The thing that struck me about the press release for the WD TV Live HD Media Player wasn’t the ability to stream your HD content over your network to your TV (my PS3 does that for me), but more the fact that it apparently allows you to stream Pandora internet radio here in Australia. More »
Streaming TV is on the up and up—that much is clear. What, then, does ZillionTV offer that, say, Hulu, Netflix, Vudu, and Apple TV don’t? A little convergence, maybe.
Bad news, PS3ers. While most of us saw Netflix on the PS3 as inevitable, Sony is not only denying rumours of it’s arrival to the PS3, they’re explaining why they think it’s a horrible idea.
Dooooooods! Not only can you order pizza and carry on a technosexual relationship with your Tivo, but as of today, you can watch Netflix on it. I’m never leaving the house again…ever.
AU:US only, if any of you were confused why Netflix wasn’t showing up on your Aussie TiVo…
Neuros, who built their reputation with weird, chunky (but wonderful) modular MP3 players, has long since moved exclusively to the home entertainment field. Their latest attempt at eroding the Apple TV’s market share is the Link, a set-top streaming box that will pull video from a wide range of online TV sources — Hulu, NBC, ABC, etc. — as well as stream local audio and video content from any USB hard drive. As is always the case with Neuros set-tops, the Link’s software is open source and ready for modification. This time, mercifully, that might not be the box’s biggest draw.
Hats off to Netflix. Without really being prompted, they’ve released their HD encoding/streaming specifications for the world to see. The company revealed that they originally considered a WMV3 (Windows Media Player 9) codec running at 4000kbps and 5500kbps, but opted instead for a similar Microsoft codec, the VC1AP running between 2600kbps and 3800kbps—which should provide a better experience for those of us with lower bandwidths.
Roku’s lovely $US99 Netflix Streaming box, equipped with HDMI and optical outputs from day one, is getting Netflix HD streaming support by “the end of the year,” according to the company. With the software update users can expect access to Netflix’s entire HD library, an HD-specific, upsampled interface and “another major new feature” (Hulu?) that we’ll have to just wait “a bit longer” to find out about.
Netflix has revealed the receiver of its third golden ticket for a content distribution partnership, and it’s TiVo! The DVR company is the latest team member of Netflix’s ever expanding movie download empire, and subscribers to TiVo’s Series3, HD, and HD XL sets can now stream cinema directly to their TVs. That’s much better than the Netflix-Tivo venture they put forth over a year ago.
