Hack Thyself

Like Chipotle and Honda before them… “Jessica Jones” took over Netflix’s Twitter account today. I can’t remember which guy I was with at midnight. Jack, Jim or Johnny. -JJ #whiskeyandchill — Netflix US (@netflix) January 1, 2016 Why the crap does National Hangover Day happen on a day when everything’s closed? -JJ — Netflix US (@netflix) … Read more

TiVo To Retrofit Legacy DVR With MPEG4 Support

As Comcast, the nation’s largest cable provider, continues to transition from MPEG-2 to more efficient MPEG-4 video delivery, TiVo is walking back plans to abandon legacy hardware. Whereas TiVo Series 3 and HD owners were originally told (in dramatic fashion) to upgrade their DVRs (at a cost, of course), I assume the fear of significant stand-alone customer defections motivated the … Read more

Deal of the Day: $30 off Apple TV

While it may be a few years before we once again “watch TV”, my new blessed reality clearly hasn’t slowed me from acquiring gadgets. So, although I missed out on Target’s limited Black Friday inventory, I just ordered Apple TV on sale from… RadioShack’s zombie corpse. This $120 deal drops $30 off MSRP and bundles an HDMI cable of unknown length … Read more

Where’s Dave?

Yes, the blog has been quiet. And it’s likely my already low output will further decrease in the short-term as, after five long years…Eliana, our sweet, magical little miracle baby has arrived! Despite working so hard towards this goal and the vast majority of our circle having children, we’ve clearly only understood parenthood on an abstract level — no matter how good our time … Read more

DISH Wally Headed To CES

As originally revealed, Echostar has been prepping an unsurprising Hopper 3… alongside the mysterious new DISH Wally. And, mere weeks ahead of CES, details have started to trickle out. The single tuner Wally satellite receiver may be targeted towards small business, in addition to secondary rooms, and will run only $7/mo in rental fees. The non-DVR STB includes HEVC decoding … Read more

New Roku Activations Unlock Tons Of Free Premium Content

Giving or getting a Roku this Christmas? The streaming pioneer has lined up an impressive array of free trials. Some of the more compelling offerings: Hulu – 3 months free HBO Now – 1 month free Netflix – 1 month free Showtime – 1 month free CinemaNow – 3 movie rentals Some of the promos, like Netflix … Read more

Check & Repair Your Ecobee Sensor

While I generally prefer my ecobee3 smart thermostat (upstairs) to my Nest (downstairs), the company appears to have suffered something of a manufacturing quality control issue that significantly reduces its key remote sensor benefit. Namely, a number of recently shipped devices feature misaligned ecobee sensor component to sensor window. Indeed, I had set up a sensor in my soon-to-arrive baby’s room … Read more

HBO GO Confirmed For TiVo

As we await the TiVo WWE app and long overdue Hulu refresh, a Google alert tripped several weeks back has seemingly confirmed HBO GO will also be on the docket. I’ve got no pretty marketing materials or photographic evidence to share with you, just an HBO GO config file … with 288 provider references to TiVo. And, thus … Read more