Author: mrdrivein

Frontier Airlines' mysterious TV channels

April 7, 2014 by mrdrivein·Comments Off

It’s really difficult to find exactly which TV channels Frontier Airlines offers its customers. The channel list used to be available online, but now Frontier’s web site only offers a vague promise of “something for every member of your flight crew”. That may be partly my fault, so let me see what I can do to fix it.

Once upon a time, I was returning from a business trip on a Thursday evening in the fall. The timing was perfect to watch a game on NFL Network, because few shows are as engagingly mind-numbing as an NFL game. Frontier’s online list highlighted NFL Network, so I booked my flight with them. As you’ve guessed by now, Frontier substituted another channel for NFL Network that evening. When I wrote to complain, I received a written shrug and the kind offer to repay the TV fee I’d paid for that flight.

As I prepared my trip to the NAB Show (in progress as I type), I went looking around the internet for the latest channel list. That way I could check on TitanTV or some other listing service to see whether there would be anything I wanted to watch. My Google searches turned up empty, and Frontier’s site wasn’t any help.

Since that complaint about Frontier’s changing channels may be the reason it won’t post what DirecTV channels it carries (hey, it could happen), I hereby post the Frontier Airlines channel list as shown on the inflight seatback card:

1 NBC
2 Fox
3 CBS
4 ESPN
5 ESPN2
6 TBS
7 TNT
8 Bravo
9 USA
10 A&E
11 Food Network
12 HGTV
13 Live GPS map
14 “NFL Network” (Golf)
15 Fox News Channel
16 CNN
17 “CNBC” (NBC Sports Network)
18 History
19 Discovery
20 Disney Channel
21 Nickelodeon
22 Boomerang
23 VH1
24 MTV
25 Comedy Central
26-30 movies or TV shows, based on flight length

Note that although Frontier has updated its pricing, it still includes NFL Network, which still wasn’t available on my flight. (The Golf Channel was in its place.) Also, there was a Premier League soccer match on in place of CNBC, so I’m guessing that’s NBC Sports Network. Those were the only changes I could detect, but there were so many commercials that I can’t say for sure whether there are more. Also, isn’t it kind of weird that Frontier offers NBC, Fox and CBS but not ABC? The Disney Channel is in the lineup, so it’s not like it couldn’t work a deal with Disney. But I digress.

So there you have it. Next time you’re considering a Frontier flight, you can check to see whether you’ll want to pay for TV access. On my flight, I didn’t see anyone who wanted to pay $3.99 for an hour and a half. Most passengers were watching their laptops or tablets.

Industry, public interest groups line up with Aereo

April 3, 2014 by mrdrivein·Comments Off

TV production set with camera and lighting equipment on tripods in front of Supreme Court building with in Washington D.C.

After reading the arguments from a long list of trade unions, sports leagues, and the US Solicitor General against Aereo in its upcoming Supreme Court case, I’m encouraged to read an equally long list of trade groups and public interest organizations who are in favor of Aereo’s streaming TV technology.

The Electronic Freedom Foundation, along with Public Knowledge, the Consumer Electronics Association, and Engine Advocacy, filed an amicus brief that stresses Aereo’s private performances, building on rulings that allowed the growth of the VCR and other personal entertainment technology. They wrote, “The Aereo case pits entrenched businesses with deep political ties against an innovative entrepreneur who carefully followed the words of the law and implemented an idea of giving people the broadcast television service they are entitled to get.”

That followed a brief submitted by the American Cable Association, which pointed out that Aereo doesn’t own the TV distribution platform it uses. “Aereo functions more like a DVR retailer or antenna installer,” it said. “By facilitating reception of broadcast programming, it may reduce demand for a cable television service subscription, but it does not function like cable.”

And there was Dish Network, also in support of Aereo. Dish compared the service to its Slingbox and other internet-based devices. “None of these devices does anything without an end-user’s command,” it said. “They are like dumbwaiters, incapable of delivering a pail of water without the thirsty person tugging on ropes and pulleys. If an individual uses that dumbwaiter to fetch himself a video he recorded of Breaking Bad, the dumbwaiter manufacturer does not infringe a copyright in the show.”

