Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology? With
Speaker 1: tech Stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hello, everybody,
Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff. My name is Chris Pouette, and
Speaker 1: I'm an editor here at how stuff works dot Com.
Speaker 1: Sitting across from me as usual as senior writer Jonathan Strickland.
Speaker 1: Hey there, Crispy. Alright, so today we were going to
Speaker 1: talk about something really vague. Stuff you can hook up
Speaker 1: to your TV, right, go, okay, so cam qorders, uh,
Speaker 1: very small rocks, cherries, cherries. We wanted to talk about
Speaker 1: really sort of pretty much everything home theater related that
Speaker 1: you you hook up to your television. Actually I didn't
Speaker 1: go into a V receivers, but I thought we'd do
Speaker 1: another episode later on about home theater components specifically, But
Speaker 1: we kind of wanted to talk about different stuff that
Speaker 1: you can hook up to your TV to get content.
Speaker 1: Really that was That's the way I looked at it, anyway,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure about you. Yeah, okay, So we're not
Speaker 1: talking about antenna's or cable boxes or satellite boxes for
Speaker 1: that matter, because that's really or at least I wasn't,
Speaker 1: at least not by themselves. No, no, no, that's their
Speaker 1: only application. We're talking about stuff that enhances what you
Speaker 1: you know, the basics. Yes, if it's a pair of
Speaker 1: rabbit ears that you can bake a potato on, I
Speaker 1: think that qualifies because it can do more than one thing.
Speaker 1: That's true. That's true. And if you have one of those.
Speaker 1: UM sent it to Chris. He's apparently very interested. Um
Speaker 1: so the first thing I was going to talk about.
Speaker 1: But well, what was the first thing you were going
Speaker 1: to talk about before I jump in? No, No, I'm
Speaker 1: I'm interested to hear where you're going. I was gonna
Speaker 1: start off by talking about the Great Wars, the Great
Speaker 1: Wars between Beta Max and VHS. Okay, I thought we
Speaker 1: were going to have to get into that whole Austro
Speaker 1: Hungarian thing. And no, I wasn't prepared to talk about wars. No,
Speaker 1: well this I hope you're prepared to talk about this one. Okay,
Speaker 1: So with Beta Max and VHS UM. For our younger
Speaker 1: listeners out there, you may wonder what the heck these
Speaker 1: things are. This is what we old folks used to
Speaker 1: watch movie pictures on UM back shortly after we you know,
Speaker 1: hooked up the view master to the ends fire then
Speaker 1: Beta Max. So Beta max was it was a Sony project, right,
Speaker 1: And so you had Sony on one side JVC with
Speaker 1: the VHS technology on the other side. And these were
Speaker 1: both technologies that would allow home theater enthusiasts to watch
Speaker 1: programming on their television, prerecorded programming anytime they liked, which
Speaker 1: was a revolutionary thing at that point. And um, so
Speaker 1: it was two different technologies that were kind of similar.
Speaker 1: Beta Max a slightly better picture, um, but VHS could
Speaker 1: pack a lot more programming onto one tape than Beta
Speaker 1: Max could. And so you had this this battle early
Speaker 1: on between the two formats. Is it gonna be Beta
Speaker 1: Max or is it gonna be VHS? Yep. And honestly,
Speaker 1: the from what I understand, the two formats are not
Speaker 1: all that different in quality. I mean VHS. Uh. If
Speaker 1: you read stuff about the The Great Wars um a
Speaker 1: lot of times you'll hear that Beta Max was the
Speaker 1: superior format and it just you know, completely created the VHS.
Speaker 1: But from what I've you know, and digging in a
Speaker 1: little bit more from what I've read, they really weren't
Speaker 1: all that different as far as quality. I mean not
Speaker 1: that most people worry about it. I mean even you know,
Speaker 1: when people were using VCRs more than they do now. Uh,
Speaker 1: a lot of times people would put record when they
Speaker 1: were record stuff that that record things for themselves, they
Speaker 1: would use a uh slower recording time, and and that
Speaker 1: decreased the quality of the playback considerably. So, um, you
Speaker 1: know it's it. It actually became more of an issue
Speaker 1: of convenience and the length of the tape more than
Speaker 1: it was video quality. Right in the original Beta Max,
Speaker 1: I think you could only record up to an hour's
Speaker 1: worth of programming, and the VHS to let you have
Speaker 1: to right, or up to four if you change the speed.
Speaker 1: The original Beta max is you couldn't even change the speed.
Speaker 1: So when you think about that, you're thinking, well, how
Speaker 1: how many programs on television would you want to record
Speaker 1: that are over an hour long? Yeah? There are plenty.
Speaker 1: Sports events would be over an hour long if you
Speaker 1: wanted to. If you want to record an evening's worth
Speaker 1: of shows like you wanted to, you know, get the
Speaker 1: prime time programming from your favorite station, that would be
Speaker 1: up more than an hour. It's probably two hours right there.
