Zatz Not Funny!
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Vudu Pulls The Trigger On HD
via Zatz Not Funny! by Dave Zatz on February 05, 2008
Last week, Vudu (now available for $295) rolled out system software 1.2 in conjunction with HD movie rentals. For the instant playback touted by Vudu, you’ll need about 4Mbps download throughput. Unfortunately, the bedroom segment of my LAN is experiencing some sort of bottleneck. According to a Vudu engineer who pulled my logs, my session was capping out at 2.6Mbps - resulting in frequent...
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Apple TV HD Versus Vudu HD
via Zatz Not Funny! by Dave Zatz on February 14, 2008
Vudu has thrown down the gauntlet… They contacted me yesterday to emphasize their “quality of HD video is better” than what Apple TV provides. The claim is based on Vudu’s resolution of up to 1080p versus Apple’s 720p. Of course, the pixel count doesn’t tell the whole story… How well are these movies compressed and encoded, what bitrates are we talking here? Ben Drawbaugh of...
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Toshiba Kills HD DVD
via Zatz Not Funny! by Dave Zatz on February 18, 2008
With the exception of ~1 million owners, the HD DVD story pretty much concluded today when Toshiba pulled the plug:Toshiba Corporation today announced that it has undertaken a thorough review of its overall strategy for HD DVD and has decided it will no longer develop, manufacture and market HD DVD players and recorders. Toshiba will begin to reduce shipments of HD DVD players and recorders to...
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Automatically Embed Album Art Into MP3 Collection
via Zatz Not Funny! by Brent Evans on February 21, 2008
If you’re anything like me, you’ve got a large collection of MP3 music files on your hard drive(s). Some of my MP3s were acquired from places like iTunes and Amazon, while others were ripped from my CD collection. The end result is a pile of MP3s - some with album art, many without.At home I listen to music via SageTV’s HTPC application and on the road I use an iPod - and it’s always...
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Deal of the Day: USB HDTV Tuner @ $45
via Zatz Not Funny! by Dave Zatz on February 21, 2008
Both Mari and I have a Pinnacle PCTV HD Pro Stick, though neither one of us is currently using it. However, don’t let that deter you… If you have a need, this is a decent product and a decent price (refurb): $45 shipped via Woot. In addition to using it with Pinnacle’s software, I believe it’s also successfully powered my Windows MCE and BeyondTV. The antenna is nicer than you generally...
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Control Netflix ‘Watch Now’ With Your Remote
via Zatz Not Funny! by Brent Evans on March 10, 2008
... but once you start a movie or show there were still some issues controlling everything without pulling out a keyboard and mouse. This has been a stumbler due to the fact that Netflix offers very few keyboard shortcuts for the service. Well, I’ve been tinkering with a program called girder to make my remote control communicate with my PC. And in doing so I discovered a few hidden windows co...
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Hulu Released From Beta
via Zatz Not Funny! by Dave Zatz on March 11, 2008
As expected, Hulu is being released from beta today:Beginning today, consumers in the U.S. can go to Hulu.com to watch a large selection of hit TV shows, movies, clips and more in high-quality – anytime, for free. On Hulu.com, consumers can enjoy one of the largest selections of legal, free videos from more than 50 top broadcast networks, cable networks, movie studios and web-centric content...
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Living with the Slacker Portable
via Zatz Not Funny! by Mari Silbey on April 24, 2008
I’ve been living with the Slacker Portable device for about six weeks now and have accumulated a slew of thoughts/insights/revelations on what I like and don’t like about the music player. In case you’re really ADD or just don’t have the time to read the details, here’s the bottom line: the functionality of the Slacker Portable is phenomenal, and far outweighs the hardware and software...
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NBC.com Streams Video to iPhone
via Zatz Not Funny! by Dave Zatz on May 07, 2008
NBC’s still got Steve and iTunes blacklisted (for now), though that hasn’t stopped them from making content available to Apple devices. Turns out NBC.com is providing iPhone owners video clips and full episodes (30 Rock, The Office) free, without commercial interuption. Video is selected via Safari and launched within the QuickTime player. Resolution isn’t high, but it streams well over...
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Sony PS3 PlayTV Pricing & Timing
via Zatz Not Funny! by Dave Zatz on May 07, 2008
Sony’s announced their PS3 PlayTV accessory will be available this September for 99 Euros (~$150 USD). PlayTV consists of dual DVB-T tuners, enabling both PS3 DVR functionality and placeshifting to the PSP. Last100 raises some pertinent questions: Can television be recorded during gameplay? Can PS3 hard drive capacity be increased? (40-80GB won’t hold much HD content…) Sony hasn’t...
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