As an early adopter of NetFlix, I've written many times here about how good the service is was.  Over the holidays however, that all went horribly, horribly wrong.  My wife and I use NetFlix in spurts- some months we're busy doing something else and don't watch any, then when the TV season goes into hiatus, we catch up on movies.

I've done my part to help their ratings system- my wife and I have collectively rated nearly 400 movies over the years. 

So what did NetFlix do to cause me to switch to Blockbuster's Total Access? 

It started with two out of five discs rented in the last month being cracked.  We're not talking a little crack, we're talking a full 1mm from the edge. I reported both, and noticed it took a longer time than usual to get a replacement of one (the other I didn't request a replacement).  It's embarassing when you have to explain to your in-laws why at a key point in the plot of a movie, you can't watch the rest, nor get another disc during the remainder of their trip because NetFlix is too slow.

Prior to sending the movies back, I moved three movies to the top of my queue.  All were available and I had always received movies listed at the top.  What did I get in return?  Movies from the bottom of my queue.  We're talking over a dozen movies down.  There's no possible way all of the  movies above it were checked out, and I checked!  Like the lint that congregates under your bed, these movies had collected at the bottom of our queue and we had forgotten about them.

David Pogue wrote about NetFlix's great customer service last year.  It's true, I've had nothing but good experiences when reporting a lost disc (and returned later to be credited).  Then Michael Arrington wrote about how NetFlix's complicated algorithms punish frequent users of the service.  I rented more movies during the holidays (vacation?) after literally multiple months of not renting any. 

Somehow, like Arrington, I got "NetFlixed":

Netflixed  /netflicksed/  –adjective

1. punished due to regular usage of services paid-for

2. twisted; awry, as in the condition of discs when received

3. Slang. extracting highest possible profit out of customer by artificially adjusting service offerings to penalize usage.

It looks like the algorithm uses a 30-60 day usage window to enable throttling and doesn't take into account months of pure profit they reaped from me when I wasn't using the service.  Perhaps I'm being punished for reporting two out of three shipped discs being cracked.  How is that my fault?

I tried contacting NetFlix  and have yet to get a response other than, "Sorry, we get a lot of mail".  No problem.  Unsubscribed.

So I've dropped NetFlix as of today, and moved to Blockbuster's Total Access where I also get a free movie on the spot when I return a DVD in-store instead of via mail (we have one by our gym).  They also have a great selection of HD-DVDs and Blu-Ray titles.  Now I just need a Media Center-enabled UI for Blockbuster's service (as I have for NetFlix via the community) and my world is complete.

Congratuations NetFlix- by mis-managing customer expectations you've replaced my prior disdain for Blockbuster's glassy-eyed checkout clerk and late fees with a new disdain for your business practices.

Last night, I had the honor of attending the Technical Emmy Awards ceremony at CES to help accept the Emmy Award for Streaming Media Architectures and Components.  Afterwards, we went to the Vista party at the Pure Nightclub in Caesars and brought the Emmy for safe keeping and to take pictures with other team members. It was a hit with a number of old friends who helped us to get this win.  It was a shared win- there was a sense of surprise when I congratulated the Apple team on their shared win as well.

John Carmack, co-founder of iD, creator of Doom and Quake and founder of Armadillo Aerospace was one of the presenters.  When I get a chance, I'll post some video I took during the ceremony. The DirectX team was also on-hand to accept an award for their 3D engine.

Thank you to all the engineers, designers, bizdev, marketing, management who helped to make the win possible but most importantly, to our customers.

More pictures from the party on Flickr here

Well, no integrated TV (yet), but it looks like my other prediction specific to the iPhone in August may be at least partly right.  Remember how Apple last year made a big pre-order with Intel/Micron's IMFlash effort and everyone assumed it was for new iPods?   An intrepid analyst should ask Apple if they're going to use their 50nm NAND Flash in the iPhone.  I believe so, and that it's the secret to how they're getting it so small.  The 2nd manufacturing facility doesn't come online until oh, just about the time the iPhone will ship.  Most of the other players are still dealing with much larger (and bulkier) flash.

