http://www.fta-gods.com/forums/ en Fri, 20 Nov 2009 21:03:16 GMT vBulletin 60 http://www.fta-gods.com/forums/redbar/misc/rss.jpg http://www.fta-gods.com/forums/ http://www.fta-gods.com/forums/f103/direct-tv-dvr-controlling-iphone-app-15992.html Wed, 18 Nov 2009 11:56:01 GMT *Direct TV DVR Controlling iPhone App* November 17th, 2009 4:10 PM | by Jeff Bordeaux Image:... Direct TV DVR Controlling iPhone App

November 17th, 2009 4:10 PM | by Jeff Bordeaux

Control is power and vice-versa. Scarface would agree. Those who have a Direct TV DVR and an iPhone will be happy to know that there is a new app out there that gives you full access to your account.
The app is FREE and will let you browse programs, stations and set new recordings from anywhere you have Internet access. Does Tivo have this yet? ]]> General Tech News rajuB4U http://www.fta-gods.com/forums/f103/direct-tv-dvr-controlling-iphone-app-15992.html http://www.fta-gods.com/forums/f103/google-chrome-os-15984.html Tue, 17 Nov 2009 23:51:06 GMT Google Holding Chrome OS Event Thursday. Complete Overview And Launch Plans To Be Revealed. by MG Siegler on ... Google Holding Chrome OS Event Thursday. Complete Overview And Launch Plans To Be Revealed.

by MG Siegler on November 17, 2009





Google is planning to hold a special Chrome OS event at its headquarters in Mountain View, CA this Thursday morning, we’ve just been notified. The plan is to give some technical background information as well as show off some demos, we’re told. More notably, they will be giving a “complete overview” of the new OS, which they say will launch next year.
Sundar Pichai, Google’s VP of Product Management and Matthew Papakipos, Google Engineering Director for Google Chrome OS will be speaking at the event. And there will be a Q&A session afterwards.
As we reported a few days ago, Google had been planning to release at least part of Chrome OS this week. That still may be the case at this event, but it looks for now that the more complete launch will in fact take place next year. And if they are holding this event now with a “complete overview,” progress is clearly being made, so you can probably expect that launch to be early next year.
Google first announced Chrome OS in July, but gave very few details about it. It seemed the idea there was more to drop a nuclear bomb on Microsoft, which was just about to announce its online free version of Office. In the subsequent months, interest has remained high for Chrome OS, but about all we’ve seen is what the OS’s browser may look like. ]]> General Tech News rajuB4U http://www.fta-gods.com/forums/f103/google-chrome-os-15984.html http://www.fta-gods.com/forums/f103/new-tivo-imminent-15976.html Tue, 17 Nov 2009 20:38:46 GMT *Is a new TiVo imminent?* by *Ben Drawbaugh* posted Nov 17th 2009 at 1:54PM Image:... Is a new TiVo imminent?

by Ben Drawbaugh posted Nov 17th 2009 at 1:54PM


It is no secret that we have a love hate relationship with TiVo. Many of us use them everyday and could easily fill your ear with gripes. It is one of the reasons we've had TiVo on a deathwatch for almost half of the company's 10 year life. Now we do believe it is the best HD DVR set-top on the market --which isn't saying much -- and because we believe that there is something here to salvage, we try our best to offer some constructive criticism. So when our optimistic side saw news about the $50 price break on the current models, we started to think, dream, that this might be a closeout and that a new TiVo might be imminent.

