iptv
Entertainment
10:30AM Nick Broughall | Today’s report in the Herald Sun that AFL chief operating officer Gillon McLachlan has recently discovered that AFL matches are being streamed online via services like Justin.TV just goes to show how incredibly out of touch the people who make decisions about TV sports rights are. More »
The AFL Just Realised People Watch TV Online
10:30AM Nick Broughall | Today’s report in the Herald Sun that AFL chief operating officer Gillon McLachlan has recently discovered that AFL matches are being streamed online via services like Justin.TV just goes to show how incredibly out of touch the people who make decisions about TV sports rights are. More » 
Entertainment
3:00PM Nick Broughall | Last week we took a look at what’s happened for Blu-ray since it cast its nemesis, HD DVD, to the fiery gates of obsolescence. But what’s next? BD-Live isn’t the killer app we hoped it might be, so what can blu-ray offer us to fight off the threat of IP entertainment? More »
Entertainment Geekly: What’s Next For Blu-ray
3:00PM Nick Broughall | Last week we took a look at what’s happened for Blu-ray since it cast its nemesis, HD DVD, to the fiery gates of obsolescence. But what’s next? BD-Live isn’t the killer app we hoped it might be, so what can blu-ray offer us to fight off the threat of IP entertainment? More »
Screens
1:52PM Nick Broughall | One of the coolest features in all the top of the line home entertainment kit coming to market over the next year or so is the inbuilt IP connectivity for access to online service. In Samsung’s upcoming LED backlit TV range, that content will be coming directly from NineMSN. More »
Samsung LED TVs To Offer Online Content From NineMSN
1:52PM Nick Broughall | One of the coolest features in all the top of the line home entertainment kit coming to market over the next year or so is the inbuilt IP connectivity for access to online service. In Samsung’s upcoming LED backlit TV range, that content will be coming directly from NineMSN. More »
Entertainment
Xbox 360 IPTV Service Not Dead, Just Sleeping (and Testing)
1:00AM Jack Loftus | An IPTV service for Xbox 360 was alluded to in a 2007 CES keynote, but it’s been quiet on that front ever since. What’s the deal? If you’re British, you might be in luck! More »
Entertainment
Netgear ITV2000 Internet TV Player Lets You Watch BBC News Whenever You Feel Like It
3:00AM Adrian Covert | Netgear’s ITV2000 Internet TV Player is half the size of the Roku Netflix Player and pulls from 90+ live streams (foreign news!), plus search clips from sites like NBC, ESPN and YouTube. More »
Software
Slingplayer Mac Update Offers Improved Streaming Video Quality, Online IDs, Aspect Ratio Toggling
10:59AM Adrian Covert | Slingplayer for Mac received an update today to 1.0.7, offering improved video quality, easy toggling between 4:3 and 16:9 aspect ratio, and the ability to register and store your Slingbox ID online. More »
Online
2:30PM Nick Broughall | So it hasn’t been a good week for Australian online entertainment seekers. First of all you’ve got movie studios suing iiNet because they didn’t stop their customers from pirating movies and TV shows (well, they’re not ninjas). And now Andew Colley over at Australian IT is reporting that EzyDVD’s online movie download store, which was to rise from the ashes of ReelTime TV, has been put on hold thanks to the struggling economy.
The plans for an online store haven’t been canned completely (fortunately), but this is a real blow for online entertainment in this country, even though the service was probably going to be restricted to PC-based viewing through proprietary software. As I’ve stated before, the only options we have to legitimately download movies and TV shows in Australia are through iTunes and BigPond, which each have their own restrictions.
So, here’s a crazy idea I’d like to put forward to all the movie studios who think suing ISPs is the answer. Take the money you’re spending on lawyers and invest it in EzyDVD’s EzyDownload service. Let’s get this thing running sooner rather than later. Because no matter how many people or ISPs you sue, you’re not going to make the slightest dent in piracy until we have a few attractive, legal options on the table.
[Australian IT via Lifehacker] More »
EzyDVDs Online Movie Store Put On Hold, Potential Customers Destined To Become Pirates
2:30PM Nick Broughall | So it hasn’t been a good week for Australian online entertainment seekers. First of all you’ve got movie studios suing iiNet because they didn’t stop their customers from pirating movies and TV shows (well, they’re not ninjas). And now Andew Colley over at Australian IT is reporting that EzyDVD’s online movie download store, which was to rise from the ashes of ReelTime TV, has been put on hold thanks to the struggling economy.
The plans for an online store haven’t been canned completely (fortunately), but this is a real blow for online entertainment in this country, even though the service was probably going to be restricted to PC-based viewing through proprietary software. As I’ve stated before, the only options we have to legitimately download movies and TV shows in Australia are through iTunes and BigPond, which each have their own restrictions.
So, here’s a crazy idea I’d like to put forward to all the movie studios who think suing ISPs is the answer. Take the money you’re spending on lawyers and invest it in EzyDVD’s EzyDownload service. Let’s get this thing running sooner rather than later. Because no matter how many people or ISPs you sue, you’re not going to make the slightest dent in piracy until we have a few attractive, legal options on the table.
