The Mossberg Solution » graphics

Nintendo Freshens a Game Player

Katherine Boehret — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 00:46:02 +0000

Nintendo Co.’s strategy of creating videogames with simple graphics that anyone can play has worked well on its Wii and portable DS. Earlier this month, the company released the $170 Nintendo DSi in an attempt to spruce up its three-year-old DS Lite and 5 1/2-year-old DS. At first glance, this plain, rectangular clamshell with dual screens appears to be the same as its predecessors.

[ See post to watch video ]

But a deeper dive into the DSi reveals its improvements. It now has two cameras: one facing the user and another facing out; its earlier iterations had none. It also now has a SecureDigital memory-card slot, so you can plug in an SD card and listen to AAC music files from iTunes on your DSi, which now works as a portable music player, or expand the DSi’s storage capacity.

The DSi is also Wi-Fi enabled in a more secure way than previous models and can be used to buy and download games and applications directly from Nintendo’s DSi Shop online marketplace. This solves the problem of carrying around multiple game cartridges or losing them, but might bother people who like swapping games with one another. The DSi’s Web browser is also faster than its predecessors.

These physical changes affect the way the DSi works in good and bad ways. For example, its two cameras can be used for photo-related games like WarioWare: Snapped!, a clever photo-booth-like game that tricks you into making funny faces while secretly taking your picture.

But while the DSi’s newly added SD card slot expands the device’s memory and brings music on to the DSi, this replaces another slot that was used for playing GameBoy Advance games on the older DS and DS Lite. The physical slot for DS games remains.

Overall, the Nintendo DSi is a fun little portable gaming device. I’ve been fooling around with it for a few weeks, testing games and applications since they became available on April 5. My DSi tapped into various Wi-Fi networks with no trouble and its browser was straightforward and zippy. The DSi speakers sounded great for a tiny device. On the downside, the DSi Shop is still in its infancy so only 10 games and apps are available there. The DSi retains an aging, boxy look — a design that could have been freshened up.

Until Oct. 5, Nintendo is running a promotion for its DSi Shop, which accepts points to buy games and applications; $1 is equal to about 100 points. People who buy the DSi will receive 1,000 free points for the DSi Shop. New content is added to the shop each Monday. This content ranges in price from free to 800 points or more. I bought and downloaded a variety of things, ranging from the free Web browser to a 200-point magic-trick game called Master of Illusion Express: Funny Face. I also downloaded WarioWare: Snapped! for 500 points.

Points for the DSi Shop can be purchased online or at retail stores and they’re sold in increments of 2,000 for $20. Before purchasing and downloading, a notification with each game and app tells you how many “blocks,” or memory, it will take up on your DSi. WarioWare: Snapped!, for example, took up 61 blocks. This information really doesn’t mean anything unless you go to your system settings to see how many blocks you’ve used and how many remain. By default, each DSi is shipped with 256 megabytes of flash memory or 1,024 blocks.

The DSi cameras are only .3 megapixel each and don’t use a zoom or flash, but photos taken with them looked colorful and clear on the DSi’s two 3.25-inch, 256×192-pixel-resolution screens. Instead of sending photos to friends directly from the DSi, you have to save them to the SD card and transfer them to a computer to share them.

The Nintendo DSi is a spruced-up successor to two of the company’s earlier game players.

Nintendo says the “i” in DSi is meant to represent the personal aspect of the device since it has built-in tools to let you create your own content. For example, a game called DSi Sound lets you sing or hum into a built-in microphone, then rearrange your recording to change its pitch, speed and sound — or even to add harmony. AAC music files pulled on to the device via SD card can be changed in various ways, though they can’t be saved. Photos taken with the cameras can be morphed in nine different ways including cutting different photos and piecing them together on the screen.

The DSi has parental controls, which the DS and DS Lite didn’t have. These controls let parents turn off Web browsing completely. A better compromise might have been to let parents limit kids to certain sites. The parental controls can also put restrictions on the DSi so it can’t play games with certain ratings. For instance, if a child goes to school and tries to play a friend’s M-rated game in his DSi, it won’t work.

