DirecTV Does 100 High-Definition Channels, But My HD TiVo Doesn't

The satellite television provider DirecTV has been promoting "100 HD Channels!" for the better part of this year (having offered only nine HD channels for years), and the rollout has already begun. Owners of older DirecTV HD TiVo HR10-250 (discontinued) will not be able to receive these new channels. DirecTV offers a $99 upgrade to a new DVR which can record all the new HD channels - alas, there will be no TiVo-branded interface.

DIRECTV LAUNCHES NEW HD CHANNELS
I was somewhat startled this past week (late September 2007) when, on a whim, I visited the DirecTV website and discovered that a number of new channels had already been added.

We have been DirecTV and TiVo customers for six or seven years, and high-definition DirecTV TiVo users (with the aforementioned HR10-250) since February 2006. We knew at the time that DirecTV's transition to MPEG-4 transmission was in the works, but reasoned that DirecTV wouldn't alienate customers, and would replace our hardware if they "pulled the plug" on MPEG-2 transmissions.

DirecTV has only provided us with seven (7) HD channels (see "DIRECTV'S NEW PROGRAMMING LINEUP" below) for these past 20 months (this "HD Access" package adds $10/month). The HR10-250 also pulls eight local off-air HD channels from a roof-top UHF antenna and seamlessly integrates program listings into the TiVo's two-week program guide. We're still relative HD newbies, so we've been willing to take what we could get (though we didn't subscribe to HBO HD or Showtime HD).

The promise of dozens more of our favorite channels in high-def has us considering what what may be a painful switch from the relatively elegant TiVo interface to DirecTV's own DVR software.

WHAT ARE MPEG-4 AND MPEG-2?
MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 are codecs - short for "COmpressor/DECompressor." They are different schemes of encoding video information in a way that conserves space and reduces transmission burdens but preserves the fidelity of the original footage. MPEG-2 is an older codec, used in DVDs and (until now) digital television transmission, plus other applications. MPEG-4 is more recently developed, and leverages modern computing power to provide high fidelity at significantly lower data rates that previous algorithms. DirecTV is apparently using the H.264 standard, also known as Advanced Video Coding (AVC), a variant of MPEG-4 which promises even further efficiency over earlier MPEG-4 standards.

Before the digital media revolution of the past decade, carriers were not motivated to offer a high-definition (HD) television channel if it displaced as many as six standard definition (SD) channels - neither advertisers nor consumers would be willing to pay a 500 per cent premium for each HD channel. Because HD television contains several times the visual information of SD, modern video and audio compression schemes are enabling media carriers to provide similar numbers of HD channels using the same mechanisms (i.e., FCC broadcast frequency, copper cable, satellite transponders, consumer broadband Internet) they previously used for SD channels. They can also choose to use their existing bandwidth to provide many times the number of SD channels as with legacy analog transmission. (Digital carriers can also potentially change the data rate, and therefore the image quality, of any given channel - food for thought.)

If not for the bandwidth economies offered by digital compression, we probably wouldn't have HDTV. We've just arrived at a nexus of software and hardware technologies which enables us to finally move forward from a six decade-old television standard.

CAN I REALLY UPGRADE TO AN MPEG-4 DIRECTV DVR FOR $99?
Yes, sort of. "Sort of," because you don't actually own a DirecTV DVR - it's a lease - and you are contractually bound to return it to DirecTV if you discontinue service (read their Terms & Conditions). You also have to commit to a new two-year agreement. Though I haven't yet ordered a new HR20 DirecTV Plus HD DVR ($300 from retailers), I went through most of the process on the DirecTV website and confirmed that an existing customer can upgrade to a new MPEG-4-compatible HR20 for $99, including professional installation. If you want to see for yourself:

1. Browse the DirecTV website and log in as a DirecTV user (you must have previously established an online access account).
2. Click on "Upgrade Equipment."
3. In the resulting "Upgrade Your System" page which displays your account information, click "Continue."
4. On the next "Online Equipment Ordering" page, click the "Add to Order" radio button next to "DIRECTV Plus® DVR – up to 100 hours of digital recording."
5. At the bottom of the page, click "Continue Making Selections."
6. The next page informs the user that they can opt to self-install or have a professional installation at no additional charge. Select one and click "Continue Making Selections."
   
