wherein I proceed to rant on the sad state of consumer electronics

1) I was at my parents' place in Florida for a brief vacation over the New Year. I mixed up a big batch of pretzel dough, set the oven, got it all laid out on baking sheets, and then discovered the oven was completely cold. We read the manual cover-to-cover several times, ultimately reaching the conclusion something was deeply wrong with the controller board. I ended up baking the pretzels in the toaster oven.

After a phone call to Miele, the solution was that the oven had somehow gotten itself into "demo mode", which required an undocumented key sequence (put the selector into light mode and hold down both timer buttons for 5 seconds). Afterward, it worked fine.

2) A neighbor's PC blew up. He asked me to do what I could, giving me two internal SATA hard drives and an external USB hard drive. Of course, he didn't have any sort of backup strategy. The primary boot drive (a Seagate 160GB model) had some hard errors, but mostly worked. I was able to copy all but 20 or so files, mostly family pictures based on the file names. The secondary drive (a Seagate 500GB model) was formatted in a funny way, such that my Mac couldn't directly mount it, but I could get to it from Windows XP inside VMware. That drive appeared to be okay. It was just completely full of pirated kids videos. At least it wasn't porn. He's ordered himself a new iMac. I'm nudging him to buy a suitably large external drive for Time Machine.

3) We ended up getting an Xbox 360 + Kinect bundle ($300 for all the hardware plus $50 per game) for my daughter for Xmas. I'm a total Xbox newbie, and getting everything set up and running wasn't too painful, although it was much harder than it should have been. For example, the Xbox saw that I had two WiFi base stations and complained that they shouldn't have the same SSID. Really? Umm... no. Please pick the one with the strongest signal strength and do what everybody else does.

The Kinect stuff is remarkable in how well it works. However, you still need to reach for the normal Xbox controller in a variety of unpredictable circumstances that felt not unlike needing to find a DOS window to type obscure commands not supported by the Windows GUI.

Also, I have to ding Microsoft for an apparent lack of usability testing on the target market. My daughter is 5.5 years old and is presently learning to read. Even with the Kinectimals game, which really maxes out on the cute factor and is clearly targeted at my daughter's age group and sensibilities, there are numerous text prompts that appear on screen. "Dad, which one do I pick?" I really want something that my daughter can use without my supervision.

My neighbor's 7 year old boy, who's quite the jock, seemed to have a natural feel for the thing, and it recognized his gestures without trouble. My daughter, who is very much not a jock, had far more trouble, since her gestures weren't really what it had in mind. Also, it seemed to have trouble recognizing gestures involving her legs (kicking, jumping, etc.) when she was wearing her nightgown. Unsurprisingly, it works much better when it can actually see your legs, but girls often wear skirts, dresses, and the like.

I must also rant about some non-Kinect issues:

- I have zero interest in joining Xbox Live Gold. I don't care. So why do I need to be a member of Xbox Live Gold in order to get to Netflix?

- My home network is an Apple Walled Garden sort of place. How hard is it to pay Apple a license fee so you can play nicely with the walled garden, supporting AirPlay, etc.? Or screw Apple, implement compatibility regardless, and just don't support DRM content. That would be fine by me. (Hey, if they can do it with Ford's Sync, why not with Xbox?) Or maybe Apple should write an app for the Xbox that I can download from somewhere. Do I need to install some 3rd party software on my Mac instead?

- I've also got a TiVo downstairs, on the very same network. Wouldn't it be nice if you could speak TiVo's protocols and do content extraction? (We've got the TiVo downstairs and the Xbox upstairs...)

- As my daughter is busy doing her thing, the Xbox is busy "unlocking achievements" and other sundry things that are never explained anywhere. Somehow, I missed the memo that explains all of this mess. I can see that I have some number of G's and trophies. I have no idea what these numbers mean.

- Some Kinect games like to take your picture. How do you extract those photos? Sure, that's obvious.

- Also, I went poking around the Xbox Live Arcade to see what was there. One of my college buddies wrote a game, Braid, so I clicked on it, and it said it cost 800 somethings, where the something was a funny glyph that looks like a cross between a capital G and a euro symbol (you can see it at the web link). Umm.. WTF? Yes, I can go read up and learn that these are Microsoft Points,which are unrelated to the "G's" mentioned above, but nowhere did it bother to say that, much less talk about the dollar cost of Microsoft Points.

