I just landed at the D conference--the best conference in the business today IMO--and who do I bump into having my coffee? Walt Mossberg... we traded a bunch of stories and I got the low down on the how the conference came together this year. None of which I will blog here for obvious reasons... but hold on to your seats because there are a number of HUGE announcements coming out of D this year. Plus George Lucas, Steve Jobs, and Bill Gates... wow.

If you're here and want to meet me/say hello/chat I'm in the lobby drinking coffee.
email jason at calacanis dot com
cell/SMS 310 456 4900

lets all tag our posts d2007 for technorati.

We just moved into our new house and I figured I would give TimeWarner HD cable and their DVR a try. Mind you I'm coming from a Direct TV HD and a Tivo (non-HD tivo).

Now, the cable modem from TimeWarner is just fine. 5-6MB down, 700k up. Fine. However, HD on TimeWarner cable here in Brentwood really looks like crap. I have a 1080p LCD from Samsung and you can really see the bitmapping of the screen. Basketball looks horrible. Like really bad unless folks at standing still--which they don't do a lot in the NBA. Is this because they are compressing the signals or is because I'm on a slower block do you think?

The PVR is beyond horrible. The software looks like it was written in 1983 in DOS and the latency is sad. Oh, did I mention the thing hangs all the time?!? Tivo is a Mercedes this PVR is like a broken down Datsun.

As I was about to write this blog post I found my pal Walt over at WSJ HAD THE SAME EXACT EXPERIENCE with Comcast's Cable service.

My thoughts:

1. If anyone at the cable companies is listening: PLEASE USE TIVO'S SOFTWARE. Make it happen. You guys are never gonna make as a good a unit as Tivo.
2. Tivo if you're listening: GIVE THE CABLE COMPANIES A GOOD DEAL so they will use your software.
3. DirecTV: I'm sorry I ever doubted you. You may not have the channels but your HD signal is amazing. I love you.

Folks seem to be really enjoying my ethicist column. I launched this column after an interesting debate with Walt Mossberg over the downloading and movement of content around our various devices.

Today I have a question that started the debate:

I have a Netflix account and I'm about to go on a road trip. I'd like to rip the three DVDs I have onto my hard drive and iPod so a) I don't have to carry the DVDs and b) so I don't waste my battery life on my computer (dvd spinning kills the battery quicker than a compact flash card).

If I don't send the DVDs back until after I delete the files when I return from my trip, and I don't share the files, have I done anything wrong?