Not much to report from New Orleans yet, but I’m on the ground. From the look of the sessions over the next few days, there will be a lot of tru2way talk, and no shortage of discussions on bandwidth, the DTV transition and cable advertising apps. Start looking for company news announcements today – a lot of folks won’t wait for the start of the work week. And if you’re a Twitter-er, the NCTA tweets under the name CableShow.
Ben Drawbaugh at EngadgetHD has some potentially good news for those with CableCARD tuners on Vista Media Center HTPCs. Ben inquired with AMD and CableLabs to see if there was any hope for a “tuning resolver” for VMC. The response was not a emphatic yes, but it was in the words of Drawbaugh a “definite … Read more
In Episode 49 of the net@night podcast, Amber MacArthur and Leo Laporte interviewed the co-founder of animoto, Brad Jefferson. animoto is a web service that generates professional quality, customized videos from your images and music. FYI, here’s Leo’s video. I decided to give it a whirl. I am impressed. So far I’ve ‘produced’ three videos … Read more
TiVo’s been testing the return Lifetime Service on a promotional basis, and I’ve just received word that it’s back for good. (Until they shift course again…) Current DVR subscriptions run $12.95/month or $129/year, so it’d take about 2.5-3 years before benefiting from the $399 Lifetime Service fee. And since Lifetime Service is box-specific, you may … Read more
Like freebies? This one’s not bad at all. Laplink, which specializes in file syncing and migration software, is giving away copies of its PCmover product. According to the press release: PCmover automatically moves selected files, folders, settings, and even applications from an old PC to a new one. The software is normally $50, but to … Read more
I polled my fellow ZNF contributors for their current top three television shows. Not only are the networks and content diverse, but so are the methods used to acquire programming (in addition to the requisite DVR timeshifting). For example: I caught the first season of Dexter on DVD and most of Burn Notice via Hulu … Read more
Mac TV software ‘The Tube’ has been updated to include an interesting new feature: The new 2.7 release now supports “placeshifting.” Using iChat, you can drag a The Tube icon onto an active video chat to stream video on your TubeStick to friends using iChat Theater. Attendees can also record video clips of the show … Read more
I’ve been meaning to follow up on Dave’s Sezmi post. I’ll start by saying that I love the idea of Sezmi, the former Building-B, but I simply can’t imagine how the enterprise will succeed. As everyone has discovered, video services are entirely dependent on the quality of the transmission systems they use. Sezmi is relying … Read more