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Watch That Tiny $74 1.5GHz Android-Powered Thumb-Puter In Action And the battle for PVR of choice in your living room rages on, growing more and more violent with each passing week. This time, Foxtel has sent a mortar in the shape of an enhanced online EPG into TiVo’s camp. Foxtel have expanded their online EPG to 14 days, meaning you can check out upcoming TV shows and movies up to two weeks in advance. Plus, they’ve added a whole raft of new advanced search functions to help iQ subscribers find more of the shows that they want to watch, and then send the order to record directly to their iQ remotely.
Unfortunately, the TV EPG is still restricted to 7 days in advance, but watching the way this war is really building up, surely it can’t be too long before we see 14 days become the norm for all EPGs…
[Foxtel]
Ooh, and the battle between Foxtel and TiVo just keeps getting better. Foxtel have just upped the ante by offering the original iQ PVR for free to new customers for 12 months with no installation fee. That means that if you sign up to Foxtel, you get a free PVR for 12 months, although you’ll need to be paying at least $40 a month for the Foxtel service.
They’ve also introduced an incentive for potential iQ2 subscribers, which includes their four HD channels for free for seven months when you sign up for the iQ2.
There are apparently some special deals going for existing digital subscribers who want to upgrade to iQ in a multi-room capacity as well, but it depends on plans and is a bit confusing, so you’re best bet is to call 131999 to get the low-down on what they can offer.
[Foxtel]
Even though we’ve known about the pricing for a little while now, and Ty from CNet was even lucky enough to get an early model for review, the HD+ service from Foxtel gets its official launch on Sunday June 22.
15,000 Foxtel subscribers have already been upgraded to the new service, according to the press release that just landed in our inbox. That’s a pretty big number for a service that hasn’t officially launched yet.
We’ll be testing out the new service in the weeks to come, so stay tuned for that. In the meantime, press release junkies can read this one below the fold:
It may be way too early on Monday morning to get you pondering the inner workings of your IQ and EQ, but nevertheless here’s this new gizmo from our favourites Brando. It’s a puzzle supposedly designed to improve both of those measures of intelligence, working in a sort-of, but not quite, Rubik’s Cube kind of way. The idea is that as you twist and wiggle the the cone-like wings of the puzzle, trying to match up the colours on each face, you’re working on your right brain (with spatial reasoning and mental imagery) and your left brain (strong nonverbal logic). Both halves of my brain are currently stalled and needing a coffee, but then maybe a spin with this toy would perk me up just as well. Available now for US$14.90. [Brando]
You may think that weve gone a little Foxtel crazy over the past few days, and you’d probably be right, but that doesn’t mean that we’ve forgotten the regional peeps who use Austar instead. Okay, we did forget, until we were kindly pointed in the direction of Austar’s MyStar service by reader David. Then we remembered all about you regional folk.
Available now to all good most Austar subscribers, MyStar is a 160GB PVR box like the original iQ. Except with one huge boon – it has a free-to-air tuner built in which lets you record, watch and even browse the EPG for channel 7. In fact it has two FTA tuners and two satellite tuners, letting you do the whole record two things while watching something else thing.
You get support for Dolby Digital surround sound, closed captioning and component connections on the back, although sadly no HDMI. But it is only an SD box, so quit your complaining.
It costs $49.95 to install (and it needs to be professionally installed), with an ongoing monthly subscription fee of $14.95. And in case you can’t tell from the above picture, its one chunky looking box. But true beauty is on the inside, right? Right?
[Austar MyStar - Thanks David!]
One of the interesting things mentioned at the Foxtel HD+ launch last week was that Foxtel hope to put an iQ box into every subscribers home later this year.
When I asked for clarification, I was informed that later on in 2008, Foxtel will be launching another iQ box, which will essentially be a slightly higher-specced version of their current offering (maybe with an HDMI output and a bigger hard drive – or maybe not). It will also have a more appealing price structure to try and entice more people over to the joys of their PVR (as opposed to the $15 per month it costs at the moment).
There’s no more information available than that, but if they do offer an iQ box that doesn’t require a $15 per month subscription fee, I am so there.
[Foxtel]
After yesterday’s unveiling of Foxtel’s HD+ service, I thought it would be a good idea to take a closer look at the channel menu. Some of you were disappointed by the selection of only four dedicated HD channels. In reality there’s a little bit more on offer than just four channels, and a plan to roll out even more channels next year. Hit the jump for a closer analysis of the HD offerings.
Today is a happy day for Hi-Def lovin’, flat-panel TV-totin’, gadget-obsessed Australians everywhere. And yes, that does mean you. The reason it’s such a happy day is that Foxtel has officially unveiled its new HD service, including the new Hi-Def box, at a media conference in Sydney. At which I was lucky enough to attend.
So strap yourself in, get yourself comfortable and hit the jump for all the info you can possibly imagine.
This year’s shaping up to be the year Australian TV fans finally gets treated like mature, responsible adults. For example, after years of negotiations, we now have our very own free-to-air EPG that works with pretty much and PVR to let you record the shows you want to watch at the click of a single button.
We’ll also see TiVo launching in time for the Beijing Olympics, and Foxtel is finally entering the HD era with their new Hi-Def iQ box.
Unveiled on their HD blog at the end of last year, we now know that the new box will have a 320GB hard drive, support MPEG4 compression, have HDMI connections (praise Jesus) and is a bespoke model manufactured by Pace just for Foxtel.
Aside from that, we can expect four dedicated HD channels focussing on sport, movies and documentaries, plus access to Channel 10′s Hi-Def offering through the iQ. But the best news is that it can’t be far away — I received an invite to a media briefing on January 30th for the box’s launch. As soon as I know more, so will you
