SeanTech

Burning Question: Do A/V Cables Matter?

More Wired outtakes -- this one from the Test special issue of October. Imagine how thick the magazine would be if they publisehd all the articles they comissioned...

After shelling out for a TV, DVD player, amplifier, and speakers, you still need a mess of cables to hook them together. And that can get expensive. "Cables are considered accessories, and they have a high markup," said Rich Sulin, who heads audio/video equipment testing for Consumer Reports.

Take for example the HDMI cable that carries digital video and audio signals to a television. A one-meter length from Monster Cable retails for $200 -- as much as a high-quality DVD player.

Is a wire really worth that much? The experts we talked to emphatically said "No!"

That's especially true for digital cables. "As soon as it's digital, you buy the cheaper one," said Pavel Zivny, a product engineer at Tektronix who designs oscilloscopes for testing high-frequency signaling equipment.

The beauty of digital signals is their resiliency. Analog cables carry precise signal values, and the slightest degradation changes the information -- possibly resulting in blurriness on TV screens or messed-up notes in speakers. Digital carries only two pieces of information -- ones and zeros. The signal can take a pretty good beating, but the device at the other end can still easily tell the difference. And there are no gray areas between a good and bad digital connection. "You either are getting information and it works fine, or it is broken," said Zivny.

So for a high-quality, low-cost connection, go digital. Depending on your specific equipment, that means HDMI or DVI cables for video gear and optical or digital coaxial cables for audio components. To find bargains, Rich Sulin recommends skipping over big-name cable displays in the front of an electronics store and looking in the back where the cheap brands are hidden. You can also find deals online from companies at sites like Amazon.com.

If you can't afford to upgrade your components to digital, you shouldn't be blowing cash on fancy analog cables, either. Fortunately, though analog cables vary in quality, the differences are not huge. Pavel Zivny recommends basic guidelines for buying a decent analog cable. Look for one with a thick plastic or rubber coating that prevents it from easily crimping, since that can distort the signal. And if you can find information about the metal shielding inside the cable, look for one with a tightly woven, braided layer. A double layer is especially good.

One component that must have an analog connection is the speaker. And you can really save money on these cables. "As long as they're low enough resistance, you'll be fine," said Rich Sulin. That simply means getting thick copper wires that let the signals travel unimpeded.

For buying speaker wire, Sulin and Zivny recommend bypassing the home-theater and electronics shops and heading to stores like Home Depot where you can cut the length of double-strand cable you need from big spools. The thickness, or gauge, of copper you need depends on the length of the cable running to each speaker. According to Zivny's calculations, a 15-foot cable run requires 14-gauge wire, a 25-foot run requires 12 gauge, and 40 feet requires 10 guage. Remember: Smaller gauge numbers correspond to thicker wires.

EZ Takes Speaks on Rights Management

In my recent Slate article about downloadable DVDs, I had room to give only a brief mention to the copy-protection measures used by EZTakes, saying it "offers virtually no safeguards against piracy." Jim Flynn, the CEO of EZTakes, rightly points out that EZTakes does provide more safeguards than a DVD you would get in a store. Specifically:

We've invested a fortune developing technology that marks DVD images with the identity of the purchasing consumer in several ways and also links the content back to the original credit card. Someone can make a copy (as they can any commercial DVD), but a copy of an EZTake DVD will be traceable. A sane pirate would pay cash at Wal-Mart and then use one of many free, downloadable decrypters to make a 100% untraceable copy.

That actually is a clever, unobtrusive mechanism. What I should have said in my essay was that it was not a draconian enough copy protection measure to satisfy the studios. That also explains my statement in the essay that we need a system with digital rights management to make online movie-distribution work. I'm not so sure we really need that in order to adequately suppress piracy, but we sure do need it in order to get Hollywood to play along. And it looks like they are warming up to expanded DVD downloading, according to this c/net article.

Jim offers an interesting argument on why more copy-protection matters aren't needed, or even useful. It's worth considering:

Technology vendors are always looking for a way to lock out competition. That's why, for example, the only way you'll get a copy-protected movie on an iPod is if you buy it  from iTunes. For the foreseable future, there is no way that Apple will support Windows DRM, nor will they open up Fairplay so that other services can compete with their iTunes store. In general, the strongest tech vendor on any one platform will always do everything to make sure that their DRM does not work with anyone else's.