Anyone notice there was no announcement of iTunes Store in related?  I'd expect they'll do a deal w/ Cingular cum AT&T to provide free WiFi hotspot access to iTunes Store in public places.  Next up- direct billing of media purchases to your AT&T bill...

Apple's going to do it with iTV.  Intel's Viiv certifying hardware for it Sling Media is announcing the SlingCatcher.  Microsoft has been doing it with Media Center Extender and Xbox 360. NetGear is getting (back) into it.  Will this be the year of the DMR?  Probably not, but some big names are getting into the fray/renewing efforts.

The challenge is how do you get to a unified view of your family photos, music, video, and recorded TV regardless of which set your on in the home.  Lots of effort in the NAS server space, and I'd expect some additional announcements to make the content easier to distribute, including HP's new Windows Home Server. Still, there's a LOT of work that has to be done for setup and connectivity across the industry.  HDMI makes this much easier but not many consumers have TV's with HDMI, while others have to figure out how to route video to the TV and audio to the AV receiver while getting it all to work well together (hint: start with a Harmony remote from Logitech- I just got a Harmony 890 for the holidays, more on that later).

I'm pretty frustrated right now because BOTH of my Samsung Blackjack batteries fully burned out last night and won't trickle charge.  There should be an "emergency reserve" button on the batteries themselves.  Serves me right for forgetting my AC power cable...

My wild prediction for today: Apple will announce the iTV as an actual HDTV w/ the hardware built-in.   They'll do this before releasing a set-top style product.  That and perhaps Flash gaming support on the iPod.

Michael Gartenberg says it's going to be a year of maturation at CES.  Michael tends to really know his stuff and I have to admit, most of the news out of Engadget of late has been about convergence of technology. 

I expect a lot of focus on usability this year.  The past few years, certain devices have become abominations of usability harkening back 20 years (certain high def players as an example ahem).  Having just built a home media server and dealt once again with the incompatibilities of video formats between my camera, my Media Center (Xbox) and my portable player, I can truly relate to his sentiment.

Let me start off by saying I'm a hard-core Xbox 360 fan and just finished Gears of War. I'm a little less addicted to achievements and points than Scoble discusses (more on that later).  What shocked me this holiday season was how we became a two-console household literally overnight.

Some friends of ours had a large tree hit their house the night of the windstorm and we decided to have them over for a pizza party.  We made fresh pizzas on the Big Green Egg, and they brought over their Nintendo Wii. My in-laws were here too, from the heartland, they had little interest in gaming.  I was concerned this was going to be too geeky for them.

I was wrong. Again.

In what started to look like a tupperware party for the new millennium, from the first time the Wiimote was "thrown", a crowd started gathering.  The kids at first, then... my wife, who on only two occasions with pleading has ventured beyond casual games in Xbox wanted to create a Mii caricature with the older kids of herself.

Then my father in law wanted to play bowling.

Then my mother in law tried tennis.

I then KO'ed my neighbor in boxing.

Which led to my father in law challenging my wife to a boxing match (she won).

Which led to my wife telling me she wanted a Wii for Christmas, and my father in law noting he wanted to get a Wii as well.

In my case, I didn't really mind the lower video quality- the gameplay made up for that.  This is what Nintendo does so well.  The Xbox 360 largely stays turned off during family events and parties unless used for showing home movies, pictures, music etc. via Media Center.  The party game aspect just isn't there and with a 3 year old in the house, there's precious little time when I can boot it up and play games around him.  Sure, arcade is fun, but Nintendo has a lock on the natural interaction model with the Wiimote and Nunchuk, the titles have less depth (so far) but fun and engaging.

So last week I did the unthinkable and stood in the cold at 6am in front of Fred Meyer with others to get a Nintendo Wii.  Since then, we've had one small party and again it was a huge hit.  My son is getting good at bowling too. 

Would I play Call of Duty 3 on the Wii? No.  That's the kind of game that for me requires the visual impact and cinematics the Xbox 360 does so well.  But there's space in my home for the Wii for all ages. We're trading Mii caricatures of famous people with friends.

