Media

CNET To Expand TiVo VOD Programming

CNET’s weekly holiday tech downloads must have been successful, because they’ve announced an expansion of VOD segments — this time ad supported. They plan to launch 2-3 hours of monthly programming, broken into 15 minute segments, beginning in June. Neat, I guess… but where’s my TiVo movie download feature?

CNET Announces CNET TV; Cox Communications, TiVo Inc., and TVN Entertainment Sign on to Launch CNET TV On-Demand; CNET to Bring On-Demand Experience to Its Web site

SAN FRANCISCO–April 17, 2006–CNET, a source of information and inspiration for a world gone digital, and a property of CNET Networks, Inc. (Nasdaq:CNET), today announced “CNET TV,” a new video-on-demand (VOD) service that packages a selection of CNET’s popular video content for distribution on television and online. CNET TV will launch initially with partners Cox Communications Inc., TiVo Inc., and TVN Entertainment, as well as on CNET in the second half of the year.

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PC Mag Reviews MovieBeam (Innovative But Pricey)

PC Mag chimes in with a 3.5/5 review of the current iteration of MovieBeam. It’s not as critical as HD Beat’s take, but it’s probably also not as accurate focusing on convenience while discounting HD compression issues. MovieBeam is making a retail push as you can see from the pic I snapped yesterday at Best … Read more

Commercial TiVo Photo Displaying HME App

This is one of the first commercial HME applications I’ve run across… Web-a-Photo (who?) allows you to share, edit, and order prints of your photos online. Their free beta HME app, which must be installed on your PC, serves up those web photos on TV via TiVo. I can’t say I’m overly enthused about this … Read more

Space Shuttle Launches in HD

HD Beat is reporting Mark Cuban’s HDNet will broadcast upcoming Space Shuttle, and some expendable rocket, launches in HD through 2010. Very cool! Well… very cool if the Shuttle ever gets off the ground again.

March Madness: SportsLine v. Slingbox

Ah, March Madness… definitely amongst the top sporting events. The first two days are especially exciting, each consisting of about 12 hours of competition and, if we’re lucky, some amazing upsets. I have no idea who Northwestern State is, but they sure were dramatic in sending Iowa home.

As I mentioned last week, CBS is webcasting games for free via March Madness on Demand. So I decided to check it out and compare the service to Slingbox.

My CBS SportLine experience didn’t get off to a good start with a 10 minute wait (see image below) followed by a Marriott commercial before I could access the feeds. Once in, I had several games to choose from — though one was blacked out due to regional restrictions. I’m not certain if that was determined by my IP address and/or the information in my profile. The CBS SportsLine site had banner ads as promised, but what I hadn’t realized is that they’d also be serving commercials during time outs. Though, they must not have sold all their ad space as static “Stay Tuned” graphics often replaced commercials.

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HD-DVD Launch Whimper

Looks like the next generation of DVDs will be getting off to a slow start. Netflix may have added a HD rental page, but they won’t have any discs to rent to the few consumers who manage to get their hands on a player. Generally speaking, I’m an early adopter of new technology. I was … Read more

MovieBeam Reviewed (Not Very Good)

Ben over at HD Beat got his hands on a MovieBeam and doesn’t come away impressed. The bottom line seems to be a limited selection of content with poor picture quality. Granted, both these faults could be improved without requiring a software or hardware upgrade — sign more partners and use less compression. But it’s … Read more

iTunes Experiments With Subscription Pricing

Doesn’t look like any major interface or DRM changes to iTunes yet, but Apple introduced monthly subscriptions today for both The Daily Show and The Colbert Report. Ten bucks for 16 shows is better than $1.99 a pop, though I’d prefer paying a little more and having unlimited downloads — Heck, under that model, I’d … Read more