Microsoft TV is About Cable Testing IP

Microsoft formally announced partners for its latest Xbox TV initiative today. In addition to Comcast and Verizon FiOS (two partners that were leaked last week), Xbox owners will be able to access content in varying degrees from Bravo, HBO Go and Syfy in the US, along with BBC in the UK, Telefonica in Spain, Rogers … Read more

Smart TVs Hot this Holiday – Impact Overrated?

A different day, a different story. Experts are now predicting that connected TVs will be hot this holiday season. Jonathan Weitz, a partner at IBB Consulting says that consumers will buy up smart TVs this winter and beyond, and Parks Associates expects more than a tenth of broadband households to purchase a connected TV in … Read more

Microsoft Promising IPTV on Xbox for Xmas… Again

Microsoft announced at a financial conference yesterday that it plans to offer live TV on the Xbox in time for the holiday season. It’s like deja vu all over again. It was in January of 2007 that Microsoft first made this promise, and the company has dangled the possible integration at every Consumer Electronics Show … Read more

What’s On TV?

With the bulk of the prime time Fall television season still ahead of us, we find ourselves in something of a programming rut. Thanks to Netflix, which I re-subscribed to for our Roku 2 review, we caught up on the fourth season of Mad Men – in HD, via AppleTV, for all of $7.99. We’re … Read more

Charter Gets HBO Go, Viva HBO vs. Netflix

As much as people like to hold Netflix up as a competitor to cable TV, the truth is it’s much more akin to HBO in both value and price. The one big difference between the two is HBO’s steadfast determination to tie its distribution to cable subscription packages. On that front, the company got another … Read more

New Orb Live Streams Web Video to iPhone & Android

Orb Networks has launched a new streaming app for the iPhone and Android devices designed to shift content from web TV sources like Hulu and ESPN3 to your smartphone. Sound familiar? Orb isn’t the only company running down this path. Fanhattan launched a TV content aggregation app last month, and TV Everywhere services, like the … Read more

Microsoft’s Slow Road to TV Land

There was a lot of hype leading up to Microsoft’s keynote at the E3 conference earlier this week, with huge speculation that the company would launch a new live TV service on the Xbox. The announcement itself, however, was a bit of a let-down, at least for those of us in the US. After years … Read more

Hands On Fanhattan iPad App for TV/Movie Browsing

Yesterday at the D9 conference a new player entered the content discovery market. Fanhattan debuted an iPad app for finding TV shows and movie titles online. Reminiscent of the old Comcast Fancast site (now Xfinity-branded of course), Fanhattan shows you where to find the videos you want so you don’t have to go trolling around the net searching Netflix, iTunes, Hulu, etc. It’s competing against several other content discovery engines – Clicker, GetGlue, Miso and more – but Fanhattan’s focus isn’t as heavily centered on social sharing as its established counterparts. In my opinion, that’s a strength for the new app. You can get social if you want, but if you just want to watch TV, you can do that too.

There are nine basic modules for TV and movie selections: watch now options, episode details, reviews, cast and crew info, video clips (if available) soundtrack details, fan gear, connect options (Facebook or email sharing), and similar content. You get to this information by tapping through to either the TV or movie main menu and then browsing or searching through different categories. Filter selections include the ability to browse by user ratings, top picks, release dates, and much more. You can also search for titles by keyword.

The Fanhattan interface is quite visual, and, being an iPad app, entirely powered by taps and swipes. I have a few nitpicks about the design, but overall it’s very effective.

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