News Bytes:
- Microsoft is disappointed with their Zune MP3 player sales figures
- M. Night Shyamalan joins the list of celebs leaving UTA
MovieTalk:
- David Arquette’s “The Tripper,” a satirical horror film about a Ronald Reagan-obssessed serial killer, will get a limited release in early 2007
- Director Zack Snyder has announced that there will be no Watchmen film franchise. The entire tale of The Watchmen will get told in the one movie release.
- Tim Firth has been hired to script Ahmet Zappa’s “The Monstrous Memoirs of a Mighty McFearless” for Disney
- Frank Miller has not yet completed his much touted graphic novel “Batman Vs. Osama Bin Laden,” but announced it is close to completion
Game Cube Review: Paul Puri brings us our first video game analysis, “Stronghold Legends”.
TV Talk: Babylon 5 has become one of the highest selling franchises on DVD so far bringing in over $44 million in consumer sales. With that in mind, Warner Home Video and Warner Bros. Television have started production on “Babylon 5: The Lost Tales.”
Following up on characters and storylines from the very popular television show, this made-for-DVD series will include two new “Babylon 5” stories collectively titled “Voices of the Dark,” plus some exclusive behind the scenes content.
Interview: This week, Michael and Summer welcome Tricia Helfer to the show, and we delve into the complexities of her character, the multifaceted Cylon Number Six. While she can’t divulge any spoilers, Tricia does tease us with the prospects of some deaths and the possibility of discovering new Cylon models by the end of Season 3.
Tricia also tells us about how she came to the show and her approach to portraying the different versions of Number Six, and her interactions with the growing number of fans of her character and of the show. She also has a completely new perspective on modern day kitchen appliances…
Future Talk: What’s Coming Up?
Ben Stiller’s highly anticipated film “A Night At the Museum” will be coming to conventional and IMAX theaters in the US and abroad, premiering in theaters on December 20th for the holiday season.
“A Night at the Museum” is an action-adventure-fantasy that brings all the exhibits in the museum to life at night. Once the doors are locked for the night, all hell breaks loose and a good-hearted dreamer named Larry Daley (Ben Stiller) gets caught in the middle of the nightly madness. Larry is the museum’s night security guard and comes face to face with Mayans, Roman Gladiators, and cowboys as they emerge from their diorama to wage epic battles.
Listener comments: If you have any suggestions or comments, please let us know.
Go Social with Slice of SciFi
iTunes: Leave a Review! http://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/slice-of-scifi/id73331296
Yeah, the Zune sucks. The Ipod while technically more user friendly is just as bad. You don’t own the media on your Ipod. Apple is just letting you use the media until they want to bleed you again. Ipod/Itunes is basically a monopoly and it’s pretty mind boggling that they haven’t been brought up on anti-trust charges. Buy players that can play Free codecs such as ogg and flac. Ogg files are smaller, sound better and aren’t encumbered by IP patents. Companies such as Cowon and Neuros offer great media players that can handle these codecs (as well as mp3 and wmv). Just my .02.
You have been dugg!
OK,
I enjoyed the new game review segment. Some excellent bg music and sounds. Very slick. But I am almost certain that I heard this already…perhaps all the podcasts are blending together into my brain.
Great trashing of the crappy zune. Of course, you’ve seen the installation error screen right? You could say it’s orgasmic. 😉
http://blogs.smh.com.au/mashup/archives/008228.html
Yeah, I’ve come to report some major deja vu too. I knew from the very beginning that I’d heard that video game review before. Still good though.
You know, the Zune is just simply “Zune”. There’s no Microsoft. People just call it the Microsoft Zune because it reminds them what it is, or you know.
I don’t think that your trashing of the Zune is correct. I’m sure that you can load videos and podcasts just like the iPod. I’m pretty sure that if you get a copy of the video or audio, you can load it into the Zune and replace the drm’d version.
You complain that the Zune has these retarded DRM (which are retarded and intrusive), but if you compare it to the iPod, which doesn’t have these functions at all, it isn’t so bad.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. You guys just listen to all the shows. But for the XM and AM/FM crowd, it’s all new to them.
