[ Music ]
^M00:00:07
>> Yep, feels like the holidays now because we're in San
Francisco and there's snow -- and I'm with a druid.
It's all coming together --
>> Snow, in San Francisco today. Look at you.
>> It doesn't mean you have to be a gnostic. Have you
--
>> All I have to keep me warm is a hoodie.
>> Or you're on the cover of an early Led Zeppelin
album. I'm not sure what that look is.
>> I see in your future -- deals.
>> So he's Mr. Dickens, and I mean that in every sense.
And I'm Brian Cooley, good to have you here for the
Holiday Help Desk, everybody. We take your calls for
the next half hour at 888-900-CNET, and we also take
your e-mails at Holidayhelpdesk@cnet.com. Chat's open,
cnet.com/live/holidayhelpdesk.
>> Before we get started wanted to remind everyone
watching that every weekday you have a chance to win
some stuff in our daily holiday give-away. Just go to
crave.cnet.com, look for the give-away posting. Post a
comment, and you'll be entered to win. Today the prize
is a 32-inch Samsung television.
>> Nice.
>> A very nice looking --
>> Look at how many TVs we're giving away.
>> It does show more than just flowing streams.
>> That's right. Isn't just a photo viewer.
>> Shows all channels. You'll have now until 4 AM
Pacific, 7 AM eastern time, Tuesday, December 8, to
enter. Later in the show we'll have David Katzmaier's
video review of that TV so you can find out if it's
worth bothering entering.
>> And of course we always try to go to our Cheap Skate
when he's not down with the flu, and luckily this day
he's not. That's of course going to be Rick Broido.
Let's bring him in right now from the CNET Cheap Skate
headquarters in Michigan. Hello, Rick, and welcome
back. We missed you at least one day last week.
>> Missed you guys too.
>> Aren't you sweet. What have you got for us today on
the Cheap Skate blog at Cnet.com/cheapskate.
>> Well, you know, I've actually got a great match for
that TV you're giving away. It's a Sony Blu-Ray player
that's on sale for $99.99. And I'll be the first to
admit that's not the best Blu-Ray deal I've ever seen,
but i think it's --
>> For Sony.
>> -- now starting to see a lot more players kind of
sink below that $100 price point. And this one has BD
Live support, which, you know, again is not a make or
break feature for me, but I know a lot of people like to
have the kind of bells and whistles that go along with
that. So for under a hundred bucks now you can get
yourself a BD Live Blu-Ray player, and it is a refurb,
so you've got a 90-day warranty, but --
>> Oh, okay.
>> -- [Inaudible] closely you'll see that for five bucks
more I get a Vizio player that's new with a full
one-year warranty. So a little something for everybody.
>> Okay, so if you're nervous about refurbs, you've got
another option. It's almost the same price. And like
you say, a name brand player for $100, and with the
latest Blu-Ray Firmware --
>> With BD Live, which a lot of times when you see the
deal ones, they're the older ones that don't have the BD
Live. People don't realize that, then they try to
access certain extras on their Blu-Ray, they don't get
them. Like you say, Rick is like a lot of people, don't
really care. Just want to watch the movie. But if you
do care, yeah --
[ Multiple voices speaking ]
>> Yeah, for the person who's AV forward. And for those
who don't know, BD Live allows the disc to reach out to
the Net and have extended or sort of meta content. It
can play games, it can pull down additional material.
So it allows it to be a connected player like we're
seeing in so many home theater trends. All right,
that's good stuff, Rick, hey, thanks a lot for that.
>> Thanks, guys.
>> Now normally Debra from Shopper.com is here with
deals of the day from Shopper, but Debra is off today.
However, the deals are not off. In fact, they are on.
>> They're way on.
>> Like Donkey Kong.
>> PC Nation has the western digital My Book Mira
edition, 1 terabyte hard drive for $220.88. That saves
you $30. Forget that. Amazon.com will save you
$127.21, but you have to want a camera instead of a My
Book. Fuji Film Fine Pix, S 9100 9 MP digital camera
for $649.99. It's a lot of money, but --
>> It's a good camera.
>> -- good camera for a good price.
>> Yeah, we gave it a very good rating. And users
actually out-rate it above us, which is always
interesting, when the users think it's better than we
do. So that's nice when it gets out there in the field
and people say, no, it's really solid, and not the
disagreement that goes the other way.
>> Also Refurb Depot has a Toshiba Mini NB 205 netbook
for $319.95.
>> Really?
[ Multiple voices speaking ]
>> That one -- that saves you, like, $280.