Speaker 1: Or if it's a movie that's going to be longer,
Speaker 1: so VHS was more convenient, and it got the leg
Speaker 1: up and eventually ended up beating out Beta max. Um.
Speaker 1: Have you ever taken a look at a super VHS um,
Speaker 1: Not that I remember. I have a friend who owns
Speaker 1: a super VHS machine and actually has super VHS. Uh.
Speaker 1: It does not. Um. It does wear glasses on occasion,
Speaker 1: and I've never seen it next to the VHS machine. UM.
Speaker 1: So super VHS was really it's the same sort of thing,
Speaker 1: the same sort of technology is VHS, but it was
Speaker 1: able to pack more lines of resolution into a recording
Speaker 1: than VHS, so your quality was better. It was it
Speaker 1: was more luminescent um colors sometimes suffered, but it was
Speaker 1: it was in general of a sharper picture. Well, both
Speaker 1: technologies got better as the years went on, right, but
Speaker 1: by the point that that happened, that BETA had already
Speaker 1: lost out socially, except for you know, like TV production exactly. Yes,
Speaker 1: for home theater, Beta's pretty much it become a nonentity. Well.
Speaker 1: The interesting thing, the reason why I bring up super
Speaker 1: VHS is because it never really caught on. You know,
Speaker 1: even though it was better quality than VHS, it never
Speaker 1: really took off in the home market. So you're talking
Speaker 1: about a technology that's similar to an existing technology, but
Speaker 1: it doesn't go anywhere because consumers are happy with the
Speaker 1: technology they have being good enough. That's going to come
Speaker 1: into play later, is it really? Yeah? I can think
Speaker 1: of another. I can think of a parallel to that,
Speaker 1: a current one. But before we get to that, I
Speaker 1: was going to talk about a couple of other sort
Speaker 1: of legacy home theater devices. For for a moment, I
Speaker 1: thought you were talking about XP but then I realized
Speaker 1: we weren't talking to computers. No, No, I'm switched the theater.
Speaker 1: So we also have the laser disc. Yes, I was
Speaker 1: going to make sure that you mentioned this because I
Speaker 1: know this is one of your pet technologies, well, laser disc,
Speaker 1: laser discause I never owned a laser disc. Again, I
Speaker 1: have a I have several friends who did own laser
Speaker 1: disc systems, and uh I remember as a kid going
Speaker 1: over to friends houses where they had laser disc systems
Speaker 1: and just being totally blown away because the picture was
Speaker 1: so much better than VHS, remarkably better. Uh I got
Speaker 1: a little annoying if you had to flip the disc
Speaker 1: halfway through, but other than that, it was really an
Speaker 1: amazing picture. Again, another one of those kind of a
Speaker 1: niche market. I mean you had early adopters grab onto them,
Speaker 1: and then you had, you know, a small market in
Speaker 1: the US. It never really took off outside of the
Speaker 1: United States. And uh, CD technology is actually based off
Speaker 1: of laser disc technology. Yep, and and so is another
Speaker 1: one that you're going to talk about in a minute,
Speaker 1: but I'm not there yet. Yeah. Yeah, the laser disc
Speaker 1: apparently had four five lines of resolution. And one of
Speaker 1: the things that I found out in doing research, even
Speaker 1: though I sort of looked at laser discs before, I
Speaker 1: didn't realize that the video format was analog. It was
Speaker 1: not digital, which is kind of funny compared to that
Speaker 1: other technology that everybody knows what we're going to talk about,
Speaker 1: but we're not yet, yes, exactly, all right. So I
Speaker 1: was also going to go ahead and mention I've mentioned
Speaker 1: this in other podcasts, but the capacitance electronic disc that
Speaker 1: was the one that we owned. We didn't have the
Speaker 1: laser disc. Oh no, no, we had the capacity its
Speaker 1: electronic disc. And uh I've talked about it before, but
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go ahead and give the spiel again. So
Speaker 1: what you had was a disk inside a plastic sheath.
Speaker 1: The plastic sheath was about the same size as This
Speaker 1: is also a dated reference for you folks out there,
Speaker 1: a vinyl record album cover. What, Yeah, exactly, So you
Speaker 1: kids who don't know what we're talking about. Um, something
Speaker 1: that you've never heard of is about the same size
Speaker 1: as something else that you've never heard of, and I'm yeah,
Speaker 1: I just wanted to clear that up. So the discs
Speaker 1: actually had little grooves in them, and you know, a
Speaker 1: laser disc obviously the method that with the device would
Speaker 1: read the the information off the disc, they used a laser.