7. This page lists the price of the "DIRECTV Plus® DVR" as $99. It also explains "As part of the standard installation included in this offer, you are entitled to relocate one of your existing receivers to another room. If you want the newly purchased receiver to replace one of your existing receivers, please choose "NO" next to "Relocate My Existing Receiver." If you require a receiver to be relocated to another room, please choose 'YES.'" In this interview, a DirecTV spokesman says the professional relocation of the existing DVR to another room is included with the upgrade upon request - a checkbox is provided for this option.
   

In the research and writing of this article, I've pretty much mentally made the commitment to the upgrade. We haven't yet decided whether to keep our original SD TiVo along with our original HD TiVo and new MPEG-4-ready DirecTV HD DVR, but we've still got our original dish installed to accommodate all six tuners (each DVR has two), so it's a matter of paying $4.99/month more for an additional receiver. (Fortunately, TiVos and their remotes can be programmed for nine possible codes.)

BUT IT'S NOT A TIVO...
In April 2006, after a long dispute over patent rights, DirecTV and TiVo agreed to a three-year extension of a commercial agreement where DirecTV continues to support TiVo-based DirecTV DVRs (we pay DirecTV for "DVR service" rather than having to pay a separate bill to TiVo). DirecTV has never produced another TiVo-based DVR, instead partnering with another firm, NDS. TiVo has struggled for a market position, notably making a deal with cable giant Comcast to provide PVR and program guide technology for set-top cable boxes.

Though not perfect (nothing is), TiVo's product is robust and elegant. From brief encounters, I've expected DirecTV's PVR to be inferior to the TiVo in terms of interface and functionality, and a conversation I had today with a former DirecTiVo owner now using a DTV DVR seemed to confirm that. Alas, we have no choice if we're to remain with DirecTV. We've been pleased with our DirecTV service, and lingering memories of smug cable companies will probably keep us putting our TV programming dollars there.

DIRECTV'S PROGRAMMING PACKAGES
I've posted a chart of DirecTV's programming packages to make it easier to compare channel offerings than DirecTV's website.

DIRECTV'S NEW HD PROGRAMMING LINEUP
Here's DirecTV's current and future high-definition lineup:

• Existing MPEG-2 HD Channels
• Discovery HD Theater, ESPN HD, ESPN2 HD, HDNet, HDNet Movies, TNT HD, Universal HD, Showtime East HD, HBO HD
• MPEG-4 HD Network Channels (from LA- and NY-based broadcasts in eligible markets)
  
• ABC HD, CBS HD, Fox HD, NBC HD
  
• MPEG-4 HD Channels Available as of September 26, 2007:
  
• A&E HD, Animal Planet HD, Big Ten Network, CNN HD, Discovery Channel HD, History Channel HD, NFL HD, SHO TOO HD, Showtime West HD, Smithsonian Channel HD, Starz Comedy HD, Starz HD, Starz Kids & Family HD, TBS in HD, The Movie Channel HD, The Science Channel HD, The Weather Channel HD, TLC HD, Versus HD, Golf Channel HD
  
• MPEG-4 HD Channels Coming in October:
• Bravo HD, Cartoon Network, Cinemax East HD, Cinemax West HD, CNBC HD, Food Network HD, Fox Business HD, Fuel HD, FX HD, HBO West HD, HGTV HD, MGM HD, MHD HD, NBA TV HD, National Geographic Channel HD, SciFi HD, Speed Channel, USA HD
  
• MPEG-4 HD Channels by the End of 2007:
  
• Bio HD, CMT HD, MTV HD, Nick HD, Spike, VH1 HD, College Sports Television, Tennis Channel, The 101™
  

Google Maps Street View

For selected streets of selected cities, Google Maps now features Street View. This allows any user to see the streets and buildings in a 360 degree panning view by simply clicking on a point on a map (of a city with Street View data).

