Some people may think she is an airhead or an idiot, but I think she is just plain hilarious. Kellie Pickler did some correspondence for Jay Leno at the MTV Movie Awards and I haven’t laughed that hard in a while. Check it out here:
Is it only me who thinks David Blaine is a publicity hound who draws everyone’s attention on things that aren’t really magic? Drowning in a bubble, standing on a post, sitting in a cube… how is this magic? ABC is nuts for allowing this bubble thing to be broadcast for two hours last night only to have him wear himself out too early to break the breathholding record, which was the whole point, right? I’ve heard several radio stations mentioning how the two hours was a big waste of time. I didn’t actually watch any TV last night, so I can’t really say for sure whether it was a waste of time or a BIG waste of time. Do some magic, David. Anyway, that is my rant.
I finally brokedown and purchased my very first iPod. I decided against the currently overpriced video iPods as I have heard reports of poor battery life when watching movies on the device. I found Apple.com selling refurbished iPod Photo/Color models for about $200. I could resist and now I have it. I’ve never had a problem with Apple products and this time is no different. I only have a problem with them pricing themselves out of my market. Compared to the other two mp3 players I have owned, this one costs about twice as much and seems worth it for a few features alone. The first feature is the ability to pick up with the last point of listening without thinking twice. My other two always startup and play from the beginning of the playlist or even worse, the menu system. The second feature is not really a feature at all, but proof that iPods are huge. Everywhere you look, iPods and iPod accessories are available. I haven’t check yet, but I’m sure you can found iSomething for sale at the local Walgreens. If you haven’t seen or played with an iPod, find a friend and play with theirs.
As seen at Engadget:
Philips is pushing out two new GoGear HDD players, the 6330 and 1850, that score you 30GB and 8GB of storage respectively. The devices are PlaysForSure, and the 1850 has an estimated eighteen-hour battery life and a debut price of $250, while the 6330 chooses to remain aloof. They both should be dropping in the US sometime this summer.
For those millions of people like me that have several remotes and can’t seem to eliminate the need for all of your remotes leaving only one truely universal remote, it may be worth your time and money to invest in a Logitech Harmony Remote. I just found a middle-of-the-road model at NewEgg.com for $120 shipped!
To give you an idea what I’m dealing with at home, I have remotes for the following in my main room: RCA TV (will control DVD player) Philips DVD Player (single device remote) OmniFi Media Player (single device remote) JVC Surround Receiver (will control TV and DVD above) Samsung Set-top box (single device remote)
Each has their own remote and none will control all of the rest. Enter the Logitech Harmony Remote. It can not only control each of the items above, but it will also handle Macros for specific tasks like ‘Watch TV’ or ‘Watch a DVD’ which handles any necessary component switching to get the job done.
Okay, so there is a trend to offer DivX support on some of the newer DVD Players. I found this list of officially certified DVD Players at DivX.com. Honestly, I’m surprised to see so many considering you don’t see that many in any one consumer electronics store. I’ll attribute that to the list containing some overseas models and some that may be listed, but not yet released to mainstream outlets.
While I was perusing through the hot deals of the morning, I ran across this new beauty. Toshiba is now a player (punn intended) in the DivX DVD market. The model SD-4980 has DivX and MPEG-4 support as well as HD upconversion via HDMI. Check it out. Did I mention, it is also under $100?
I just saw this online at CostCo.com and it is only $80. That is not bad for a DivX playing upconverting DVD Player. The manual, as well has a high res photo, can be found here. Buy it at CostCo.
I’m still contemplating getting one for the HD upconversion. I currently have three of the older DVP-642 units, so I would either sell one of those or move it to the last TV I have without one. $80 is not bad for the HDMI feature alone, much less a player that plays DivX videos. Oh… what to do… what to do?