Speaker 1: Thus the laser disc um capacits electronic disk, did not
Speaker 1: use a laser. He used a needle. So there was
Speaker 1: a very very fine needle and it would create an
Speaker 1: electronic connection between the needle and the disc itself and
Speaker 1: make a circuit as the disc turned, and that's how
Speaker 1: it would read information off the disk and display it
Speaker 1: on your television. So it was more like a vinyl
Speaker 1: record than a laser disc. And uh, you couldn't write
Speaker 1: to them, you could only read from them, so you
Speaker 1: would buy movies or whatever. And again, after about I
Speaker 1: think it was around forty minutes or so, maybe thirty
Speaker 1: I can't remember quite right now. But you didn't have
Speaker 1: to flip it over. It would it would run out
Speaker 1: of space. And we had several movies. Um. I remember
Speaker 1: Rais Last arc always ended with they're digging in the
Speaker 1: wrong place flip. So that was my experience in home
Speaker 1: theater as a kid growing up. Um, and then there's
Speaker 1: a pretty big gap. I mean, VHS kind of reigned
Speaker 1: supreme for several years and as just now really truly
Speaker 1: going extinct, and none of the other the videotape formats
Speaker 1: really have managed to displace it at all. I mean
Speaker 1: not the you know, the digital eight You don't see
Speaker 1: digital eight players. You know camcorders, yes, as you mentioned before,
Speaker 1: I mean, and you can for most of them anyway,
Speaker 1: plug them right into your TV and watch the movies
Speaker 1: you record. But you didn't buy movies on those formats.
Speaker 1: So as far as as uh magnetic tape goes, that's
Speaker 1: pretty much the end of the line as far as
Speaker 1: watching movies. And I meant to mention this before just
Speaker 1: because I thought it was funny. Do you know what
Speaker 1: the original marketing term for a laser disc was, um
Speaker 1: beulah No, Okay, disco Vision, you're kidding. No. If I
Speaker 1: were kidding, i'd say a priest, a rabbi, and a
Speaker 1: horse walk into a bar. But I'm not kid crispy.
Speaker 1: This is being serious here, Disco vision. I don't know
Speaker 1: why they changed it. Um so, probably because they were
Speaker 1: trying to keep it past going past the seventies. Yes,
Speaker 1: exactly so. Yeah, the VHS, the Beta Max, the Capassitan's
Speaker 1: electronic disk, that laser view. Those are laser disc round,
Speaker 1: not laser view. All of those have their origins back
Speaker 1: in the mid to late seventies and then throughout the eighties. Uh,
Speaker 1: laser just like we said, never really got much of
Speaker 1: a foothold. Um. It had a larger market in the
Speaker 1: US than anywhere else, and then VHS was reigning supreme
Speaker 1: for a while until the DVD came along. Can we
Speaker 1: talk about it now? Sure, let's go, okay, go for it. Um. Well,
Speaker 1: these are these are much smaller than the laser disc.
Speaker 1: You may be familiar with the DVD format, dominant media
Speaker 1: format in every culture today. Yes, yes, um, you know.
Speaker 1: DVDs caught on for a couple of big reasons, um,
Speaker 1: One of which is that, um, you know, it's smaller
Speaker 1: and more convenient. The other is price, and the price
Speaker 1: of the DVD players, which is now what like forty
Speaker 1: five cents or something like that. Yeah, but when they
Speaker 1: first came out, they were I remember, the big incredibly expensive. Actually,
Speaker 1: I think um, to some degree, DVDs have benefited from
Speaker 1: the success of vhs because when um, again, this is
Speaker 1: one of the things that that some of the younger
Speaker 1: listeners may not remember because it may really technically be
Speaker 1: before your time. But when used to buy vhs, I
Speaker 1: remember when we've got our first VHS player, movies were
Speaker 1: like ninety dollars. They were really expensive. Ye. A lot
Speaker 1: of that was because you had these these rental agencies
Speaker 1: like Blockbuster cut popping up, and what they would do
Speaker 1: is they would purchase the movies that would hit the market.
Speaker 1: Were really meant more for these these you know, aftermarket
Speaker 1: kind of places. UM. So what would happen is a
Speaker 1: rental agency would purchase however many copies of you know, uh,
Speaker 1: Empire Strikes Back or whatever, and then you would be
Speaker 1: you would rent it and they would make their money
Speaker 1: back through the rentals. Um. And and it wasn't until
Speaker 1: the market had really established itself before he started seeing
Speaker 1: some you know, the more popular movies start falling into
Speaker 1: home market you know, price ranges, and then it started
Speaker 1: to uh, to affect the whole the whole system. But
Speaker 1: I mean, I own a movie that up until the
Speaker 1: point where I went out of print, the only way
Speaker 1: you could buy it officially was if you dished out
Speaker 1: a hundred bucks. Yeah. Yeah, and I'm sorry, but Blood
Speaker 1: Salvage is not worth a hundred dollars. But if Jake
Speaker 1: can't fix it, it's been dead too long. I was
Speaker 1: in that movie. Yeah, that's kind of why I wanted it.
