Hardware
Vid-Biz: Sling, Dark-Rumped Petrels, Netflix
SlingCatcher Officially Launches; functionality includes controlling video from local or remote SlingBox without a computer, moving audio and video from a PC to the TV and the soon-to-come Sling.com. (Zatz Not Funny)
Hawaii Considers Pushing Up DTV Transition Date; nesting habitat of the dark-rumped petrel bird could see the state bump the transition date up by a month, to Jan. 15. (Broadcasting & Cable)
Netflix Adds Blu-Ray Fee; company adding $1-a-month fee in exchange for providing unlimited access to Blu-Ray titles. (The Hollywood Reporter)
Warner Bros. Expands Motion Comics; slightly animated versions of Batman: Black & White and Superman: Red Son being developed. (Sci-Fi Wire)
Portable TVs Left Behind in the Digital Switch; used during power losses and emergencies, 7 million battery-powered TV sets could be useless as digital converter boxes need to be plugged in. (USA Today)
It’s Funny Because it’s True? Fake United Talent Agency job listing site posts the following tid-bit (we’ll leave it to the comedy sites to judge). (UTA Joblist (Fake))
Hackaround Puts Boxee on Apple TVs
Apple TV owners can now add the open-source media control platform Boxee to their set-top boxes…if they’re ambitious and more than a little tech savvy, that is.
The new functionality doesn’t come courtesy of Apple, or even Boxee itself. The hackaround was developed by independent programmer Scott Davilla. In an interview, Davilla said that he was always a big fan of the Apple TV, but was frustrated that you couldn’t expand it and add more stuff to it. Then Davilla stumbled onto the XBMC (formerly XBox Media Center) project, upon which Boxee was based.
Boxee lets you control your movies, music, photos and more through your connected TV. On the Apple TV this means you could play content other than what you download directly from Apple. It will pull content from the hard drive on the Apple TV or from a local network.
Studios Sue Over RealDVD
As expected, Hollywood is none too happy about RealNetworks’ new RealDVD DVD copying software. So unhappy, in fact, that the Motion Picture Association of America has filed a lawsuit to block it from being sold. The major studios claim that RealDVD violates the Digital Millennium Copyright Act by allowing a user to make multiple copies of content and distribute it to others.
Real, however, appears to have beaten them to the punch. Read more of this story
TiVo Makes Its Way to the PC
Written by Liane Cassavoy.
Tivo’s excellent software is coming to a PC near you. TiVo and Nero have teamed up on a new product, called Nero LiquidTV | TiVo PC, that will turn your PC into a TiVo-equipped TV.
The $200 product will include a copy of the TiVo software, 12 months of TiVo service, a Nero/TiVo remote, a TV tuner card (with an AV cable and an antenna), and an IR blaster and cable. A $100 downloadable version, including just the software and the subscription to the TiVo service, will be available for PCs already equipped with TV tuners.
It will compete both with standalone TV tuners — like Pinnacle’s PCTV HD Pro Stick and Hauppauge’s WinTV-HVR-950Q — and desktop PVR software, like SageTV’s Media Center. Both the Pinnacle and Hauppauge TV tuners, which cost about $100, include basic software that allows you to view live TV and schedule recordings. Software, like SageTV’s $80 app, meanwhile, is designed to add the features of a DVR to your existing TV tuner card.
The Perfect Apple for the Living Room
With rumors that something will change with the Apple TV this week, Alistair Croll takes the opportunity to pen an ambitious feature wish list for the perfect Apple entertainment device:
TV tuner and set-top PVR to take on TiVo, with streaming and synchronization to Apple’s mobile devices, the way Slingbox does, handled through a more reliable MobileMe
Controllers with accelerometers and a set-top App Store to rival what’s on the iPhone and iPod Touch
Roku to Open Its Box to Anyone
The Roku set-top box is closely associated with Netflix, but during a speech at Streaming Media West this morning, company CEO Anthony Wood said that it will open up the little box to any content provider over the next few months. Wired reports:
“We’re opening up the platform to anyone who wants to put their video service on this box,” says Wood. “We’re going to release the software developer kit, so anyone can publish any channel, and users can access web content on their TVs.”
