A Lose-Lose Outcome

It is easy to look at the end-users and realize why we’d all be upset. The TV Pack is nothing like it was originally anticipated it would be, and there is no official channel, support, or upgrade path for anyone other than to buy a new PC. Who wants to buy a new PC just to get a software update?

Microsoft’s partners are also losing out on this one. I personally had been waiting for DirecTV support and was ready to switch to satellite as soon as it arrived. It would have been really nice to have a more integrated fully-digital solution, but it looks like I won’t be switching now. All the issues surrounding CableCard will probably be ironed out by the time DirecTV is on Media Center, or Duke Nukem Forever comes out.

You might think that OEMs would appreciate being the only channel to get the new software bits, but how many people are going to trust Microsoft or an OEM with supporting any product they buy? It’s hardly an incentive to buy that new Windows Vista machine you’ve heard about in the ads. In my book Media Center is a complete lame duck now that will never flourish.

It’s Apple’s Move Now

This also further illustrates the commonly held view that people should just wait for Windows 7 because that is exactly what these actions are saying. While we wait for Windows 7 Microsoft is just going to leave the door gaping open for Apple to come in and steal the digital living room. Honestly, even AppleTV’s history hasn’t been as bad as Media Center’s.

Keep in mind, I actually likes Vista and Media Center. Dictating moves like this to your users is straight out of Apple’s playbook. I hate it when they do it, and I hate it when Microsoft does it too. I just can’t believe how many of the usual sources aren’t running with this story.

Overall I find the concept, and to a large extent the execution, of VMC to be awesome. Here are some the strengths of VMC:

• No DVR fees to the cable company (or Tivo)
• Comes built into Vista
• Easily share the DVR through extenders (of which there is already a huge base of Xbox 360s)
• Top notch user interface (most of the time)
• Portable recordings

I especially like that the recordings are just files that I can play on my laptop or stream over the Internet (via Orb) when I travel. You can also easily sync and automatically transcode recordings to WMP-compatible media players, Zunes, and even Windows Mobile devices. I do wish they’d develop/release a softsled (software-based extender) though.

Vista Media Center TV Pack

Microsoft are set to announce the “Vista Media Center TV Pack” formerly codenamed Fiji at next month’s CEDIA Expo. It will bring welcomed features such as proper native QAM support and heterogeneous tuner support; both of which I’ve been waiting for. While many were expecting features such as support for H.264 and DirecTV, and the ability to have widescreen thumbnails, no such features are showing up in tester’s hands. Honestly, overall it is a complete disappointment. Not just because of the software, it is the delivery too.

Epic Fail

It gets ugly when you start to look at how you can get some TV Pack goodness for yourself. First problem, you can’t upgrade to it. Apparently a fresh install is required; just what I want to do with a system that is setup how I like it. Second, it is only available through OEMs! But wait it gets worse. Third, all the OEMs have said they are only planning on supplying the TV Pack with new computers.

Let me get this straight, so because I bought and installed Vista myself, a very common scenario for most current media center users, I don’t get access to a key update to an included component of the OS? And Even if I had bought my HTPC through an OEM, they aren’t going to support the product further? Who is making these decisions and how do they sound right to them? As if I didn’t feel like my copy of Vista Ultimate wasn’t completely lacking anything Ultimate about it already.

It must be awful to be one of the developers working on Media Center at Microsoft. So much work into a great product only to have it destroyed in the marketplace due to bad business decisions. The many VMC users out there are pretty loyal but we will only take so much. It is like we are continually waiting for the next installment to really make it all right (satellite support, good digital cable support, broad codec support, softsled, built-in place shifting, etc). Microsoft is lucky my DVR options are so bad to begin with, but that won’t last forever.

Just look at their 1.0 product short comings that a subsequent version fixed:

• iPod: firewire only, no iTunes for Windows, no service to replace old batteries, mechanical scroll wheel
• iPhone: no 3G, no GPS, no third-party software, no contacts search, no corporate e-mail/contacts/calendar sync, 4GB model, couldn’t easily use third—party headphones, no music ringtones, etc
• iPod Touch: pretty much the same list as the iPhone but you have to pay for each update even though they are free for the iPhone and new iPod Touches
• AppleTV: couldn’t purchase or download content on the AppleTV, measly 40GB hard drive, no support for Dolby Digital 5.1, had to be connected to a computer to do anything, apparently people are still unhappy with the state of AppleTV
• Mac OS X: launch version had almost zero software, ran very slowly, no DVD playback, no CD burning, no Windows/Samba file-sharing, no built-in search
• MacBook: palm rest discoloration, cracking plastic, low quality 6-bit LCD panels, you could only order it with 512MB of RAM, had draft-N wireless support but you had to pay $5 to use it, excessive heat made Apple label it a notebook instead of a laptop (because it is too hot for your lap apparently)
• And now MobileMe: “1%” of users couldn’t access their mail for weeks (as of this writing I’ve seen reports that some still can’t), Apple’s idea of PUSH technology isn’t actually a PUSH at all, exchange contact and calendars don’t sync, and now they are adding MobileMe software onto non-MobileMe users’ PC via iTunes without asking or even telling them

Basically, within a year or two of each product coming out a new revision/version comes out that fixes the glaring bugs and notably missing features, and sometimes even costs less. If you ask me, it really does seem like 1.0 is more of a paid public beta test for Apple. The thing that amazes me is how they can get their users to forget about all of this. That is some amazing marketing…

Unreasonable Assumption: Regulators Could Fix This

It may be that I just don’t love standards bodies or government interference but I really doubt that they are the solution to inconsistent HD picture quality. Just look at the bang up job ATSC did in defining what HDTV would be in the first place.

They couldn’t even settle on whether HD would be interlaced (1080i) or not (720p), and in my humble opinion interlacing really should have been left behind. It has to be by far the worse form of video “compression” still in use today; it is 1940s era tech after all.

ATSC never foresaw a time (read: about 2006) when almost all HDTVs would be natively progressive scan, and that most would have terrible deinterlacing engines. It quickly became obvious in the television marketplace that 1080i was no good so now we have a plethora of “true HD” 1080p displays with literally zero broadcast programming in that format. They of course made the 1080i/720p compromise for bandwidth reasons, but a more modern codec (any MPEG-4 variant or VC-1) can easily handle 1080p given the same bandwidth as an MPEG-2 1080i stream.