Now my sister, a Doctor at the CDC called to rant that a second Wii I happened on was sold (at retail cost) to my Uncle and young cousins.  Apparently she wanted  it.  She doesn't play video games.

Kudos to Nintendo for bridging the generation and gender gap in this release.  Their commercials are spot-on. There are some things I don't like about the Wii, but more on those after I've had it a few more weeks.  (I'll post my Wii access code shortly).

After we got power, I had a great vacation where I stayed unplugged from the grid (mostly) and reconnected with family and friends. But it's a new year. I notice that Long Zheng and Brandon LeBlanc both tagged me for their "5 Things you didn't know about me" meme:

1. I got my first computer ~1984 and after playing the first game, I knew wanted to work at the game developer some day - the game was "Flight Simulator II".

2. I sold my backup copy of same program to a friend, something I'm not proud of.

3. I was operations manager of a small communcations software company making the first Windows GUI-based BBS.  I quit and went back to school after being told the Internet was a fad.

4. I once did a developer keynote in germany with a 103+ degree fever and delirious.  At the end of the presentation I reintroduced myself.

5. I ran the only Windows-based mirror site for the Mars Pathfinder project in partnership with NASA's JPL.  And yes, the load was so great, the mirroring software so bad that I spent nights in the server room debugging it.  We've come a long way.

So there you go.  I'm supposed to tag other bloggers.  Here goes for Chris Pirillo, Shawn Morrissey, Robert Scoble, and Thomas Hawk.

P.S. - I'll be at CES Sat-Tues. Ping me if others want to meet up, we may do a small dinner on Saturday.

Amazing video of a band called Corporeal doing a live rendition of the Halo theme song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLt5_ME_2_M

I really like my Zune, except for one thing- I'm obsessed with battery life so I tend to keep the wireless radio off except when I want to actively look for others.  The likelihood of users to do this could severely diminish the "social" aspects of the device.  I want to be social, but I don't want to run two WiFi radios between my laptop and my Zune, unnecessarily using up battery power.

What I really want is a small utility that runs on my laptop and notifies me when a Zune comes into the area.  It's running WiFi so it must have some sort of broadcast/ID mechanism no?  I can see all sorts of interesting applications of this- mashups that show how many Zunes are available in a given area for one.  It would be interesting to see if I could use my laptop to broadcast the fact that I have a Zune, and take requests.  Then I'll turn on the radio and away I go. And with Vista support now out for Zune, I'm hoping someone will write the ZuneFinder gadget.   Anyone working on this (psst. Phil Torrone, psst) :)

Zune update 1.2 with support for Windows Vista is out.  More details at www.zuneinsider.com

Thanks to the intrepid work of my wife, we're back! She found a generator at 6am yesterday and we had it in-hand at 6:45am (tip: Home Depot expects to receive more Tuesday if you're looking). Like the famed Cabbage Patch craze, my wife called down lists of Lowes and HD stores (among others) from the hotel last night.  CraigsList failed us as we looked.  Thanks to everyone for their well wishes.

Our area was among the hardest hit in the storms.  Not directly thankfully (though I did awaken at midnight with other neighbors to help secure the home of a friend who had a maple tree hit their house and blow out all the windows on the backside.

It's amazing how scary and liberating it can be when you are forced to unplug from the grid. No net access, no power, no phone communication, only AM talk radio for 60 hours can get to you.  The lines at the gas station (and the civil yet

I'm on Cingular's EDGE network right now on my Sony VAIO laptop.  It has built-in EDGE so I just popped the SIM card in and away you go. 

This entire experience though minor in comparison has made me think about the plight in Darfur and others war, famine, and poverty stricken areas.  This holiday season, it's reminded me to do what I can to reach out to others and help in their time of need.

Update: We got power this afternoon. Thanks again to everyone for their help and research- it means a lot!

Cutting to the chase:  If you have a credible source for generators in the 5000 watt range without price gouging in the Seattle area, please let us know here. Our area was among the hardest hit and we're still without power in sub-25deg weather at night.  We were VERY lucky (our neighbors had a 30ft maple tree come down on their house, we were boarding it up at 1am on Friday).  I don't trust PSE's estimates - website says updated every few hours, they updated at 6am and 5pm tonight with limited information, KIRO 770AM has conflicting info. 

