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Latest details make iPad a more promising e-reader
Shortly after Steve Jobs unveiled the iPad, I wondered whether the device—awesome as it seems—would truly compete as an e-book reader. Now that you can pre-order the long-awaited device, Apple has spilled a host of new details about the iPad, with some particularly interesting revelations relating to iBooks—so it’s time to revisit my early concerns.
As I wrote in January, I’m a content Kindle 2 owner, and I don’t feel any eye fatigue even after reading the Kindle for hours. Reading on the iPhone with the Kindle app is pleasant, but I can only do so for relatively short stretches before my eyes start to ache from the bright, backlit screen.
While the iBooks interface looks stunning, I don’t relish the notion of reading on those virtual white pages. Apple’s new marketing page for iBooks makes reference to an option to “adjust the backlight brightness to read in low light.” Now, that could simply mean “quit iBooks, launch the Settings app, tweak the brightness settings, go back to the home screen, and launch iBooks again,” but I have to hope that Steve Jobs and company have a smoother, in-app process in mind. Apps like Kindle and Stanza offer white-on-black reading as an option for reading in darker rooms, and that helps a lot in preventing retinal anguish if you read in bed before falling asleep. Apple’s new marketing text, while vague, gives me hope that iBooks will do the same.
Review: Ion Audio Tape 2 PC
At last count, the Facebook page “When I was younger I would record my favorite songs off the radio onto tape” had more than 875,000 fans. That says something about the popularity of cassettes. And while the audio fidelity of cassette tapes was never that great, the compact size and ease of recording audio to tape made the format very popular. I have two large boxes of cassettes—demo tapes of friends bands, mix tapes, guitar lessons, and more—that I’ve lugged around with me every time I’ve moved over the last couple of decades. I’d love to have easy access to the contents of these cassettes, but the cassettes themselves I’d prefer to live without.
But although the hardware setup couldn’t be easier, the software for capturing, editing, and saving your audio files could still use some work. Ion provides two Mac recording applications, the open-source Audacity and EZ Audio Converter. Audacity is full-featured, but its user interface could intimidate many technophobes. It offers multiple format and quality settings, as well as noise reduction tools. Audacity can also analyze your imported audio and take a stab at splitting your one large file into separate tracks based on silences between songs. This process isn’t obvious, however, and it took visiting the Audacity Wiki to find the instructions. The built-in noise reduction plug-in, however, did a decent job of removing hiss from a tape I imported using the Tape 2 PC.
EZ Audio Converter provides a much more attractive interface and is simple to use. Unfortunately, the software offers no automatic track splitting, requiring you to push the large New Track button between each song while recording. There also doesn’t appear to be any way to change the file type or quality that EZ Audio Converter uses from its default 160-kbps, 44.1kHz MP3 files. When you finish recording, the application presents you with a tagging screen where you type in the artist, album title, and song title for each track.
As with Ion’s LP 2 CD (
), the software CD that shipped with the Tape 2 PC came with an outdated version of EZ Audio Creator, and the company’s site made it difficult to download an updated Mac version. Contacting tech support for help was a frustrating experience. I filled out a Web support form and followed up with a phone call that took me into voicemail. It took almost two weeks until I received an e-mail reply, and although the e-mail included a direct link to the latest Mac software, the tech support person suggested I use a PC application to unzip the file.
Macworld’s buying advice
Ion’s Tape 2 PC is a relatively simple way to convert the audio on your cassette tapes to digital files for use on your computer. The process for editing those imported files, however, can be either complicated or time consuming, depending on which provided Mac application you use. You may have an easier time using different software.
Pink Floyd and iTunes could split after court ruling
It’s “A Great Day For Freedom”—at least for the members of Pink Floyd. As BBC News reports, the band has emerged victorious in a legal battle with record label EMI, accompanied by a ruling that could soon lead to the band’s entire discography getting pulled from iTunes.