I missed the introduction of this feature back in May 2007, but my friend Don excitedly called me yesterday when he discovered a new "Street View" button in Google Maps.

To use Street View, you must go to a map for a very large city in Google Maps, like Los Angeles. Then click the "Street View" button in the upper-right corner of the map (this button only appears on maps where Street View data exists). Any roads which appear outlined in blue have Street View imagery (zooming in and dragging around helps to see the roads with better detail).

Google's hosts its own video tutorial about using Google Maps Street View.

Though this article suggests that the camera shown from Immersive Media is used to collect data, I saw a van with a big box on its roof in a reflection of a Street View image. One of the comments from this article mentions that Google shot their own imagery in the San Fransisco area with higher quality using a van. A quick Google search of "google maps street view van reflection" got me an article with a screenshot of a great reflection of the van - I looked up the address (in Fremont, CA) on Google Maps so you can go directly to the location and see the van with impressive resolution (you can pan, tilt and zoom around in this image - try it!).

The debut of Street View raised a lot of eyebrows amongst privacy advocates, and Google has responded by allowing users to request removal of faces and license plates from image data. Originally, Google only allowed people to request removal of their own images or license plates, but apparently the policy now allows anyone to make a request. Here's Google's privacy page for Street View, which includes a link to a form to request removal of "inappropriate" imagery.

Hello, Computer?

In the world of "Star Trek," you can speak into the air and a computer does your bidding. A couple of free services, Jott and reQall, provide a number of very useful services using nothing but your voice and a cell phone call.

Though there have been many solutions for doing home-automation by voice command for years, it's been less-than-practical to do complex voice-recognition tasks while on-the-go - the computing power demands are a bit too high. However, I've been expecting our ubiquitous cell phones to bring us this capability by interfacing with remote computers for some years now. These two services use a combination of computers and humans to allow you to send text messages, email, manage appointments and more through only your voice on a cell phone.

Text messaging between telephones using SMS (Short Message Service) is a very useful way to asynchronously (not at the same time, as in a voice call) communicate with others, but not everyone is comfortable with typing text messages, however short, on the 10-key pad of their cell phone. "Thumbing" text on your phone while driving is just plain stupid. Jott lets you dictate messages by voice, which are automatically converted to text and sent as SMS or email.

Once you've subscribed and configured the services with your cell phone number, you simply call the service number from your cell and talk to use the services. (In addition to automatically converting your speech to text, Jott also includes a link to your original audio.)
I like the idea of sending email to myself from a voice call as a note-taking system - it automatically puts a thought into a paradigm I already manage regularly - text in my email. One of the failings of keeping notes on tape recorders, tapeless recorders and note pads in the past has been the need to transcribe them to a central location - a computer. I use a PDA for this constantly, but there are times when I can't or shouldn't stop to write.

reQall is a bit more phone-centric, allowing users to manage and search stored audio notes through the cell phone.

PRIVACY
Both Jott and reQall also uses human transcribers in addition to machine, but they promise that there is full anonymity of the users. Still, this is a privacy issue that you'll have to consider. Read Jott's and reQall's privacy policies.

Finally, a Wireless Home-Theater Keyboard with Pointer

This $40 wireless keyboard finally fulfills our long search for a living-room home-theater keyboard with a built-in pointing device.

THE QUEST
Since buying our first HDTV over a year and a half ago, we've had a back-burner project to add a Macintosh to our living room A/V rack. Actually, this has been a plan for a decade, since we first started looking at HDTVs in trade shows, wondering when their prices and performance would meet our budget and aesthetic judgement.

From time to time, there comes a task in which my wife and I need to participate concurrently on a computer, whether it's shopping for airfares, editing a new class syllabus or just researching something online. This is an awkward task at a desk, sharing monitors and finding a place to roll up a chair. Though we could be remotely viewing each other's computers over the network, this solution isn't practical when we watch long-form video on the computer together - something that's becoming more and more common in our life.

