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Rent with option to buy??? (For passengers, not airlines)
Yankee Group Says Microsoft And DivX Will Lead The Charge As Internet Video Over Home Networks Gains Momentum
A new Yankee Group research note, "Who Will Win the Format Battle for Internet Video Downloads?," analyzes the leading video formats across multiple criteria, and picked two clear winners--Microsoft and DivX.
"The time was ripe for this analysis; consumers are beginning to transfer content from their PCs to their televisions over home networks or on recordable media," says Ryan Jones, Yankee Group Media & Entertainment Strategies senior analyst. "However, for PC-to-TV content sharing to mature, device manufacturers and content owners must agree on video formats for encoding and content protection that allow seamless content access, management, and playback."
The research analyzed formats from Real, Microsoft and DivX along various dimensions including playback quality, security, cost, and industry momentum.
"DivX leads today because of support from the global file trading community and because chipset vendors have been quick to market with affordable decoding solutions. Yet content owners prefer the overall quality and security the Microsoft solution offers. Ultimately, device manufacturers will be able to integrate both formats into their designs," says Jones.
Jones predicts the retail industry soon will feel the impact of these format winners. "Expect 30 to 50 percent of DVD players to have either one or both of these formats by the end of 2004, as video chipset manufacturers refine and economize components, content owners become more comfortable with Internet content distribution, and consumers seek out new video content on the Web."
http://www.mi2n.com/press.php3?press_nb=53235
The best Windows based MP3 player?
(courtesy of Gilgamash at Agora)
RATING DETAILS
Durability 5 stars
Portability 5 stars
Ease of Use 4 stars
Battery Life 5 stars
Sound 5 stars
May 22nd, 2003
Pros: Very easy to setup and use, large capacity, SRS WOW a big plus.
Cons: A bit on the bulky side, limited music tagging, no current MusicMatch plug in.
The Bottom Line: The Odyssey 1000 is an excellent choice for any Windows user, and this unit is recommended even over the market leading iPod and the new iPod 2.0s.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Full Review
As a Windows user, I sat on the fence a long time before buying an MP3 player. The small capacity units just didn't do it for me. The process of endlessly downloading and replacing songs didn't seem attractive.
My friends had Apple iPods, and while they are slick, they are issues when using the device with Windows, and the price of entry is steep.
This year I started looking at the new wave of iPod look alikes coming to market, and jumped on the e.Digital Odyssey 1000 unit when it became available. I pre-ordered the unit and it arrived in late March as expected and represented by e.Digital.
With only some minor reservations, this is clearly the Windows MP3 player to beat. It's by far the most iPod-like, without all of the iPod's frustrations under Windows.
Bad news first.
The Odyssey is a bit bulky and heavier than other players, but it's not at all bad - picture a bar of soap. Much of this is due to the unit's sleek and well constructed all metal case - no cheap plastic here. The unit is very easy to hold in one hand in spite of this, and you won't notice it's seven ounces when clipped onto your belt.
The second negative is that the unit has limited music tagging and requires a fairly restrictive dual-level folder structure to organize music files. So you can do Artist-Album, but that's it.
Good news next.
The display is great: very large, very easy to read, cool blue effect, much more information that even the new iPod 2.0s offers, and a neat graphic equalizer display.
The controls are all metal and feature a unique scroll wheel which also acts as a selection button, very easy to understand and navigate, well done. The case that comes with the unit doesn't block the controls, something which baffled me about the iPod.
The unit's 20 Gig capacity is perfect for storing not only music, but data files, especially since the unit appears as a hard drive with a simple and fast standard USB 2.0 connection.
I copied all of my OutLook email, documents, and some digital pictures onto the device, and sync up quickly every night before leaving my office. So all my data is with me all the time, readily accessible from any standard USB port. I don't bring my notebook home anymore.
The battery is lithium and recharges quickly, but also very important: it can be easily replaced. Sealed unit's like the iPod's pose a problem when the battery goes bad and require service by the manufacturer.
It has a voice recorder, and voice navigation. You read that correctly. Tell the unit what song you want, it will find it. Very cool!
It has an FM tuner with 12 presets and I was amazed how many stations it pulled in clearly with no antenna.
Now the best part, and this will really trouble iPod owners - the sound output from the Odyssey is simply awesome, much better than the iPods 2.0's.
I know because I listed to the same set of songs on both units for a very long time, the Odyssey sounds hands down better with substantially better music definition - the built-in SRS WOW effect also make a huge difference when the unit is connected to external speakers.
If sound quality is high on your list, you definitely need to hear the Odyssey's sound output, it blows the iPod 2.0 out of the water.
e.Digital priced the Odyssey at a reasonable $349. Given everything it does and the superior sound quality, it has a decided edge over the new iPods, at a lower price.
The only reason to opt for an iPod over the Odyssey for a Windows user is size, otherwise the Odyssey is a better choice.
http://hardwarecentral.dealtime.com/xPR-E_Digital_Odyssey_1000_20_GB~RD-100683779716
Furthermore, in the current business environment outsourcing is a very common practice. Although Softeq may be contracted by HP for design, specification, development, and delivery of a product, I seriously doubt that they would be prevented from outsourcing any or all of the aforementioned tasks, as long as they met their contractual requirements.
I wouldn't read too much into the 'Bang & Olufsen + HP' promo currently running - seems that B&O has gone with HP servers and Compaq workstations.
http://h41099.www4.hp.com/country/me/eng/msg/corp/htmlbang-olufsen.html
http://h18000.www1.hp.com/products/customer_stories/bangandolufsen.html
MPIO HD100 priced €50 less than 20GB Nomad Zen in Belgium: http://jukebox.mp3man.be/
HD100 now on sale in France: http://www.rueducommerce.fr/sonnum/showdetl.cfm?product_id=1071
Richard, I never cease to wonder why any investor so thoroughly convinced that EDIG is a poor investment would waste so much time on it; especially someone who claims to be equipped to search out better places to invest. Very irrational behavior, especially in light of Matt's poll results indicating that the vast majority of board members are committed EDIG investors. Then again, the world is full of strange birds; the web is especially rife with them.
