Multichannel Audio Rediscovery

Last week I scored a reel to reel player on Craigslist. The reason I wanted it is my Dad has a lot (more than 50, less than 100 I think) reel to reels at my parents' house. His original player died about 20 years ago, so my siblings and I chipped in and we found him a replacement. Unfortunately, the replacement was not a quadraphonic unit, so all of those cool quad recordings we listened to growing up would not work properly.

This is where my newly acquired player comes in; it's also a quad unit! I am bursting with excitement (ok, maybe not BURSTING, but I'm pretty excited) about being able to listen to some of those reels. I am not without any tapes to play on my reel to reel machine. About 5 years ago I was at a flea market, and asked the seller about a box with a dozen or so tapes in it. "You can have them if you know what they are!" the man said to me. After I answered correctly, I took the box and showed my wife who was not at all as excited as I was.

In connecting my new toy to the home stereo, I started thinking about multichannel audio recordings that I was into some five or so years ago, and saw I was neglecting those discs that were separated from my other CDs and DVDs. Rummaging through them, I pulled out Donald Fagen's The Nightfly on DVD-Audio and put it in my PS3 (my default audio and video disc player). It wouldn't play. Hmm. Maybe the disc is bad? Let's try another DVD-Audio disc. Nope. After a Google search, I found out DVD-Audio was NOT a Sony technology, and therefore NOT supported on my PS3. Since Sony was involved in SACD (Super Audio CD) technology, early PS3's played SACDs. Mine? Of course not. When Sony came out with the PS3 Slim, they threw out support for SACDs. Blech!

Luckily, I remembered a very cool DVD player we bought years ago. I loved it because it would play PAL discs, and SACDs! Since it was manufactured by Samsung, and not Sony, it would play DVD-Audio discs as well. Now I have that Samsung DVD player as well as my PS3 hooked up to the surround sound system, but I can play all of my multichannel media now without worrying about it. What about LaserDiscs, you ask? Why, yes, we've got one of those players too! Don't even get me STARTED on my DCC (Digital Compact Cassette) player!

I type this listening to Michael Jackson's Thriller on SACD. Those songs sound better than I remember. I found out yesterday that Thriller on SACD can fetch $100 or more on eBay!!!!! Maybe I should sell mine and fund a DAT player!

My 2¢ on Michael Dell's Quote

Back in 1997, Michael Dell was asked what he would do were he the CEO of Apple. His response was "I'd shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders." A few days ago he cleared up the misconception of his quote and tried to spin it into a positive light for him. Sorry, dude, it didn't work.

Here's problem I have with your backtracking, Mike. Back in 1997, virtually no one in Silicon Valley wanted to do business with Apple. I remember an employee I know back around this time who works for Cisco saying something along the lines of "Apple's a joke in Silicon Valley!" They were a laughing stock and were barely keeping their heads above water. I, for one, continued to buy their products because I believed in them. I believed they were the answer, not Windows or a 'Wintel' PC. I even think Apple were paying companies to write drivers for the Mac OS back then. They couldn't get the time of day from anyone in the industry, and there was a lot of speculation about where they were headed, or whether they were going to fold up shop. Most companies and their employees were crapping on Apple every chance they got.

Nowadays with the gigantic leap Apple has taken with the iMac, OS X, iPod, Retail Store, iPhone, iPad, iTunes Music/App store, (and most recently Steve Jobs' passing) these same people and companies are lining up to touch the robe of the company with over 70 something 81 billion dollars in cash. Check out the WWDC membership numbers. It's impressive. Turning around developers who wouldn't code for your products back in '97 to those who can't wait to create an app for the iOS or Mac OS X is unheard of. For someone like me who has been a believer in the company since the late 80's, it's tough to believe a load of crap from someone like Michael Dell.

Sorry, Mike, I ain't buying it (or your products for that matter).

Vaiotosh!

A few weeks ago, someone gave me a Sony Vaio VGN-NR220E laptop. Okay, the screen was broken, but other than that it was in great condition.