We keep an older PowerBook in our living room, and we use it daily to look up something we just heard about on television, or to continue working on a project in an alternate location to our office desks. In truth, using a laptop is actually a better solution to using a computer while watching television - if we use our television as a computer display, that precludes its concurrent use as a TV (our television doesn't support Picture-In-Picture, and this would probably take up too much desktop real estate anyway). Still, there are times when there's no substitute for big-display group-computing.

For whatever reason, there are very few wireless keyboards with any kind of pointing device (i.e., mouse, trackpad, trackball) built-in. Though there are wireless mice and trackballs, that means having to pass around, keep track of, and make room not one but two pieces floating around the living room. There are offerings with gamepad-like "rockers" cursor controllers, but that's not very appealing ergonomically.

EUREKA!
After years of shopping, buying and returning, we've found and bought a wireless keyboard with built-in pointing system that I like. It's the BTC 9019URF Wireless Multimedia Keyboard with Dual Mode Joystick Mouse. At $39.95, it's even a bargain.

THE KEYBOARD
The 9019URF has two big handles molded into either end - a fantastic design decision which works very well for cross-couch hand-offs. The 9019URF's pointing device is a mini-joystick. Reminiscent of the 1" tall analog joysticks on console gaming controllers, this is a perfectly usable mouse controller, falling perfectly to hand (more accurately, to the right thumb) when the user holds the keyboard by its handles. Also nicely placed are the left- and right-mouse buttons, which are positioned where the left thumb rests. Also surrounding the joystick are Scroll Up and Scroll Down buttons. Web page navigation is very natural, and clicking links and scrolling pages is accomplished with only the user's thumbs. A center-mouse button is in the extreme upper-right - very handy as I configure the Mac OS X's "Expose" window-tiling feature to this button.

The mini-joystick is a proportional controller, allowing the user to move the cursor at speeds from a crawl to rapidly zipping about the screen. Some adjustments to your system's mouse settings can help find a comfortable speed - in Mac OS 10.4, I found the maximum default speed a bit slow, and there was plenty of latitude for slower and faster configurations. I found the joystick very natural to use immediately. (BTC claims that the device can be used as a "joystick" as well as "mouse" controller, which would require installing the BTC drivers for Windows.)

The keyboard itself has pretty mediocre key switch feel - vaguely sticky. I wouldn't want to type for hours on the 9019URF, but it's serviceable.

Power for the 9019 is provided by two AA batteries - a pair of Duracells is included in the package. BTC documentation claims a battery life of "up to 5 months." They also claim a 10 meter (about 33 feet) maximum range.

WORKS FOR MAC... MOSTLY
The 9019URF is packaged as a Windows keyboard, but it works on a Mac, with only a few caveats. Many of the typical "multimedia and Internet" dedicated button array across the top of the keyboard have no effect in OS X. However, the Volume Up/Down, Mute, Eject, and Power buttons do work, as do all the aforementioned pointing and navigation keys.

Installation on a Mac (again, Mac OS is not mentioned as supported) was nothing - I didn't read the manual, installed two AA batteries in the keyboard, plugged the wireless transceiver's USB cable into a Mac (which asked to help identify the keyboard by pressing a few keys). That's it. Windows software on an included CD provides support for the multimedia/Internet keys.

MAC/WINDOWS MODIFIER KEY SWAP
As with all Windows keyboards on Macs (and vice-versa), the positions of the Option/Alt and Option/Command keys are reversed. In OS 10.4, Apple has cleverly added an optional Modifier Keys button and submenu to the Keyboard & Mouse pane of System Preferences (perhaps almost too clever - the Modifier Keys button doesn't appear on some systems unless an external keyboard is present). Using the Modifier Keys dialog, the user can reassign the four modifier keys to act as any other. Users of Mac OS versions prior to 10.4 can try utilities such as uControl (no longer supported, but still available) or fKeys to remap Windows keyboards for Macs.