Here are the facts. TiVo hasn't released a new DVR since the TiVo HD in the Summer of 2007. The last major TiVo announcement was September of 2008 when a new DirecTV HD TiVo was revealed. The chip that makes the TiVo magic happen just got a big upgrade when Broadcom announced the super feature rich BCM7125. A new 802.11N WiFi adapter was submitted to the FCC, even though the current TiVos can barely utilize all of a 802.11G connection. Add all of this in with the fact that 2010 is supposed to be the big year for a real tru2way launch, and we officially have our hopes up that TiVo has a big announcement for 10th CES in January. Now before you get too excited, we should point out that TiVo hasn't made any big announcements at CES since 2005, and has even told some that TiVo won't make big announcements at the show because they tend to be overshadowed. Now we'd argue that if you have something big enough to be a highlight of the show, then there is no better time, otherwise yeah, wait for a slow news day. All that being said, the original DirecTV TiVo HD (2004) and the Series 3 (2005) were both announced at the big show. Of course we will have to wait to find out, but in the meantime click through to see our personal wish list.
Here is our TiVo wish list.

• A new 3D 16x9 HD optimized user interface, similar to the look of the new search -- we could go on and on with improvements in the UI, but we'll save that for another post.
• At least four HD tuners -- current CableCARDs can authorize 6 HD streams.
• Real multi-room viewing with automatic conflict resolution and a consolidated ToDo list and Now Playing list -- content should be steamed and not copied so that even Copy Once content will play in any room.
• MoCa 1.1 so the TiVos can communicate without WiFi or Ethernet -- this is how the FiOS multi-room DVRs work.
• Native VOD, PPV and SDV support via tru2way -- we know this is possible, make it happen.
• More and, better integrated, web features -- everyone knows they look tacked on.
• DLNA adoption and maybe even join the RVU Alliance -- this one even seems to good to be a dream.

]]> General Tech News rajuB4U http://www.fta-gods.com/forums/f103/new-tivo-imminent-15976.html http://www.fta-gods.com/forums/f103/laptop-reliability-survey-asus-toshiba-win-15966.html Tue, 17 Nov 2009 16:26:46 GMT *Laptop reliability survey: ASUS and Toshiba win, HP fails* by *Vladislav Savov* Image:... Laptop reliability survey: ASUS and Toshiba win, HP fails

by Vladislav Savov

Boy, do we have a nice slab of data for you to sink your teeth into today. The 3-year service history of more than 30,000 laptops has been pored over, analyzed, and reduced to gorgeous comparative charts, which you know you're dying to know more about. We should note, however, that the service was provided by SquareTrade, whose primary business is selling extended warranties, but that shouldn't completely prejudice us against reaching conclusions on the basis of the presented facts. Firstly, netbooks have shown themselves to be on average 20 percent less reliable than entry-level laptops, which in turn are 10 percent more likely to break down than premium machines. In other words, you get what you pay for -- shocking, right? The big talking point, though, will inevitably be the manufacturer comparison chart above: here ASUS and Toshiba (rather appropriately) share the winners' spoils, while HP languishes in the ignominious last place, with more than a quarter of all laptops expected to suffer a hardware fault of some kind within three years. So, does your experience corroborate / refute this info? Keep it gentlemanly, okay? ]]> General Tech News rajuB4U http://www.fta-gods.com/forums/f103/laptop-reliability-survey-asus-toshiba-win-15966.html http://www.fta-gods.com/forums/f103/interactive-tv-put-you-show-15760.html Mon, 09 Nov 2009 13:45:30 GMT Interactive TV could someday allow viewers to take part in the on-screen action, if Sony's patent filing earlier this year suggests anything. Other interactive TV plans would have you racing real drivers in real races from the comfort of your couch.


The patent includes mini-games that would allow viewer-controlled avatars to toss virtual tomatoes or give B-movie actors a swift kick in the pants.


Sony's patent relies on a type of interactive overlay for TV shows or movies, perhaps generated by a video game console such as Sony's PlayStation 3. Typically passive TV watchers could then use virtual avatars to interact on-screen as the TV show or movie action plays out behind them.


The idea takes direct inspiration from the venerable "Mystery Science Theater 3000," a comedy TV series from the 1990s that involved silhouetted commentators discussing the typically bad movie that they were watching. Sony's patent would take fun movie nights spent with a group of friends to the next level, by including games such as tomato-throwing or shooting a spider off the back of an actor.