Consumers’ Increasing Choices

Here is the real reason regulators shouldn’t be invovled: consumers have choices for their content delivery. The standards for displays are good enough that without switching your HDTV you can get HD programming via over-the-air, DirecTV, Dish, cable, fiber optic (FiOS), or even DSL (U-verse) now. Sure you probably don’t have all six options in one location but you probably have at least three, maybe four. New IP-based download services (Xbox Live, Amazon, iTunes, etc) are creating even more options too.

When I moved to Indiana my cable provider at the time offered terrible HD service. There were very few HD channels, and many shows that I used to watch in HD were broadcast in letterboxed 480p on the “HD” channel! Guess what? I started looking at what DirecTV and Dish were offering. My cable provider added some HD channels and stopped down converting their HD shows before I pulled the trigger though.

The bottom line is, I could have gone elsewhere. DirecTV is already moving to MPEG-4 AVC (H.264) and they can increase bandwidth by adding additional satellites. Consequently their HD seem to be particularly good, especially compared to certain cable companies. To top it off, almost anyone in North America can get DirecTV. I will probably switch as soon as Media Center’s DirecTV support comes out.

If (and that is a huge “if” for most people) people really care about getting better HD picture quality they will switch. Which will put pressure on the low quality providers to improve. We don’t need regulators telling us what does and doesn’t look acceptable. Leave the hard standards for the displays not the content delivery. We really won’t want to be stuck with only MPEG-2 streams a decade or two from now.

Increase Visibility

One of the biggest problems I believe AmazonMP3 is facing is that even amongst people who buy music online (mostly iTunes users) most haven’t ever heard of it. Anytime I mention AmazonMP3 to a friend of mine they are surprised that such a service even exists; they thought iTunes was the only option.

The value proposition is really strong for Amazon MP3: no DRM, files are compatible with all MP3 players, a large selection of music, a familiar company that most people already do business with, and prices that are generally lower than the competition. All of that doesn’t matter if you don’t know about it though.

Bundle With Other Amazon Products

Amazon should bundle MP3 downloads with every iPod or MP3 player. Three of the top six selling MP3 players aren’t iPods so they don’t have any default store, and seventeen of the top one-hundred selling electronics are MP3 players; it is a great opportunity to cross-sell.

They could vary the number of included tracks based of the price of the product. So the bargain $35 MP3 player might only come with two or three songs while a high end $500 MP3 player could come with an album or two; depending on the margins of course. This would be a differentiating factor versus other online stores for MP3 players, and would introduce most of these users to AmazonMP3 right off the bat. Amazon could even include free songs with other devices that play MP3s but aren’t “MP3 Players” such as cell phones, portable GPS units, game consoles, or even computers.

They should make MP3 purchases count toward free “Super Saver Shipping” and highlight it to certain users too. I know I would buy a few tracks to push my order over $25 instead of hunting down some cheap book or a 24-pack of pens.

Brick And Mortar

I think they need to go after the brick and mortar establishments as well. They could be selling AmazonMP3 gift cards at electronics stores, big box retailers, and supermarkets just like iTunes does. Although the cards would say AmazonMP3 they really should be redeemable for any purchase at Amazon.com. They could also extend the bundling concept to select retailers to include AmazonMP3 tracks with MP3 players. Amazon already has a commercial partnership with Target so why not start there?

What do you think? Would some legal free tunes entice you to buy an MP3 player at a certain store? Do you think you’d actually redeem the free MP3 tracks, and even make a future purchase?

In my humble opinion I think it is foolish to disregard the effects of piracy with the argument that the people who share copy pirate (argh me maties!) wouldn’t pay anyway. This argument isn’t just used for Microsoft software either, it is a common argument used with pirated music and PC gaming as well.

Copyright

In each example it really boils down to copyright though. The dictionary defines copyright as “A grant of an exclusive right to produce or sell a book, motion picture, work of art, musical composition, software, or similar product during a specified period of time.” (emphasis added)

It is the copyright holder’s exclusive right to choose how their work is distributed. For some reason, whether it is Microsoft or Metallica there are people who think that these exclusive rights are somehow irrelevant because they already made their money. Copyright holders really shouldn’t have to prove that the piracy of their works (whether proprietary or open-source/GPL/etc) could have been turned into actual sales; that is beside the point.

A Different Kind of MSN

Without taking away from what I have already said, I don’t know why Microsoft chooses (it is their choice after all) to be so aggressive on their licensing enforcement and policies. For me, it all points towards Metcalf’s law on network effects. The value of the Microsoft “network” or ecosystem of software is arguably highest when everyone (paying customers and pirates) uses it.

There is a segment of users, especially in certain regions, who will never pay much or anything for their software; and not because they care about open-source or libre software. There could be many reasons why they don’t care to pay, but the reasons don’t really matter. As Microsoft really pushes their pricing and licensing enforcement, they will push these users toward free OSes like Ubuntu (or other Linux distros).

Ultimately this will diminish the value of the Microsoft “network” and increase the value of the alternatives. Indeed a big part of the reason why Linux (or even Mac to a lesser extent) isn’t more popular (i.e. valuable) on the desktop is that the network is too small.

Microsoft’s time and money could be better spent exploring reduced pricing in various regions; and no, a gimped “starter edition” doesn’t count. Yes, this would open up gray-market issues, but I’d rather deal with some people not paying the right price than some people not paying at all, or even worse, some not even using the software.

Note: I am not in any way condoning or justifying piracy.

World of Warcraft

An article I caught yesterday about three statistics that lie got me thinking about the PC gaming business. It seems pretty popular these days to argue over whether PC gaming is dead/dying or not, and invariably someone on the pro-PC side makes some comment to the effect of “PC gaming is still doing great, look at World of Warcraft!”

I won’t say that PC gaming is dead (it isn’t doing very well relative to the rest of the video game industry IMO though), but using WoW as an example is a joke. It is the very definition of a statistical outlier. How many PC games make even 5% as much money as WoW? Very, very, few. It is just as foolish as saying that high gas prices aren’t hurting car companies because Honda had a good quarter, even though Ford, GM, Chrysler, and even Toyota are doing bad.

Netflix and Microsoft

Next up is Netflix streaming to Media Center and/or the Xbox 360. I just don’t get why Netflix and Microsoft aren’t being very aggressive in this arena. It is a win-win for both companies, and not that difficult technically. After all, homebrew hackers have made software that can do it.

Think about it, on the technical side Netflix is already using Microsoft’s DRM and codecs which VMC (Vista Media Center) and the 360 already support. On the marketing side of things it would allow Netflix to really push their way onto peoples’ TVs over the Internet, and would give them something that their main rival Blockbuster could not match.