Bob, one could say the same about the iPod ( or the Yepp YP-900 ; - )
Wi-Fi® is not the same as the Softec project. That project was announced as using infrared technology (perhaps irDA-based, but I don't recall if that level of detail has been made available). Wi-Fi® is a trademarked standard from the Wireless Ethernet Compatibility Alliance, and is specifically designed around the 802.11b or 802.11a standards (operating in the unlicensed 2.4 and 5 GHz radio bands). The Softec project may well evolve into additional, radio-based protocols, but I have not yet seen any specifics announced by EDIG in that regard.
Odd that the purported Aug 16 e-mail would reference a jukebox when our first jukebox design (later renamed 'Treo') wasn't announced until a week later. Maybe there was a kernel of truth in whatever speculation the e-mail contained.
(SAN DIEGO, CA – August 23, 2000) – e.Digital Corporation (OTC: EDIG) today announced an agreement with Remote Solution, the U.S. marketing and sales organization for HanGo Electronics, Co., Ltd., Korea. Under the agreement, Remote Solution will license e.Digital’s MicroOS™-based Internet music player design for a new multi-codec, SDMI-capable portable jukebox product named Cleo. Remote Solution plans to introduce the Cleo to the consumer market under its own brand name and in addition will make it available for licensing by name-brand OEM customers in the electronics, computer, and audio industries.
Maybe we should change the subject to fishing?
Ah, yes... that infamous rally:
http://chart.yahoo.com/d?a=7&b=1&c=2000&d=7&e=31&f=2000&g=d&s=EDIG.OB
PURE BS - care to try for another embareassment, David???
"The 1-inch drive market thus far has totaled 'a few hundred thousand drives, not the millions that were promised,' said veteran drive analyst Jim Porter of Disk/Trend. The industry is awaiting the arrival of 'shirt-pocket computers with voice recognition - the grandsons of the Palm - as the app that could see the drives take off', he said.
http://www.siliconstrategies.com/story/OEG20030523S0046
"Cornice says its customer commitments include Thomson for its RCA Lyra Micro player, Rio for its Nitrus and Eigen MP3 players, and Samsung for its 'digital gadget' - a unit the size of a deck of cards that will snap pictures, store and play back video.... Magenis said he expects Cornice will be able to increase its drive capacity by 60 percent a year, about the same rate as PC hard drives. At that rate, the drive will be able to hold as much high-quality video as a DVD in 2 1/2 years."
http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/business/5995155.htm
The Cornice drive:
"While flash costs 18 cents per megabyte and a mini-drive from a competitor 15 cents per megabyte, the Cornice SE costs four cents a megabyte," claims a white paper from the company. Cornice has been shooting to keep volume pricing of its drives at about $65 instead of the $200 or so for competitive drives."
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,1114470,00.asp
Re the Odyssey 300 review, it is interesting that the reviewer listed lack of folder support as a 'con'; seems that most reviewers criticize the Odyssey 1000 for having that feature. Makes one wonder who is pursuing what agenda.
For further reading on this subject, see http://www.nakedshortselling.com/pdf/NAANSS_Report_Mar03.pdf
Does Your Firm Monitor For Market Maker Manipulation?
"The OTCBB has been decimated by naked short selling over the last 2 years or so." (Tom Allinder, President of HotStockChat.com, Inc., as quoted in a CBS MarketWatch article dated August 19, 2002).
Introduction
The events leading to the creation of the stock market 'bubble' and the subsequent 'crash' of April 2000 have resulted in pressures not encountered in recent history. Though this contemporary pattern is reminiscent of the great crash of 1929 and the subsequent legislation leading to the creation of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in the Securities Exchange Acts of 1933 and 1934, the international nature of the Internet and off-shore brokerages, the growth in on-line brokers and broker-dealers, individuals trading their own accounts, and day-trading has resulted in some contemporary variations designed to profit from the damages caused to firms and their investors. One technological innovation is the access that the average individual has to low- or no-cost level two (L2), providing the investor with the ability to monitor the behaviors of broker-dealers in filling orders. This powerful tool has resulted in many stock-chat message board discussions alleging and relating to market maker manipulation.
The case of Enron, Merrill, and Andersen increased public awareness of the inherent and structural conflicts between the non-owner-manager executive with target price-based stock options, the broker-analyst, and the auditor-consultant. The WorldCom exposé followed, but was more representative of the traditional case of accounting fraud (e.g., capitalization of expenses to increase earnings per share measures).
This article focuses on additional issues relating to the broker-dealer or market maker (MM), and some specific instances to guard against, where your firm may be exposed to damages arising from market maker manipulation (MMM). We provide this primer and Internet-based sources of additional information on MMM. As the chief financial officer or management accountant in your firm, you are involved in the decision to finance assets with debt or equity. By increasing your awareness of MMM, you may be better able to recognize and defeat the adverse effects of MMM on your firm's equity securities, dramatically reduce the risks associated with your firm's failure to maintain market-based debt covenant ratios with lenders, and avoid the need to recapitalize, with additional equity issues, at a manipulated or artificially low price per share.
The Market Maker
Like the broker-analysts and auditor-consultant, the market maker, specialist, or broker-dealer performs two separate and, apparently, incompatible functions:
First, they maintain an inventory of the stocks their firms have underwritten, continue to trade or make a market in. They buy and sell these inventories for profit. In theory, they will buy low (reducing the decline in price per share) and sell high (reducing the rise in price per share). Therefore, these profit-making behaviors are presumed to provide a stabilizing effect on changes in the price per share of the stocks they make a market in.
Second, they post the bid and ask prices that others are willing to buy or sell at, and match these orders. They generate revenues for their firm, under a variety of order flow or transaction fees schemes, for the performance of this function.
Therefore, like the conflicts apparent in cases of the analyst-broker (Merrill) or the auditor-consultant (Andersen), the broker-dealer is faced with the opportunity to sell his/her firms inventory before others in a declining market, or buy for his/her firms inventory account, in a rising market before others. This practice is difficult to detect, but alleged in many cases - both correctly and, often, incorrectly - on stock-chat message boards. MMM is illegal. One relatively highly publicized example of MMM is that referred to as front-running.
Front-Running - An Illustration of MMM
Specialist market makers may make use of their knowledge of the order-arrival process as revealed by limit orders to generate monopolistic trading profits. After all, they possess private (incoming order flow) information and may choose to use this information to trade their own inventory before processing or matching incoming orders to buy or sell the stocks they make a market in.