This news isn’t surprising. The company has spoken before about adding additional partners to its content offerings. The more content available through the box, the more attractive the device’s $99 price tag.
The question becomes how users will navigate through their options if a lot of companies jump on the Roku bandwagon. Right now, the only option for users is Netflix, so it will be interesting to see how Roku creates an experience that is simple enough for its minimally-buttoned remote.
CBS’ iPhone App Requires Jailbroken Phone for Video
There’s been a lot of chatter today about the CBS EyeMobile app for the iPhone. Reports indicate that the app lets aspiring citizen journalists report on news by uploading photos and videos to the CBS site with the popular device. What reports aren’t saying is that in order to use video for the service, you have to have a jailbroken iPhone.
I spoke with Brent Brookler, the CEO of Treemo Labs, the company that developed the EyeMobile application for CBS. He confirmed that the iPhone app does indeed require a jailbroken device if you want to capture video. Brookler said that the EyeMobile app was more about uploading photos and that the iPhone “is a great distribution outlet.”
If you are hell-bent on using your iPhone to record your homegrown video news and send it to CBS, you’ll have to hack your iPhone first (though we aren’t advocating you do this). iSmashPhone has reviews of two video recording apps for the iPhone you could use to capture video and then email to the EyeMobile service.
Alternatively, if you wanted to skip CBS altogether, you can use an iPhone to capture and live-stream video. Budding Christiane Amanpours of the world can capture and broadcast live video footage from (jailbroken) iPhones using either Flixwagon or Qik.
Throwing in the Towel on ZvBox
Written by Liane Cassavoy
I completely understand the desire to link your computer to your HDTV. But my enthusiasm for the concept has waned a bit more with each media extender — devices that allow you to view content from your PC on your TV — that I’ve tried. And after my experiences with the ZvBox, I’m about ready to give up.
The ZvBox, made by ZeeVee Inc., is a device that uses the existing cable wiring in your house to take the content that’s on your PC and make it accessible from any HDTV in the house. It sounds simple, but in reality it’s anything but. To be fair, the company warns you that the product can be tricky to install, but tricky doesn’t even begin to describe it.
Study: DVRs in 27 Percent of TV Homes
New research reaffirms that there’s a DVR boom underway, so why can’t TiVo capitalize on it? Leichtman Research Group (LRG) said today that 27 percent of TV households in the U.S. have at least one DVR, and 30 percent of those homes have more than one. Bruce Leichtman, president and principal analyst for LRG, is quoted as saying that the number of DVR households in the U.S. basically doubled in the past two years and will double again in the next four years.
LRG’s estimate is in line with recent data from Nielsen, which put the DVR install base at 25 percent of U.S. homes.
Other findings from the LRG study include:
- 68 percent of DVR owners say they usually watch recorded DVR programs when there is nothing on regularly scheduled TV
- 35 percent of DVR owners feel that they spend more time watching programs recorded on their DVR than regularly scheduled programs
- 45 percent of DVR owners record five or fewer programs per week
Backing up a previous study from NDS, LRG found that people really like their DVRs, with 87 percent saying they’d recommend their DVR service to a friend (they must not be Comcast subscribers).
So why isn’t TiVo, the name synonymous with DVR’ing, king of the world? Because of cable. Our friends at TV By the Numbers have been keeping track, and while cable offerings are attracting more than a million new DVR subscribers a month, TiVo is losing 50,000 subs a month.
And things won’t get any better once people can kick those bulky standalone set-top boxes for a network DVR.
Details Emerge on NextshareTV P2P Box
The European P2P Next consortium will unveil a set-top box prototype that allows P2P streaming at the IBC conference in Amsterdam tomorrow. The device goes by the name of NextshareTV and has been developed at the Pioneer Digital Design Centre in London. NextshareTV makes use of some of the open-source P2P streaming technology of the Swarm Player, which was introduced by the P2P Next project just two months ago.
The idea of bringing P2P to set top boxes isn’t entirely new. Vudu is using progressive P2P downloads to deliver content to its boxes, and the Chinese P2P operator Vatata recently announced that its distributed streaming video service will be available on set-top boxes as well. NextshareTV one-ups these platforms by offering social elements, allowing its users tag and share content.
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