Gamespot says, "We're offering our HD-quality movies exclusively to our GameSpot Complete members, though we're offering several free samples to give the rest of you a taste of what you're missing." Excellent! or so I thought.  I don't have much time for playing games these days but I love to watch trailers and see what the current  state of quality is.

I took a look and it appears I'm still missing something.  I don't understand how they can call these "HD".  Sure, they're WMV files, but they sure aren't my understanding of HD quality. The first warning sign I saw was the video resolution - 640x360 for the Forza Motorsport sample and 640x480 for the Doom 3 sample.

When we talk about HD- as defined by the ATSC standard, the resolution has to meet a minimum bar of 720p - that's 720 progressive horizontal lines of video resolution. So why am I downloading a sample that purports to be HD as a part of a sales pitch, but delivers half the resolution of HDTV? Ok, it's 16:9 aspect content - on a 4:3 display it could be considered 640x480 resolution but that's still 480p- not HD. Am I missing something?

WMV-HD can handle this no problem and in J Allard's talk at the Game Developers Conference earlier this year, he made it clear that the next Xbox will "usher in the era of HD gaming and entertainment". He gave away 1000 Samsung HDTVs. If this was the definition of HD, he could have just given away standard TVs or perhaps EDTVs.

I hope others are calling this to the attention of Gamespot. The technology is there- WMV-HD can do what they're asking.  I hope others are calling their attention to this fact.

Check out this amazing Media Center case with a touchscreen LCD display.  The unit also has full MCE-compliant IR (Philips RC-6 spec) support and much more.  Personally I'd love to take one of these for a spin as Joshua Schipman at HTPCnews.com just did last week.  Be sure to check out the last page for a very interesting use of Konfabulator Widgets.

Update: Venue has been arranged, free WiFi: Nakhon Thai City 10 Copthall Avenue, London EC2R 7DE (link to map to the right). Kick-off @ 7pm. More details here. See you there :).

A few of you have inquired regarding more details on the London Geek Dinner. We've connected with Lee Wilkins who runs www.geekdinner.co.uk and he's posted a few details on the site. I'll be in the air tomorrow so if I don't get a chance to post an update here, please check Lee's site for latest details.

Final location is TBD, time is 19:00 until late. Hope to see you there- feel free to post a comment here so we get a general idea of the # of attendees.

From London, I'm off to Athens, Greece where I'm presenting at the Microsoft OEM Global Executive Summit and then a few days off in Mykonos and Santorini.  Any suggestions on what to do/where to eat are appreciated. Perhaps a Geek Dinner in Greece is in order ;). 

I've spent the better part of the weekend looking at competitive products and reviewing coverage on WinHEC.  While my team is focused on the consumer segment and we haven't started the roll-out there yet, there are a few things I would like to clarify:

• Slashdot coverage- there is no Beta of Longhorn. What was shown was not a Beta.  That's why Beta 1 hasn't shipped yet.
  
• Some, even folks I call friends were publicly harsh about the UI. I've been around for many OS launches, was a Beta tester for Win95 and by now, most people know that the UI is one of the final things to be disclosed. To use an example from the automotive industry, just look at Motor Trend or Autoblog- you'll find pictures of final production cars test driven all the time with "bras", weird paint jobs and more used to mask the actual look of the car.  This has been the case for quite a while for Windows.  You haven't seen anything yet.
  
• The objective of WinHEC's LH call to action was to build hardware - ensure video drivers, audio drivers, and much more all work great with 32-bit and 64-bit architectures.  Based on feedback- we've done that and delivered early code to help them in their endeavors.

Speaking on my own time.

Feedback and hits on the design competition have blown me away.  Mentions in WSJ, NYTimes, PCWorld, CNET, and a host of enthusiast and online news sites.  We hit 200% of our monthly target for unique users to the website... in the first day. I got email from a Microsoft employee today in New Zealand looking to promote it at local Universities.  A few upset Microsofties that they can't compete but hey, that happens.

First up are comments that Microsoft will own the entries- please be sure to read the entry rules carefully as this is not the case. Foremost in my mind, this competition needs to have legitimacy and respect the rights of the designer and developer.