A number of us are looking for generators in earnest. If you have a legitimate offer or contact, please let us know here.  Thanks and god bless to others in similar situations.

A small gift for those of us who want to watch Knight Rider and Firefly reruns in HD as well as the occasional music video or Unplugged session.

Mike Taulty has posted an interesting sample showing 12 WMV media elements  all running in the same "WPF/E"-based web page.  Imagine being able to watch sporting events streamed in multiple video windows, mouse over a window and get the main screen view.

The uses for this technology are endless.  Imagine a device such as a Crestron-like touch screen control that has live previews of video across multiple channels.  Press the video feed you want and your TV switches.  It might be time to start playing with "WPF/E" inside Media Center's SDK too... ;)

One of the many reasons I like Flickr. 

Check out this game designed by DanC that has my wife salivating.  Remember, my wife loves puzzle games and thanks to her, my gamerscore on Xbox Live keeps going up (thanks hon).

From Danc's:

Pete, my old compatriot from Anark, was looking for a game design concept to turn into sample game for the Microsoft WPF/E samples they launched this Monday. He actually made it work with AI and everything. WPF/E is a lovely little web platform that Microsoft announced last year. It is in the early stages, but I have high hopes.

The game is a simple turn-based strategy game involving the capture of resources and the containment of enemies. If the response is good enough (and the programmer willing), there are quite a few more features I'd like to add.

• You can play the game here:
  http://channel9.msdn.com/playground/wpfe/Sprawl/default.html

• You'll need to install the latest WPF/E player. Yes, this runs in Firefox. Yes, it runs on Mac. Once you install the player, you can then play the game. You can find that here:
  http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/asp.net/bb187452.aspx

Internally a few of us call this the, "Al Gore Game"  (with respect of course).  Planting greenfields is a good thing.  The code to the game is available so feel free to create your own variant - theme it for whatever you want.

If you're thinking about Blu-Ray (BD) vs. HD-DVD this holiday season, something to consider- Blu-Ray isn't just suffering from PS3 backlash, the average BD player on Amazon.com is 41% more expensive than HD DVD. This weekend, I took a look at baseline costs on Amazon and determined you can buy the average BD player and zero movies, or get an HD DVD player and over four and a half years of NetFlix HD rentals at the same price. Even comparing cheapest models, you can rent nearly two years of HD DVD movie rentals from NetFlix before reaching the purchase price of the cheapest Blu-Ray player. 

Note this is at the lowest tier of NetFlix so there's an assumption you're only renting about 2 movies per month, but still, NetFlix is a great way to sidestep the whole HD format lock-in issue- I never buy an HD disc unless I expect to watch it semi-monthly for the next five years.  With NetFlix even at its lowest tier, you get the flexibility of watching movies in BD or HD DVD formats, effectively dropping the price of adoption to the cost of the player (because you're going to rent movies, aren't you?) <g>. 

Update: Note I've intentionally left out the PS3 and Xbox 360 from this list.  There's an impedance mis-match in terms of adoption and cost associated with the two- do you count the overall price, or just the price of the drive (in which Xbox 360 would win hands-down at under $300).

The last point to make is about availability of content and there, your mileage may vary, though studios are doing more dual-releases now. 

• Blu-Ray Historical List of Movies released: http://bluray.highdefdigest.com/releasedates_historical.html
• HD-DVD Historical List of Movies released: http://hddvd.highdefdigest.com/releasedates_historical.html

We're finalizing plans for sessions on "WPF/E" and rich media streaming for MIX07.  Do you want sessions on authoring, encoding, business value etc?  I'm curious what sessions you'd like to see at the event?  Drop me a comment here.

With Vista Media Center, you can do some pretty nifty 3D effects for applications built with the new Media Center Markup Language (MCML) and .Net 3.0's WPF (which "WPF/E" is also based on.