The game segment debuted on WI, but it will have a permanent home on Slice from now on. (No more doubling up)
Send Paul Puri some love and let him know he did a good job.
podsafegear@gmail.com
Just listened to the show… on my Zune. Yes, you can put podcasts on the Zune player. My last mp3 player was a 4th generation iPod, and when I got it, there was no “support” for podcasts by iTunes, either. You had to get a third party program such as iPodder X (now Juice) in order to download them. I’m currently using Juice to download my podcasts (and video podcasts). Since the Zune software allows you to designate folders to watch, once they’re on my computer, they are immediately available for upload to my Zune.
I agree that the Zune isn’t perfect, but for the first in what is suppose to be a line of Zune products (how many types of iPods are there?), I think it is a solid start.
FREE JOE MURPHY
ZUNE RULES. PERIOD. EVERYONE SAID POCKET PC SUCKED FOR YEARS AND NOW ALL YOU CAN GET IS POCKET PC NOW CALLED WINDOWS MOBILE. ZUNE WILL RULE. FREE JOE MURPHY
OK, not going to go as far as mikerabil, but I do have another comment on the Zune. It was mentioned that Zune doesn’t work on Vista. Since Vista is still in beta, this sounds like an unreasonable expectation. Now, if there are still problems after the final (home) version is out, then complain all you want.
Mur Lafferty said it best:
“Here’s the way I see it:
They flat out assume that their customers are crooks. “These devices are just repositories for stolen music, and they all know it,” said Doug Morris, CEO of Universal Music Group.
This makes me resentful from the start, and unlikely to purchase their product, since MS is giving money to UMG.
Dude needs to take a course on customer service. They’re essentially telling us “You are helpless kleptos, but we will help you. Buy the Zune and you’ll never steal again. Poor dears.”
here are some of the supposed problems with Zune
* Many industry pundits have criticized the Zune for its features and functions based on a side-by-side comparison with the iPod. Meanwhile, others have criticized its DRM and the market’s potential responses, especially given that it will compete with Microsoft’s own early-adopters of the PlaysForSure DRM scheme. Technology reviewer Leo Laporte (formerly of TechTV) said in his Nov. 12th 2006 radio show that Zune may be the “beginning of the end” for DRM as a business tactic.
* Though the Zune is a Microsoft product, it is not compatible with players and online music stores using Microsoft’s PlaysForSure technology. This includes music purchased from Microsoft’s recently retired MSN Music store.
* The Zune is not compatible with Windows Vista and is not expected to be compatible until the consumer launch at the end of January 2007, significantly later than the OEM, volume licensing, and developer launches.
* While the Zune has built-in Wi-Fi capabilities, it can only connect to other Zune devices; it can’t wirelessly sync with its host PC, nor can it wirelessly connect to the internet and download new music via a Wi-Fi hotspot.
* Songs wirelessly transferred from one Zune to another can only be played three times. After three days, the song expires – regardless of whether or not it has been played. Just playing half the song (or one minute, whichever comes first) counts as one “play.” You can never resend a song to the same friend, nor can a song received from someone else be passed on to a third person. These limitations apply to all songs, whether they are copyright free and self-recorded or protected with DRM.
* Not all songs purchased from the Zune Marketplace can be shared via Wi-Fi with other Zunes.
* The software that supports the Zune seems to be very unstable on some Microsoft Windows configurations (including Windows XP). A resolution to this problem has been found.
* Unlike many hard-drive based music players, the Zune cannot officially be used as an external hard drive. A hack was recently found that allows Zune this functionality with slight altering of the Windows registry by the user.
* Microsoft has entered into a deal with Universal Music Group whereby UMG will receive $1 per Zune sold, paid by Microsoft. UMG’s stance is that digital audio players are used to store illegally-acquired music, and hardware manufacturers like Microsoft and Apple Computer should compensate record companies for lost revenue. (Similar deals exist for blank CD-R manufacturers, who pay fees to the RIAA.). Microsoft’s agreement may lead to pressure against other music player manufacturers to pay similar fees.
I’ve always considered The Matrix Trilogy to make up the 3 acts of a complete story. Part one was the discovery of the Hero, part 2 was the true confrontation and part 3 was the resolution to the situation.
With that being said, act 1 started strong and the story just fizzled by act 2 and didn’t get any better by act 3. If this was actually filmed as a single movie instead of a trilogy I’m sure it would’ve had people walking out the theater.
