Don't Fail Closed Unless It's for Security

Apparently Plex... the leading home media server platform in the English speaking world... is down, (or at least partially and intermittently down) worldwide at the moment.

For about 60-90 minutes so far. They're working on it, and uou can check the status here: https://status.plex.tv/

To be clear... this isn't just the Plex web service and remote UI, local media servers are failing to display libraries and videos... Not every one, not all the time... but a lot of them, and by default (you have to manually access the direct URL for the media library you want to access, and somtimes that still fails).

It seems that they've got an API hook that calls home when you access your media server, and it's not supposed to be required for operations when there is internet access... but in practice, it IS required, because It's failing closed. That API hook is not completely down, but it's responding so slowly, that it is effectively down, as requests will time out most of the time from most servers etc...

Theoretically, if there's no internet access from your media server, and you access it locally via direct URI (local ip address, port, and path), your media server SHOULD just load the default page view. Though in my experience, this also fails sometimes on some clients.

UPDATE 2145utc : unless you access some specific URLs, some of their entire web domains or subdomains are timing out or giving server errors. 

I think they may have an infrastructure issue, as well as an API issue.

For example, as of right now, the main app URL and app URI are both giving a server error. https://plex.tv/app and https://plex.tv are both giving server errors.

But, if you access it by https://www.plex.tv the main page loads.... Until you try to sign in, at which point it starts timing out again. That's generally a session management, authentication management,  load balancing, or content distribution and delivery network issue. 

Then, if you attempt to sign in, sometimes it timesout without presenting the login dialog, sometimes the dialog loads, however every time the dialog loaded, my signin timed out sliently, either freezing, or just going back to the login prompt... But the really fun part, is that I got a "new login" notification email from Plex, even though the site wasn't actually granting me access. 

Doing some basic systematic investigation... it's definitely a session and authentication management issue somewhere... or likely a combination of issues stacking to cause the failure. Especially as it's a timeout issue and it's intermittent, and given the URL/URI issue, and the login and presentation issue It's most likely an interaction between their load balancing/content distribution, and their auth and session management API or backend service. 

This is a good lesson on why you don't implement optional non-security things, with "fail closed" dependencies. The default should be, if that API hook can't hit its call home, then the default page view appears. Not "plex is unreachable".

Now... There are lots of times when you want things to fail closed. When something is not actually optional, then yes, if that thing isn't available, you should fail closed, and provide a helpful error message as to why. If something is important for security reasons and it's not available, you should definitely fail closed... Often in those circumstances you should fail closed silently, without error output, or with just generic and non-helpful output, so that the failure in security is non-obvious.

... But you should never fail closed on something just because it's an option you want to have, but isn't necessary for functionality and security.

Your personal gratification, and "nice to have"... or your businesses desire to have some piece of data.. are MUCH less important than making sure your users have the best possible functionality and user experience, as much of the time as possible.

Sadly, it's a very common flaw in both implementation, and basic thought process.

Frikken FInally

So Cox is FINALLY adding some more HD channels on the 18th.

Wooo hooo, Mythbusters in HD!

The theory is that Cox will be up to 80 HD channels by the end of theyear, instead of the 20 or so they've got now.

From Engadget HD:

Look out, desert dwellers, as Cox Communications is all set to dish out seven new HD channels to Arizona residents next month. On deck is TBS HD, Discovery Channel HD, Science Channel HD, Food Network HD, Animal Planet HD, Golf / Versus HD and History Channel HD. As of now, we've no idea where these will fit into the EPG, but you can phone up Cox and start to gripe if the whole lot doesn't arrive on March 18th.

Of course that's still far fewer than either of the major satellite providers, and several of those 80 channels (like TBS and TNT) are stretch-o-vision pseudo HD; but it's a step in the right direction.

Wired Up

So, as part of our ongoing efforts to prettify and organize the house, I've been rewiring the home theater; both for ease fo maintenance, and for cosmetics.

I redid my interconnects last week (with audio dynamics braided shield stuff; it's good, and it's cheap. You can get it from Costco) which only took about an hour; this week was a bit more work.

The task here is to re-wire the 5.1 speakers, conceal the wiring, and ceiling mount the surrounds. Not as big a job as building a dedicated theater room from scratch; but still a fair bit of work.

First, John and I built new speaker wires.

Here's where I piss some folks off.

Now, audiophiles think that magic speaker wire will somehow produce "more musical" sound etc... etc... , but really there's nothing special about it.

All speaker wire is, is copper wire, with maybe a gold plated or gold/brass alloy connector at the end of it. It's used over relatively short runs, and relatively low power, as cabling applications go.

It's all basic physics; so much so, that so long as you cut your cables to within 10 meters or so of the same length, and terminate them properly; that there will be no measurable difference either sonically, or electrically between any two reasonable quality cables.

Unless you live in a very high RFI (radio frequency interference) environment, shielding your speaker cables won't make a lick of difference; and the resistance of a reasonable gauge of stranded copper wire is so low as to be nearly immeasurable at any run less than 40 feet in length; and of no practical difference until you reach runs of about 200 feet.

14ga stranded copper wire has a resistance of 1 ohm every 400 feet, and a continuous current capacity of 32 amps at 14.4vdc for short runs (or 8 amps for long runs). Most people have runs of 50 ft. or less; and their amplifier is outputting a signal to the speakers of most likely 1 amp or less; and certainly less than 3 amps.

Alright, so what's the deal?

First, buy yourself a 100 foot spool of 14 gauge stranded copper wire:

Yes, it's even oxygen free, and it's $21 for 100 feet of the stuff (actually I paid $30 because I bought it locally).

Unless you are running more than 200 watts, more than 100 feet; anyone who tells you to go heavier than 14ga for home speakers is either listening to bad advice, or trying to sell you something.

For most folks, with an amplifier under 100 watts per channel (the average a/v receiver outputs 70-90 watts rms per channel, with 2 channels driven; and less with all 5,6,or 7 driven), and a load of well under 10 amps total across all of their speakers (probably under 5), really you only need 16ga; but the cost difference is negligible, so why not. Besides, the connectors fit 14ga better.

But... But... what about Monster Cable?

Uhhh yeah.... no. They charge $100 for a 100 foot role of 18ga; and it's EXACTLY THE SAME WIRE as you buy from monoprice for $8. Their 14ga (they dont actually label it as 14ga, but that's what it is) it $125 a roll, vs $21.

Worse, if you buy assembled pairs from them... watchout.

Seriously, you would not believe how much they charge for speaker cable. It's actually offensive to me.

My setup has two 40ft runs for the surrounds, two 8 foot runs for the mains, an a 6 foot run for the center. Monster charges approximately $2.00 a foot, plus $20 per cable.

To buy the equivalent in pre-assembled cables from Monster?

$304...

I don't think so bubba.

The only difference between what monster is selling you, and what you can make yourself, is the cable ends... which Monster also sells you, if you're fixated on the name.

Actually, their cable ends are one thing they do very well; and if you can get a decent price on them, I don't mind buying them.

These:

Run $20 for two pair (enough to make one cable), which is a bit much, but they are very good connectors (presuming you like banana plugs of course; they make other varieties).

These ones:

are just $12 for two pair, which I think is a reasonable price given their quality, and in fact that's what I used for my cables (and what Monster uses on their pre-made cables as well).

You can get slightly cheaper crimp on connectors (they used to be dirt cheap at radioshack, but the whole audiophile scam industry has brought the price up all 'round), but I prefer these ones. You can also use solder on connections; but with these, if somehow corrosion does occur (the main problem with non-soldered connections), I can just unscrew it, snip off a half inch, strip it, and screw it in again.

So, for a total of $80, I've got the same thing as $300 worth of Monster cable... and hell, they even says "monster cable" right on them.

This is how many pro audio installers make a fair portion of their profit. They sell you commodity copper wire with fancy cable ends that took them 2 minutes per cable to strip and assemble, at 4 times the bulk cost of the cables and connectors for outrageous "custom premium speaker interconnect" charges (Sorry for saying this speakertweaker, I know you're a good guy and not a cheat, but most of those in your profession are not as honest).

Of course then I had to figure out how to run the stuff.

My house was built in 1953. I have plaster and lath interior walls with blown cellulose, and a plaster over blueboard ceiling in my living room (the original lath ceiling was replaced between water damage and an air conditioning retrofit in the early 80s).

I've been running the cabling in between the baseboard and carpet; but the 14ga is a bit to big for that, and I'd still have to deal with the run up the wall for the ceiling mounts.

As I said, the construction of the house conducive to running in wall wiring, without doing some serious work; and I really didn't feel like doing that.

Instead, I grabbed some of this stuff from wiremold:

That's the Wiremold Cordmate II system. It's self stick, interlocking conduit; with lengths available up to 10 feet (special order only unfortunately). It's commonly available in 30", 48", and 60" lengths, and a variety of connectors, corner pieces etc...

The Cordmate II is about the smallest, and lowest profile conduit you can get, that can actually take two pair of 14ga cables. They make smaller round section conduit (for antennae wires mostly), and conduits that are both wider, and taller (and even corner, crown molding, and baseboard conduits); but I don't need that much space for my home theater cabling (I do for my office with LAN wiring though).

I picked up a couple of the kits at the local Home Despot; because the way it's priced in every retail outlet I've checked, it's actually cheaper to buy one of the kits, than it is to buy the equivalent length of the conduit.

The kit comes with three 48" sections, and a variety of angles and connectors. The connectors are pretty discreet; and up against the corner of the ceiling and wall, they (and the conduit itself for that matter) are really pretty unobtrusive.

So I ran up the corner behind my equipment, then along the edge of the ceiling to the back wall, and along the back wall itself, breaking out with a tjoint and a flat corner joint at the end of the conduit run, to run the cables to these:

Omnimount 20 wall and ceiling speaker mounts.

I've been meaning to ceiling mount the surrounds for months now, and the mounts have been sitting around for a while waiting for me to run the conduit, and mount them up.

My surrounds have been siting on a shelf right behind our seating position, which put the right surround less than a foot from my right ear... less than ideal. Putting it up on the celiing let me move it out to the sides, and now the sound stage is far more diffuse, and imagin more accurate (thank you audessey).

Really guys, it's that easy. I can't understand these folks that spend more on their cabling and isntallation than they did on th gear.

So go, do it yourself; at least then you'll know how to fix it if it breaks.

Conserving valuable resources

So I mentioned that one of my projects for the week was rewiring the home theater. Well, I've (mostly) finished, except for two last things:

First, I still need to rewire the surround speakers; but I have to pick up some wire concealing channel before I do that (I'm moving my surrounds from a shelf behind our heads, to ceiling mounts to the side of our listening positions).

More importantly, I need to re-program the radio presets.

Now, for someone as anal as me, radio presets are a limited resource, not to be wasted. Unfortunately, Mel and I have very varied listening tastes. Although we have a large overlap of things we both like, and a relatively small section of styles and stations only one of us listens to; together we listen to a BUNCH of different styles of music...

..and as I said, I'm anal about that sort of thing. I hate having my presets out of order; and I order them by style, and listening frequency.