Bootleg DVDs are available months before movies are released to theaters. HBO specials are available for download hours before they air on the West Coast and just about every marketable film on Movielink and CinemaNow is available on Bittorrent as a free illegal download. Given that, just how is copy protection imposed on paying customers going to benefit anyone but the technology provider? It won't. It might stop Aunt Millie from making a copy for Aunt Mabel, but it doesn't stop the massive pirates, who are the ones that do the economic damage. And when something is on DVD, even Aunt Millie can copy it. In fact, you could train a monkey to decrypt just about any commercial DVD. The only sane way to fight piracy is to provide value and  convenience to paying customers, not make them wait 4 hours for a low-quality, twice-transcoded movie without a backup option, all in order to impose futile copy protection on those paying customers.

When to Buy (and when not)

This post courtesy of Wired magazine, which paid me to write three pieces for its current How To issue, then cut all of them. If you're getting ready to make a big purchase, first check this calendar to see if the time is right to buy...

CARS

August: For the best bargain on a new car, snap one up in late summer when sellers are anxious to make room for the coming model year. Be warned, though, you’ll be less likely to get the exact color and feature options you want, as inventory will be getting scarce.

December: If you want the hottest car, don’t buy when new models first appear in September and October. Wait until the holiday season. “Cars are not the top choice for Christmas presents, and dealers can start getting hungry watching the traffic to the local Wal-Mart or Costco,” said Paul A. Eisenstein, publisher of TheCarConnection.com.

HOUSES

December: Single people, or couples without children, can bargain well in the cold months. “Early winter can be a good time for first-time buyers in normal market conditions because they may be able to find a more motivated seller,” said Walt Molony from the National Association of Realtors. “The downside is inventories often are lower too.”

Springtime: Families will do best by shopping in the spring, so they can move in summer, before the start of the next school year. And they will have the most choices. “The heaviest volume for sales is spring and summer,” said Molony.

COMPUTERS

June/December: The market slacks off in early summer and early winter. “During those times, competition for customers is high since that is when consumers have gotten used to buying systems,” said Richard Shim of market research firm IDC. “Therefore, to remain in the game vendors have to be aggressive with prices.”

TELEVISIONS

December: The traditional holiday season sees the most sales and lowest prices. “Black Friday has possibly the best price on TVs, and then the month following it is usually a good bargain month,” said Riddhi Patel of research firm iSuppli.

Throughout the year: Vendors may offer specials at select times of the year. “There are also retail and manufacturer incentives offered during special events such as the Super Bowl, the week before Mothers Day/Fathers Day, national holidays, etc,” said David Naranjo of DisplaySearch.

LARGE APPLIANCES

September/October: Like cars, new appliances tend to debut in the early Fall, putting pressure on stores to clear out old inventory. "Big-ticket items such as ranges and washing machines typically hit the sales floor in September and October," said Lauren Hackett, a spokesperson for Consumer Reports. "Last year's models tend to go on sale at roughly the same time to make room for the new arrivals, making those months best for getting that high-end, stainless-steel range at a lower price."

Cellular - Why I just signed up with Sprint

Note to self: It's the economy, stupid.

I have been agonizing about phone choices for months - even turning my personal foibles into a NY Times article and several online posts.

But finally, I made a decision -- I ended up renewing with the same company I had before: Sprint. Now a lot of things about Sprint annoy me -- especially the fact that one MUST sign up for a 2-year plan. But on balance, I find Sprint the best deal. Here's why:

I want high-speed data possibilities -- on my phone, on a laptop card, or on both. That immediately eliminates the GSM carriers T-Mobile and Cingular -- which are lagging on introducing so called "3G" high-speed data services. So, the choices are down to the two companies with EV-DO data rates: Sprint and Verizon.

(If none of these acronyms make any sense to you, just get T-Mobile. They are really cheap and make you sign only a 1-year contract. Plus, they rated quite high in Consumer Reports latest national survey.)

Sprint vs. Verizon was a tough choice. I was leaning heavily towards Verizon because, some day, they will have a very slim smart phone called the Motorola Q. But no one seems to know when someday will be. The phone has been delayed for months, and we keep hearing about more delays. Then I ask myself: If the Q ever arrives, how trouble-free can I expect a device that has had so many development glitches to be?