Speaker 1: I bought it on eBay, alright, moving gone. Yeah. But
Speaker 1: the I think that helped the DVD because by the
Speaker 1: time the DVDs became the primary format for videos, it
Speaker 1: was a player that was expensive and the videos were
Speaker 1: considerably cheaper. Now, I mean they were more expensive, sort
Speaker 1: of like another format that we're going to talk about
Speaker 1: in a moment um, you know, more expensive than VHS tapes.
Speaker 1: But um, I think that that was sort of part
Speaker 1: of the transition. And another interesting point about this is
Speaker 1: that as people began to adopt DVD players, then you
Speaker 1: started seeing U stores cut back on on the VHS
Speaker 1: inventory both Reynold places and you know, big box stores
Speaker 1: or whatever. So it began to force consumers to switch over,
Speaker 1: even the ones who weren't interested in necessarily upgrading their experience.
Speaker 1: Because the jump between VHS and super VHS wasn't huge,
Speaker 1: I mean, you could notice it, it wasn't unnoticeable, but
Speaker 1: it wasn't enough to motivate people to switch. The jump
Speaker 1: between VHS and DVD was significant, and that was enough
Speaker 1: to get enough people to jump over and adopt it
Speaker 1: to force the market to follow. And uh, Also, DVDs
Speaker 1: had other great benefits as well, like you could include
Speaker 1: all these extras on DVDs and extra layers on DVDs
Speaker 1: so that you could watch the movie again with commentary
Speaker 1: things like that that weren't possible with VHS unless you
Speaker 1: just had some talkative people in the room with you
Speaker 1: when you're trying to watch your damn movie. Right, Well,
Speaker 1: I mean it was possible to uh to do some
Speaker 1: of that in laser disc to right, These are some
Speaker 1: of those features were introduced around that time, but um,
Speaker 1: you know, people hadn't really seen that because they were
Speaker 1: kind of ignoring the laser disc. Right, Yeah, only the
Speaker 1: laser disc enthusiasts knew about that, and they thought it
Speaker 1: was great, and everyone else just looked at them funny
Speaker 1: whenever they would bring it up right right, But um, yeah, Actually,
Speaker 1: I think the DVD also affected the TV itself because
Speaker 1: you know, talking about stuff you hook up to your TV.
Speaker 1: I've got an older TV, got got it in the
Speaker 1: early nineties and if you look on the back of it,
Speaker 1: it's got a coax connector on it and no composit,
Speaker 1: no s video, no HD m I, none of that stuff.
Speaker 1: So if I wanted to look up a DVD player,
Speaker 1: you know, there's no progressive scan, no cup or anything
Speaker 1: like that. So, you know, I think it's one of
Speaker 1: those things where people said, m if they really want
Speaker 1: this kind of quality, if they really want DVD, we're
Speaker 1: gonna have to, you know, provide some kind of hook
Speaker 1: up in order to make the TV worthwhile, and maybe
Speaker 1: they'll upgrade their TV too. It also ties into the
Speaker 1: history of h D t V, which is a little
Speaker 1: more complex. I don't think we'll go into that because
Speaker 1: it's maybe we'll do another podcast about that at some point,
Speaker 1: because I kind of went nuts on that on a
Speaker 1: recent article which was only tangentially involved with the history
Speaker 1: of HDTV, and I said, no, this is more interesting.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna write about this. Don't let everyone know that,
Speaker 1: I said that, don't don't let my bosses here this. Um.
Speaker 1: But all right, so we've got the DVDs, that's the
Speaker 1: dominant form on the market. Now, then of course you
Speaker 1: have the other format war that popped up, the HD
Speaker 1: DVD versus Blu Ray format for high definition video. And
Speaker 1: what's really funny or interesting to me is that even
Speaker 1: the winner of that format war isn't really doing that well.
Speaker 1: So HD DVD was that was Toshiba's baby, and then
Speaker 1: you had Blue Ray Sony's baby. So Sony's back in
Speaker 1: the game. They're sticking from Beta max, but now they're
Speaker 1: back and ready to fight, and so they've got their
Speaker 1: back in Blu Ray. Uh. The battle between these two
Speaker 1: is actually really interesting to watch, at least from my perspective,
Speaker 1: because you could see different Hollywood studios getting behind, you know,
Speaker 1: one format versus another, and then you had a few
Speaker 1: that were producing product for both. So you know, the
Speaker 1: the interesting thing about these two high definition video formats
Speaker 1: is that they were again pretty close to one another.
Speaker 1: I mean, you had people arguing the superiority of one
Speaker 1: versus the other. And I think most people would say,
Speaker 1: if you really looked at the specifications, that Blu Ray
Speaker 1: did have the superior format. But it was interesting for
Speaker 1: a while there, I thought I thought HD DVD was
Speaker 1: gonna win because it looked like it had more public support.
