Sunday, November 22, 2009

Roku Announces New Channel Store: Adds 10 New Channels

Roku threw an indirect punch at the cable networks today by giving all of their Roku Players access to 10 new channels. (The firmware updates should hit your player today and tomorrow.) The Roku Player is a very tiny set-top box (check out my review here) that lets you stream content (wired or wirelessly) straight to your TV. It started off with Netflix and it later grew to include Amazon Video On Demand and MLB.TV. Now there's a Roku "Channel Store" (with 10 new channels) that you can add to your player. (It's up to you which channels you want to add — all of the new channels are free.) Here's the line up along with a description of each channel and my quick opinion:

1)Netflix: Stream movies from your Netflix Instant Queue, subscription required.
Verdict: It started off with a mediocre selection of mostly 80s movies, but Netflix's Instant library keeps growing and now includes popular TV shows like Dexter and a much better movie selection. Personally, I've found lots of hidden gems using this channel (particularly in the indie/foreign movie dept.) This channel alone is worth the price of admission.


2)Amazon Video On Demand: Buy or rent TV shows and movies on an a la carte basis.
Verdict: For more current/popular movies and shows, Amazon does not disappoint. I don't use it often, but it's a nice complement to Netflix.


3)MLB.TV Premium: Watch all out-of-market MLB games live and On-Demand, subscription required.
Verdict: This channel's major flaw is that you can't watch local teams. I'm not a baseball fan, but I feel like you're better off catching the games for free on network TV.


4)Facebook Photos: View slideshows of you and your friends' Facebook photos.
Verdict: Cool concept, but bad execution. Navigating is clumsy and you can only view one photo at a time. Not to mention you can't even leave comments. Plus, many people use their smartphones to upload pics onto their Facebook profiles and, you guessed it, smartphone pics on a 42" HDTV look like crap. Didn't like this channel. Left me feeling like a creepy stalker.


5)Free FrameChannel Service: View content from 1,000+ channels on your TV.
Verdict: It's kind of like an RSS reader. It feeds your TV headlines/info from a variety of sources. However, it only shows you headlines, which I found kind of worthless. Imagine reading one headline and one sentence on your TV and seeing a "visit bbc.co.uk for the full story" on the bottom of your screen. It works if you're looking at weather or stocks, but stinks for everything else.


6)Mediafly: Watch podcasts and new media on your TV. Includes topics like technology, travel, kids, sports, and news. Sample shows include Sesame Street shorts, CNET Loaded, CBS Evening News, MSNBC Nightly News, CNN Daily, etc.
Verdict: This is perhaps my favorite of the new channels. It has the most potential. Only thing is their content selection feels random and you don't have access to all of the shows. (It appears you just get that week's content, no access to older archives.)


7)Pandora: Stream Internet radio on your TV.
Verdict: Cool, but I'm not a fan of Pandora and I'd rather dock my iPod touch to my stereo to listen to Slacker. Besides, my stereo sounds better than my TV.


8)blip.tv: Stream content from various channels on topics like food and news.
Verdict: Most of these "channels" were empty, so there's not much I can say. Will update later.


9)Revision3: Internet television with shows like Tekzilla, Diggnation, iFanboy, etc.
Verdict: I know a lot of the Revision3 shows, but I personally don't watch any. Might check out a few now that it's a little easier, but unless they're absolutely amazing, I don't see myself watching this channel a lot.


10)Flickr: Access your Flickr photos from your TV.
Verdict: Pretty cool, although again, you can't leave any comments on photos.


11)Motionbox: Online Community Organizer.
Verdict: I couldn't access this channel. Will write an update when I can.


12)TWiT.TV: Watch and listen to video and audio podcasts from the TWiT network.
Verdict: Nice addition, but "watching" a podcast on my TV is boring. I can't even take the TV off and leave it as background noise 'cause it's using my TV's speakers. Maybe it's just me, but I think podcasts are better when you listen to them on an MP3 player, not your TV. Otherwise, I'll be checking out the video podcasts in the future.


13)MobileTribe: Gives you access to social media sites like MySpace, Facebook, Orkut, Google, Yahoo.
Verdict: Cool concept, painfully horrible execution. I tried to access Facebook and it was horrific. The interface was beyond awkward. Something that would normally take one click (like reading all of my friends' status updates on one page) took multiple steps.