In early June 2002, allegations of front-running flooded the business press and media, and SEC- and National Association of Securities Dealers'-based investigations were underway to examine trading practices at the Knight Trading Group, Incorporated (NASDAQ NM: NITE). Front-running is operationally defined as using order flow (or insider) information to generate profits by trading the firm's inventory, while delaying the matching of incoming orders from other investors. Knight Trading Group handled more than eleven percent of all NASDAQ trading in 2000.
Though front-running, per se, may not be particularly damaging to your firm, it provides a contemporary illustration of the conflict between the broker-dealer as both a facilitator of an orderly market (e.g., matching incoming orders from other investors to buy and sell) and their desire to generate profits from the inventories traded for their firms account.
Another illustration is the naked short sale. This practice is very damaging to the publicly traded firm and appears to be popular among the off-shore brokerage firms where U.S. Securities laws are less easily enforced or do not apply.
Naked Short Selling - The Behavior Most Damaging to the Public Firm
Assume that your firm has one million shares of common stock issued and outstanding at a current market price of $10 per share. If you were to release news of the need to recapitalize by issuing additional shares of stock, this would be perceived as dilutive to your firm's earnings per share and may result in a decline in the price per share (PPS) of your firm's common stock.
Now, consider the short sale. An investor, believing that the PPS for your firm's stock will decrease in the future may short the stock. They do this by borrowing stock held by an investor holding a long position and of the opinion that your firm's stock PPS will rise in the future. If the long shares are not available, the short sale is not permitted. This fact pattern represents a legitimate short sale/position, presumed to lead to increased liquidity and efficiency for the capital markets.
Alternatively, consider the naked short sale. In this case, short positions are not declared or disclosed, shares are not borrowed to cover the short sale, and the stock is never delivered to the purchaser. The result is dilutive, in that it results in an artificial, unauthorized and illegal increase in the number of shares issued and outstanding and a manipulated decline in the PPS of the firm's stock. The broker-dealer merely floods the market with cheap, non-existent shares of your firm's stock. A few contemporary examples follow:
An August 16, 2002, a two-year federal sting led to the indictment of 58 stockbrokers and corporate executives. The unsealed indictment alleged the death spiral financing convertible debenture-related common stock manipulation of JagNotes.Com (OTC: JNOT), Softsquad Software Ltd. and C Me Run Corp. (OTC: CMER).
On August 13, 2002, GeneMax (OTC BB: GMXX) announced concerns over naked shorting. Records indicated August 2, 2002, shareholders of record of 400,820 shares, where only 265,654 free trading shares were available.
On July 8, 2002, MarketCentral.net Corp. (OTC BB: MKCT(E)) filed suit against a European short seller.
Even the once big cap business-to-business firm, PurchasePro.com (NASDAQ SC: PPRO(E)), in an open letter from the CEO, suggested that shareholders move their holdings to cash accounts or request delivery of their share certificates to prevent the shares from being legitimately shorted.
Monitoring the Stock-Chat Message Boards - Investor Sophistication
We recommend that publicly traded (and, in particular, small- and micro-cap) firms monitor the stock-chat message boards. This additional task need not be onerous, but requires some understanding or review of the poster's message board posting history and level of sophistication.
Investors possess varying levels of sophistication. For example, an unsophisticated investor attempting to purchase 5,000 shares of your firms stock may receive what is referred to as an automatic execution or a partial fill of a larger limit price day order for 100 (or 200) shares:
EXAMPLE 1:
OT: I can't believe that someone bought $2 worth of stock (100 shares) and paid a minimum $8 dollar (sic) commission.12
In the above case, this unsophisticated investor failed to understand that an automatic execution caused the transaction for 100 shares of a stock selling at 2 cents per share. This was a partial fill from a larger order, but was misinterpreted as a completed trade. These transactions are often blamed on MMM, but are nothing more than the result of a buyer's failure to place an all or none (AON) order.
Another example is that where a large spread evolves between the best bid and lower bids:
EXAMPLE 2:
Some unfortunate traders were taught a sorry lesson today using stops (emphasized). Use stops on IWAV and you will be taken out.
In the above example, this sophisticated investor is referring to stop loss market orders, suggesting that the MM was able to sell a few shares (even to himself) to reach or activate the stop loss orders, buy a large quantity of cheap shares, and allow the price per share to quickly rise, rebounding to the appropriate market value per share. These trades are very profitable, but could also have been made by sophisticated individual investors with access to L2. None-the-less, repeated complaints of these behaviors may suggest the need for the firm's management to make some form of preliminary investigation into the day's trading log and MMM. One form of MMM may be a predictor of future, more damaging cases of MMM and, in any case, high frequencies of trading complaints may lead new or potential investors to avoid investments in your firm's stock.
We recommend that a checklist summary be developed and maintained for periodic review. EXHIBIT 1 provides a simple example of the format you may wish to use for personnel monitoring the stock-chat message boards, using EXAMPLES 1 and 2, above, where RB represents the Raging Bull and YF represents the Yahoo! Finance stock-chat message boards, respectively. You may wish to modify this format as your experiences require.
__________________________________________
EXHIBIT 1
Stock-Chat Message Board Summary Worksheet
Msg
Msg
Author
Issue or Bd
No.
Date
Time
or Alias
Content
Comments
RB
94231
4/12/2002
11:17a.m.
Aim4theFence
Small trade
EX 1: Auto execution unsophisticated
YF
19751
8/1/2002
6:23p.m.
wall street guy
Stop losses
EX 2: MM take out stops - sophisticated
_________________________________________
Suggested Detection Methodology
The simplest solution for the publicly traded firm is to have one or more of their administrative personnel monitor the stock-chat message boards for comments or complaints regarding their trading experiences. This task need not be performed by a member of management or an executive, but a relatively low-salaried staff person may be used at this initial or preliminary screening level. Only unusual commentary or atypical stock price or volume activity (e.g., exceptions) should lead to further investigation at a more senior level.
Access to L2 is recommended as a useful tool to monitor during periods when posting activity increases, stock price or volume behavior is atypical, or a large number of complaints are detected on the stock-chat message boards. The level of sophistication can often be determined by reviewing the aliases posting history, a feature available on both RB and YF stock-chat message boards.