*There is only one Matrix.. the 1st one.. the rest dont exist in my book
* The zune is a stupid hunk of junk, that deserves to die q quick death…
APPLE RULES
aA the owner of a 3rd gen. iPod and a new 5th gen. all I can say is APPLE RULES Zune drools.
Muaaaaaaahahahahahahahahahahahahaha Moooooolarie ooooohhhh OOOOOOOO
I have a 512MB Scandisk player that cost me less than 40.00, and have zero intention of ever laying out hundreds of dollars for a player. Especially since I bought the Xbox 360.
Great show and cool interview.
I’m like several other people here, the Zune talk on this weeks podcast was really bad, very uneducated, and made you sound like the guys that were making fun of Charlie the Beer Guy. Other people have made most of the counterpoints to what Mike and Evo said, but I’d like to add a few things:
If you share a song with someone, their Zune will flag it for download later (I assume this only works if the song is available in the Zune store) and rumors are out there that if the person ends up purchasing that song, the original person will get some sort of store credit.
The Zune store and Xbox Live run on the same system. Xbox Live just got TV and Movie downloads, so expect to see them show up in the Zune Store soon. Future plans include a Zune that you can log on with your Xbox Live account and play your Xbox Live arcade games on your Zune (early 2007). At Apple’s last press conference they announced iPod games and the iTV. If you own and Xbox 360 you already have the iTV functionality and if you get that Enhanced Zune, you’ll have very similar selection of games.
Finally, Microsoft does not want to give free ad time to Apple. Windows and Zune don’t have Podcast directories or mention podcast because it is an Ad for Apple’s iPod. Sounds like good business practice to not give ads for your competetor’s product on yours… Plus, what if Apple decided to sue Microsoft for using ‘podcast’? they have not done it to podcasters yet, but it might be an easy way to keep MS out of the digital media player world.
You Are Assigned On a Starship With a Complement Of 4000 Crewmembers. Who would You Prefer To Be Your Captain?
Tyrus Cassius “T.C.” McQueen (of S:AAA)
Microsoft has a long history of pushing products out of the gate before they are ready because they assume their name will make the sale for them.
If they’d start making sure things worked the way consumers expect them to instead of forcing consumers to do things their way because they couldn’t design or program them better, then maybe they wouldn’t have the reputation of expected failure for two years right out of the box of every product they release, whether or not that product actually is that bad or not.
Didn’t it take a while before Xbox became a platform that actually worked satifactorily? Why didn’t they take those lessons and apply them to Zune? And don’t get me started on their ideas about repeating license fees and DRM.
Not saying Apple doesn’t also suffer from an unhealthy dose of product arrogance, but Microsoft definitely designed that book, so they never get any slack or consideration from me until things change. Won’t ever cause me to use Windows or anything else they make that other people make better, but it would go a long way towards lessening the reactionary hatred the mere mention of their name causes for tens of millions of people.
Zune, iPod…whatever.
Just another toy that I can’t afford.
Have at it, y’all.
That locking out of songs thing really sucks though.
The Matrix is, indeed, a 3 part story. Yeah, part 1 is the best of the 3…but after I listened to the commentary by Cornell West and Ken Wilbur, I had a greater appreciation for parts 2 and 3.
I commend The Brothers for what they were trying to do with the addition of philosophy and religion to the action/adventure/sci-fi genre.
And to use so many actors of colour…and women…within this genre was almost a revolutionary act seeing as how most sci-fi/fantasy genre stuff is definitely WhiteBoy. On all levels. If you know what I mean. And I know that you do.
That’s my take on it. And I’m stickin’ with it.
Hi!I would say there are some channels like Discovery/NGC/BBC which do have interesting shows which have nothing to do with saas bahu and tears..:-)
One thing that I find DD laggin behind is packaging. People are now so used to good quality signals and nice packaging, that it is usally a pain to watch it in DD. For example, when DD and ESPN telecast a match, I prefer to watch it in ESPN, as the DD stuff is usally amatuerish, with the telecast being cut during the last ball for the advert and coming back only after the 1st ball of the next over..
But CAS has made it difficult to view those channels in Chennai..:-(