NOTE: The 9019URF has no right-side modifier keys, but then neither do most laptops these days.

Manufacturer BTC also offers these wireless keyboards:

• The 9019URFIII appears very similar to the 9019URF except that it uses a small USB wireless adapter (like a thumb-drive) rather than the 9019URF's box-and-USB cable wireless transceiver.
  
• The BTC 9029URF III MCE, a sleeker keyboard with the same mini-joystick, but no handles (we immediately preferred the 9019's handles in the store).
  
• The 9116URF is much more compact than the 9019 and 9029, but lacks the handy handles.

AT&T (BellSouth) DSL Connection Problems

If you are a BellSouth DSL customer, have suddenly lost your Internet connection and have been presented with a "BellSouth Password Change Tool" page (when you haven't deliberately changed your password), you might need to remove the "@bellsouth.net" from your login ID. Read on...

My mother is an AT&T (formerly BellSouth) DSL customer in the Piedmont region of North Carolina. This morning (Thursday, September 6, 2007). she called me to report that she was seeing a strange message on her computer and that she couldn't pick up her (web-based) email.

The prompt was from her browser (Firefox 2 Mac) informing her that the certificate for the site "https://setup.bellsouth.net" could not be verified, and to be cautious. This appeared whenever she attempted to browse from either Firefox or Safari.

On the phone, I prompted her to continue past the certificate warning to the BellSouth page. This page is titled "BellSouth Password Change Tool." The page informed her that she was using an "unsupported browser or operating system" and that the page should be viewed with Internet Explorer on one of several Windows variants.

I walked her through checking her hardware setup: the DSL "modem," a broadband router and her computer itself. All seemed healthy. We experimentally restarted all the devices, but to no avail.

After two calls to AT&T Tech Support (in India), I was left pretty unsatisfied. I established that her account was in good standing on the first call (we'd recently had to resolve a payment method issue, so that was suspect), and the her status lights indicated proper operation. I made a second call to have them change to the password to something else, just in case the original password had been changed or corrupted without my knowledge. As expected, the Tech Support script began with suggesting that she "remove the router" - not really my first choice of operations to attempt over the phone (though I've talked my mom and mother-in-law through some amazing operations via phone call, including re-seating RAM and installing an AirPort card in an iMac/CRT!).

After having AT&T Tech Support change her password, I talked my mom through changing the AT&T password on her router (her router manages the PPPoE username/password submissions to the modem). This was not successful. We re-entered the password a couple of times. We re-entered the OLD password. No connection. Finally, with the new password stored but failing to connect, I had her change her login ID from username@bellsouth.net to simply username. SUCCESS! This original login ID (with @bellsouth.net) had been configured in her router for a year and a half since originally subscribing for service. We had not altered it until today.

I'm speculating that AT&T has decided to eliminate the "@bellsouth.net" part of usernames from the login IDs, but if that's true, then there will be a lot of people encountering this problem. If you're one of them, I hope you found this post. Let me know.

What’s an RSS Feed?

Subscribing to an RSS feed allows you to determine at a glance whether there are new postings you've never read on a favorite information site. Using a "feed reader," or "news aggregator" allows you to follow many feeds at once, only visiting them if a new item catches your attention. A website must deliberately provide support for RSS (Really Simple Syndication), but today most major news and information sites do. Major sites such as Time Magazine's website host many different feeds on specific topic categories, such as Politics, Technology and World.

FEED READERS/AGGREGATORS
While there are news aggregator applications (programs) you can download to your computer and install, I recommend online feed readers which you simply use from your Web browser. You can use these readers from any computer with an Internet connection and a Web browser, freeing you from having to use any particular computer to read your feeds. Try Bloglines or Google Reader (especially if you've already got a Google/Gmail account) to see how a feed reader might serve you. Online readers are typically free and easy to use.

