Fred Manteghian Blog

When it comes to hard news about consumer electronics, I get it pretty much the same way you do. I read it on the internet. Sure, I could take time out of my day to call a certain Korean hardware manufacturer and ask them if the on-again-off-again combo HD drive is on again or off again, but it would be so much easier just to read someone else's report on the internet which, depending on which temporal continuum you're surfing could be accurate or fallacious or, if you're hanging out with Tim Rice decked out as a transvestite, both.

While we’re sitting around waiting for Blu-ray or HD-DVD high definition players and discs to hit the shelves, we can still do a little hi-def pickin’ and chosin’ on our own beyond switching hi-def channels. On Apple’s web site, you can find links to hi-def trailers that you can download and watch right now, like <A HREF="http://www.apple.com/trailers/fox/x3/" TARGET="NEW"> <b> this one for <i> X3</i></b></A>. Of course, you need a home theater PC if you want to show it on your projector or hi-def set, but I was satisfied to watch it on my not too shabby IBM T42P laptop. Even though the 15” screen’s aspect ratio is an old school 1.33:1, the resolution is an eye-popping 1600 x 1200.

BBC has an iPlayer feature that let's you watch TV broadcasts you may have missed on the "Beeb." Problem is, it's only open to folks who live in the U.K. So I have to keep reading little inside references to the "EastEnders" in Nick Hornsby novelettes but do I get to see what all the fuss is about? Hardly.

I'm hardly the first reviewer to get my mitts on this do-everything Polk iPod docking station, and yeah the official name is a mouthful, so "I-Sonic ES2" will do just as well here on in. The ES2 is a direct outgrowth of the original ES which lacked an iPod dock. We all remember those pre-Apple-monopoly days with fondness, but the truth is, if you don't iPod dock, you don't rock. And one the thing I want you to come away with from this review is that the Polk I-Sonic ES2 <i>really</i> rocks!

<a href="http://www.wolfgangsvault.com/Home.aspx" target="new">Wolfang's Vault</a> is a <i>pretty slick</i> web site where you can continue the journey of rediscovering your musical youth. The fellow that owns the site bought out nearly all of Bill Graham's stuff just before he croaked. This is Bill Graham, owner of the Fillmores, East and West, and other venues, concert promoter extraordinaire, not Billy Graham the evangelist, although, in the end, they're both dead.

One of the myriad benefits we can enjoy now with the end of the high definition disc format war is the elimination of competition that threatened to drive down prices of hardware and software. Imagine what would happen if cars came in different colors. What a mess.