My receiver has three bands; FM, AM, and Sirius. I don't actually listen to any terrestrial radio except the local talk stations; and I haven't since I first got Sirius almost 5 years ago.

Sirius is just plain better: Better quality, better selection and variety, better playlists, better DJs, and of course, NO COMMERCIALS.

I can't wait for the Sirius/XM merger to finally go through. There are a couple stations on XM that I'd like, and that don't overlap with Sirius.

Mel on the other hand still listens to local radio a lot (lord knows why).

Anyway, most receivers give you a relatively limited set of presets, say 8 or 10 per bank; but they usually give you a bank or two per band. My receiver is a little different, in that it gives me 40 presets, but they're mixed across all three bands.

That's pretty cool actually, because it means no wasted presets. I only listen to two terrestrial radio stations, one AM and one FM, and Mel listens to maybe a half dozen more. If it was one of those "4 banks of 10, assigned per band" things, we'd have a bunch of blank presets, which as I've said, I'm anal about.

Of course some genius in designing this receiver made it so you can't set presets from the remote, you have to get down on your hands and knees and press a combination of tiny buttons under a cover on the faceplate.

Joy... but livable. I don't change presets very often.

What's been the issue, is winnowing down to 40 presets, and figuring out how to order them.

Again I freely admit, I am anal about this stuff.

Obviously, unless you're a Sirius subscriber, these won't mean a thing to you; and even if you are, there's still the local terrestrial stations for Phoenix mixed in there; but here's our list of 40 ( winnowed down from the 70 or so we originally had listed - like I said, very varied):

1. 157 - Phoenix traffic and weather
   
2. 144 - Patriot - Conservative and Libertarian talk
   
3. 145 - Fox talk - Nationally syndicated conservative talk
   
4. 131 - Fox news - News
   
5. 92.3 - KTAR talk - Local and syndicated conservative/libertarian talk
   
6. 550 - KFYI talk - Local and syndicated conservative/libertarian talk
7. 104 - Raw dog - Dirty comedy
   
8. 105 - Laugh break - Clean comedy
   
9. 14 - Classic Vinyl - Early classic rock
   
10. 15 - Classic Rewind - Later classic rock
    
11. 16 - The Vault - Deeper cuts of classic rock
    
12. 93.3 - KDKB - Classic rock
13. 100.7 - KSLX - Classic rock
14. 74 - Sirius blues - Blues
    
15. 23 - Hair Nation - Hair metal, hard rock
    
16. 19 - Buzzsaw - Classic hard rock
    
17. 20 - Octane - Hard rock from the late 90s on
    
18. 28 - Faction - Hard rock, alt hiphop and underground, ska, grind, punk, metal
    
19. 29 - Punk - Mixed punk from all genres and eras
    
20. 27 - Hard attack - Mixed metal from all eras
    
21. 21 - Alt Nation - 2000s alternative
    
22. 22 - First Wave - 70s and 80s alternative
    
23. 24 - Lithium - 90s alternative
    
24. 70 - Disorder - Random jam, alt, semi-punk, garage, and indie
    
25. 72 - Pure Jazz
26. 80 - Symphony
27. 86 - Pops
28. 60 - New country
29. 61 - Prime country
30. 63 - Outlaw country
    
31. 102.5 - KNIX - Mixed country
32. 107.9 - KMLE - Mixed country
33. 12 - Super Shuffle - Popular selections from all Sirius channels
    
34. 09 - pulse - Mixed rock, alt, pop from the 90s-today - youth/pop oriented
    
35. 10 - Bridge - Mixed rock, alt, pop from the 90s-today - adult/indie oriented
    
36. 96.9 - KMXP - Mixed rock, 80s-today
    
37. 97.9 - KUPD - Mixed contemporary rock
38. 98.7 - KKLT - Adult contemporary and soft rock 70's-today
    
39. 99.9 - KESE - Soft Rock

Hah! One left over. During football season, that one is reserved for NFL radio, but for now it remains empty.

Seriously, this stuff actually takes up cycles in my brain. No, you really don't want to see what else is going on inside there.

"Why bother, there's no real difference anyway"

Some folks don't really see the point of HD-TV, HD-DVD, Blu-Ray etc... Though that title isn't a direct quote, it's a fair composite of the sentiments of several commenters, every time I talk about High def media.

There seem to be two classes of consumers here; the ones who looked at HDTVs and weren't much impressed, and the second are those who just dismiss the whole thing because "DVD looks great anyway, why bother".

Now addressing the first consumer, there's typically two issues here:

1. They probably bought, or watched, a not very good HDTV
   
   
2. Said HDTV (even if it was a good one) was probably not hooked to an HD source, or if it was, it was hooked up incorrectly so that HD wasn't being delivered, or there were quality problems.

A lot of folks go in to Costco, grab a TV that looks OK on the floor at a price they can deal with, take it home, and just plug it in, in place of their old TV.

For 60 years, when you upgraded TVs that's generally all you needed to do; unfortunately, with new digital and HD technologies, the "system" no longer works that way. In order to get HD, you need to use HD hookups, HD cables, and HD ports, from an HD source.

Worse, when you get a great brand new high resolution HDTV, and send a standard def source to it, over old cables; frankly they are going to look like crap (more on the "why" behind that later).

If that is your sole experience with HDTV, then yes, you're going to be very unhappy. Your mom and dad probably did that, and that's why...

"Mom and dad" think their new TV is crap...

Ok, so let's presume you've got the "mom and dad took it home and just plugged it in" problem, how do you fix this?

Well, first, if you buy a better quality TV it will have video scaler hardware that makes SD look much less like crap; but generally speaking SD sources don’t look as good on an HDTV as they do on an SDTV.

Technically speaking, it's not that the SD sources actually look worse, it's just that the TV looks so much better, that it reveals just how bad the SD signal was in the first place. It's kinda like someone took your beer goggles off.

By 2009 that will be a moot point, since everything will be in HD, or pseduo-HD (not really HD, but upconverted to look better) because of the mandated DTV cutover. For now though, you generally have to specifically order an HD source. Call your cable or sattelite company and get them to activate an HD service for you (and maybe send you an HD box).

Of course, even if you have an HD cable cable box, it’s entirely likely that the TV is hooked up in a way that is functional, but not necessarily the best way to watch. For example, in the "mom and dad" situation; they probably just plugged in the Coax from their cable box, like they did on their old tube TV.

Remember how bad your VCR looked going over coax?

Untangling the rats nest...

There are quite a few different ways to hook a TV up to a video (and audio) source, and they are kind of complex and confusing. Let's go over them here, in increasing order of quality:

• 75 Ohm RG-59/RG-6 Coax cable: This is the cable that delivers the signal to your cable box; and for the last 25 years has generally been the way the cable box output to your TV.
  
  Unfortunately, the standard analog signaling over coax is HORRIBLE in quality. It delivers all the video, and all the audio information for the signal over a single conductor and a single ground. It's noisy, and it has SEVERELY limited sound and video bandwidth available to it.
  
  Technically speaking, the newer RG6 standard of coax is capable of supporting VERY high bandwidth with digital encoding and/or analog multiplexing (which is how your cable company transmits 400 channels over the stuff); but conventional analog video interconnection using coax is based on the older low bandwidth standards from the 60's.
  
  
• Composite A/V: This is the other familiar cabling standard to most people; and almost all AV equipment supports it.
  
  With composite video, the video signal is transmitted over a single conductor/shield pair of wires (usually color coded yellow) with RCA plugs. Separately, two channel stereo audio is transmitted over standard red and white color coded RCA audio cables.
  
  Video signals by nature have two separate types of signals, color information (chrominance), and grayscale light level only information (luminance).
  
  Technically speaking, there are actually three different chrominance signals, a luminance signal, and two synchronization signals; and this standard is called composite, because it takes all the color, brightness, and sync information, and squeezes them down (compositing) into a single conductor and shield pair.
  
  Quality is generally slightly better than analog coax, because you are not trying to squeeze all the video and audio signals together into a small fraction of the bandwidth of a single wire; and don't need to modulate or multiplex for that.
  
  
• S-Video: S-Video is somewhat less common than composite, but has been around for about 20 years; and is also available in most AV equipment. Basically, S-video takes the composite signal, and splits the color and brightness information into a pair of conductors (one live, one ground) each.
  
  Although the source signal for S-video is the exact same as that for composite video; because theres two seperate pairs of conductors for the signal, you get more bandwidth, less modulation and filtering required etc... and therefore the quality is quite a bit better.
  
  Oh and again; this standard uses separate audio cabling, so you don't have to worry about a quality compromise there... but of course it means more cables to connect.
  
  
• Analog RGB Component: Component video is an interesting beast. Firstly, there are actually three separate common standards for component video; two analog, one digital; and they support different levels of quality. Oh and adding even more complexity, there are several cabling standards for the variants as well.
  
  Analog component video takes the S-video concept of splitting chrominance and luminance one better, and splits chroma into multiple channels.
  
  The RGB variant uses separate Red, Green, and Blue chroma channels. Each chroma channel includes a component of the grayscale image, and all the color information for that color.
  
  RGB component video requires fourth and fifth "sync" channels to carry synchronization information, so that the three colors can be properly combined, and framed etc...
  
  Some cabling standards for RGB mix the sync channels onto the green chroma channel; while others require a separate cable for sync (which mixes both horizontal and vertical sync), or even two discrete cables for H and V sync.
  
  The familiar computer "VGA" cable is an RGB component standard. That of course means that the VGA cable can transport a pretty high quality TV signal.
  
  Technically speaking, analog RGB component can carry resolutions up to 1920x1200 interlaced, which is higher resolution than 1080i; but there is actually less bandwidth available through the analog encoding than digital 1080i signals require.
  
  A lot of HDTVs have VGA ports, and they support signals from computers, and possibly from AV components, but usually only up to 1024x768, or 1280x1024, at 16 bit or 24 bit color; and of course that's analog video.
  
  Some early generation HDTVs, especially those that were advertised as "HD monitors" or "HD ready" have separate BNC RGB connectors for each channel (either three or four, with or without the sync mixed onto the green channel).
  
  
• Analog YPbPr Component: The other major analog component signaling standard is YPbPr; which is carried over three pairs of wires, with RCA connectors at each end; and usually color coded in green, blue, and red.
  
  The YPbPr standard carries the luminance and sync information on the Y channel, the data for blue is on the Pb channel, the data for red is on the Pr channel, and the data for green is derived by subtracting the red and blue data from the luminance data (because once you take red and blue out, the green is left over).
  
  Other than the cabling difference, YPbPr component video is identical in capability to RGB component.
  
  Most newer video devices, including A/V receivers, include at a minimum this standard of video; in preference to RGB because it is easier to implement; and because the digital component standard uses the same cabling.
  
  
• Digital YCbCr Component: Digital component video takes the same cabling standard as YPbPr, and adds digital color space and gamma encoding.
  
  Most often, if a device supports both analog and digital video standards, it will support them both over this sets of jacks and cables; switching modes as required.
  