Finally, stock-chat message board complaints should not be responded to directly, but may be reviewed for validity. Direct or clarifying responses by those identifying themselves as insiders (e.g., management) may constitute a violation of SEC Regulation FD (Fair Disclosure).
by A.J. Cataldo1
Assistant Professor of Accounting
Department of Accounting and Finance - EH 412
Oakland University
Rochester, Michigan 49309
and
Larry N. Killough
KPMG Professor of Accounting
Department of Accounting and Information Systems
Pamplin College of Business Administration
3082 Pamplin Hall
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
Blacksburg, VA 24061-0101
In point of fact, the Microdrive is indeed a hard drive. Its form factor and interface are the same as a Compact Flash card but internally, both in form and function, it is a hard drive. (See http://www.hgst.com/hdd/micro/datasheet.htm )
At the time it was introduced by IBM, it held a considerable advantage in price and capacity over contemporary Compact Flash cards. However, nowadays a 1 GB CF card is comparable in price to a 1 GB Microdrive (about $180 for either). If one wanted to give the gift of music to an athleticly inclined grad, now's a good time to snag a $49 MXP from the e.Digital store, add a $180 1 GB flash card, and present them with a skip-proof voicenav player at a very reasonable price.
I look forward to your admission of error in stating that "VoiceNav has never gotten a single positive review". It sure would be nice if you'd just come out and state that you were wrong. Is it so hard to admit that a competent reviewer (as opposed to various less-than-technically astute feature writers) found that "VoiceNav proves to be a surprisingly excellent speech recognition system that works effectively at making the playing of your favorite songs more convenient"? ( http://www.mp3newswire.net/stories/2002/mxp100review.html )
FWIW re Richard Menta:
An MBA from Rutgers University, Richard began his Internet career in 1995 when he joined Prentice Hall New Media, the higher education division of Simon and Schuster. In early 1997, he developed the Guest Lecture series, a pioneer effort in Internet video and audio content streaming for education. It was during his research for that project that he first experimented with the mp3 format as an audio delivery mechanism for music education courses.
Consequently, Rich became an early expert on streamed technology and was recognized as one of the top media producers in the country by AV Video and Multimedia Magazine in 1998.
That year, Rich founded MP3 Newswire, one of the first sites to chronicle the rise of the new digital music industry, focusing in particular on the clash between old industry practices and new industry tactics, and what this all will mean to the average music fan, now and in the future.
Don't be so hasty in assuming "VoiceNav has never gotten a single positive review" (especially since you admit to having no experience with it). Here's what one reviewer had to say about it after taking the time to actually give it a workout:
Review: eDigital MXP100 with VoiceNav
By Richard Menta 2/09/02
We have to admit, we took our time with our review of eDigital's latest player. Who wouldn't with an entire gigabyte of songs stored in a flash-sized player. You can thank IBM's Microdrive, a minute hard drive of identical dimensions to compact flash cards that offer capacities of 340MB, 512MB, and 1GB. The MXP 100 uses this drive and leverages it advantages into a competitive MP3 portable that offers more memory than standard 64MB players without ballooning to the size and weight of jukebox portables like the Nomad Jukebox.
It also offers another feature that is actually more practical than gimmicky. Using a technology called VoiceNav, you can jump directly to a specific track by simply saying the songs name. When you have a few hundred songs to scroll through, the ability to jump directly to a song by simply saying its name becomes a welcomed convenience.
The eDigital MXP 100
The Hardware
As we said, the e.Digital MXP 100 comes with a choice of 340MB, 512MB, and 1GB MicroDrives and is about 25% larger than a Rio 500 flash portable. That makes it small enough to conveniently fit in a pocket.
The MXP 100 has 8MB of built-in memory for skip protection and can play tunes compressed in the MP3 and WMA format. Files are transferred to the MXP 100 using its Music Explorer software through a USB connection. Rounding out the features, the MXP 100 has voice recording capabilities, the VoiceNav feature mentioned above, 8MB of built-in memory for skip protection, and runs on an excellent set of lithium-ion batteries that had no trouble handling the power hungry Microdives. We got several hours of use out of them, not as much as the 10 hours Apple claims its iPod gets from its lithium polymer battery, but still good.
The player handles tunes using the MP3 and WMA formats. The MXP 100 is secure music capable supporting several digital rights management protocols including Intertrust, Windows Media DRM and IBM's EMMS.
As of this writing, pricing for the MXP 100 are $399 for the 1GB version, $349 for the 512MB, and $299 for the 340MB. We tested the unit using both the 1GB and 340MB drives. The MXP 100 will also take all sizes of CompactFlash cards including SanDisk's soon to be released 1GB version, which will use considerable less power than the MicroDrive, but will run more than double the price when released.
VoiceNav
What's most interesting about this player is that the unit's most unique feature is not the MicroDrive itself, but a user interface called VoiceNav. VoiceNav allows the user to control the unit using vocal commands. For those of you who have used jukebox or other high capacity portables, you know how tedious it can be search for a particular song when there are hundreds of them to scroll through.
Developed by Bell Labs' Advanced Technologies (a division of Lucent) the MXP 100 is the first consumer product to use this voice navigation interface. Once engaged, the user can navigate playlist folders, select tracks, and play tunes by simply speaking one of several command words into the built-in microphone.
VoiceNav has an fluid phonetic dictionary embedded within it offering speaker-independent recognition. Unlike a software product like IBM's ViaVoice, which needs to learn each individual user's particular speech patterns over time through regular use, VoiceNav requires no such learning input. That's a heck of an accomplishment if it works well.
So, how well does it work?
The basic commands for VoiceNav are Play, Folder, Track, Next, Back and Done. The MXP 100 also recognizes track and folder names, analyzing the spelling of each word, applying standard pronunciation rules and the attempt to match the expected wave patterns of these words with any words spoken into the unit's internal microphone.
Considering the broad palate of individual speech patterns including accents and regional dialects, this is not an easy job and why the progress of voice recognition over the last decade has been a challenging one. Think if President George Bush used this player to call up a track name with the word "Nuclear" in it (he pronounces it "Nu-cu-lar") and you get the idea.
