Slacy’s Blog

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Ok, I have something to say:

Yes, Apple announced an iPhone. No, its not for sale. In fact, if you look closely, there’s not a single photograph of the device. Steve wasn’t holding it and flaunting it on the show floor. Its all CGI renderings and screenshots. This thing is a long way away. My money is on a 2008 delivery. If there were even one single mock up or poduction prototype that Steve could have used, he would have been all over it. But, he wasn’t, and therefore, this thing is nearly vaporware. Apple has just essentially started to make the rumors come true and implement what people are drooling for. This isn’t a bad strategy, but I wish they would stick to shipping products, not concepts.

Secondly, the same basic comment applies to the Apple TV. No photos. Does the box run? Did it demo? Where is it? February? Really? Is this going to extend the DRM-crazed Walled Garden of iEverything from our pockets (iPods) to our livingrooms? Sounds sort of annoying. Why only 720p? Why not 1080p? (I know, hardware for 1080p is too expensive, thats why.)

Thirdly, all the iPhone really is is a Newton 2007. Don’t mistake it. Its more PDA than phone, and the whole touchscreen thing is very Newton-esque. (Does it have a stylus? How do you interact with it? Does it get all smudgy and disgusting if I call someone and eat fries at the same time?) I’m not saying that this is a bad thing, I’m just saying that you shouldn’t really call it a phone. Its a Widescreen iPod that can make calls and has WiFi. Thats probably a better way of putting it, but Apple is too afraid of calling it a PDA due to the failure of the Newton (which was an awesome device).

Oh, and by the way, post title comes from this

I just want to say that the HDTV content that NBC is broadcasting has *way* too many ghosting artifacts. Its clearly evident in any high motion scene thats broadcast. There’s a clear ghost of the previous 3 or 4 frames. At first I thought it might be my TV or something, so captured the raw MPEG-2 stream, and decoded it directly. Here’s a scaled down version of the full frame (click for full res). The ghosting is clearly apparent around the poster on the left, as well as around all the vertical black lines, and above the main character’s head.

Here’s a zoomed in version of the same thing, near the poster, at 1:1 resolution:

I think this is caused by a too agrressive de-noising algorithm. Hopefully they fix it before next season.

Dear Sir or Madam:

Please be advised that NBC Universal and/or its subsidiary and affiliated companies (collectively, NBC Universal) are the owners of exclusive rights protected under copyright law and other intellectual property rights in many motion pictures and television programs, including the title(s) listed below (the NBC Universal Properties). NBC Universal diligently enforces its rights in its motion pictures.

It has come to our attention that Speakeasy Network is the service provider for the IP address listed below, from which unauthorized copying and distribution (downloading, uploading, file serving, file “swapping” or other similar activities) of the NBC Universal Property or Properties listed below, or portion(s) thereof, is taking place. We believe that the Internet access of the user engaging in this infringement is provided by Speakeasy Network or a downstream service provider who purchases this connectivity from Speakeasy Network.

This unauthorized copying and distribution constitutes copyright infringement under Section 106 of the U.S. Copyright Act. Depending upon the type of service Speakeasy Network is providing to this IP address, it may have legal and/or equitable liability if it does not expeditiously remove or disable access to the motion picture(s) listed below, or if it fails to implement a policy that provides for termination of subscribers who are repeat infringers (see 17 U.S.C. 512).

Despite the above, NBC Universal believes that the entire Internet community benefits when these matters are resolved cooperatively. We urge you to take immediate action to stop this infringing activity and inform us of the results of your actions. We appreciate your efforts toward this common goal.

The undersigned has a good faith belief that use of the NBC Universal Property or Properties in the manner described herein is not authorized by NBC Universal, its agent or the law. The information contained in this notification is accurate. Under penalty of perjury, the undersigned is authorized to act on behalf of NBC Universal with respect to this matter.

Please be advised that this letter is not intended to be a complete statement of the facts or law as they may pertain to this matter or of NBC Universal’s positions, rights or remedies, legal or equitable, all of which are specifically reserved.

Please send us a prompt response indicating the actions you have takento resolve this matter, making sure to reference the Notice ID number above in your response.

When someone accidentially deletes your favorite TV show 5 minutes before you’re about to watch it, and you really need to pull it off the internet, you can always go to mininova.org to get a copy. Its illegal to download copyrighted content.

I’ve been thinking — is DVI really the right connection when you have a system involving multiple video processors going on?

My logic is that most video systems (quality Video Processors like the iScan HD+, will have all their internal processing at 10-bits per channel. This is also true of many Plasma TV’s, that have 10 or more bits per channel. The problem comes when you have a system thats doing some digital manipulation of the signal. For example, contrast, brightness & saturation adjustments. If the inputs & outputs are DVI, then they get truncated from their internal precision of 10 bits to the output precision of 8 bits.

Is it possible that by using an analog connection, that a full-precision signal could be preserved, and result in higher image quality? Think of this:

[DVR: Frame buffer at 8bpp]
<DVI Connection to Video Processor @8bpp>
[Video Processer, internal 10bpp processing]
<DVI Connection to TV @8bpp (truncation)>
[Plasma TV, internal 10bpp processing]

Get it? The only advantage of DVI is the pixel clock that allows for a sharper image, but I’m tempted to think that the precision is more important than sharpness for this application. Thoughts?

Okay, so driving back from San Francisco this weekend, I saw a giant billboard for meevee near the airport. I went to the site to check it out, and entered my zipcode and TV provider. I found the following:

At this time, I’m compelled to say that Google launched video playback on video.google.com today! I think its pretty neat — my favorite video is called “Why I Love Shoplifting from Big Corporations”.

Okay, is it just me, or are there absolutely NO good TV shows on anymore?

Seems like pretty much everything is going into reruns — Lost, House, Mythbusters, ATHF, The Office (did they cancel it?) Nothing new, nothing good. Man, I hate the summer.

That said, I am sort of looking for something new and fun to watch. I got a season pass to the HD version of Deadwood the other day, just to see what its like. Not sure I want to commit, but it’ll be interesting. The other good thing is that we haven’t seen all the most recent episodes of House, so thats something to catch up on. Oh, and NUMB3RS (gawd, I hate that name). I watched the first few minutes of an episode once, and I kind of liked it. The whole “math can solve crimes” bent is interesting, but the CSI-formula is tiring.

Just for a sanity check, I double checked with tvpicks.net, a blog I used to read, and it confirmed my suspicions: TV sucks these days. I wonder how much of the new fall lineup is going to be HD.

I’ve been meaning to write this post for a while. Basically it says “You must watch Robot Chicken”. Just use your TiVo, search by title, and record it. Its an easy 15 minutes per week on Cartoon Network.

What’s inspired me to write this is last nights TiVo-inspired episode. Basically, guy sits down and says something like “I love recording my favority programs, and TiVo, you learn from my preferences and record even more of my favorite stuff”. Then, it devolves into a multi-day TV watching episode, where the TiVo character comes out of the TV and climbs around the living room making odd noises at the guy. I can’t do it justice here, and it was really fantastic. I may make some effort to digitize it, and post it here, but I don’t have anywhere near the required bandwidth to serve something like that.

Anyway, record Robot Chicken.

UPDATE: pvrblog.com has a link to the .torrent of this little episode. Great stuff.