by mrdrivein·Comments Off on 500 channels – something's on, but what?
iPhone cases, first in a series
Here at the 2014 International CES, I can see plenty of the usual suspects: iPhone cases, healthy living gadgets, iPhone cases, superb audio speakers, iPhone cases, nifty new electronic toys, and iPhone cases. But by searching carefully, looking in hidden corners, I can still find the kind of TV news that we care about.
One recurring theme is the issue of discovery. If you subscribe to Netflix, or Hulu Plus, or a zillion-channel pay-TV service, you’ve got thousands and thousands of viewing choices available. The trick is to make those choices easy to find when you want them or even when you don’t know what you want. Whoever solves this problem and gets the TV/video industry to line up behind the solution will control the screen.
At its press conference here, Sharp offered its version with a smart TV that can integrate all three of those services and several more besides. Two hours later, Dish showed off its latest Hopper version with a lot of the same features, displayed a bit differently. Those are just two examples; so far the only thing all these providers have in common is that they’re all trying to address the problem.
I wandered the exhibit floors and found more companies taking a stab at discovery. Yahoo’s smart TV was, well, another that looked like what the TV manufacturers were offering. One day, someone’s going to figure out an elegant solution, and until then, I’ll keep looking for it.
by mrdrivein·Comments Off on Dish remaking itself as home entertainment hub
Are you an enthusiast? Since you’re reading this, there’s a good chance that you are.
At its annual press conference at the International CES, Dish unveiled its latest, less revolutionary advances in its Hopper and Joey line of receivers. More importantly, it revealed its evolving focus on what it calls “enthusiasts” – tech-savvy customers who will embrace Dish for the ways it improves their viewing experience for a reasonable price. Recent partnerships with Southwest Airlines (free IP-based TV during flights) and Apple (free iPad to new Dish customers) illustrate the kind of people Dish hopes to attract.
Once upon a time, Dish positioned itself as the low-cost alternative, disrupting cable’s effective monopoly on pay-TV delivery. It isn’t as though Dish has renounced those low-end customers, but it’s clear that enthusiasts have more money and are more willing to spend it on whatever works for them. As a Dish shareholder, I’m happy to see Dish’s increasing emphasis on these upscale customers.
Dish CEO Joe Clayton said, “The American (video) consumer only cares about three things – Affordable, Available Anywhere, and Ease of Use.” Dish’s new receiver products, including the SuperJoey, Wireless Joey, and Virtual Joey for PS3, PS4, and LG Smart TV, are all aimed at improving ease of use for households with lots of TVs and TV viewers.
CES is chock full of incremental advances and only a few revolutionary leaps. Last year’s Hopper with Sling was one of those leaps; allowing subscribers to download recorded shows for offline viewing on an iPad is a compelling feature. This year, SuperJoey is merely incremental in comparison, a way to add two satellite tuners for households that want to watch four pay-TV shows at once.
For more on the details, check out coverage by Digital Trends or Variety or Streaming Media or even Dish itself. I’m heading back to the CES show floor to look for another revolutionary leap.
by mrdrivein·Comments Off on Okay, here's a much nicer 80s Christmas video
Last week, I admitted that in my head, Christmas plus 80s videos equals Christmas At Ground Zero. Here’s a much nicer alternative to celebrate the holiday season 80s-style.
Wham!, the two-man musical group of George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley, released Last Christmas in 1984. Michael wrote and produced the song, and the group donated its royalties to the Ethiopian famine relief effort. The song was a huge international success, hitting #2 in the UK and #3 in Australia, but only reached #40 on the US Billboard chart.
This is a lovely example of the production values typical in mid-80s videos for successful recording artists. According to Wikipedia, it also marks the last time that Michael was filmed without the short beard he soon affected. Merry Christmas, everybody!
by mrdrivein·Comments Off on Roku 3 Review: Simply brilliant
For years, I turned up my nose at the Roku line of devices made to stream internet-based video to TV sets. I never understood the big deal with Roku; my Windows Media Center PC could do anything a Roku could and plenty more besides.