Pink Floyd’s original contract with EMI—inked before the rise of iTunes and Amazon and their ilk as modern purveyors of digital music—included a clause that Chancellor Sir Andrew Morritt says requires that EMI “preserve the artistic integrity of the albums.” The court’s interpretation was thus that EMI may not distribute Floyd tunes “by any other means other than the original album, without the consent of Pink Floyd.” That means no more integrity-busting individual tracks.
One wonders whether Steve Jobs will cry out “Don’t Leave Me Now!” My guess? No. “Is There Anybody Out There” who thinks Pink Floyd couldn’t be convinced to let EMI continue to sell individual tracks, in exchange for some extra “Money,” as All Things Digital suggests?
Let’s be clear, though. The court’s ruling, which also requires that EMI pay the band $60,000 for the contract violation, could certainly mean that Floyd’s tunes won’t “Stay” available in iTunes much longer. Of course, “If” the band decides to “Stop” the madness, and finds some way to keep its digital tracks available, such an announcement may well herald “The Happiest Days of Our Lives.”
Review: Aaxa P2 pico projector
Aaxa's P2 combines SVGA (800 by 600) native resolution, a brightness rating of 33 lumens, and 30,000 hours of LED light—some of the strongest specifications we've seen in a pico projector.
This LCoS (liquid crystal on silicon) unit also displays sharp, legible text and has a built-in media player with 1GB of memory, a 4GB MicroSD card reader, and dual 0.5-watt speakers, so it can independently display presentations, photos, and video.
On the other hand, the P2 is bulkier and louder than most picos (its noise level specification is 30 dB); its rechargeable battery lasts only about 50 to 60 minutes (due to its relatively high 15-watt power consumption); and its color quality is mediocre. Still, for standard business presentations where crisp, legible text matters more than vibrant color graphics, the P2 is a fine choice—bright enough for small-group presentations under low light conditions. In low ambient daylight at a distance of 5 feet from the screen, the P2 displayed viewable 37-inch-diagonal images. In a darkened room at night, the P2 successfully displayed 80-inch diagonal images at a distance of 11 feet from the screen.
In our performance tests, the P2 earned an overall rating of Very Good for image quality, though it did much better on some tests than on others. In displaying text images, the P2 earned a Superior rating for rendering sharp fonts in presentation slides, spreadsheets, word processing documents, and Web pages. At its default settings, however, the P2 displayed lackluster color graphics, due to undersaturated hues and dull, washed-out color.
In our motion tests, the P2 delivered smooth action during animated presentations, in the Monsters vs. Aliens DVD screening, and in podcasts and other videos piped from an Apple iPhone or iPod. But its mediocre color yielded grayer tones than with most other pico models did. The P2's built-in sound was reasonably audible, but we'd recommend getting stronger speakers if sound plays a vital role in your presentations or videos.
Aaxa P2
Whereas most picos have an internal battery compartment, the P2's rechargeable battery attaches to the bottom of the 1.0-by-2.3-by-4.3-inch, 9.17-ounce projector. With the battery attached, the P2 weighs about 18 ounces, and it's as thick as two decks of cards. Add the unit's accessory cables (A/V, VGA, USB, power), battery clip, metal tripod, remote, and battery pack dock (for recharging) to the load, and the entire P2 outfit weighs about 2.5 pounds (not counting the carrying case). The bundled composite (RCA-type) A/V cable worked fine with the digital camera and DVD player we used in our tests, but we had to use a third-party cable to connect the P2 to the iPhone 3GS and fifth-generation iPod nano used in other tests.
The P2 is straightforward to operate. The simple controls include separate off/on buttons for the projector's fan and for illumination, plus buttons for accessing the unit's on-screen display, card reader, and media player, and a focus dial in front. The menu options are easy to navigate when we used the P2's media player and card reader to display images without attaching it to an external device, and the projector also has a handy remote control.