  Analog component is still interlaced; but digital is progressive, and supports resolutions (in some implementations) as high as 1920x1080; which is 1080p (though at that resolution, the standard is quite sensitive to cable length, and interference).
  
  Most HD devices support digital component video at 720p or 1080i (which itself is actually not interlaced; they simply output alternating progressive signals to reduce the total amount of bandwidth required).
  
  Unfortunately, component doesn't support any DRM or copy protection features; so the studios won't let you output the highest quality signals over it, even though the standard is technically capable of outputing at 1080p.
  
  
• DVI: DVI is an odd duck as well; because it also supports both analog and digital signals over the same connector. DVI has gradually been replacing VGA in the computing world, and to facilitate this, the DVI port can map pins to a VGA port with an adapter, to transmit the analog RGB signal that would otherwise have gone over the VGA cable (and therefore is technically identical to VGA).
  
  Of course the DVI standard is also a digital standard, and has 29+1 pins (24 standard pin, 5 analog chroma/sync pins, and a grounded shield) vs the 15+1 (15 pins and a shield) of the VGA standard (which is technically called Dsub-15) so a HELL of a lot more data can be sent over DVI.
  
  DVI digital can be had in two varieties, single link or dual link, the primary difference being how many pins they are actively using. Single link supports resolutions of up to 1920x1200 progressive, and 32 bit color; which is higher than 1080p. Dual link supports up to 2560x1600 progressive at 32 bit color, which is also sometimes called "quad-hd".
  
  DVI can also support HDCP copy protection, so the studios graciously allow us to send their best quality content over DVI cables. DVI is the "lowest" standard which allows this functionality.
  
  Like all the other discrete cabling standards, DVI is a video only standard; audio is carried seperately.
  
  
• HDMI: HDMI is a 19 pin, high density compact connector cabling standard, that is electrically an extension of the DVI standard. The primary difference is that it runs at a much higher clock rate, and thus a higher bandwidth; and because of that can support a good deal more data being shipped over the wire, including high definition audio.
  
  DVI dual link digital cabling supports up to about 7.4 gigabits per second of video data. The latest HDMI 1.3b standard supports 10.2 gigabits of data. This allows a maximum resolution of 2560x1600, and up to 48 bit color (which is actually far more color than the human eye can see).
  
  All new HD devices include HDMI, because it is the preferred format for AV manufacturers, as well as the studios. You want an HDMI 1.3 port, so you can support high definition audio as well as 1080p HD video, with the hated copy protection the studios enforce on us.
  

Basically, for at least the next 5 years or so, HDMI is, and will be the dominant media interconnect standard; so you're going to need components that support it, and the cables to go along. That's a good thing though, because it takes that entire spaghetti mess I've gone over above, and it sticks everything into one cable.

One cable for video and audio; one cable type, every kind of audio and video. It's simple, and it generally works (some early HDMI devices had compatibility issues).

OK, but it STILL looks like crap...

Alright, so let's assume we've got the TV hooked up to an HD source, using HDMI; or at worst digital component (let's ignore audio for now if you're not using HDMI).

Let’s not forget the TV settings themselves. There are, quite frankly, a bewildering array of settings for modern TVs; some of which have quite dramatic effects on the viewing experience. Worse, many of them are obscure, and definitely non-intuitive.

Let's continue with the "mom and dad at Costco" example, and talk about TV quality.

Wal-Mart and Costco both carry the Vizio line of TVs as their bottom end HDTV products. In fact, as of this holiday season, Vizio is the best selling line of HDTVs in the U.S.

Now, not to say the Vizios aren’t a great deal, they are, but they have a very broad product line; and "mom and dad" probably bought the cheapest one in whatever size range they wanted.

Let's say they bought a Vizio VW-42L; the lowest price model currently sold in the 42" size range in most stores (42" is the most popular size for LCDs right now).

First, it's a 720p set; which is fine for under 50” and more than six feet away; but the 720p sets don’t get the best features. For example, this model has no video processor, only the most basic scaler, and a mediocre response time of 8ms (thats full on/ full off, not grey to grey; which means nothing to a non video guy, but it's about half the speed you want).

If "mom and dad" have an A/V receiver (stereo receiver with video inputs and outputs) with HDMI, and a video processor( and they don't watch a lot of sports) this isn’t a problem; but given this is their first HDTV, I bet they don’t have an AV receiver with HDMI, and I can't imagine my Dad going without golf and football (actually my dad specifically LOVES his HDTV. He's a gadget lover, though he can never figure the things out).

So, first step, borrow an HD-DVD or Blu-Ray player from a friend… and borrow a friend who actually knows what they are doing with setting up a TV; and get a setup disc (they're about $25).

Now, make sure it's using the right cables, and looks good when properly set up with an HD source. Then make sure it looks at least acceptable with an SD source.

If not, then "mom and dad" went too cheap. Thankfully, they probably bought it at Costco, and they have the worlds best return policy. Spend a couple hundred more and get something that advertises one of the following keywords:

• Faroudja
• DCDi
• HQV
• Silicon Optics
• Reon
• Realta
• Bravia (Sony has several revisions of Bravia, you want the XBR2)
  

Those are all the names of proper upscaling video processors, and/or their manufacturers. If the TV has even the most basic name brand video processing, you can be reasonably certain it will have acceptable image quality.

If they're stuck with the TV they've got; they probably need to upgrade their stereo anyway; and you can get an AV receiver from Onkyo that has Faroudja DCDi for $500, or HQV Reon processing for about a grand. At that point, if the TV can just act as a monitor for the video processor, you can get away with a cheaper TV.

Of course they'll be better off if they just buy a Sharp, Panasonic, Hitachi, Sony, Mitsubishi, or Pioneer in the first place; preferably a 1080p set. It’ll be a few hundred more, but the quality difference will definitely be noticeable.

Okay so "mom and dad" are sorted, what about the guy who says "It's just a scam anyway. they'll just be changing things constantly, theres a format war, and I'm just going to wait until it settles down". Or there's the guy who says, "Ahhh, I've just got a small apartment, I'll never see a difference anyway".

Yes, you will see a difference...

The difference is startling on even a 24” TV (the smallest set you can get in 1080p). In fact, HD video at 1080p on a small screen has an almost 3D quality to it, because the individual pixels are so small and sharp, with such high contrast and vivid colors (and again, I'll go into more on why later in the post).

Now, if you have a good upconverting DVD player (one that takes a 480i signal and uses image processing to interpolate up to 720p or 1080i/p); you can get something that looks great out of a standard DVD. Though it's not too close to real HD quality, and it doesn't pop in near 3d like true HD does; it's certainly more than enough to satisfy most people.

Up until recently that’s what I was recommending people do , until the format war was resolved. Well, It’s over, BluRay won; and every HD-DVD player and Blu-Ray player are also upconverting DVD players; so buying one not only lets you watch next-gen content, it makes your older content look better too.

Oh and one thing you definitely will notice a difference with, is how bad non-upconverted standard definition movies look on HD-TVs.

You have to remember, they aren’t even making non-HD TVs bigger than 24” anymore; and pretty much everyone in America will be replacing their TV in the next 5 years… most of us in the next year; as the hype over the digital transition goes mainstream.

Every broadcaster is already moved over to DTV in preparation for the cutoff, most of them are broadcasting at least half their shows in HD; and will be broadcasting even more in HD after Feb 2009.

Right now, a little less than 30% of American households have at least one HD TV, and it’s expected another 30% will go HD by the end of 2009.

In February 2009 all broadcast TV goes digital, most of it in HD. Most of the cable companies are following suit by making HD a standard package feature. I figure almost everyone who has a DVD playertoday, will have a BluRay player by the end of 2010 or so; and as of the most recent Sony finagling, 80% of all new movies, and more than 90% of all back catalogue movies, will be coming out in Blu-Ray.

So this isn't VHS vs. Betamax anymore, it's like the difference between having a TV and not having one.

OK now I've talked about how much better HD is than SD... why is that? I mean it's all recorded the same way right?

Well, no, not really.

It’s a matter of resolution (never mind the sound quality)...

Standard DVDs are mastered in 530p, which means 530 lines of horizontal resolution, progressively encoded. This gives you a 720x530 picture, with every line drawn in every frame.

Unfortunately, when output to a standard definition television, that is down converted to 480i; for a 640x480 image, where half the lines of a frame are drawn at one time, 30 times a second each (to produce a 60hz refresh rate and 30 frames per second; the television broadcast standard).

Standard definition broadcast television is even worse, with only 330 lines of horizontal resolution; and standard VHS worse still at 230 lines.

This is why DVD looks so much better than either VHS or TV; and why DVD has become most peoples standard for video quality.

So let's compare DVD's quality on an SDTV, to that of an HD-DVD (or BluRay, they're identical in image quality) on a 1080p HDTV.

The difference lies in the amount of information being displayed.

SD-DVD content on an SDTV is displayed at 480i. That's 640x480 interlaced; for 307,200 pixels, or rather half of that drawn half the time, for a total of 153,600 pixels being drawn at any given moment.

HD content is mastered in 1080p, which is 1080 lines of vertical resolution at 16:9 aspect ratio. This gives you a 1920x1080 picture drawn progressively. It can be displayed at several rates including 24fps, 30fps, 50fps, 60fps, 72fps, and 120fps; but it is mastered at either 30, or 24. For purposes of this comparison let's just match it to SD and make it 60.

The total number of pixels being displayed at any given moment for a 1080p signal, is 2,073,600; and it is displaying the full content at all times, rather than alternating every other row.

That’s 13.5 times the information being displayed on the screen.

Actually, it’s more than that; because HD color depth is higher.

A standard TV can only display about 16 bits of color simultaneously; though the total spectrum of available color to SDTV is approximately 24 bits worth (broadcast TV is maximum of between 18 and 20 bits, because it steals color data to boost brightness and contrast).

HD TVs can display at a minimum the full RGB colorspace; and can do so at 24, 32, 36, 40, or 48 bits of color simultaneously (depending on the type and model).

The color model involves three colors, red, green, and blue; and each color is represented by an equal number of digital bits. So 24 bit color represents 8 bits of Red, Green, and Blue information each (255 discrete shades of each color); and 48 bit color represents 16 bits of information for each color (65,535 discrete shades of each color) .

Color depths above 24 bit, are referred to as "deep color". There are today, movies and players with 36 bit color; and in theory, they could go to 48 bit (the maximum color depth of both film and professional digital video, and the equipment used to process it).

Now, it’s important to note that 36 bits of color isn’t 2 times the color of 16 bits; it’s 65,535 times as much color. 16 bit color is about 65,000 colors, 20 bit color is about a million colors, 24 bit color is about 16.7 million colors, 32 bit color is about 4.3 billion colors, 36 bit is 68 billion colors, and 48 bit is 281 trillion colors.

That's approximately 94 trillion shades of each red, green, and blue.

If that sounds like a ridiculous number, it is and it isn’t. Yes, it's a huge number of colors, but because the human eye is analog and doesn't break things up into discrete bits, it can distinguish about 32 bits of color (and some genetic anomalies can distinguish about 40 bits, because they have an extra set of cones - that's about 1.4 billion, and 366 billion shades of each primary color respectively).

