WANTED: Beta Testers with HDTV (HDMI) and high speed connection

Posted by: Nong Vang

WANTED: Beta Testers with HDTV (HDMI) and high speed connection - 19/12/2006 19:41

Hi everyone,

Some of you might remember me as the beta program manager for Rio and ReplayTV. I am currently working for a start-up consumer electronics company and we are looking for excellent beta testers who meet the following criteria:

1 - Loves watching movies
2 - Has HDTV with HDMI connection
3 - Has high speed broadband connection (minimum of 2mbps down / 256kpbs up)
4 - Willingness to commit a minimum of 5 hours per week for about four months to beta testing our product and provide feedback in the form of usability feedback, enhancement requests, and, of course, bug reporting. Active participation necessary.
5 - Resides inside the United States. Should we survive long enough, we do hope to expand to other parts of the world .
6 - Not be a current employee or affiliated any of our competitors.

If you meet the above criteria and are interested, please email me at [Email][email protected].[/Email] Please reference this post (on empeg forum) in your email.

Thanks!

Nong
[email protected]
Posted by: tfabris

Re: WANTED: Beta Testers with HDTV (HDMI) and high speed connection - 19/12/2006 21:06

Lest anyone worry about this for any reason:

Nong is who the Rio beta testers were working with on the Karma/Carbon/etc projects back in their heyday. I've already signed my NDA for this project, looking forward to it.

Now I just have to figure out where I'm going to find the TIME for it.
Posted by: Nong Vang

Re: WANTED: Beta Testers with HDTV (HDMI) and high speed connection - 19/12/2006 21:15

Thanks for the post Tony.

Looking forward to some more good times
Posted by: wfaulk

Re: WANTED: Beta Testers with HDTV (HDMI) and high speed connection - 19/12/2006 21:26

Sadly, I miss out only on the HDMI part.
Posted by: gbeer

Re: WANTED: Beta Testers with HDTV (HDMI) and high speed connection - 19/12/2006 21:28

I assume the NDA has to apply to all members of the household, but would each member have to put in the 5 hours, or just the primary tester, or some combination?

I'm interested, but I don't know I'd want to commit to 5hrs/week for a product I know so little about. I'd be willing to sign the NDA in order to make an informed decision about participation. Is that possible?
Posted by: tfabris

Re: WANTED: Beta Testers with HDTV (HDMI) and high speed connection - 19/12/2006 21:47

Quote:
I don't know I'd want to commit to 5hrs/week for a product I know so little about.

What's to know? You've been given all the information you need to figure out what the product is, or at least the class of product. Here are the hints:

- Need a TV with HDMI connection.
- Need broadband internet connection.
- Nong's return address is Marquee.net (visit the web site).

Doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what they're doing. Anyhoo, I'm sure you could sign the NDA and they'll tell you more.
Posted by: andym

Re: WANTED: Beta Testers with HDTV (HDMI) and high speed connection - 19/12/2006 22:00

Quote:
I'm interested, but I don't know I'd want to commit to 5hrs/week for a product I know so little about.


These days I don't have 5 hours a week to devote to any thing other than work or sleep! Quite frustrating as I'd love to do some beta testing..... god knows I do enough of it at work with the POS we lovingly call a playout system.
Posted by: wfaulk

Re: WANTED: Beta Testers with HDTV (HDMI) and high speed connection - 19/12/2006 22:11

Apparently only foreign films, though. The closest thing to not-foreign is "Barbarella", and it was produced by the DeLaurentiis company.
Posted by: gbeer

Re: WANTED: Beta Testers with HDTV (HDMI) and high speed connection - 20/12/2006 03:09

I have to admit, there were visions of some form of HSN dancing in my head.

http://www.thealarmclock.com/mt/archives/2006/12/prelaunch_movie.html
Posted by: matthew_k

Re: WANTED: Beta Testers with HDTV (HDMI) and high speed connection - 20/12/2006 03:38

I'm in (if you'll take me), sounds like fun. I sure hope fragile plastic discs aren't the future.

Matthew
Posted by: jbauer

Re: WANTED: Beta Testers with HDTV (HDMI) and high speed connection - 20/12/2006 04:58

Matthew and I seem to be Beta testing brothers! We both participated in the Beta for Mobile Crossing's Waypoint GPS device too!

