Kill the Cable

True HD Video coming to YouTube

admin — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 03:03:47 +0000

I’m not entirely sure why YouTube chose to illustrate their move to 1080p HD with a series of increasingly zoomed in pictures of a dog’s nasal cavity, but the news is welcome in any case.

You can checkout their 1080p test video of Pennie the Jack Russell Terrier, though they do caution:

“For viewers with big monitors and a fast computer, try switching to 1080p to get the most out of the fullscreen experience.”

This caution seems warranted as my MacBook Pro with 4GB of RAM had significant difficulties in playing back the video. Surprisingly even tempered (this is YouTube) comments would seem to bear out that I’m not the only one.

So, in conclusion: we’re all going to need to buy new faster computers to watch higher def dog nostril videos.

NewTeeVee Conference Videos

admin — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 02:52:03 +0000

The NewTeeVee Live conference, which took place today in San Francisco, has posted video of their panels and interviews up at livestream.com.

Some highlights:

Boxee to someday, maybe, kinda have a hardware box

admin — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 19:06:49 +0000

Boxee has announced that:

We have signed our first partnership with a CE company. At this point we can not say more about the partner or the specs of the device, but we can tell you we are working closely with them to make sure we deliver a great Boxee experience on it.

We will show mockups of the box and share more details at our upcoming Boxee Beta Unveiling event in Brooklyn, NY on Dec 7th.

Details and to RSVP to the Brooklyn event on Eventbrite

Video of Boxee from CES, courtesy of BBTV

Clicker Public Beta

admin — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 17:03:27 +0000

Each individual video on demand service (Hulu, Netflix Watch Instantly, etc) has a queue or subscribe feature where you indicate what shows you want to watch in the future. It’s a bad situation: imagine if you had an entirely different interface and options for adding CBS shows vs Fox shows on your cable based DVR or Tivo.

Jumping into this turbulent situation is Clicker, who have now entered their public beta and are busily creating a new system of management and search on top of the other video offerings. It is good to see this new category of services get going.

Top Web TV Series for October has over 19 million viewers

admin — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 22:26:57 +0000

Mashable has a story up comparing the Top 10 Most Watch Web Series in October and the overall ratings astonished me. The number one show Happy Tree Friends has 19 million viewers.

In comparison a top rated show broadcast TV show like NCIS has around the same number of viewers in a week. Now these are obviously some apple and orange comparisons happening here (the methodology for collecting online views, “impressions” versus “views”, series versus episode), but it’s still astounding to me the heights to which online video has reached.

Internet Radio – The Forgotten HTPC Benefit

admin — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 20:37:07 +0000

Most digital cable now comes with an absolute stack of digital radio stations, which get used once a year at Christmas when the “Sounds of the Season” is preferable to one more freaking rendition of Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer on the Christmas Tape my parents have been using since I was a child, or so I’ve been told.

In any case the TheMissy has been running a (now) 4 Part Series on Internet Radio – all of which will work to varying degrees on particular version of HTPC device.

Part 1: Last.fm & Pandora

Part 2: Slacker

Part 3: Jango

Part 4: Grooveshark (& Rhapsody)

YouTubeXL – YouTube for the TV

admin — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 20:21:43 +0000

YouTube has increasingly been adding long-format videos to their service (hey, you can’t watch kitten videos all day) and it only makes sense that they should release an interface that works better on a TV than the current web interface with tiny buttons and hundreds of comments written by what I can only assume are brain damaged lizard people (Seriously? Have you read a YouTube comment lately?).

In any case, this great new interface is called YouTubeXL and it promises all the awesomeness of YouTube but optimized for a 10 foot interface style.

[via AskTheAdmin.com]

Networking for In Home Media

admin — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 20:23:46 +0000

WiFi can be great for lots of things, but if you’re moving large multimedia files arounda and streaming media through your home network you can easily swamp the bandwidth that’s available and cause yourself no end of problems.

If you’re not going to use WiFi and you still want all your electronics to talk you need to run Category 5 or Category 6 cables between them (they look the same, but CAT 6 cables are rated for higher speeds). This Instructable goes over exactly how to get this done: from planning, to breakout boxes to cleanly running the cables through the walls. If you’re looking for a professional in-home network this is definitely the way to go.

Boxee Beta Launch Party

admin — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 16:39:28 +0000

If you’re going to in NYC on December 7th, you should definitely check out the Boxee Beta Unveiling launch party. They’re going to be showing off new applications and:

new user interface
improved navigation
search TV Shows and Movies
a user controlled Queue
shortcuts
more…

Can’t wait to see all the cool new stuff.

Awesome, Inexpensive Wooden HTPC Case

admin — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 06:30:58 +0000

The OCModShop has a very extensive review (with lots of pictures) of the nMediaPC HTPC 8000 case. The design of the case itself looks very thoughtful with preset slots for large quiet fans, lots of connections and a design that won’t look like Flash Gordon left some accessories laying around your living room.

If you’re in the market for a new case, this looks like a solid contender.