I have been using the Philips HD Media Player HMP3000/98 for almost an year now. And I must say it was one hell of a good decision to buy it. A brief about my setup. I have a Panasonic TH-P42X50D 42″ Plasma TV (HD Ready, i.e. not full HD). I have connected my Creative Inspire 2.1 2400 speakers to the TV. The media player is connected to the TV via HDMI. I do NOT have a cable/satellite connection, so the media player is the sole input for my TV. I have two 2.5″ hard discs (160 GB and 500 GB) which I connect to the media player via the USB 2.0 port. The media player has only one USB port so I have a switch between the hard discs.

As advertised in the manual the media player supports formats Video: MPEG 1/2/4(MPEG 4 Part 2), H.264, VC-1, H.263, VP6(640 x 480), DivX Plus HD, DivX 3/4/5/6, Xvid, RMVB 8/9/10, RM, WMV (V9), AVI, TS, M2TS, TP, TRP, ISO, VOB, DAT, MP4, MPEG, MPG, MOV (MPEG 4, H.264), ASF, FLV(640 x 480), MKV, M4V. Audio: Dolby digital, AAC, RA, OGG, MKA, MP3, WAV, APE, FLAC, DTS, LPCM, PCM, WMA (V9), IMP/MS ADPCM, WMA Pro. Picture: JPEG, JPG, M-JPEG, PNG, TIF, TIFF, GIF (unanimated GIF), BMP, HD JPEG. And this claim is very true. The media player plays almost every file which I have. From among a 1000 files there are hardly 5 files which the media player has not been able to play. The video quality is simply superb. The quality of rendering on the TV is better than the quality I get when playing the movie on my laptop using VLC.

I am also a big fan of lossless music, and this media player plays all formats of lossless music (APE, FLAC). The audio quality is also very good.

The media player has a useful feature of ‘Night Mode’ which when switched helps in listening to dialogues even at low volume.

The user interface is also very fast and user friendly.

Engineering is all about making great user friendly, logical and reliable products.rnrnIn my daily work this is what I try to achieve. When fixing a bug or introducing a new feature the questions which I ask my self are:

-Make sure that this works as expected.

-Make sure that unknowingly some other use case is not broken.

-Make sure that when executed multiple times it will continue to give the same result

-It does not have any side effects.

When defining a requirement or when submitting/analyzing a defect some of the questions which I ask are:

-Is this use-case/defect valid, i.e. is it inline with the original requirements with which the application was designed.

-If valid, then does it justify the effort which it will take to implement it, i.e. return on investment.

-Some of the factors to judge the above are: Does it fall in the 80% frequently used use-case; Does it have a significant impact on the way the user perceives the application; Is it blocking.

If the change does not satisfy the criteria then it does not make much sense in fixing/implementing it.

I love my car. Not because it looks good, but because of the way it keeps driving smoothly even after going over so many pot holes and humps. Hats off to the engineers who have made sure that it continues to deliver the same comfort now as when it was new.

This is what engineering is all about, making great user friendly, logical and reliable products. Good research can give a breakthrough, but engineering makes sure that a product reaches the market and makes money for the company. Because frankly, this is what matters.

We are so used to being selfish, when someone does a selfless deed we don’t understand it and instead try to find hidden agenda behind his/her action.

Everyday I love you more than the day before.

You will love many in your life, but few will love you. Hold on to the one who loves you & never let go. You will always be happy afterwards

It is important to fight, but it is more important that you make up after the fight. It is these moments which strengthen your relationship.

Never shy away from expressing your love. You never know when you may regret not doing so.

Always take time off to reflect on the good times spent. They will bring a smile on your face and will remind you as to how much you love someone.rn

My desk has not been this clean since the day I joined 😀

Real steel is like rocky with robots. 😀

I keep my phone in power saving mode the whole while. This way my battery lasts for two days.

I got my HTC Radar phone last Sunday and I am loving it. The OS is really very smooth and responsive. The are lots of apps also available in the marketplace.

In my home I have a HD Media Play (Philips) connected to my Panasonic plasma TV via HDMI. From the TV I have connected my Creative speakers. I listen to music by playing it via my HD media player.

When playing music the TV shows the list of songs. This screen is displayed constantly for quite some time  (5 mins) till the screen saver starts. Couple of weeks ago I noticed that the songs screen had been burnt in on the TV screen. After this incident I had stopped playing music via my HD media player.

Today I found out an option in the TV where the display can be turned off (menu –> picture –> Screen Display) while the audio is still playing. This is the perfect option for me to listen to music while the TV display is switched off.