Like many people, I’ve recently been hearing more and more about this new thing on the air waves called HD Radio. What is it we are talking about here? Well, first off, the HD does not stand for “high definition” (it seems to stand for nothing — it’s just a marketing ploy), and it doesn’t provide anything like HD quality. The second most important part is that you have to have a special receiver to get these, which are still a tad expensive and aren’t standard equipment on much of anything yet. What does it give you? It gives you the potential for a 300 kbps audio stream. In reality you get little more than 100 kbps of total capacity, which is often split up into multiple channels. So, there are some... [Read more]

I recently had the pleasure to watch the movie Helvetica in Blu-ray. The movie is a documentary on the life, history, use, and opinions surrounding the font of the same name. I’m a font snob, so I loved it. If you can tell the difference between Arial and Helvetica, if you hold strong opinions about comic sans, or even can just appreciate the art of typography and fonts, then this is a movie that you will enjoy, too. However, I don’t feel that watching the movie in Blu-ray really added much. Since most of the movie was interviews with various people involved with or who hold strong opinions about Helvetica, very little is added with it being in high-def. But, the interviews are great (one of my heroes, Hermann Zapf, gets a segment,... [Read more]

I’ve said it before: HDMI is confusing. When configuring your PS3, for example, you’ll get several confusing options like “Super White” and “x.v. Color”, as well as choosing between “RGB” and “YPbPr / YCbCr”. What does all of this mean? All of the above options have to do with color on your HDTV or monitor. Some people never notice any problems with color, and to some people, it can be pretty critical. First, let’s start off with an easy one. RGB vs. YPbPr vs. YCbCr. RGB is what computer monitors speak: they have Red, Green, and Blue parts that are illuminated to show you colors on screen. YPbPr and YCbCr are analog and digital, respectively, color systems that separate information... [Read more]

Vimeo is a relatively new not so new video sharing site. One of its key features is that you can view and share true HD content (at up to 720p = 1280×720). Vimeo gives each user 500 MB per week to upload, which averages out to be an hour of decent-quality HD video (assuming 1 Mbps). Plus, it’s free, so you can’t beat the price. In addition to HD content, Vimeo is trying to get in on the social networking market: it’s trying to put the “sharing” in “video sharing”. For example, you can subscribe to other people’s HD content, much like you might subscribe to people’s blogs on RSS. It imports your contact information to assist you in finding content you might like, and has various... [Read more]

There’s been a lot of press recently about Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, which just released its third, and final, act this morning. It comes down off the free web tomorrow, so watch it now, while you can. It’s brilliant! While watching it, I noticed that it’s hosted by Hulu. I’ve come to watch a bit more Hulu recently, especially since I noticed that they have complete movies on the site. Who doesn’t love free movies? Even better is if you just go to their RSS Feed page and subscribe to the Recently Added Movies feed, so you can keep track of all of their new releases. And, of course, while you are watching, note that there is an option (after you start it) to switch to a higher-resolution (480p, in... [Read more]