From Microsoft’s side, they would have the only console that can do Netflix. I’m sure some Microsofties would worry that the Xbox Live Video Store would be hurt by this, but I’d bet that wouldn’t generally be the case. First of all, most of the fair on Netflix’s Watch Now is older less popular films/shows, and Xbox Live has mostly new releases and current shows. Second, it could actually increase people’s use of their 360 as a TV/movie device. As people start using their Xbox for TV/movies (via Netflix) more often, I’m sure they’ll think about renting/buying that new movie in HD from Xbox Live.

Even without Microsoft’s approval I’m pretty sure Netflix could do it via some proxy software that would serve up UPnP streams. Videos from Vongo, CinemaNow, and Amazon Unbox all play over UPnP on an Xbox 360 because they use Microsoft’s DRM/codecs. There is no reason it shouldn’t work.

The Fastest Mac Evar!

I don’t know, maybe it is just me getting AMF (Apple Marketing Fatigue), but they need to stop with the “Fastest/Best/Super-est Mac/iPhone/OS X/Single-Button-Mouse Ever” crap. Who really cares? Isn’t it a given that the new model of Apple’s fastest computer would be faster than the old one? What would people say if Dell said “The fastest Inspiron ever”?

It just seems so juvenile (along with their ads). Honestly I hear more imaginative declarations of superiority from the dregs of the Xbox Live community.

The rep I talked to mentioned the data transfer caps when he was telling me about the difference between a couple of the plans he was talking about. I mentioned that I was surprised they had caps and said what they were. He was surprised I said that and nonchalantly said that everyone does it. I mentioned that it has been big news that Comcast is acknowledging their network management practices including bandwidth caps, and applauded the rep and Cox for being more straight forward about their caps.

After getting off the phone, I went to Cox.com to see what all of the caps were and surprise, surprise, I couldn’t find it. Their Internet service page lists upload and download speeds, the type of IP address you’ll get, whether the plan has “PowerBoost” or not, how much webspace you get, and even how large the e-mail accounts can be, but it doesn’t list caps. I looked all over the site and couldn’t find it anywhere. So I searched Cox for download caps using Live Search a few times and it came up.

Turns out it is <sarcasm>really easy</sarcasm> to find. Just click on the 4pt font “Policies” link at the bottom of the page, then click on #13 “Bandwidth, Data Storage and Other Limitations” and then in the middle of that paragraph click “Limitations of Service”. Isn’t it so obvious? The Policies page is the only page on Cox.com that actually links to the caps (that I could find). To be fair, once you finally find it, the page is quite clear on what each service plan allows.

For the record, I am not against the idea of consumption caps actually. There are just three major problems with the current implementations I’ve seen in the marketplace.

#1: They are very unclear to consumers. On Cox.com it is buried in a series of pages that only attorneys would be attracted to. The consumption caps need to be shown on the same pages as the bandwidth speeds.

Comcast is even worse than Cox, they don’t even say exactly what the caps are. How much data is 40 million e-mails really? While their examples are a little more understandable to average users, they really need to list the actual cap.

Oddly enough when I used their benchmarks with the averages for my files/emails to calculate their caps, their caps are much higher than Cox’s, so you’d think they wouldn’t be shy about it. Although the difference between the examples is a joke. The effective cap is about 64GB/month using the photo example with my pictures (and I have an 8MP Canon 20D so my pictures are actually quite large), but it is a whopping 4TB (yes, terabytes) if you use the 40 million e-mail example. Talk about unclear.

There also needs to be a way for consumers to check their consumption. There is no place (at least that I could find) where consumers can see how much they are consuming (ala cell phone minutes). Even if you track your own consumption somehow (DD-WRT can do it on a number of routers) the ISPs conveniently don’t recognize anyone’s numbers but their own.

#2: There is a wide disparity between plans (at least at Cox). This is really a byproduct of #1; they don’t make it easy to find what each plan allows.

When I recently signed up for Internet with Cox they tried to sign me up on some combo promotion deal for Cable TV and Internet. It included their Value Internet plan (1.5Mbit/256kbit @ $29.99/month). I opted to upgrade to the Preferred plan (7mbit/512kbit @ $43.99) mostly for the higher uplink for online gaming and VoIP.

It turns out that the Value plan only includes 4GB of downstream and 1GB of upstream traffic per month versus 40GB and 10GB (respectively) for the Preferred. So for 47% more per month I get 1000% more transfer allowance. Who would think that the difference would be so large?

I can easily download 2-3GB in game demos in one day over Xbox Live on a regular basis. I would have blown past my cap in less than a week for sure. I wouldn’t have known the difference until my Internet got cut off or I got a threatening letter. Hence the need for clarity in listing what is included in the Internet packages.

Some examples at Cox are even worse. They have Preferred on a special for $19.99 and Economy (the lowest tier) for $14.99 right now. Economy only includes 3GB of downstream traffic. For an extra $5 you’ll get over 13 times more download capacity. Why can’t this be more obvious?

#3: The caps are ridiculously low. I analyzed how much you could utilize your connection for 24 hours a day, and for an adjusted day of 16 hours (to account for sleep) and here is what I found. I looked at what I call acceptable average utilization (AAU). It is the average bandwidth expressed as a percentage (acceptable speed / rated speed of plan) you can consume without exceeding the bandwidth caps imposed by an ISP.

Every plan allows less than a 2% AAU rate at their rated speeds. On the Value plan (read: not even the lowest tier) you can only average 13kbps! If you account for sleep (not that BitTorrent or my backup software sleeps) then the top adjusted AAU rate of any plan is still only 2.7%.

To put that in perspective, on the higher Preferred plan, streaming music from an online radio at 192kbps constantly everyday would use up your entire consumption cap by itself. If you live with a couple of other people who stream music too, then you can each only do 8 hours per day. In my book that is hardly “excessive usage” for someone paying for the second highest tier plan.

I think I’ll have to check out what DSL and Fiber are offering in my neighborhood to see if I can find a company who agrees.

*Here is a link to my spreadsheet with all of my numbers in more detail.

**Looks like the caps are already causing problems.

First award winner goes to DRM (digital restrictions rights management) for “How not to create a sustainable business model.” I don’t know how many of you consumers out there saw this, but Microsoft has decided to turn off the DRM services for the MSN Music Store. This means that anyone who bought leased music from MSN is effectively screwed. The music will still play on the machines they have authorized already, but when the computer stops, so will the music. And just like musical chairs, anyone who paid for that music will be left without a chair.