By mastering at higher depths of color than we can see, it makes color anomalies like banding, and clear field moire or block patterns nearly impossible (large areas of very bright solid colors don't look distorted).

We’ve had the technology necessary to broadcast 480i at 30 frames per second, in 20 bit color since the mid 50s; it’s only in the last five years or so that we could even contemplate broadcasting 1080p/30 in 32 bit color.

In fact, it’s so much bandwidth, that even now most broadcasters are only using 1080i (that trick that halves the amount of data you’re sending at once) in 24 bit.

What about the sound?

Of course up to now I've said "let's ignore the sound"; but it's one of the biggest components of the difference between HD and SD.

Again, let's ignore broadcast TV, because it's pretty uniformly awful in sound (though it's amazing what you can fool the mind into believing is there, with a good audio processor. THank you Dolby); and focus on DVD.

SD movies on DVD are mixed in redbook PCM 2 channel stereo (cd quality), Dolby ProLogic, Dolby Digital 5.1, or DTS 5.1.

Those formats encode the soundtrack at approximately the same quality as standard CDs; with a maximum bandwidth of about 320Kbps for Dolby digital 5.1 (though they CAN be mixed and mastered at up to 448kbps), or about 640Kbps for DTS (though most are mastered at FAR lower rates than that even, and the theoretical maximum is 1.5mbps).

Broadcast HD audio, for programming from the premium HD movie channels for example generally also uses the DD or DTS codecs, but it uses them at 640kbps and 768kbps; far higher than the 448Kpbs limit of a DVD.

Getting into BluRay and HD-DVD though is where you see the biggest differences.

HD audio is mastered in multiple formats on each disk (As many as five) to support the various standards available; and is mastered ata MUCH higher data rate.

Dolby TrueHD and DTS Master audio are sampled at 24 bits per sample at 96khz, per channel, for up to 8 discrete channels. The maximum banwidth is up around 24.5 megabits per second; though most soundtracks use lower quality settings (this is one area where BluRay outperforms HD-DVD, which is encoded at about a 20% lower bit rate).

Going from 320Kilobits per second, up to 18 megabits per second; or 640Kbps to 24.5Mbps is a HUGE difference; and that's not even taking into account the fact that the newer encoding technologies use compression that about twice as effective.

You're talking about almost 100 times as much raw sound data in a True HD or Master Audio soundtrack as in a full quality standard 5.1 DVD.

So... is all that really necessary...

Well, that's a tough question. It really depends on the individual consumer doesn't it.

Believe me, unless you're deaf and blind, you are going to see and hear a huge difference between a standard DVD with a Dolby Digital 5.1 sound track, and a 1080p high def video with a Master Audio sound track. The former looks and sounds pretty good, the latter... it's almost like being in the same room.

Of course, it comes at all comes at a price...

You're going to need about a $1500 TV, a $500 stereo receiver, a $400 HD video player, and about $1000 worth of speakers (minimum) to really make this work. Also, the movies are about $10 more expensive each as well(oh an an extra $100 for cables and the like); and all those are minimums. You can easily spend twice that, or even 20 times that (if you're building a dedicated theater room for example).

$3500 isn't chicken feed.

Heck, I've been assembling a home theater (or at least an HD home entertainment system. Some people balk at the use of the term "home theater" unless it's a dedicated theater room) for two years now piece by piece, and it's cost us about $5500 to get to that point (we have a bigger TV, better speakers, and a better receiver). Yes, we spread it out over two years, but still, it's a fair chunk of change.

Now personally, I think HD is great. I don't want to watch movies and TV that aren't in HD anymore, and given that $3500 (or $5500 in our case) should last for anywhere from 5 to 10 years, I think it's worth it. Heck, we pay more for cable than we did for the whole entertainment system.

Others might not see it as worth the money though; it's really up to the individual consumer.

So you can say that the difference doesn't matter to you, or that you don't think it's worth the money; but don't try and say there's no difference.

Of course the fact that it looks and sounds better doesn't resolve the problem that very little of it is worth watching. I'm not sure if "American Idol" being in High Definition makes it better, or worse.

It's over - They bought the war out

The format war that is; between Blu-Ray and HD-DVD.

From Black Friday 'til two weeks ago, HD-DVD players outsold Blu-Ray more than 2 to 1; more than 4-1 if you take away the PS3. In non-childrens movies (the major studios for kids movies are all Blu-Ray exclusive), HD-DVD outsold Blu-Ray more than 2 to 1.

On black Friday weekend alone, more standalone HD-DVD players were sold in the U.S. than all the standalone Blu-Ray players sold the entire rest of the year.

The fact is, both the hardware and the content available for HD-DVD were clearly superior, at a lower price; and the consumers recognized that.

This scared Sonys pants off.

They had their answer ready by CES two weeks ago; money.

Step 1: Drop prices on all Blu-Ray players by $200
Step 2: Sweeten the free movie deals, and drop prices on all Blu-Ray movies 15%
Step 3: Bribe the studios.

Just prior to CES, they announced the price cuts. They had already announced the rebate sweetener; and a few weeks prior they had "re-affirmed Foxes commitment to Blu-Ray" to the tune of $400 million. They had also been flirting with Paramount, who's on an exclusive HD contract; to the tune of $600 million if they go Blu-Ray exclusive.

The second day of CES, a few hours before the HD-DVD consortium was going to give a big press conference announcing new studio partnerships, new players, and the figures showing how much they beat the pants off of Blu-Ray; Sony buys out Warners contract for $600 million, gives Fox an additional $120 million, and gives the other studios all told about $500 million in "incentives".

In response the HD-DVD group did the only thing they could do; they cancelled their press conference. They've bunkered up, and they've been issuing defensive statements; but it's time to give up. They're throwing good money after bad at this point.

All told, since black Friday Sony has dropped about $2 billion, buying off the competition. This leaves HD-DVD with exclusive support only from Dreamworks and Universal.

Additionally, Sony has managed to reduce their manufacturing costs on the PS3, from $800 to $400, by dropping the chip count, and through process improvements. This means where they had been losing up to $200-400 per box sold (about 4 million of them total), they are actually making money on the higher spec version of the box.

It's over; HD-DVD is dead.

Warner is, by themselves, 20% of all new movies and 30% of the home video market. Between Warner, Fox, and Disney, that's essentially the entire kids DVD market; and kids DVDs are the highest volume, highest profit market segment.

Universal will still release on HD-DVD, because they have an iron clad contract; but that's up in a year. Paramount and Dreamworks both have escape clauses, and it looks like they are going to use them; lubricated with great gobs of cash from Sony.

The consumer had made their choice; that choice was not Sony; and Sony used the judicious application of billions of dollars of cash directly to studios, to thwart the consumers choice.

You may want to support HD-DVD, but realistically, you no longer have the option; now that there won't be any new content for it (10% of all new movies isn't viable).

Sony and the studios they bribed may be short term winners here; but the consumer... that's you and me... are the losers; because we had our choice taken away artificially, rather than letting the market decide.

Oh well... at least we don't have to worry about which format to support anymore.

Choosing your HD service - HD Cable, or DirecTV HD?

So as I've written over the past few weeks, we've upgraded to an HDTV and TiVO-HD, along with HD service with our local cable company (Cox).

A lot of folks have chosen to go with satellite for their HD service, and that can be a very good choice. DirecTV has far more channels in HD than most cable providers. As of today they have 85 HD channels available, whereas in my market, Cox only offers 24.

Both are of course expanding their offerings. DirecTV have said they will have 100 channels available in HD by the middle of 2008 (it was originally supposed to be by the end of 2007, but they are still 15 short). Cox is planning on 80 channels by the end of 2008, rolling them out 12 per quarter, the first group coming March 8th.

More important to many, DirecTV offers out of region NFL football, and MLB baseball on an exclusive basis (they have NASCAR and NBA with enhanced programming but not exclusive). If you live in Phoenix, and want to watch a Patriots homegame that's in local blackout, DirecTV is the only way you can get it.

In terms of general HD programming, that situation is going to equalize over the next two years. By 2009, HD will be the default choice for all cable and satellite providers, and the basic HD tier will be included for free (Cox has just announced this in fact. They will stop charging for basic HD service as of 2008).

Also, by 2009, all broadcast TV will be fully transitioned to HD, because of the analog cutoff. This means all your local channels will be in HD; and by extension all national network channels. Unfortunately, a lot of the cable channels will still only be 480p ED (extended definition), because the providers are trying to save bandwidth by using lower resolution and higher compression.

The broadcasters have all gone to HD, because switching off analog (which they legally had to do anyway) cost them roughly the same whether it was SD or HD, and HD got them more viewers. The cable providers on the other hand (although HD is also bringing them more viewers); are not as enthused, because their networks have bandwidth limitations that OTA (over the air) digital broadcasts don’t have (or rather the limits exist, but they are not an issue for a single channel broadcast). This means infrastructure upgrades for a lot of cable systems; which have cost them billions of dollars over the past few years (and will continue to cost them billions for the next two or three years as well).

These limitations also exist for satellite providers, but the sat companies don't have millions of miles of substandard copper cabling to replace; they just need to replace the head ends and receivers, and rent more bandwidth on the satellites (or launch more satellites - they’ve been doing both).

This has allowed satellite providers to move faster in putting HD content out there; but the costs are still substantial. There are only so many satellites in the sky, and only so much bandwidth available on them. Right now, HD service with DirecTV requires a clear view of a 5 satellite constellation; and that's the limit without launching more satellites, and upgrading every subscribers dish.

In order to minimize these infrastructure costs, the cable and satellite companies have both limited the number of HD signals they are offering; and they are compressing those signals as much as possible.

Of course compression allows them to squeeze more programming into a given amount of bandwidth; but it also reduces quality. Some channels are contracted to be broadcast with less compression, and some signal formats or content survive compression better. This compression is one reason why some channels look quite poor in HD (food network for example), while others look flat out spectacular (discovery HD).

By about 2010, the cable companies will have completed their physical plant upgrades in most regions; and the satellite providers will have reached the maximum capacity of their existing infrastructure without a MAJOR upgrade (as in hundreds of billions of dollars major). At that point, other than contract exclusivity (which I predict won't survive very long in the ubiquitous HD era as more customers complain to the sports leagues rather than switch providers), the programming should equalize between cable and satellite.

I should note cable and DirecTV are not the only alternatives. There are still c-band ("big" dish) and Dish Network on the satellite side for example; and a few lucky folks in some markets have fiber optic based TV services.

Dish offers a similar level of service to DirecTV, with 70 HD channels (and growing), and a SIGNIFICANTLY better HD-DVR (also TiVO technology based, but without the extra features); but they don't have DirecTVs marketing muscle, or their exclusive contracts.

Right now Dish stands at about 14 million subscribers, to DirecTVs 17 million (those are world wide numbers, though both have the vast majority of their subscribers in the US); and neither company are in particularly great financial shape, though both have strong revenues.

