International CES 2007 Show Report

Sunday: Press Conference Day
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  It is only minutes before Bill Gates will be on stage and my waiting has paid off as i sit dead center and a mere 1 row from the front. It opened up with a video celebrating CEA's 40 years of their CES show. Gary Shapiro gave an overview of CES, CEA, and introduced Bill Gates. He touted how the digital lifestyle is taking the forefront in consumer lives. While vast amounts of storage are now available, it is the connections, integration and collaboration with others is what needs to be accomplished. It is the "connected experience." Windows Vista will be the highest quality Microsoft product delivered according to Bill Gates. Vista was a big project in pulling all the elements together. Vista was also the largest investment into a piece of software, with over 60 years of combined research and development.

Windows media center will naturally work seamlessly with software both within your hard drive and online media. Windows Vista Ultimate, the company's top line product, will provide additional media features. Connectivity includes not just home products, you can easily get your data while traveling plus share it with friends.

Robbie Bach is the guy we music lovers should focus on, as he is in charge of the media side of Windows. While 200 million people play games using their Windows system, 10.4 million Xbox consoles have been sold to date. The Xbox controller works with Vista and allows Vista users to enjoy Xbox Live and interact together. High definition content can work with a compute and the Xbox with the newly available external Xbox HD DVD drive. Microsoft Media Center (over 30 million copies sold worldwide) and Xbox Live video will work together seamlessly. This is iptv (Internet protocol Television) on Xbox where you download and view videos from major networks, movies, music, etc. Remember, this is high-definition content and not crappy Apple iTunes compressed rubbish. In my opinion it is long overdue that higher rez content become widely available. Anyone who has read my recent editorials within our Review Magazine knows this. So who of high-end audio will be the first to deliver this type of content online? Website Music Giants is a good start, yet there is still a way to go for real high-end audio music delivery via online. Why is it that virtually none of the boutique audiophile labels offer uncompressed music online?

Bill Gates says many spend well over 90 minutes of their day within their car. Microsoft is making a strong showing there with an exclusive deal with Ford Motor Company. Mark Fields, Ford's executive vice president, said they are partnering to use Microsoft technology. This is not just the usual Bluetooth and text to voice technology. We are talking full integration with personal media players and various content providers. Years ago Microsoft partnered with Clarion to produce the AutoPC. This was about 6 years ago and was a single DIN radio that featured voice recognition, DVD playback, GPS, cellular phone integration, etc. i know this because i was one of the few people who felt the brilliance in this product. Unfortunately it seems Microsoft was years ahead of their time and most people were not quite ready for such technology as they are today. And so ends the Microsoft conference.

So i kinda sorta got my way into the HD DVD press conference and they started with a mini-movie about the format wars and how various people on the street feel about and know, or lack thereof, of the HD DVD versus Blu-ray format wars. With more than 160 releases, and Xbox support, things are moving forward in the HD DVD field. Joe Kane, a longstanding expert in video, was on the mini-movie and touted how good HD DVD is versus that, well, other proprietary format.

You know, the usual proprietary format from the same company that releases other proprietary formats that seem to confuse the public versus industry standard formats. The same company that releases new technology and seem to dump the stuff they touted only a handful or years earlier. Oh, and by the way, high-end manufacturer Meridian has joined the HD DVD equipment manufacturers (as have others). More than 300 new titles will be released in 2007, which can you believe they work with today's DVD players too! (Sarcasm mode on) Imagine that, backward compatibility. A total of 600 movie titles are expected to be available by the 2007 holidays. The Matrix trilogy and Star Trek will be on HD DVD. Sales rate of software are 28 titles per hardware unit. For the number crunchers out there, they predict $600 million in HD DVD sales in 2007.

Interactivity is one of the keys with next generation units. Of course the new discs with added interactivity are compatible with generation 1 hardware, though generation 2 units can take advantage of the players memory to use various features. One of the new features is what is akin to making your own movie clip. Clip data can be sent to your community, your friends, through the Internet. Of course the person receiving the content can choose to accept it or not, for security purposes of course.

Besides home units, there are HD DVD hardware drives for computers, including laptops, and HD DVD writers for home recording. Triple layer HD DVD is feasible and will hold 51GB of data. For those into car audio, Alpine is showing a car audio HD DVD unit during the CES. Amir Majidimehr, Corporate Vice President of Microsoft, touted the technology and picture quality of HD DVD. Advanced lossless TrueHD 5.1 is standard on all units, so perhaps we audiophiles may need to learn another format. In the end you need to ask yourself if you support proprietary formats or one that is supported by a wide range of manufacturers plus a format (HD DVD) that many software pressing plants can easily produce/master content.

 

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