Hulu Video-on-demand: UK release

Those of you in the UK have been seeing the success of Hulu Video-on-demand in the US for some time now; more than 24 million users use this service each month. Hulu has been in talks recently and it looks as though the service could be making its way across the Atlantic. Hulu is already available on the Sony PS3 and has seen huge success so far. Read more

Hulu: Michael Jackson’s Memorial Service, Live TV Stream

Since the death of Michael Jackson, fans have been in mourning but will finally get to say their final farewell to the “King of Pop” as it is his memorial service today. For those who did not manage to get a ticket to attend the memorial service at the Staples Center, then the best place to be is in your home. Hulu invites you to watch the Live TV Stream on July 7th, 2009 at 12:55PM ET / 9:55AM PT. Read more

Dell’s Mini 10 TV Tuner: Releasing already

Remember when Dell said that its Mini 10 TV tuner would be released in the summer, well I bet you never guessed it would be this soon. Dell has informed Engadget that the small device will start its customization option sometime today. Read more

Recession antidote: Monsoon HAVA Platinum HDTV Streamer

When it comes to watching TV, the best way to watch it is in HD, but a setup can be expensive, but the Monsoon HAVA Platinum HDTV Streamer is a great recession antidote, as it is cheaper than what you would imagine. Read more

Recession antidote: Monsoon Titanium HD TV Streamer with Wi-Fi

Watching HDTV can sometimes be expensive, especially if you would like all of your rooms to have it. There is a way where you can view it in all rooms for a fraction of the cost of getting an installer out, the Monsoon Titanium HD TV Streamer with the Wi-Fi HAVA Wireless Kit Read more

Gaming on Apple TV: Do you want it?

There have been a number of reports that gaming could be coming to Apple TV (AAPL), and it is not stupid to understand why Apple would want to do such a thing. You have to ask yourself is Apple TV ready for games, one of our readers pointed out that gaming would be stupid on Apple TV as it does not support that kind of resolution needed for gaming. Read more

Xbox 360 and PS3 have Apple TV-like abilities: Will Apple game?

Who would have thought a few years ago that Apple (AAPL) would have had so much success with gaming on a phone, but that is the reality with the iPhone. Apple’s gaming success could now make its way to our living rooms. Apple have filed for a set of patents for a Wii-style wireless controller, showing that there is more to come from Apple TV. Read more

Apple TV 2.3 update and universal remote support

If you own the Apple TV and remote you will be happy to know there is a brand new Apple TV 2.3 update and universal remote support, the newly released 2.3 update will give you more features which may be something that you were waiting for. Read more

Sling Media Slingbox Pro-HD High-def: step-down from Solo

Sling Media have now finally released the High-def version of their Slingbox Pro called the Slingbox Pro HD. We have waited two years for this new and improved product, but the question is does it deliver.

The new model does get off to a great start, and that is by fixes all those annoying problems that were common with the older Read more

Zv-100 ZvBox: huge disappointment

Those of us who love gadgets have been waiting in anticipation for the Zv-100 ZvBox. This little gadget promises so much, but will it be able to deliver, let’s find out shall we.

Crunch Gear was sent one of these, and when they held the box in their hands they was all exited. Well that was until they unboxed it, they were filled with what could only be described as disappointment.

When they had finished reviewing the unit, they thought about sending the unit back, but then they had a thought, they should be reviewing the Zv-100 ZvBox for the reader and not for the company themselves.

Source

More media news

Deutsche Telekom selects Motorola’s IPTV set-tops

Today we have heard that Motorola’s IPTV set-top boxes have been selected by Deutsche Telekom to deliver High Definition IPTV in Germany.

The new addition will be part of Deutsche Telekom’s T-Home Entertain services; this will give users access to not only standard TV offerings, but also a variety of multimedia applications thanks to the new Motorola set-top.

Motorola’s HD-ready VIP1616E set-top with DVR will be the model for T-Home users, which also supports Microsoft’s Mediaroom. Thanks to the two-way IP capability it can be used in multiple applications like video on demand, multicast, time-shifted television and broadcast television.

Source: Read

SlingPlayer 2.0 public beta goes live

The public beta for SlingPlayer 2.0 is finally released and gives you a chance to get to grips with it. This will be welcome news for eager fans ever since it was announced last year at CES 2007, but the player will be without one of its big features, Clip+ Sing.

I guess not all features will make it into the beta after all, so it looks like only the local DVR features are present, so you’ll be able to test out the new 60-minute buffer and EPG which is still exciting.

Other minor changes to the player include a tweaked UI, and the removal of Slingbox Finder Ids in exchange for user accounts, Skin supported has also been dropped.

At the moment, it only runs on Windows, but expect more announcements on this software soon. To read more details on SlingPlayer and view a video of it in action, follow the link below.

Source: Read

BRAVIA Internet LCD TVs get Hancock movie exclusively before DVD

When we go looking for a nice new television we buy for many different reasons and every brand has its advantages. Now if you bought a nice BRAVIA Internet connected LCD TV you may have bought it for the brand, features Internet abilities but whatever reason you will still get the chance to watch the Hancock movie exclusively before DVD.

This will be “exclusively to all internet connected BRAVIA LCD TVs in the U.S” and is just part of a much bigger plan by Sony to increase sales of their products. Remembering back ten years ago, when I bought my first home audio system it was Sony branded and the reason I did that was because everyone new Sony meant quality.