Hehe.. You said Microsoft.

I guess demo mode is for a showroom or something where they want it to light up but not actually get hot? The secret key combo that puts you into this mode can't be that difficult if somebody in the house managed to hit it. Extra bad points for making it undocumented to leave demo mode which also has no indication it is in demo mode without calling or getting somebody in to repair it.


You won't experience this but the other problem which generally also occurs is that manufacturers just assume that you're in the US with only 1 to 11 for 2.4GHz WiFi channels. Europe lets you use 1 to 13 and badly designed devices just won't see your AP at all if it is on 12 or 13.


Just making you pay for a sub for something that you'll never actually use.


Achievement points for "ePeening" basically.


The best part of Microsoft points is that the conversion from real $$$ to MS points and the actual cost of items on the store means you always have to overspend. Oddly enough, this is one of the places where Sony has actually done it properly and they just charge you real $$$ instead of special virtual cash.

One of the guys I work with got a fancy new microwave a couple years ago. One day it just quit working and said 'DEMO' on the display. There were no instructions in the manual on how to deactivate it, so he called tech support. They claimed demo mode didn't exist on that model and weren't able to help him. He eventually got ahold of some guy in Texas who is the only person on the planet who knows how to get that model of microwave out of demo mode. I thought that kind of crap only happened in Chevy Chase comedies.

Holy Hell- that's a new one on me.

At work we peen metal parts.
I was confused.

Heh, my brand new whirlpool stove in my brand new house got religion and went into Sabbath Mode due to a malfunctioning control board recently. That was fun.

I’m amazed at the things now with “smart technology” built into them. I bought a cheap outside motion light that comes on after dark if it senses motion.

It has processor logic built into it and needed to initialize itself when I installed it. Come one, it’s just a light. Seems like they just designed it to have more failure points. I guess that’s good for them.

I think we are rapidly approaching the point where complexity is no longer paying dividends in efficiency but is instead stealing resources away for maintenance and repair of these complex systems.

Often the most complex solutions are created by the most simple-minded people. It takes real talent to really create something simple.

Of course this things can equally go sideways when the product is designed by a committee. You need someone with an iron fist (and talent) to come in and set things straight.

That and I can use the PS3 for Netflix instant without paying a subscription to Sony.

Somehow, I can make similarly small payments via credit card to Apple and Amazon as well, and the sky has yet to cave in.

Theoretically, if you don't see it as real money, you don't pay attention to how much you are spending. That and 'bonus points' for buying higher denominations makes people feel that it is a better value than it is.

Last year I bought a 32" TV off ebay for something like £35. It was described as "screen flashes red/white/blue, lost the remote". I searched Google with a few keywords (including the TV's actual manufacturer, Vestel) and realised it had slipped into burn-in mode and you just need to press menu to get out of it.

Picked it up saying "um yeah, I might be able to fix it", got it home, took out the remote control for a similar Vestel set, pressed "menu", fixed!

I suspect that Microsoft points were originally a way to allow kids to spend money on Live without needing unfettered access to their parents' credit cards. This simple idea has since been corrupted by someone in a suit.

You could have an account preloaded with X amount of real cash if you want that though. The Microsoft Points idea is just an unnecessary abstraction. It isn't specific to Microsoft though as Nintendo also do the same thing with the Wii shop.

A year of Live get you most of the way towards the cheapest Roku, but yes that would be yet another device.

This is the theory behind the poker chip, and I can assure you it works quite well.

I guess I'm just bothered by the need to pay a recurring fee. Why can't these just be apps that I buy once and download from Xbox Live Arcade (or equivalent)? All the shiny new HDTVs just announced at CES are chock full of Internet hookups. Xbox should be able to all of that, gratis, and probably of better quality than anybody else.

I agree Dan, it could and should just be a function of the device that does not require Live membership, MS decided otherwise for some reason. Given that the device is not just sold as a gaming box, but as an entertainment center, requiring an on-going subscription to full function is a turnoff. It is not as if NetFlix streaming is some sort of network social interaction activity like on-line gaming.

