CES Day 3

Today was a cooker in Vegas. It seems as though manufacturers are coming up with some great ideas and products that just might mirror everything I’ve been talking about all week. The Convergence of our lives. Of course there was one boast that cannot be ignored as well.

Dell - New PC called a “Dell Home Media Suite.” Don’t hold your breath, I don’t trust Michael Dell to do anything of substance for actual consumers. He also made a half-hearted call to telecom behemoth Verizon to expand it’s FIOS service. I say Verizon and others need to stop worrying about FIOS for two seconds and get simple Broadband to Rural areas in this country. Instead of worrying about ripping up peoples suburban yards laying new cable, what about farmer Joe, and the Small Business Owner that has to get up at 4am just to use Dial-Up. The Digital Divide in this country is still growing, and Michael Dell wants more Fiber. Yeah ok, Mike we’ll get right on that!

Sony - A new Digital Living System w/ Blu-ray (hooray) that will retail at $3300 (sexy, huh)? Another Micro PC (MAN, DO I WANT ONE OF THESE), in addition there was the odd looking TP1 “Living Room PC”, and a new Wireless Music Streamer, along with 36 other NEW products. “Damn, what happened to Sony this year, they barely showed up”?

DirecTV - OK, I now own a dish with more little LNB’s and gadgets on it than I care to know, and I still get less HD than cable. DirecTV is changing that… by third quarter. They say 100 new National HD channels by then. My question is does this mean 100 channels everyone will get, or is that the sum of all the new channels for everyone. If so what is Comcast’s phone number?

Apple (even though this happended in San Francisco, I count it as part of CES, just CES west) - I already talked about the iPhone, but I said nothing about their residential CE offering. The AppleTV. Not sure about starting a revolution, since it was demoed with only PURCHASED movies and TV shows. No tuner and only a 40gb Hard drive. Not sure what I’m supposed to do with that. Oh yeah, I’m supposed to stream everything from one computer to the next. Come on, what happened to the Media Center killer?

Youthful Exuberance
Today the Blu-Ray Association, the consortium of manufacturers and content providers for the new High-Definition DVD format had something wonderful to add to the jumble of words being shouted on the floor. “We believe Blu-ray has what it takes to win the format war,” proclaimed Andy Parsons, chairman of the Blu-ray Disc Association promotion committee chairman for the U.S. region, and senior VP of new product development for Pioneer Electronics U.S. With a title that long, he’s gotta know what he’s talking about.

I’m not going to make my claim on who will win the war, honestly I’ve been through too many of these things to stake my claim anywhere near this fight. Normally I would bet with Sony and it’s ilk however we all remember Consumer Beta, MiniDisc, and DCC - Digital Compact Cassette (ok fine that was Phillips, but their in bed together so much, who can tell them apart).

However, the delays with the Playstation 3, the outlandish cost of the computer drive, and the lack of affordable players is not helping me feel good about Sony’s stake in this one. HD-DVD on the other hand is winning the price war and availability fight, even though they are not winning the content-provider debacle. With a fraction of the movie studios lined up that Sony has, they could be trampled under the giant toes of Blu-Ray at any moment. I say wait until 2 or 3^rd quarter to find out who’s really going to pull this one out. By Holiday season 07’ your going to have a choice of many movies, and many more players. I just don’t need another DVD v. DIVX fight - Man, did I hate explaining that one.

Don't be punk out and buy a dual format player, be a man and have conviction... WAIT!