On the Sprint side, I'm waiting anxiously for the Palm Treo 700p. It's bulkier than the mythical Q, but it runs the Palm operating system, which I like far better than Microsoft Windows on the Q. The Treo is also delayed, but I have more faith in a company (Palm) that has been making this same basic phone for years than a company that is pretty new to the business (Motorola).

Plus, Sprint's running a great deal right now. In a blast from the cellular past -- nights (i.e. unlimited calling) start at 7PM, as they should. At Verizon, it's still 9PM. And dollar for dollar, Sprint is cheaper, anyway: for $59.99, I get 900 minutes with Verizon vs. 1000 with Sprint (plus the additional 2400 minutes because nights start at 7PM instead of 9PM). Yes, I know, Verizon has "In," giving me free calls to Verizon customers. But I can do the same thing with Sprint customers for just $5 extra per month.

So that's my choice, and I'm sticking with it -- at least for the duration of a 2-year contract.

Blurb - New Book Publishing Service

A new company called Blurb just popped up this weekend -- a service that allows people to design, publish, and sell their own books.

One-off custom publishing solutions already exist, but Blurb aims to make it WYSIWYG, with pre-defined templates and drag-and drop design tools. As the company's CEO, Eileen Gittins, told me on Friday: "Unlike other 'self-publishing' services that are designed for authors who can create a print ready PDF from their manuscript or file, Blurb has a super-friendly easy to use application (Blurb BookSmart) that enables people to drag and drop their digital content into professionally designed templates."

From what I've seen on the new Web site, it looks a little like some of the better online photo sites that let you design photo albums, or like bogging sites such as TypePad and TagWorld that let you design via click, drag, and drop, rather than requiring you to enter code. But Blurb uses an application that runs on PCs or Macs, not a pure Web interface.

The site is good-looking and boasts oodles of templates. But I won't know for sure how easy it is until they release the BookSmart application, which the site says will be available for download on Wednesday. And I'll be seeing it at the DEMO 2006 conference in Phoenix this week. So more details to come.

Adventures in cellphone shopping

Whew! I just finished an exhausting article on cell phone shopping for the New York Times. I was continually amazed at how complicated the process is. Every carrier tweaks its terms and plans in unique ways that remind me of the myriad provisions, exceptions, and exemptions in the income tax code.

At least we can hire accountants to figure out the tax morass for us! With phone shopping, the best we can do is drill salesperson in the stores.

Surprisingly, it wasn't such a scary experience in a day of undercover shopping I did in downtown San Francisco -- along with my friend Vanessa who genuinely WAS shopping for a phone and carrier. Perhaps it was luck, but the salespeople at stores for T-Mobile, Sprint, and Verizon were rather polite and pretty knowledgeable.

The Cingular store was less pleasant -- a cramped space with overly excited salespeople who conjured up stereotypes of used car salesmen. The woman Vanessa and I met rushed us through the store, stuck phones in our faces, and waived laminated cards with rate plans at us. Obviously I can't judge a whole company based on one experience. Maybe she was new, or just inherently bad at customer relations. I do wonder, though, how she got through the training program. (And it's worth noting that Cingular's phone-based customer support rated quite low in a recent survey of 50,000 Consumer Reports subscribers in 18 metropolitan areas. Full results are in the current January issue.)

Aside from the singular experience of Cingular, I got a lot of good information in my shopping from the sometimes brutally honest salespeople. When I asked the T-Mobile guy about the quality of coverage provided by older carries like Sprint and Verizon, he said "It wouldn't surprise me if they do have a better, stronger network (sic)." (T-Mobile is actually rated high in customer satisfaction by Consumer Reports, right behind Verizon; but it does have the least-sophisticated data services.) I also asked him about "unlocking" a T-Mobile phone so that I could use it with Cingular (which has a technologically compatible wireless network). The fellow told me that I could wait 90 days for T-Mobile to do it, or got to a third party who would unlock the phone any time for about 30 bucks.

Then there was the nice guy from Verizon. While Vanessa and I were looking at phones, he steered us away from the Motorola V276. "I won't sell this phone," he said, with obvious disdain. He also warned us not to buy the Samsung N330 or the Kyocera KX-1. He said that LG and Samsung phones are always good, but that the N330 was "a glaring exception." Now, what about the option of bundling roadside automobile assistance with a service plan? "AAA is going to be cheaper, he said. "I wouldn't recommend it."

You don't find such frank shopping advice on the T-Mobile or Verizon Web sites!