Final Verdict
Overall, I like the direction Roku is going. Access to more channels increases the Roku Player's value. However, I was a little disappointed in a lot of the new channels. I mean, if I don't care to watch a show like Diggnation on my laptop, why would I want to watch it on my TV? Another flaw is the way the channels work. You have to sign up/authenticate each channel via your laptop before it syncs to your Roku box. Major pain in the arse because I had to create multiple new "accounts" for each channel. More log-ins and passwords are not what I needed. (If you already have an account — like I did with Flickr — then you can log in via your current account.) Fortunately, once you're authenticated with each channel, you never have to do it again. The Roku Player will remember your sign-in once it's configured.

So a step in the right direction. I just wish the content (channels) were better. Vudu, CinemaNow, Hulu, etc. Those are the channels I wanted. We'll see how many of these new channels I end up keeping.

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Xmas Shopping List

So Black Friday is about 8 days away and I still haven't started my shopping. But I've already started brainstorming gift ideas and here's a rundown of what's on my shopping list. Not sure how many of these I'll buy on Black Friday (if any), but here's what I'll be keeping my radar on. I'm sure it'll change depending on what I see online.


1)Samsung SMX-F34 Flash Memory Camcorder
2)Canon S90
3)Xbox 360 Arcade Console
4)Acer Aspire One 10" Netbook (only if it hits the rumored $150)
5)HTC Eris (not sure if this is a good kid-friendly phone)
6)Samsung Color Laser Printer (no model in particular, just need a printer for home)
7)Flip or Kodak HD Camcorder
8)Samsung 52" LED 120Hz LCD HDTV w/ Internet@TV (don't plan on buying one, but I'll be eyeing this like a hawk)
9)Apple 27" iMac (curious if Apple will do their 5% off deal again and yes, I'm being a total guy and shopping for myself)
10)Xbox Live Gold Membership (need to renew my Xbox Live membership)

Monday, November 16, 2009

Cheap Wine Sites: Part II

So back in October I mentioned two discount wine sites I wanted to check out. And while I've checked the sites every day since, I haven't bought anything. Why? Well, lots of reasons. Partially because the deals I've liked have sold out in minutes, but also because a lot of the deals have been meh. Here's my initial impression on each site:

Cinderella Wine: When it first launched, I felt like every wine on this site would sell out 10 minutes after making its debut. (Wines were announced at midnight, but now they're announced at 9pm ET.) Lately, the wines haven't been selling out, but the deals have been aimed more at the wine collector as opposed to the wine newbie who just wants to try stuff out. Nothing wrong with that, but I personally don't like paying over $30 for wine (especially if I've never tried it) and it feels like most wines here are priced $30 and up. The few that have been under $30, don't really grab my attention. I like that the site lets customers comment and that it provides ratings for each wine, but sometimes the ratings can blind you and what Wine Enthusiast gives a 92, might be a 62 when you try it. So I've been hesitant.

Wines Till Sold Out: This site has only had one deal I've liked and that deal sold out rapidly. The other wines it's listed have been obscure to me. I don't claim to know every wine out there, but I like South American, Portuguese, and Spanish wines and there haven't been many listed in the past month. The site lacks diversity in my opinion.

One thing I dislike about both sites, you must buy a minimum of 3 bottles (sometimes 4) to get free shipping. I have no problem buying 2, but 3? This makes me feel like I'm being sold wine they're overstocked with. (Which is probably the case, but when that's actually noticeable, that's not good.)

I'll continue eyeing both sites and hopefully will jump on something this week – whether or not it's something I know or have never tried before.

Friday, November 13, 2009

$150 netbook

So in this week's podcast we talked about the Black Friday ads that have leaked over the past few weeks. For the most part, I feel pretty meh on what I've seen. I think the one deal (which is rumored) that I'm most psyched about is the $150 Acer netbook from OfficeMax. I've been waiting for the right netbook to come along and if this deal happens, I'm sold. Even if our laptop BF prediction of $249 hits, I'd still take the netbook for $150.

Another sale I'm waiting on is Apple's Black Friday Sale, which if past sales are any indication, will be 10% off all iPods and 5% off all Macs. That 27" iMac is tempting me.

Other than that, I've felt meh about most of the TV ads I've seen. I'm not planning on buying a new TV, but if I see a 120Hz Samsung LCD with Internet@TV, I might workout the old credit card.

