"The SANYO R227 will make your life easier by finding you the stations you want to listen to while you pretend to work. As Sanyo’s vice president, Tom Van Voy states, the device needs no tethering to a computer. It seems that it has an own database for Internet stations. Oh, and it looks quite ugly. You have to wait until January to get one for $169.99."

Living in a digital household means being able to listen to your music collection all over the house. Over the years, I've experimented with a wide variety of music streaming solutions, including Intenret Radios, old laptops and PDAs. While Intenret radios are a great way to stream music while using relatively little power, I've found them too expensive for what they offer. Also, if I want to stream my own music, I need to set up something like a shoutcast station. In the end, I found the best solution for me is a low-fi solution; my server plays music through mpd with a web interface and it broadcasts on an FM transmitter. This solution allows anything that can pick up an FM signal (which is still a LOT of stuff) can play my music. Just have a radio in the kitchen? No problem! Like to sing in the shower? No problem! Out in the yard raking leaves? No... well, you get the picture. Has anyone found a good, low cost solution for in home streaming? Solutions like the Sanyo R227 are great, but it the wallet.

"At the title states, the Blockbuster OnDemand MediaPoint 2Wire box just isn't ready for prime time. While the pricing is extremely reasonable ($99 for the hardware, including 25 movie rentals), the interface looks pleasant, and the content selection is solid... the device is in need of a software update before I can recommend it."

It looks like the Blockbuster OnDemand set-top box might not we quite ready for public consumption. Dave over at ZatzNotFunny.com rented one movie and after unresponsive hardware, manual reboots, DRM errors, video artifacts, stuttering, and loss of audio/video sync he has packed the box away in the closet. For a box that only does one thing, it doesn't seem to do it very well.

DXOMark.com is a new site that does only one thing but does it well - it evaluates camera sensors in RAW mode. It looks at three areas: color depth, dynamic range and low light ISO. It evaluates each category plus it gives you an overall DXOMark rating. The site makes it easy for you to compare multiple cameras side by side. I find it very useful, especially when used in conjunction with written reviews from other sites. It helps me flesh out the comments other reviewers make. Check it out!

"Nikon has announced the D3X, its latest high-resolution professional DSLR. Sporting an imaging sensor with double the number of photosites of the popular D3, the 24.5 megapixel D3x includes similar features such as a 3.0", 920,000 dot LCD monitor with Live View, 51-point autofocus, EXPEED image processing and HDMI output. To keep up with the demands of stock photography the camera produces 50MB 14-bit RAW files that can be processed to produce 140MB TIFFs. It also supports Nikon’s wireless system and is compatible with Nikon’s new GP-1 GPS unit."

The 24.5 megapixel Nikon D3X is not a replacement for, but a sibling to the award winning 12 megapixel Nikon D3. To double the megapixels, Nikon incorporated a new full frame sensor built by Sony. However, there is a serious drawback to the D3X - the price. At USD $7,999, the list price is $3,000 more than the Nikon D3, forcing pros to pay a lot for those 12 additional megapixels. It is also $5,000 more than the 24.6 megapixel Sony A900, which uses a very similar sensor. I think with our current world economy, this is going to be one tough sale for Nikon. Nonetheless, for those who want it and can afford it, it is truly an outstanding camera.

"Canon added much more to the Canon EOS 50D than just another 5MP. Improvements over the EOS 40D include: A 15.1 MP CMOS sensor with a "gapless microlens" design for higher efficiency, a 920,000 dot, 3" 640x480 pixel VGA resolution LCD with enhanced anti-reflection coating, a microfocus adjustment which can be applied on a fixed or lens by lens basis, an ISO range from 100-3200, plus expansion to 6400(H1) and 12800(H2)..."

In the 50D, not only were enhancements made, Canon also added new features not seen before on their mid-level digital SLRs. The best enhancement to the 50D is the upgraded 640x480 920,000 pixel screen on the back of the camera. As a current owner of Canon's predecessor, the 40D, its 320x240 screen is the one flaw I found on the otherwise excellent camera it as it is hard to judge your photos. The best new features are the micro focus adjustment and the two higher ISO settings. The only drawback is that Canon once again pushed the number of megapixels to the maximum. In doing so, the 50D photos show noise that is equal to or slightly higher than the 40D. For this reason, I think the 50D is a minor upgrade for a 40D owner, but a significant upgrade for owners of earlier versions of Canon DSLRs.

"Since hearing about Nokia's foray into the world of home automation, our curiosity has been seriously piqued. Thankfully, our girl-on-the-scene Drita has captured video of the new software / hardware combo in action on the Nokia World show floor. It looks like a fully decked out system is going to run you a hefty fee (given all the components required), but can you put a price on the extreme laziness it will enable? We didn't think so. Check out the thrilling video out after the break!"