John Dowdell's News for Macromedia MX Developers says, "Microsoft exec Jim Allchin has a good reply here to a question about "What will the Longhorn release next year do for Microsoft's business?" "It's probably more important to think about what impact it will have on the industry. I think the industry has been needing a phenomenon, an event, a big change that will let it grow in terms of the hardware devices, new types of form factors, new types of applications. Just the whole thing." Microsoft has tried those radio-updated Spot watches, tablet computers, television computers... this week they're even running a design contest for non-PC devices. Having a new operating system which considers such issues from the start could very well trigger rapid evolution in content and usage habits."

Actually, John, this is for PC devices, hence the "PC Design Competition" name, though wearable computers could be conceived as well so all is good. :)

Kew notes, "Chee Aun, and all Malaysian designers.. Give it a shot.. Who knows, you may win and get a “grandfather” title along with it… "

Half Man[Half Amazing] notes, "Microsoft has teamed up with IDSA, an Industrial Design Org, to put together a an interesting design competition to dream up how people will utilize pc's in the near future."

Nafie i(Culture Shock) s entering and says, "This Looks Like Fun although the future of this blog, my sleep, food, TV, and all other basic human functions are in jeopardy of going on hold for the next 5 or 6 months."

Sorry about that Nafie, you might consider an IV drip? :) Seriously though, it's great to see so much enthusiasm for the idea and I hope we see some really cool PC designs come out of this.  Entries can be submitted starting May 18th.

Scoble posted his new video interview with Jim Allchin, Group VP of Platforms (tip: he runs Windows and reports to Steve Ballmer). Jim has been running Longhorn on his primary work machine for three months now and I can attest to it- I was in a review w/him as it was installing in his office next-door.

Jim talks about Longhorn, about his days as a professional musician (he's an accomplished guitar player), scenarios that will be enabled with Longhorn, what's worked and what hasn't in the past.

The video is conversational and raw- two guys and a handheld-camera. He's also very frank about where we are in the development process. The goal at WinHEC wasn't to thrill- it was about hardware fundamentals- drivers and connectivity models to enable the "thrilling" features that are being being built on-top.

At WinHEC this year, Senior VP of Windows Client Will Poole showed a new video for the Next-Generation Windows PC Design Competition.  It's a departure from the original but hints at the direction we expect to see software and hardware go in the Longhorn timeframe. It's a departure from your regular stuff coming out of MSFT.I hope you enjoy. ;)

Run time 1:12 min
Watch it now (300 Kbps, streaming)

Download it in WMV HD
360 (750 KB)
720 (8 MB)
1080 (10 MB)

They're all a part of the judging panel for the Next-Gen Windows OS PC Design Competition.

You can find more details at www.startsomethingpc.com. The secrecy has been lifted and now I can talk about it.  At ~2pm PST we also posted new links to the trailer shown at WinHEC.

RSS feed here with more details I wrote on what we're doing. Yet another team is hopping on the Cluetrain. 

A long week but a productive one at that. Here's a quick catchup on items:

- Tomorrow is the official launch of 64-bit Windows XP Professional for AMD and Intel 64-bit processors. Let's see, 16-terabyte limit for memory vs. 4GB and system cache jumps from 1GB to 1TB.  Thomas, maybe you can keep your entire music library in memory :). There are also hardware/software level improvements for security and anti-virus purposes. While the focus right now is on business applications, now is the time to start ensuring your device manufacturers are working on 64-bit drivers. If you don't know after next week- email them and ask is my suggestion.

- Startsomethingpc.com - I'm hearing about lots of downloads of the teaser video and pickups of the RSS feed. No, it's not an ad campaign, yes it is affiliated in concept. Let's just say it's a long-term conversation. More tomorrow.

- New York Times has a very favorable article on Media Center PCs in the "Circuits" section this week, just posted to C|Net's News.com. One thing they don't quite explain is that Entertainment PC's are for the traditional desktop/den as well as expanding out into the living room.

- I hosted a MS geek dinner with Mick Stanic of The Podcast Network, on Thursday night. It was my first time meeting Mick in person and I was impressed. He's talented, passionate, bright and off to a great start with TPN. Besides, he loves Media Center ;).

- Business Week gets on the cluetrain with their cover story on Blogging, noting, "Look past the yakkers, hobbyists, and political mobs. Your customers and rivals are figuring blogs out. Our advice: Catch up...or catch you later"

- Speaking of Podcasting, SciFi Channel launched another RSS feed and Podcast for news. Too bad they didn't bother to validate the feed.

