If Spotify proved one thing with its U.S. launch, it’s that people will go nuts for free music. So now MOG, one of my favorite paid streaming music services, is getting a free version of its own.

Like Spotify, MOG lets you listen to any song or album you want from a library of about 11 million tracks. But unlike Spotify, MOG’s free service isn’t strictly time-limited. (Spotify users get six months of unrestricted listening, followed by 10 hours per month and five plays per track.) Instead, MOG uses a game-like system that rewards certain actions with more free listening. Refer some friends, get some free time. Recommend a playlist, get more free time. Click on an ad, get more free time.

MOG won’t say exactly how much free listening you’ve got or how much you’re earning. Free listening is represented by an ambiguous meter that works like a gas tank (that is, before cars told you how many miles you had left). But MOG says that if you’re got a lot of clout through social media, you could theoretically get free music forever.

The whole system is the service’s way of trying to go viral. To that end, MOG is launching a new HTML5 app that’s easier to use than MOG’s old website and a lot more convenient to access than Spotify’s installed application. David Hyman, MOG’s founder and CEO, coyly told me that if Facebook were to “hypothetically” launch a music service of its own (as rumored and expected), MOG would allow users to log in through the social network.

In a couple of months, MOG will start showing ads on its website, but what the company really wants is for people to eventually sign up for its paid service, which for $10 per month includes smartphone access and unlimited listening. The premium version of MOG is good enough to replace iTunes and downloadable music entirely, but these kinds of services have never gone mainstream because people don’t like the idea of leasing songs instead of owning them. That’s a problem, because they’re unsustainable on ads alone.

Ideally, free versions MOG and Spotify will convince people that unlimited streaming music has its virtues and that paying for the service is worthwhile. But they also risk reinforcing the idea that music should be free, prompting record labels to pull the plug on licensing. I hope the former scenario is the one that pans out, because I like these services and want them to stick around for a while.

Report 1 Projector’s

The big story at CEDIA 2011 in Indianapolis, if you happened to be a native, had to be Payton Manning’s possibly career ending neck surgery, though for the rest of us in the consumer electronics industry the story was 4K and the emergence of “faux K.” 4K, according to the standard set forth by DCI (Digital Cinema Initiative), is an image that is 4,096 pixels wide by 2,160 pixels tall. “Faux K” on the other hand is 3,840 pixels across by 2,160. The reason I bring up the two “formats” is because there was a lot of buzz surrounding 4K; however there was only one company with the goods to back up the hype – Sony.

Sony was the clear winner at CEDIA this year with the introduction of their new, consumer grade, 4K front projector, the VPL-VW1000ES. Boasting a native resolution of 4,096 x 2,160, the VPL-VW10000ES is a true 4K projector that can also scale legacy sources (DVD, broadcast and Blu-ray) to 4K via its internal scaler. The VPL-VW1000ES has a reported brightness of 2,000 ANSI lumens with a 1,000,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio. On top of being a native 4K product the VPL-VW10000ES is also a 3D capable projector, though Sony was not demonstrating its 3D prowess during the show. Sony says the VPL-VW1000ES will be available later this year, think December, and will retail for a little under $25,000 – not bad, considering the nearest 4K option not named the VPL-VW1000ES starts north of $100,000.

I sat for a demo of the VPL-VW1000ES and came away very impressed. Its upscaling prowess was brilliant and showcased nicely via a clip from Resident Evil: Afterlife on Blu-ray disc. Sony did head to head comparisons of 1080p versus 4K using still photos captured on a large format still camera and again the differences in resolution were readily apparent and far from subtle. In terms of showcasing 4K in its native form, Sony had the trailer for the new Spider Man film for our eyes to feast upon, though if I’m honest the 1080p upscaled demo of Resident Evil: Afterlife was actually more impressive for it really highlighted, at least for me, why one could benefit from owning a 4K projector now versus in the future. No word on when native 4K content will be available for home consumption, though there is a rumor swirling around CEDIA, mainly the Sony booth, that Sony is working on a new compression standard to fit 4K content onto Blu-ray discs. If this is true (and if it can be done), then 4K may be closer to becoming reality than any of us, present company included, ever thought.