>> That's a 10-inch.
>> It's not the cheapest netbook you can buy, but if you
want that netbook --
>> It's a good sized one, too.
>> Right. Exactly.
>> Big savings.
>> Yeah. It's a nice 10-incher.
>> Okay, so anyway, some great deals there at
Shopper.com. Go to Shopper.com, and when you get there
just click on the upper right corner. Let's show them
that right there. And there's this little button for
deals. Which -- right up there at the upper right, and
that's where you go get the latest deals, right there,
today's deals. This is where you find the freshest
stuff, so if you want to get out in front of the --
>> Because they run out fast sometimes.
>> Yeah, a lot of these do. So if you want to get on
top of things before they run out that's the way you
want to go to that. All right, you know what we're
really here for is the calls, at 888-900-CNET,
888-900-2638. Also for the e-mails. Let's get into the
calls. This is where we play the little game of how
much can we help you and how quickly can we do it.
>> We've got three lines open, folks. Give us a call.
>> That's right. Let's go to our first line here, which
was Andrew calling in from Florida. Let's see if we can
help him out with a question about buying a TV, a
strategy in the store. Hey Andrew, welcome to the
Holiday Help Desk.
>> Hi. Hi, Tom and Brian.
>> Hello.
>> Love the show.
>> Thank you.
>> I just want to ask do you think that buying an -- say
a TV from a retailer that is older -- like, not older,
but not in production any more, instead of like a new,
brand new TV, what do you think, what are your thoughts
on that?
^M00:05:14
>> Is this a name brand or is this a house brand?
>> A name brand.
>> Okay, so it's like a Sharp or a Sony or something?
>> I was talking like a TV that's not really -- like,
it's not the newest TV, but it's, like, an older kind of
one.
>> Yeah. Are you able to find any reviews on it, or is
it just not written up in reviews.
>> I'm not really looking right now. But --
>> Okay, generally speaking? I don't have a problem
with that. The question is what has replaced it. Is it
an important technical feature or is it something that
you can live without. Like, a lot of TVs are being
phased out now for new models that have 240 hertz
refresh rate, which to be honest is not something that's
night and day by any stretch. A lot of TVs are being
phased out because they've gone from 720 P in a lot of
the stock to 1080 sets. That I think is a little more
meaty, for example. Others are being phased out for
reasons you can't always detect, like a change of model
because they're coming from a different manufacturing
partner. There are over 130 television brands, I think,
that CNET has in our catalog at Shopper.com. And yet
there's only maybe a dozen factories that make them. So
a lot of these vendors -- a lot of these manufacturers
are changing where the TVs come from, and that will
engender a new model number. And so they might flush
out the old ones. And so there are a lot of reasons
that you can and sometimes can't tell why they flushed
it out. But in general, I don't have a problem with
that. It's not like, you know, if you were to go buy a
car that was a model year out of date, doesn't matter if
you like the car.
>> Okay.
>> So I wouldn't have an issue with that.
>> All right.
>> And I buy, you know, I'm the "good enough guy." I
buy TVs that are good enough. I don't worry about
getting the ultimate spec if I can't really convince
myself that I'm going to see the difference.
>> Depends on how much future-proof you want to be
against new features, right? If, you know, I bought an
older television and I only had one HTMI port for a
while. So I had to go out and buy an HTMI hub so I
could start putting more stuff in. Right now I've got a
newer TV, and I don't have any issues like that. But I
don't have all of the widgets and stuff. So if I start
to really want to have, oh, the Yahoo widgets or the
Netflix widget on my TV I'm going to have to upgrade the
TV. So if that stuff bothers you, that, you know, like,
oh, I'm going to be left out. You're not
future-proofing yourself as much when you buy the older
models.
>> Right. And the key is to look at the specs. It
doesn't matter if it's an older model or a newer model.
That doesn't matter. It's just a matter of what does it
have, is that what you want. Is it a great price
because it's old stock. Great. Oh, well, there's not
that much model yearism in televisions the way there is
in cars, for example. So good luck with that, go
shopping.
>> All right.
>> Thanks Andrew. Bye. Another question?
>> Yes.
>> Let's do it. Which one do you like?
>> I like -- actually, I think Jake has a very
interesting question that even our executive producer
probably wants to weigh in on here. Jake, welcome to
Holiday Help Desk. What can we help you with today?
>> Yeah, my 6.5-year-old wants very badly a Nintendo DS.
And I'm trying to find out how durable are they, and how
appropriate are they for a 6-year-old. I know Nintendo
has all the kid-friendly stuff.