The DSi works well as a music player, albeit a lot chunkier than an iPod. A high-capacity SD memory card could potentially add hundreds of songs to the device, and you can press buttons to play on-screen instruments in the background while listening to your tunes. If you’re using headphones (not included with the device) and you close the DSi, music will keep playing through the headphones so you can put the DSi in a bag and go. In past versions, the DSi went to sleep when closed. It plays only AAC files, not MP3s.

I used the DSi’s Web browser to read some news on WSJ.com and to check my Web-based email, plugging letters and symbols into the touch-screen keyboard. A stylus can be used for precise lettering, but I got by with my fingernails.

The DSi games are approachable for all types of people, and are obviously not geared toward the graphics-rich visuals that hard-core gamers adore. I liked the way they incorporated the device’s touch screen for drawings and its cameras for photo games.

The Nintendo DSi is $20 more than the price of the original DS, and $40 more than the DS Lite. But its two cameras, snappy Web browser and music-player capabilities make it a likable and well-rounded device that any family member could use.

Edited By Walter S. Mossberg

Email us at mossbergsolution@wsj.com. Find this and other columns and videos online free at the All Things Digital Web site: http://solution.allthingsd.com

Corrections & Amplifications

Photos taken on the Nintendo DSi can be sent to other DSis. Due to inaccurate information provided by Nintendo, yesterday’s Mossberg Solution erroneously stated photos couldn’t be shared between DSis.

A How-to Guide to How-to Videos

Katherine Boehret — Wed, 07 May 2008 00:01:00 +0000

If there’s a skill or process you want to learn or know more about, chances are there’s an online video for it. These days you can find a video that will teach you to cook, survive college, build your own headphones or even become a better kisser.

This week, I took a look at just a few Web sites that make finding these videos easy, including Howcast Media Inc.’s Howcast.com, WonderHowTo.com from WonderHowTo Inc. and eHow Inc.’s eHow.com. Howcast.com, which launched in February, encourages users to make and share good-quality, entertaining videos by providing tools on its site, and has about 5,000 videos so far. WonderHowTo.com, launched in January, used a different strategy by aggregating over 110,000 videos from various sources — including Howcast, YouTube and Scripps Networks (SSP) — rather than publishing its own content. EHow, a site that started in 1999 with text-only content, contains over 100,000 instructional articles submitted by its users or eHow editors, and has a small catalog of videos.

Howcast videos can be seen in full-screen mode using a player that illustrates step-by-step text instructions beside video screens.

After testing each of these sites, I found that my favorite how-to videos had steps that were clearly labeled and numbered and the ability to fast forward to or play back specific parts in the video — tools that Howcast included in almost all of its videos. At least some of the videos on the three sites simply illustrate things you could likely figure out how to do without watching a video, such as “How to Make Green Beer.” (Add food coloring.) Howcast.com and WonderHowTo both require users to sign in, which confirms their date of birth, before looking at what they consider “mature” content.

These three free sites are advertisement-supported, and Howcast’s ads run alongside videos. WonderHowTo.com runs ads at the top and side of its own site, on which it will play certain videos. But because videos on WonderHowTo come from other sources, those other sites can show video-embedded ads according to their rules. EHow’s videos run pop-up text advertisements displaying names and links of other related (and sometimes unrelated) Web sites. But I couldn’t get the pop-up ads to stay closed.

Overall, I preferred the look of Howcast’s site and its well-organized videos. But its content paled in comparison to WonderHowTo’s 110,000 videos and even eHow’s 100,000 instructional articles. WonderHowTo.com does a nice job of gathering content from across the Web, though the inconsistencies of other sites (including advertisements, layout and video player) were a bit frustrating. EHow’s articles were useful, as were its few videos, but I couldn’t get over the site’s unyielding video pop-up ads.

Howcast.com’s content was informative with an amusing edge, including a video titled “How to Tell If Your Boyfriend’s A Psycho.” (If he calls 50 times a day, for example.) Other videos on the site are more serious, like “How to Make Sushi” by an executive sushi chef in New York City.

