Defunct Technology or Websites that You Miss?

[Ted Todorov]

Simple to use receivers (and other consumer electronics). Moving from my circa 1983 Onkyo to a Denon 2800 was a real life horror. On the Onkyo playing music in room A or B or A+B or headphones only involved pressing the A button or B Button or both or neither -- simple, easy, reliable. The Denon -- don't ask. (I am on my third Denon now, and they only become ever harder to use -- and no, modern Onkoys aren't any better). I've given up on the A/B thing -- I have a separate receiver in each room.

Any consumer electronics category in which Apple doesn't compete is a user interface joke. I mourn the death of the Apple HiFi -- I gave two of them to tech challenged friends and was blown away by how good (and for outdoor parties -- loud) that thing sounded. I don't have to mention that it was dead simple to setup/use.

Yes, today's receivers, TVs etc. do more than their 70's & 80's counterparts -- but really not much more. The people designing them these days are MORONS. You want to know why SACD died? Here is hint -- 6 thick analog cables (expensive if you wanted fancy ones) to attach between the SACD player and receiver, instead of ONE cheap, thin, light, optical digital cable. All in the name of useless DRM. Those responsible should be shot.

[printerati]

Originally Posted by Ted Todorov

You want to know why SACD died? Here is hint -- 6 thick analog cables (expensive if you wanted fancy ones) to attach between the SACD player and receiver, instead of ONE cheap, thin, light, optical digital cable. All in the name of useless DRM. Those responsible should be shot.

Well...that, and all discs should have been hybrids.

[Drexl]

SACD couldn't be carried over optical anyway, and it's not just because of copy protection. The toslink interface was limited. What they should have done is got HDMI (or even a variant of it for audio only) out sooner. As it is, it took a while, and DSD wasn't even available until HDMI 1.2.

Although, I suppose they could have built in a way of converting the audio to 96khz PCM (like the old PS3s did, not sure if it was 16- or 24-bit). It would have been stereo only and not quite as good as the real signal, but it still should have been better than CD.

[mikehunt]

Originally Posted by emachine12

- Freeride.com

and jaboom
and all those other free offers back in those days
I got a ton of dvds for like $1 with all the gift certificates I got
and a bunch of free t shirts from places

[shaun3000]

Originally Posted by Ted Todorov

Simple to use receivers (and other consumer electronics). Moving from my circa 1983 Onkyo to a Denon 2800 was a real life horror. On the Onkyo playing music in room A or B or A+B or headphones only involved pressing the A button or B Button or both or neither -- simple, easy, reliable. The Denon -- don't ask. (I am on my third Denon now, and they only become ever harder to use -- and no, modern Onkoys aren't any better). I've given up on the A/B thing -- I have a separate receiver in each room.

Any consumer electronics category in which Apple doesn't compete is a user interface joke. I mourn the death of the Apple HiFi -- I gave two of them to tech challenged friends and was blown away by how good (and for outdoor parties -- loud) that thing sounded. I don't have to mention that it was dead simple to setup/use.

Yes, today's receivers, TVs etc. do more than their 70's & 80's counterparts -- but really not much more. The people designing them these days are MORONS. You want to know why SACD died? Here is hint -- 6 thick analog cables (expensive if you wanted fancy ones) to attach between the SACD player and receiver, instead of ONE cheap, thin, light, optical digital cable. All in the name of useless DRM. Those responsible should be shot.

Agreed agreed agreed! There is a LOT of work put into getting technology to DO cool things. But many companies seem to ignore how the end user will GET TO the cool things. I realize that some things are just not simple but you can at least put some thought into the process and maybe some clear, concise instructions WHILE the activity is being done.

I know that not everyone likes Apple products for whatever reason. But most of those people are technophiles. I’ve talked to plenty of computer illiterate people who say they don’t want Apple because of some reason their nerd friend gave them. But every one of them changes their mind when they actually USE an Apple product. Why? Because Apple puts A LOT of time and effort into making their products dead-simple to use. That is a philosophy that other companies need to adopt.

[Darknite39]

Originally Posted by RM811

No love for HD-DVD?

Just bought my first HD-DVD player off of ebay a few mins ago, so I can finally play my discs somewhere other than my computer. Yay! Now I just need to bite the bullet on that $100 BestBuy BD player, and I'll be all set.

[Mopower]

Napster in 1998,99. Too bad I just had dial up. I remember spending $250 on a CD burner and thought it was the greatest thing ever invented.

[MinLShaw]

Another vote for dvdspot.com, and the glory days of eBay.

Also, while it's tangential, I sometimes miss the pre-prequel, 90s era of Star Wars entertainment. You remember, when the THX-remastered Trilogy release on VHS marked "the last time" the original trilogy would be available in its "original" form for home entertainment; TIE Fighter and X-Wing: Rogue Squadron made even non-PC gamers like me jealous of our gamer friends; Dark Horse Comics rolled out a rotation of mini-series throughout the year, instead of a stable of titles each month; Star Wars: The Original Soundtrack Anthology first put previously unavailable music in our libraries and when Timothy Zahn's "Three-Book Cycle" was the most exciting thing since Return of the Jedi.