But the P2's 1GB of internal memory is considerably less than the memory provided by other projectors. And the P2 is limited to reading 4GB memory cards. The P2 lacks bundled software for converting media files into the formats it supports. The P2's user manual recommends using a third-party conversion utility.
Macworld's buying advice
The Aaxa P2 is an excellent choice for users who primarily want a pico projector that's powerful enough to deliver viewable, text-oriented presentations for small groups in low-light settings. But for graphics-oriented slideshows and for self-running presentations, other models offer better-quality color images and more-versatile media players.
Samsung's 3D TVs: bold and bright
If you watched the Oscars on Sunday, you knew a new wave of Samsung 3D TVs were coming thanks to the commercial that aired, but you didn't know what you'd have to pay for them. On Tuesday Samsung tore open the envelope and rolled out a raft of 3D-capable LCD, LED, and plasma TVs.
At a press event at New York's Time Warner Center, Samsung showed off its first-ever line of 3D LED TVs as well as other additions to its LED, LCD, and plasma TV lineups, many of which offer built-in 3D technology. All of Samsung's 3D TVs can be used with its new electronic shutter 3D glasses, 3D Blu-ray players, and home theater systems.
As Samsung rolled out 27 LED TVs ranging from 19 to 65 inches, it showed off new technology that brings local dimming—the shutting down of pixels and backlighting in a specific area to enhance blackness—to some of its edge-lit LED TVs. Local dimming had previously been available only in sets with the LED backlight located directly behind the LCD panel, which are necessarily thicker than edge-lit units.
According to a Samsung representative, the edge-lit C8000 (65-inch, $5000; 55-inch, $3500) and C6800 (46-inch $2300; 55-inch, $3000) series TVs use a "stereo" dimming process in which LEDs at the top, bottom and sides of a dark area in an image are shut off while individual pixels are turned off as well. This is done on the fly by embedded hardware and provides a level of darkening equivalent to backlit models, the representative said. The LED-lit TV line ranges from the conventional 19-inch UN19C4000 ($380) to the 55-inch 3D capable UN55C900 ($7000).
Also announced was Samsung's new HDTV app store, which will offer about twenty applications for Samsung's Internet-capable TVs by the end of this month. The early offerings will include apps for content from USA Today, Netflix, Pandora, VUDU, and others.
Of course 3D TVs are of little use without 3D content and to that end Samsung made note of its expanded alliance with DreamWorks Animation, famous for its Shrek and Monsters series animated features. Samsung announced that 3D versions of the Shrek movies would be available for Samsung TVs later this year. DreamWorks CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg attended the press event to help drive in the point.
Samsung's six new ultra-slim C8000 and C7000 series plasma TVs are 3D capable, ranging from the $1800, 50-inch PN50C7000 to the $3800 63-inch PN63C8000. Under a current promotion, plasma TV purchasers will receive a free starter kit which includes two Samsung 3D glasses, a 3D version of Monsters vs. Aliens from DreamWorks, and either a Samsung BD-6900 3D Blu-ray player or a Samsung HT-66930 home theater system. (All plasma, LCD, and LED 3D TVs come with at least the glasses and movies package.)
All of Samsung's 3D TVs offer built-in hardware that can render 2D content into 3D. Also added to the plasma line were two units without 3D capability; the 58-inch PN58C6500 ($2400) and the 50-inch ($1600) PN50C6500.
The new Samsung LCD TVs run from the 19-inch LN19C350 ($280) to the 3D-capable, 46-inch LN46C750 ($1700). Most of the smaller units will be available this month while the larger panels won't hit stores until May.
iTunes LPs not popular, but why?
Having already revolutionized the music industry, it seems strange that Apple would want to summon up a reminder of a bygone era. Still, that didn’t stop the company from unveiling the iTunes LP format last fall. It combined the digital music that consumers love with the liner notes, album art, and other materials that music fans loved—in the 1970s. And yet, a mere six months after its debut, the iTunes LP seems to have faded into nothing more than a static hiss.