Thursday, November 12, 2009

XP vs Windows 7

Looks like bad news for Windows 7. Both Laptop mag and the folks at Liliputing are reporting that running Windows 7 on select netbooks kills battery life by about an hour when compared to Windows XP. That's pretty shocking considering that MS said Windows 7 would improve battery life. The positive side is that it's something that can probably be fixed with driver updates. Plus, this was only tested on certain netbooks — the Toshiba mini NB205, ASUS Eee PC 1008HA, and HP Mini 311. Still, you may want to stick with XP till the problem is resolved.

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Objectified: Ive on MacBook Air


I was so close to Netflixing this documentary (Objectified) over the weekend, but ended up watching Oldboy instead. (Stupid me.) Anyways, stumbled upon this clip here where Apple's lead designer, Jonathan Ive, talks about the unibody design of the MacBook Air. Pretty interesting stuff.

Monday, November 9, 2009

A weekend with Roku

So I streamed a few movies on the Roku XR over the weekend. I watched Audition and Oldboy (my mini reviews of the movies below). I'm pleased to say that the XR works just as well as the previous Roku box (now called the Roku HD Player). Movies buffered up in under a minute on my 802.11n network, there was no hiccuping or dropped scenes, and picture quality was solid.

Now the bad news. The Roku XR costs $29 more than the Roku HD, and yet they both perform the same. Seriously. Ok, so you get 802.11n and a USB port on the XR. But otherwise, it's all the same. For what it's worth, I tried plugging in a USB drive to see if the XR would read my media files, but I got nada. This makes me wonder, what exactly is Roku planning here? What's the point of the XR?

We already know Revision3 is coming to Roku. Leo Laporte's TWiT network is also supposedly coming. But, what else?

The folks at Roku told me they'd have some "new announcements" in the next coming weeks. (They told me this two weeks ago.) But all has been quiet on the Roku front. So for now I'd hold off on buying a Roku XR. There's no need for it. But let's see what Roku has up their sleeves. Something tells me I might be changing my mind very soon. At least I hope.

As for the movies — Audition: Creepy as hell. Loved the first half of the movie. The scenes of Asami sitting by the phone with the large, mysterious bag on the floor freaked the crap outta me and are still burned in my mind (more so than any other scene). I was disappointed in the ending though. It kinda fell apart for me. Oldboy: Why does this movie have such high ratings?? A waste of 2 hours. The plot is all over the place, it tries too hard to be "artsy/shocking," and the soundtrack annoyed me.

Friday, November 6, 2009

Roku Netflix Player now with 802.11n

At the start of the year I did a feature on home-movie streamers reviewing everything from the Roku Netflix Player to the Vudu box. Since then, there have been tons of firmware updates to the players I reviewed and even a few new players.

I've been working on a follow up to that piece, and this afternoon I got the new Roku XR Player from the folks at Roku. The main difference between the XR Player and the previous player (now called the HD Player) is that the XR comes with 802.11n, whereas the previous player had 802.11g.

I never had any streaming issues with the older player, so I'm curious if the XR is worth the $29 upgrade. (They look exactly the same, minus the "XR" label.) I have some HD and non-HD movies queued up for the weekend so I'll give the XR a little test and have some feedback next week.

The smell of a new (e)book

Last month I decided to get back into the habit of reading. I'm not sure why I stopped, but so far I've read:

A Spot of Bother
19 Minutes
The Mole People

I'm currently re-reading Drown by Junot Diaz. I admit, there's a nice sense of accomplishment in seeing the new books I've read join my bookshelf, and it makes me wonder — what do you feel when you finish reading an e-book? I imagine it's anti-climactic 'cause you just load up another book and continue.

This got me thinking. Since I'm not an avid reader (yet), would it be easy for me to adjust to reading on an e-book reader? I don't want one, but at the same time I'm kinda curious. If I were to get one (and that's a big *if*), I'd go with the Barnes & Noble Nook. It has the best features IMO. e-book readers still have a long way to go (the technology/DRM issue, the pricing, the hardware), but I wonder if I'm drawn to the Nook because it's a shiny new gadget or if I really think I can adjust to reading on an LCD? I think I'll play around with the Kindle app on my iPod before delving any further into this e-book reader business. Although I admit, lately I've been very curious.

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Droid vs Droid

If anything's gonna stop me from getting a Motorola DROID it's gonna be the HTC DROID Eris. (And I'm not an HTC fan for what it's worth.) BGR got a sneak peek at the Eris and it looks pretty damn nice. Smaller than the Moto DROID and sans the annoying physical keyboard. Now if only it'd come with Android 2.0 (Eclair). On a slightly different note, I wonder if super-size smartphones are gonna become the new trend. So far we got the Moto DROID and the king-size Sony Ericsson Xperia X10.

