Saw a story about the Moxi Media Center over on Tech TV. media convergence is a big thing to me. For one thing, I see it as a matter of convenience. being able to centralize all my stuff is great for a one stop shop for managing information, in this case, entertainment. On the other hand I don't like having all my eggs in one basket. I want my standards open, and I want to be able to use what I've purchased in a manner that is acceptable to me. Still, i think this is a cool product that does a lot of the things that I have been looking for. I was actually considering building a borg cube to do all this a while back, and decided that my time would be better spent elsewhere.

Standing in the way of this way cool toy, is the fact that the US HDTV standard has changed, again. The standard was first proposed in 1981. The MPAA wants to insure that users cannot easily copy content, so they are tooling with the standard in an effort to stop piracy. Which apparently also includes recording a show that you would like to watch later. They've screwed the early adopters by doing so, as the older/current equipment won't be able to read the new standards. As a result, we, the consumers and early adopters of this very slow to be released tech, are boned.

Thanks again MPAA!

11:58:23 PM