Once again, I was wrong. Not only is the Roku a simple little device for folks who might hesitate to dedicate a computer to their TV sets, its user interface works so much better for watching video. I found this out when I finally bought a Roku 3 as part of DishWorld’s signup promotion.
So in honor of YouTube finally coming to Roku, here’s the Roku 3 review that I promised you back then. It’s so good that my family uses it even though there’s a perfectly good Windows Media Center PC next to it. It’s all about the interface.
Good ideas are cheap and plentiful, but good user interfaces are rare and valuable. From its opening, animated Roku-logo dance at startup to its ultra-simple remote, the Roku 3 interface rocks. It’s the best I’ve experienced since I put away my old TiVo.
When I look at most remote controls (check out this monster), I think of how Bill Cosby once described the console radio of his youth as “about six feet tall, had 287 knobs on it, of which only two worked: Off/On/Volume and the station selector.” The Roku remote has 10 buttons and a four-way direction control. Compare that to any other remote you have, and that other remote will start looking like 287 buttons. Three of the Roku buttons do most of the work: OK, Back, and Home. The direction control navigates on-screen rows and columns of rectangles, left or right, up or down.
What’s extra-cool about the Roku remote is a brilliant idea I’ve never seen anywhere else. The remote includes an audio jack to plug in earbuds, which then automatically mute the signal to the TV. In a noisy or do-not-disturb environment, it’s still easy to listen to TV as you watch.
The Roku remote’s simple design reflects the freedom that comes from throwing out channel numbers. I worry a little that the three-wide on-screen source guide might get too big, but by then, I’d probably remove some sources I never watch any more.
And oh, those sources, called channels in Roku-speak. There are dozens of channels available; most are free, a few require monthly fees, and some (HBO, Epix, etc.) are tied in to pay-TV subscriptions. Most of the live streaming sources I’ve talked about lately are also Roku channels: DishWorld, nimbleTV, simple.TV, and Aereo (but notably not FilmOn).
Here at FTABlog World Headquarters, the wife has put me on notice that over Christmas break this year, she intends to spend several hours a day of quality time with the Roku. Notice that choice. We have an unusual assortment of entertainment choices, including a Dish Network DVR with hundreds of live channels plus on-demand programming, another couple hundred free-to-air satellite TV channels, a fair-sized DVD and BluRay library, and all those streaming services that I keep talking about. To express her desire to binge-view TV the way she wants it, she calls out the Roku. That should tell you something.
In summary, the Roku 3 is really, really good. Right now, I can’t imagine how you could buy a better device for streaming internet content to your TV set.
As a bonus, instead of another receiver graphic, I thought I’d treat you to a video of Roku general manager Steve Shannon at the recent Streaming Media West conference. If you’d really rather see what the Roku 3 unit looks like, it’s easy to find photos of it.
by mrdrivein·Comments Off on Here's my favorite apocalyptic Christmas song
To help you get into the holiday mood, I’ve using my Archive.org cartoon slot on the left side of the page to cycle through a lot of Christmas-related shows. It sure seems weird that, in addition to tons of public domain Christmas video, Archive.org is able to offer material that’s probably still under copyright, such as Ziggy’s Gift, Yogi’s First Christmas, Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol, and plenty more like them. Let’s hope everybody’s okay with that.
Anyway, I noticed that it’s been too long since I shared an 80’s music video, and when I tried to think of one that involved Christmas, my mind returned to Weird Al Yankovic. Sorry about that. “Christmas At Ground Zero” was recorded in 1986, back when “ground zero” referred to an atomic detonation point. Yankovic wrote and performed the song, then directed this video, which stitches together lots of public domain snippets before ending with a live shot from a real, distressed street in the Bronx.
After 9/11, “ground zero” was co-opted to include other attack sites. This unfortunate extension of the phrase has pretty much killed commercial airplay for the song, which had been on its way to becoming a rock music holiday staple. (In 1994, it was included on the Billboard Rock N Roll Christmas CD with Queen’s “Thank God It’s Christmas”, the Beach Boys’ “Little Saint Nick”, and similar songs.) But we know this song isn’t about terrorist attacks, it’s about nuclear war! Much better, right? Enjoy it with a glass of egg nog.