Now you may be saying to yourself, “Well who bought music from MSN? I want to know who these two people are.” But this has already happened with Google Video, Major League Baseball, MTV URGE, AOL Music Now, and Virgin Music Club. Somehow the mainstream technology media isn’t quite catching on to the realities of DRM. I don’t think that there is a sustainable business model for music ownership that includes DRM. Music subscription services are an exception because they don’t ever act like you own anything. Maybe that’s why I get my digital music elsewhere.

If DRM was the winner of the anti-business model, so-called 3G wireless service is the runner up. ComputerWorld recently reported on 3G data networks and while most of the review is generally positive there was one thing that stood out to me. AT&T and Verizon both cap their services at 5GB of data received per month, and word is Sprint will be following suit (they are actually capping it at 300MB if you are roaming!). At first 5GB might seem like a lot of data, but when you break it down that is not the case.

If a business user were to use the 3G service for 8 hours a day only on weekdays, they could average only 29MB per hour of data without going over. Considering that the TechCrunch homepage is 1.8MB by itself or about 1/16 of the hourly quota for a business user. Or put another way, your connection can only average 8KB/sec or you’ll go over. That is for only 20 days a month, for only 8 hours of the day. Heaven forbid someone used it everyday because then that is only 169MB for the whole day!

Last but not least is Playstation Home, which is soon to join Duke Nukem Forever as the world’s most famous vaporware (yes, I’ve heard some people have actually seen it, supposedly). For those not familiar with Playstation Home (also referred to as just Home), it is Sony’s total copy interpretation of Second Life The Sims Online a virtual world. It was originally announced in March 2007 and scheduled to come out in open beta in August 2007 and public release in October 2007.

Now I’m not really good at math yes I am but August is only five months after March, and we are now about fifteen months past that date, and there still hasn’t been a public beta. Later they promised a “Spring 2008″ delivery, only to announce in Spring 2008 that it would be coming out in Fall 2008. I don’t know if there is a solution to this problem for Sony other than to ship Home sooner rather than later, but you have to wonder what they were thinking when they made the announcement(s) about Home’s development timeframe. Any takers on it actually coming out in Fall 2008? Much less whether it will have been worth the wait?

The really amazing thing is, through all of the troubles the PS3 has gone through (and it really couldn’t be much worse) it is still a system people will consider buying. Talk about a powerful brand.

I know this will seem like another “me too” post after the well publicized Comcast story at TechCrunch, but I actually wrote about 95% of this a couple of weeks ago, mostly while I was on hold with “tech” “support.” I was going to wait until the issue was resolved, but I’ve decided to post it now. This is my story of how Comcast took over the cable services of my lowly regional cable provider, and how bad things can get worse. Read the rest after the jump.

I am currently attending grad school at Purdue University, which is located in the relatively small town/city of West Lafayette, Indiana. When I first moved here the cable provider was Insight, and I thought they were terrible (relative to my last cable company Cox). Latency (ping times) were high, channel selection and quality of service (bad picture, dropped sound, extra-crappy DVR) were a joke, and the prices weren’t great. I did however get close (~95%) to the advertised throughput of the Internet package (10Mbit/1Mbit) I paid for.

That changed when Insight sold the Indiana area to Comcast. Initially I was looking forward to a bit larger company hoping the selection and quality of service would improve; it didn’t. Literally the day Comcast took over the network (as shown by the IP address range and DNS servers I was pulling down) my max download speed dropped to 4,250 kbit/sec (less than half the speed of what I was paying for).

I could test at a variety of sites (Chicago, New York, Dallas, etc.) over different networks (Sprint, Speakeasy, etc.), and they would always max out at 4,250kbit/sec usually within a 6kbit/sec variance. Look like my connection is being capped? Yeah, that’s my hypothesis. Oh, and FYI, I don’t use any P2P; I actually buy my music (shock!).

When I first noticed the problem, I tried calling Comcast. Their system would try to transfer me to a customer service representative (CSR) for about 30 seconds and then just tell me that they were all busy, try again later, click. I couldn’t believe it would just hang up on me. So I tried it a few more times and it happened every time, even if I requested cable TV support instead, even the next day.

It was after this that I went to Comcast’s website and filed a complaint. It is worth noting that their feedback form says it sends an e-mail to “Rick Germano – SVP Customer Operations, Comcast.” I left a brief complaint basically stating what had happened and that I’m not happy with it.

After a day or two, I got a phone call from a “local” (they left the local number, but it just went to the same system as the 800 number) Comcast employee. She sounded like her short-term job security depended on taking care of my issue. Unfortunately she called in the middle of the day, so obviously I wasn’t home. When I would get home, however, their call center would already be closed. They called two other times (yeah, still in the middle of the day) and left messages.

Finally, they sent me a letter saying that if I didn’t call within the next two or three days that they were going to consider the matter rectified. I don’t know how they really thought anything could be rectified, as I still hadn’t been able to talk to a single Comcast employee.

The next day I made a point of getting home early to call Comcast so that my issue wouldn’t get swept under the rug. What happened next really surprised me. I encountered the two least qualified IT people I have ever dealt with, literally. As a very competent network guy, I’m used to knowing more about the problem than the first line support, but this was a new low.

The first “tech” would interrupt me every time I said something because she heard a slight echo. The first time was fine, after the twentieth time I was losing my patience. She would not check anything out on my connection unless I first:

1. Plugged straight into my cable modem
2. Turn off my firewall
3. Clear my browser cookies (yeah…seriously…those cookies can drop your speed by 60% or more…)

She said that I wouldn’t get my rated speed if I had a firewall on. You know, because modern dual-core CPUs can’t handle a 10Mbit/sec connection through a firewall, right?

To top it off, as I use VoIP for my “home” phone service (which I was using for the tech support call), I would have to use my cell phone. Problem is, they can’t call out, so I had to call back in and wait on hold to get another technician.

Before I ended the call she asked me if it was raining, because that could affect the speeds. I told her it was perfect blue skies outside. Then she asked if it had rained at all lately to which I replied that it is Indiana, it rains at least once a week. So she said that was probably the problem. <sarcasm>That explains why the Internet is always so slow in Seattle.</sarcasm>

So I called back in, and the second “tech” asked me which site I had performed my speed tests on (dslreports.com, flash and java versions). He then went to the site to run a speed test. He didn’t want his speed though, he was trying to check my connection’s speed through dslreports. He was completely puzzled that it kept returning the speed of his connection.

He actually couldn’t run any tests basically. He could see it was connected and that was about it. He told me that a technician would need to come out to check the wiring outside, and that the soonest they could schedule me for was in a week-and-a-half.

I’m moving in about 6 weeks, and I’m about 95% sure it isn’t the wiring outside, so it would just be a week-and-a-half delay to finding the real solution. I told him to forget it, I would just downgrade my service so that I at least wasn’t paying extra anymore.