>> Yeah, 6.5 is pretty young on the Nintendo DS side.
They're durable, but are they 6.5-year-old durable. I'd
almost say no.
>> Two screens that are delicate, yeah. Breakable,
anyway.
>> They're not delicate. They're actually fairly
sturdy. But you know.
>> There's a hinge there.
>> If you're not paying attention, yeah.
>> You know.
>> The game content you're totally in control of with
the DS, so I wouldn't worry about that too much. And
you probably could find age appropriate content. If you
got it for -- I mean, you know your kid better than I
do, maybe your kid's total responsible and everything.
But if you got it for him I would keep it under your
control rather than just throw it around.
>> Yeah, no, it's either that or like the new baseball
bat. And I figured if I get the bat [Inaudible] the DS.
>> Don't get both.
>> Yeah, definitely --
>> Because one will be used on the other.
>> -- don't have a baseball bat and the DS in the same
room.
>> Right.
>> And there might be -- I don't know, are there
drop-proof cases for DS? I've never looked. You know,
because kids tend to drop things a lot. And if it's got
a little shock case around it, that might be a decent
little investment.
>> It's -- what is it, Costco's got the starter kit for
185.
>> And that comes with a hand -- basket of games, a
bundle of games?
>> No, that's just getting in the door.
>> Oh really?
[ Multiple voices speaking ]
>> Yeah, it's interesting --
>> Pricier than I thought.
>> The 6-year-olds kind of love it, of course. Now you
said this is for your nephew?
>> No, my son.
>> This is your son, okay. I was misinformed.
>> Yeah, you were lied to, really. ^M00:09:20
>> I was bald-faced lied to.
[ Multiple voices speaking ]
>> -- don't be so damn diplomatic. Just say it. You
were led down the primrose path and then slapped.
>> Yeah, it kind of -- how you feel about it, and how
much you want to protect it makes all the difference in
the world. Because 6.5 -- right on the cusp. Four
years old I'd say definitely not.
>> And 10.
>> Eight years old, I'd say probably, okay. Probably
going to last, durably. You have to decide whether
they're responsible enough and all that.
>> I wonder what Nintendo says. Let me see. Age --
>> Yeah, what's on the box. That's a good question.
>> Yeah.
[ Multiple voices speaking ]
>> Not that I care that much. I think our answer is
better than what's on a box. But I'm curious what they
say.
>> Let me just see here. Here's something up on Amazon,
people were -- okay, people were asking the same kind of
thing. What's the minimum recommended age for a DS.
Well, this is about the game titles. That's a different
thing.
>> Because the game titles, that's easy.
>> Yeah, our executive producer has a child not too much
older, a few -- couple years older. And she says the
kid is going to become addicted like hers. So be
prepared to lose him --
>> So limit the time.
>> Or her, for a lot --
[ Multiple voices speaking ]
>> A lot of sources recommend it as 8 and up. So I'm
not sure that's an official Nintendo thing, but a lot of
places that do, you know, reviews of educational toys --
>> That fits in with what we're saying.
>> Yeah.
>> So we think it's okay at 6.5. But you know, don't
cry too much if it ends up broken in a couple weeks.
Because it's -- you know --
[ Inaudible comment ]
>> Bonnie Ganheart [Assumed spelling] our executive
producer says next year. And she's been through this
ringer.
>> She says when you're older.
>> And your son can get one right away. But when you're
older you can get one.
>> All right, Jake. Hope that helps you out a little
bit.
>> All right, yeah, no, no, thanks. You guys say hi to
Jeanie.
>> Oh, of course. In the chat room.
>> Jeanie in the chat room. All right, Jake, thanks for
the call there. Good stuff. We'll get back to more of
your calls, by the way, and some of your e-mails as
well. 888-900-CNET, 888-900-2638. Got all that coming
up. Coming up right after a short break, by the way,
we're going to be talking to one of my favorite
merchants, and I say that without any padding going into
my pocket, it's B and H Photo. I love these people. So
we're going to be talking to one of the original tech
merchants that goes way back before there was online
shopping, back when, you know, it was all about
photography in so many ways, and they branched out to a
lot of stuff. So David Flores [Phonetic] is coming from
that -- coming up with that from New York City, talking
to B and H, and taking for of your calls at
888-900-CNET, 888-900-2638 as the Holiday Help Desk
continues.