A more extreme patent idea includes adding "shootable" virtual characters on top of a war or action movie. Adding the ability for viewers to play such a video game on top of a movie such as "Independence Day" might go over better than, say, adding shootable people in "Saving Private Ryan" or "Blackhawk Down."


Sony's PS3 conveniently plays Blu-ray discs along with video games, and so it might serve as the company's ideal platform for adding some interactivity to the TV-watching experience. But this remains just a concept that has yet to become realized.


Start your engines!


The future of interactive TV may sooner include virtual racing in real-time against professional Formula One or NASCAR drivers.


Two separate companies have been testing services called "Real-Time Racing" and "Real Time Race," which allow people to use their home computers or video game consoles to compete for cash prizes against virtual representations of real racecars during real races.


"Real-Time Racing" company iOpener installs small packages inside racecars that track enhanced GPS coordinates, car speed and position, so that the virtual race cars almost precisely match the real televised coverage of races. Competitor Real Time Race maps out racing circuits ahead of time to create a 360 degree view of every part of the track, and allows players to drive virtual cars in photorealistic surroundings.


Ready for action


Home viewers already create their own interactive experiences by using the Internet while watching their favorite TV events. About one-in-ten viewers watching the 2009 Oscars were also logged onto Internet sites such as Facebook, according to Nielsen data. And the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) reports that almost two-thirds of online adults say that they always, usually or sometimes surf the Internet while watching TV.


A recent CEA report even speculated on a future where people could "tag" jeans or shoes that they watch during a movie as a reminder to buy them later. The addition of tagging options might threaten to push even more product placement in movies and TV shows, but it's still a possible action for TV viewers - not to mention a useful source of targeted marketing data for retailers.


Many of these interactive TV options still remain just over the horizon. But for now, people can get more than their fill of interactive viewing by visiting their local movie theater during one of the rowdier showings. ]]> General Tech News robby3333 http://www.fta-gods.com/forums/f103/interactive-tv-put-you-show-15760.html http://www.fta-gods.com/forums/f103/worlds-smallest-320gb-hard-drive-15679.html Thu, 05 Nov 2009 20:00:45 GMT The World's Smallest 320GB Hard Drive




Toshiba has just squeezed 320GB of storage into their 1.8-inch 5400RPM line of SATA drives. (That's enough to double the storage of the iPod Classic.) Available this December for an undisclosed price. ]]> General Tech News rajuB4U http://www.fta-gods.com/forums/f103/worlds-smallest-320gb-hard-drive-15679.html http://www.fta-gods.com/forums/f103/echostar-pitches-slingbox-dvr-cable-again-15466.html Thu, 29 Oct 2009 11:08:21 GMT slingloaded1 The SCTE cable industry show, having hit full swing in Denver, has revealed another EchoStar attempt at wooing the cable industry... slingloaded1

The SCTE cable industry show, having hit full swing in Denver, has revealed another EchoStar attempt at wooing the cable industry with a Slingbox-enabled DVR (aka “SlingLoaded”). Like the units I photographed at The Cable Show back in April, this model appears to be a tru2way CableCARD device. However, the SCTE edition features a brand new enclosure — and lacks a model number on the bezel (such as T2200S). So it’s hard to say if this is the same tech, repackaged. Regardless, I can’t imagine many US cable operators would risk alienating the content industry by directly offering placeshifting capabilities without licensing deals in place, as we see with On Demand and TV Anywhere initiatives. However, fear of litigation has never seemed to be a deterrent for EchoStar and DISH Network, who’ll be pushing forward with the satellite SlingLoaded DVR later this year.





