Engadget Podcast 105 - 03.30.2007

Posted in News, apple, microsoft, xbox, xbox 360, Xbox360, xbox 360 elite, Xbox360Elite, Apple TV, AppleTv, hack, samsung, htc, s720, vox, 6800, titan, shift, sprint (May 4, 2007 at 1:14 am)

Filed under: , , ,

Sure, the Xbox 360 Elite was finally announced, but we’ve got a fair bit of interesting cellphone news this week, too. Check out Samsung’s UpStage, finally launched; or the long-awaited Helio Ocean dual-slider QWERTY featurephone — not bad eh? And then HTC had a whole slew of gear, too, from their first UMPC to the Advantage’s US launch. We won’t only be talking about cellphones this week, but if you’re not down with mobile gadgets then you might want to snag our enhanced RSS and skip some chapters, because we’ve got some CTIA stuff to catch up on.

Get the podcast
 [iTunes] Subscribe to the Podcast directly in iTunes (enhanced AAC).
[RSS MP3] Add the Engadget Podcast feed (in MP3) to your RSS aggregator and have the show delivered automatically.
[RSS AAC] Add the Engadget Podcast feed (in enhanced AAC) to your RSS aggregator.
[RSS OGG] Add the Engadget Podcast feed (in OGG) to your RSS aggregator.

Hosts: Peter Rojas and Ryan Block

Producer: Trent Wolbe

Music: Solvent - Instructograph (Ghostly International)

Program:
00:50 - Xbox 360 Elite and 120GB drive now official
07:22 - The Helio Ocean
12:31 - Sprint announces Samsung UpStage, 99 cent songs over the air
17:15 - HTC Shift — the cellphone company finally goes UMPC
19:46 - HTC Advantage coming to US… under the HTC brand
23:29 - HTC 6800 / Titan hands-on
25:36 - HTC S720 vs Vox and TyTn hands-on
26:02 - Hands-on with the Samsung Ubicell
34:15 - How-to: Upgrade the drive in your Apple TV

LISTEN (MP3)
 LISTEN (AAC)
LISTEN (OGG)

Contact the podcast: 1-888-ENGADGET, Engadget (Gizmo Project) or podcast at engadget dawt com

 

Permalink | Email this | Comments

BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time

Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Watching the Apple TV…

Posted in News, apple (April 13, 2007 at 1:18 am)

Just was catching up on my reading of TechCrunch, among other feeds, and saw that Apple is giving video producers some suggestions of ways to make things look good on both Apple TV as well as iPods.

I’ve been watching a TON of Internet videos with my son the past few days. I haven’t found one that really looks awesome yet that can compare with the Discovery Channel’s HD content, for instance.

That doesn’t mean they aren’t watchable. Patrick and I enjoy watching Diggnation, for instance. That content doesn’t require a high-resolution version.

I find myself wanting more, though, in many videos. Particularly ones that actually show something like what my show did last Friday where we got a tour of Franck Muller, famous Swiss watch maker. There the lack of resolution was frustrating for me as a viewer and as a content developer. What I had on tape was a lot more compelling than what came through on my TV screen.

Today I spent a few hours at Adobe seeing its CS3 Suite (ships on Monday). I wish I could push high resolution versions of the videos down, but I don’t have the machines, nor can I afford the bandwidth. Now some companies are offering the bandwidth for free, but that gets back to what Apple’s suggesting for Internet video producers: doing one format for iTunes that’ll play on both Apple TV as well as iTunes.

I don’t think that’s the best practice in the end. I think if we really want Apple TV customers to be happy we’ll offer them one feed for that (translation: something that’s 16:9 and has more resolution than 640xsomething) and another for iPods (cause they can’t deal with more than 640xsomething resolution).

One other thing? Most Internet video content just is really boring. Mine included. Gotta work on that too along with the resolution.

UPDATE: Make just announced an Apple TV version of its videocast.