Most readers provide a view of all of your subscriptions. Selecting a subscription reveals a list of topics and (optionally) the first few lines of the article. Clicking on an article title reveals the full content of the article. All readers have a mechanism to help you quickly discriminate articles that you've either read (by clicking) or skipped (by scrolling past topic headlines) from unread articles - typically displaying unread titles in boldface. This allows you to quickly skim the titles for new content which interests you.

LOOK FOR THE RSS LINK
The orange icon to the left is the official icon for RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feeds. If you look carefully at the home page of your favorite information site, you will likely find a very small version of this icon, or a link labeled "RSS," discreetly placed in a corner of the page. By clicking on this icon, your Web browser will ask you how you wish to subscribe to the feed, typically providing a list of online readers, and also giving you the option of indicating an application you have installed on your computer's hard drive to use as a feed reader.

Some sites may also provide links to specific online (as opposed to application-based) feed readers. They often use small buttons bearing the logo of the various online readers. (At left are examples of a few of the popular reader subscription buttons.) If they provide a link to the online aggregator you happen to use, this can be very handy, enabling you to subscribe in a few clicks. (You can try this yourself by clicking on the "Subscribe" link in the sidebar of this page.)


FEED EXAMPLES

• All major news organizations’ sites offer RSS feeds. I subscribe to the Greensboro News & Record site to occasionally see headlines from my hometown newspaper. The News & Record site offers further fine-control, or granularity, by offering feeds for specific by-lines, topics such as sports or obituaries, and townships within their subscribership.
• Many non-news sites provide feeds to some of their content. Car&Driver's website, for example, provides a Latest News feed (though I can't now find where I originally found this feed - I haven't found it on their site).
• Manufacturers may keep customers or potential customers apprised of product news via RSS. Here are the many feeds Apple computer hosts.
  
• The online classified ad site craigslist provides feeds of search results. So, for example, you could subscribe to a feed which only lists items matching "vintage bottle" for your geographic area.
• Apple's iTunes Store RSS Feed Generator lets users customize feeds to, for instance, see the 25 newest German folk releases.
  
• This blog and most others are available as an RSS feed (see "Subscribe" in the sidebar).

FIND A FEED
If subscribing to RSS feeds sounds interesting to you, take a close look at your favorite sites to see if they have RSS links. The Syndic8 site features a searchable directory of over 25,000 RSS feeds - try typing a word or two of your topic of interest to see what feeds might be interesting to you. To get you jump-started, blogging software publisher UserLand hosts a list of Top 100 Most-Subscribed-To RSS Feeds.

If you're an information hound and regularly visit a number of sites looking for topics of interest, subscribing to RSS feeds may make your online experience more efficient.

The Next Step in Media Storage?

I'm fascinated with the new Drobo, a data-storage solution from Data Robotics, Inc. This $500 box is an enclosure which can hold up to four SATA hard drives (SATA I or II, half- or full-height).

Drobo connects to your Mac or Windows computer via USB 2.0 connection, and produces common USB 2.0 drive performance - up to around 20MB/second read/write. The fancy part is that if you put more than two drives in the Drobo, it automatically configures them to behave like a RAID type 5 array, but the action is nearly transparent. It's functionality is best expressed in examples:

• If the Drobo starts to fill up, you just add a drive of any size to increase capacity.
• If one of the drives fails, replace it with a drive of similar or greater capacity (even while the system is in use and moving data!), and Drobo will reconstruct the original contents automatically (from so-called "parity data" on the other drive[s]).
• If the Drobo is fully populated with drives and starts to fill up, simply remove the smallest drive (again, drives can be hot-swapped with data in-use) and replace it with a new larger drive. Drobo automatically adds the increased capacity.

Watch Drobo's video demo.

I'm excited about this product. Depending upon how well Apple's Time Machine is executed when it debuts as part of OS X "Leopard" this coming October, a Drobo may become part of our home office, replacing a mirrored RAID on our server as a short-term data cache, as well as potentially hosting all our amassed data at once. I've heard a rumor than Ethernet and eSATA connection options are in the future - an Ethernet variant would make a fine NAS (Network Attached Storage) solution for anyone in this increasingly data-heavy world.