Nokia World 2008 is in full force, and one of their announcements is the launch of their "Home Control Center." Engadget has a video that quickly demonstrates its capabilities. Apparently, the Home Control Center gives Nokia phones the capability to access their Z-Wave enabled devices at home. There's no mention whether it will also interface with X10 and Zigbee devices. While I'm thrilled to see more companies embracing home automation, I get the sense that this is no more than a Nokia specific gateway for their phones to talk to Z-Wave modules. The same sort of functionality can be had, more or less, through an browser enabled phone, albeit not quite as easily. Would this be enough for you to pick a Nokia phone? Or is it just a nice extra feature that you might use?

"The PowerShot G10 ($499) is the flagship camera in Canon's point-and-shoot lineup. Its highlights include a 14.7 Megapixel CCD, 5X wide-angle zoom lens, image stabilization, a high resolution t3-inch LCD, and more manual controls than you can shake a stick at."

This Canon is almost the perfect small, carry-anywhere camera for photo enthusiasts. It is fun to use, can take RAW images and has great manual capabilities. At ISO 80, the photos from this camera rival those from larger and more expensive digital SLR's. But it has one glaring flaw - low light performance. It seems that Canon got caught up in the megapixel race and by increasing the number of megapixels on the same 1/1.7 inch sensor, it increased the noise in the images which really shows up in low light photography. Canon would have been better served reducing the megapixels and the subsequent noise. If you don't need low light, it is a great camera to get.

"This growing list of backwards policies is already creating a sense of digital isolation: Canadians can’t stream the videos Americans stream, download the files Americans download, remix the media Americans remix, or tweet the way Americans tweet. With the election of Barack Obama, digital culture in the U.S. hit a tipping point, where a robust online public sphere proved itself capable of changing the world. Meanwhile, here in Canada we’re approaching our own tipping point, where a series of ignorances and capitulations threaten to turn our country into a digital ghetto."

Living in Canada, the digital climate has a direct impact on me and my concerns echo a lot of what Jesse Brown has posted. Internet access, both wired and wireless, in Canada is relatively expensive and slower than our friends south of the border. This in combintion with a growing effort on DRM restrictions makes Canada a less inviting atmosphere for innovation. One case in point mentioned in the article is Twitter recently shutting down outbound SMS messages in Canada. Canadians, well, anyone, needs to make an effort to make sure that their country strives to keep its Internet access as cheap and open as possible. With the impact that a pervasive Internet can have on our lives, it's worth that effort.

"Buying music and video software for your PC can be an expensive and confusing experience for even experienced consumers. All that is about the change with the introduction of the TrakAxPC —the ultimate multimedia creation tool. TrakAx empowers you to create professional music and video mixes in an easy-to-use and fun environment. Whether you are creating a music track for your MySpace page or a video for YouTube, TrakAxPC is the most powerful FREE application on the web."

Looks to be a nice, basic audio and video editing program. Has anyone tried it yet? If not, you can't beat the price.

"Nikon is finally ready to ship its GPS dongle, the rather lazily named GP-1. First announced back in August, the device slips into the hot-shoe connector of compatible cameras (D200, D3, D700, D90, D300 and the brand-new D3X) and records the positional information to the image. This can be picked up later for geo-tagging images, either at home (most image processing software now supports geo-tagging, including Nikon's own ViewNX) or by online services like Flickr."

This is a GPS unit that hooks into the flash connector and tags all your photos with GPS data. Most of the photo hosting sites such as Smugmug and Flickr can use this data and show where your photos were taken. This is such a cool device! I can't wait for Canon to release one.

"Adobe has released an update to its Camera Raw Plug-in for Photoshop CS4. Camera Raw 5.2, which replaces v5.1, extends support to seven more cameras, including Canon EOS 5D Mark II and Panasonic DMC-G1. The update includes enhanced color profiles, output sharpening and a new Targeted Adjustment tool. In addition, users can save all image adjustments and settings as a single snapshot for future reference."

The latest release of Adobe Camera Raw adds more than just the usual new cameras. It also adds some great new features. The targeted adjustment tool is especially useful in developing your raw images as you can adjust parts of the photo differently. Kudos to Adobe for continuing to add features to their raw processor. The only downsides I see is that you have to manually remove the beta camera profiles (the only change was to remove the words Beta 2). Some devotees still think the Nikon and Canon software does a better job of raw conversion, but, each new version from Adobe reduces the gap. ACR 5.2 is available for Photoshop Elements 6 & 7, Premiere Elements 4 & 7 and Photoshop CS4.