Speaker 1: You know, it's funny because we've talked about this. It's
Speaker 1: been a long time since we brought up that format
Speaker 1: war um on the podcast, but uh, you know, you
Speaker 1: and I had talked about the reasons why we hadn't
Speaker 1: gotten involved with that one, and that was simply cost
Speaker 1: um and that I think was probably the biggest factor
Speaker 1: in all of it was people weren't adopting either one
Speaker 1: of them, so it kind of eroded any early support
Speaker 1: that HD DVD got. And yeah, that's kind of crazy
Speaker 1: because HD DVD was in general cheaper than Blu ray.
Speaker 1: The movies were about the same price, but the cheap
Speaker 1: being a relative thing. Yeah, less expensive, I guess I
Speaker 1: should say, rather than cheaper, because yes, it was still
Speaker 1: several hundred dollars for a player. A Blu Ray was
Speaker 1: almost a thousand dollars for a player. For a long
Speaker 1: time there. In fact, for a while, the Sony PS
Speaker 1: three was the cheapest Blu Ray player you could get,
Speaker 1: and that was like six hundred bucks. So um. But
Speaker 1: eventually an Off Studios backed Blu Ray, where Toshiba was
Speaker 1: you know, said all right, no moss. They threw in
Speaker 1: the towel and Blu Ray one that format warp. But
Speaker 1: Blue Ray still hasn't really taken off. I mean, the
Speaker 1: numbers are up compared to where they were, but when
Speaker 1: you're going from you know, ten people owning one too,
Speaker 1: I mean that there's nowhere else to go. But so
Speaker 1: DVD sales in general are down. Blu Ray sales are
Speaker 1: not taking off the way that people want. And I
Speaker 1: think part of it is the old s VHS argument.
Speaker 1: The improvement of Blu Ray over regular DVDs well noticeable,
Speaker 1: isn't enough for people to be willing to switch to
Speaker 1: a new format potentially go back and purchase old titles
Speaker 1: that they already own on the new format. Um, They're
Speaker 1: just not It's just not enough of a of a
Speaker 1: you know, motivator. So I think that's why we still
Speaker 1: haven't seen Blu Ray really take off. Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: the other thing that it keeps me from buying a
Speaker 1: Blu ray player other than price, is that I don't
Speaker 1: have an h d t V. You know, and you know,
Speaker 1: watching a regular DVD, it's it's seven ADP. Yeah that's
Speaker 1: I can't even see that probably on my standard definition television.
Speaker 1: Um technically, so you know the point of buying a
Speaker 1: Blu ray player for me is is moot, right, I
Speaker 1: have an hd TV, But I also have a wife. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that would be why I don't have a Blu
Speaker 1: ray player. Yeah, I love you, honey. Um oh no, no,
Speaker 1: I can't put the blame on her, I honestly, I
Speaker 1: I have also looked at the difference in quality, and
Speaker 1: while I can recognize it, I can't justify the expense.
Speaker 1: It's and and they are cheaper now there are cheaper
Speaker 1: Blu ray players out there in the market. The movies
Speaker 1: are still more expensive than regular DVDs. Yeah, yeah, but
Speaker 1: the difference is different about the difference is different, that's wise.
Speaker 1: The difference is slighter than it used to be. Yes,
Speaker 1: and we can also I mean there's also the up
Speaker 1: converting DVD players where they add in information from the
Speaker 1: disks and then give you a slightly better experience. It's
Speaker 1: still not the same as Blu Ray, but it's better
Speaker 1: than a normal DVD and therefore, you know, it's an
Speaker 1: incremental uh improvement. It's not as expensive and you don't
Speaker 1: have to go back and replace your library. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: and they may be and maybe that the whole physical
Speaker 1: media thing is a moot point in in the first place. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was actually getting ready to go there. Okay, let's
Speaker 1: move on. You know, the digital download thing, especially with
Speaker 1: um companies like Netflix, you know already that that's a
Speaker 1: very that's going to be a very easy transition because
Speaker 1: people who are already using Netflix to rent DVDs may
Speaker 1: just go ahead and go, you know what, they offer
Speaker 1: a download service and it's already integrated, so I can
Speaker 1: just switch over. And I think it's just gonna be
Speaker 1: one of those things that it's gonna be a transition
Speaker 1: to digital download that is much smoother than a lot
Speaker 1: of the other technology. You cool transitions have been simply
Speaker 1: because people already have you know, people are using computers
Speaker 1: already to access Netflix, so they're gonna start going, you
Speaker 1: know what, I can do this. This is not hard
Speaker 1: and even if you don't want to use a computer,
Speaker 1: if for some reason you find the idea of of
Speaker 1: hooking a computer up to a television is UH is
Speaker 1: intimidating in some way. Netflix is partnering with other UH
Speaker 1: set top box manufacturers too, to create a way for
Speaker 1: you to access Netflix entertainment through a box like Roku. Now, granted,
Speaker 1: I've never used a Roku, and I've heard some conflicting
Speaker 1: things about its interface and how easy or not easy
Speaker 1: it is to use. But that might be an in
Speaker 1: road for some people who you know, they just they
Speaker 1: can't get past that that weird mental block about hooking
Speaker 1: up your computer to your television. And but a box
Speaker 1: that makes sense because of VCRs A box at cable
Speaker 1: boxes a box, DVD players a box. So this is
Speaker 1: just yet another box you hook up to your TV.