All this rational praise for Aereo makes a great antidote for that earlier stuff. I couldn’t believe that Major League Baseball said Aereo’s service would knock its games off the air, since MLB is already actively removing its over-the-air games. The Los Angeles Dodgers dropped all OTA broadcasts and moved to its own, expensive cable network, causing no end of hand-wringing in the second-largest US TV market. More quietly in Philadelphia, the Phillies moved all but a dozen of its OTA games to cable. Those defections leave the Cubs and White Sox as the only two teams with 30 or more OTA games in 2014, thanks mostly to WGN. Last year, I wrote that MLB was cutting off a future generation of fans, and you can add the recent-graduate cord-nevers to that neglected group. Sure MLB.TV does a great job of selling all out-of-market games online, but for most fans, those home-team games left the airwaves years ago.

For another refutation of goofy anti-Aereo arguments, check out Mike Masnick’s post yesterday on Techdirt. Once again, Masnick summarizes what’s been bouncing around in my head. “Multiple comments on various Aereo posts have people insisting that the convoluted setup of Aereo’s technology … shows that they’re trying to skirt around the law. However, it seems rather obvious that it’s the exact opposite. There is no logical reason to have this kind of setup except to be within the law. Aereo’s “insane” technological setup is much an indication of why it’s legal — and how screwed up copyright law is that this is the only legal way to build such a system.”

I don’t know if the Supreme Court has ruled against “entrenched businesses with deep political ties” lately. I’m hoping that this summer’s decision will be a welcome, rational exception.

Upon further review

March 17, 2014 by mrdrivein·Comments Off

After I posted my review of Channel Master’s DVR+, a part of me was just certain that something was wrong about it. That was the first time I used the Kill A Watt meter, and despite what it told me, I thought its numbers didn’t add up. I used the same meter with the same settings on my Dish 922 receiver, and the meter told me that my 922 was responsible for about a quarter of my electric bill. That couldn’t be right.

Sure enough, the meter had somehow bumped my electricity rate from almost 9 cents per kWh to over 89 cents/kWh. (User error? Not that!) After resetting with the right numbers and calibrating against a known amount of usage (a lamp), I was ready to try again.

This time, the meter told me that my Windows Media Center computer was burning less than $1.50/month of electricity. That was based on a measurement over several days, including several hibernation periods, so I took the computer’s measured peak power consumption of 40 watts and multiplied up to about $2.60/month of 24/7 usage. The meter showed a similar reduction for the DVR+, down to a tiny 7 watts. The DVR+ is still much better with electricity, but not $12/month better. I’ve corrected those figures in the original post.

As I was doing these retests, a comment came in. I was expecting someone to tell me that my power figures had to be full of beans, but this one corrected my remarks about DVR+ buffering. Turns out that it works just fine if it’s got an external hard drive plugged in, so I also added that note to the original post. That’s where it all stands now, and if I ever learn how to reprogram the DVR+ skip-ahead buttons, I’ll let you know.

Update: Commenter phil came through with the full DVR+ manual (PDF) which reveals all sorts of things, including the secret of reprogramming the buttons. To change from the default 10 seconds, just go to the DVR menu, which of course is where you would expect to find remote control options.

Once upon a time, I helped prepare in-box manuals, so I understand that printing a zillion short booklets saves real money over printing a zillion full manuals. In this case, with such non-intuitive options, I think that Channel Master would be well served to include those full manuals. Or maybe just single sheets of attention-grabbing colored paper with the note to be sure to go online for the full version. Then everybody would know exactly how it’s supposed to work.

Techdirt calls shenanigans on CBS

March 13, 2014 by mrdrivein·Comments Off

Les Moonves, the CEO of CBS, was in the news again this week after threatening again to pull his network from the airwaves if Aereo is allowed to continue to rent antennas to viewers. Well, the way he put it was “If the government wants to give them permission to steal our signal, we will find another way to get them our content and get paid for it.”