The founders of Howcast Media formerly worked in Google’s (GOOG) video department, including during the acquisition of YouTube. All of Howcast’s content comes from one of four sources: written and produced by Howcast in its studios; emerging filmmakers who apply and are accepted into the Howcast Directors Program to receive $50 a video and 50% of the advertising revenue generated from videos that generate over 40,000 views on the site; content partners like Popular Science; and Howcast users’ personal how-to videos.

In order to make it easier for average users to upload better-looking videos, Howcast provides an Upload and Enhance tool that simply and quickly adds professional-looking graphics and printable steps to go along with how-to videos. This formula makes videos more enjoyable to watch.

Videos made in the Howcast Studios include accompanying music, good narratives and actors who add humor to an otherwise humdrum how-to. Among its helpful features is a video player that has smart blue markers to show where facts are sprinkled throughout the video and green markers to illustrate where tips appear. For example, the fact at the end of a video for beginner guitarists called “How to Play a Basic Bar Chord” is “The late Kurt Cobain claimed he was trying to rip off the Pixies when he wrote ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit. ‘” In full-screen view, users can zoom in on any part of a video, and written-out steps and thumbnail stills of the scene appear to the right of the screen.

Howcast tries to run ads alongside videos that relate to the content. A video titled “How To Clean Your Dog’s Teeth” has an ad for PetSmart (PETM) Stores running on its page.

WonderHowTo.com was developed by a former television executive with the intention of using the site to produce its own video, like Howcast.com. Instead, WonderHowTo.com opted to tap the vast selection of how-to videos already available on the Web.

A Browse button pulls down 35 categories from which users can sort content, including Spirituality, Dating & Relationships and Fitness. In the Fashion subcategory under Beauty & Style, I found 290 videos including one on “How to Tie a Windsor Knot” and another titled “How to Turn Old Underpants Into a Bra” — neither of which I’ll be using anytime soon. Other categories include Clip of the Day, Recommendations (for users who are logged in) and Fresh, where new videos are listed. Users can grade videos to help others tell which they think are the best, and a Top Grade category compiles the top-ranked videos.

WonderHowTo’s content comes from over 700 sites, according to the company. I used the site to find a video on YouTube about how to do a front-flip, clips on VideoJug.com that provided terrific tennis tips from a coach, and a video from EasyBarTricks.com about how to stick a beer bottle to a wall without glue or gum. (Hint: You’ll need a corner and a wall you don’t mind marking up.) WonderHowTo made it easier to find these videos than by performing a general search on the Web.

I submitted a non-how-to video to this site by simply entering a URL, without logging in. I never found the video I submitted on the site; WonderHowTo explained that it screens all videos prior to posting them, so it must have found my video.

EHow.com uses its database of articles to encourage people to watch videos, when they’re relevant. This site uses calm, pastel colors to give a relaxed feeling — especially compared with WonderHowTo, where banner ads surround the page. EHow’s 26 categories include Parenting, Parties & Entertaining and Weddings. Twelve subcategories within Weddings led to 23 articles about Bridal Party Responsibilities — a popular topic was “How To Deal With a Bridezilla.” Related videos, such as “How To Get Rid of Wedding Day Jitters,” ran along the right of the page.

Videos can also be found on eHow within a marked tab at the top of the page. But unlike the articles on eHow, these videos weren’t well organized or as easily searchable. I watched one of eHow’s Featured Videos called “How to Know if Your Toe Is Broken,” but after closing a pop-up ad for UPS (UPS) during Step One of the video, another ad popped up during Step Five. Neither ad had anything to do with broken toes.

But the eHow videos were professional-looking and included quite a few tips that I didn’t know. That broken toe video was submitted by the eHow Health Editor, and a link at the top of the page led me to hundreds of other health-related articles. I found another video on “How To Remove Wallpaper,” which was posted by the Home & Garden Editor and included a list of things I would need to proceed, along with numbered steps.

It isn’t always easy to learn from the information you find online, and how-to videos can be a big help — especially when they’re well-made and easy to find using one of these sites. Howcast.com has well-presented content that was enjoyable to watch, but WonderHowTo.com offers a better variety of instructional videos.

Email mossbergsolution@wsj.com