^M00:11:38
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^M00:11:43
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this. These Duracell batteries were given to the Mattel
Children's Hospital at UCLA, because when it comes to
kids and healing you're not just powering a toy, you're
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>> Everywhere you look new gadgets are popping up. To
get the real story on them, there's really only one
place to go. Cnet.com. Discover something new at CNET.
^M00:12:13
>> Last FM now on Xbox Live. Discover more music and
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^M00:12:30
[ Music ]
^M00:12:34
>> Welcome back to the Holiday Help Desk. Phones are
open at 888-900-2638. Right now we've got one, two --
two lines open.
>> Two beautiful lines open.
>> So two of you can get on the horn.
>> Come on and get those fresh pickings.
>> Hmm, hmm, hmm, tasty --
[ Multiple voices speaking ]
>> Right off the top --
>> Cooked up fresh daily, on the Holiday Help Desk.
>> Top of our brain-addled minds.
>> Let's go now to New York City where we've got David
Flores joining us now via Skype from B and H Photo which
is almost a misnomer these days, David. You guys are B
and H Photo and video and AV, and electronics, and
almost ENG equipment, you've got all -- you've got
everything going on there. Welcome to the show.
>> Everything. Great to talk with you guys today, how
are you?
>> Good, good, good. And I've been a B and H customers
for like, forever. And you know, mostly for still
photography stuff, you know, a lot of 35 millimeter
gear. But these days we're talking about of course much
more of an electronic bent. Tell me some of the things
that you've got going on that are extremely hot right
now that you're very proud of, as deals.
>> Oh, B and H started off as a professional source for
photography. But like you said, we've expanded into the
realm of consumer and professional video products. We
have something out there for everyone, whether you're
just getting started or you're a professional working in
the industry. And one of our favorite products this
holiday season is actually the Flip Minnow HD camcorder.
This is part of that shoot-and-share line family from
Flip. Records about an hour of high definition 720 P HD
video. Has a built-in integrated Lithium ion battery.
And we're selling this right now for $151.95. And it
comes with a free power adapter. We have free shipping
on that as well. So that's one of the exciting things
we have going on for the holidays.
>> Now this is of course one of the kind of products
that you can get anywhere, and it is very simple to use.
So how do you -- how do you guys market something like
this. Is it something that you're selling to existing
customers that are buying other kinds of gear. I mean,
how do you beat Amazon and Walmart when you're selling
something like this. And you guys are known as more of
a specialist.
>> We are specialists. And I think B and H has been
able to sell this to a variety of different types of
customers. You know, we service the professional market
and the intro -- introductory market. I think Flip has
done a great job at making the brand known, and you see
this marketed by everybody. But when you come into our
store and you're buying a professional DSLR, sometimes
spending upwards of $20,000 for some report tog [Assumed
spelling] systems. We have folks that are asking us,
hey, you know, I'm with a press agency, or you know, I
need to do a little bit of documentation of my photo
shoot. We're selling these to pros just as well as we
are to folks that just want to take great family video.
>> Now let's talk about something a little more
up-market. A really nice compact digital camera. A lot
of folks are looking to step up to a better camera than
their first digital camera. And you've got one that
you're pretty excited about, Canon's S 90, one of their
PowerShots. Not the most compact camera, but close to
it, and very capable.
>> Extremely capable camera. Canon in the last several
years has really been aiming certain segments, I think,
of their point-and-shoot market towards professionals or
advanced amateurs that want more control. That want
SLR-style functionality and SLR-style, SLR-quality
images in a compact. And that's what the PowerShot S 90
does. Effectively, it's using the same sensors the very
popular PowerShot G 11 camera. So it's very
conservative in terms of resolution. You know, you're
getting around 10 mega pixels out of the file. But you
can push this to an ISO 3200. So you can shoot in -- at
almost no light situations, which is great.
>> And I'm always telling people that they should look
for good low light sensitivity. Because then they can
turn off the Flash, steady the camera, and get nice,
natural existing light photos, instead of that --
because when you buy a camera like this, which is a
really nice, advanced pocket camera. And then you go
and leave the flash on all the time, it brings the shots
down. They're going to look like your typical washed
out flash shot in many cases. The camera can't do
anything about that. But a really capable camera can do
good existing light.
>> Right. And optics I think are also a really big part
of this camera. We're seeing in the consumer realm high
ISO taking over, image stabilization or vibration
reduction technologies entering that market. But what
hasn't penetrated it yet are quality lenses. This
particular zoom lens has a maximum aperture of F 2.0.