VoiceNav's includes the most up to date applications of speech recognition technology and, as someone who has used IBM's ViaVoice, it shows it. Music Explorer's interface works here too, insuring that track titles and artist or album information from digital music tracks are saved and transferred to the MXP 100 as recognizable phrases.
To activate VoiceNav you press the record button when in music play mode (you need to press and release the button. If you hold it, you will activate the unit's internal voice recorder). Navigation using VoiceNav only operates when a song is not playing (manual controls will allow navigation when a tune is pumping), therefore there is no "Stop" or "Pause" command. The "Done" verbal command is used to disable VoiceNav vocally.
Using the basic commands only, we had no trouble navigating back and forth between folders and songs. We even tried various accents to throw the player off, everything from Brooklyn to southern to bad impersonations of various Monty Python and Simpson's characters. It is very impressive when you shout the word "Folder" talking like Apu Nahasapeemapetilon and it still works.
We could fool it a few times, and sometimes the word "Play" would act a little sluggish, but overall it got off to very good start.
Bearing in mind that speech recognition not yet the equivalent of the chatty computer on TV's Star Trek, the MXP 100 did an excellent job of pulling up our song requests. VoiceNav worked best when we spoke the entire file name, artist and song title, in the order it appeared on the screen.
If the unit had trouble discerning a phrase, it let out a short beep through the headphones as a request to repeat the phrase. We noticed it was easiest when you got a clear pronunciation on the first shot.
Under the best conditions, we would name a song in our normal speaking tone and pace and the unit would jump to the song. Sometimes when we called for that same song title we would get the beep instead. If we got a beep, the player required us to speak more deliberately and slowly otherwise it would beep again, suggesting VoiceNav drops down a gear, possibly to sample more intensely.
If the song has a one-word song title not repeated on another tune, the VoiceNav can jump to it just by saying that word. Because there is only one word to analyze, it works quicker too. Still, the unit was more accurate when you said the full track name. The more words you say, the more time the unit takes to digest and act on the command. Type A personalities take note.
It helps if the words in a title are actually in a dictionary. The track "Sum41 - Fat Lip" for example, "Sum41" is not a word. Surprisingly, when we said just the word "Sum41" the MXP 100 found the correct track almost every time. The same thing happened when we said just "U2" to find U2's One. Most impressive.
Testing VoiceNav -
Now realize that external ambient noise can affect results and so we tested VoiceNav under several conditions. We chose a mixture of song titles, some short and simple and others more apt to challenge VoiceNav like Sum41. Among the titles on our player as each track is written:
Detroit Cobras - I'll be home again
Howie Day - Babylon
Sam Philips - Love is everywhere you go
Wishing
Thee Midnighters - The town I live in
Sum41 - Fat lip
Sundays - Summertime
U2 - One
Sonics - Have love will travel
Robert Johnson - 32-20 Blues
Sebadoh - Willing to wait
Beach Boys - Kiss me baby
Lit - Miserable
Incubus - I wish you were here.
As soon as you enable VoiceNav the folder of where the tracks lie begins to blink. Saying "Track" causes the cursor to highlight and blink on the first track name. You say another track name to switch songs. A good way to judge how long it takes to switch is count how many times the cursor blinks on a song between when you call for the next track and when it actually appears.
Test 1 - Ideal conditions. Quiet room, MXP 100 is laying on the table. We speak directly to the player about a foot above the internal microphone. - Result: Superior if you say the entire song title, but order matters.
We were able to run through the entire list above twice - artist and song title said in the exact order they appear in the player - without a single miss. Average time it took to find and display the proper track was about 4 cursor blinks. The quickest were "Lit - Miserable" and "Wishing" at three blinks. The longest was "Robert Johnson - 32-20 Blues" at seven blinks. Finally, we called "Howie Day - Babylon" really quickly, practically mumbling the last word, before we threw the unit off. Excellent performance, better than we expected.
We then tried the same test just using either the song title or the artist alone and our results dropped to about 75%. Some artists had several songs on our player (Howie Day - Australia for example) posing a dilema for VoiceNav over which track to select when only the artists name was uttered. When VoiceNav did find the proper track successfully, it did so in about the same time as it took with the full title, an average of about 4 cursor blinks.
Order Matters
Now for a simple twist. We next spoke the full track title, but said the song title and artist name in reverse order as it appeared on the display. Here VoiceNav had trouble, giving us the beep on every single attempt. Order, it seems, matters with VoiceNav. We're guessing that it's because VoiceNav develops an expected vocal wave pattern, looking at the title as an entire phrase rather than word for word.
That could be a little frustrating to users who have tracks where the order of the artist and song name in the title is mixed. Still, when you get the order right the results are outstanding.
Test 2 - Walking outside with occasional traffic passing by. All track names said in proper order. - Result: very good to excellent.
When standing still, our results were nearly identical to those above. Saying the entire title name we got a hit almost every time. The only times we missed were when vehicles would pass as we spoke.
Next we repeated track names while walking. Here the results were very good, but the player sometimes needed an extra cursor blink or two to find the tracks. A couple of times it missed without traffic, but about 90-95% percent of the time it hit. A possible reason may be the motion from walking puts a slight quiver in our voices that make it a little harder for VoiceNav to understand. Still the unit performed excellently.
Because of the lessened performance we received under ideal conditions when we said only the artist or song name or when we said the track name in reverse order, we didn't bother to test that here. In those situations we already know the results will be hit or miss.
Test 3 - Difficult conditions. Using VoiceNav in a crowded gym. - Result: ambient noise proved too much for VoiceNav.
We tried and found that the background din of music, talking, and slamming weights was too much for VoiceNav. Once in a blue moon we got the track to shift, but not until speaking loud enough to draw the gaze of a few patrons who wondered why we were yelling at our MP3 player....
....The addition of VoiceNav is what truly differentiates the MXP 100 from the competition. VoiceNav proves to be a surprisingly excellent speech recognition system that works effectively at making the playing of your favorite songs more convenient. That makes all the difference between a useful tool and an expensive toy.
Speech recognition - as well as VoiceNav itself - has its limitations like any other technology, but with a little knowledge of how to get the most out of it, VoiceNav's performance was both impressive and compelling. I hardly have a radio voice, yet under the best of conditions the unit successfully pulled up every song I called out without fail (except the last when I intentionally garbled it). The system also performed great in real world conditions, providing there was not too much ambient noise.