"For weeks now, Roku Netflix Player owners have noticed an almost universal drop in quality dots (which range from 1 to 4 in order to show quality levels), with many finding the new feeds "unwatchable." CNET recently had a talk with Tim Twerdahl, vice president of consumer products at Roku, about the issue, and according to Tim, all he knows is that "Roku didn't make any changes." Furthermore, we've seen comments in our own posts noting that other Netflix-enabled boxes are also seeing the quality drop. The worst part is that there's still no definitive solution in sight, so we suppose our only advice is to kick back and watch Netflix and Roku bicker over who's really to blame"

I don't have a Roku box, but apparently users are having issues with Netflix streaming quality, to the point that the video becomes unwatchable. This got me thinking about the fundamental differences between streaming and download services particularly as it relates to the (relatively) new category of IP set-top boxes.

Streaming services like Netflix automatically adjust the quality of the video based on the media player: bandwidth, resolution, etc. The stream is not stored, but played and then discarded. Time to playback is typically short but quality may be limited. If the connection is unreliable or unavailable, a streaming solution effectively no longer works.

Conversely, download services deliver an existing video file but may require the entire file to be downloaded before beginning playback. Since the file is stored locally, quality is consistent and it can easily be replayed. In a system with progressive download, used by Vudu and the new Blockbuster set-top box, playback is started before the video is completely downloaded. However, depending on connection speed and quality, playback may be delayed while waiting for the video download to finish.

Personally, I've had a great experience with progressive downloads, like Vudu or Amazon Video on Demand to Tivo. My connection is fast enough that SD and HD movies on Vudu are available for immediate viewing, and if I choose to wait I can have the extremely high-quality HDX video. I can even get Amazon video to the Tivo in our bedroom, which struggles to hang on to a wireless connection.

I've also streamed a few Netflix movies to computer. It works quite well on those computers wired into my network. But I have noticed serious video artifacts when streaming to my wireless-G-connected kitchen computer. Netflix streaming is a great secondary VOD source, but I can't see it as my primary movie source, at least not for the next couple of years.

Do you have a Roku box? Are you experiencing these quality issues?

Data loss is brutal to deal with. Regular Digital Home Thoughts readers know that I bring up the issue of data backup regularly, because sadly most people don't take data backups seriously until they've lost something they cared about (I know I was the same way). The folks at Seagate, in conjunction with Notebooks.com and nine other Web sites, would like to give one lucky winner a head start on changing their backup habits by giving them a Seagate FreeAgent Go 500 GB portable drive, and a monstrous 1TB FreeAgent Desk drive. For those of you not so good at the mathematics, that's 1500 GB of storage space, all at blazing USB 2.0 speeds. What's not to love?

Want to win this hard drive prize package? All you have to do is answer the following question: What do you have on your notebook or desktop computer that you'd be devastated if you lost? Have you ever lost important data - what happened? Post your reply in this discussion thread, one comment per person. The winner will be chosen randomly from all the posted comments. Your deadline for submitting your comment is 11:59 PM Pacific Time on December the 6th. The winner will be announced on Monday the 8th.

Interested in increasing your chances of winning? Stop by each of these other nine great sites and enter their contests as well:

• CrunchGear
• Bleeping Computer
• Gotta Be Mobile
• Notebooks.com
• GeeksToGo
• PlanetAMD64.com
• Gadgetell
• Paulstamatiou.com
• Macenstein.com
• Bleeping Computer
  

"A typical Netbook has a 7 inch screen, an Intel Atom or Via Nano processor, a solid state (flash) hard drive and a keyboard that’s 80-85% standard size. Most have Wifi. Some have other bells and whistles like bluetooth, a camera, etc. I find Netbooks unusable for three reasons: they’re underpowered as PCs, the screen is too small for web surfing, and the keyboard is so small that effective typing is impossible. The basic problem as I see it: Netbooks are designed to appeal to two very different markets - the price sensitive and the size sensitive. The two are really mutually exclusive."

Michael Arrington has posted a scathing article on Netbooks, describing them as a inadequate for the markets it is targeted for and even takes the opportunity to plug his concept tablet. I have to disgree, as I see Netbooks happily serving many customers. On paper Netbooks definately do not impress, but their purpose is to serve as a lightweight, mobile companion. I think Arrington has fallen into the same trap that many others do in seeing a Netbook that is the same form factor as a notebook, his expectation is that it is a notebook. Netbooks fill a much different need, with customers, not techies, who just want to be able to access the Internet to check their email, IM their buddies, and twitter a bit. Netbooks are capable of a bit more, of course, but even in only serving that much, they probably fit 80-90% of what a customer needs. Does Arrington have a point? Sure. But I think he's only highlighting that Netbooks have a limited use for someone into tech. Tell me there's at least one person other than myself that have welcomed Netbooks with open arms.

