Cool Tech Reviews

I’ve always been hopeful about Internet video downloads even though the available services always seem to leave quite a bit to be desired. Gizmodo’s Charlie White summarizes the problems nicely in Top 10 Reasons Why Movie Downloads Suck, but I’d like to call out a couple of them:

3. No computer in the TV room: Most people don’t have a computer near the TV, and getting a downloaded movie from one to the other is awkward at best.

10. Too complicated: Finally, all of that knowledge and computer know-how needed for downloading movies is simply nonexistent in the skill sets of the average movie viewer. They’re just not willing to go through the learning curve to get the digital data from the PC to the TV screen when they can effortlessly pop in a DVD.

These aren’t problems for a “power user,” but they surely are impediments for the casual consumer. That’s why I was interested to see the alliance announced last week between Amazon’s Unbox movie download service and TiVo, the digital video recorder makers, to provide Unbox downloads automatically and directly to the TiVo DVR. The details of the announcement are here, but the FAQ may be more illuminating.

In a nutshell, if you are the owner of a broadband connected TiVo Series2 or Series3 DVR, you can register the unit with Amazon from your PC and whenever you purchase any video at Amazon Unbox (again from your PC) you can specify that it be delivered to your TiVo. If you delete it from the TiVo, it can be downloaded again free from your Amazon Media Library.

It’s not perfect because you can’t order the downloads from the TiVo, but it neatly gets around the two problems listed above. Of course, there are still more of the “10 Reasons” to overcome, but at least it’s a start. Amazon’s Unbox had a very shaky launch, but presuming that they have ironed out the bugs, the only downside that I see is that broadband connected TiVo Series2 and Series3 boxes aren’t particularly common - TiVo estimates that there only are 1.5 million potential candidates. However, if you happen to own one it would be worthwhile to head over to Unbox and at least kick the tires when this rolls out later this year.

Update - March 7, 2007: The Amazon Unbox TiVo service is now live.

Candace Lombardi at ZDNet:

A group of leading printer manufacturers, including Kodak, Canon and Hewlett-Packard, said Wednesday it’s backing a recent standard published by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO).

Standard ISO/IEC 24711:2006, which still needs industry adoption, establishes how ink and toner cartridges for inkjet printers and all-in-one printers must be tested. (Actually it’s inkjet only so no toner is involved - ed.)

The standard cites how many cartridges must be tested to determine an average lifetime (nine of them), what constitutes a standard test document (five pages printed with default printer settings) and the kind of machine on which the cartridge must be tested.

Analysts agree that there has been a longstanding need for this kind of standardization in the industry, but they’re not sure it will make much difference to consumers.

“It’ll make a difference to those consumers who actually look at that info, but I think the vast majority of consumers don’t look at that,” said John Shane, director of communications supplies consulting service at InfoTrends. “For that small percentage who does, this will be a good way to help them compare.”

It’s a shame that more people haven’t caught on to the fact that inkjet printers are sold at low ball prices in order to get consumers to buy high priced ink refills. Yes, some manufacturers publish “pages per cartridge” numbers and even better, some reviewers try to estimate “pennies per page,” but it will be nice to get them all using the same metric. Will the test be gamed? Sure, just think about “default printer settings” for a minute and what you would do if you were head of printer sales for some vendor. However, a fully documented test is a start.

When it comes to personal media players, the iPod is the 400 pound gorilla in the market, but there are some nice offerings from lesser known companies, one of which is the Meizu M6 Mini Player (sometimes spelled Miniplayer) which Amazon is currently listing for approximately $155. Some specs:

• 4 GB
• 2.4″ 260K-color QVGA (320×240) large and vibrant TFT-LCD screen
• Touch Pad Control with Intuitive User Interface
• MP3, WMA, OGG and WAV Audio Playback
• Xvid Video Playback
• Supports BMP, JPG and GIF Photo Formats
• FM Radio with 30 presets
• Built-in rechargeable Li-ion battery, plays up to 20 hours (less with video)
• USB 2.0 Compliant
• Built-in microphone and voice recording
• Text Viewer, Games, Calendar

There are more details at the Meizu web site as well as some slightly different models, but let’s cut to the reviews.

Ubergizmo:

They say imitation is the best form of flattery, and Meizu has conjured a masterclass by delivering a multimedia player that is high on everyone’s wishlist.
…
Apple should sit up and take notice of how their future iPods should function like from this experience.

thegadgetsite reviews:

The Meizu Miniplayer M6 could very well become the next big thing. If you’re looking for the best flash player currently out in the market look no further than the Meizu Miniplayer M6.

Jason Chen at Gizmodo loves it but mentions one caveat:

Well, there’s no support for either the Apple iTunes store or PlaysForSure stores like Napster. Thus, you’re pretty much need to either rip the songs into MP3 format or rip your songs from your CD collection—or download them illegally. If you’re looking for a gift for someone who’s anti-iPod, the Meizu Miniplayer will give you zero regrets.

Finally, Digital Audio Player Review (who has a long review here) also points to the following video which demonstrates the features:

Less enlightening but shorter and more glitzy is this Miezu commercial video.

To net it out: If you don’t miss a branded store like iTunes selling music and are willing and able to get your own MP3’s from whatever source, then the Meizu M6 Mini Player has a robust feature set that makes it a good value.