Gallery: TiVo picks up Rhapsody support, learns to love music
TiVo picks up Rhapsody support, learns to love music
LG touts first converter box approved for 2008 digital changeover
The U.S. Department of Commerce has certified the first digital-analog converter box eligible for the digital television transition coupon program. LG Electronics has developed a low-cost box which will allow consumers to get broadcast signals to their older television sets using a $40 government coupon. The converter drops higher-end features like digital audio or component outputs, but includes features designed for older sets, such as RF and composite outputs, V-Chip parental controls, closed captioning, and options for 4:3- or 16:9-ratio televisions. The company plans to have production ramped up to coincide with the launch of the coupon program in early 2008, just in time for consumers to remain clueless as to what they needed a converter box for anyway.
HDTV Listings for October 8, 2007
What we're watching: Sylar's back on Heroes tonight, so we'll check that out along with Chuck and Journeyman.Our traditional high-def listings continue below.
HD DVD and Blu-ray releases on October 9th, 2007
With a little help from Fox, Blu-ray has pulled within ten of HD DVD's lead. Without any additional releases Blu-ray will regain the lead by the end of October, but most of Fox's help is in the way of catalog titles. One catalog title that has long been in the making from MGM is Robocop, which was originally slated for August of 2006. There are three day-and-date releases this week including the highly IMDB rated (8.1) Reign Over Me and the kids movie Surf's Up -- both from Sony. Meanwhile, Universal's day-and-date title this week is Evan Almighty. There are a few independent movies this week, not available for either format, but what we really missed last week was that Disney held out on the Blu-ray camp, when they took Jungle Book out of the vault for non-HD world.HD DVD 306 vs Blu-ray 297 *
Blu-ray
- 28 Days Later (Fox)
- 28 Weeks Later (Fox)
- Edward Scissorhands (Fox)
- The Fly (1986) (Fox)
- From Hell (Fox)
- Nature's Journey (Koch Distributing)
- Reign Over Me (Sony)
- RoboCop (MGM)
- Surf's Up (Sony)
- Twilight Zone: The Movie (Warner)
- Evan Almighty (Universal)
- Twilight Zone: The Movie (Warner)
*Blu-ray total does not reflects 32 Paramount titles that were previously available.
Swarmcast granted patent for internet video delivery
Swarmcast has been granted a patent entitled "Packet transfer mechanism over a peer to peer network," which the company's marketing and PR has mercifully cast as the "File Swarming Patent." The patent protects Swarmcast's techniques for multi-source streaming of HD video over the internet. Patents being what they are, it's not entirely clear how Swarmcast's claims differ from other peer-to-peer approaches to efficiently getting lots of bits to end users, but we do know we'd like to see internet distribution of HD content grow. The development of infrastructure and protocols to get this done suggests some big players have interest in this as well. Yes, it is just a step towards our real bandwidth desires, but at least it's a step in the right direction.HDTV Listings for October 7, 2007
What we're watching: The CW premieres a new series tonight, Life is Wild. We'll also check out new episodes of Cold Case and Shark on CBS.Our traditional high-def listings continue below.
JVC TV responds to claps and waves for channel changes
[Via The Boy Genius Report]
TBS HD continues its roll, comes to AT&T U-Verse
We're beginning to feel like a broken record with all the TBS HD announcements, but in a good way. More HD is always welcome, right folks? This time around, TBS HD announced carriage with AT&T's U-Verse. Even though the killer content on TBS HD is the MLB playoff coverage, the carriage deals establish a beachhead for (hopefully) more good things to come. After all, it's not so easy/pleasant to take a channel away from customers after it's been given to them.
Dish adds TBS HD too, where's FIOS?
Report shows HDTV owners happy with PQ, unhappy with content
A recent report by Nielsen concludes that while HDTV owners find the picture quality stunning, the amount of programming is less compelling. Check out some numbers: a whopping 85% of HDTV owners rated the picture quality of HD programming as "excellent" or "above average," but only 39% had the same feeling about the amount or selection of HD programming. The survey also shows that HDTV owners are hungry for more content and ready to pay (hear that, content and service providers?): almost 20% watch more TV than before getting an HD set, with more than 33% signed up for at least one premium channel. As industry decision makers look at these results, we're hoping that they take the hint and get some more HD goodness to the willing-to-pay audience. The numbers suggest what we've said before: stretch-o-vision isn't fooling anyone.Yamaha's YSP-500 compact "Sound Projector"
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HDTV Listings for October 6, 2007
What we're watching: College football takes the spotlight tonight with LSU vs. Florida on CBS, while on ABC we'll either catch a Big Ten matchup of Purdue and Ohio State or Notre Dame going for its first win of the season against UCLA. Saturday Night Live is brand new with guest star Seth Rogen of Superbad and Knocked Up.Our traditional high-def listings continue below.
Microsoft & Toshiba to push HDi features beyond HD DVD
Toshiba and Microsoft are taking their HD DVD partnership outside players and discs, by announcing the Advanced Interactivity Consortium. The idea behind the "open forum" is to take the interactive features found in HD DVD movies to other platforms, and potentially see HDi-style features on digital download services that connect directly to your PC, PMP, console or HDTV. The movie studios that currently support HD DVD (Dreamworks, Paramount, Universal and Warner Bros.) are also on board with additional partner invitations to be extended shortly. Whatever the result of this team is -- from simple website tie-ins or maybe HDi features on VOD/Xbox Live Video Marketplace/Zune, it's apparent HD DVD is just one part of these companies plans for digital media.SED & FED TVs might be getting cheaper
Just because Canon announced it's no longer working on ways to make SED televisions LG unveils HT972TR HTIB, favors Chocolate
[Via Electronista, images courtesy of Le Journal du Geek]