That doesn't mean the reps get everything right, however. The guy at T-Mobile told us his was the only carrier that offers a one-year contract. Not really true -- so do Cingular and Verizon. It's just that you get a better deal on the phone if you sign up for a two-year contract with those carriers. The Verizon rep told me it isn't possible to port a landline to a mobile phone. Not true, at least according to Verizon's corporate office. And the guy from Sprint told me that I can't offload photos from a camera phone to my computer using the phone's USB port. Of course I can.

So you have to cross-check. And it may not be best to do this only on the carriers' Web sites. It took me several visits to Sprint's site, for example, to find information about Internet data plans that I knew existed. And I didn't figure out what the plans actually did until I quizzed two PR reps during my interview for the Times article.

Then there are the mysterious one-year Cingular contracts. They exist, but I found no mention of them on the Cingular site. Only two-year contracts.

A site I did find helpful was LetsTalk.com. They company gets daily updates from 19 wireless carriers about their plans and phone pricing; and it puts all the info into a uniform system that lets you compare the plans side-by-side, apples to apples. (That's how I first learned about the one-year Cingular contracts.) You can also try other comparison sites, like PriceGrabber.

So, if you plan to sit down one day and figure out your wireless services, I suspect you will be disappointed. Or at least overwhelmed. Figure on a few Web sessions and at least one visit to a store. These things take time. But at least we don't all have to sign up for new wireless plans on April 15.

Audio/Video Cables - No Silver Lining

My post about high-priced A/V cables is generating some interest among people who find the science of luxury wires to be dubious.

Derek Bowers, an integrated circuit designer with quite an audio pedigree - including leading the development of ADI's Dolby Pro Logic chip - had this to say about A/V cables containing silver.

I read your recent column on cables where you wonder whether silver plating on cables makes a difference. Well, silver is more corrosion resistant than copper, but with insulated cables in an indoor environment corrosion is not likely to be a problem. The usual argument for silver plating goes something like, "At high frequencies the so-called 'skin-effect' forces electrical conduction to be near the wire surface. Since silver is a better electrical conductor than copper, the plating reduces the overall electrical impedance." I went round repeating this for a while until I looked at the actual numbers. First, the 20 microns or so of plating used commercially is only really relevant for frequencies above 10MHz, beyond standard video frequencies (5MHz) and of course way beyond audio frequencies (20kHz or so). So maybe it makes a difference for HDTV? Not really. Copper is only a slightly worse conductor than silver (~6%) and in any case cable impedance is dominated by inductive and capacitive effects at HDTV frequencies and and has little to do with the conductivity at all. Simply another technological myth.

Specsploitation – A/V Cables

This may be my first published use of “specsploitation” – a term I coined a few years ago to describe the dubious use of technical specs to try to convince consumers that a product is unique or better than those from competitors. I’ve written on the topic a few times, such as in last December’s NY Times article “Making Sense of Specs” and in September’s PC World article “The Cable Game.”

The latter article had some information about specsploitation that we had to cut due to space constraints. I recently saw an article in a reputable consumer magazine in which the author, unfortunately, fell for a specsploitation trick. So I wanted to get the word out.

The author was advising readers to buy some rather pricey video cables, and one of the justifications was that they used “99.9% pure silver-plated OFC (oxygen-free copper).”

Boy, that does sound impressive. It’s on par with Ivory Soap!

But here’s the rub. You would have a VERY hard time finding any video or audio cable using copper that is less than 99.99% pure and that is not free of oxygen. And you certainly wouldn’t want to use it. Anything less would be a truly crappy signal conductor. And, you can find plenty of inexpensive cables that are ALSO 99.99% pure.

On the flip side, you can also find cables that are 99.999% pure, and even 99.9999% pure (what techies refer to as “six 9s”). It’s highly questionable whether one or two extra “9s” make a difference, but it is a plain fact that 99.99% is no big deal.

(As for the silver plating, it's unclear whether that makes a difference, either. The research that went into “The Cable Game" indicates that most video cables are just fine.)

While shopping for wire, you may also be baffled by a term like “Nitrogen-injected dielectric.” Here's what it means. Every wire needs to be covered by an electrical insulator, known in geekspeak as a “dielectric.” An inert gas (AKA air) is the perfect dielectric. But you can’t suspend a copper wire in an envelope of air. So the next best solution is to use plastic foam filled with lots of bubbles. And Nitrogen, as we learned in grade school, is the main component of air, so foam dielectric typically uses Nitrogen. Now, this is a good thing. Cheaper wires might just use something like solid PVC plastic. So, Nitrogen-injected cable is good, but not as exotic as it might sound.