Mobilewares in Melbourne, Australia has released a series of five add-ins for Vista Media Center including a Flickr plug-in and Stock Ticker (seen above).  I'm expecting we'll see some pretty jaw-dropping applications for the technology shortly.  The Flickr add-in has a few bugs (it's beta) but you can easily see the value.

Don't have Vista Media Center yet?  Download stand-alone samples of most of the apps at the site above as well.

Note: Looks like the stock app beta has expired :(

Our thoughts and prayers go out to James Kim's family and friends. I just went numb when I saw the news.

Chandu wrote a cool utility to embed an arbitrary video into your Web blog with "WPF/E".  Yes, it's been done before, but here he has an interesting twist. ;).  We're just getting warmed up - more samples soon.

Cutting to the chase - the signup is here: http://www.halo3.com/.  And the Monday Night Football commercial was stunning - animated but captured with live actors and done by famed FX house Digital Domain.  It made for a nice treat after launching our CTP. You can download it in HD on Xbox Live now.  It's a teaser but here's what I think I know (spoiler alert):

• I'm convinced the two  kids at the beginning are Master Chief and one of the other Spartans.  The Spartans have been trained from a very young (pre-adolescent) age per the Halo books.
• We learn that first contact with the alien races had not been made when the Spartans were children, which means they exist for more worldly battles.
• The spot he's in is the same as the kids, but gone is the lush fields, replaced with sand and tufts of dead grass.
• We see a more  "human" Master Chief. His helmet was blown off by a grenade, the Warthog behind him thoroughly trashed and he's shell shocked.
• Cortana (Chief's AI) can be briefly heard whispering, "Chief" before the radio crackles with other groundchatter saying they've lost the chief.  He's still there.
• A little girl says, "Time to go".  It sounds like the little girl from earlier in the spot.
• New toys.  Incoming Plasma, some sort of geodesic super-shield.
• Once more into the fray.

Here's what we do know:

• Every object in the ad was taken from Bungie or approved by Bungie (creators of the game and owner of  the license)
• It takes place near the end of the E3 trailer
• The action takes place on Earth
• More details here on Bungie's site. http://www.bungie.net/News/TopStory.aspx?cid=9255

My love of Halo has waned (waiting for a new chapter) but with this ad, I had shivers like a kid again.  It got me to thinking - will the Halo movie be animated like this (using live action)?  The lines are blurring.

You can get a cool still frame from the movie in HD here: http://www.firingsquad.com/media/gallery_image.asp/1249/1

Lee created this cool sample called "Microbe"- The city where "WPF/E" and Flash live in harmony.  (Yes, that's "WPF/E" and Flash co-existing side by side). Learn more here.  It's a brave new world.

The guys at Channel 9 have been playing around with the "WPF/E" platform again in the Channel 9 Playground  Last week they created a player skinned to look like the WMP control, which I wasn't too keen on for the chance of confusion.  Instead, they went in the opposite direction with this very cool example built over the weekend that shows a dynamically reskinnable 9Player based on "WPF/E".  Yes, it's gratuitous in a good way, and really shows off how "WPF/E" can interact with ASP.net AJAX and the browser (z-ordering above the web page text which is still select-able). You can view it here.  More to come...

Straight developer talk from Joe Stegman, and some demos on Windows and Mac in the  selected by the Channel 9 team to celebrate their 1000th video.  Congrats Joe (my partner in crime in San Jose last week).

(Ed. Note: The new sites are being propped and updated as we speak, but getting this out ASAP.)

Today I’m excited to finally be able to talk about a new project I’ve been working on—“WPF/E”.   As some of you know, I spent the last year working on End to End User Experiences, specifically with Windows Vista digital media efforts and devices.  This was an amazingly fun and rewarding job, but when all the product work was done (some yet to be announced <g>), it was time to turn my attention to the next challenge.  It was about that time that I was made aware of another opportunity that was too interesting to resist.   