These two people were by far the least qualified “tech” “support” people I have ever encountered (even worse that my worst Dell experience). And before you jump on the “India Tech Support” crap, realize that these people were all American.

I want to make it really clear that both reps acted like they really wanted to help me, but they were completely incompetent. It really was a lot like when a two-year-old wants to help you cook in the kitchen. I don’t blame them for their failings however, I blame whoever hired them. My mom could give me equally good bad good bad good (read: bad) tech support tips, no joke.

After waiting for about ten minutes, I finally got transferred to someone in billing who could downgrade my service. When I explained why I was downgrading (incompetent techs can’t fix my connection) and explained some of the “techs” actions, she was completely dumb-founded. She said she doesn’t know anything about computers, but even she knew you can’t do a speed test of someone else’s computer via a website like dslreports.com.

Turns out there is a 6Mbit/sec down 1-2Mbit/sec up package that would cost me $15 less per month. As the uplink is still good (my uplink gets maxed out a lot between online gaming, VoIP, Orb, Foldershare, FTP, XMPP, and Mozy), I decided I would switch. She told me it would probably take 15 minutes to become active and after that I would need to power-cycle my cable modem.

She called me back (apparently billing can call out?) about an hour later to inform me that she looked into things further, and my issue had to be escalated. There was some problem with “the codes” for my account or something. It sounded like my account never got provisioned for the right service level (which is what I suspected all along). She said she would call me back in a week to see how things were (which didn’t happen). With the exception of her not following up a week later, she was the only helpful and qualified person I dealt with.

I mentioned my issues in the post about Comcast rewarding you if you publicly complain and two Comcast employees made comments and one has contacted me via e-mail. I’ll do a follow-up post on the outcome.

UPDATE: Here is my follow-up post.

Just look at what has happened with CableCard, and especially as it affects Vista Media Center. When I upgraded to Vista (and I actually do consider it an upgrade FWIW) one of the main selling points was Media Center, and the integration it offers for my Xbox 360. I have to say Vista Media Center is awesome. By far the best DVR interface I have used, and I love how it works on my Xbox 360. There is one major gaping hole in it though: getting high-quality digital (HD or standard-def) content. It isn’t Microsoft’s fault either, as all the reliable unencrypted sources (NTSC, and OTA ATSC) work great.

Content producers require DRM, and that leads to pretty much all of the technological problems. In fact, all of the technical problems I encountered in my previous posts were DRM related. I won’t use (read: pay for) Vongo or CinemaNow again because it was too much trouble to always troubleshoot the DRM issues, and I’m someone who can actually troubleshoot it, what about regular people like my wife? Here I am, a paying customer who just wants to hand over my money for some entertainment, and the content provider’s arbitrary decision to force DRM is stopping me! I know it makes sense to all of us “regular” people why this is incredibly stupid, but the content people still haven’t gotten it. They should read this paragraph ten times.

So what about getting my content fix through my digital cable subscription? Well, again even though I am a paying customer, that doesn’t really matter. The content providers require encryption, so CableCard came into existence. But CableCard is done by CableLabs, which is basically owned by all of the cable companies, who have their own interests to protect. The net effect? I can’t get digital cable on VMC without buying a new PC (instead of just a USB/PCIe/Firewire add-on) with a special $300 tuner that handles encrypted QAM channels because CableLabs says they have to “certify” the entire setup.

My PC’s TV tuner (AverTV Combo PCIe ~$90) can handle non-encrypted digital cable (unencrypted/clear QAM) without a problem, but that only covers the networks (ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox) because the FCC requires it. To get around that, the cable companies constantly change the channel location on the clear QAM channels so that it continueally messes up the programming guide. Again, I’m a paying customer just wanting to enjoy the entertainment I have paid for and arbitrary technical requirements are stopping me. The only thing stopping me from just dropping my cable and stealing all of the same content is my ethics.So the content business model is relying on the ethics of their customers and DRM? Sounds like a good plan… Honestly, I would love to have someone try to explain that one to me.

So the technology is there for affordable and convenient digital cable to my PC, but it won’t work because they require encryption. The technology is also there to easily consume video from the internet, but you either have to pay for DRM’d junk, or you can steal the video via P2P. Think about how convenient Divx formatted videos on P2P are. They will play on the Xbox 360, Playstation 3, Windows, Linux, and Mac, and even some DVD players. The same holds true for MP3, it plays anywhere because it has no DRM. Using RSS and BitTorrent I could even have my computer automatically download all the shows I want to watch, it just isn’t legal. If there wasn’t the arbitrary technological requirement to have DRM, companies such as Tivo or Netflix would be able to deliver the true mass-market media consumption products that would actually deliver what people want.

In the startup world, it is really common to run into entrepreneurs (or probably wantrepreneurs) who are so worried about giving up equity to partners or investors that their business fails. Essentially they ended up owning 100% of nothing, instead of 10% of something. The content producers are the same as these naive entrepreneurs, and if they don’t change their ways they are going to end up owning 100% of nothing. They will be continuing in that trajectory so long as it is more convenient to consume stolen content than to willingly pay for it. Final note to the content companies: get your head out of the ground and stop worrying about keeping people from copying your content, and start worrying about getting people to pay for it; they are two very different things!

Start with a TV and maybe a DVD player. Slowly add a game console, then a DVR, maybe some surround sound, another game console, etc. Then one day your wife will start complaining commenting that she doesn’t know how to watch a DVD or can’t switch it back to the TV. I had four remotes, and I was thinking of adding another one. I knew that wouldn’t go over well; not that I liked having to manage a pile of remotes either. Fortunately there is a better way…

The example above is exactly the scenario that has happened to me over the last five years. We started out with just a TV. (You know, one of those crappy small ones you start out with. ) Then we added a DVD player, bought a better TV, got an Xbox 1 (supplanted the DVD player), HD DVR, Surround Sound Receiver, and then Xbox 360 came out.

To watch TV, it took two remotes (fortunately my surround sound remote managed the TV ok or it would have been three) for the surround sound receiver remote and the DVR. I would have to turn on the TV, switch to the HD input, then turn on the receiver, and switch that to the DVR, and then I’d have to pick up the DVR remote to change the show; 6 button presses just to get it on. Volume was handled on the receiver remote, so even once it was all on I still needed to have both near me.