I just sent Nong a note also!!! This one sounds exciting, and right up my alley too!

- Jon
Posted by: morrisdl

Re: WANTED: Beta Testers with HDTV (HDMI) and high speed connection - 20/12/2006 12:38

Email sent - I have an optoma hd projector with an open HDMI port. I also have a timewarner road runner broadband connection. Please let me know if you would need any more information to consider me as a canidate. Thanks, -Doug
Posted by: JBjorgen

Re: WANTED: Beta Testers with HDTV (HDMI) and high speed connection - 20/12/2006 12:39

Sounds fun. I'm in.
Posted by: burdell1

Re: WANTED: Beta Testers with HDTV (HDMI) and high speed connection - 22/12/2006 02:41

Unfortunately I only have a DVI connection on my TV.
Posted by: tfabris

Re: WANTED: Beta Testers with HDTV (HDMI) and high speed connection - 22/12/2006 16:02

Quote:
Unfortunately I only have a DVI connection on my TV.


I've just gone through this with Nong, and even though I only have DVI on my TV set, I still qualify for this beta program.

Here's the deal with DVI: The thing that Nong's device needs isn't HDMI so much. DVI and HDMI are actually the exact same digital signal on a different-shaped plug. So you can get adapters to plug an HDMI connector into a DVI television set. So there's no problem with that.

No, the catch is this: What Nong's toy really needs is the HDCP copy protection feature. Since some DVI-only devices support this feature, you still might be OK.

As I understand it (and this might be either wrong, or this might be a blanket statment to which there are exceptions, so someone correct me if I'm wrong): Usually, when you see an HDMI plug, you can assume that the HDCP copy protection feature is implemented on that device. You can't always make that assumption with a DVI plug. Some DVI devices have the copy protection feature, some don't. So that's why they asked for HDMI: To make sure you had the copy protection feature.

So... Check your display's manual, or check your manufacturer's web site, to see if your display supports HDCP copy protection. If so, you're golden. In my case, even my product manual didn't say anything about HDCP, yet the manufacturer's web site very specifically says it's a DVI plug that supports HDCP.
Posted by: tfabris

Re: WANTED: Beta Testers with HDTV (HDMI) and high speed connection - 22/12/2006 16:07

Of course, there's a catch. I just googled the topic, and one site tells me that even some sets that claim to support HDCP don't implement it properly, and certain HDCP-required devices won't work on those sets. I'm going to search and see if there's a comprehensive chart somewhere. (Update: found only one so far and it's not comprehensive.)
Posted by: rob

Re: WANTED: Beta Testers with HDTV (HDMI) and high speed connection - 22/12/2006 22:20

Quote:
What Nong's toy really needs is the HDCP copy protection feature

Well that sure sounds like an attractive feature...

Rob
Posted by: DWallach

Re: WANTED: Beta Testers with HDTV (HDMI) and high speed connection - 23/12/2006 01:42

If you read Peter Gutmann's analysis of the costs and complexity of Vista's DRM mechanisms, you can appreciate why anybody else building a box in this particular space might find themselves needing a lot of beta testing.
Posted by: wfaulk

Re: WANTED: Beta Testers with HDTV (HDMI) and high speed connection - 23/12/2006 12:47

Umm.

Wow.
Posted by: drakino

Re: WANTED: Beta Testers with HDTV (HDMI) and high speed connection - 29/04/2007 04:54

Looks like this might be the device:

http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/gizmodo-exclu...-box-256044.php

I ended up passing on the beta, due to lack of time. Didn't want to simply sign up for possible free stuff without being able to provide proper testing and feedback.

Looks like a cool box, and if the article is correct, sounds like it will have a lot of movies out of the gate.
Posted by: hybrid8

Re: WANTED: Beta Testers with HDTV (HDMI) and high speed connection - 29/04/2007 23:14

Looking at the original site and the Vudu content, I have my doubts they're related...
Posted by: drakino

Re: WANTED: Beta Testers with HDTV (HDMI) and high speed connection - 30/04/2007 01:46

Digging deeper, I agree. Looks like this may be competition then. I was thrown by the codename they used being identical to the company name Nong has in her e-mail address.