A visit to eBay and 6-8 business days later, my new screen arrived. It took me about 5 minutes to get it installed. Before all the screws were back in, I had it booted up with the Kalyway OSx86 DVD, version 10.5.2. Once I saw the screen image, I put all of the screws back in.

This is my second Hackintosh. The first was an IBM Thinkpad T42, that someone gave me. Are you starting to see a trend here?People giving me Windows PCs that I install Mac OS X on? I have been a loyal Mac user since the late '80's. When my wife and I tied the knot in 1994, we had a Mac LC II. My brother suggested I try this new WWW thing, so I got an AOL account. I believe we had a 28.8kbps modem with AOL version 2.1 installed on it. That was the first of many Macs in the house--Performa 6400, SE, Se/30, PowerBook 140, PowerBook 1400, PowerBook Pismo, PowerMac G4 (400MHz & 733MHz models), PowerMac G5, PowerBook G4 1.25GHz (2 of those), Black Macbook, iMac G3s (Bondi, 2 Snows), 24" Aluminum iMac...+ Newtons, QuickTake cameras, iPods up the wazoo, iPhones...you get the idea.

Back to my Hackintosh Thinkpad. A few years ago I installed a Kalyway osX86 install (10.4?) and it was certainly usable, but I soon went back to Windows XP on it. While a stripped down version of OS X is okay for some, I think I'm just too spoiled owning so many real Macs. The tinkerer in me likes troubleshooting drivers and that sort of thing, but the Mac user on me wants my stuff to work with as little tweaking and massaging. I want my battery charging and discharging, my wifi, my Bluetooth, my screen resolution, my Ethernet and laptop sleep to work out of the box. Maybe I could be a little choosier with the model of PC I install OS X on, but I really don't want to help Steve Ballmer by buying a new PC.

I've tried countless flavors of Linux on desktop, laptop and even PDAs (Sharp Zaurus anyone?), and I always come back to a real Mac. So why am I trying this again? Well, to be honest, my old PowerBook G4 is getting a bit long in the tooth for my bass rig Mac. I run Apple's Logic audio software on it--it supplies the sounds for my DIY MIDI bass pedals. My hope is that this Vaiotosh can run Logic without chugging up the proverbial mountain saying, "I think I can, I think I can.."

Stay tuned for my Hackintosh adventures.

Crop 'em, Danno! The Aspect Ratio Police Are On The Case

from: http://gizmodo.com/5571014/crop-em-danno-the-aspect-ratio-police-are-on-the-case

When I was young, I loved going to the movies. I loved widescreen epics in Cinerama, Cinemascope, Super Panavision. VistaVision, etc. Watching these movies on TV, however, was painful because I could tell I was not seeing the entire image.

When DVD's appeared in 1997, there was somewhat of a respite. A lot of DVD's had both "full screen" and "letterbox" versions. Now I could enjoy these films at home the way the director intended them to be seen.

You'd think that transitioning from the old 4x3 TV's to new, widescreen 16x9 high definition TV's would put the kibosh on this practice, but it's only introducing new aberrations.

Years ago, I insisted that the technician that installed my HD cable box show me some HD content. All he did was put on a standard definition channel and press the "wide" button. I had to convince him that was not HD. After a while, we figured out that the HD channels started at channel 701. (There are reported cases of consumers watching standard definition broadcasts on their high definition TV's because they didn't know that the high definition channels were simulcast on a different channel.)

Broadcasters are still transmitting 4x3 content at 16x9, so everyone looks fat! Consumers are being duped into thinking that a standard definition image stretched to 16x9 is high definition. There are many public places such as bars, restaurants, airports, and other venues with widescreen TV's that either don't have high definition service or they don't know the difference, and display standard definition content stretched out. Widescreen films that should be letterboxed, even on 16x9 TV's, are still being cropped "pan-and-scan" style to whatever aspect ratio is being broadcast.