GigaOm’s Paul Bonanos has dug deep into the mystery of the iTunes LP and found that there are only about 30 iTunes LPs in the iTunes Store at present, up from around 12 at the format’s launch. That’s an average of about three released per month—not exactly barn-burning numbers.
While iTunes LPs contain more material than a standard digital album, they also cost typically more: the new Gorillaz album Plastic Beach costs $13 as an iTunes LP and $10 as standard digital album, though the LP does contain extra tracks and a music video. As a value proposition, it's not bad, but I'd wager that many more opt for the standard album—if only because the iTunes LP is strange and frightening. It's not as though Apple's spent a lot of time or money on marketing the format.
Also problematic are the production costs of building an iTunes LP. While Apple has said that there’s no fee for producing an iTunes LP, it still costs the record company or band money to build the content—GigaOm says Apple fronted up to $60,000 in production costs for some of the first iTunes LPs. However, Apple did open up development of iTunes LPs in November 2009, which may enable labels to produce them at less cost.
Moreover, word is that the sales of the LPs has not justified their cost. From a purely anecdotal standpoint, I’ve not run into anybody who’s bought more than one iTunes LP—and most of the people I’ve talked to haven’t bought any.
Why not? At the risk of sounding blindingly obvious, today’s music market isn’t what it was 35 years ago. More than anything, the rise of iTunes and the iPod has made music pervasive in our lives. For most people, listening to music is something you do while you’re doing something else, not an activity that occupies your entire mind. By contrast, the iTunes LP requires the same kind of attention that you might give to a movie or a book. While that might appeal to the serious music fan, it's overkill for most consumers. (I'd guess it's roughly equivalent to the percentage of people who listen to the director's commentary on a DVD.)
Plus, for many of us, the purchase-by-track model of the iTunes Store—combined with the shuffle feature—has, for better or worse, dethroned the album from its spot as a building block of music. The music industry itself, of course, is more than a little culpable in that regard: truly good albums are harder and harder to find these days.
Might the iPad be the medium to give the iTunes LP a second wind (if indeed it even had a first)? To my mind, the inherent multitasking nature of music these days still makes it a hard sell. GigaOm also claims that the iTunes LP format was not the brainchild of Apple, but rather another flailing attempt by the music industry to retain the relevance that it once had. Frankly, that's not much of a surprise: I'm not sure there's been an industry this self-destructive since the age of the hydrogen-blimp manufacturer.
Move an iTunes library from a Windows PC to a Mac
As more people switch from Windows PCs to Macs, they want to make sure they can move their digital lives from their old computers to their new ones.
In most cases, copying documents is as simple as, well, copying them. Just take your My Documents folder and copy it to your Mac. But what if you want to copy your iTunes library, with all its music, and maintain your playlists and metadata (information such as ratings and last played dates)? It’s actually not that hard to do, but requires a modicum of preparation.
What used to be a complex procedure is now relatively simple with iTunes 9. So make sure you’re running the latest version of iTunes on both systems, and then follow these easy steps.
WSJ: Google working on Android-based set-top box
Editor’s Note: The following article is reprinted from the Today @ PC World blog at PCWorld.com.
Google has teamed up with Dish Network to offer a set-top box based on the Android operating system, the Wall Street Journal reports. The box is said to be operated via a keyboard and will serve YouTube videos straight to a TV set.
The partnership between Google and Dish Networks will allow users of the set-top box to search through video content from Dish and YouTube, and also personalize video playlists, sources close to the matter told WSJ.
Google has been testing the set-top box service since last year, the report says, but only a very small number of the company's employees had access to it. The WSJ notes that the project might not see the light of day and could be scrapped at any time.
Working with Dish—and its 14 million subscribers—Google has a chance to leverage its TV ad-brokering business, as well as push YouTube videos into our living-rooms. But the WSJ report says Google has even more ambitious plans than that.
