We’ll give them war.

“We should probably post something about the Zune, just so we don’t look totally biased”. Justin made this great point a couple of days ago, and we would definitely like to stress that here in the Crashpod labs, we love all quality gadgetry: not just those select devices seared with the firey brand of Apple’s logo.

For those not in the know, Zune is the name that Microsoft has given it’s iPod competitor, which is rumored to launch somewhere around the SuperBowl. The device is not without merit: a larger screen than the iPod, 3(!) colors, and the promise of sharing songs with friends via 802.11whatever wifi. In addition we’ve heard rumors of integration with Microsoft’s LiveAnywhere service, which should allow users to take games purchased on Vista or the 360 with them on the Zune, and that could be pretty nifty.

Basically the Zune might be really cool, which is actually more than a lot of bloggers have been giving it. So far a good bit of sentiment says that the Zune is an iPod wannabe that doesn’t have a chance, but I say good tech always finds a home, and if the Zune’s features live up to what they could be, Microsoft might have a successful product on their hands.

Oh, also: I think the brown could actually be a really great color. Popular sentiment seems to be really down on it, but 99% of the gadgets out there right now are either: a) Silver, b) Black, or c) White.

At least brown has a different sort of 50’s leather vibe going on!

I decided to try downloading a film from the new iTunes store this morning. After a quick browse through the store I came upon The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, a favorite book of mine and a great example of an adaptation done right. Hitchhiker came out last holiday season so it was available for the “old releases” price of $9.99. Perfect. I plunked down the money and the download started straight away.

The download was quick, about 45 minutes over my 6Mbps connection, but perhaps not as fast as originally advertised by Apple. That said, I was impressed by how easy and painless it was to watch the film as it was downloading. About 15 minutes into the download I started it up and it played in full resolution with no stuttering. As for the quality, “near-DVD” is a good description. It plays in widescreen (thankfully) and some compression is noticeable but it’s certainly not distracting. From what I’ve watched thus far, it looked great even in fullscreen mode on my 20.1″ Dell widescreen monitor. I imagine it would look just fine on a standard definition television as 640 x 480 is roughly the resolution of SDTV.

Films remember your playback position (just like a DVD player does) and even feature a chapter selection built right into the controls. The chapter names are displayed along with a screen capture of each chapter. This is quite handy for calling up certain scenes or specific moments in a film. The standard track skip will take you to the next chapter in a linear fasion.

I’ve got to say, thus far I’m very impressed with the service. The download was fast, inexpensive and of high quality. My 1.33Ghz Powerbook G4 seems to be handling playback just fine even while using Photoshop CS and writing this blog post. I could have spent $13.99 plus additional shipping charges and waited a week for this film by purchasing it through Amazon, but that seems so 90’s at this point. iTunes will allow you to play back the film on 5 computers and unlimited iPods, and come this Spring beam it wirelessly to your main television using Apple’s iTV. I’m starting to feel like physical media such as DVDs and CDs are more of a bother than they are worth. As hard disk and flash drive storage prices continue to plummet, and connectivity between consumer devices improves, why even bother having all those silver discs lying around? I would much rather call up the media I’m looking for over an advanced home network.

The future is coming, resistance is useless.

UPDATE: I’ve just realized that when you sync your iPod with your computer it will make note of how far along in the movie you are and start playing at that point if you access it on your ‘pod. Nice touch!

This site gives you an animated representation of how and why bittorrent works. Use keystrokes to add seeders and leechers and watch a swarm being created right in front of your eyes. Whether you are new to the technology or a seasoned pro, this is a useful tool for getting your head ’round the concept of bittorrent. Or for hypnotizing yourself on a lazy afternoon…

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