Share Your Vudu Movies

We’ve long pined for the day we could legitimately share our legally acquired digital content, similar to how we often recycle physical media, without piracy or loaning out HBO credentials as so many do. Well, the UltraViolet consortium, consisting of a large number of movie studios, obviously sees some value in keeping their customers happy — perhaps as a way to … Read more

TiVo Retires Agnostic Mobile Web Scheduling

tivo-mobile

Looks as if TiVo has made the command decision to retire DVR management and scheduling via m.tivo.com. These web-based mobile features were originally introduced to the microsite back in 2008 … well before TiVo’s Android and iPhone apps hit the scene. Unfortunately, TiVo’s customer base runs more than those two platforms and some even prefer the efficiency of the (former) mobile site to the sluggish desktop rendition. Having said that, we imagine TiVo ran the stats and the usage numbers don’t support continued development.

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Xfinity Instant Could Be Verizon Viewdini Competitor

Comcast Xfinity Instant mobile video app 1

With all the promotional buzz around Verizon’s viewdini mobile video portal last week, it was easy to miss Comcast’s new video app, Xfinity Instant. To be fair, Comcast’s mobile app isn’t a commercial product yet, but it was on display right beside viewdini in the Comcast booth at this year’s Cable Show in Boston.

Right now, Xfinity Instant is a project out of Comcast Labs with no set launch date. However, at least in concept, it bears a striking resemblance to viewdini. With a magazine-like layout for tablets, the Comcast app lets users filter video content by actor, genre, title or network. It also provides recommended titles based on your viewing habits, and highlights featured videos in editorial fashion. You can launch a video selection directly from the app and rate content when you’re done watching it.

Comcast Xfinity Instant mobile video app 2

What’s most interesting about the app, though, is that according to the demo guys at the booth, Xfinity Instant was developed with no knowledge that viewdini was in the works. In fact, one Comcast employee explained that the development team hadn’t even heard of viewdini until it was announced at the show. Apparently in the rush to cozy up to Verizon as a viewdini content partner, Comcast senior management didn’t get around to telling its own developers about the potentially competitive product.

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Cisco’s NDS Shows Off Interactive 4K Video Wall

NDS Surfaces 3

By far my favorite thing at the Cable Show this year has been the NDS concept demo of Surfaces, a next-gen TV experience that puts video on the walls around you. The theory from NDS – a set-top and video software company out of the UK – is that TV doesn’t have to fit into a TV set. Instead, it can be overlaid on modular panels that give you the flexibility to see video in different sizes and combine it with other information and associated content.

In the demo I saw yesterday, NDS showed everything from TV clips to music playlists, news feeds and a baby monitor “live” stream. The demo was controlled from an iPad, but all of the content appeared on the wall in front of us in a variety of layouts. For example, one moment we were watching a movie across an entire wall of seamlessly connected screens, but the next we were interacting with a mosaic of widgets that pushed TV content to a much smaller window off to the side of the viewing area.

NDS also showed off 4K-resolution video on the wall-sized display. (Sourced from YouTube, by the way…) Words don’t do it justice, and unfortunately neither does the photo I took with my cheap point-and-shoot camera. However, suffice it to say, the effect is stunning.

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Panasonic Stops Making Set-Tops… and (Some) VCRs

Panasonic announced a few weeks ago it was getting out of the US set-top biz, something it pursued briefly in retail, but far longer through cable operator channels. That headline wasn’t terribly surprising, but today’s company news is a little different. According to The Wall Street Journal, Panasonic has also stopped manufacturing VCRs in its … Read more

New Verizon App Won’t Be the Death of FiOS

Reuters dropped a veritable bombshell yesterday when it reported that Verizon has plans to launch a streaming service in 2012 to compete with Netflix. It wasn’t a bombshell because Verizon’s never talked about this before. After all, we got an inkling of the operator’s plans at CES last January. It was a bombshell because the … Read more

Netflix Goes After DreamWorks Animation

Bloomberg reported late last night that Netflix is in talks with DreamWorks Animation to get exclusive streaming rights to its content starting in 2013. This is a big deal, and it follows a strategy we’ve seen Netflix pursue for many months now. Rather than be a cable TV substitute, Netflix is looking to make select … Read more

Transformers 3 – More Planes, Transformers & Automobiles

Transformers: Dark of the Moon. It’s either a giant robot movie or the next Twilight film. Now we’ve got a full-length trailer that answers that question. Shia LaBeouf is back to periodically interrupt all the anthropomorphic car action with nervous stammering and John Turturro is back to finish the job of burying all the good … Read more