So you can take in a lot of light, a very light
sensitive sensor. Very, very fast. Fast on auto focus,
great for controlling shallow depth of field and giving
you that nice buttery, out of focus background.
>> Yeah.
>> Really, really fantastic camera.
>> Quick question. Most all the cameras in this
category, they seem to go no wider than a 28 millimeter,
35 millimeter equivalent. Is that kind of as wide as
this class of cameras can get? Because I'm a huge wide
angle fetishist.
>> For the time being, I think this is where we are in
terms of keeping them at a somewhat affordable price
point. The camera like this, it's a little bit more
expensive than your standard point-and-shoot. Retails
for over $400. It's about $430. We have instant
savings of $30 on it right now, so you can get it for
just under $400. I think in the future you will see
some wider options. A lot of this is going to have to
do with sensor design, and then also lowering cost on
components for optical formulas. So this is -- it's
really a timing type of thing. Where we are in the
market right now, I think that's about as wide as we're
going to be able to go in the price point.
>> Okay, last thing real quickly. You've got a Blu-Ray
player deal for us. Which one is it, who by, and what's
the price?
>> This is the Samsung BDP 3600. I think Blu-Ray -- we
think of it as a physical format, but so many more
entertainment services are moving towards the cloud. So
BD Live I think is something that's -- that's very, very
popular. But also streaming services like Netflix and
Pandora are available on demand with this particular
Blu-Ray player. So if you're looking for a digital hub
that you can plug into your television set. This gives
you Blu-Ray functionality, but you can also stream
movies from your Netflix instant queue, or listen to
music on Pandora, which is great for holiday parties.
>> Yeah, we're big on that. It's very good over the top
of stuff, really hot. Hey David, thanks for joining us.
Appreciate it.
>> Hey, thanks guys. Have a great holiday.
>> We'll talk to you next week. Again, another episode
of Holiday Help Desk. This is David Flores at B and H
Photo and Video, Bhphoto.com in New York City.
>> Okay, we're going to get back to a few more calls,
but first we want to take a first look at the Samsung
32-inch LCD TV player that is up for give away on Crave
today.
>> CNET senior editor David Katzmaier here, sitting next
to the Samsung LM 32 B 360. This is an entry level LCD
TV, the 32-inch model. There's also a 26 that this
review applies to in Samsung's least expensive LCD
series for 2009. This little 32-incher is one of the
better performers in its class. We'll get to that in a
little bit. It's also one of the better looking TVs.
You can see it's got a sort of slightly rounded bottom
lip here. Also kind of a little protrusion of clear
plastic below that, kind of adds a nice accent mark to
it. There's also a matching stand that's a little bit
rounded itself. And unlike a lot of TVs in this
category the stand does swivel. We did appreciate that
factor. Going into the menu you'll see a good selection
of picture controls. You can do most of the things you
can on higher-end TVs, including adjust the color
temperature, you can also play around with gamma and a
couple of other settings. So in all, we did like the
adjustments on this TV. Connectivity is another issue,
however. This TV lacks side panel AV inputs. You can
see on the side here it's just a black panel where the
inputs should go. There are a couple inputs on the back
panel, though. Two HTMI, one component video, and a PC
input. But overall, connectivity is a little bit
underwhelming on this Samsung. As I mentioned at the
top, this picture quality is pretty good. You can't
expect reference quality from an entry level TV. But
this Samsung does a pretty solid job starting off with
the black levels. They're deeper than most of the other
TVs in its class. It's also a 720 P TV, but don't worry
about it. You really don't need 1080 P at this price
level. The resolution is not an issue at all. Color
accuracy is very good on this TV. Once you do dial in
the adjustments, again, for an entry level LCD. And off
angle and standard def performance really had no
problems. And that's a quick look at the Samsung LN B
360 series, and I'm David Katzmaier.
>> All right, there you go. If you want to win it go to
crave.cnet.com and enter. You have until 4 AM Pacific,
7 AM eastern time tomorrow. Phones are open at
888-900-CNET, 888-900-2638. Let's pick up Corey out in
Maryland. Welcome to Holiday Help Desk, Corey. What
can we do for you?
>> Thank you, Tom and Brian. How you all doing?
>> Good.
>> I'm [Inaudible] HP Dream Screen 100.
>> You're -- oh.
>> You have any thoughts on that?
>> Sure do.
>> Sure do.
>> Piece of crap.
>> There it is. Boom, bang, thanks for calling.