Simply put, the Satellite business is expensive, and capital intensive. Every satellite launched can cost upwards of a billion dollars, they have a limited lifespan (15-25 years depending); and sometimes the launches fail (there were two major failures last year for example). Local cable companies have their cable plants to maintain, which are also very expensive; but the cost is spread out to the local providers rather than concentrated on two companies.

This large capital cost, is the primary reason why satellite companies haven't been able to simply add a huge number of services and run away with the market. That said, as you can see by the numbers, mini-dish providers combined now represent a little less than 1/3 of the US "enhanced" television market (the 106 million households with cable, satellite, or other non local broadcasts); a huge leap from where they were 10 years ago.

C-Band services, which once dominated satellite; have fallen out of favor in regions where mini-dish services are available. Though they are still going strong outside of those regions, programming availability may be inconsistent. Many new HD signal streams are in a format that no c-band home receiver can decode for example, so even if you wanted to you couldn't subscribe to them.

The major Telcos are leveraging some of their cable plant expenses, and beginning to offer television services over their local loop; where the loop has been upgraded to either FTTP (fiber to the premesis, also called FTTH) or FTTN (fiber to the node, also called fiber to the neighborhood). These services use high bandwidth fiber optics to transmit IP (internet networking) based telephone, internet, and television programming.

Currently these services are well known as Verizons FiOS (an FTTH service), but other providers offer varying levels of service in different areas. THe second largest provider of these services is Qwest. Both telcos also resell DirecTV in areas where their FTTP/N services are unavailable.

CUrrently these services are both technically immature, and not commonly available. Most providers of the service are in the midst of a transition from first generation VDSL services which used analog multiplexed television signals over relatively low bandwidth links (under 40 megabit, which is barely sufficient for two simultaneous HD streams) to second generation services which offer several hundred megabits of fully digital bandwdith (enough for 10 simultaneous streams or more). Because IPTV only streams one channel per receiver from the head end at any given time, you can in theory offer better service on every channel, without overcompression or compromising on resolution.

Unfortunately, fiber to the neighborhood, and fiber to the home are still rare; and in the first generation form are significantly worse than cable in quality of service. I can't wait for them to be common and viable alternatives, but that isn't likely before 2010 or perhaps later.

Of course that's 2010. Given the fact that as of today, satellite offers ME personally better programming choices however, why did I still choose to go with cable?

Well I didn't exactly, I chose to go with a digital TV service from Qwest (my telco), but it was so poor (they sold me second generation service, but delivered first generation) I canceled it the same day it was installed, and went BACK to cable.... but I still went back to cable instead of going to satellite.

Honestly, Cox HD service is so-so, unless you skip their DVR and buy an HD TiVO. I wholeheartedly recommend doing so. The COX DVR just plain sucks.

With DirecTV you get more HD channels, and for now a TiVO based DVR (though they are moving away from TiVO next year some time), but you have to deal with DirecTVs shortcomings.

So why?

Three things:

1. Loss or degradation of signal

With satellite, you get loss of signal in certain atmospheric conditions. Lots of people say this never happens to them; but lots of others say it happens all the time.

If you can get a good install, and there’s not a lot of electrical noise in your neighborhood, and no obstructions; you’ll only have signal problems during heavy rain and wind.

...Of course we get heavy rain and wind every day for six weeks, twice a year (our monsoons); and high winds can be an issue year round. We also get dust storms here, and they can block signal as well.

Basically, your signal depends on your neighborhood, and the quality of your install. If you can get good, strong, clear, unobstructed signal then signal loss should only be an issue during the peaks of the monsoon (or heavy snow fall, or thunderstorms). If your signal is marginal, then you could get dropouts all the time, with just high winds and blowing dust (which we get all the time down here).

I know a lot of people around this area with DirecTV, and just as I note above; they get mixed results, depending on the weather, their neighborhood, and the quality of their install.

2. Latency

It can take up to 20 seconds for your satellite receiver to lock in and tune a station when you flip channels (it's also filling a read ahead buffer, to smooth out signal jitter). I find this INCREDIBLY irritating. Forget about flipping through channels to see what's on; you pretty much have to use the program guide no matter what.

3. HD-DVR

DirecTV charges a HELL of a lot for their HD DVR, it doesn't record very much video, and it just isn't as good as a real TiVO.

For now, DirecTV uses software licensed from TiVO for their DVR, but beginning in 2008 they are moving to their own software. Worse, the current software doesn't have NEAR the features that TiVO does.

Oh and even though you're paying $300 for your DVR, it isn't yours; it's a lease. If you cancel your DirecTV service, they own the box not you; and you (obviously) can't take it to another provider.

For me, all those irritations more than counterbalance the better HD programming that DirecTV offers over Cox. You on the other hand may weight your priorities differently.

Say Hello to "The Behemoth"

Rising above the city, blocking out the noonday sun, it warps the mighty redwoods and it towers over everyone --

That right there would be our new 61" HDTV.

It's BIG.

It's pretty too... but damn it's huge.

Two weeks ago I went through the while process of picking out a new HDTV; and that we'd settled on a three chip rear projection from JVC.

Last week I mentioned that the retailer I was going to purchase the JVC from screwed things up; and I wasn't able to get what I wanted at the price that I wanted.

Well, that problem didn't change the fact that I wanted a three chip rear projector; or how great the JVC was, so I started looking for other purchasing options.

Unfortunately, it was a discontinued model; and it's been replaced by a model that three items as expensive, so I had to find a retailer with new old stock. I ended up talking with about twenty different places, none of them had more than one or two in stock, and they were all at least $1900 plus $200+ shipping for it.

Well, at that price, I might as well have just gone ahead and bought a plasma or LCD.

Our other option for three chip LCoS was to go to Sony... now, I'm not a big Sony fan; in fact I really don't care to deal with them. They make everything as proprietary a pain in the ass as possible, just because they think they can.

Well, I hadn't really seriously researched the Sony; but it was still a three chip rear projector, and it was still a hell of a lot cheaper than a plasma or LCD of equivalent quality, so I decided to research the Sony options. I found that the reviews were generally comparable to the JVC, ad the pricing was from $1600 to $1800 plus shipping depending on the retailer.

Sony had another advantage, in that the TV was available locally at a reasonable price (from Costco, Best Buy, and Sams Club). Not quite an online price, but taking into account shipping etc... the difference was pretty small.

So, we headed out to take a look; ad honestly weren't all that impressed with the Sony. Oh sure, it was good (though I didn't think as good as the JVC), but I didn't like the connectivity options, and the picture was just, OK.

Costco had a couple Panasonic plasmas at blowout pricing, including a 5o" 1080p for $2300; and I was severely tempted. It was a great TV with a great picture; but it was also a little smaller than I wanted, and a bit more than I wanted to spend.

Right next to it though, they had a TV that I hadn't seriously considered.

Panasonic is promoting a new three chip LCD rear projection lineup, using a high power lamp technology similar to LED (it isn't actually an LED; but it doesn't use a conventional filament, or an HID arc like DLPs) that they are calling LiFi. It's a color corrected, and very bright, light source; but instead of the 3,000 to 5,000 hour lamp life of a DLP or LCoS set, the LiFi lamps have a 50,000 hour plus lamp life.

Basically, you never have to change the lamps.

Other than the light source, the tvs are conventional three chip LCD systems. To my mind better than DLP, but not quite as good as LCoS. THe biggest practical difference is that LCoS has a bit better black level, and a bit better off axis consistency.

Anyway, the 61" Panasonic PT-61LCZ70 was sitting there right next to the plasmas, and it looked pretty damned good. In fact, it looked a fair bit better than the Sony; especially from 7-9 feet back (my seating range).

The kicker though, was the pricing. List price on these is $2000, plus $300 for a stand. Costco is clearing these out for $1250 including the stand.

Well, we like the picture, and we certainly liked the price... plus it's Costco, who has the worlds best return policy; so what the hell, we took it home last week. OH and since I didnt need the stand, I sold it on craigslist the next day.

Now, the reviews on the set are mixed. They all rated the picture as excellent, with great quality and great connectivity options; but that color accuracy and black level were poor without calibration. Also pre-production samples apparently had a problem with lamp color cast stability (the color would change over time as the lamp wore in).

Well, I'll agree, out of the box with default settings, the color accuracy was poor. Honestly, if I had just plugged the TV in and watched stuff, without figuring out how to set the TV up proplery, it would have looked horrible and I would have been very dissatisfied.

Thankfully, I knew what to expect; and with a couple hours worth of effort, experimentation, and a calibration DVD; I was able to get black levels, and color accuracy as good as any other RPTV I've tried. There is still a little bit too much saturation in the greens and blues, but when I have the system professionally calibrated I'm sure they'll be able to fix that.

With the right display settings, I was able to get excellent brightness, sharpness, and color; with very deep, satisfying blacks without loss of shadow detail. I will say it took a hell of a lot of fiddling around to find the right combination of settings however; probably more time than the reviewers who mentioned poor black levels were willing to take. The TV has both an automatic, and a manual lmap and light level adjustment, with five different tweaks to the overall light output; and that alone took the most effort to figure out and set properly. Not coincidentally, it is also the most important setting or getting dark blacks without loss of detail.

Also important to note, each input, and each picture mode had to be set up individually (however at least each input and setting has it's own setting memory). This was a real pain in the butt without a question.

Now that said, the fact that there WERE all those controls, user accessible, and relatively easy to understand, is a good thing; as is the fact that all the settings were individual to an input and mode. A lot of televisions hide adjustments away in service menus only accessible to technicians etc; and some only allow one setting for the whole set, or the whole mode. HDTV input sources can vary greatly from SD-DV, and from HD-DVD sources; and all three really do require their own optimzation.

One irritation, that is unfortunately not specific to this TV; is that viewiing different sources form the same input; like say SDTV and HDTV from your set top box; also requires two different sets of settings to look as good as possible. You can compromise and get very good picture; but for the BEST picture, you need to readjsut whenever you switch from a standard def TV show to a high def one. THis is obviously inconvenient, and somewhat impractical. YOu could do it by setting different modes on the same input with different optimization settings; but only the custom mode (one per input) allows you full control over all your picture options, and thus can produce the absolute best quality picture.

As I said, it's an irritation, but it's one common to most every HDTV, and is inherent to the nature of the input sources.

Just as an example of picture quality; here is an un-enhanced (it's only been resized) photograph of my television screen. The slight noise and distortion is from my camera and lens, not the screen.



Football looks spectacular, movies look spectacular, HDTV looks great, regular DVDs upconverted look nearly as good as HD... and SD is SD. It will upconvert native signals and it does a decent job of it, but garbage in garbage out; and a good quality TV makes all the flaws in SD signals readily apparent.

Watching Cars (upconverted) or Shrek 3 (HD-DVD) giving a fully digital path for a fully digital image, the results are startling. The clarity is amazing, but because it is an RPTV and not an LCD, you never get that "artificial" or "hyper real" look. Everything looks natural and slightly filmlike.

Overall we're very happy with the set; and for the money I think we got excellent value.

Oh and did I mentioned it's damn big? I've slept on beds smaller than this thing.