Moonves was just one more voice in a series of public pleas from folks who might lose some cash if more viewers switch to free TV, and I hadn’t planned to even mention it. (Only a month ago, Moonves had said that Aereo wasn’t a threat to CBS’s bottom line no matter what happens in court.) Then I checked in on Techdirt last night, where Mike Masnick really nailed it.

Masnick wrote: “(I)f CBS is really so clueless that it thinks abandoning the free handout it was given by the US government in terms of a massive chunk of spectrum is the right way to respond to something like Aereo (which only increases the viewers of its free, over the air broadcasts) well, then by all means go for it. I’m sure plenty of others would leap at the opportunity of making use of that spectrum, either for broadcasting other content, or putting it to even better uses.”

Masnick has much more about Moonves’ blustery bluff, and you really should go read it!

Review: DVR+ vs. Windows Media Center

March 11, 2014 by mrdrivein·2 Comments

When I first read about Channel Master’s DVR+, I guessed that it was like my Simple.TV device. Tunes over-the-air TV? Check. Works best with a USB hard drive? Check.

As so often happens, I was wrong. The nice folks at Channel Master sent me a DVR+ to review, and I quickly discovered that it’s very little like Simple.TV. The DVR+ records OTA TV, but it doesn’t stream on its own, and it hooks directly to the TV for viewing. Come to think of it, those features match a Windows Media Center computer, so that’s what I’ll use for the comparison test.

By coincidence, I had just purchased a refurbished Dell Inspiron 660 (4 GB RAM, 1 TB HD, Windows 7 Pro, built-in HDMI output) plus a wireless mouse at Micro Center for under $200, which is about $50 less than Channel Master is charging for the DVR+ at its online store. Now let’s start reviewing the differences between the two.

Form factor: The DVR+ is sleek, wide and thin. Looks nifty. The Dell is a thick black box. Looks bulky. Advantage DVR+.

Setup: The DVR+ is ready to go almost out of the box. It includes a small amount of storage memory onboard, so it’s possible to record a few shows without a USB drive. It only took a few minutes to run its setup, let it scan my channels, and download its guide data. The Dell? Hoo boy! It took hours to download and install all the latest Windows security updates, the driver for the USB OTA tuner I added, and then scan my channels and download its guide data. Advantage DVR+.

Add-Ons: Although it’ll work without it, the DVR+ gains a lot of recording space with an external hard drive. The Dell needed an OTA tuner, so I used my rebranded Hauppage HVR-950, which would otherwise cost about the same as the external hard drive. Even.

Remote: The DVR+ includes a full-service remote control that can be taught to control its TV as well. The Dell has that wireless mouse. (I’ve tried Windows Media Center remotes, but never found one I liked.) The DVR+ remote is extremely complicated, with more buttons than my TV remote and almost as many as my Dish DVR remote. (That includes four color buttons that don’t do much yet, and a skip-forward button that only goes 10 seconds. Why not 30 seconds like every other DVR?) (Update: Deep in the hard-to-find full manual (PDF), there are instructions to go through the DVR menu to reprogram that button if desired.) The Dell mouse is extremely simple; it can never control my TV, but it can access anything in the Windows Media Center. Simple is good; I’m calling this Even.

Power consumption: A tip of the hat to the Channel Master folks who pointed out this one. According to my Kill A Watt EZ Electricity Usage Monitor, using my local rate of nearly 9 cents per kWh, my Dell uses about 60 9 cents of electricity per day, but the DVR+ uses only about 19 2 cents a day. That’s a difference of about ~~$12~~ $2 per month to run Windows Media Center. Advantage DVR+, even after correcting my first use of the Kill A Watt.

Tuners: The DVR+ was just a little more sensitive than the Hauppage on marginal channels. I don’t know whether a different Windows tuner might work better. The DVR+ has two tuners, but the sole advantage of that here is being able to watch one live show while recording another. Halfway through a recording, I couldn’t watch that show live on the second tuner; I had to go to the recording in the DVR and fast-forward. On the other hand, if multiple OTA tuners are important to you, Windows Media Center will support up to four (!) tuners if you add them to your computer. Even.