>> I -- okay, let me back up before HP sends me the
e-mail. If you start from the premises that a digital
photo frame is worth anything at all, then this is a
very nice digital photo frame. But I hate digital photo
frames. And this thing, it doesn't have Wi-Fi, it
doesn't have a battery, it's just -- all it is, is a
digital photo frame that plugs into the wall, and they
added widgets to it. So you can do an Ethernet
connection. I could be wrong about the Wi-Fi, but I
couldn't find any reference to it.
[ Inaudible comment ] ^M00:21:35
>> Yeah, so you get an internet connection, and then you
can put some -- you know, online photos on it, you've
got some widgets. It's got a little more going on.
It's got some apps in it. So in the world of digital
photo frames, I guess it's okay. But honestly I don't
see any use for this. A few hundred dollars, it's a
waste of money, in my opinion.
>> Okay?
>> Okay, what about -- I also, if you don't mind, I have
a question about smart phones.
>> Okay.
>> Any of them have, like, video out. I know they've
got video out, like I've got the iPhone.
>> Yeah.
>> I'm trying to find [Inaudible] get safari out, or GPS
out to an external device, like a TV or a monitor.
>> So -- oh, so you want to put the GPS out to an
external monitor. That's interesting.
>> That is interesting.
[ Multiple voices speaking ]
>> I'm just trying to do something on the weekends to my
car, have, like, Internet in my car, using my smart
phone and maybe a GPS.
>> Yeah, there's no reason you couldn't jimmy something
up with the AV cable for the iPhone. Or if you've got
-- if you end up getting another phone, some other AV
cable out to an external monitor that's running. You
want to put it in your car, though. Would that -- would
that Mimo [Phonetic] work somehow, would you be able to
power it off the USB and then put the AV cable, or is it
only has a USB.
>> Only has USB.
>> I'm pointing at something you can't see.
[ Multiple voices speaking ]
>> This little portable Mimo USB monitor here. But it
only has -- ^M00:22:57
[ Multiple voices speaking ]
>> But that would require a computer to hook up to it.
>> Right. ^M00:22:59
>> But these -- these AV cable outs are just to
component. So you plug it in one end, goes into the
phone, and the other end goes into a component in. So
if you could find any kind of display that you could
power in your car you could do the component in there.
>> [Inaudible] iPhone won't -- it won't [Inaudible]
Safari doesn't push that out, and GPS, doesn't push it
out -- ^M00:23:17
[ Multiple voices speaking ]
>> So it's only pushing out the video from the iPod.
Yeah. You need screen capture. For that you're going
to have to jail break. If you jail break your iPhone
then there's some apps that do background processes and
run screen capture. But that's the only thing I could
think of for the iPhone. ^M00:23:32
>> What about any other phone, do you know any other
phone that provides that?
>> Not off the top of my head, I don't. That doesn't
mean it doesn't exist, though.
>> Yeah, don't know about that. That's a pretty nichey
request. Most folks wouldn't even think about it. But,
no.
>> Droid, Jason? Droid doesn't --
>> Oh, there's one thing it doesn't --
^M00:23:50
[ Multiple voices speaking ]
>> Smarty boy.
>> Not that the iPhone does.
>> No, but whatever.
^M00:23:54
>> All right --
>> [Inaudible] but, thank you.
>> All right, we got some folks in the chat room noodle
on this too. If you think about it, pop in the chat
room, Corey, and see if anybody in there can come up
with something. But I'm --
>> It's a classic jail breaking situation, isn't it?
Yeah, absolutely. Okay, we've got -- let's see, I want
to go to this one here about a media center, and getting
that in the living room and see what Andy in Nebraska
wants to do with it. Andy, welcome to Holiday Help
Desk.
>> Hey, thanks for taking my call, guys.
>> Sure. What are you thinking about?
>> Well, I want my parents to stop paying over $100 a
month for cable. So I'm trying to convince them to get
some home media PCs, like under $500. They like Hulu,
and they like iTunes podcast. But I can't convince them
to break their -- break their Time-Warner contract. So
--
>> Is there something on there in particular that they
bring up and say, like, gosh, I'd do it, except I really
like watching American Idol Live or something. Is there
anything like that?
>> HBO is the only thing that I have found --
[ Multiple voices speaking ]
>> I haven't been able to try the HBO on demand. So --
>> We don't have any media center PCs that will take in
HBO satellite signals. Isn't that right?
>> Well, what you can do for HBO is -- you have to wait
a day, right? If you love watching it on Sunday night,
then you've got to buy HBO. But if you don't mind
waiting a day, until Monday, you can purchase them from
iTunes. Almost all the shows now are available. Or a
lot of the shows are available. And then there is HBO
online. But it's spotty, it's -- it often isn't full
episodes. They want you to buy the subscription. So --
>> The question is how many of those shows are they --
[ Multiple voices speaking ]
>> SO HBO is in iTunes?