The icing on the cake in this whole setup was getting Windows Vista Ultimate on my desktop computer so that I was now using my 360 as a Media Center Extender as well (a review on that will come in a few weeks). Even though the Xbox 360 has wireless controllers, I really wanted to get a remote to control it properly. Initially I thought about getting the official Microsoft-brand Xbox 360 Remote which is fairly inexpensive, but five remotes was just too much. This led me to my latest “can’t live without it” gadget, a Logitech Harmony Universal Remote.

The Solution to Remote-Creep

For those not familiar with Harmony, it was a company that Logitech purchased a few years back and is now Logitech’s brand of high-end programmable universal remotes. What makes Harmony so unique among other universal remotes is that you set it up via a program on your computer and sync the changes to the remote via USB. There are two consequences of this design. It is far easier to setup than other programmable universal remotes. It is also relatively future proof, as the remote can download codes to new devices that come out after the remote was produced.

The remote I purchased is the Harmony Advanced Universal Remote for Xbox 360. The list price for the remote is $100, but you can usually find it for about $80 online. Although it is marketed as an Xbox 360 remote, it is basically exactly the same as the Harmony 880 but has added X, Y, A, and B buttons which is useful. The other Harmony remotes could still control the Xbox 360, though.

The Industrial Design

Harmony’s remotes are known for their high-quality industrial design. The remote’s weight is well balanced and is notably slimmer than most remote controls. It is very comfortable in my hand, and my only aesthetic complaint is that it doesn’t have any sort of bump/notch between the volume and channel up/down buttons. I don’t actually have trouble accidentally hitting the wrong button, but it just feels like I should look down sometimes to make sure I’m hitting the right button. It is easily light-years beyond any other remote in my “arsenal” though.

Setting up the Devices

As mentioned earlier, you use the Logitech Harmony Remote Software to setup the remote. This setup is broken down primarily into two parts: devices and activities. I have five devices: DVR, TV, receiver, Xbox 1 (primarily running the awesome Xbox Media Center software BTW), and an Xbox 360. Entering in all of these devices was deceptively simple, select what category the devices falls under, who makes it, and what the model number is, and click next. Honestly, that is basically it. You can customize some stuff, and if somehow it doesn’t have the device in the Harmony database (pretty unlikely), you can manually add it using the remote’s ability to “learn” commands from another remote.

Setting up Activities

The second part of the setup is determining what activities you actually want to configure your devices for. I decided on five activities for my setup: TV, DVD / Music (using Xbox 1), Xbox 360, Media Center, and Laptop. When I select DVD / Music on the remote, it automatically turns on the devices needed for that activity and changes the affected inputs.

The Harmony remote is even smart enough to remember what is already on or off. So if I switch from TV to Xbox 360, it just turns on the Xbox 360 and switches the inputs, but if I switch back to the TV it will turn off the Xbox and change inputs. I even have mine set so that it never turns the DVR off, even though it is only used for the TV. The options are really limitless.

In fact you’ll notice that I have separate activities for Xbox 360 and Media Center, even though both use all of the same devices. The difference between them is that the Xbox 360 can be powered up into the “dashboard” for gaming or straight into the Media Center interface. Hint for you Xbox 360 Media Center Extender users out there, add an additional duplicate device for the Xbox 360 as a Media Center Extender and set the power on button for it to “Media Center”. Then when you turn on that device in your activities it will go straight to MCE.

Once your activities are setup you sync the changes onto the remote via an included USB cable, and you are ready to go. My wife couldn’t believe it was really as easy as pushing the “TV” button to turn everything on and set it up right. Or that she could switch to DVD with just a push of a button. Since it remembers what is on, if you push the power button on the remote it will automatically turn off everything that is on too.

Bonus Feature

Now as if all of the automated goodness wasn’t enough, I stumbled upon a new feature for my DVR; a 30-second commercial skip button. My standard DVR remote does not have this button, but the Harmony remote lists it as a function and the box supports it. As all commercials are in 30-second increments, this makes skipping commercials even quicker.

The Bad

Unfortunately, not everything is perfect with the Harmony (although I can find weak spots in almost anything). The only real problem with the Harmony remote is that it is still quite technical to set it up. While the software could certainly be much worse, it is no where near being easy enough for my wife to setup this remote, and she is the type of person who will benefit from it the most. Everything is “wizard” driven and some dialogs particularly aren’t very intuitive (see image to the right).

If you are a pretty tech savvy person though, you should be able to set it up. It took me probably 60-90 minutes to really get it set how I wanted it at first, but I’m still making tweaks here and there a week later.

The good news is that the support options look like they are great. I didn’t use them, but it looked like Logitech hosts an active forum just for Harmony, and they even have their own telephone tech support with a number that is easy to find on their website.

Conclusion

Ultimately, even with the moderately complex setup, it is a really great gadget. I’m hooked and will never not have a remote like this ever again. It is kind of like a DVR, where once you use it you’ll wonder how you survived without it before.

The great thing about this product is that it feels so consumer focused the whole time. From the special blister-pack plastic packaging that is perforated for easy opening without a machete, to the fact that it comes loaded with batteries AND an extra replacement set too. This is definitely a product where you get what you pay for, and it is good. 8.5/10.

For those not familiar with Watch Now, I’ll fill you in. Watch Now is included free with every Netflix membership. Every member gets one hour per dollar of their membership every month to watch instant streamed video. With a decent internet connection the video quality is nearly as good as a DVD; but maybe more importantly, it’s better than CinemaNow or Vongo. It runs inside your browser (only Internet Explorer still…..) as a plug-in, and I have never run into any sort of DRM issues like I have at other online video sites. That said, as all of the video is streamed, you have to have an active internet connection to watch; you can’t download anything to keep.

With my school schedule this past year I have been on the lowest tier Netflix plan: $5/month. That gets me two discs per month one-at-a-time plus five hours of online viewing. Until recently, five hours of online viewing was more than I did in any month, but then I discovered Heroes. Which if you haven’t seen yet, you owe it to yourself to check it out. It may be better than 24 for me.

I actually watched the first episode on my Xbox 360 because of a promotion where I could download the first episode of the first season for free. Then I found out that Netflix had the whole first season AND every episode that had aired in the second season so far. Typically the video available online on Netflix is content that came from a DVD (often slightly older films). Heroes episodes come out on Wednesdays mornings, a little more than 24 hours after they air on NBC.

Initially (first day or two) my wife and I just watched our five hours that comes in our monthly plan; we got hooked though. When we started watching Heroes there had been 28 episodes, and now we wanted to watch them all. At Apple’s iTunes or Amazon’s Unbox, each episode would have cost us $2, or $56 total to own lease the video. With episodes only being 43 minutes though, it only costs $0.72/episode on Netflix. So we just upgraded our plan by $12, and got caught up to the current episode in about a week (yeah, we didn’t do much else that week).

