Dave Zatz While TiVo focuses their resources on serving smaller and international television providers, as retail customers defect, the larger US cable and satellite companies continue to crank away on their own compelling in-house DVR services. Although DISH may have given up some ground in the Hopper’s ability to, you know, actually hop (over commercials) they just completed a nationwide software … Read more
As the story goes, I renewed Verizon FiOS services in August after several years of stellar performance (at two addresses) and in light of the potential disruption an Xfinity install might bring along with Comcast’s ongoing HBO GO Roku blockade. After Tech of the Hub received a pretty fantabulous FiOS renewal offer that effectively comps two years of premium channels, including … Read more
Supposedly a small subset of long-term TiVo customers have been offered quite the amazing deal: Base Roamio w/lifetime service $200 for the unit and $200 for the lifetime service Plus – $400 for the unit and $100 for lifetime service Pro – $600 for the unit and $100 for lifetime service The catch is that … Read more
While the TiVo Roamio line may officially max out at 3TB of recording capacity, licensed reseller WeaKnees has offered 4TB drives nearly since launch. And, should that 637 hours of HD content not be enough, WeaKnees has just unveiled 6TB drives – a TiVo upgrade good for a whopping 960 hours of high def content. The WeaKnees 6TB DIY kits clock in at $450 while … Read more
Next up in the streaming stick space is the MobiTV Connect… that just passed thru the FCC. The company originally known for streaming amazingly low resolution television content to Sprint phones clearly continues to pivot. And, back in September, MobiTV told The Donohue Report their HDMI hardware would launch via two US wireless carriers in early 2015. … Read more
Here at ZNF, we’re big fans of Tablo and find it to be the best post-Aereo solution for technologically savvy cord cutters (and their families). You can check out our complete review here but, in a nutshell, Tablo is both a headless over-the-air TiVo and Slingbox in one — beaming live and recorded television to a variety of endpoints (Roku, iPhone, etc) in the home … and beyond. So we jumped at the opportunity to partner with Tablo to give away a two-tuner unit.
As Google modernizes their Chrome web browser, Sling has alerted customers that they’re unprepared to continue streaming support at this time. As part of their 64-bit upgrade process, Google is discontinuing the support of 32-bit browser extensions for Mac OS X and Windows computers. Since the current version of Watch on Slingbox.com for Mac and PC … Read more
After 12 hours with the Amazon Fire TV Stick, some thoughts…
The remote feels exceedingly cheap compared to the premium clicker that ships with the full-fledged Fire TV box and I had some difficulty removing the battery cover. Having said that, a flimsy remote is infinitely more valuable than no remote… versus Google Chromecast, which requires a smartphone for interaction.
In the app department, the Fire TV UI remains somewhat unwieldy compared to Roku given its expected emphasis of Amazon services – but it’s certainly manageable, More importantly, the third party content selection is still lacking. For example, our kitchen TV is perfectly suited for CNN or Sky News (as seen on Apple TV) background noise, yet neither are available. Also missing, but expected soon, is HBO GO. I had no problems streaming Netflix and WatchESPN – both looked great. Plex also seems to be working well.