Google is reportedly asking several other unnamed TV service providers and hardware manufactures to use its Android operating system, in order to offer a broader range of programming and personalized ads, though it is unknown whether any other company other than Dish accepted the deal so far.
It's also unclear how the Google ads would be displayed on-screen or whether this advertising model would subsidise the price of the set-top box.
Notably, Google tech rivals Microsoft and Apple have been making forays into the TV market for years with their own Internet-linked products such as the Windows Media Center and Apple TV. TiVo also introduced last week a Web-enabled set-top box, which will bring cable programming and streaming content from Internet to TV screens.
Fact or fiction? 8 HDTV claims demystified
Editor’s Note: The following article is reprinted from PCWorld.com.
If you’re buying your first HDTV or an upgrade from a starter set, your new television may deliver a better picture than the one you’re used to. But picking the right HDTV can be confusing, especially when your favorite blue-shirted salesperson may be steering you in a certain direction in hopes of a bigger commission. Or maybe the rep is just misinformed. Whatever the reasons, the environment has encouraged a cavalcade of claims about HDTVs—some of which were true for first-generation sets but have little relevance to today’s buyers, some of remain valid, and some of which were never true.
I’ll highlight some of the most prominent assertions made on the showroom floors of big-box retailers and explain the realities, along with tips and details for buying an HDTV, selecting the best content, hooking up the set at home, and more.
1. Claim: “HD” signifies a specific standard of quality.
Status: False
5. Claim: Brand-name cables are worth the extra money.
Status: False
Don’t buy cables strictly on the basis of their brand name. A cable’s connector type, length, and gauge are the most important factors in signal quality. As a first criterion, choose a digital cable if possible—either HDMI or DVI (just about any new HDTV will include a digital connection). Such cables can carry a 1080p signal if your content supports it, they’ll play nicely with DRM, and they won’t pick up interference the way an analog cable can.
If you don’t have a digital connection, you can still obtain signals at up to 1080p via component cables. The resulting picture quality should still be first-rate. However, if you drop down to a lesser cable type—S-video or a single, composite RCA cable—say goodbye to your HD signal. At a minimum,your HD-compatible devices should have component, HDMI, or DVI ports. In addition, they probably have S-video and composite ports for compatibility with older televisions. Avoid those ports.
In any situation, get the shortest cables that can make the connection you need. Extra loops of cabling may pick up interference and distort analog signals, and image quality may degrade as cable length increases, especially if the cabling runs across entire rooms.
Thicker cables can improve quality, but the difference is greatest in speaker wire. Consider buying thicker-gauge cabling if you plan to run it across a distance of 50 feet or more.
If you take these steps, instead of reaching for a brand name, you’ll get great video and audio connections for a reasonable price. You can save even more on cables at a site such as Monoprice, where you can expect to pay a few dollars for nearly any cable type, rather than $20 to $50 for a single, brand-name HDMI cable.
6. Claim: You’re in imminent danger of burn-in from letterboxing and on-screen graphics.
Status: False
Burn-in is no longer a serious issue for HDTVs. Years ago, static on-screen graphics from network TV logos, stock tickers, videogames, letterbox bars, and other patterns could wear unevenly on a TV. If you left your set on and tuned to a station that showed such stationary elements for hours at a time, you might have been able to see them lingering when you tried to watch other content. First-generation plasma screens were the ones most susceptible to this effect.
LCDs and other TV types haven’t exhibited this issue, and recent plasmas have incorporated effective countermeasures against the problem. If you’re buying a new set, don’t worry about burn-in.
Plasma TV watchers may encounter temporary image retention—which can look the same as permanent burn-in—but the images eventually go away. Static images imprint themselves in a way reminiscent of permanent burn-in. But in this case, the pattern fades away with normal use. To speed up the process, play a station with a static pattern or activate the TV’s built-in mode to clear the problem.