Aspect Ratio: The Windows Media Center somehow automatically chooses the correct aspect ratio (16:9 widescreen or 4:3 standard definition-style) for every channel and sub-channel. The DVR+ always defaults to 16:9 for every channel and when playing every recording, as far as I could tell. Although I couldn’t find it in any documentation, there’s a button on the remote that cycles through three styles – the third is a zoomed-in view for those 4:3 channels that are showing 16:9 content in a letterbox. That last feature is nice, but having to click the 4:3 button every time I want to watch a movie on Get TV gets annoying. Advantage Windows.

Buffering: With the Dell, if I’m watching a show and I want to see what someone just said, it’s easy to skip back a little and watch it again. On the DVR+, it doesn’t buffer automatically that way (update: unless an external hard drive is plugged in). I’m out of luck unless I’ve already clicked pause (it’ll only go back as far as the pause request) or I’m already recording it, and in that case, it’s not so simple to watch it live. (See Tuners above.) Since the recommended configuration for the DVR+ is to include an external hard drive, I’d call this Even.

The local Lesea affiliate shows Roy Rogers and Lone Ranger reruns, but I can’t tell that from the DVR+ guide.

Live guide: Both the DVR+ and Windows Media Center offer free online guide content, a huge advantage over other OTA tuner products. But what’s in that guide? DVR+ turned up blanks for several of my local channels that had full listings in Windows Media Center’s guide. Another shortcoming was that for the entire testing week, which included both Standard and Daylight times, my Bounce TV affiliate’s listings were consistently one hour off in the DVR+ guide but no where else – not Windows or Simple.TV or TitanTV or Zap2It. Everything else seems accurate in the DVR+ guide, so YMMV, but this is definitely Advantage Windows.

Extended guide: Discovery is the name of the game these days. With so many channels (even with OTA, there are usually at least a couple dozen), it’s hard to identify what to watch. Simple.TV does a great job of this on its iPhone app, but I’m not talking about Simple today. Windows Media Center’s Movie Guide at least presents posters of the full set of movies that will be available during the next 10 days or so, making it easy to thumb through them and select some that look good. Advantage Windows.

Searching: Another part of that discovery process is flexible searching. The DVR+ allows searching on title words only. Windows Media Center allows searching on title, keyword, categories, actor, and director. Both devices found future episodes of Arthur, but only Windows could tell me which upcoming movies starred George Brent. Advantage Windows.

Other streaming content: Channel Master incorporated online movie service Vudu into its DVR+. That’s a nice touch, but Vudu and Netflix, Crackle, YouTube, FilmOn, and a zillion other services are available on the Windows PC, even if most aren’t accessed within Media Center. Advantage Windows.

Music: Windows Media Center can access FM radio if it’s attached to its computer, typically as part of a TV tuner card. And Windows has quite a few streaming music sources available, or you can store music files to its hard drive. Nothing like that in the DVR+. Advantage Windows.

DVDs: The Dell plays them, and if I added a Blu-ray drive, I could probably mothball my standalone Blu-ray player. Nothing like that in the DVR+. Advantage Windows.

Miscellaneous: Soon after I installed it, I recorded a show to the DVR+’s onboard storage. After I attached the USB drive, I could no longer see that onboard recording until I disconnected the drive and rebooted the DVR+. Both devices accept system updates over the internet, often requiring a reboot, but that seems to happen more often with Windows. The DVR+ is quieter than the Dell. The DVR+ is a dedicated device, but the Dell could be a general purpose computer, especially when it’s not playing back a show. Even.

Conclusion: If that extra ~~$12~~ $2/month (or more or less, depending on local electricity rates) speaks loudest to you, then I could see that as a really good reason to choose the DVR+. For me, the buffering, the automatic aspect ratio detection, the guide, and the universe of online content make me happier to stay with Windows Media Center.