We wish we had VoiceNav on our Archos Jukebox, a player we filled with tunes, but made the mistake of putting them all under one directory, making for a lot of scroll and search. I'll guess we will just have to take the time reload all the songs on that player, adding several folders to make searching easier.
http://www.mp3newswire.net/stories/2002/mxp100review.html
I'm with you on this one, Cass. Our margins will be better on the HD1213 if we don't have to factor in licensing fees to Lucent for their speech recognition s/w. I have questioned all along why FTen would want 2 separate speech recognition systems in one product line.
Uhhh, how could JOtteman put a spin on something that wasn't known until your subsequent post. Now THAT's what I'd call spin! (as opposed to JOtteman's idle speculation) Unless your out of state travels constituted an amazing spin, in which case my comment is withdrawn.
Wouldn't it be wonderful if Mr. Softee could do away with the clunky folder-subfolder Winfile system on most PCs? Just think of how much better it would be to use FindFile all the time instead.
Totally different…, March 20, 2003
Reviewer: GC from UK
This is undoubtedly a very unusual and beautiful MP3 player but it is also extremely expensive. I've been using the Beosound 2 for a while now and it is only after a few weeks that you fully realise what the designers were trying to achieve with this player.
I am not going to pretend that the Bosound 2 is cheap or indeed that it is possible to justify spending this much money on an MP3 player, but I have found that the Beosound 2 makes me want to listen to my music more than any other personal music player that I have ever owned. In this respect the design is a complete success.
The Beosound 2 is Bang and Olufsen's only portable player and its apparent simplicity belies the amount of thought that has gone into the design. The player is quite small and fits very comfortably in the palm of the hand. The shell is polished stainless steel but despite this the player is quite light. The steel case makes it feel very sturdy an it seems built to last. There are no sharp edges and the whole player is very well finished - as it should be at this price.
The player is a sort of mini-discus shape with a segment cut out to house the 3.5mm headphone socket. On the upper surface of the player is a collection of keys through which you can control all features. On the underside is a black plastic door into which slots an MMC or SD memory card. A 128MB card was supplied with my player which holds about 2 hours of MP3s or 4 hours of WMA since the player supports both formats. There is also a set of recessed contacts that allow the player to connect to its charging/download stand which connects to a USB on your PC or Mac (again the player supports both).
The stand is extremely unusual. It is a squat black flared plastic stand, larger in diameter at the bottom than the top. Near the base there is a ring going all the way around the base which glows red, green or amber when the player is placed on top, depending on the function being performed. This ring also flashes slowly if the player is charging. the player latches on to the top of the stand, triggering communication with the PC or Mac.
The battery is built inside the player and charges quite quickly - in a couple of hours or so. Battery life is good at about 8 hours per charge, so its good for a day's listening.
The supplied earphones are B&O's own and have received many good reviews. They are thought by some to be one of the best in-ear phones money can buy. I don't know about that but to my ears the sound of the combination of the Beosound 2 and the B&O earphones is nothing short of extraordinary. The Beosound 2 is expensive but if you like your music reproduced faithfully you should listen to this player. Sound is loud, clear and dynamic and this is the first player I have listened to where even at 128kbps, MP3s sound convincing as if nothing is missing from the music. At higher bitrates the sound is truly hi-fi.
People who haven't used the Beosound 2 and see it for the first time invariably ask the same two things:
1) can I have a listen?
2) where's the display?
The answer to the first is usually yes and the answer to the second is that the Beosound 2 doesn't have a display. Let's think about that: a player this expensive with no display. What were B&O thinking? I don't know for sure, but the whole philosophy behind this player seems to have been 'sound and simplicity'. I nearly didn't buy this player because of the lack of display, but now that I've lived with it for a while the strange thing is that the B&O designers have done their job correctly and in use I came to understand that this player is so easy to use it doesn't need a display.
Here's how it B&O achieved it: the collection of buttons on the top of the player are designed so you can quickly identify any key just by feel. This means that as you get used to the player you tend to leave it in your pocket and quickly feel for the button you want. Two up/down buttons skip one track forward or backward and another two skip one playlist backward and forward. This is the secret to the lack of display because these two sets of buttons together let you find any track extremely quickly without taking the player out of your pocket as long as you've got your earphones in. Think of it a little like the steering-wheel mounted controllers you can buy for in-car hi-fi sets and you'll get the idea. When you transfer your music to the player from your PC or Mac the secret is to put every album into its own playlist then navigation is easy.
There are many other design touches that make using the player easy. Once music is loaded and you remove it from the stand it begins playing, for example. Likewise it stops automatically when you put it in the stand and contacts the PC or Mac. There are a series of sounds that let you know what the player is doing and these are audible through the earphones as well as quietly from the player itself. There is a key lock function if required and random play is supported but there are no bass boosts or equalisers to play around with the sound. The sound is so clean and clear you shouldn't need them.
Once you're used to it this player is a dream to use. Simple, reliable and with excellent sound that's very easy to listen to long term. It looks very desirable but its main advantages only become clear once you've owned it for a while. It definitely isn't for everyone but I haven't heard a better sounding player yet. http://www.goodstereotogo.com/product.asp?category=5&manufacturer=B%26O&model=BeoSound+2
Per TWICE magazine, the HD1213 is expected to sell for $499. http://www.twice.com/index.asp?layout=story_stocks&articleid=CA270205
PCPro mag in Norway covers HD100:
http://www.pcpro.no/tilbehor/mp3/mp3konkurransen.htm
Changes underway at an Eclipse website:
Used to be http://www.eclipseb2b.com/website/AboutIntro.asp
Now it's http://www.eclipseb2b.com
Stay tuned.
Cute, ain't it?.... http://global.hitachi.com/New/cnews/E/2003/0106d/
Apple downloads ring sour note
REVIEW By Gary Krakow, MSNBC
All hail Apple's iTunes Music Store. It's very well thought out, and beautifully executed. If only as much thought had gone into the sound quality, which is far from beautiful.