In addition to getting all those episodes, I am also in the three discs at a time unlimited plan for this month as well; I have gotten nine DVD rentals. This is what is great about Netflix, you can change your plan at any time with no contract of any sort. If you increase your plan you can choose to pro-rate it for the remainder of your cycle or you can have it start at the beginning of the next cycle. Downgrades go into effect at the beginning of the next cycle. So I upgraded, and then downgraded my account just for this one month.

So this is just another way that Netflix is delivering the most entertainment for the dollar out there. If you haven’t tried it yet, I highly recommend it.

Out of interest for full disclosure, we do occasionally run an ad for Netflix, but it is a service that we all believe in here. Actually, quite a few of us here are Netflix and Mozy (another TechConsumer sponsor) customers, myself included.

That said, they introduced a new feature that I think is really cool. When you are watching a video in Joost you can click on a button (see screenshot below) that will copy a link to the video into the clipboard. You can then paste the link in an e-mail/blog/IM. When someone clicks on it, it will take them to Joost.com where the video can be launched into the Joost player. They have added a lot of content, and I decided that I would share some of my favorites here. Especially don’t miss the video of David Letterman interviewing Paris Hilton.

They have also added widgets. That’s right….widgets. I don’t know how I feel about this one. There is a widget for RSS feeds, to post video to a blog, and they even have a GoogleTalk/XMPP/Jabber instant message client widget. One of the more interesting widgets is a channel chat widget. You can chat with anyone else watching the same show that has the widget open too. I don’t think I need my RSS being delivered along with my video, but it might be interesting if you are watching on a home-theatre PC.

With more than 15,000 shows on tap and the service open for everyone, Joost is the spot for free video over the internet. Even with the bugs I’ve encountered, I would recommend that everyone check out what Joost is offering.

Joost Videos:
David Letterman interviewing Paris Hilton
Oscar the grouch makes Craig Ferguson an honorary citizen of Sesame Street
Transformers (old skool animated series)
G.I. Joe

• Cinevision RV4000
• Go Video VR3930
• Harman Kardon DVD 25
• JVC DR-MV5
• JVC DR-MV7
• Koss KS4100
• LG LDA-511
• LG LRY-517
• Memorex MVD2042
• Mitsubishi DD-6030
• Philips DVDR-3400/37
• Pioneer DVR 810H
• RCA DRC 6300 N
• RCA DRC350
• Samsung DVD-V3500
• Sony DVP CX777ES
  
• Sony DVP-CX995V
  
• Sony DVP-NS9100ES
  
• Sony PS2 Slim
• Toshiba SD-3750
• Toshiba SD-3800
• Toshiba SD-H400

Does anyone else notice that there are four Sony brand DVD players on that list? These are customers who paid good money for Sony movies and a Sony DVD player. Does Sony really think that it is acceptable to produce DVDs that don’t even play in your own company’s players, nevermind players by top manufacturers such as JVC, Mitsubishi, Pioneer, RCA, Samsung, or Toshiba? The Netflix list seems far from comprehensive however, as the Wikipedia entry on ARccoS lists additional movies that use ARccOS and players that aren’t compatible with it.

I don’t know why Sony has this infatuation with controlling media formats (Betamax, Minidisc, Blu-Ray, or DVDs with ARccOS), but their perpetual insistence to exercise great control over their customers makes me incredibly worried to buy a Blu-ray player and is one of the reasons I am rooting for HD-DVD.

Vongo is a download video service owned by Starz Entertainment that can best be described as a video subscription service similar to Netflix meets CinemaNow. For $9.99/month you get all the movies you can download from their current selection of movies. While the selection of movies (2,500 titles) isn’t as large as Amazon’s Unbox, there are more current mainstream movies (The Queen, Stranger than Fiction, Bridge to Terabithia, etc) than can be found on Netflix’s “Watch Instantly” service.

As with most of the services available, you have to download a special application to find and download the Windows Media DRM’d movies. The movies are in standard DVD resolution (720×480) but are compressed down to about 1GB. Picture quality was generally lower than a DVD, but higher than what I have experienced with the on-demand movies available from my cable company. I should note that there was a noticeable jitter on scenes that pan side to side a lot. With my eye for compression artifacts, I usually notice things like that, but even my wife noticed and complained about it. Overall I would say the picture quality was acceptable, but still lower than the Xbox Live Marketplace.

Vongo’s application can run as a standalone application, or within Windows Media Center. After trying both interfaces, I strongly prefer the normal GUI and not the Media Center version. The only saving grace about the Media Center interface is that it mostly works on Media Center Extenders such as the Xbox 360. The programs will queue up your movies and download them one at a time, and even though I have a 10MBit/sec internet connection most downloads were around 1.5MBit/sec and took about an hour. If you plan on watching the movie on your computer, you can start playing it after just a minute. You have to wait until the download completes to watch it on another device like the Xbox 360 though.

Up to this point everything sounds good, but unfortunately it wasn’t that easy. The download manager seemed to crash quite often. It could only download 2-3 movies before it would crash. You have no idea how annoying it is to be half-way into a movie only to have it stop all of the sudden.

I also encountered quite a few odd problems with it not taking care of the DRM properly. In fact, I had to use a trick I learned getting CinemaNow to work on Vongo too. One movie even stopped playing half-way through because it lost its authorization to play mid-movie. Go figure.

Last but not least, you can’t actually play movies on an Xbox 360 through the Media Center interface. If you try to, it will just basically crash the Media Center interface. You can only do it through the normal video playblack that is built-in to the 360. It is nice that you don’t have to have Media Center to play the videos however.

Even with all of the technical snafus, I still kind of liked the service. I am planning on canceling after my free trial runs out, but I might try it again later (unlike CinemaNow). The problem for Vongo is that the software is just too buggy. The average user is not going to be able to get it to work, and others who maybe could get it to work won’t want to deal with the hassle. If you are curious about it, I would recommend trying out the 14-day free trial they have going on right now. You have nothing to lose but possibly some of your time.

For another movie rental option, see our coverage on using Amazon Unbox and Tivo together.

Purdue spokesperson Jeanne Norberg said: “As an Internet service provider, Purdue will forward these letters when the user can be accurately identified.” “Purdue will not voluntarily provide names to the RIAA. However, should those notified choose not to pay the settlement, the RIAA may obtain court-ordered subpoenas to obtain the individuals’ names.”

21 subpoenas were issued this summer out of the 37 who received settlement letters last semester. “Purdue [provided] the names of 19 individuals, and subsequently the RIAA reduced its total request for names to 17.”

