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Sunday, May 28, 2006
Golden Gate Nation Cemetary
I drove past this intersection today. Each marker has a small flag. I wondered what it looked like from the air. The Golden Gate National Cemetary started receiving burials in 1941.
USO
Saturday, May 27, 2006
Mobile Video
How about two points of integration?
First, a display/speaker/batterypack unit. Those devices last a long time, don't become obsolete every other month.
And secondly, "players" that provide access (wireless, hard disk or optical disk) and have a media processor. E.g. a cell phone with wireless broadband reception and S-video over mini-jack output. Or a video iPod with uncompressed A/V over firewire. Or a universal disk reader/decoder, supporting every optical media format ever devised. Or a DVB-H receiver. Mobile digital video over satellite, anyone?
Seems like the methods of accessing, storing, reading, decoding media are churning very fast. Separating those functions into a small handheld distinct from the display device seems like a good partition.
Video Geek Goes Shopping
D's on her way to Ireland this weekend, and may have a few more trips. She asked for one of those little portable DVD players to watch movies on the plane ride.
If you ask a video geek to buy a portable DVD player, is it just going to require a quick trip to Best Purchase or Circuit Town to grab something?
Not exactly.
I'm very curious about mobile video. And want to know what's going on. I think much will change in the next five years as storage, wireless broadband, podcasting, AVC/DVB-H, lithium batteries, low power/high performance DSP silicon, cheap LCDs, and improved image sensors potentially converge on this product space.
In the first couple of hours of searching, I started to understand the range of features of portable DVDs players. CD, VCD, MP3, JPEG, DivX, DVD+R/-R/+RW/-RW, (and don't forget DVD+R DL), WMA, DVD audio, AC-3, DTS, SPDIF, composite/component output, NSTC/PAL, 110-240 V. And how about region free code, 7, 8, 9, or 10" diagonal, CIF-like resolution (~1/4 res.) vs. ED TV (better than SD, but not quite HD). And one with USB.
Slowly it dawned on me that most players had a small-to-medium subset of the available features. They all cover slightly different territory, and never quite enough.
Sony has a moderately featured, slightly pricey, but perfectly adequate and stylish player, with long battery life for $190-200. Almost got it. But the AC adapter is 120 V only. Dudes, you're Sony. You've been selling on an international market since I don't know when. Global is your middle name. To seal the deal, the input DC is 9.5 V, slightly above the standard of 9 V, which gives me concerns about the viability of an outboard battery pack for extended flights.
Sony has a second unit that has a strange docking module for home use, no display guard, NTSC/PAL (yes!), but no speakers, and 12 V power? Kinda "edgey" in design. Targeting the youth demo? By the time the screen is scratched to hell, time to throw it away for the Blu-Ray model?
I was all excited about a Philips unit -- as usual, very international in execution -- and stopped by the closest (3.2 miles) Best Purchase outlet. I checked the video, and youch! Dudes, you're Philips! You may have some of the strangest UI concepts known to western civilization. But your picture quality always ranges from average to superior, and never, ever sucks. Except this unit. What's the deal with the horizontal black lines? That aspect of LCD design was resolved, what, like 10 years ago?
Toshiba has a unit with all many of the bells and whistles, and a price to match. It's the only one with analog component support. (Even S-video I/O is very rare in this product niche.) But even then, no progressive output? I was tempted for a moment. But even at the top end, there were too many major gaps in features.
Finally, I decided that if evey unit is flawed, I'll just get the best unit in the range just above "completely sucky". The barrier is about $100. I almost settled on a 7" unit from Zenith at $125. Two thirds res. horizontally, half res in the vertical. Competent, sturdy, very good range of media support. And discontinued. But available.
As I was closing in on this, I stumbled across a unit at Radio Shack, while web browsing their external battery (a winner in that product category). They have a discontinued unit from a Chinese company. Only a few are left in the supply chain.
Ten inch display. Looks to be full res SD, and perhaps a little better. Very good picture quality, across the board. No major flaws in resolution, whilte level, black level, color acuity, scaling artifacts or other random, wierd electronic artifacts. The transport is very solid. NTSC/PAL, S-video output, full range of audio format support. I got a refurb unit in a beat up box, with extended warranty, for $149 after rebate. (Plus a free Starwars 5 DVD.)
Rounding out the system is a pair of noise cancelling headphones from Sennheiser. And a 6000 mAh battery.