THE INTERNET is nearly the perfect medium for downloading music, video and more, as anyone who has ever played with Napster or other file-sharing services knows. But with the music industry up in arms about stolen royalties, something had to be done to give them and the musicians their share of the pie, and companies have been struggling to find ways to do it. You have to give Apple a lot of credit for figuring out a really neat way to tap into this huge market for downloads -- and for getting lots of publicity for its launch.
Overall, Apple's music store is a pleasure to use. It's easy, fast and efficient. It's so easy -- and mindless -- I can see users (assuming they have both a Mac and OS X) spending lots of money downloading music.
The premise is simple. First, you need Apple's latest digital music player software, iTunes 4, and the latest version of QuickTime (6.2). In addition to letting you burn CDs and sync song lists with your iPod, iTunes now also has a special button that takes you to the online store.
Once there, you can hear 30-second previews of songs before you buy them. Single cuts go for 99 cents, albums usually for around $9.99. Once you've set up your account and given Apple a credit card number, you press one button and the material is automatically downloaded to another new iTunes button: Purchased Music. It's that simple.
After downloading the music, it's yours -- sort of. You can burn the cuts onto a CD as many times as you'd like. You can stream them through your home via some clever Apple software (Rendezvous) and you can store them on up to three computers. Apple figures that should be enough to share your downloaded music with friends and family while not giving you free rein to trade it with many other people.
Overall, the experience is a lot better than anything that previously existed. The using and buying experience gets an A-plus.
Of course, the service only works on Apple computers right now, leaving more than 90 percent of its potential users out in the cold. And while sales were high in its first week, that's typical of most Apple products: demand is high at the beginning, then sales taper off rapidly once the built-in Apple audience buys its fill. Apple is going to need to break that cycle, or risk its store going the way of other cool, but short-lived, designs.
THE SOUND OF MUSIC
My biggest problem, however, is with the quality of the downloads.
Apple has chosen AAC (Advanced Audio Coding) compression for the music. (AAC is actually Dolby's version of the MPEG-4 audio codec.) Apple says AAC is more efficient than older formats like MP3 and that "expert listeners have judged AAC audio files compressed at 128 kbps (stereo) to be virtually indistinguishable from the uncompressed audio source."
I'd love to meet those experts.
Last night, I downloaded the latest album by The Wallflowers to hear what Apple's downloads sound like compared to the "real" CD, which I own. After my one-click download, I burned a CD of the cuts. The CD played on the Apple computer, on my PC and in my two standalone DVD players. (Any device that can play a DVD can play burned copies of Apple's AAC-compressed songs.)
The burned disk did NOT play in any of my CD players. Not in the ones hooked up to my stereo, my portable players, or even in an old laptop without DVD capabilities. Nor did they play on either of my older MP3 players.
It's true: Apple's AAC cuts sound great with the tiny little speakers that come with computers. And they sound pretty good on an original (but AAC upgraded) iPod through the stock headphones. But listen through good headphones and what you'll hear is dull-sounding bass, slightly sibilant voice quality and a lack of three-dimensionality.
When I moved up to the DVD player connected to my stereo, the difference was huge. The AAC cuts had a complete lack of air around the singer and instruments in the band. The sound quality was somewhat dynamic, but dull sounding. When I compared the downloaded songs to the real CD it was no contest. The uncompressed CD .wav files sounded much, much, much better.
This might not matter to most people, but consider this: The Wallflowers CD cost me $11.99 when I bought it. I can make as many legal copies as I like for my personal use -- and those copies all sound great and play on any device I can think of. I can also rip the songs onto my MP3 players and the iPod. The Wallflowers download from iTunes cost me $9.99, is limited in where I can play and store it -- and the sound is inferior.
Even if you think AAC cuts are good enough for your listening needs, you're paying way too much for this near-CD quality when a few cents more per cut can get you the real thing. Apple should consider slashing the price of their music to reflect the ultimate quality of its offerings. For now, I'll stick with CDs.
http://msnbc.com/news/909907.asp?0dm=C15MT
Error in Globe review re weight:
10 & 15 GB iPods: 5.6 oz
30 GB iPods: 6.2 oz
20GB Odyssey: 8.2 oz
(I don't see how it could weigh more than 1.5 x an iPod, even if it's stuffed with 4000 tunes and a fully-charged battery.)
OT food for thought:
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=15796
An uneven Odyssey toward the digital-music promised land
By Michael Prager, Globe Staff, 5/4/2003
Whenever I hear a cut from ''Cosmo's Factory,'' the 1970 classic by Creedence Clearwater Revival, I think Venezuela. That's because when my family carted me there on vacation that year, I carted that cassette among a shoebox full of others, along with a player that rivaled the shoebox in size.
When I stepped onto the plane for the New Orleans Jazz Festival on Thursday, I carried seven or eight times the amount of music on my iPod, slipped into my shirt pocket.
As impressive as that is, I sometimes wish it could do more. That's why I was eager to try the Odyssey 1000, which has emerged from the same neighborhood as the iPod, but with an FM radio and a voice recorder. Now that I have, I find it tough to say whether it is a fruitful advance or just another baby misstep toward the electronic promised land.
Here are the good points: The sound quality is great and the robust tuner accepts 12 station presets, more than one could ever use in this nothing's-on era of shrink-wrapped radio. The voice recorder adequately snares voices at 15 feet, good enough to take down the minutes of your next meeting, even if the meeting goes on for days: The manufacturer, e.Digital of San Diego, says 16 hours of talking will fill only one gigabyte and the Odyssey gives you 20.
As e.Digital boasts, that translates to as many as 10,000 songs. Even with the added functions, the Odyssey's suggested price of $350 is $50 less than the 15- gigabyte iPod announced by Apple on Monday.
Regrettably, another size comparison isn't so favorable: The Odyssey is bigger in every respect, most tellingly in heft, where its 6.2 ounces is almost twice the iPod's - and that was before the new iPods were announced; the new ones are touted to be smaller and lighter. Six ounces would have wowed them in Venezuela, but it fails the shirt-pocket test nevertheless.
The Odyssey fares poorly in several other ergonomic areas as well, most annoyingly in start-up time. About 20 seconds lapse between pushing the on button and getting sound, a condition that evokes a 1950s television more than anything from this century. It's hard to know whether the wait was programmed to allow for the two promotional animations that fill the display screen during the interlude, or if they threw those in to fill the crank-up time, but regardless, it is absurdly long.