I don't know if I want my TV to be anything more then a monitor. All the add on functionality changes way quicker then a TV gets replaced, and so I am either stuck with add-on function that are no longer updated / support / function or I spring for a new $$$ TV to continue to have the new stuff. I'd rather just replace the $100 external box. It should be noted our only TV is a 27" CRT...maybe I am a Luddite

I don't even care that my TV has a tuner in it - two tuners in fact. It also has a USB port that allows you to view images and perhaps play tunes. None of it gets any use because I can already do that on other devices. My TV is now enclosed so that I can't even access any of its ports or buttons.

There's a big market for integrated solutions, but I don't think we're in any danger of separates going away.

My amplifier is just a power amplifier (though multi-channel). My pre-amp is however a pre-amp and DAC/processor.

This post comes at a very appropriate time, since CES just started. I'm amazed at how much has already been announced that will also soon be forgotten. Some of what's been announced will be irrelevant by the end of the week. Most of it will be all but completely forgotten by the end of the year. There are very few exceptions and so far nothing has really jumped out at me.

Netflix isn't an integral or standard part of entertainment center functionality though so I don't see it as lacking something for "full fuction". It wasn't part of the launch lineup either for the 360. The 360 is still primarily a games console.

It would be nice to have it as part of the basic unit without an ongoing XBox Live subscription since you still need a Netflix subscription but I don't think that the XBox fails to fulfill its stated design goals by not having it.

Does anybody actually use those built in ports regularly without going mad? I've found them to be quirky and the actual viewer software built into the TV is normally broken in some way.


I umm... use the TV speakers... I never bothered with the whole surround thing because my living room where the TV is has an annoying shape and I never got around to cabling it up properly.


Yeah. Most of the CES coverage this year has been pretty meh for me as well.

I am worried about integration, and the tech press seems to be all for it. At least two of the podcasts I listen two recently talked about integration, and the consensus has been "I don't want a bunch of boxes - just put it all in the TV."

This does NOT appeal to me. First of all, these people seem to be forgetting how long you hold on to your TV. I've had mine for four years now. How much has changed in the past four years? Hell, how much has changed in the last four months?

The next TV I purchase will be bought entirely for its video quality, and not one bit for whatever widgets or services they shove into it. I do not want that. Hell, I'm already pissed that my TV doesn't have removable speakers (the 70" version did, but 60" was as big as the wife would let me go ). I want a monitor. The TV is not the center of my home theater, the receiver is, and I'm happy to have everything plugged into that.

Besides, is it really that difficult to have separate devices? Now that I have a receiver with HDMI ports, it's blissfully simple to switch between inputs. All I have are three components anyway: Tivo, Boxee, and Bluray. I don't really need anything else.

What do you folks prefer? Integrated or not?

I covered up the ugly speaker bar on my TV with the surround I mentioned (which is part of the decor I showed in a thread long ago).

I'll only have four source components in my media cabinet under the TV. Boxee, SageTV Theater, Squeezebox and Wii. Those all connect to a DVDO Edge video scaler/switcher with audio going to my Pre-Pro.

My 7.1 power amp is in the basement (it weighs 95lbs) along with my PVR server and NAS serving media.

Audio connects from the pre-pro upstairs to the power-amp downstairs via 6 XLR (balanced) cables through the back wall. Speaker cable comes back upstairs through the walls.

The PVR server and NAS feed media to the source components over ethernet.

I don't have any disc-based sources nor any cable/satellite-specific set-top boxes.

The components are rather separate, however the three video-based devices have a lot of functional/app integration and some duplication. Their UI's have enough strengths and weaknesses however that I effectively use them as separates, the SageTV for live and recorded TV and the Boxee for movies and archived TV shows (by season). With the Wii (once hooked back up) relegated to only playing games.

The only thing that has me lusting after another TV is the wider screen format announced by Vizio. All the other software-based TV add-ons are a total snoozefest. As is 3D of any kind.

Not. Though I DO appreciate the bedroom TV having speakers- but that's about it.


Of topic-
My father-in-law moved in with us and insisted that he be able to move his TV into our main room right next to our HD TV because his had a VHS and DVD player integrated with it.

I insisted right back it wasn't going to happen, purchased the two VHS movies he likes to watch ("Pure Country and "Best Little Whorehouse In Texas"- Oh yeah!"), put them on our Apple TV, and now he's happy as a clam.

My father is soon to be purchasing a new TV, so I've spent some time today reading the various CES-related press releases. Every vendor is looking at integrating a wide variety of Internet features into their TVs. Since my dad could truly care less about that stuff, I'm suggesting he buy a 2010 higher-end model once the new ones come out and put price pressure on the old ones.