>> The show -- the shows are --
^M00:25:36
[ Multiple voices speaking ]
^M00:25:39
>> Yeah, the thing is you've got to do the math and see
how many episodes they're going to buy. You might be
running them into the same cost by the time they buy all
these episodes, if they want them, you know, all and
accumulatively like that. If they want to go with the
spottier coverage on HBO on line. Is that free,
Watching episodes there?
>> I -- you know, I don't think they have much of
anything.
>> Not much, right?
>> Yeah.
[ Multiple voices speaking ]
>> Not as far as full episodes.
>> And that doesn't show up on places like Hulu or
anything, I assume.
>> No. Not at all. Absolutely not. No, HBO's whole
model is we get you to pay for it. So they're not like
-- ^M00:26:09
[ Multiple voices speaking ]
>> Oh, well it's free over the air, so we'll make it
free with ads on line. They just don't do it.
>> I guess I'm also running into -- I see -- I'm looking
at the Dell Inspiron Zeno HP. And that starts
relatively cheap. But I didn't know what absolutely I
needed to run Hulu properly. Like, do I need a dual
core processor or 4 gigabytes of ram.
>> No. Honestly, the thing you need most -- you need to
have HD out put off of whatever machine you buy, and you
need to have as fast an internet connection as you can
get. Those are your two gauging factors. The video
card, as long as it can do HD, will be plenty handy for
running Hulu, but what you're going to run into is
buffering issues. So if you're on a 1.5 mega bit per
second DSL line it's going to be spotty sometimes.
You're going to have to do the trick where you start the
Hulu video and then pause and wait for it to buffer out,
and hope that you don't ever catch up with the buffer.
If you've got a nice, beefy 25 mega bit per second
connection or something like that, then you're better
off. It all depends on what kind of internet they have
and where they live, and what they're willing to pay for
the Internet.
>> And you can scrub, you know, half off of any stated
speed. So if you've got a 10 mega bit line, you've got,
you know, 5 sustained is very typical. Also, you want
that machine to be wired, of course. Not wireless.
>> Hmm. And so that Celeron processor should be fine,
then?
>> Yeah, I'd say. An Adam might have trouble, but a
Celeron should be okay.
>> Okay.
>> Even an Adam will do it. Yeah. Just, you know, you
don't want them to get annoyed by this. Because you're
trying to move them, you want to give them plenty of
head room so they don't have to go, ahh, this doesn't
work that well. They'll resent you for doing this.
>> I still think the best media center right now is the
Mac Mini. Because you don't have to -- you know, it
doesn't come with a screen built into it. It's $500.
You can run iTunes on it, seek, they can do the front
row on it, and you can -- and you can do web browsing on
it. And it's all --
>> [Inaudible] the remote.
>> And it's all controlled with the remote. Exactly.
Now you can build that yourself with the myth box and
things like that. But for situations like what you're
talking about where somebody's not terribly willing to
get in and tweak stuff every once and a while, that's
probably your easiest bet.
>> And Apple TV wouldn't have as many choices as a Mac
Mini, right?
>> Apple TV is more locked down than a Mini, and has to
really have another computer running anyway to sync all
the stuff over --
[ Multiple voices speaking ]
>> I mean, you can buy things directly from it, but it's
really limited, then. And you're only getting the
iTunes stuff. And if you don't have it hooked to
another computer once you run out of space you've got to
start deleting stuff and it's a mess.
>> Yeah. So we like Mac Mini. So good luck with that,
Andy.
>> All right, thank you guys.
>> Thanks a lot.
>> Hulu would come to Roku, man, that would be the
thing.
>> Don't even -- don't even wish for that. Do we have
time for one more e-mail or do we want to move on to --
where are we at here?
>> We've got time for one more. Yeah.
>> Let's do it. Okay. Hit it. We want to go with Line
Five. We'll go with Rolfe who is calling in from
Sacramento, not far from where we are. And did you get
any snow last night, Rolfe?
>> Yeah, actually I did. I'm from Wisconsin, so it was
a nice little home break.
>> Yeah, what's going on in northern California today.
Good grief.
>> It's his fault. He's from Wisconsin.
>> He brought it with him. Son of a -- all right, so
what's your question, Rolfe, What are you looking for?