I've long fantasized about giving out citations to networks, broadcasters, and proprietors of private venues who violate the aspect ratio of the original material, so I created my blog to cite those who continue with this horrible practice, and acknowledge those who get it right! [Aspect Ratio Police]

Tony Hurd has worked for Industrial Light & Magic, The Orphanage, Colossal Pictures, WGBH/Boston and KQED/San Francisco doing both special FX and production work. He knows his stuff. Tony Hurd now works at Polygon Entertainment.

The author of this post can be contacted at tips@gizmodo.com

Smoking kills... your Mac

From TUAW:
by Chris Rawson

It should be pretty obvious by now that smoking cigarettes is bad for your health. What's not as obvious is that it might be bad for your Mac, too. According to The Consumerist, two different people got turned down for AppleCare maintenance because their Macs were used in a house with a smoker. Both people appealed their cases all the way up to Steve Jobs, and both of them lost.

I've opened up a few computers that spent time in a house full of heavy smokers, and the insides weren't pretty. There was this disgusting brown resin built up all over everything, and it pretty much smelled like an ashtray stuffed full of 5-year-old cigarette butts. Though it's probably a stretch to call this "a biohazard" like in one of the cases The Consumerist cites, AppleCare agreements are worded loosely enough in their limitations of coverage that Apple seems perfectly within its rights to deny coverage in these two cases:
The Plan does not cover:

Damage to the Covered Equipment caused by accident, abuse, neglect, misuse (including faulty installation, repair, or maintenance by anyone other than Apple or an Apple Authorized Service Provider), unauthorized modification, extreme environment (including extreme temperature or humidity), extreme physical or electrical stress or interference, fluctuation or surges of electrical power, lightning, static electricity, fire, acts of God or other external causes.


It's that "other external causes" clause that's the catch-all, although you could probably argue that an atmosphere filled with smoke counts as an "extreme environment" as well.

Bottom line: if you have to smoke, you might want to step away from the computer first. With the investment that your Mac represents sitting there on the desk, why take the risk of messing it up in an easily preventable way?

Real bargain stock #5: Apple (AAPL)

From bloggingstocks.com
Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) is a shining example of capitalism at its best -- and that's just one of the many reasons why Apple is an excellent stock to buy now.

If you're a member of the Apple cult like I am, you already know the near-religious commitment we have to anything Steve Jobs and company bring to market. Sure, the company makes the most expensive computers out there, as well as the costly iPhone -- but to us addicts, money is really no object.

Apparently, we hardcore Apple fanatics aren't the only ones who feel this way. The company's stellar recent earnings beat was just the latest in a string of consistently better-than-expected quarterly performances. And when it comes to what Wall Street thinks, well, I suspect over 100% return year-to-date, as well as a near 900% gain over the past five years in AAPL shares tells you what you need to know about the stock's appeal.

The Apple juggernaut is perhaps the best-of-breed personal technology company operating today, and their high-priced shares confirm this. The way I see it, Apple is a bargain at almost any price.

A walk through iTunes history

From TUAW:

Recognize the software above? The brushed steel, the rounded buttons, the liquid digital-style display. If you said SoundJam, you're right. But if you said iTunes, you're right, too -- SoundJam is the app that Apple originally bought to turn into the multimedia/handheld software juggernaut we know today. This is the first (public) iteration of the software, as told in this interesting history of iTunes over at Mac|Life.

The program actually started as a Winamp-style (oh man, remember Winamp? Justin Frankel's now doing stuff with Reaper, which is the app artist will use to release their songs in Rock Band. But I digress...) media management application, and it's really interesting to see how it turned into a real keystone of Apple's media plans over the years, from the "Rip. Mix. Burn." idea to the home base for the iPhone, up into the current iTMS (complete with music, movies, TV shows and even audiobooks) and of course the game-changing App Store. If you'd told the SoundJam guys that their software would one day revolutionize the music and smartphone industries, not to mention be at the center of a multimillion dollar software delivery system, they'd probably have told you to keep dreaming.

And we're only at version 9. Who knows what we'll see in the next ten years of iTunes?