Eddie's Fancy

A few years ago I ripped all of my CDs to mp3 files and bought a SoundBridge as the primary music player. So far I’ve been very happy with it. They’ve provided firmware updates that not only fixed bugs but added new features. The only problem I’ve had with it is one of the end caps broke off.

Now they’ve come out with a Netflix Player box that connects to your Netflix account and allows you to view their “Watch Instantly” selection on your TV. I’ve already been doing that with a laptop, but it’s been a pain to use and the video quality wasn’t that great. I figured for $99.99, I couldn’t lose.

So far i love it. The quality is not quite DVD level but it’s better than cable. The setup was trivial and it just worked right out of the box. In fact, it works so well I can only complain about minor details…

• Only stereo audio, oh well, not that big of deal.
• The selection isn’t that great. Well, I guess 10,000 things to watch isn’t anything to sneeze at but it’s nothing compared to Netflix’s DVD selection. However, this is constantly improving.
• You have to manage your queue online with a PC. Not a big deal, but it would be nice to browse via the device on your TV.
• No local playback. Again, not deal killer but I’d love to be able to play back videos I’ve stored on my local network. Still, I have my Mythtv box for that.

So far I’ve been lucky and my crappy comcast connection hasn’t died during a movie, but it’s just a matter of time. They only have enough storage for minimal caching, so I won’t be able to coast over a long outage.

My wife is happy, they have several Satyajit Ray movies online, I’ve been meaning to watch them too.

We’ve been watching the BBC version of Wire in the Blood while the American shows are on break and I’ve really liked it. I was at Half-Price Books the other day and decided to grab a few of the books the series was based on. This is the first.

It was a good read, but something rare happened and I found myself liking the TV show better. Not that there was anything wrong with the book, but I found the actors really added something to the story. I think that’s a first.