Speaker 1: Or you might not need an extra box. It depends
Speaker 1: on what you have see if you have a DVR UH.
Speaker 1: Certain brands are already partnering with services to provide digital downloads,
Speaker 1: like Netflix or Amazon yep YEP. TiVo has partnership deals
Speaker 1: in place, and UM basically you can if if you
Speaker 1: have a broadband connection in the right kind of TiVo,
Speaker 1: you can go ahead and download movies right then and there. Um,
Speaker 1: and you know, you can use the box for other things.
Speaker 1: You can use it for its regular DVR capabilities, which
Speaker 1: is um which a lot of people already are. Of course,
Speaker 1: you know, TiVo is not the only one. There are
Speaker 1: dozens of others. Now. Um. You know, ADDIH Network has
Speaker 1: their own proprietary box. Scientific Atlanta, now part of Cisco,
Speaker 1: you know, makes a lot of boxes for different cable manufacturers. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I mean, um, you can you can always build
Speaker 1: your own too. We've had a podcast on that terribly long.
Speaker 1: Using a computer as a media center. Yeah, so I
Speaker 1: mean these kinds of things. Uh, you know that would
Speaker 1: be your favorite word, convergence, convergence. Um, so you wouldn't
Speaker 1: necessarily pie. You knew it had to be one of
Speaker 1: the two. Convergence or pie. Yeah, it wasn't. It wasn't
Speaker 1: but a few weeks ago that I discovered Jonathan's findness
Speaker 1: for pie. So every once in a while, I'm I'm
Speaker 1: you know, I may need to uh throw that in
Speaker 1: there just to watch his eyes glazing over. It's kind
Speaker 1: of fun if I get into a rant, all you
Speaker 1: have to do is say the word pie. Pie. But um, yeah,
Speaker 1: convergence may you know, be the the end of the
Speaker 1: the argument for a lot of people because you know
Speaker 1: other technologies like the sling player. You know that's that's
Speaker 1: being built in addition network receivers too, So I mean
Speaker 1: you can you can get I'm sure there will be
Speaker 1: competing technologies for that too in the in the future.
Speaker 1: So sling players another good example of stuff you can help. YEP,
Speaker 1: that's a place shifter. If you don't know what sling
Speaker 1: player is, UM, and it will let you say you're
Speaker 1: on a business trip, you have your sling player hooked
Speaker 1: up and configured correctly. UM, you can you know, tune
Speaker 1: into your network at home, UH, use it to control
Speaker 1: your DVR and watch your recorded TV shows, or you
Speaker 1: can watch live TV on a on a you know,
Speaker 1: on some event especially that you may not be able
Speaker 1: to get in your local area, like say, uh sporting event,
Speaker 1: which has actually caused a lot of sporting leagues to
Speaker 1: be very upset with Sling and I assume Dish too
Speaker 1: now that they were acquired. I would just like, you're
Speaker 1: out of the area, you're in a blackout zone, you're
Speaker 1: not supposed to be able to see this. I just
Speaker 1: take like to take a moment to say, what the
Speaker 1: hell I mean, they wouldn't be able to watch it anyway?
Speaker 1: What's the problem with watching it? I don't. I don't
Speaker 1: under this no sense to Baseball Graves. What what makes
Speaker 1: no sense to me is if you are allowed to
Speaker 1: watch it because you live in the zone and you
Speaker 1: are across the country on a business trip watching it
Speaker 1: on your your place shifting device. I don't see why
Speaker 1: if you are legally allowed to watch it, you just
Speaker 1: don't happen to be at that place at that time.
Speaker 1: Why you wouldn't be allowed to write? Geography means less
Speaker 1: and less in the digital age, right indeed? I oh,
Speaker 1: it ever takes me so much? Um, I feel I feel.
Speaker 1: I feel the same way about this as uh as
Speaker 1: I'm sure a lot of our foreign listeners feel about
Speaker 1: being able to not being able to access things like Hulu.
