Rotten Blue-Ray Disk… literally
June 17, 2007
A thread over at the AVS Forums has highlighted a potential problem with the coating of Blu-ray discs, described by many as "disc rot" due to the mould-like spots that have made several owner’s Blu-ray discs unplayable. The five page thread has reports from dozens of forum members, many of them discovering spots which can’t be rubbed off on Blu-ray versions of "The Prestige." It’s impossible to judge how widespread the problem is from a single forum thread, although it’s not unheard of to see a product recall after a problem is discovered by users on a forum. It’s also worth noting that for every user that has reported the spots, there’s one or more people with discs that have no problem. If you’ve encountered the same issue, your best policy is to try and get a refund / replacement disc from the place where you originally bought it from. If enough people are reporting a problem, then retailers will be a much stronger voice than a bunch of consumers sounding off in the echo chamber that is "the internet."
[Source engadget]
Joost everywhere, embedded in hardware
June 16, 2007
This week, Joost started publicly talking about getting equipment manufacturers to embed its video-playing software in TV sets and other consumer hardware.
The second, which cannot be fixed by tweaking software, is that people want to watch the majority of their entertainment videos on that newly purchased 42-inch flat-panel screen that’s hanging on the wall in the living room.
New CEO Mike Volpi said Joost is a piece of software that can reside on a variety of platforms, including a television with an internet connection, a set-top box, a mobile phone, or in some alternative device that might come out in the future.
Perhaps it’s coincidental that at a time Joost appears to be experiencing unexpected problems it also starts talking about embedding its player software in consumer hardware.
Joost, whose initial forays into distributing TV shows on the web have been complicated by those aforementioned technical glitches, is opening a new front in its campaign to elbow in on cable and satellite TV with its attempt to get its software embedded in the hardware that’s in the living room.
David Clark, executive vice president of global advertising for Joost, told TV Week that a year from now there will be a lot more convergence, enough that "you will see Joost in the living room."
They successfully developed their own technology to use the net to speed the copying of music tracks (Kazaa) and to carry voice-quality conversations (Skype).
If Joost were to win the embedding battle for internet-delivered video, then Zennstrom and Friis will have seriously unsettled another major industry.
Joost is still missing content from major producers, specifically NBC Universal, News Corp (Fox), and Disney.
NBC Universal and News Corp are working on their own online video service that will distribute their own and other producers’ content through third-party entertainment portals such as AOL, MSN, Yahoo, MySpace and Comcast.net. Disney and its ABC network have been keeping most of their goodies for their own Web sites and giving some to Apple, whose Steve Jobs is Disney’s largest shareholder.
Volpi told the New York Times that the company hopes to attract NBC, Fox and Disney "because we are an attractive place given the numbers of users we have"…. Volpi did not mention two other factors that media companies require - piracy protection including preventing the general public from posting their copyright protected content on the net and full and fair compensation for their content.
Joost in May closed a $45m round of funding from Index Ventures, Sequoia Capital, CBS, Viacom and a foundation run by Li Kashing, chairman of Hutchison Whampoa Ltd, the owner of the various 3 mobile phone networks.
[Via TheRegister]
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Switch things you don’t want for things you want
June 16, 2007
SwitchPlanet.com members save money by switching the things they no longer need or use to get the things they want for free. For example, you can trade the media that you do not need anymore against new media that you are interested in.
You offer your things that you do not need anymore and send them to members of SwitchPlanet.com that want them. This earns you so called Switchbucs which can be used to order things that you are interested in from other members.
Right now SwitchPlanet members have the ability to trade DVDs, CDs, Books and Games but soon they will be able to trade clothing, electronics, tools and much more. All main categories (DVD, CD, Games and Books) contain several subcategories such as PC Games, Xbox and Playstation 2 in the Games category.
SwitchPlanet interface as seen below is nicelly laid out and easy to use. You can easilly submit items to trade and find things you would like in return:
Because SwitchPlanet is free to use members are given the option to donate any amount they choose every time they receive something for free on the SwitchPlanet Network. These donations are put into a SwitchFund that is then distributed among selected charities and non-profit organizations.
It is SwitchPlanet.com goal to establish itself as a premier online community that is committed to help reduce the impact waste is having on the planet by trading the things we no longer use to get the things we want.
In this spirit, SwitchPlanet and its members proudly support the following organizations through cash and product contributions.
- The Red Cross
- Boys and Girls Club
- The Nature Conservancy
- American Cancer Society
- Child’s Play Charity
Instead of transaction fees or membership fees, SwitchPlanet.com want to give it’s members the option to donate any amount they choose every time they request something for free from another member on the SwitchPlanet network.
SwitchPlanet.com plan on creating other ways people can help out like donating their time to help a needy cause or maybe donating a book for a “Books for Kids” drive.
They thought about setting up their own foundation but came to the conclusion that the donations would be better put to use by giving them to already established organizations that have the resources in place to make sure the money has an immediate impact on society and the planet.
This was a sponsored review
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Fifth Element Blu-ray exchange program details announced
June 15, 2007
Considering what a mythical reference title The Fifth Element was when released on DVD (and Superbit, and Laserdisc!), it was surprising to see it reviewed as just another softly-focused, dirty, and scratchy launch title for Blu-ray. Many reviewers and fans complained about the lackluster MPEG-2 encoding, and the general poor quality of the transfer. Sony has announced details and contact information about a plan to exchange the first — now discontinued — batch of Blu-ray Discs for the remastered edition, due to be released in July. The new version is a new 1080p transfer from a different master, and includes Dolby TrueHD as well as uncompressed PCM audio. It will also be encoded in MPEG-4 AVC, which will hopefully show off the improved compression of the newer codec. Quite an olive branch from Sony for those who have already picked it up, and a show of good steps toward making Blu-ray titles the best they can be. Now the question remains, how many of the other initial MPEG-2 Blu-ray titles will be remastered like this?