Epson
Epson was showcasing two new projectors at CEDIA this year, the Pro Cinema 6010 and the Pro Cinema 6100. The 6010 is a 2D/3D 1080p projector with 480Hz technology and a 200,000:1 contrast ratio and is the update to the hugely successful Pro Cinema 9700UB. The Pro Cinema 6010 comes with Epson’s zero dead pixel guarantee, a replacement lamp, ceiling mount, cable shroud and three year limited warranty. The Pro Cinema comes with two pairs of 3D glasses and will retail for less than $4,000

I sat in on a demo of the Pro Cinema 6010 and came away very impressed, especially with regards to its 3D performance, which I found to be exemplary and among the best I’ve seen regardless of price. That says a lot, for I generally hate 3D and I’m not alone, for 3D was NOT a selling point or even a draw at this year’s CEDIA show. The most impressive video demonstration of the whole show came by way of another Epson projector – the Pro Cinema 6100.

The Pro Cinema 6100 is a 2D only front projector, which will retail for less than $5,000 when it becomes available later this year. Featuring Epson’s version of D-ILA, the Pro Cinema 6100 has a reported 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio with a unique anamorphic lens memory setting which basically renders the need for an anamorphic lens useless – provided you don’t mind sitting through the 6100′s automated zoom out and focus procedure. The Pro Cinema 6100 features a new industrial design language, which is simply stunning. In terms of its performance, the Pro Cinema 6100, projected onto a Stewart Cine-W auto-masking StudioTek 130 screen, was bite-the-back-of-your-hand brilliant in terms of its contrast, color and detail presentation. While the Sony may have had it over the Pro Cinema 6100 in terms of its overall resolution (evident in only the finest details), I believed the 6100′s performance, pound-for-pound, was more impressive. The Pro Cinema 6100′s lens memory feature is also a nice addition and one I wish more projectors had.

Daniel Ek, the 28-year-old co-founder and public face of Spotify, the European digital music service, paced around the company’s loftlike Manhattan office on Tuesday afternoon, clutching two mobile phones that buzzed constantly.

The service, which began in Sweden in 2008, offers subscriptions to vast catalogs of music, but it faces competition from similar services in the United States.

After nearly two years of stop-start negotiations with record labels, Spotify was preparing to finally open in the United States. With less than 48 hours before its planned start, however, the company still had not completed its final major label deal, with the Warner Music Group.

Yet Mr. Ek said he was confident that there would be no delay, and that Americans would soon be able to experience what has made Spotify the world’s most celebrated new digital music service. He was right. By Wednesday afternoon, Spotify’s deal with Warner was signed, and on Thursday, as scheduled, it will become available in the United States.

“We’ve made it easier to listen, and we’ve made it easier for people to share,” Mr. Ek said. “Hence, people tend to get more into the experience, and they tend to find new music and build larger collections that they want to take with them. And therefore, they also pay more for music.”

If Apple’s iTunes ushered in digital music’s first phase as a large-scale business, then Spotify and other services like it could be its future. Rather than selling individual tracks to be downloaded, subscription services sell monthly access to vast catalogs of music, with whatever songs a listener wants to hear streamed directly to his computer or mobile phone.

Spotify will be offered in the same three-tier plan that it has in Europe: a free, ad-supported version; a basic ad-free version for $5 a month; and a premium service for $10 a month that adds access on a mobile phone, higher audio quality and other perks.

At first, Spotify’s free version will be available by invitation only, given out through current users or by the company to the thousands who have requested the service on Twitter and through its Web site. (Paid subscriptions will be available right away.)

With its lightning-fast interface, easy integration with Facebook and “freemium” business model, Spotify has quickly become the most popular such service in the world. Begun in Sweden in 2008 and until now available in only seven European countries, it has signed up 1.6 million paid subscribers and more than 10 million registered users in total. It also has been one of the fastest-growing investments in the new digital boom, having recently raised $100 million in a round of investment that valued the company at $1 billion.

But Spotify faces a number of challenges in the American market. While the company had relatively little competition in Europe as a subscription service, in the United States a number of similar companies have gotten a head start, including Rhapsody, Rdio and MOG. Like those services, Spotify allows its premium users to save a certain number of tracks to their phones for offline use, in the subway or on the plane. And new cloud services from Apple, Google and Amazon promise to make people’s music collections available anywhere they go.