Oh, one other cable tip I’ve got to tell you.

Some fancy audio receivers accept digital inputs from disc players or PCs. Digital is generally better, since you don’t lose any quality in the transmission. So the idea of a digital connection is a good thing, but companies still find a way to use that fact for specsploitation. These digital connectors come in two forms: fiber-optic cable or copper coaxial. If you are using the coaxial connection, beware of specsploitation. The cable used for digital audio is IDENTICAL to the cheapest type of analog video cable, known as composite. Yet when shopping at Best Buy recently, I noticed that a given “digital coaxial audio” cable sold for about $10 more than a “composite video” cable of the same length, from the same manufacturer. Hard to justify, because IT’S THE SAME CABLE.

So, shop carefully, and don’t blow your hard-earned cash on specsploitation.

Losing Our Memory -- iPod Nano and Flash Memory Supply

If you are thinking about buying a flash memory card for your camera, a USB memory key, or an MP3 player other than the iPod Nano -- you'd better either do it fast or wait a few months.

A new "teardown" report from research firm iSuppli describes all the parts that go into the iPod Nano. (Total bill of materials for the 2GB model = $90.18.) A big chunk of the player is NAND flash memory from Samsung. iSppuli estimates that Apple will be buying up to 40% of all Samsung’s production and squeezing out a lot of other customers. As the analyst Nam Kim put it to me in an email:

…there is no product available for other small and mid-sized card/USB/MP3 player makers.

Currently, manufacturers are in a panic mode in Asia. Buyers are looking around alternative sources such as Toshiba and Hynix. Toshiba and Hynix's production won't even meet customers demand by December this year. As a result, card prices won't decline in near future. However, as MP3 player sales pattern is very seasonal, NAND market will be back to oversupply in Q1 2006.

Ah springtime! The season for fresh love, fresh flowers, and fresh memory cards.

iTunes 5.0 -- the PC Killer

It appears that iTunes 5.0 really is a killer app - in that it is killing many a person's PC. However,  Apple's new modified version of iTunes (5.0.1?) seems to be repairing the damage at least for most users.

The details are still sketchy, partly because the range of problems is so broad. A quick look on Apple's message board hints at the extent of the problems. (You can also find a lively discussion on the iPodlounge site.) From my quick perusal and discussions, I've identified a few of the major problems:

• Inability to access the iTunes music library (including purchased tracks from the iTunes store).
• Damage to the QuickTime application, which must be installed as part of the iTunes install. (It upgrades, or tries to upgrade, to QuickTime 7, but you may end up with no QuickTime at all, and no ability to roll back to the earlier version.)
• Inability to access the Internet or even your own local network. (No kidding!)
• Inability to install other new programs because of errors with the Windows installer.

I experienced the last problem briefly on a test machine, but was able to fix it by uninstalling and re-installing QuickTime.

Most disturbing, Apple has taken virtually no action to warn customers. From its introduction until today, Apple merrily touted iTunes 5.0 as a great new upgrade, with nary a word of warning on the download page. Customers only found a subtle mention of it if you go to the forums page.
Though I probably should, I have never gone to a software forum to look for problems about an application before updating it.

Apparently it also is not generally possible to use Windows System restore to undo the problem. It seems that whatever iTunes 5 did went deeper into the system than the items that System restore can undo.
I learned much of this from Lauren Weinstein of the Electronic Entertainment Policy Initiative who posted what has at least become an open letter on the issue over a week ago. Lauren is particularly alarmed by a program in iTunes 5 called Bonjour, which is used to manage licenses for purchased music for PCs on a network. Initially, at least, customers had no choice to deselect Bonjour from the iTunes 5.0 installation. Though some users on Apple's forum are reporting that iTunes 5.0.1 leaves Bonjour out.
Software glitches do happen. But the extent of the problems hints that Apple may not have done very thorough quality checking before releasing this code. (Perhaps there was too much pressure to include this in the Steve Jobs's big press event announcing the iPod Nano and iTunes-Motorola phone?) And it's frightening how Apple appeared to ignore or deny the problem for so long.
I think Lauren Weinstein described it well when he told me:

It doesn't take rocket science - It doesn't even take computer science - to see that this wasn't handled well.