I know Apple may have a large chunk of the marketshare on portable music players, but they are really the innovators when it comes to new and unique design. I think if they lowered to their price within reach of more average consumers, like myself, then they would most definitely dominate the market and possibly eliminate much of the competition. To be honest, I’d love to get an iPod, but they are priced just out of my budget, which says a lot since I probably dump a load of money on gadgets in general. Here is a for instance: I have a Philips HDD070 which does its job well, and only cost $80 for a refurbished unit. I think they sell for $160 new, but that is even too high. For the equivalent iPod, the Nano 2GB, the price is ~$200. If this pricing structure were set at $150/$200 instead of $200/$250, I think that would throw Apple over the top of the market. In fact, if it were priced as such, I’d likely pickup the 4GB for $200 just out of principle. The pricing I’m suggesting applies to all models, except the Shuffle. I don’t think the shuffle belongs in the iPod family. The best iPod out right now is the 60GB iPod Video for $400. That’s $400!! That is the price of a decent camcorder, or half the price of a decent TV. $350 may not make that much difference, but it would be the most expensive iPod on the market.
Side note: If you didn’t see Saturday Night Live last night, the Weekend Report had a parody of Steve Jobs, and they poked fun at the short lifespan of each iPod, meaning newer and better is always around the corner. In the skit, he said the newest release was the iPod Micro, about the size of a miniSD card, which he then joked about it being obsolete by Thanksgiving. Then he pulled another out of his pocket called the iPod Pequeño, about the size of a Pez candy, that would hold 1 million songs and be obsolete by Christmas. After that he reached into his pocket one more time and pulled out nothing apparently, but he had his fingers pinched together and called it the iPod Invisa, which would hold 8 millions songs and float in the air when you dropped it. Anyway, the entire thing was poking fun at the iPod Nano, which was out for a week before the iPod Video came out to take away attention.
One thing to note here is that anything can be a scam, so trust no one. 
Free iPods is something I just ran across last week and decided to take a look at for myself. What most people picture when seeing something like this is someone just taking your money or some sort of pyramid scam where the last one gets stuck out. This is actually quite different and ingenius on the part of whomever thought of it first. What is basically going on is commission based sales. Companies like RealNetworks, Citibank and other reputable companies are offering top dollar for marketing and referrals, so a company like freepremiumipods.com will receive commissions for each person they drive to these companies. In comes the iPod. The iPod is probably the most reputable, best designed, and most in demand gadget on the market today. FreePremiumIPods.com is giving people exactly what they want, something (free iPod) for nothing. In most cases, there is a Credit Application you’ll need to fill out and tell several of your friends about the whole deal and everyone can get something for nothing. FreePremiumIPods.com makes there money on the commissions (minus the iPods sent out to those who actually have 8 referrals complete the process as well — this is similar to mail-in rebates where not everyone will follow through).
In summary, the end user is really out nothing, but has the opportunity to gain a free ($400 valued) iPod assuming they can get 8 referrals to participate. That’s it!
I chose the RealNetworks offer for a 15-day trial of their SuperPass for online access to entertainment whatchas and whozits. I’ll post my findings in a couple of weeks to let everyone know how the process pans out.
If you have an HDTV Tuner Card in your PC, you might be wondering how you can backup this content to DVD. HDBeat has posted about this very topic, and they couldn’t make it look more easy.
Side note: When I had my ATI HDTV Wonder I was asking myself this very question. How in the world can I make use of the .ts file that was holding my recorded HDTV shows?
This morning I received an email from Netflix regarding a class action law suit settlement. Apparently someone thought Netflix reneged on their deal of ‘Unlimited DVD Rentals’ and not keeping to their ‘1 day turn around,’ which myself have experienced time and time again. Needless to say I took the deal with the option of one month free upgrade from 3-at-a-time to 4-at-a-time. I feel they’ve throttled my rentals too many times. Just a week ago, I turned in all 3 of my movies on a Monday. Tuesday morning they received them, and typically they would have sent the next set that afternoon for me to receive by Wednesday. This time, by noon (not the end of the day) I had 3 ‘Shipping Wednesday’ messages in my queue, which meant instead of receiving my movies on Wednesday, I would possibly receive them by Thursday, which pretty much eliminates all possibility for same week turn around.