Learning to operate the device was less intuitive than learning the iPod. The main cog is a wheel that spins for scrolling menus and is pressed to make selections, similar to a Blackberry's main navigational tool. The problem was that after I'd chosen a song,
the finger force needed to turn the wheel too often depressed it, choosing whatever was on the menu screen at the time. I also didn't like that when I paused a song long enough to make the power saver shut off the Odyssey, the player couldn't remember where I'd stopped when I turned it back on.
Voice Nav, which might have been the Odyssey's neatest feature, is instead its most irritating disappointment. As the name implies, you're supposed to be able to navigate menus via voice recognition. But not once did I get to the song I wanted; either it ''recognized'' an artist or song I wasn't voicing, or it gave a too-long tone saying it didn't get it.
When I asked to sample the Odyssey, it was one of the only devices I'd heard of that combined digital music with a radio. But a little more than a week ago, Griffin Technology started shipping an iPod FM device that sells for $35. Sure, it's only an add-on, but it neutralizes Odyssey's greatest advantage. And, of course, the iPod is available for Macs and Windows; the Odyssey is limited to the latter.
Michael Prager can be reached at prager@globe.com.
This story ran on page N20 of the Boston Globe on 5/4/2003.
© Copyright 2003 Globe Newspaper Company.
DivXNetworks Launches First Ever DivX(R) for Mac Video Encoder
World’s Leading MPEG-4 Compatible Video Technology Now Offers Highest Visual Quality and Performance for Mac Users
SAN DIEGO, CA -- (MARKET WIRE) -- 05/05/2003 -- DivXNetworks, Inc., today announced the release of the DivX® 5.0.5 Video Codec for Mac, available at www.divx.com/divx/mac. The new release offers the first ever DivX video encoder for the Mac OS, enabling Mac users to easily create DVD-quality video at 1/10th the size of MPEG-2.
“Mac users and digital video enthusiasts have been waiting anxiously for this release, and we’re excited to bring the best video codec in the world to the platform of choice for professional video content creation,” said Kevin Hell, chief marketing officer and managing director at DivXNetworks, Inc. (www.divxnetworks.com). “DivX for Mac offers unparalleled visual quality, better than real-time encoding speed and superior playback performance that is ideal for the multimedia Mac environment.”
DivX for Mac OS, a QuickTime component that runs on Mac OS 8.6 through Mac OS X, is available with an optional MP3 encoder to ensure cross platform audio compatibility. The new release empowers Mac users to create, distribute and watch full screen DVD quality video, offering the highest level of compression with advanced encoding tools and interlaced video support.
DivX 5.0.5 for Mac is available to consumers in two versions. DivX Pro 5.0.5 for Mac, an advanced application for professional users, is available for a small one-time charge. A standard version of the Mac codec is also offered for download free of charge. To download DivX 5.0.5 for Mac today, visit www.divx.com/divx/mac.
About DivXNetworks
DivXNetworks is a consumer-focused video technology company positioned at the center of multimedia convergence. The company’s core offering is the DivX® video codec, the world’s most popular MPEG-4 compatible video compression technology with over 80 million users worldwide. Often called “the MP3 of video,” the patent-pending DivX video technology offers DVD-quality at 10 times greater compression than MPEG-2 files, enabling full length films to easily fit on a CD or be delivered over broadband connections. DivX video technology powers a range of applications that span the convergence value chain, from a secure IP-based video-on-demand solution to next-generation consumer electronics products and video software applications. DivXNetworks is headquartered in San Diego, California, with a satellite office in Los Angeles. For more information, visit www.divxnetworks.com.
Intel has released software that lets computers read lips, a step forward that could lead to better voice-recognition applications. The Audio Visual Speech Recognition (AVSR) software tracks a speaker's face and mouth movements. By matching these movements with speech, the application can provide a computer with enough data to respond to voice recognition commands, even when these are given in noisy environments.
29 April 2003
Lip-reading computers are born
New open source software from Intel enables computers to read users' lips – a great leap forward for voice recognition applications.
The accuracy of many current speech recognition applications degrades when there is background noise – in public places, for example.
Intel has developed Audio Visual Speech recognition (AVSR) software that uses face detection algorithms to help computers track a speaker's mouth movements.
The software synchronizes video data with speech identification to enable much more accurate speech recognition.
"Intel wants to develop technology that allows computers to naturally interact with the world the way humans do," said Justin Rattner, Intel senior fellow, Enterprise Platform Group and director of Intel's Microprocessor Research Labs.
"Human recognition is seldom based on a single type of information. We make decisions by combining information from a variety of sources."
The AVSR software has been released as part of Intel's OpenCV computer vision library – a royalty-free toolbox of code for researchers, designed to increase innovation in the field.
http://www.internet-magazine.com/news/view.asp?id=3379
http://www.intel.com/research/mrl/research/avcsr.htm
Let's try that one again...
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&as_qdr=all&q=Monsterdes...
In atonement for my sins (both real and perceived)...
BeoSound 2 to be available for Mac users
March 19, 2003 - 06:29 EST Bang & Olufsen has responded to requests from Mac users and is making the company's portable MP3 player, BeoSound 2, compatible with iTunes. BeoSound 2 was launched in the spring and was then compatible only with Bang & Olufsen's own BeoPlayer and Windows Media Player. "This triggered a flood of inquiries from disappointed Macintosh users who wanted to invest in the UFO-like player. We were surprised at the large number of inquiries we received from Macintosh users who wanted to buy a BeoSound 2," said Jens Victor Fischer, Product Manager at Bang & Olufsen.
"We had deliberately chosen not to develop BeoSound 2 to make it compatible with Macintosh computers because they account for such a small proportion of the total market, just 3.8%. However, the calculations we have done on the basis of all the inquiries we have received show that Macintosh users represent a larger customer segment for us than we first assumed."
The first Macintosh-compatible BeoSound 2 players will be available in December. In addition, it will be possible for those who already own a BeoSound 2 to download software from that will enable it to work with iTunes. "All in all, this has been a very positive experience. We cannot say much more than that Macintosh users have good taste. So now we are hoping for a flood of communications from Mac users who are satisfied with us," noted Fischer.
http://www.macminute.com/2003/03/19/beosound