t do what it does so much better than the 360/Media Center setup that it warrants a separate purchase if you already have a 360, or even plan on getting one. Value-wise, the 360 is the winner here, at least for now.

But there are better convergence solutions on the horizon, so if you don’t need one of these now sit tight, because things are only going to get better. – Matt Buchanan

Apple TV [Gizmodo]