Sonsabitches

So, yaknow that really spectacular deal I was getting on that really spectacular TV?

Well, it turns out when the seller said they had one remaining in stock, and took my money, and confirmed a 7 day delivery time... They were lying.

See, they didn't have any remaining in stock; and since the model is discontinued, they won't be getting any more.

I'm not so much irritated at not getting the deal there; what I'm really pissed about is that they KNEW they couldn't fulfill my order on Friday; but they neither called, nor emailed me. I had to call when I got nervous about not receiving my delivery scheduling email.

It seems that rather than cancel my order, they processed it, and as the warehouse didn't have any remaining stock, the expediter put it on backorder status; even though the item is not backorderable.

If I hadn't called in, my order would have just sat there on backorder for up to 90 days.

Anyway, other options are currently being investigated.

UPDATE: Ok, several people have asked me to publish the name of the retailer who pulled this.

The culprit as it were, was Beach Camera; who is also Beach Video, Beach Photo, and BuyDig.com (if you call them directly, they answer as BuyDig.com).

I have to say in their defense, I have dealt with them before, and this was the first trouble I've had. They are generally very highly rated. Also, once I did call, they refunded my money within 24 hours (it was processed the same day, and credited back yesterday in fact).

My plan for global home theater domination is nearly complete

Bwahahahahaha...

Oh I'm sorry, did I say that out loud?

So a few weeks ago, we bought an HD-DVD player. A couple weeks after that we bought an HD TiVO, and had our little fun with our HD cable service.

Of course the problem is, we don't have an HDTV yet. We were planning on buying one this Christmas, but had to hold off because my contract extension hadn't been confirmed yet.

Well, it was confirmed last week; and as of last Thursday this little... or rather this quite large puppy, is rolling it's way towards our happy home:

That my friends, is the JVC 56" HD-ILA (LCoS) rear projection television, model number HD-56fh97.

But wait batman, I thought you were going to buy a Sharp Aquos LCD? Was ist los? Rear Projection? Isn't that like, totally '80s?

Nay friends; with LCoS technology, rear projection is in fact STILL the best choice for real home theater, and HD sports; at least outside of a dedicated theater room (where of course you want a real front projector).

Now, I've been on the LCD path for a while; and I was pretty much decided on the 52" Sharp Aquos 52D92U; which is generally the highest rated flat panel television you can get for under $5000.

It's gorgeous. It's also rather expensive, with street prices in the $3,000 to $3500 range from reputable sellers; which meant that I was going to have to wait at least a few more months if I wanted to pick it up.

One other problem though... I love the picture on this Sharp... BUT... Although this very high end $3500 LCD, the top of Sharps range in this size, has a 120hz refresh rate, and 4ms response time... There's STILL perceptible motion blur in fast action and text on screen, oversaturation of primary colors, and visible grayness in black areas.

See, my primary interest in watching an HDTV, is for spectacular movies; with a secondary task of giving me spectacular football.

It just so happens that movies with a lot of dark contrast (like most sci-fi, fantasy, and action movies - my favorite genres), and fast motion against detailed, colorful backgrounds (like say, football players running down field, and game information text) are the hardest images to display well; and the areas where LCD's have the most difficulty.

That's not to say the Aquos doesn't do a good job, but like literally every LCD yet made; these limitations are a part of the technology. Even the best rated LCDS, the new $8000 Pioneer sets, have some level of motion blurring, and very slightly greyish blacks.

So anyway, knowing that I would have several months to wait; I've been doing research, and reading reviews and recommendations from Sound and vision, home theater mag, ultimate AV, Consumer Reports and others.

Right now, your options for large screen HDTVs are front projection, Plasma, LCD, DLP, and LCoS (front projectors generally use one of the last three technologies).

Front projectors are used primarily in dedicated theater room setups, with very large silvered screens. They produce an image in the same way (or a similar way) that modern digital cinema projectors do; and there is no better way to experience a movie in your home, especially if you want a screen above 70". Unfortunately, they are quite expensive, somewhat noisy, and like all projection systems (including rear projection TVS by the way), in that they use powerful lamps, which will eventually burn out (typically speaking ever 3-5 years or so), and must be replaced, at the cost of $250-$500 per lamp (depending on the exact set). Finally, they require total darkness to function properly, so you really need to use them in a dedicated theater room.

Yes... that's right out for us I'm afraid.

Plasmas produce the best picture of the other options available; by individually illuminating tiny plasma cells in the screen, you can produce much truer blacks than with an LCD; while still maintaining sharp and bright colors, and a very bright picture overall. Unfortunately they are quite expensive in the larger screen sizes, they are susceptible to burn in (yes, still, though not as bad as they once were), and they have very reflective screens that are not great for use in areas with poor light control....

... like say, my living room; which has one mostly glass wall, and a semi-open back wall with the rest of the house lights shining through it. We generally watch movies in the dark, but the kids use that TV in the daytime, and we need to have something that you can easily see in uneven lighting conditions.

Oh and big, thin, flat, easily broken glass screens mixed with two kids, two cats, and two dogs... It's a concern.

Ok, so front projection and plasma are out, and LCD has issues and costs as we talked about already (and will some more in jsut a bit)... how about rear projection?

A lot of folks think of rear projection tvs as the huge, ugly, unreliable, not very sharp, or contrasty, or colorful, or bright big screen tvs they got used to in the 80s.

Not even close.

Todays DLP and LCoS sets are COMPLETELY different technology, and can produce images every bit as good as the direct view technologies of plasma and LCD. The best part is though, they do it at a fraction of the cost.

DLP is actually a very interesting technology. It uses one monochrome reflective microdisplay at half the horizonatl resolution of the screen (so a 1080p display is actually at 960x1080 instead of 1920x1080) and then uses millions of tiny, individually aimable micro-mirrors, and a high speed rotating color wheel to produce the image at full resolution and in color (a process which they call wobulation... no, seriously, they do).

DLP, like every other display technology, has a couple problems. Though it generally produces good blacks, it has a susceptibility to stray light from the colorwheel and millions of tiny mirrors; so they aren't as good as plasmas. Also that same stray light issue can cause some color smearing, or color rainbows to appear around the edges of objects for some viewers (especially those with astigmatism or who've had Lasik).

The wife has a severe astigmatism, and I'm planning on Lasik...

Right then... LCD it is; I'll just have to bite the bullet on price and motion blur...

Or maybe not...

In all my research the same theme kept popping up: Although serious videophiles didn't much care for DLP, they actually preferred the new 3 chip rear projection systems (Liquid Crystal On Silicon LCoS - sold as HD-ILA by JVC, and SXRD by Sony) to all but the very top end of plasma and LCD TVs.

So I started doing some more targeted research.

LCoS rear projection TVs reflect the projection lamp off of three (appx. 2" wide) microdisplays, to project all three primary color images simultaneously through a collimator lens. Each microdisplay is independently at full 1920x1080 resolution at 120hz or 150hz (or any number that is evenly divisible by 30 actually) progressive scan; and there are no wobulating mirrors or color wheels to reduce resolution, soften the image, produce rainbow artifacts, or produce a screen door effect.

This produces a clearer, sharper, brighter image than other projection technologies, with fewer image artifacts, and better color accuracy. Also, because there is no color wheel and no micro-mirrors, reliability and lifespan are increased, and noise and warm-up time are decreased as compared to DLP.

Also, because of the nature of the technology, the projection screens for LCoS use a much smaller grain structure, and present a very natural appearance as compared to DLP (or LCD for that matter, which can appear to be TOO sharp, and actually worsen the appearance of film based source programming).

Specifications on top end LCoS TVs are comparable to the highest end plasma and LCD tvs, with typical contrast ratios in excess of 3000:1; and contrast ratios when using auto iris controls to optimize black levels, as high as 10,000:1. LCoS sets can have brightness levels that are naturally variable (as film is, and direct view LCDs are not) from .01 foot lamberts, to over 100fl (over 10,000 to one); with neutral D6500K images from 27fl to 48fl (video reference standard is 30fl) depending on adjustments.

Most LCDs are naturally much brighter than 30fl at D6500K neutral gray (as in 45fl or more). This looks better in a brightly lit room, especially under fluorescents light; but can cause eyestrain and oversaturation of colors in darkness. Also, most LCDs cant produce an image as dark as .01fl, nor as bright as 100fl; because they are transmissive. In a direct view LCD, the light from the backlight is transmitted through the pixels; and light output is dependent on just how opaque, or how transparent, the pixels can get.

This is why direct view LCDs still can't quite show true black as well as other technologies can (though this is changing with dynamic LED based backlighting). They shine a VERY bright backlight through the screen to ensure bright whites and colors, but then depend on that same screen they shine through for colors, to block the light out completely for blacks.

Obviously, this is somewhat imperfect, with transmissive technologies typically having black levels 3 to 5 times higher than reflective technologies; which themselves are 5 to 10 times (or at least 5-10 times within the measuring tolerance) higher than direct emission technologies (such as CRT). Of course these are all still very low levels of light; but in scenes which have bright whites, and dark blacks simultaneously, this difference can be obvious.

LCoS uses a reflected light technology; where the projector lamp is bounced off the microdisplay chip to produce the image; and therefore the darkness of blacks isn't dependent on the light blocking ability of a semi translucent pixel; but rather the lack of light reflection off a black pixel. It still doesn't produce as true a black as a reference grade CRT (which have contrast ratios too high for the sensitivity of most measuring equipment) or the best plasmas (which have typical contrast ratios of as high as 15,000:1); but it's pretty close.

You do lose some of the saturation and brightness of the very brightest colors as compared to the best plasmas and LCDs; but this reflective display results in a more natural rendering; because the light is delivered to your eyes in a way closer to that of natural vision (where light is reflected off objects, not transmitted through them, or emitted from them). LCDs and plasmas can often have a "hyper-reality" look to them, because of that transmissive image production; where it feels like the picture is actually being projected into your eyes directly.

Though... some people actually prefer that hyper reality look. It can produce an almost 3D effect, and when watching high end animation (try Disneys "Cars" for an example), the impact is truly spectacular.

At this point, I decided I wanted to take a look. I visited a couple of Best Buys, and Frys; and saw the LCDs, plasma, DLPs, and LCoS sets I was generally interested in; both in bright floor environments, and in darkened viewing rooms.

There really is no substitute for doing this by the way. You can never really tell what a set is going to look like until you view it in variable lighting and viewing angle conditions.

Although I wasn't able to adjust the picture settings on any of the TVs I looked at (typically floor demo TVs are adjusted to ridiculously overbright, oversaturated, and oversharpened modes; because they make people say "ooooh pretty" on the showroom floor) I definitely got a good idea of the picture characteristics of the technologies, and specific models I was interested in.

What I found actually surprised me.

I went into this thinking I would greatly prefer the LCDs and plasmas over the Rear Projection TVs; and , for the DLPs, I was correct (DLPs all look slightly fuzzy and grainy to me, and tend to have poor color saturation to my mind) ; but the HD-ILA and SXRD sets I looked at were damn good.

