Zatz Not Funny!

Mari Goes Moto

Dave’s not the only one going corporate. I am now blogger-in-chief for the Motorola Connected Home Solutions group. Officially I started the job at the beginning of the year, but we’ve been working out a few kinks, and in February made the switch to WordPress. (Counting my lucky stars on that one…) Check out the … Read more

South Park: Free and HD on Xbox 360

I love my Xbox 360 (with video download service) more and more each day. Tomorrow, South Park will be available in HD and for free (two weeks only). While 16:9 HD cartoons won’t change my life, it’s pretty cool to see high def content finding alternate avenues onto our televisions. (Note to Comedy Central: Not … Read more

TiVo & Daylight Savings Time

In an attempt to save energy nationally, Congress has extended the period of Daylight Savings Time here in the US. So we’ll be springing ahead a few weeks early this year. I’ve received several news alerts in the last week regarding TiVo and DST, a few of which caught my attention…

WTVM9:

And even V-C-Rs and Tivo which don’t have built-in updating devices

Mercury News:

But be prepared to reset your computer clock, too — and the clocks on your TiVo, BlackBerry and anything else electronic that depends on time.

TiVo units do have the ability to receive updates via dial-up or broadband and I don’t recall ever setting the time on my DVRs, so I did a little digging around. From some posts on the TiVo Community Forum (here, here, and here) it seems like:

Perceptive Pixel

Remember in Minority Report when Tom Cruise and friends stood in front of screens and their mere hand motions summoned up data, zoomed in on photos and generally brought the universe to their fingertips? Well that’s what this video demo from Perceptive Pixel reminds me of. I saw it over on NewTeeVee, and it’s sheer … Read more

Did Lost Just Jump The Shark?

What the heck is up with Lost? Honestly, I think I’m about done. I’ve lost interest in getting answers to their mysteries… the bits they’ve revealed aren’t so mysterious (or compelling) anyway and they’ve killed some of my favorite characters such Ana Lucia and Ecko (not to mention we’ve barely seen any Locke recently).

The first season was absolutely amazing, some of the best television ever — I guess it’s no surprise they couldn’t keep that level of quality (and my interest) going forever. There are two lessons here: 1. Mysteries and horror are better left off screen. What we don’t know is more scary, more perplexing, and thus more engaging. 2. Movies have a distinct beginning, middle, and end (which I prefer)… whereas television shows drag on collecting advertising dollars as long as possible (which I don’t prefer).

Stop reading NOW if you haven’t watched the most recent episode…

Blockbuster To Acquire Movielink

According to the Wall Street Journal (via non-subscription sites), Blockbuster is in “advanced talks” to pick up Movlielink for under $50 million. Movielink, of course, is an online movie download service (using Microsoft’s video format and content protection, like rival CinemaNow). They were a pioneer in this space (long before iTunes and Netflix showed up) and were actually created by the studios, which most folks either don’t know or seem to have forgotten:

Movielink is owned by a joint venture of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures Entertainment, Universal Studios and Warner Bros.

The purchase strikes me as a positive move for both companies… assuming they can pull it off. Movielink gets an audience (they’re pretty much unknown outside my geeky circle) and Blockbuster gets an immediate online download presence to compete with Netflix.

Time Warner Faces Inferior DVR Legislative Action

Forrester recently did a survey where they asked consumers an open ended question about how they felt towards their DVR and 20% of the respondents used the word love to describe their relationship with the gadget.

When a consumer electronic device can generate this type of an emotional response, it’s safe to assume that for better or worse, the technology is going to have an impact. On a positive note, Forrester’s study revealed that this passion translates into DVR owners churning less and being more likely to pay for premium services.

less than 2% of people who owned DVRs have stopped using them. While today’s DVR owners are demographically mainstream, they are off the charts in their adoption of premium TV services and home electronics. Nearly half of them have a home network, which is four times the penetration of a typical online household.

Media Extender Day, Part 4: TiVo

We can’t have a media extender conversation here at ZNF without mentioning existing TiVo boxes. Though, at this point, it’s really a tale of two cities: Series2 and Series3 units. Networked Series2 units offer multi-room viewing (MRV), allowing the transfer and playback of recorded shows from one TiVo to another within the house. While we’ve … Read more