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Test drive: Amazon Cloud Player

This really could be as big of a change in the music industry as iTunes, or even bigger! Amazon’s new Cloud Drive launched recently, beating both Apple and Google to the punch. Aside from uploading files for cloud storage, Amazon also added Cloud Player, which plays audio files from the cloud on personal computers and Android devices.

Amazon sells MP3s, often cheaper than the competition at Apple, and with this service it is automatically stored on the Cloud Drive (without using any of your allocated storage). But you can also upload your own files to the Cloud Drive to be played back with the Cloud Player. This is a service much like Lala, which Apple purchased and subsequently closed. Google was rumored to be working on a similar service to Amazon Cloud Drive, but Google did have a cloud storage system called GDrive, but it was also shelved because they “don’t think we need files anymore.”

The Cloud Player is very basic, but I decided to show you what it looks like, and give my impression of how it works.

Amazon Cloud Player

I began by uploading a few albums I happen to like a lot. The interface is easy enough to use, with dedicated folders for files, music, photos and video. You can add any folders or subfolders you would like, which I did for each artist. (Click images for larger view.)



The Cloud Player automatically retrieved meta data from each MP3 file, and arranged the songs into a list view, which can be sorted by song title, artist, album, or song length.



Amazon also retrieves the proper cover art for each album, and all albums can be sorted in the Album view.



In addition to these sorting options, you can create custom playlists.



Playing back the songs didn’t take long to buffer, hardly noticeable compared to Winamp, my PC based media player. The songs didn’t quite have the same punch, but this is probably due to the fact that Winamp has a built-in equalizer and Cloud Player does not.

On the bottom-left of the screen is a CR code which allows you to access your Cloud Player from an Android mobile device. I don’t have an Android device, so I was unable to test this feature.

Overall, I was quite satisfied with this service. I would recommend anyone with a music collection give it a try.

Featured artists include Defeater, Other Mountains, Avalanche City, Margot & the Nuclear So and So’s, and Lengsel.

DirecTV launches premium video on demand service

Launching today, DirecTV’s premium video on demand service will provide the Adam Sandler movie Just Go With It for home rental less than 70 days after the film’s premier, and before any DVD or Blu-ray Disc release.

The price for such early access will be steep, at $29.99 for a 48-hour time frame. This is high, but may be competitive compared with taking a whole family to the cinemaplex at $10.50 per head.

This is the first time any major studio has allowed a movie to be released for home viewing this soon after playing in theaters. Just Go With It will be followed by Hall Pass, The Adjustment Bureau, and Cedar Rapids. Release dates for those films have not been announced, but may be as soon as 60 days after their theater release debut.

In 2006, under the direction of Mark Cuban, Magnolia Pictures released the Steven Soderbergh film Bubble simultaneously to theaters, cable/satellite and DVD as a pilot to test how such a release would work. A few months later, The Road to Guantanamo was similarly released by Roadside Attractions to theaters, cable and with internet download.

Is 3D tech getting out of hand?

This morning on NPR’s Morning Edition there was a business story on the new invention, 2D glasses. I’m not kidding, this is a real thing. These glasses allow you to watch a 3D movie in 2D. As described on the website,

2D Glasses block the same image with both lenses, so each eye gets the same picture resulting in a 2D image and an elimination of eyeball strain.

The glasses cost $9.99 with shipping. Which means the $3 premium for 3D movies just got that much more expensive for those whom 3D doesn’t work.

This is a compromise, of course, for those who don’t want to make their 3D loving family have to watch movies in 2D because of their headaches. But how many compromises must there be?

Yesterday I opened the special 4-disc edition of Disney’s Tron: Legacy Blu-ray Disc. That’s right, 4-discs! Why? Because Disney is cutting edge. Tron is a technical marvel, with 7.1 DTS:HD Master Audio, and full 1080p 3D. Of course most people don’t have that kind of setup.

The first disc is the 3D version BD. The second is the 2D BD with bonus features. (There are no 3D bonus features.) The third disc is the DVD feature and DVD bonus features (which are different than the BD bonus features). And the fourth disc is the digital copy.

Remember the promise of all of this on one disc? Those were the days.

But why is there a 3D and a 2D Blu-ray Disc? I’m glad you asked. The 3D disc will not play without a 3D setup. Not at all. It won’t just play a 2D version, it won’t play anything.

Oh, and by the way, when showing off the 3D display, sometimes it doesn’t look very good. People shrug and say they weren’t impressed. And then a couple minutes later they’ll be blown away with the same material. I figured out what happened: the TV didn’t recognize the 3D content, but since “3D” was selected, it output the 2D-3D converted video, which looks really bad. But when the 3D signal is detected, it looks great. (Mind you, this is a Sony BD player connected directly to a Sony 3DTV.)

Which brings up my original question: Is 3D tech getting out of hand?

I think so. All of the manufacturers and content providers are pushing hard for 3D, and it’s unprecedented how home 3D has avoided a format war and how fast the technology has penetrated the market. But consumers want convenience served alongside their entertainment. It’s why theaters have been suffering when it comes to ticket sales; It’s not convenient to go out to watch a movie when you can do it at home. It’s also why audio and video quality has suffered compression over the past decade in order to stuff the files onto smaller devices, and stream across space-time.

Listen, I like 3D but I also understand why people don’t want to jump through hoops in order to enjoy it. It can be a real pain. Consumers like features on the box, but they don’t like to actually enable features or learn how to use them. Nobody wants to ave to think about how to get everything setup before every movie. On many discs you already have to select what type of audio to use, which is ignored most of the time anyway, giving the default option most of the time. Nobody also wants to have to select the right disc out of a bundle pack, turn on glasses, make sure the TV is syncing up properly with the player, and on and on. They want to just sit down and enjoy the ride.

What do you think? Is technology getting in the way of media enjoyment?