Interesting News Dave Hasn’t Covered

Never enough time… Slingbox whips Sony’s LocationFree TV. (Time) Porn industry may decide Blu-ray/HD-DVD winner. (PC World) DVR installations to grow by 100% a year. (ZDNet) No one really wants to buy UMD movies. (Kotaku)

Operation Aussie Sling

It’s been fairly well documented that you can Sling television feeds around the world, but Hobotech Ron and I wondered what type of quality one could expect outputting that signal to TV. So in the name of science, we broke several international laws to conduct an intercontinental experiment. Ron loaded up his Dell laptop with the SlingPlayer and viewed my Washington, DC-based Slingbox feed from his home in Canberra, Australia. As you can see above, video quality was decent on his rear projection TV with a consistent 320kbps-350kbps download bitrate (which is about what I get here in the US). We believe the limiting factor is not distance, but rather my DSL upload speed which is capped at 384kbps.

Ron says: I hooked it up to the RearPro via S-Video and my wife and I watched it for quite a while and came to the conclusion that, while less than perfect we would be quite happy to watch it, if it provided us with material we couldn’t get from any other source. A little bit like food, while one might prefer a steak, a hamburger will usually do quite well if that’s all that’s available!

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ABC’s Free Television Experiment Begins

Today’s the day… ABC launched their two month trial (5/1 – 6/30) offering free web rebroadcasts of current, prime time television series. Unlike most streaming content, you do not need Windows as ABC is broadcasting via cross-platform Flash. Of course free is just another word for advertising, but it competes well with $1.99 iTunes downloads. Assuming all goes well, ABC is planning on tweaking the model and relaunching with the fall television season.

Check it out here!

Do I need to watch all of the advertisements?

The advertisements are placed at various points during the show. You cannot advance the show beyond that point until you have watched the ad for at least 30 seconds. You may see a maximum of four advertisements per show.

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Sony LocationFree TV Coming To Macs and Mobiles

Looks like Sling will be getting some more competition… Sony plans to expand it’s LocationFree TV streaming to include Macs and Windows Mobile devices. Extreme Tech says: Sony Corp. said Tuesday that it licensed its Location-Free technology to Kaga Electronics, which will port the technology to the Mac OS X platform. “Location Free” allows content … Read more

PC Mag Reviews Peerflix

PC Magazine spent some using Peerflix, the online DVD exchange, and settled on a 3.5/5 review. Peerflix allows you to unload discs you no longer want in exchange for Peerbux (quantity based on the relative value of a movie) which are then used to purchase other DVDs. Since there are no subscription fees, Peerflix hopes … Read more

HBO Announces DVD Release Dates

At long last, HBO has announced release dates for the second seasons of Deadwood and Entourage! Still no word on Rome or Ricky Gervais’ Extras. We watch most television through Netflix these days (no commercials, no scheduling, compressed seasons), and have been anxiously awaiting these discs. Speaking of Netflix television, we’re in the midst of … Read more

Interesting News Dave Hasn’t Covered

I just couldn’t seem to find the time… Philips patents digital flags to prevent channel changing or content advancing during commercials. (New Scientist) The facts and fiction of 1080p. (Team Xbox) Podcasts outnumber radio stations. (eWeek) Windows Media Player 11 to be released this summer. (Thomas Hawk) Portable VLC released. (PortableApps) Windows smart-phone maker HTC … Read more