Whether the company makes a profit is another question. It lost $26.5 million in 2009, but it has not reported on its financial performance for last year.

Spotify’s speed offers the company one significant advantage over its American competitors. (It achieves that speed partly through using a peer-to-peer network, which lets a song play almost instantaneously.) But its crucial selling point has been its free access, which the company believes can lure in new users, who then get attached to its playlisting and social networking features and will be enticed to join.

That reliance on free access, however, has also worried American record labels and some analysts, who fear that it could cannibalize sales from other sources, like iTunes.

“What Spotify seems to be doing is solidifying a perception that music should be free,” said Mark Mulligan, an independent media analyst in Britain. “It’s one thing to download from BitTorrent and keep looking over your virtual shoulder to make sure no one sends you a cease-and-desist letter. It’s another to be streaming music freely from a service that you know even the labels are advocating.”

Those concerns held up Spotify’s negotiations with the labels, and in April the company made concessions to the labels’ concerns by placing restrictions on the amount of time its free European users could spend on the service. For the first six months, a free user is now limited to 20 hours of listening a month; after six months, the limit becomes 10 hours, and no song can be listened to more than five times in a month. American users will be subject to the same limitations.

European users complained loudly when those restrictions were introduced, but Kenneth Parks, Spotify’s managing director for North America, who led most of the label negotiations, defended the changes.

“It’s still an amazing experience that’s free for the rest of your life,” Mr. Parks said. “It has not diminished the magic of what Spotify is about, and millions and millions across Europe, and soon the U.S., will validate that.”

Spotify argues that by offering virtually all available music free, and sharing advertising revenue with record companies (the major labels own about 18 percent of the company), it removes the appeal of piracy, and consumers who had been lost to the industry can be lured back.

For Mr. Ek, Spotify’s success is directly attributable to its ease of use as an alternative to illegal downloading, which in his native Sweden had almost completely overtaken the market when he and a partner, Martin Lorentzon, founded the company.

“At the time you could only buy DRM music tracks for 99 cents,” he said in his slight Swedish accent, referring to digital rights management, the system of restrictions used by iTunes and other digital retailers.

“At the same time, I could steal a file which cost zero, had no restrictions whatsoever and had better sound quality,” he said. “The illegal, pirated product was actually better than the one you purchased. So our view is, ‘How do we create a better product than piracy?’ ”

Another concern for labels has been the size of Spotify’s royalty payments, which are computed in fractions of a cent per stream, an order of magnitude less than the royalties associated with downloads and CD sales. (Download royalties vary, but in general record labels and artists collect about 70 percent of the retail cost of a download, which is typically $1.)

That means that song has to be streamed many times for it to make as much money as a download, but labels say that as Spotify has grown, those streams have started to add up.

Last year, Spotify paid about $60 million in royalties; that made it the second-largest source of digital revenue for European record labels, after iTunes, according to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry.

“Spotify are currently one of our top digital partners globally by revenue, and that is with them only being open in seven European territories,” said Simon Wheeler, the director of digital for the Beggars Group, an independent label group whose artists include Adele and Vampire Weekend. “I expect them to be second or third place this year for us.”

Many analysts and music executives say they believe that Spotify’s greatest advantage in the United States is Facebook. The service is already closely integrated with Facebook, so that users can easily share songs with friends and play with features like drag-and-drop playlists.

Spotify is also one of several digital music services that has been in talks with Facebook to help it develop an extensive media platform that could instantly raise its profile here.

Spotify declined to comment on those talks. But Mr. Ek said he was not concerned about the company’s ability to build up to a large scale in the United States.

“We want to make it simple for people,” he said. “If you want to take your music with you, you shouldn’t have to worry about 15 different sync programs or anything else. It ought to be as simple as pressing play and it works. And ultimately when you get to that point, that’s when people are prepared to pay. People are prepared to pay for convenience.”

Audio purists often insist that that PC-based music isn’t good enough for their clients. But it can be.

iTunes can provide an audiophile-grade experience if you follow these often-overlooked steps.

