Getting back in the swing of things. Some issues:
- My DVD burner doesn’t seem to work. I have tried burning some Seinfeld episodes and at the end of the lengthy procedure, I get an error message that there is a problem writing to the disc. When I first burned CDs, years ago, I would get this issue with the first-generation Sony Supressa ® (external) burner. Each time I try to burn a DVD, I get the same error message, and each time I am wasting a DVD. That adds to some numbers I am compiling about the economics of personal media; I am figuring cost per movie and cost per TV episode per media (DVD vs. digital download vs. DVR). Recordable DVDs are not yet dirt cheap although coming down in price. I paid something like 70 cents per DVD that stores 120 minutes.
- I was reading Walter Mossberg’s review of the media center in the WSJ last week. He noted the continual annoyance of the Norton Personal Firewall. I just removed mine (control panel/remove) because it popped up every few seconds when I was trying to download ORB, a new "TV anywhere" product.
- I am having my media center "extender" box installed tomorrow. That leads to some thoughts—what will I initially stream from my media center to my TV? My TV has a DVR box, so streaming TV programs seems redundant. Burning DVDs (if I could) and then playing them on my DVD player seems redundant. These two media foraging centers (DVRs and media centers) seem to be in conflict until new and original programming appears via the Web. It’s why I think IPTV must contain some new and original programming or just be a competitive force to an already entrenched delivery channel.
Stay tuned