If you want to maximize your chances of winning the contest Jason recently announced, you need to enter as many times as you can. You'll get your chance to enter here soon, but in the meantime, you can enter right now at these site:

Gear Live

Bleeping Computer

Windows Connected

Thoughts on Poetics and Tech

Morningside Mom

Neowin

Boston Pocket PC

"UPS just arrived with the new Blockbuster OnDemand movie rental box, by 2Wire. If you recall, $99 gets you the box and 25 video rental credits. Once those have been consumed, content begins at $1.99 a pop. Packaging is Blockbuster branded, though there’s absolutely no mention of “Blockbuster” on the unit. (Then again, the competing Roku box is also devoid of “Netflix” branding.) The AppleTV-shaped hardware feels somewhat plasticy, but it’s more attractive and has more personality than the Roku box."

On the surface, looks pretty similar to the Roku box (which I have and am working on a review of) but focused on rentals rather than the all-you-can-eat mentality of the Roku box. It does not look like this is tied to Blockbuster's on-line rental service and if it offers a decent number of new releases, it might be attractive to those that only get a few movies a month.

"Blockbuster Inc. caught up to the competition last week by introducing a set-top box that brings rentals from the Internet to the television. Now, the Dallas-based company hopes to pass the pack by teaming with Microsoft Corp. on new mobile services that will let customers watch even more movies on more devices. "Eventually, we'll give customers instant access to any movie on any device with an Internet connection and a screen," said Keith Morrow, Blockbuster's chief information officer."

Blockbuster news continues to trickle out. Last week Blockbuster announced a new set-top box and over the weekend it was announced they would eventually support downloading to some Blu-Ray players. Today, the news broke that they are teaming with Microsoft to deliver a new set of mobile services, in part based on LiveMesh. Details are sketchy and this is more of a directional announcement than an product announcement. However, it sounds like Blockbuster is seriously considering how to better compete in this new media environment.

Now if they can just do something about the paltry size of their Blockbuster OnDemand library...

"35% cash back from eBay purchase using Microsoft Live Search *No selling!* Only applies to Buy It Now items paid for using PayPal. For example, go to http://www.live.com/ (type it into your browser, don't click the link in this post) and search for a Wii. Check the paid results at the top and right for a link to eBay with the "live search cashback" icon. Click it, find a Buy It Now auction for a Wii (or whatever you want for that matter). Discount should be listed on checkout page."

Microsoft's Live.com Cashback program is a great deal that gives you cash back for purchasing items found via the Live.com search engine at more than 600 stores. Apparently this also applies to eBay "Buy-it-Now" items that are paid for with PayPal. The cashback percentage appears to fluctuate, but as of this posting was running a whopping 30%!

I was already planning to includes Live.Com Cashback in my holiday shopping, but I'm going to make sure and check eBay now.

"Introducing the revolutionary features of trakAxMobile, the ultimate multimedia editing and mixing suite for mobile devices. Harnessing the power of new devices with great camera and video functionality, trakAxMobile empowers you to be creative with your media on the go. Be as ambitious as creating video mashups for an audience of thousands or as intimate as creating a photo slideshow to share with friends. Buy Now for only $12. trakAxMobile for VGA devices has advanced features such as photo effects and cropping, the Ken Burns (Pan & Zoom effect), advanced video transitions and more!"

Wow: colour me impressed! That's a lot of cool functionality to bring to a Windows Mobile device, and the price of $12 for a VGA device (and only $8-$10 for other devices) is very reasonable. Being able to create ring-tones on the device itself isn't a new trick, but creating video slideshows from still photos complete with Ken Burns pans and zooms? Wow - that's a new one to me! If getting your mix on sounds good, they have a 7 day free trial to check out. And I should point out that they have a free program called trakAxPC that offers audio and video mixing on the desktop. Sweet!

I wanted to take a second to wish all of you a happy Thanksgiving! Even if you do not live in the United States and do not celebrate Thanksgiving, today is as good a day as any to take a step back and reflect on all of the things we are thankful for. Also it is a good day to recharge the old batteries so you can wake up early and brave those horrifying Black Friday lines. As always please remember to be safe out there! Oh and just to shake things up a bit I thought it might be fun if everyone snapped some pictures of their giant turkey buffets with their Windows Mobile devices and posted them up on the forums. I for one have always enjoyed looking at tables full of food :)

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!