>> Well, right now I've got the iPhone. And I'm one of
those folks with the iPhone that can't wait to get out
of the contract and then go onto the next phone. But I
want to get a radio that I can plug it into. Like, a
docking station, so I can get better sound out of it for
the music when I play. But what I'm finding is I'm only
finding for the iPhone or iPods are radios that are
docked specifically for that. And I don't want to
invest into a device that's then going to be useless
after I'm on a different phone. I'm looking for a radio
that's more universal. And I'm having a real hard time
finding anything.
>> Yeah, that's because Apple has decided that you don't
want a different phone. And so they don't license the
dock to people who make a radio that docks with other
phones. However, we have heard rumors that there might
be something out there that has multiple lines. I would
say that the short answer is if you go ahead and get a
radio that docks to an iPhone, make sure it also has an
aux input. Because then, even if it doesn't sit
prettily in a nice little dock like the iPhone does, you
can plug anything with a mini jack into it. And so that
essentially for your sounds purposes enables it to work
with anything. Now you'd still have to control it on
the phone instead of controlling it on the radio, it
wouldn't charge, all those lovely things that the docks
sometimes do. But it would still be able to get you
that better sound that you're looking for.
>> I'm wondering if -- do you think Apple is able to
dictate a no aux rule in the designs also, because I'm
--
>> No, you can find them with aux. I've definitely seen
them. The one we have, we have a -- what do we have?
It's an All Tech Lansing [Assumed spelling] it has an
aux jack on it.
>> It does? Okay. Because I'm not finding a lot of
them. I'm sure they're out there, I know they're out
there. But that's the way to go. You're not going to
find -- like, I thought earlier today I saw one that was
iPod, iPhone, and certain cell phones. And I can't
remember where I saw it. I thought it was JBL. I don't
see it. I was just looking through crutchfield.com.
You might want to call them because I -- it might have
been there. It was one of those on two sites.
>> He was drunk.
>> I was drunk, or I was drinking, and that's what it
was. I was, you know, shoot a pretty good stick with
that bottle yourself.
>> Did not exist.
>> So --
>> You're seeing pink radios --
[ Multiple voices speaking ]
>> I'm looking at a pink radio right now, in fact.
Yeah. So I'm thinking you're going to need to go aux as
the back up there. But you're not going to find, you
know, Droid and iPod docking ability, or certainly not
iPod and Zoom. So no, that's not going to happen,
because Apple doesn't want that to happen. So that's --
that's the way it's going to be. But aux will always
cover you, just a little bit sloppy. But that's not the
worst in the world.
>> Yeah. At least it future-proofs you. So if you go
ahead and buy it, you're not stuck if you change your
phone.
>> Yeah. And it's a very good sounding connection.
It's not like it's got any issues with the quality.
Okay --
>> A-U-X, if anybody wonders why do they keep talking
about oxen?
>> Right.
>> I don't understand what a big cow, male cow, is going
to do about it.
>> Auxiliary. All righty, before we wrap up today it's
time to announce who won our give-away that was on last
Friday's show. And congratulations goes to
Thejesusinme. I mean that's --
>> That's their user I.D..
>> That's not my congratulations.
>> They were not named --
>> The user Thejesusinme.
>> Congratulations, that's fantastic. And a nice phone,
too.
>> A Motorola Click was the give away there. We've got
that right there. This is the -- this is the Click, you
know the one. It's a great T-Mobile product right
there, and it's got a nice little slide-out keyboard on
the bottom and it's a nice thing to win during the
holidays. So I continue to be amazed at how great we've
got in terms of the products coming out of the prize
closet there. Now to take part in the next give-away,
the one that we talked about earlier, the 32-inch LCD
TV. Just go over to crave.cnet.com and search
give-away. You'll find that TV pop right up. It's the
one that's dated today, December 7. And then all you've
got to do is leave a comment and you're in the running
to go ahead and hopefully win a TV tomorrow on the show.
>> When Brian Tong and Molly Wood will be on the show,
sitting in these seats, at 4 p.m. Eastern, 1 p.m.
Pacific, and you can find out if you've won that Crave
as well as get your calls in. If you weren't able to
get through, if you hit a busy signal or we ran out of
time, call again tomorrow. We're on every day from now
until December 23.
>> Third. And that's the Holiday Help Desk, every day,
1 o'clock Pacific, 4 o'clock Eastern. And I'm thinking
it's about -- hmm, 11 AM Hawaiian --
>> Yeah. Probably.
>> Cheers, everybody.
>> See you, folks.
^M00:33:13
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