Initially, I preferred the bright static images produced by the LCDs and plasmas on the brightly lit sales floor. Once I looked at football, and darker movies, in a darkened viewing room however; my preferences changed, and I thought the LCoS sets were producing a significantly better image than the LCDs, and all but the most expensive (as in well over $5000) plasmas.

And of course, although they were significantly more expensive than DLPs of the same size; the LCoS sets were all several hundred, to over $1000 cheaper than the equivalent LCD or Plasma options in the same range of price and quality.

So it was back again to research; this time looking at specific models.

Now size....

The biggest mistake people make with HDTVs is to buy too small; because they’re thinking of what is a comfortable viewing distance and angle for their old standard definition 4:3 interlaced TV.

There’s two ways to calculate optimum viewing distance. There’s the average angle rule of thumb, and theres the visual acuity calculation based method.

Using the average angle rule, with a 16:9 HDTV, optimal viewing distance is about 1.9 times the diagonal screen size; with the generally acceptable range being from 1.5 to 2.5 times the diagonal screen measurement.

Initially, the wife was ADAMANT that we buy something between 42” and 46”. She was absolutely convinced that anything larger would be “way too big”; because a 42” 16:9 TV looked “about the same size” as our 32” 4:3 TV.

I then showed her what HDTVs looked like in viewing environments, especially as compared to our current 32” 4:3 SDTV; and she started to listen to what I was saying, rather than her idea of what “huge” was.

Our living room is 28ft by 14ft, with a 9ft distance between our televisions position, and our primary seating positions. 9ft is 108”, so to keep that 1.5-2.5 screen size ratio, acceptable would be anything from a 44” to 72”; and the ideal would be 57”.

Based on this rough calculation, I decided to look for televisions between 46” and 61”, with the ideal range being 52"-58".

For a little more precision, you can use the visual acuity rule. To do so, take the actual height of the screen, and multiply it by 3.2 to get the optimal viewing distance for 1080p, or 4.8 for the optimal viewing distance for 720p (optimal for 480i is about 6.4).

Why height? Mostly because it’s what we perceive to be the most important dimension of an image. We judge our scale of images based on how tall they are, not by how wide. If you take a picture of a man six feet tall, and keep him centered in the frame; you can extend the sides of that frame out as far as you want, the man will still “look normal”. Make the frame 30 feet wide, and you will still perceive the mans size as “normal”. Take that same picture, and extend the top and bottom, leaving the man the same; you will perceive the man as looking smaller and smaller. It’s just the way we humans are visually wired.

When we were all on tube TVs, the most popular “living room” sizes were 27” and 32”. A lot of us still have 32” tv’s sitting in our main viewing area. The actual screen height of a 32” 4:3 TV, is equal to about 20”, for an optimal viewing distance in SD, of 128” or 10.75 feet; which is typical of many living room viewing distances.

With a 16:9 TV though, as I said, our perception of size is different. A 16:9 TV displaying an SD signal would need to be 42” diagonal to “look as big” as a 32” 4:3 TV, and to have the same optimum viewing distance at the same resolution.

Of course, as you increase the resolution, the optimal viewing distance goes down. Since most of us don’t much want to change our viewing position (living rooms not notable for having mobile walls and such) that means going up in screen size.

We were very happy with our viewing position at 9ft, on our current TV; and we don't want to move our furniture; so we needed to optimize for that distance.

The actual screen height of a 56” 16:9 TV is 27.45”; so the optimal viewing distance for 1080p/i content is 88” (7’4"), and the optimal viewing distance for 720p is 132” (11'). If we average the two, we come up with 110” or…

Well, whadya know… just a bit over 9 feet.

So, now I had a specific size range I was interested in, 46"-61" with an ideal of 52" to 58"; and I had a set of minimum requirements

1. True 1080p with 1080p input over HDMI, and native 480i/p and 720i/p input support
2. At least two HDMI ports
3. Good quality of upscaling, de-interlacing, and 3:2 pulldown
4. Auto iris, and manual iris and gamma controls (giving a dynamic contrast ration of 10,000:1)
5. D6500K color corrected lighting with a native contrast ratio of at least 3000:1
6. PC input preferred
7. A narrow bezel design, with unobtrusive speakers, black preferred
8. Useful color correction and calibration controls
9. A large variety of inputs
10. A cable card slot

This list of requirements left me with about a dozen models to sort through; when I found exactly what I wanted.

The reviews on the JVC TheaterPro series were all uniformly excellent. The three models in the series 56", 61", and 70" were all essentially identical but for screen size; and in every case I found was either the top rated, or second from top rated television in their size class (though they all noted that the sets needed to be calibrated out of the box for best color performance).

The TheaterPros were actually originally designed as reference monitors; and were sold under JVCs pro studio line starting in 2004. In 2006, they added the frilly consumer features, and announced them as consumer models as the FH and FN96 models (the FH, which I've purchased, has a black bezel, and an RS232 serial port, for professional home automation and home theater integration. The FN does not.). The updated 97 models models were announced in late 2006, and introduced in early 2007; and most of the major AV mags rated them as their best pick in class, or at least in their top five in class for the year.

What really sealed the deal for me though?

I started looking for prices. The 56" FH97s were announced at $3299 list; and went down to $2699 street. Then, this past September, JVC introduced a new 58" ultraslim (only 11" thick, and wallmountable) model that was otherwise technically identical to the 56". At that point, they decided to discontinue the 56, and reduced the MSRP to $2699 for closeout.

Well, when they discontinued it, street prices dropped to $1800 or so; but I managed to find one retailer (a top rated retailer on bizrate, paypal seller ratings, and resellerratings) blowing it out for $1299 with free shipping.

At that point, I was waiting for my contract renewal to come through to pull the trigger; and I was just hoping they didn't sell out before it happened. Last Thursday was finally the day, and it turned out none too soon, because it was the very last unopened one they had in stock (never take a floor model LCD, plasma, or projection TV. They lose significant life out on the floor).

In theory, the set will be here this Friday; though I haven't been able to confirm a dropoff time yet. I can't wait to see the Patriots crush the Jets in 56" 1080p glory.

Just two final steps... a new receiver (my current system doesn't switch HDMI), and new speakers to go with it (of course those final steps are going to be more expensive than everything else combined).

An object lesson in poor service, and losing money: The connectivity saga of 2007

Oy... the last few days have been... interesting.

I'm going to tell you a story, that should demonstrate to you why every major ISP, Telco, and Cable company in this country is, or has recently been, in financial trouble.

Now, I'm a techno geek. An early adopter (though not generally true bleeding edge), and I have a lot of digital services in my life.

Most critical among these are my telephone service, my internet service, my mobile phone, and my cable TV. Without the first three, I can't work; and the last makes life a fair bit more entertaining.

Now, for telephone service, I've been with Vonage for four years. I love their service, and I never had any problems with it (until a few months ago). Vonage made signing up with them very easy (for me anyway. MY friend John had some major issues, but we were trying to do something the customer service people didn't know how to do), and has always been helpful when I've had customer service questions etc...

Similarly, I have T-mobile for my mobile phone provider; I've had them for four years; and I couldn't be happier. I get excellent telephone and mobile internet service; and they make things convenient for me with regards to billing and customer service.

I have had phones with Sprint, AT&T, and Verizon before, and I had MAJOR customer services issues with all of them; but T-mobile has been just great.

I've also been with Cox cable and internet for four years; and I've had TONS of problems with their service, which I very much do not love.

Over the past two years, I've seen my cable and internet bill from Cox go from $106 a month, to $174 a month; with not only no improvement in service, but a worsening.

A few months back, I started getting slow down on my net connection when I was busy, downloading, or using the VOIP. Apparently Cox has started throttling high bandwidth users; and services, like bit torrent, and competing companies VOIP (they offer their own telephone services). This has been causing me no end of trouble with my work VPN, and with my telephony.

It's not Vonages fault, but they have become unusable over Cox; to the point where it has caused me issues in getting my job done (I work all day on the phone). Not only that, but Vonage is in serious trouble financially, and legally, so I've been considering dropping the service. I don't want to, but I may HAVE to.

Now, between that, and all the rate increases, I've been looking to get off of Cox for a while.

Well, the final straw came right at the beginning of football season. I started getting dropouts, freezes, and digital artifacts when I was watching TV. This would happen on all but the HD channels, and it didn't matter whether I was recording with the DVR or not. It was actually WORSE on the standard def analog channels. It started off as a little interference every once in a while, but after a couple months it became so bad, that often TV shows would be unwatchable for several minutes at a time.

Cox sent people out twice to fix it, and twice they did nothing... in fact it may have been made worse. They steadfastly insisted it wasn't the box; but the signal tested strong and clean (100% strength, SN of around 40db) so it wasn't the signal etc... etc...

Anyway, I HATE satellite TV, because you get the exact same issues (dropouts, digital tiling), and it can take 20 seconds to change the channel, and you lose it in dust storms, and electrical storms, and high winds... I could go on. I really didn't want satellite.

Up until recently, I didn't have any other option; but our local telco Qwest has started offering what they call Choice TV and Choice internet in our area; rolling it to different neighborhoods over the last two years.

Choice TV isn't satellite, it's TV over VDSL with fiber to the node. What that means is that they run fiber optics to a neighborhood node, and then run up to 4 twisted pairs to your house with high bandwidth DSL over them. They can run the pairs as far as 300meters from the node, at 11 megabits per twisted pair.

Now, in order to get choice TV, you need to have phone and internet services with Qwest; and between the price increases and the content issues, and the tiling and dropouts... well I've been ready to get off of Cox for a while. Unfortunately Qwest didn't offer choice in my neighborhood...

Until about 8 weeks ago.

When I first found out about Qwest choice TV, I called them up and asked about it; and they weren't offering it here then; but they said they would be over the next year, and I should call them back in a few months. After the last Cox service call that made things worse, I decided to give Qwest a call; and I found out then, that they had the service available.

I was VERY happy about that, and I started the process to sign up for the new service; basically just so I could get rid of Cox.

Unfortunately, halfway through the sign up we hit a snag. I have a fraud alert on my credit accounts due to identity theft; and they were unable to verify my credit over the phone.

Now get this... to resolve the situation, they wanted me to fax a copy of my drivers license, my social security card, and a utility bill in my name TO A THIRD PARTY IN KANSAS CITY.

I spent a few minutes explaining to the account rep on the other end of the phone that the reason I had the fraud alert in the first place was because I'd had identity theft; and that the most common way for identity theft to occur was employees with access to private information; and that there was no way I was going to fax copies of my ids to someone I don't know and trust.

Anyway, I told them to try and find another way, and that I would call back. Then I called up Cox and told them I was unhappy, and why, and that I was going to cancel unless they fixed the issues I was having, and did something for me on my bill.

Well, they transferred me to the customer retention department (you know it's bad when they have a dedicated department just to retain unhappy customers - actually every major telco and ISP does; and all for the same reason - they ARE that bad). I explained the situation and problems to them, and the "customer retention specialist" actually hung up on me.

Ooooh boy that pissed me off.

