We recently commented on Roku adding a Disney channel to its little streamer and the importance of being able to put the Disney brand on the box. Even when the content is not particularly compelling, the brand alone is enough to attract the attention of parents and children. YouTube may be counting on the same effect as YouTube and Disney […]
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Netflix will be launching in the UK and Ireland in early 2012 and they are going to be facing some serious competition from the Amazon-owned LOVEFiLM streaming service which is already firmly entrenched in the region. Unsurprisingly, Netflix is looking to line up some content that will help differentiate their service and give them a competitive edge. Today Netflix announced […]
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Smart TVs are all about bringing the world of apps to the television set, and Panasonic’s smart TVs are no different. Panasonic recently announced some new apps, but the most interesting app was their upgraded Social TV app. Panasonic’s Viera TVs have included social apps for a while, but its latest upgrade brings an integrated Social TV app designed to let viewers […]
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DirecTV did a pretty good job of picking up subscribers in Q3. If their Q4 doesn’t go as well, they won’t have AT&T to blame. AT&T gets a lot of attention for their fiber optic U-Verse television service, but U-Verse has had a fairly limited roll-out at this point. Where AT&T lacks U-Verse to bundle in with their telephony and data services, […]
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Connected media streamers, like the pair from Roku and NETGEAR that we reviewed recently, focus on providing access to IP content but generally cannot handle local media well enough (if at all) to be a viable unifying solution. Until we have enough bandwidth, and services able to deliver quality audio/video services over the Internet, those devices act as a supplement […]
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Blockbuster Express has been feeling a bit left out. All of their competitors have been raising their prices, leaving poor little Blockbuster Express without any headlines. Guess it’s about time they joined in. They even decided to get catchy with their rate hike. Say hello to 3-2-1 pricing. Blockbuster Express has been cutting special deals for awhile to avoid the […]
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The iPad is so yesterday. Now all of the TV providers want to be on Android tablets. Sky TV is promising that the Android version of their TV streaming and mobile VOD service, Sky Go, will arrive in the next couple of months. By all accounts, Sky Go has been a hit on PCs and iOS devices and Android support […]
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Apple has been gradually adding new media streaming services to the Apple TV, but there have also been rumors floating around for a while that Apple has been trying to put together their own media streaming service. The assumption has been that the service, rumored to be called iTunes Replay, would be positioned to compete with Netflix and Amazon by […]
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In early August DirecTV announced that they had added only 26,000 US subscribers in Q2, their lowest number of new subscribers ever. This announcement came on the heels of falling subscriber numbers for several major cable companies, which combined to give rise to some breathless stories about the growing threat of cord cutters and web video to subscription television services. Fast forward […]
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Apple TV owners have another reason to update their devices to version 4.4.2. Updated Apple TVs are receiving an option to connect to iTunes Match through a new top-level Music section. I had assumed that iTunes Match would work with every iOS device, but it is still nice to see it in action on the Apple TV even if the […]
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