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

DROID keyboard

I despise the DROID's QWERTY keyboard. I can't say it enough. I despise it. I understand why Motorola included it. It was smart trying to please both sides of the camp (virtual vs real keyboard fans), but man they fell asleep at the wheel with this one 'cause it's probably one of the worst keyboards I've ever used.


1)The keys are small. You have to type with your fingernail.
2)The keys are squishy. Meaning when you type, you don't get an audible click. Just a squishy sound. As a result, it's easy to think you pressed a key, when in reality you didn't.
3)When you press a key, you can see the keys surrounding that key flex a little.
4)When typing, your right thumb must reach out over some dead space (highlighted in my pic above) to reach the keys on the left.

Fortunately, the DROID's virtual keyboard is awesome. In portrait mode, it's easy to make mistakes 'cause the keys are a bit tight. It's still useable, but I personally prefer the virtual keyboard in landscape mode. I also like that in either mode, you can type as fast as you want and the DROID keeps up with you.

How does it compare to the iPhone/iPod touch's virtual keyboard? Well, here's a side-by-side pic of what the keys look like in portrait mode and in landscape mode. That's a 1G iPod touch there btw. The iPod has slightly bigger virtual keys. Just a smidgen. The iPod also has spacing in between the keys, which makes a huge difference. That's not to say the DROID's keyboard is horrible, because it's not. It'll just take a little getting used to. For me, it's been under a week and I've already gotten used to it.

So the bottom line: physical keyboard is a train wreck. Virtual keyboard gets the thumbs up and should be an easy adjustment if you're coming from an iPhone.

Monday, November 2, 2009

Road Test: DROID as GPS


View Road Test in a larger map
So I finally got around to using the DROID's Google Nav Beta app over the weekend. We used it to get from Jersey City, NJ to a restaurant in City Island, NY. It's a 26.5 mile trek that took us about 45 minutes or so each way. In a nutshell, the app is awesome and there's no reason why it can't replace your GPS.

So the app told us to drive from Jersey City, NJ to Fort Lee, NJ and then take the George Washington Bridge (GWB) into NYC. We'd then hop onto I-95 (N) which would take us to City Island. (That's the path highlighted in the map above.) It's probably the quickest way there, but our starting point was so close to the Holland Tunnel, that we took that into NYC instead. The second we veered off course, the app rerouted and gave us our new route.

Once in NYC, we had to take the West Side Highway to I-95. At one point, the West Side Highway passes by the GWB, and we mistakenly got on the bridge and drove BACK into NJ (that was our fault, not the app's). Again, the app quickly rerouted and told us to get back on the bridge and back to NYC. However, we missed our exit and ended up smack in the middle of Fort Lee, NJ. For about 5 seconds, the GPS signal was lost. I'm not sure why since we were out in the open and my Verizon phone had solid coverage. We quickly regained the signal and the app told us to get on the GWB back to NYC. Here's where things went sour for a brief moment. The app told us to make a right on a street that didn't allow rights. This caught us off guard, so we relied on the street signs to get us back onto the GWB. Eventually, the app realized we weren't gonna make that illegal right and synchronized with our driving. Once we were back on the GWB the app was flawless. As we reached our destination, the app switched to Street View and literally showed us what we were seeing with our very own eyes (this was both creepy and cool.)

So overall, we did hit a snag, but I've used other GPS units from Magellan and Mio and they too have fed me wrong driving information.

As for the DROID's 3.7" LCD. Yeah, it's on the small side (compared to a traditional GPS), but it's not horrible. It's more than adequate. The app's voice does sound a little robotic and it mispronounced a few street names, but the names were still recognizable.

We left with a fully-charged DROID (around 12.30pm) and used the GPS to and from. At the restaurant, I used the DROID to take some pics (here's a pic of the restaurant, a little grainy if you ask me) and afterwards we used the app again to find our way around City Island and to pinpoint this bakery (great cupcakes btw). By the time we got back home (5pm), the DROID's battery was down to about 20%.

On the way back, I called my DROID phone to see if it would interrupt the app. It asked if I wanted to take the call and then the minute I ended the call, it immediately jumped back into GPS mode without skipping a beat. (I wasn't driving while doing this.)

So. Would I use it again? No doubt. Would I recommend it to other DROID owners in place of a traditional GPS. Definitely.

Again, the only snags we hit were the brief signal loss and the "wrong turn" instructions. Otherwise I was very impressed with the app.