AppleTV is NOT a DVR

AppleInsider quotes ThinkEquity analyst Jonathan Hoopes: Apple TV can, in our opinion, be easily turned into a DVR with little or no hardware modification and a software upgrade If we define a DVR as a device that time shifts broadcast content (I do), the current Apple TV will never be a digital video recorder. A … Read more

Digital Media Bytes

A periodic roundup of relevant news… from our other blogs. Why The Home Phone Isn’t Better: Connected Home 2 Go DivX Goes To Wall Street: Davis Freeberg’s Digital Connection Bye Bye, Rabbit Ears: Connected Home 2 Go The Best Tech You Don’t Get To See: Connected Home 2 Go

Boob Tube-onomics

The latest study out of Nielsen Research (also covered by MultiChannel News) has a raft of interesting TV statistics. But since we all know how deceiving numbers can be, I thought I’d add a little context to the facts and figures. For your reading pleasure…nielsen.jpg

Boob Tube-onomics

• There are an average of 111.4 million TV homes in the United States for the 2006-07 TV season.
Given a US population of around 300 Million, with an average household of 2.5 people (see below), this means that roughly 93% of American homes have TVs.

• The average U.S. TV home has 2.5 people and 2.8 television sets.
The primary TV in consumer homes was bought at an average price of $783. Not cheap, but even doubled or tripled it’s a lot less expensive than .5 of a kid for your typical couple.

• 28% of U.S. TV homes have digital cable.
More than half of cable subscribers to the top two cable companies get digital services: 52% of Comcast subscribers and 54% of Time Warner subscribers.

More after the jump…

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The Week In Review: Media Extenders

Netgear Digital Entertainer HD (EVA8000) The EVA8000 was released this week for $399. Jeremy Toeman over at LiveDigitally spent about ten hours with it (and shot 20 minutes of video) before flying out of town. I played with the 1080p Digital Entertainer at CES and thought it looked promising. Apple TV Apple TV ($299) is … Read more

Apple’s Multi-Touch – Not Just iPhone

According to an USB analyst, by way of AppleInsider… We also expect new touchscreen video iPods, more phones and possibly even TVs in the future,” he added. “With regard to the iPhone, we expect Apple to have a full line of phones from $150 to $600 available for purchase at multiple retailers in several geographies … Read more

NBC’s Cell Phone Show Rentals (Overpriced)

NBC, via MobiTV, intends to offer cell phone television show rentals. Deployment is scheduled for Q2, though Forbes reports no wireless carriers have signed on. I’m obviously not the only one who thinks the model is flawed and the pricing is extreme: For one thing, the shows seem expensive, going for a minimum of $1.99 … Read more

CableCARD PCs Cometh

Looks like we’re getting close now… PC Mag got their hands on a pre-release Dell coupled with two of those ATI CableCARD decoders I spotted at CES (and a Blu-ray drive). Though the article is extensive (we’re talking screens and screens), I didn’t see much on how CableCARD content is protected. The author was able … Read more

March Madness On-Demand?

Well, sort of. The NCAA and CBS SportsLine announced back in February that they’d be offering all NCAA tournament games online again this year for free. (Woohoo!) As a pre-registered, VIP member, I got into the streaming application pretty quickly, though I did get a few error episodes along the way. Unfortunately, the video seems … Read more