- Seems everyone has trouble with cables and cabling.  I came across these interesting designs for managing cables at JR's Cool Hunting. Why doesn't anyone consider this in PC design?

- In his posting, "One Step Forward, Two Back with Apple iTunes", Dan Gillmor says that, "Apple, beholden to the copyright cartel, reserves the right to screw over its customers whenever it pleases. You can blame America's insane copyright laws for this, not just Apple's way of doing things."  In reviewing the list- I'm actually going to come to Apple's defense on this point. The technology provider must respect the rights of the Intellectual Property holder under the law and champion the rights of the consumer. It's a balancing act and until consumers rise up en-masse, I don't see this changing.

- I recently upgraded from a set of Shure E2c sound isolating earphones to the E3c and I'm convinced these are the best earphones I've ever used. I even mow the lawn in near silence listening to playlists downloaded from Napster.

- I saw the new Xbox run through some paces earlier this week. Holy cow. John Porcaro (now thankfully healed from his burns) talks about the invitations he sent out for the E3 Press Briefing.

- IE7 Beta details released - I spent a good part of Wednesday meeting with members of the IE7 dev team and got a good look at Beta 1.  All I can say is as a former Web developer, I saw first-hand the fixes that demonstrate they're listening as Chris talks about here and then some.  IE7 Beta 1 is this Summer and I'm already seeing the benefits that make me want to run the Alpha now.

- Microsoft's WinHEC (Windows Hardware Engineering Conference) is next week.  I'll be there ;)

Stopping over at TGB, I discovered Dr. S.A. Miedema's new My Outlook Client for Windows Media Center Beta.  Overall I was very impressed.  Now if my wife wants to know when I have time during the week to run an errand etc, I can show her myself.  

This is beta software and I cannot confirm how exactly he's accessing the Outlook data.  The UI is overall very good though responsiveness lacked in a few areas.

Tons of screenshots and the download here. He certainly seems to have taken a holistic approach to design for 10', even including a triple-tap and full on-screen keyboard.  I also noticed I can access multiple Outlook accounts so if you have your Hotmail or POP3 accounts also aggregated you can check them there as well.

Miedema had a large suite of MCE add-ons including Weather and more.  Now if someone would just build an MCE-based Seattle traffic monitor and Skype client I'd be very happy.

I've known Thomas Hawk for about a year or so now, having met only once in person at our co-hosted Geek Dinner. What's impressed me most about Thomas is his fresh perspective that is unfettered by allegiances to any particular technology or brand as a high-end enthusiast.  He's a family man, works in the financial industry and is smart and pointed about his technology feedback. You can see this yourself in his criticisms regarding HD across the DVR space, and admittedly regarding a few products I've worked on :). 

I got a mail from Thomas yesterday:

You guys are really working on great technology.  Can’t wait to blog about it...

Pinged the folks in PR. No embargo on the bloggers - let's start the conversation, get the feedback. Thomas rolls up his sleeves on what he saw here. My favorite excerpt:

One of the most impressive aspects about Longhorn is the speed with which it catalogs, organizes and searches your PC. In addition to great new views (you can see a physical representation of every file on your PC that can be magnified as you move the scroll wheel of your mouse), the speed at which Longhorn renders the views was spectacular. Best of all was Jim’s reaction when I expressed my delight at how quickly views were rendered. Jim reacted strongly and said that the speed that we were seeing was unacceptable and that over the course of the next year the system will get even faster.

Sometimes for those of us close to building the technology, we're so familiar with the product that we start to take things for granted, both big and little- since we're running our products for weeks or months in builds before others get to really see it. It's great that the hard-working teams are getting recognition for their hard work.  Stay tuned... lots more to do.

Dell starts shipping the XPS Gen 5 with a P4 EE Dual-Core processor next week. PC Magazine has a full review and notes under the "Pros", "Too many to list, but here are a couple--dual core processors and dual-TV tuners".  PC Magazine does on to say,

"With the addition of Microsoft Windows XP Media Center 2005, the XPS Gen 5 is more than just a gaming system, it's Dell's top-of-the-line gaming/multimedia machine and our latest Editors' Choice." 5 out of 5- Excellent

At $4G's, you're going to pay for it, but this system definitely sets a new bar in the boutique area. Interesting that PCMag notes that it is available direct with monitor using Dell e-value code 6V411-XPS5PC.  I haven't seen that level of detail before but it's welcomed.