7. Claim: HDTVs can cause audio-sync problems with games.
Status: True
Music videogames such as Rock Band and Guitar Hero require perfect timing between audio cues and on-screen graphics. If the two are not aligned, the most likely cause is that the TV is performing extra image processing but audio is being routed directly to a receiver. As a result, the picture gets slowed down, and the audio plays too soon.
The tiny delay that some TVs add may be perceptible only in these games, but you can turn off extra video processing in the TV’s menu system. Look for a “game mode” setting. Most recent music games can recalibrate to take the delay into account. Look for those settings in the game’s options.
Alternatively, you can solve the problem through the audio; receivers often give users the option of adding their own compensatory delay. If your HDTV set feels a little slow when you use it for gaming, read about how to reduce your input lag.
8. Claim: A TV with a faster refresh rate can look better than a slower TV.
Status: True
In the past few years, vendors have marketed TVs with refresh rates of 120Hz, 240Hz, and beyond. These sets can interpolate frames between the ones you’d normally see, thereby smoothing out motion through enhanced picture processing.
PCWorld’s HDTV testing has demonstrated a correlation between high refresh rates and smoother image quality in TVs. However, we occasionally see high-refresh-rate TVs whose images look more jittery than those on 60Hz sets. These discrepancies arise because smooth motion performance depends on the combined operation of the panel’s refresh rate and the software algorithms inside the set.
As 3D-capable TVs come to market, refresh rate will play an increasingly important role in picture quality. One technique used to produce 3D effects requires input and playback of a 120Hz signal. (Practically all current TVs accept only a 60Hz signal, regardless of their advertised refresh rate.) Look for 3D branding and a 120Hz input in those cases.
More About HDTVs
For recent PCWorld assessments of HDTVs, see our HDTV Product Center and our charts listing the Top 40- and 42-Inch HDTVs, Top 46- and 47-Inch HDTVs, and Top 50-, 52-, and 55-Inch HDTVs.
3D TVs to be huge in 2010? Fat chance
This is the year that Sony, Panasonic, Samsung, and other television makers throw serious weight behind 3D TV, but their sales projections seem rather generous.
All three companies started talking a big game on Monday, revealing launch plans and sales expectations. Panasonic, which will start selling 3D TVs at Best Buy this week, expects to ship 1 million of them this year. Samsung said it will ship 2 million 3D TVs—roughly 5 percent of its total TV shipments. Sony was more generous, projecting that 2.5 million, or 10 percent, of its HDTVs sold this year will be 3D sets.
I’m skeptical that 3D TV will take off this year, but don’t take my word for it. Let’s look at some numbers from the experts:
Market researcher iSuppli’s 3D TV forecast from earlier this month projects 4.2 million shipments (not sales, mind you) worldwide this year. That’s 1.3 million less than the combined 3D TV sales or shipments from Sony, Panasonic, and Samsung, and they’re not the only companies readying 3D TVs this year. Vizio and LG are both throwing their hats in the ring.
Projections aside, consumer concerns are going to make 3D TVs a tough sell this year. An NPD report from February said roughly a third of consumers are at least “somewhat interested” in the technology, but they’re worried about prices, the availability and cost of 3D content and the convenience, or lack thereof, of wearing 3D glasses.
Those are serious concerns. Sony’s 40-inch TV will cost ¥220,000, or roughly $2450. Panasonic’s 50-inch TV will reportedly cost $2500 at launch. We’re talking premiums of more than $1000 for the 3D experience, not including 3D glasses and transmitters for communicating between the set and the glasses. Content’s also an issue, with Avatar—arguably the biggest driver yet of interest in 3D—still in the conceptual stage for 3D Blu-ray, and unlikely to be released this year.
None of this is to say that 3D TV has no potential. Even iSuppli expects TV shipments to blossom over the next five years to 78 million units shipped in 2015. But TV makers ought to be more realistic about how quickly consumers will take to this new technology.