Choose Correct Import Format
One of the leading advocates in the field of computer-based sound systems is Steve Silberman, vice president of marketing for AudioQuest. He says a good place to start tuning your iTunes collection is by choosing the correct import format.

“If the encoder is set to AIFF and error correction is selected, then the ripped files will be 100 percent identical to what is on the compact discs. There seems to be an assumption that iTunes equals MP3 and nothing else. I think much of that has to do with the fact that Apple doesn’t do a very good of explaining iTune’s capability or an obvious link to the setup preferences anywhere. iTunes can handle files as large as 32 bit at 384khz sample rates.”

Silberman recommends that Windows users who are running iTunes select AIFF or Apple Lossless in the iTunes Preferences settings; Apple users should select AIFF or Apple Lossless format. If you need to preserve hard drive space, Apple Lossless is a good alternative that sounds nearly as good as the uncompressed AIFF format.

Verify MIDI Setting
Apple users should verify that the MIDI setting is correct (Open the MIDI and select the source format of 44100.0hz). Some of the things to look for in these options include the adjustment the native sample rate output. Silberman advises Windows users run Windows Audio Session API (WASAPI) and select 44.1khz in the “sound out” setting. These settings can be found in Quick Time.

Helpful Hardware Upgrades
Once some of the software parameters are optimized, music listeners should consider updating their computer hardware, specifically, boosting the amount of RAM. Silberman relates his hardware upgrade path: “I currently have 8GB of RAM in my computer. A few years ago a fellow named Gordon Rankin, owner of Wavelength Audio, recommended that I upgrade my former computer’s RAM from 2GBs to 4GBs.

“At the time I was very familiar with the sound of my system as the computer/DAC had been running for six months. The improvement was similar to the time I upgraded from a 60-watt integrated amp to 300-watt monoblock amps. [The difference] was huge … now I have a Macbook Pro and run 8GBs of RAM. It’s again another big jump in sound over 4GBs. The next thing I did was upgrade my computer from a spinning disc hard drive to a SSD [solid-state drive] and that made an additional improvement in sound.”

Silberman also recommends adding surge protection/power conditioning devices to a computer-based sound system.

Apple has reportedly hired the inventor of THX to head up all its audio projects, Leo Laporte said. Earlier today Laporte tweeted “I have it on good authority that Tomlinson Holman (of THX fame) is joining Apple to run audio. Major upgrade.”

Holman is a legend in the audio industry. Among his achievements are winning an Academy Award for Technical Achievement in 2002 and inventing the first 10.2 surround sound system. However, Holman is best known for being the chief inventor of Lucasfilm’s THX theater sound system. No word yet on what specific projects Holman will be working on at Apple, but I, for one, would love to see the Apple startup chime replaced with the THX sound effect.

Is it a coincidence that this move of a former Skywalker Ranch-hand comes to light on Star Wars Day? Hard to know, but all we can say to Tom Holman is “May the Fourth be with you.”

Whose video on demand service has content from all four of the major commercial broadcast TV networks: ABC, CBS, Fox, and NBC? The answer is Comcast.

With the addition of more than 20 series from ABC and Fox on April 27, Comcast is the only player who can make that claim for its VOD operation. The shows include Fox’s Glee and The Simpsons and ABC’s Desperate Housewives and Grey’s Anatomy. Fox’s Masterchef will be added on June 7 and Hell’s Kitchen on July 19. Additional NBC shows on the way include America’s Got Talent on June 1, Love in the Wild on June 2, and The Marriage Ref on June 27.

Here’s your PR quote from Marien Jenckes, Comcast’s general manager of video services: “Our goal is to deliver customers the best and most-current entertainment choices anytime, anywhere so they can catch up and keep up with their favorite TV shows. By nearly doubling the number of current TV series from broadcast networks, Xfinity TV On Demand offers our customers a one-of-a-kind experience that can’t be found elsewhere.”

Jenckes goes further in a blog: “The TV series category On Demand has exploded in viewership—in fact, three years ago it wasn’t even a top-rated category on our platform, and today it is our top-viewed category On Demand…and with our On Demand service generating 350 million views a month, nearly 20 BILLION views since we launched the service, that’s catching Hollywood’s eye….