Speaker 1: Because really, in the SABC w BBC programming, which is
Speaker 1: why whenever you Brits talked to us about Doctor Who,
Speaker 1: We're like, wait, what happened? Because we're a year behind? Yes, um,
Speaker 1: no spoilers, no spoilers, so uh we Also, I was
Speaker 1: going to mention Apple TV, oh yeah, because that's another
Speaker 1: digital media kind of downloading device. Yeah, that's sort of
Speaker 1: in a gray area too, because it's not a it's
Speaker 1: not a it's a it's uh it's Apple TV, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you can use Apple TV to essentially kind of it's
Speaker 1: it's kind of like hooking up your television to iTunes,
Speaker 1: really is what it boils. Yeah, that's pretty much. And
Speaker 1: you can use it to rent HD movies or purchase
Speaker 1: movies or television off of iTunes and watch it on
Speaker 1: your television. And uh so it's again, it's one of
Speaker 1: those things where for people who who are unsure about
Speaker 1: hooking up a computer to the other television or maybe
Speaker 1: if maybe you're one of those households where everyone has
Speaker 1: a laptop, you don't have a machine that you can
Speaker 1: dedicate to that, then this makes sense. So yeah, actually
Speaker 1: it's a It's received quite a lot of praise, but um,
Speaker 1: I don't you know, it's not one of their perennial
Speaker 1: top sellers. I've heard people, you know, I've heard rumors
Speaker 1: in the past that they were going to kill it,
Speaker 1: and they haven't, so they must sell some. Um. But
Speaker 1: it's a pretty neat little device. But it's it's very
Speaker 1: specialized in what it can do. And uh, you know
Speaker 1: a lot of people say, well I could, I could
Speaker 1: get a computer and actually convert it to a media
Speaker 1: center and have it do this and other stuff, you know,
Speaker 1: with something like boxy. Well that's the thing though, I think,
Speaker 1: I think a lot of these items are really marketed
Speaker 1: for that group of consumers where they're not technologically savvy
Speaker 1: enough to take the steps that are required to hook
Speaker 1: up a computer to your television or home entertainment system,
Speaker 1: because in some cases it takes more than just you know,
Speaker 1: putting the right cable between the two devices. There there
Speaker 1: are other steps that are involved, and um, if you
Speaker 1: don't have the recorrect software, for example, you'll be thinking,
Speaker 1: why the heck isn't this working and you get really frustrated.
Speaker 1: Whereas a box, of course, it's all supposed to work
Speaker 1: right on the box if it's designed correctly. Yes, okay, Well, uh,
Speaker 1: what other devices do you have if any? Um? Well,
Speaker 1: I wrote down some things about gaming systems, but that's
Speaker 1: kind of a separate category. That's true. Yeah, there are
Speaker 1: tons of gaming systems. Um. I was going to talk
Speaker 1: about the online video game console because we mentioned that
Speaker 1: in a podcast previously. The online video game console was
Speaker 1: supposed to be this device that allows you to download
Speaker 1: UH or or actually to play game is over the cloud,
Speaker 1: you know, and you're not even downloading, but you're able
Speaker 1: to play you a little bit. Yeah, there's some stuff
Speaker 1: on the device itself, but the there's there's a there's
Speaker 1: supposed to be a version version for the PC, for
Speaker 1: the Mac, and then there's a standalone little concel that
Speaker 1: who come to the TV and ideally you would be
Speaker 1: able to play these really normally resource intensive games, but
Speaker 1: the cloud would take care of all the processing for you,
Speaker 1: so you would just be able to play it rail
Speaker 1: the box. You wouldn't have to have the latest and
Speaker 1: grace machine to play it. The reason why I wanted
Speaker 1: to bring it up is because I noticed going to
Speaker 1: their website that I haven't seen any updates since June one,
Speaker 1: So UH and E three came and went, and I
Speaker 1: didn't see anything about it at E three when I
Speaker 1: was there. Yeah, that makes me a little nervous. I'm
Speaker 1: starting I'm starting to get shades of the phantom. UM.
Speaker 1: I'm hoping that's not the case. So they are supposed
Speaker 1: to continue in open beta and UH not that I've
Speaker 1: been contacted I did express interest, but I haven't heard back,
Speaker 1: and it's supposedly going to be available um this coming winter,
Speaker 1: so we'll keep our eyes open see if that actually
Speaker 1: comes to fruition or if maybe this is another one
Speaker 1: of those things that just fizzles out before it ever
Speaker 1: goes to market. All right, then, so I guess that
Speaker 1: just leaves us to our favorite segment, which is a
Speaker 1: listener mail. Okay, man, So this listener mail comes from James,
Speaker 1: and he has a nice long email, so I'm just
Speaker 1: gonna again cut this a little short. Hey guys, I
Speaker 1: must say I've always been quite the techie since I
Speaker 1: was a kid. I've always tried to stay on top
Speaker 1: of the latest and grace things in the tech world.
Speaker 1: I work now as a computer programmer, but I'm also
Speaker 1: a professional musician at night with my band Shipyard wreck Plug.