What really kills me with the Xbox is that it's a relatively open platform, in that third parties can write apps for it, but yet where's my Pandora app? Where's my Apple Walled Garden Compatibility app? Microsoft seems to be acting as a gatekeeper to prevent such things.

Conversely, we have the Boxee/AppleTV/Google TV/etc. aftermarket purpose-built boxes, to which you must also add the various Blu-ray players with also seem to have gotten Internet widget mania. Of all those, Boxee appears to be the only vendor who's genuinely trying to create a third-party app market. The others are just looking to get their Pandora checkmark and move on with life.

I'd rather have a popcorn dispenser built into a TV than any more internet jiggery pokery.

Dan, I have no idea what your dad's budget is, nor what size screen, nor if you guys are considering a specific display tech, but I can wholeheartedly recommend my LCD (local-dimmable) backlit Vizio 551XVT. The price was definitely right too. After a nice price drop at Costco it was $1700 Canadian early last year. They've since released a few models with more internet stuff baked in to try and keep the price point static, but they still tend to be lower priced than the competition. I wouldn't trade my TV for anything from Samsung, LG or Sony.

I don't think they are. They want you to replace your TV more often.

So far, the Star Wars BluRay release scheduled for September is the only thing I think people are going to remember every month until that time and beyond.

I have a strong feeling that every mobile phone and tablet that's been shown will be completely gone from the market landscape by the end of the year. Just the gadgets themselves, not speaking about the OS they're running - Android will continue to do well. The other OSes, not so much.

Android is well on its way to being the new Windows. In that respect, it devalues the particular devices on which it runs. Nobody cares what model your crappy Dell laptop is, merely that it's whatever size/weight/specs/blah and it runs Windows.

Also, just like Windows, we have everybody doing all this "value added" crapware. Microsoft eventually cracked down on all that. I hope Google finds a way of doing the same.

Speaking of which, did you ever post photos of the finished product? I remember some in-progress photos...

I think Google is quite pleased with the way Android has turned out. I don't think they'll crack down at all nor make the user experience dramatically better.

They're making money hand over fist in ad revenue from Android. They're in the ad business. Android is a vehicle to pushing ads to people and it does it as well as it possibly could.

Microsoft is in the software business. They have to deploy something that works and looks half decent as they're actually charging money for it.

No, not yet. The entire shelving/cabinet assembly still needs paint unfortunately. It was all up and in place, albeit unpainted over the whole summer. I've also more recently done a reno on the room in early December, having put in Bamboo flooring and run the rear speaker cables in the walls (only the single outside wall was difficult). Now I'm in the process of doing lighting and then finally paint for the walls. At that point I hope to get the shelving/cabinets FINALLY painted and back up on the wall.

I've had the amps in use with a pair of old speakers since before the summer and in November I finally picked up the DVDO and new speaker system. I super eager to get it all hooked up and put into use. I'll hopefully be doing the lighting next week (waiting on my brother who's the muscle/workmanship guy for this).

I too would just like my TV to be a monitor. I have a Samsung 47" flatscreen since 2008, and I used its USB reader only once out of curiosity. It even came with a server software to be installed on a PC so that the TV itself could turn in some sort of music/video/picture player. It was slow, bulky, and mostly useless.
I am happy the TV comes with several HDMI inputs, but just because I never had time and never really wanted to spend money in getting a proper audio system, which of course would include a receiver/amp, making the entire cabling system just as simple, as you point out.
But, that's my plan anyway: all I am planning to do is to get a receiver and connect to it a HTPC (to include a DB player), XBOX, WII, Squeezebox classic. The HTPC may even make the squeezebox not so needed, even though having to use the TV itself to browse through my music collection is just not as practical, and a HTPC case with a built-in monitor is quite expensive (and probably unpractical as well, compared to the squeezebox).

My problem is that I still have not furnished the wall where all this is supposed to go, and it is still too a time-consuming and expensive project for me to really sit down and start it. But again, yes, I just do not want integration, at all.

I am also quite happy with my samsung video quality, but not very pleased with Samusung frimware/software. It is slow and in some aspects really poorly designed, but that's definitely not something that would make me want to change the TV in the forseable future.

