Fred Manteghian Blog

I'll admit, when Circuit City proposed, and then shoddily implemented, something called <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DIVX_(Digital_Video_Express)" target="new">Divx</a>, as an alternative to the just born and still struggling DVD format, I did wish things upon them that only Johnny Carson's Carnac the Magnificent could have imagined. You know, things like "May the fleas of a thousand camels nest in your shorts." Divx discs were designed around the rental model, except without the hassle of a return. Buy them for $4 and you could watch them for 48 hours after the first play. You could buy a few more days at a later date, or convert them to "silver" for some other higher price. In the end though, they would be unplayable landfill. Of course such Tom Foolery required a dedicated Divx player which, if you were foolish enough to buy one, would now join the discs at the landfill. I've never seen such corporate "hey-that's-a-great-idea-nah-forget-it"-ism before. In about six months, Divx had come and gone.

Covering a trade show as massive as CEDIA dampens your desire to write your regular blog, so first off, apologies for the month plus a day delay since my last refresh.

Okay, this blog isn't <i>really</i> about audio or video. Not directly at least, but I wanted to mention that we've been in search of clean power, cheap power, non-global-warming-controversy-inducing power, for a long time. Nuclear is clean (you know, in the beginning), and so is hydroelectric power, but only a few of us live near enough a river to take advantage of that. Besides, the amount of paper needed to complete the required zoning permits and environmental impact statements to install that bright red waterwheel you've been eyeing would negatively impact your carbon footprint, so forget that.

I played out my pair of <a href="http://blog.ultimateavmag.com/fredmanteghian/110406Shure/" target="new">Shure E4c</a> about a year ago when, ensconced in their circular case, they rolled out of my car into oncoming traffic. Realizing the driving public wasn't trained by years of reading signs on the back of 18-wheelers declaring "Where there's a rolling earphone case, there's a running audiophile," I erred on the side of caution. Bye-bye Shure.

<i>Dedicated to the memory of Arthur C. Clarke, who last week, took the big rocket to the stars.</i>

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.

Just before CES 2008, just two days before the HD DVD Promotion Group's press conference, Warner Home Video announced they would end their "format neutrality" by issuing Blu-ray discs exclusively. Releases already slated to come out in both formats would continue to do so through May 2008. After that, not so much.