]]> General Tech News rajuB4U http://www.fta-gods.com/forums/f103/echostar-pitches-slingbox-dvr-cable-again-15466.html http://www.fta-gods.com/forums/f103/pace-multiroom-hcs-capable-showing-9-a-15456.html Wed, 28 Oct 2009 17:02:37 GMT *Pace multiroom HCS capable of showing 9 simultaneous channels * UK set top box maker Pace spent last week showing off its first multiroom DVR... Pace multiroom HCS capable of showing 9 simultaneous channels

UK set top box maker Pace spent last week showing off its first multiroom DVR at a US cable show called the CTAM Summit. Most people in the UK show a quizzical expression when you say the world DVR, because mostly they think of the device as a Sky invention (which it’s most definitely not) simply because the Sky+ box was the first DVR launched in the UK. Even the Freeview digital terrestrial boxes which offer DVR functions are called Freeview+ to borrow from this perception.

But essentially a holy grail for these past three years has been the creation of a box which can store TV programs on a hard disk and ship them around your home for ANY TV in the house to view them – hence the term multiroom DVR (digital video recorder). (Pic shows existing Sky HD DVR).

Pace calls its new device the Home Content Sharing system and it connects a centralized disk storage to multiple HD set-top boxes within the home. This system comes integrated with Rovi’s Interactive Program Guide (IPG) and Connected Platform software. Rovi provides systems to navigate content on cable and satellite TV sets and the company claims 4,200 issued or pending patents worldwide. For those who follow this industry Rovi is the name that Macrovision (supplied music copy protection software) and Gemstar (EPG patents) now trade under having merged.

That’s all very well, but Pace may also need to protect itself by buying DVR patents from TiVo as well (which DID invent the DVR). TiVo recently sued one of the largest US satellite TV companies for trying to invent its own DVR without paying royalties for the TiVo patents, and after four years in court won a settlement involving 100s of millions of dollars and is now suing AT&T and Verizon, who offer IPTV services in the US, also without paying royalties.

Pace claims its multiroom DVR is the first in the market but it’s not. The first were made for AT&T’s U-verse operation, and took at least four years to get right working with Microsoft software and brand new, recently delivered chips. But Pace’s approach is clearly very different. It works by using a home NAS (Network Attached Storage) device centrally, rather than a central DVR which is inside a set top. We presume this means that the tuners are in the set tops, and a tuned MPEG stream of digital video goes to the NAS box and is just stored (possibly encrypted). That way if the stream IS encrypted it can only be returned and played on a set top that has the decryption keys. That would mean that Sky could only play on a Sky box but other terrestrial TV could be played on any TV set.

The Pace box connects to cheaper non-DVR set top boxes around the home, rather than directly to a TV. And uses Rovi’s program guide software to navigate. Quite clearly you need to know what’s on your Pay TV service (say for instance Sky or Virgin) as well as what’s on your multi-room DVR, so you need a clever piece of software to put all the options to you sensibly on an easy to navigate screen.

Subscribers and cable operators will be instantly familiar with the user interface and will be used to ‘watch and record’, pausing live TV, and managing recordings from connected TVs. Which TVs have the rights to “save” programs, and play them back will also have to be sorted out by Pay TV operators and the likely way this comes to market here is through someone like Sky rather than through retail, though there may be retail variants of it for Freeview. No price data has been released so far.

Pace’s reckons its HCS box can distribute nine simultaneous HD streams throughout the home, which just means that its hard drive is that big and that fast. Subscribers will be able to record six HD programs while maintaining full trick play mode (pause and rewind live TV), which is impressive. The HCS software also offers a folder system, a bulk delete tool, and the ability to bookmark playback to resume in another room.

The other thing we can’t yet tell is just how such a box is connected in the home – with MoCA (coax using a special protocol) with HPNA (Coax or twisted pair using another protocol) Wi-Fi (which will drop packets and lose data making for a rough picture – unless it is a new specialized versions of Wi-Fi) or some other way. We suspect that the device will come with all these variations, depending on what operators ask for.

Rovi’s Connected Platform software product is being used to allow cable operators to offer music, video, photos and Internet content, delivered using DLNA, UPnP and DTCP-IP-compliant devices via the home data network.