Anyway, about a week later, we were in Best Buy, and I saw that they were agents for Qwest choice service. I figured maybe signing up in person would smooth things out. Not only that, but when we talked about it, they offered us $100 off any computer in the store if we signed up.

...Well, Mel wanted a new laptop anyway; so merry Christmas honey, we get a new cable, internet, and phone company, and you get a new computer.

Unfortunately, we had the same problem signing up that time; but I got on the phone with the regional sales manager who promised me she would work something out the next day (it was after 8pm by that time).

So the next day I got back on the phone with the regional sales manager, and she goes through the internal connections to the accounts escalation manager at the "home office".

We spent over two hours on the phone with her, and the sales rep on conference, with the escalations manager bringing various other departments on and off line etc... We STILL ran into the verification issue; but finally we got frustrated and just put it in Mels name (she does NOT have a fraud alert).

Now, before this whole multi-party conference call began, I laid out some very clear terms and conditions:

1. I needed to save money over Cox and Vonage, on phone, cable, and internet which together were costing me $200 a month.

2. I needed to see not only no downgrade in service, but an upgrade

3. I ABSOLUTELY MUST, as a deal breaker, have an HD DVR (TiVO or something similar). Mel and I have had the DVR for two years now, and it's made us actually enjoy watching television again. We'll go without cable, before we go without a DVR again.

The regional sales manager, and the escalation manager, both agreed all of that was no problem.

1. My package pricing ended up being $150 a month all inclusive instead of $200.

2. I would actually get more channels, and more of them in HD.

3. They didn't offer an HD DVR, but they specifically said I could go and buy an HD TiVO, and they'd give me a $100 rebate.

So we signed up, agreed to a two year contract on 3Mb/1Mb internet service (in order to get it for $20 cheaper a month with a lifetime price guarantee) with the option to upgrade as high as 11Mb/8Mb, two phone lines (to replace our two Vonage lines), and the Choice TV HD service.

They scheduled us for an install three weeks later.

So, the next day, I ordered a brand new TiVO HD, and the wireless interface for it, with overnight shipping from amazon (for $90 less than list price even, and overnight is only 44 extra for us because we're prime customers). When I got it the next day, I activated it, and signed up for a one year contract with TiVO to get $12 a month pricing (vs $16). Then, I disconnected the still live Cox DVR, hooked up the TiVO (which at that point would only get the analog cable channels, and local HD channels), and started playing...

Oh my god TiVO is the greatest invention in Television since color.

Remember when I said having a DVR made TV enjoyable to us again? Well having a TiVO was as big an improvement over the cable companies DVR, as having that DVR was over standard cable.

Honestly, I can't describe to you how much better TiVO is than normal cable. I can record two programs while watching a third. I can time shift anything I want. I can search for any kind of programming I like, and have the TiVO auto record it; and even record similar programming that I haven't specifically asked it to. I NEVER miss a program I want to watch anymore, because even if I forget to program it in, theres a goo chance TiVO knows that I want to watch that program (based on my having watched it, or similar shows, previously), and auto-records it for me.

To top it all off, I can send movies and music to and from any of my pcs, as well as downloading them off the net from several sources; and the picture quality, even in standard definition, is VASTLY superior to that from my cable company set top box. I would say the picture on SD is just as good as an SD-DVD; and in HD is almost as good as an HD-DVD.

I no longer want to have cable without TiVO, that's how good it is. It's worth every penny of the price, and more.

Oh and the digital tiling, drop outs, freezes etc? Yeah, not a one with the TiVO. Everything is pristine no matter what I'm watching, when. Looks like it was their DVR box after all.

So, last Friday the installer gets here, works out in the street, at the neighborhood node, and in our wiring boxes for a couple hours; putting our two phone drops (each drop has two twisted pairs in it) on the VDSL, and swithcing our house coax (four coax drops in the house) onto the Qwest network. That all went relatively smoothly, except that they wrote the service order wrong, and he had to spend an extra hour on the phone with the head end trying to get the lines re-provisioned properly.

Then he started on the inside work, and we started talking about the service and he dropped a bomb "Oh, we don't support DVRs on this service for HD. Not only that, but they only work like a VCR in SD, and only with this one box and an IR blaster to change the channels".

Say what?

Apparently, there are TWO DIFFERENT Qwest choice services.

The first service is provisioned on FTTN (fiber to the node), and uses multiplexed signals over the twisted pair for separate TV, phone, and VDSL networking. That service uses these proprietary Motorola home gateways, which have basically no inputs or outputs, only limited video bandwidth, and no way to use a DVR with them. Some of the boxes don't even have HDMI out, just component, and the ones with HDMI, are HDMI, without sound; and they don't have a digital audio output.

Basically they are crap. Motorola aren't even making new ones, because they've switched everything to VDSL2; and they've refused to make or support any enhancements, especially a DVR, because the system has too many quality and performance issues.

All this was related to me by the clearly knowledgeable... in fact clearly expert... install tech, while we were talking about the system and it's limitations.

The OTHER choice TV services are implemented over VDSL2, at 200Mb; with full digital IPTV, IP phone, and networking. THAT service looks great, and offers full cable card support, so you can either use the DVR box that Motorola builds, or use your own TiVO.

Yeah... we don't get that service here. Oh, we will eventually, but not for at least another two years.

So at that point, Cox was already physically disconnected and canceled, I'm already out $300 plus a contract to TiVO... and as I said, I don't want to have cable without TiVO. Now here's this guy telling me not only don't I get my TiVO, but I don't get ANY DVR at all.

I was irritated to say the least.

I wasn't able to get the sales manager on the phone, but I left her a message, and the installer suggested he just connect everything up, get it all working; and if I was unhappy with it I could always convert over to DirectTV HD (which does offer actual TiVO, branded as DirecTVbuilt into the satellite tuner).

Of course, as I said, I REALLY don't want satellite; and I don't want cable without TiVO.

... and, under federal law, cable companies which require digital set top boxes have to provide customers who request it with cable cards...

I did actually give the Qwest ChoiceTV package a shot; but after watching it for only an hour, it was so bad that I just couldn't put up with it. The picture was awful, there was audio noise and no surround sound (the TiVO HD outputs Dolby Digital), the programming guide was crap... even the remote sucked.

Even worse, the internet service that I depend on for work? It was intermittently failing. Several times an hour it would drop connection for no apparent reason, for about 3 minutes at a time; sometimes requiring a reboot of my router to regain connectivity.

This was clearly unacceptable, so I pulled the Qwest choice off the main TVs coax drop, reconnected Cox (the drop was still live), hooked my TiVO back up, and got Cox on the phone.

I left the office drop on Qwests network to keep the DSL internet working; and by reconnecting Cox to the living room TV, I at least got working cable again, with TiVO.

I got to a GOOD customer retention specialist this time, and they cut my HD cable package price down from $120 without internet (as it was before) to $80 without internet; and 3 months at $60. They ordered up a reconnect with a free technician visit, and two cable cards.

Then I called up Qwest, and told them to get out here, take off the TV, and fix the internet; or I was canceling the whole shebang. They told me that they could only send one tech out, to do one of those jobs at a time, so I had them send the guy out to fix the internet (which was a lot more critical).

The Qwest guy was here Tuesday morning, and I had him take out the TV service anyway, and reconfigure our service as phone and internet only; which works just fine with no phone noise, and no dropped internet connections. And hell, it's a lot faster than Cox was, even though they are both rated as 3Mbit services. He took the Motorola gateways out, disconnected from the house coax, dropped in a DSL modem... and again spent over two hours on the phone with the head office trying to get things re-provisioned properly.

So now, instead of $200 a month between Cox and Vonage; I'm paying $170 a month ($20 less for the frist three months) between Qwest, Cox, and TiVO ; and I'm getting better service. Unfortunately I'm not getting the simplification I was hoping for, but oh well.

So, anyway, the Cox guy gets here this morning, sees that we've got the new TiVO HD box and says right off "Oh these things don't work with our cable cards".

He then spent the next hour, as we configured the system together, talking about how they never worked, and it was TiVOs fault etc... etc... Also Cox was saying that multistream cards (which can decode up to four streams) didn't work and that even if we COULD somehow get a card working, we could only use single stream cards (the TiVOHD has two slots for providers that only support single stream cards), and it would be a miracle if we got two working.

Well, I knew that Cox had issues with their cable cards, and everybody else, never mind TiVO; but I also knew they DID work, you just had to massage them properly, AND make sure they were provisioned properly at the head end.

So I went in and worked the Tivo to the point where it recognized the card, and did a firmware update; then did a hard reboot on the TiVO. When the box came back up, we were able to get the hostid for the card, and call in to have it provisioned.

After over an hour on the phone with several different departments, they finally provisioned the card; and we were able to get some channels, but only basic cable.

At that point I knew they had provisioned the card improperly, and went back into the service menus to show the installer what they had done wrong (there's a LOT of diagnostic info available in a TiVO. They are Linux boxes after all). He got them back on the phone, they reprovisioned the cards on the account again; and three minutes later I had all 240 channels working, with HD, surround sounds, AND my TiVO service (on a multi stream card no less).

The sad part is, this installer was the MOST experienced they had; and the one they specifically sent out to deal with cablecard installs. The problem isn't with the TiVO, it's with Cox. They don't want to support cable cards (because it costs them revenue in lost box fees. $17 a month for an HD dvr, vs $1.50 a month for a cable card; and cable cards don't support pay per view on demand) so they make it as difficult as possible, and they give their techs bad information, and no troubleshooting tools, or training.

It took THREE damn hours just to get the cable card installed and configures; a process which should have taken 20 minutes.

Actually, what's obscene is the time I spent on the whole process:

1. First Qwest signup (failed): 1 hour
2. Second signup (failed): 2 hours
3. Third signup (succeeded): 3 hours
4. First Qwest install: 3 hours
5. Qwest fix: 3 hours
6. Cox cable card install: 3 hours

That's 15 hours of my time, as in the time I spent directly involved with these processes; never mind the time of the install techs, the provisioning people, the sales reps etc... which was several more hours on top of that (oh and the almost exactly 2 hours it took me to write these 4000 words doesn't help either; but I need to vent here).

I would guess, conservatively, that Qwest has now put 30 man hours into this account. Over the course of all my problems with Cox, they have put at least 15 man hours into it.

All that time costs money.

These providers wont be seeing a profit out of me for years at this point; and all because they havent' upgraded their customer service and service delivery systems to work with each other; and they don't give their people the proper tools and training necessary to resolve these issues when they come up.

...and yet, they wonder why cable companies, telcos, and ISPs taken as a group, are the third most hated group of service providers we as consumers deal with (behind banks and airlines); and why they can't seem to make a profit, no matter how high their revenues are.

How many customers have they lost because of situations like this? Because I assure you my story isn't exactly uncommon. How much good will? How much potential revenue have they not realized, simply because they are inefficient, and provide poor customer service?

When are they going to realize that the only way they are going to make money at this game, is to be both efficient, and convenient?

Unfortunately, if experience is any guide... never. They'll all go out of business first, and then Google really will buy up the internet and rule the world.