Speaker 1: So my world's collide quite often between music or art
Speaker 1: and computers, which to me is an art as well.
Speaker 1: I was wondering what you guys might think about computers
Speaker 1: and technology and their effects on art in the studio.
Speaker 1: I love using all the digital tools and whatnot, but
Speaker 1: this same time, I think people sometimes use it too much,
Speaker 1: mostly because they don't have the talent to back it up.
Speaker 1: Do you think we will ever get back to a
Speaker 1: world of music where samples, auto tune and other digital
Speaker 1: schools rule the world in markets? I think that means
Speaker 1: when they don't. UM. I somewhat fear that Sunday technology
Speaker 1: will push aside art because true artists will no longer
Speaker 1: be respected due to the fact that any Joe Schmo
Speaker 1: would be able to produce music at the touch of
Speaker 1: a button. And he goes on. But that's enough for
Speaker 1: us to talk about this briefly. What's your take on
Speaker 1: technology and art? Well, UM, you know, as a an
Speaker 1: artist of sorts, not a visual artist, but a musician. UM,
Speaker 1: I gotta say that a lot of times we the
Speaker 1: stuff that I do with the people I record with
Speaker 1: UM is really a collaboration of technologies, between analog and digital. UM.
Speaker 1: I don't think you can. I mean, digital technology makes
Speaker 1: art of all kinds a lot easier in a lot
Speaker 1: of respects, but it kind of depends on what you
Speaker 1: do with it. And it's sort of like my my
Speaker 1: feelings on e books. You know, I like the idea
Speaker 1: of having a digital device where you can read UM.
Speaker 1: You know, thousands of books on the train or where
Speaker 1: you know, take it with you and not have to
Speaker 1: carry a whole bunch of textbooks. There's something about the
Speaker 1: physical medium. Um. There's something about playing an instrument, or
Speaker 1: going to a museum and actually see, you know, seeing
Speaker 1: the texture of the paint on the canvas, or you know,
Speaker 1: a sculpture that you can actually look at or in
Speaker 1: some cases touch, um And and you know, the kind
Speaker 1: of thing where you you actually have in your hands
Speaker 1: a book in your hands, where you flip the page.
Speaker 1: There's that that sort of visceral reaction that I don't
Speaker 1: think you can get through pure digital media. Plus there's
Speaker 1: that whole preservation question, right and you know, whether it's
Speaker 1: going to be available to the next generation of people,
Speaker 1: whether it's going to fall apart, or whether people will
Speaker 1: even be able to read it if it's in some
Speaker 1: format or used on some computer. I mean, will people
Speaker 1: be able to read DVDs in sixty year? So, I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, there there are a lot of questions regarding that,
Speaker 1: and I think, uh, computers are great for helping us,
Speaker 1: you know, create some of these things, but you know,
Speaker 1: I don't think I don't think analog are forms are
Speaker 1: going to ever completely go away. I agree. I think
Speaker 1: technology does help people realize their artistic visions um in
Speaker 1: ways that they otherwise may not be able to do.
Speaker 1: But I don't think it will ever completely replace it.
Speaker 1: I mean a lot of the stuff I've listened to, UM,
Speaker 1: you can tell quality. That's that's really what it boils
Speaker 1: down to. I mean, you can you might enjoy like
Speaker 1: a weird song that was produced by putting a whole
Speaker 1: bunch of samples together, but that that's sort of a
Speaker 1: novelty I think. Um. I think genuine artistic expression does
Speaker 1: come through, whether you're using technology to achieve it or not.
Speaker 1: And if you don't have that, then it just won't
Speaker 1: you know, it just doesn't have any real lasting power.
Speaker 1: So I agree. I don't think technology is ever going
Speaker 1: to push the artistic expression out. Um. I think it's
Speaker 1: going to continue helping people express themselves artistically, and uh,
Speaker 1: I see it as a great thing. In fact, there
Speaker 1: were some musicians I never would have heard of without technology,
Speaker 1: So that's true. That was a great question, James. Um,
Speaker 1: that would probably deserve its full podcasts all on its own.
Speaker 1: But maybe I'll just switch that over to stuff from
Speaker 1: the b sides and see what they want to do
Speaker 1: with it. Thanks, and if any of you have any
Speaker 1: suggestions or questions, you can write us. Our email address
Speaker 1: is tech stuff at how stuff works dot com and
Speaker 1: you can learn all about various home theater uh boxes
Speaker 1: and sets and do hickies that's a technical term at
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com. Crispy and I will taught
Speaker 1: you again, probably about pie really soon. For more on
Speaker 1: this and thousands of other topics, does it how stuff
Speaker 1: works dot com. And be sure to check out the
Speaker 1: new tech stuff blog down on the house stuff Works homepage,
Speaker 1: brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
Speaker 1: It's ready, are you