Archive for August, 2009
Variety: Television’s Killer App
Hollywood is standing up and taking notice of all the web-enabled HDTVs and Bluray players starting to show up in your local Best Buy. As the folks at Variety observe:
“These Web enabled TV sets are going to significantly increase the rate of video streaming,” Poltrack says. “I think you’ll see people experimenting with this by the end of the year. And, barring a bad experience, you’ll see content in this form by 2010. Five years from now, I think it will be a significant contributor of revenue to both content providers and distributors.”
One thing is certain: These TVs are coming, and fast.
With applications like YouTube, Picasa, Netflix, Blockbuster, Amazon and Yahoo Widgets accessible on your TV, the amount of new programming available will be virtually limitless. This will also cause a shakeup in who wins and loses in battle for your TV eyeballs between the TV manufacturer, cable company, Internet service, and content producer. With more video streaming coming into the living room, consumers will be looking for home networking solutions like MoCA to bridge the gap in their home networks.
MoCA Forum
On the AVS forum, a thread has been started that talks about MoCA. Check it out, it is a great place to get your questions answered.
More Reviews of MoCA
More and more positive reviews of the Netgear MCAB1001 MoCA Adapters are coming to light. These are a few more great reviews; check them out if you need even more reasons to buy one of these adapters.
Get Your Network up to Speed
The New York Times has created an article that compares Wi-Fi, Powerline and MoCA. Simply put, MoCA comes out on top, followed by Powerline, then, trailing the pack, Wi-Fi. They do specify that this is best for people who want to do some network intensive processes such as streaming videos/movies, etc.
Xbox 360 Gets Exclusivity on Netflix Streaming
Microsoft now has an exclusive partnership with Netflix, continuing the ability to instantly stream movies and TV shows from Netflix to your TV via Xbox 360. The Xbox will be the only game console to offer the Netflix movie experience, and is available to all Xbox Live Gold members who also have a Netflix unlimited subscription, all of this at no additional cost!
Roku Now Has Live Streaming of MLB Games
In addition to being able to access Netflix and Amazon on Demand, Roku users will now have the access to baseball games from premium MLB.tv accounts. This includes live, out-of-market games as well as on demand games from the past week. It will cost you about $35 for the remainder of this season.
Review: Netflix Watch Instantly
The folks over at CEPro have done a review of Netflix’s Watch Instantly service on four different devices: TiVOHD, Samsung Blu-Ray player, Roku Netflix player, and on Windows Media Center.
Continue Reading Review: Netflix Watch Instantly
Actiontec MoCA Adapters at Walmart.com
Walmart is selling Actiontec MoCA Adapters available for purchase! Check it out.
Buy it from Walmart
What’s Next for Roku?
Roku, the internet video player, which streams movies and TV shows from Netflix and Amazon, is going to be coming out with some new features soon, hopefully by the holiday shopping season.
Roku has distributed a software developers kit to media companies who want to add their offerings to Roku. This includes Blip.TVand Mediafly (both Web video/podcast companies) so far. We imagine all the big companies that do video on the Web — and, important, who want their video to appear on TV sets – will jump on, once it’s opened up, such as Revision3, Next New Networks, Boxee, YouTube, MLB Advanced Media, etc. Internet radio companies like Pandora and Last.fm, and photo sharing services like Flickr are fair game, too.
Roku will continue to announce new content partners. Blip.TV was announced recently, and will show up on set-top boxes this fall. We understand that Roku will be announcing a new partner next week. (We don’t know who it is.)
Panasonic Finally Enables Amazon VOD on Blu-Ray Players
Panasonic announced that Amazon Video on Demand is now available on its full line of 2009 VIERA CAST Blu-Ray players. Current owners of Panasonic 2009 Blu-ray Dis players will automatically receive a free software update today and can begin enjoying the service immediately.
Having our VIERA CAST feature on our line of 2009 Panasonic Blu-ray players means you can now access the best of the web, directly from your living room ,” said Richard Simone, Panasonic’s Entertainment Group Director. “The introduction of Amazon Video On Demand to our VIERA CAST offerings gives every owner of a 2009 Panasonic Blu-ray player access to a vast collection of movies and TV shows, including HD quality new releases, on virtually any digital television. And you can take it on the road with you too with Panasonic’s VIERA CAST-enabled, B15 portable Blu-ray Disc player