I think you were mixing contexts. That statement was about the tech press, not the manufacturers. I have no doubt that these added features are little more than ways to entice consumers to more frequently upgrade their sets.

That high the manufacturers are chasing (the one they tasted from the HDTV boom) is becoming a problem for consumers. Fortunately, I don't think these companies are exerting nearly as much product movement as they'd like. I'm certain they thought that when they started making 3D TVs, they would sell as many sets as they did when people upgraded from SD to HD, but they grossly underestimated how compelling it would be to make that upgrade. Most people are now comfortable getting the new technologies when their natural upgrade cycle occurs.


Ugh, I can't do a thing about my hideous speakers. This is my TV. For some reason, they decided that not only would they make the speakers non-removable, they'd make them stick out even further (I guess to improve the virtual surround). I really just wish they weren't there at all, as they haven't been used for five minutes in the set's entire life.


Oh, sure, I have no problem with built-in speakers if you aren't going to put the TV in a situation where there's a receiver and speakers. They're great for saving space in that case, and usually those are locations I don't care about having great sound, just "good enough" sound

I was a little surprised when I asked a local AV store employee how many people connect 50"+ sets to a receiver and speakers. He said about 50/50.

Makes sense. You don't need awesome sound to watch sitcoms, soaps, and football.

Or rather, many don't think you do. Having good sound for properly produced NFL games is wonderful. I get the commentators through the center channel, and the crowd noise everywhere else. It really feels immersive.

[yet another spell-check fail: Chrome doesn't know the word "immersive" - where on earth do they get their dictionary for these browsers?]

I need a blindfold and ear plugs to watch the NFL.

I'm with you

Our TV here also has a pair of USB host ports, from which it can play videos and the like.

But it can also find the MythTV box over ethernet/DLNA. This does have its uses -- the TV can upconvert videos to 120Hz better than the NVidia hardware in our MythTV boxes can.

Normally, the difference isn't enough to bother with the clunky TV user-interface. But tonight I was watching a 720p BD rip of Star Trek (2009).. it plays perfectly on the little Zotac Ion2 Mythtv box in my office, but when I went downstairs to see it on the big screen.. playback was very jerky with the main MythTV box, despite superior hardware in all respects..

So I used the TV to watch the flick, over DLNA from the MythTV box. Worked perfectly, and the picture quality was very impressive.

Why did the big MythTV box fail, when even the tiny Atom/Ion2 box could handle it? Software. Our main MythTV box is running 0.23, whereas the Ion2 system has 0.24, with better support for hardware acceleration of more formats. That's the first time I've run into a video that needed the newer software.

Cheers

You should try my 1080p rip then. I've been very pleased with the performance of the Sigma SoC (in the Sage extender and a bunch of other products). So far the Boxee has been able to keep up, but i've already seen some issues on smaller videos which I'm chalking up to software issues with the current firmware.

I'm not sure if my TV can play video over its USB connection of whether it's limited to images. The only other experience I have with this type of integrated playback was on friends' DVD players with USB ports - none of them had terrific codec support though, nor container support for that matter (no MKV, no H.254)

Yeah, it's pretty impressive seeing 1080p play flawlessly on both of the MythTV boxes here, too. Looks Real Good!

That little Zotac HD-ID11 is a fantastic media box, either as a simple MythTV Frontend (aka. "extender") running from an SD card, or as a full-blown recorder/playback unit with a big (notebook) hard drive. Heck, it's even got eSATA.

Cheers

Ooh! That's actually a good idea. Make it happen!

I have no doubt that it's wonderful, but that doesn't change the basic truth that you don't need it to enjoy a game. Indeed, the last time I watched football, the volume was completely off.

Our TV downstairs is hooked in with a reasonably good stereo system, and it's on whenever the TV is in use. (And, thanks to HDMI, it even turns off when you turn the TV off.)

My observation is that the "benefit" of HD video, versus old crappy SD, is immediate and obvious. It just sucks when you're watching an SD video signal.

Conversely, it's relatively rare that a show comes along that really exercises the sound system. I was watching a football game the other day, and the main innovation is that they were piping crowd noise as ambiance into the rear channels. If you did that from the front instead, would I really notice or care?

Now, if I get out a Bluray disc of a live concert recording, then it's clearly worth the bother. For daily whatever TV watching? Not so much.