Today things are very different in the electronics business, you have many other brands that can equal the quality of Sony products and sometimes beat them. Sony now aim to take some of the market share back from brands like Samsung by using it’s muscle from other businesses it owns.

That’s why they also spoke about a video download service for the Sony PS3 today, (see this post). In Sony’s own words “increase network and wireless connectivity across its family of devices and build a service platform to provide a seamless user experience across our key hardware devices and content”. They will get all their products working together, and aim for the consumer to want as many Sony products as possible.

Do you own an Internet connected BRAVIA LCD TV and if so, would you like to download Hancock before its on DVD?

Beta BBC iPlayer 2.0: PC, Apple iPhone, Nintendo Wii, No Mac

Tomorrow will see a beta version of the next-generation BBC iPlayer launched, this will give UK license fee payers access to BBC TV and radio programmes on-demand. The new beta version will provide access to live audio and radio through a single interface, the current version does not allow BBC’s radio services and on demand television shows to be fully integrated together in the one player.

The BBC iPlayer is a completely unique on-demand service and with it, you are able to get the full range of BBC content. This is much better than when it was first released; now you can get some 250 TV programmes each week for free. The best part of this is you can watch them whenever you want, this beats other services like Sky who want to charge you to record using a Sky box and only give it free if you pay them money for a package.

As the BBC expands and also does other on demand TV services, services like Sky will have to start giving more away for free and it’s only then that they will. It may not seem fair, but until they get any real competition, they will gladly take our money.

You can get a full break down of all the features in the new-look BBC iPlayer 2.0 on this blog, the new software launches in Beta come morning, but the really sad part is about support of any version of the iPlayer.

Yes you can get it on PC and they even made the BBC iPlayer work on the Nintendo Wii, Apple iPhone and iPod Touch, so if all this is possible, what happened to Mac OS X support?

The PC and Mac computers go hand in hand, I have a PC and also a Mac. It’s really strange that we do not have support for iPlayer on Mac but do have it on the iPhone. Would you use the iPlayer on a Mac computer?

Source: Read

Hands-on: Roku Netflix Player for Movies on Demand: It may be an Apple TV Rival

Could this Roku’s Netflix Player be an Apple TV rival? We will have to wait and see. The Roku Netflix Player has just had a hands on review by Engadget and they have said some interesting things like the question above for example plus the fact do we need another set top box in our homes?

They say that the Roku’s Netflix Player seems understated like it coming in a plain purple box it shipped in right down to the fact of the nondescript black plastic case and even the stripped-bare user interface. Engadget have said that it is quite easy to fall in love with the Roku Netflix Player which costs $100. Netflix subscribers will get very cheap and easy avenue for additional content to their TV and could be a streaming video box nice enough to rival the Apple TV. The Roku’s Netflix Player is very light and with support for 802.11b/g with WEP, WPA, and WPA2 seems pretty good so far.

It includes composite, component, S-Video, HDMI, and TOSLINK, even activating the box is as simple as hitting netflix.com/activate and entering a short code, they say the remote looks cheap but does feel good, the interface is at its best and looks simple and does not have a lot of options which makes it straight-forward. Please visit the source link below for the full hands on review and see what you think, be sure to come back and comment as much as you like.

Answer this question “Could the Roku Netflix Player rival Apple TV?

Read the full hands on review and image gallery via Engadget

Apple TV Firmware 2.0.2 just released: But what does it do?

Apple have just recently released the v2.0.2 update for Apple TV which has left us stumped, we want to know what it does, do you know what it does?

What we do know is via our source is that it can take around 9 minutes to download but yet still no one knows what it actually does, what we do know is that is adds a sort of genre button to the movies section and that a Flickr update allows you too see galleries of favourite tagged photos by your friends.

So with Jason O’Grady from The Apple Core sitting their for nine minutes waiting for the completion of the Apple TV Firmware 2.0.2 update this tells us that it is very big in size.

We want to know what the hell the new Apple TV Firmware 2.0.2 just released does.

Source - The Apple Core

New launch of Blinkx Broadband Television, interact with TV: Download Now

A great new service has just been launch by the name of Blinkx Broadband Television (BBTV) which you can download right now. A new web service where you can interact with TV.

Blinkx is California-based and is the world’s largest video search engine which will allow you to search more than 18 million videos across the web; the question is “How good is it?

It will however give you high picture quality videos on a full screen unlike the small screen typical of much online video and in addition all users will be able to interact with the videos they are watching.

The new BBTV service will create a speech track of the video which also allows users to go to certain points just by searching for a particular word, you will be able to click on these certain words in the transcript for additional information on people or places featured, while the videos also link through to other websites which have related information.

Source – Product Page

Is there a way around Apple TV movie rentals that do not need HDCP for playback?

We want to know if there is a way around Apple TV movie rentals that do not need HDCP for playback. Read this - Jeff Carlson from TidBITS has a report saying that he does not own a HDTV which is required for Apple TV and his Apple TV is connected to a Dell FPW2005 20-inch LCD display which he said is Read more

Vudu video system software upgrade and Apple TV Take 2

You may have heard of Apple TV and even their upcoming Take 2 upgrade, but you may not of known that a similar device called the “Vudu” was allowing users to download video content to the appliance without the need of a computer way before AppleTV did Read more

IPTV EPG TV Guide demo on Nintendo Wii

This video below shows a demo of IPTV EPG TV Guide on the Nintendo Wii, it shows that you just shift back and forth by tilting the Wii remote left and right Read more