Am I the only one who is just a little disturbed by the line “…should those notified choose not to pay the settlement?” I do not condone peer-to-peer sharing stealing of music, but I think the record companies’ resources would be better spent working on a new business model that leverages digital music and the Internet instead of suing four-dozen kids in one of their key customer demographics. Hopefully we’ll see some more creativity in music distribution business models such as SpiralFrog, and more consumer-friendly technology advancements like Microsoft’s new watermarking technology in the future.

Full Disclosure: I am a grad student at Purdue. See our previous coverage here.

Part One: the CinemaNow Service

So I looked at my Netflix Queue and picked out “Man of the Year” (which was better than I was expecting BTW) for the low low discount price of $2 from CinemaNow’s “Last Chance” section. Soon as I found the movie on CinemaNow’s site I noticed that they only support using their site with Internet Explorer.

CinemaNow with Firefox

CinemaNow with Internet Explorer

What makes this annoying is that their service requires installing the “CinemaNow Movie Manager.” It is the application that actually downloads the movies. I don’t know why they don’t make the software just register its own URI like cinemanow:// in Windows that would make it work in more than one browser. I’d rather not have to install any additional software though; the files use Windows Media DRM, and could be played in Windows Media Player. Basically, it seemed like the movie manager software was worthless and unnecessary.

After I went into Internet Explorer to purchase the rental, the movie manager software launched and the movie started downloading. In the hour it took to download the 1.2GB file I could have gone to Blockbuster to pick up a movie. You can’t start playing a video while it is still downloading either; which you can do on XLM. After completing the download, I tried to play the movie and was informed that I was not authorized to play this file on “this device.” I looked into the support on their site, and ended up having to e-mail them.

They did respond within about half an hour, but I was already done messing with this for the night, and was not at my computer. They gave me a coupon code to purchase the movie again, which would issue a new license to view the file. It worked without requiring downloading the file again.

The first thing I noticed as I played the file is that the resolution is terrible. After looking at the properties I saw that the resolution is only 512×222! That is only one-third the resolution of standard definition television or DVDs at 720×480, or even most P2P video files. Needless to say, it looked even worse scaled up to 57″ on my HDTV. In addition there was a lot of intermittent stuttering in the video (in Windows Vista and XP and on my Xbox 360, all from local storage or over a wired LAN).

The file properties show that they are encoding their “1500k” files at about 1600kbit/sec actually—much higher than you normally see on P2P files. Of that 1600kbit/sec, only 96kbits are dedicated to a stereo (no surround sound) audio stream. The stereo sound is okay at 96kbit/sec as they use Windows Media Audio and not MP3, but it is a far cry from the 5.1 surround sound I’m used to enjoying on DVDs and video from the XLM.

In short, the video quality was sub-par, and the audio was only passable. Both shortcomings would be much less noticeable on a standard definition television using the built-in speakers, however.

Part 2: Xbox 360 Playback

Now for the part that enticed me to try out this service in the first place, the Xbox 360 playback. As soon as I turned on my 360 the CinemaNow Movie Manager software alerted me to the fact that I had an Xbox 360 on the network. (Duh!) When I clicked on the notification it opened a web page with instructions on how to setup your computer to stream the file to the Xbox 360. Basically, if you follow the instructions exactly it will work, but it isn’t even close to being easy enough for my Dad to do. Frankly, I don’t know why the media manager software doesn’t just take care of the dozen or so steps to setup your computer for streaming; that is how it should be.

I later discovered that you do not have to stream the file to the Xbox 360 via Windows Media Player Sharing. Any UPnP software that can stream video to the Xbox 360 should work; I used Orb and it worked great, and I bet TVersity would work fine too. Just make sure the UPnP software is sharing the folder that CinemaNow saves your movies in and that you can play the file on the computer you downloaded it to.

*Side note for Windows Vista users: as TVersity doesn’t seem to work on Windows Vista yet (at least not for me and I’ve tried) check out Orb. It can transcode any format of video or audio to what your UPnP device can handle (Ogg Vorbis into WAV for my 360), works perfect in Windows Vista, and can do a lot of other cool things, such as online radio DVR, Slingbox, etc.

The Bottom Line

CinemaNow’s service is not as good as the Xbox Live Marketplace. Video quality is below standard definition, the audio isn’t in surround sound, you can’t play the file on the 360 while it finishes downloading on your computer, it takes a lot more effort, and it doesn’t work in Firefox. Honestly, I don’t think I will ever use CinemaNow again. The one area where I would maybe recommend doing so is to grab a few movies to watch on a laptop on a plane for those who don’t know about DVD rippers. It is unacceptable for watching on the TV though.

In the post, I said that Nintendo is doing very well with what I call their strategy of selling “checkers instead of chess”. Although it was not intended to be insulting, apparently it came off that way. For me, I don’t care if you enjoy checkers or chess, there’s no qualitative difference, they are both just games. Some people like to read books for leisure, while I don’t usually find anything about reading books to be leisurely. People have different tastes. It is great that Nintendo wants to push to create games for people who don’t want to literally invest time in a game.

This brings me to my point, I am sick and tired of other people judging my (or anyone else’s for that matter) use of leisure time. Why is it that some people view someone like me (late-20s grad student) as being lazy because I will play a video game for an hour. Yet these same people will watch a couple of hours of The Apprentice, Grey’s Anatomy, and then end it off with the local news. I spent 60 minutes on leisure, they spent 150. Can you smell the hypocrisy?

“But think of how much more productive you could have spent your time.”

My response? Why do I have to be productive all of the time? When I get home from a day of work, frankly I need to unwind, and TV doesn’t do it for me. Games actively distract me; TV is too passive. A synonym in the dictionary for entertainment is diversion; and that is precisely what I need. Fortunately, after a few years of marriage, my wife started to get it. She used to hate it if I played an hour of Halo, but I could watch 6 hours of TV and not get a single comment. She realized, like I hope more will, that entertainment is inherently not actively productive. I believe strongly that you can be more productive by taking adequate breaks, than you can by working until your eyes cross.

Hopefully, one of these days video games will actually be recognized as a legitimate and acceptable form of entertainment. Too often it seems that gaming is judged by its lowest common denominator (Manhunt 2?), and not by its more cinematic masterpieces (Metal Gear 2). If movies were regarded in this way, people would look at moviegoers with disdain because the latest “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” was too violent and tasteless.

Bottom line, it is my time, and I will do with it as I please. As long as the average American is still watching 2.6 hours of television a day, I won’t feel bad spending an hour on Halo. Just get off my back.