Media Archives - Page 46 of 75

Picture of the Hour: The Davis Freeberg Tribute

SlingCatcher Is Real!

A few months back, I stumbled upon some patent applications by the Krikorian brothers (AKA Sling Media founders and execs) that alluded to a device designed to receive broadcasts — as opposed to the Slingbox which broadcasts your home television signals.

Apparently they liked my proposed name, as Sling’s newest device has been branded the SlingCatcher. As both a geeky consumer and someone who tracks this space, I feel confident saying this device is huge. The ability to control (it has a remote!) and broadcast my Series3 TiVo in the living room via Slingbox to my bedroom TV via SlingCatcher is awesome. All those digital channels (IFC, NFL, etc) and content stored on the S3 we have in the living room will be accessible in the bedroom. Or at a buddies house. Or in a hotel. Kick ass!

My one month trial of Xbox Live (Gold level) expired last week… Since they hooked me, I started looking for membership deals. Xbox Live Gold is the fee-based service that allows you to compete online, download movie trailers, chat with folks, compare online stats, etc. 12 months of Gold membership retails for $50 — you can buy online through the Xbox or via a retailer.

At the time I ordered, I wasn’t able to find any discounts. However, I did notice the Gold subscription plus web camera for $65 at Amazon (versus the $80 list price). The bundle also includes Robotron and Uno game downloads, a headset (I already have one), and 200 points (~42% of an HD movie rental) — Including the webcam, these seemed like decent bonus items for only $15 over the annual subscription.

The 360 supports video chat and allows you to add your face to some games, such as Uno and the new Rainbow Six. Though… the biggest bonus of all turns out to be the Vision camera (which retails for $40 without Gold membership) also works under XP. Installation is a breeze: Plug it in, then let Windows find the driver online. It’s definitely not a high-end cam (and it has no microphone) but the price is right. The hardware is simple, though it does rotate and pivot — and, surprisingly, it also balanced fine on my LCD. I had fun ~~making faces~~ testing the video with Skype last night (and you can see that I still haven’t shaved).

Mari’s Gadget-Giving Post-Mortem, Part 3

Part 3 begins with the coveted eStarling photo frame. (Click here for Part 1 and here for Part 2.) eStarling Wireless Digital Photo Frame Paying for the Hype The $250 eStarling frame has gotten so much good hype, I suppose it’s only karmic-ly justified that everything went to hell when the product finally shipped again … Read more

Mari’s Gadget-Giving Post-Mortem, Part 2

If you missed Post-Mortem Part 1, I covered the Christmas gadget insanity in my house with the Wii, Pinnacle PCTV HD Pro Stick and iRecord. Part 2 starts with the Dash. The Dash Way to Ruin the Surprise I should have listened to my own advice. I knew it was a bad idea to buy … Read more

Digital Media Bytes

A periodic roundup of relevant news… Pay for TiVo Series3 or settle for cable company DVR: Mossberg, WSJ XBox up on downloads: Variety HD-DVD AACS probably not cracked: Chris Lanier Hands on with the Venice Project: GigaOm Transfer DirecTV TiVo Lifetime service to Series3 (for $200): Weaknees

Mari’s Gadget-Giving Post-Mortem, Part 1

I realize that even among the people that celebrate Christmas, few celebrate it the way my family does. We have a particular gene in our DNA that leads to obscene levels of spending on Christmas presents. Yes, you could view it as rampant commercialism, but we prefer to think of it as extreme generosity. Below … Read more

The Xbox 360, CinemaNow, & Sleeper Cell Experiment

When CinemaNow announced the addition of Showtime and A&E into their stable of network TV partners, I decided to give the service a spin with a free episode of Sleeper Cell. While iTunes does carry Showtime programming, they don’t currently offer the second Sleeper Cell mini-series… And when downloading shows via iTunes, I have to hook my laptop up to a TV via SVideo (thanks, Work) and an audio cable — Watching without the use of a remote control. Knowing that CinemaNow has a Windows Media Center Edition (MCE) widget, I hoped I might be able to stream the show from computer to television by way of my new Xbox 360.

I started by downloading the 58 minute show (@ 670MB) via Internet Explorer (no love for Firefox). On The 360, I fired up media extender functionality and entered Cinema Now’s app. After logging in and futzing around for several minutes, I realized this version only supports movie rentals and doesn’t tie into movie or television purchases. Next, I tried looking in the My Videos section of the Xbox’s extender. No movie there. And why would it be? I saved it to the Desktop folder. So my next step was to move it (on the PC of course) to the My Documents/My Videos folder. Still no love via the 360 media extender. Back to the PC, I went… moving the video to the shared My Documents/My Videos folder. Success, the Xbox sees it. I hit play and get a security error. But I’m stubborn, so I hit play again.. and it works!

Sleeper Cell streamed no prob over my WiFi network. But boy was the video quality iffy. I spent the first five minutes or so complaining about the dark, grainy picture and tweaking the brightness and contrast on the 30″ HDTV. There’s no way I would recommend watching this on anything larger. (In the past I’ve watched iTunes shows and MovieLink movies via the 32″ bedroom SDTV, so the lower quality downloads weren’t a visible issue.) Once I got into the show (content is king) I did find it enjoyable. I was pleasantly surprised they provided it in 16:9 — a nice perk, well maybe once they bump the resolution.

So, what did I learn? Non-geeks won’t bother and high-def aficionados shouldn’t. Having said that, there’s a fairly high probability I will go this route (CinemaNow -> PC -> Xbox 360 -> TV) to watch the remaining Sleeper Cell episodes — but folks like me make up a tiny niche within the content-download niche, and we surely cannot sustain this business model. Which goes to show that Apple could own this market with iTV if they execute on the usability end. Given their past successes, it could be a safe bet. Of course, Microsoft would help itself by adding more content to the Xbox 360 so we can bypass these third party hacks.