It’s All About the Sources (Part Two)

So far in this multi-part post, we have talked about audio sources. Now we are going to talk about video sources. Please note that in our industry, when we say ‘video source’, we are generally including audio in that too, as almost all video sources output both audio and video.
OK… let’s continue.

Satellite / Cable Set-top Box: The satellite or cable boxes are a must-have for most users. The question is, do you really want a box in every room with every display and pay the additional monthly fee for each box, and then select inputs to switch between that box and other sources you have in the room, or would you rather centralize your boxes so that you can share them in any room that you wish. Distributed video comes with a price, but offers tremendous convenience. However, if you have displays (TVs) in many rooms around your home, you may not have an option as you will not want to purchase a Blu-ray player, a set top box and a movie box for each room.

In my case, I chose to install a distributed/multi-room video/audio system. It made no sense to me whatsoever, to install and then pay for 11 Satellite boxes for my eleven displays, when most of the time there are only three of us using the system. OK… I know… it sounds like a lot of TVs, but obviously we don’t watch them all at the same time; even on Super Bowl Day. And even when the kids are home on break, and relatives are visiting, we would never watch 11 different programs at one time. That is why I went with “User Centric” design instead of ‘Room Centric” design. In a user centric design, you only have as many boxes as users or the maximum different programs that you would watch at one time. For some of you, this number may be lower or higher. I wanted the convenience of having a display wherever we would possibly want to watch TV or a movie. My layout worked out as follows: Family Room, Living Room, Theater, Game Room, Master Bedroom, Master Bath, Master Shower, Guest Room, (2) Kids Rooms, and the Garage.

DVR: The Digital Video Recorder (DVR), also known as Personal Video Recorder (PVR), is now a main stream source. This is even available from your cable/satellite providers. With as busy as our lives have become, it is not a wonder why this source rose to the top and satellite/cable companies integrated the technology with their set top boxes so quickly. Pure and simple, for many it is the best thing since ketchup to be able to record and store TV programs to watch at another time, skip past commercials when we watch it later, or pause a program while we answer the door or phone, or someone needs our undivided attention.

Blu-ray DVD Player: Not since CDs replaced cassettes, had audio/video technology made such a huge leap forward in performance. Going to high definition displays didn’t do it because without the high definition sources, what good were they? It is, after all, all about the sources.

Although we had a temporary war between two formats (Blu-ray and HD-DVD), Blu-ray became the clear winner in early 2008. The key here is that studios are now behind ‘one standard’ and can deliver a new movie experience to us, which not only substantially improves the video quality, but the audio quality as well. This technology will pave the road to many more improvements and increased number of audio channels in the future.

A part of Blu-ray that most have not experienced yet, and the studios have yet to use to their advantage, is the side of the standard that allows the studios to store games on the same DVD, more content such as interviews, voting – which then links to Internet databases, purchases of things that you see in a movie, including outfits or products, interactivity with the movie like changing camera angles, and even giving the movie watchers the option to select how a movie ends. Some of these features can already be seen today, but only in a selected number of movies. A lot more will come.

But don’t get stuck on 1080p too fast, because this is only the beginning. The fact is that 1080p is on the lower half of where the high definition standard has been designed to take us. Your Blu-ray players are no longer different from your computer, in that if you want to stay current, you will need a software upgrade, which most people yet don’t do.

Something that most consumers haven’t noticed yet is that our Blu-ray players are more like our PCs now. I bought the first Blu-ray player available in the market – a Samsung BD-P1000. Since then, I have had to upgrade this player's firmware several times. Since this player does not have an Ethernet connection to the Internet, I have to download the firmware to my PC, burn it onto a DVD in an ISO format, put it in the player and then follow the onscreen instructions. A couple of times I had to upgrade the player’s firmware just to be able to play a particular Blu-ray movie that it would not play otherwise. Each time, good improvements were achieved even with the quality of the video.

I then bought a Sony Blu-ray BDP-S1 player, and although the upgrades are about the same, I really enjoy the rich feature set of the Sony Blu-ray player and picture is phenominal. This player too has required several upgrades and it too has shown great improvement with each upgrade; especially with movie startup speeds. Recently I purchased Sony's latest player, the S550, and I love it. Upgrading this player will be much easier because it has an Ethernet connection to the Internet. This new Sony Blu-ray player was resonably priced and offers several improvements over Sony's previous models. One very noticeable improvement was the startup speed of the player and movies. It also contains onboard storage for some of the downloadable movie bonuses offered by the studios for some of the movies.

Streaming Movie Players: Not too long ago, we were all dazzled by the number of movies that we could select from at Blockbuster, Hollywood Video or a video store of choice. Then came the movie-by-mail providers such as Netflix. After I experienced receiving the movies that I ordered in about two days, and for less money per movie, I was hooked and became a subscriber, paying a monthly fee.

But step aside movie-by-mail and video stores. There is a new contender in town – ‘Streaming Movie Players’. The big benefits of streaming movie players are selection and convenience. In most cases it is immediate and you don’t have to drive anywhere. With the cost of gas today, if you spend a gallon of gas to go pick up a movie rental, you are potentially paying up to $6.00 for the total price of that movie. And that doesn’t even include the cost of wear-and-tear on your car. That is more expensive than renting the movie from a streaming movie provider, which can cost you anywhere from $0.49 - $5.99 per movie. Another big benefit of streaming movie boxes is that at least one company is already offering over 10,000 titles.

For people that only watch a movie once or twice and can’t justify the price of a DVD, or don’t care to have the best audio/video performance available because 85% of Blu-ray quality is good enough, or for those that want to expand their movie options, this is the video source for you. Over the last couple of years, several companies offered their movie boxes to market. Some of these offerings have already failed and gone, while others are just now surfacing or making announcements about their upcoming boxes. Netflix subscribers can not only order DVD movies, but can also stream them and watch them right on their PCs. And if you have a Netflix movie box, they can stream them to that box too and watch them on their TV.

Because streaming movie boxes are such a new and interesting source, and because there are so many differences between the boxes currently available, I thought I would cover this in more details in an upcoming blog post, so before you go out and buy a movie box, read my next post, as I am testing these boxes side-by-side.

Home Theater PCs: A Home Theater PC is a great source for enthusiasts, but I do not recommend it for the non-techno user or the faint of heart. It is, after all, an entertainment PC, which integrates a computer with built in applications and hardware for DVD playback, music server, picture server, home control and more. Some home theater PCs are sold as ‘ready-made’ units so that all you do is configure it, and go. Their interfaces are a lot more graphical than what is typically found on consumer electronics and there is enough eye candy to satisfy everyone.

The problem that I see for the average, nontechnical consumer is that this type of source requires constant upgrades, just like your PCs and software applications do, if you want to stay current on features and functionality. However, if manufactures were to automate this, this could become a more compelling source. So far, this has not been the case, in spite of the promise.

Enthusiasts prefer a Home Theater PC as a source because they can build it one component at a time, deciding where to invest their money and what features and performance they want. I plan on building a Home Theater PC, possibly next year, just to go through the experience. When I do so, I will blog about my experience and the pros and cons of the Home Theater PC versus the equipment I have today.

Herman Cárdenas

If my blog has been helpful to you in any way, or if you have any comments or questions, please drop me a note. I would love to hear from you: hermansblog@netstreams.com