Verizon FiOS TV Gets HD VOD

Verizon’s flipped the switch and now offers high def video-on-demand. The press release doesn’t provide viewing fees or the differential cost over SD rentals, but they expect to provide over 1,000 HD titles within a year. Verizon’s initial HD VOD offering contains around 75 HD titles including a mix of free programs and recently released … Read more

Wanna Beta Test Moxi?

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Just when I thought we’d enter a period of tech news radio silence leading up to the holidays and prior to CES early next month, Digeo is out recruiting for two betas. One product we knew about, the other we didn’t…

First up is the Holy Grail for us geeks – public recruiting for a hardware beta: The Moxi Home Cinema HD DMR, which I previewed a few months ago, was originally slated to launch in retail this year and has been slightly delayed. But it looks like we’re getting closer…

With a single box – and a single remote – this Moxi HD Digital Media Recorder brings it all together: movies, TV shows, music, games, photos and MP3s. Plug your speakers directly into your Moxi Home Cinema HD DMR for full surround sound. A digital surround sound amplifier is built right in – and Dolby® Digital is included – so you don’t need a separate receiver. By participating in this limited beta, you will get to preview and help us test Moxi Home Cinema HD Digital Media Recorder as we get ready to release to the general public.

I’m still not entirely sure if there’s a market for a higher-end retail DVR without CableCARD support. However, I do appreciate fully supported clear QAM and an integrated receiver – if additional devices can be connected.

But wait. There’s more!

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TiVo Offers Free Music Video Downloads

From TiVo’s press release: Music Choice will deliver its wide-ranging catalog of several thousand music videos and original programming to the television through the TiVoCast service. At launch nearly a thousand video titles are available and this number is expected to grow significantly in the coming weeks. When considering the robust Music Choice offering and … Read more

TiVo Adds Picasa Albums and Photbucket

Broadband-connected TiVo units can now access Picasa Web Albums (Google) and Photobucket images. From the press release: “By working with these well-respected and popular photo-sharing partners TiVo enables families to share their pictures in new, fun ways. TiVo continues to show our commitment to differentiated product offerings by allowing subscribers to share their memories on … Read more

AOL Shifts (Video) Gears

There seems to be a consolidation of web video services in the works… presumably driven by the costs of hosting and managing these online efforts. AOL started by announcing plans to dump their higher-def streaming option (“Hi-Q”), saying the user count is: “very small, so small that we haven’t tracked it.â€? Part of the challenge … Read more

Digital Media Bytes

A periodic roundup of relevant news… from our other blogs: Motorola and Marriott Link Up: Connected Home 2 Go CEO Roberts on Comcast: Connected Home 2 Go Marketing Fiber to the Home (RFOG): Connected Home 2 Go Salvaging Fox Business News’ Online Reputation: Davis Freeberg

Hulu’s Looking Good

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I received my Hulu beta invite last night, and I’ve got to say the service is looking pretty good. If you recall, the Hulu video portal was originally conceived of by NBC and is now an independent entity with various studio and web relationships.

At this point, the Hulu site is pretty spartan (too much white space and sharp edges) and content organization options are basic (please give me a filter to hide video more than a decade old like Kojak and Dragnet), but having a significant amount of primetime multi-studio television shows in the stable is huge. I also appreciate the simple, Flash-based video playback interface over a stand-alone application (think Joost).

I’m having home networking probs this week, and was unable to transfer 30 Rock from the Series3 to the TiVo HD. Instead of troubleshooting, I caught “Cougars” via Hulu in fullscreen. The resolution wasn’t great for my 1440×900 Macbook Pro, but it was watchable. And the few commercials were relatively painless – a good excuse to check email in another Firefox tab. In fact, I also ended up viewing the pilot episode of USA’s Burn Notice – it’s on hiatus but Mari’s been raving about it. Maybe someone at Hulu will read this and post the remaining episodes…

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Xbox 360 Update Includes DivX/Xvid Support

The rumors (and Davis Freeberg) were right… Microsoft has confirmed next week’s Xbox 360 update will include DivX and Xvid support. However, as Chris Lanier points out, playback is limited to the Dashboard — there’ll be no media extender streaming from Vista or XP. Meaning, we’ll most likely be sneakernetting our compatible video on USB … Read more