“Some of the new initiatives and trials we’ve been working on include allowing for Nielsen to rate TV content viewed On Demand; disabling the fast forward feature so advertisements can be viewed and counted in the ratings mix, which also enables us to bring customers even more of the best content around; dynamic ad insertion; addressability in advertising; Interactive TV applications, and many others. All of this experimentation will lead to new and interesting outcomes for us and our TV partners, as we continue to see an increased desire from the entertainment industry to leverage VOD.”

It should be interesting to see how Comcast subscribers react to “disabling the fast forward feature.”

Keith Pray, Publisher of Source Interlink Media web sites, is thrilled to announce the April preview launch of InnerFidelity, a new website dedicated to playing well with personal audio.

Reviews and topics will include headphones, headphone amplifiers, and portable media players, as well as articles on USB DACs, computer speakers, iPod/iPad docks, network players, streaming players, and portable device and computer applications. Tyll Hertsens (founder and previously CEO of HeadRoom) will lead the charge as Editor-in-Chief to uncover and expose all the great gizmos and gadgets that bring the world of music to your ears.

As a sister site to the online properties for Stereophile, Home Theater, Home Theater Design, Ultimate AV, and Shutterbug, InnerFidelity will focus on the world of “Personal Audio” as experienced through the ears of experts and enthusiasts.

InnerFidelity Forums are a perfect place for you to ask questions and get advice from our staff and seasoned hobbyists. InnerFidelity will also develop community projects and organize events in the forum areas.

InnerFidelity will also cover and participate in various aspects of the headphone hobbyist community and feature: DIY kit reviews; DIY builds; forums for community inspired headphone measurement projects; and attendance at community sponsored events.

We look forward to seeing you at www.innerfidelity.com, and helping you keep in touch with the world of great personal audio.

In its first-ever ranking of 3D performance, Consumer Reports evaluated 14 3D television models and found that plasma TVs are better at displaying 3D images than LCD sets, primarily because they exhibit less ghosting, or double images that appear even when wearing 3D glasses. The publication reports that three plasma models from Panasonic exhibited the best 3D picture quality and the least ghosting of all the sets tested.

Using exclusive 3D test patterns developed in-house, as well as 3D Blu-ray movies and recorded 3D sports broadcasts, Consumer Reports engineers found that all the 3D televisions were capable of creating impressive three-dimensional depth. However, the overall quality of 3D varied among the 14 models that were examined. Consumer Reports declares that attributes that affect regular picture quality also affect 3D, including black level, brightness, image detail, and viewing angle. Ghosting, which is technically called “crosstalk,” also plays a part in 3D quality.

According to Consumer Reports, Panasonic plasma sets exhibited the least ghosting of any of the 3D televisions, followed by plasma TVs from LG and Samsung. Sony’s LCD televisions reportedly came closest to the plasmas: ghosting was minimal, but only when the viewer’s head was kept level. On the LG and Samsung LCD televisions, images had satisfying three-dimensional depth, but ghosting, which was significant in a wide variety of content, was distracting when apparent, the publication reports. Although, all the tested 3D televisions, with one exception, performed very well with regular 2D programs.

Consumer Reports has listed several things to consider before buying a 3D TV.

Glasses are required. Some televisions come with one or two pairs of active-shutter glasses, but other models don’t include any. And some Sony televisions require users to also purchase a “sync transmitter,” which synchronizes the glasses with the television. Viewers must use compatible glasses that are sold by each manufacturer.

Also, 3D may not be for everyone. Some people might have trouble seeing 3D images or find that they develop headaches or eyestrain from watching it.

One of the primary issues: there isn’t much content. Although some 3D Blu-ray movies have been releases, they require a new 3D Blu-ray player to play back in 3D. And many of the early releases have been tied to special bundle deals with a specific manufacturer. There are also some 3D broadcasts, from ESPN 3D and DirectTV’s n3D full-time 3D channel, but programming is still quite limited. Buying a 3D television right now makes the most sense for someone who’s currently in the market for a new television and thinks they’d like to have 3D capability in the near future.

Read about it here:

http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/14/farewell-goog-411/?ref=personaltechemail&nl=technology&emc=cta2