[Australian IT via Lifehacker] More »
Online
1:00PM Nick Broughall | Despite the fact that the movie studios are being total dickwads and suing iiNet for aiding and abetting piracy, the ISP is actually being even more pro-active in its fight against piracy in Australia than all the movie studios put together. How? By offering incentives to download legal entertainment, like having iTunes and ABC iView content unmetered for their customers (meaning you don’t actually have to pay for content twice).
If that’s not enough, according to Gus over at Lifehacker, they’re planning on taking it one step further by launching an IPTV service in the middle of next year. They announced the service at their AGM, and while details are still extremely scarce, I can’t help but applaud the ISP for sticking to its guns and standing up to the evil movie corporations and their lawyer henchmen.
I know I ranted on it the other day, but until we start getting some decent legal offerings for downloading TV shows and movies that we can watch where we want and when we want, piracy is going to remain. So kudos to iiNet for understanding and fighting the good fight.
[Lifehacker] More »
iiNet Fighting Piracy The Best Way: With A New IPTV Service
1:00PM Nick Broughall | Despite the fact that the movie studios are being total dickwads and suing iiNet for aiding and abetting piracy, the ISP is actually being even more pro-active in its fight against piracy in Australia than all the movie studios put together. How? By offering incentives to download legal entertainment, like having iTunes and ABC iView content unmetered for their customers (meaning you don’t actually have to pay for content twice).
If that’s not enough, according to Gus over at Lifehacker, they’re planning on taking it one step further by launching an IPTV service in the middle of next year. They announced the service at their AGM, and while details are still extremely scarce, I can’t help but applaud the ISP for sticking to its guns and standing up to the evil movie corporations and their lawyer henchmen.
I know I ranted on it the other day, but until we start getting some decent legal offerings for downloading TV shows and movies that we can watch where we want and when we want, piracy is going to remain. So kudos to iiNet for understanding and fighting the good fight.
[Lifehacker] More »
Entertainment
TiVo And Blockbuster Launch Movie Of The Week
11:00AM Nick Broughall | We all knew it was coming, but even we didn’t expect it to happen this soon: TiVo today announced that they’ll be launching a “Movie of the Week” service in conjunction with Blockbuster to start on December 1 (although some users will get the service early). It’s quite a slow roll-out for video on demand in many ways, with one film being made available each week, starting with The Waterhorse and followed by Men In Black. TiVo are emphasising that the slow roll-out is intentional, so users can grow accustomed to how it effects their monthly broadband quota and speeds. And considering that for the time being, the movies are free aside from your broadband data used, they really are trying to hold users’ hands through the shift to IP-based entertainment. Come March next year though, TiVo’s promising a multitude of movies and TV shows for download, as well as progressive downloads and better file compression. We’re waiting to hear back from TiVo about exactly how the movies are encoded, what quality you can expect and whether HD movies are on the cards for the future, and we’ll update you when we hear back from them. UPDATE: We’ve just heard back, and we can tell you that all movies are standard-def. They’ll be encoded in MPEG2 at launch, but will eventually move to MPEG4, (we’re guessing that’ll happen around March next year). More »
Entertainment
9:49AM Nick Broughall | Not content to sit back and watch TiVo take all the headlines in the PVR department, Foxtel snuck out a quick one-two at the Telstra Investor’s Day last week regarding their upcoming IPTV offering and a service called iQ2Go.
The IPTV service, which uses the currently disabled ethernet jack on the back of the iQ2 box, will let users download video on demand over the internet, and will be launched in the first half of next year. Of course, we’ve known that IPTV was coming to Foxtel sooner rather than later (why put an ethernet port in the back if you’re not going to use it?), but this is the first definitive timeframe we’ve heard.
The service will be available to all iQ2 subscribers, but at the moment they haven’t worked out any agreements to have content unmetered, meaning you’ll probably end up paying for the content twice.
But the more exciting news was the announcement of the iQ2Go device, which will let you take programs stored on your iQ and play them back on a portable device. More »
Foxtel Launching 16GB USB Key For iQ2Go IPTV Entertainment On The Move
9:49AM Nick Broughall | Not content to sit back and watch TiVo take all the headlines in the PVR department, Foxtel snuck out a quick one-two at the Telstra Investor’s Day last week regarding their upcoming IPTV offering and a service called iQ2Go.
The IPTV service, which uses the currently disabled ethernet jack on the back of the iQ2 box, will let users download video on demand over the internet, and will be launched in the first half of next year. Of course, we’ve known that IPTV was coming to Foxtel sooner rather than later (why put an ethernet port in the back if you’re not going to use it?), but this is the first definitive timeframe we’ve heard.
The service will be available to all iQ2 subscribers, but at the moment they haven’t worked out any agreements to have content unmetered, meaning you’ll probably end up paying for the content twice.
But the more exciting news was the announcement of the iQ2Go device, which will let you take programs stored on your iQ and play them back on a portable device. More » 