(My) Introduction to “WPF/E” (codename) 

About a year ago, I heard of an intriguing new project codenamed, “WPF/E” or “Windows Presentation Foundation/Everywhere”.  Announced at the PDC 2005, “WPF/E” is a key part of the next-generation Web platform from Microsoft.   I was intrigued and continued to track progress.  Designed to be delivered as a lightweight, cross-platform browser plug-in, the “WPF/E” client is optimized for presenting rich media such as vector-based graphics, animation, and video content efficiently over the Web.  Microsoft releasing a cross-platform technology?! Readers here know I own a few Macs (one PPC, two Intel-based) and I had to pinch myself.  More importantly I had to be a part of this effort, and I’m excited to say that not only am I a part of the team delivering the technology, we’re making it available to you starting today as a Community Technology Preview (CTP) for evaluation and feedback.  Together with Microsoft Expression Studio also just announced, it’s a goodie bag of toys for designers, developers, and content providers to collaborate on delivering next-generation web experiences and we’re just getting started. (By the way, the codename is a temporary thing, with a much more simplifed one TBA).

Rich web media, simplified with “WPF/E”

Of course, being “Addicted to Digital Media”, there are certain features which led me to join the team.  The “WPF/E“ December CTP also includes support for playback of Windows Media Audio and Video, enabling delivery of rich audio and video integrated with graphical overlays, dynamic resizing, and marker support for interactivity. Customers have been asking for a simple way to embed Windows Media (and VC-1) files and streams organically on web pages for cross-platform playback.  With “WPF/E” they’ll be able to do it (starting with eval’ing progressive download support in the CTP and content protection is on the roadmap).  With “WPF/E” we’re finding new ways to tap into the broad ecosystem of content, tools, and solutions for Windows Media and make it easier.  And for standards-fans, common profiles of the SMPTE standard VC-1 codec are also supported in this release (that’s the same one that ships in all HD-DVD and Blu-Ray players in case you’re keeping count).  Naturally for the Web, standard-definition quality will reign in the near term, but the platform is capable of HD delivery ;),

Introducing Expression Studio

Today, Microsoft also made a number of announcements focused on delivering tools and platforms for delivering rich user experiences (UX) in Windows and on the Web.  The first was an announcement around Expression Studio, a suite of four tools focused on bridging the designer/developer gap that exists today in most development houses.  Using the Expression suite, whatever a designer can visualize and be implemented by developers using .Net Framework 3.0 and Windows Presentation Foundation.  As a program manager, I’ve witnessed first-hand the tension that exists between the designer who creates phenomenal concepts that the developer just can’t code behind.  These tools will also be optimized to support “WPF/E”. I’ve seen upcoming applications built using these tools over the past few months (you’ll get to see some of them soon) and it really takes desktop app development (and soon, web development) to a new level.

Also simplified is the encoding and publishing of content via the new product in the Expression suite is the just announced, Expression Media.  Based on the iView Media Pro product acquired by Microsoft last summer, Expression Media is an update to the professional digital asset management tool to visually catalog and organize all your digital media (pics, fonts, sounds, videos etc.) for easy access  and presentation. (And yes, we’ll still support Mac for asset management).   For video publishers, it will also include a new tool for Windows - Microsoft Expression Media Encoder for encoding and publishing of video with “WPF/E” and beyond.   For more on Expression Media and “WPF/E”, stay tuned.  I’ve added a new category called, “Rich Media” so you can keep tabs on the topic. ;)

Also be sure to check out the blogs of my co-workers talking about “WPF/E” as well including our VP, S. “Soma” Somasegar:

• S. Somasegar - http://blogs.msdn.com/somasegar/
• Scott Guthrie - http://weblogs.asp.net/scottgu/
• Joe Stegman - http://blogs.msdn.com/jstegman/default.aspx
• James Clarke - http://www.clarkezone.net/
• Mike Harsh - http://blogs.msdn.com/mharsh/default.aspx

I’ll provide links to other team members shortly as they post more.  We have a ton of interest in blogging from the team among members with designer, developer, and video production backgrounds.

So take a look at the resources, send us your suggestions, and come back here with questions.  And while you’re at it, check out the just-relaunched sites at http://www.microsoft.com/expression and http://www.microsoft.com/design.  J