Yes sure they are acronyms, but DLNA is a set of protocols to make sure that different TVs can interact with one another, while UPnP means that you should be able to just plug devices in and they will work, and DTCP-IP is content protection software which ensures that content cannot be pirated when the program is moving around the home on a cable, which is necessary in order for Sky or Virgin or anyone like them to adopt it.

Pace’s HCS system is up for grabs now for pay TV operators so could be in the field as soon as 6 months from now. ]]> General Tech News rajuB4U http://www.fta-gods.com/forums/f103/pace-multiroom-hcs-capable-showing-9-a-15456.html http://www.fta-gods.com/forums/f103/sky-player-xbox-360-hands-photos-15414.html Tue, 27 Oct 2009 16:24:33 GMT *Sky Player on Xbox 360: Hands-on photos and first impressions * October 27, 2009 10:00 am by James Holland ... Sky Player on Xbox 360: Hands-on photos and first impressions

October 27, 2009 10:00 am by James Holland




We’ve been fiddling with Sky Player on Xbox 360. It gets our thumbs up for the content on show, but what’s it like to use? Get down and dirty with Murdoch’s latest assault on your living room, and see our hands-on photos of Sky Player on Xbox 360 in action too!


First thing’s first: Sky Player on Xbox 360 is fast. Very fast. The interface is ultra-speedy, and will be instantly recognisable to anyone who’s held a 360 joypad. Likewise, it’ll be a dream for anyone already in possession of a Sky set-top box: the menus look familiar, while on-screen overlays and the EPG are almost identical.
Flicking into streaming TV is a dream. We tested it on a 4MB broadband connection and it was slapping TV shows on our screen before our backsides could hit the sofa. Flick the Xbox’s analogue stick upwards and you’ll see what’s coming up now and next, as well as being able to browse other live channels, and dive into them at will. The quality on our Xbox defaulted to High, although Sky tells us it can be scaled back to work on broadband connections as low as 2MB. Dropping ours down to the lowest setting, we still found it watchable, albeit a bit blocky at times.


But while the streaming shows are fantastic, it’s the on-demand content that we kept coming back to. There are over 400 films available from day one, all of which start within a couple of seconds and are included free if you have Sky Movies in your satellite package, or subscribe to Sky Player with them as part of your bundle. This is on-demand done the Sky way, and it’s handled with jaw-dropping confidence.


From full descriptions of movies or sports content, to handy recommendations of other items to watch, Sky Player on Xbox is an astonishingly well-designed interface, grafted on top of the Murdoch dynasty’s unbeatable content back catalogue. It’ll strut its way into your life, and challenge you to watch TV the same way again, just like the first Sky+ box did all those years ago.




OK, so the pictures we’re looking at on the Xbox are in standard definition, but that also means a seamless performance on broadband connections as lowly as 2MB. There’s also a party mode, letting you crowd a virtual sofa with your friends’ avatars, and babble with them using an Xbox headset. Very clever, and cutesy, but while we found it a neat distraction, but ultimately a bit gimmicky for everyday use.
Sky Player subscriptions come free for satellite customers, and start at £15 per month for those without a dish. However, a word to the thrifty: those with a second home, or trekking to university with their Xbox in tow, might like to remember that each Sky Player account can have four PCs attched, as well as one Xbox, and those consoles and PCs needn’t be in the same household as the satellite dish.
Essentially, what Sky is offering here is a second subscription for use anywhere you like, or a second set-top box for those wanting movies and sports in their bedroom.
We’re thoroughly besotted with Sky Player on Xbox. It’s given Microsoft’s console a bit of much-needed pep in the film and TV stakes. As far as we’re concerned, the US can keep its Netflix access. Now we’ve got Sky Player on Xbox, and live streaming TV too! ]]> General Tech News rajuB4U http://www.fta-gods.com/forums/f103/sky-player-xbox-360-hands-photos-15414.html http://www.fta-gods.com/forums/f103/microsoft-we-have-no-plans-blu-15326.html Fri, 23 Oct 2009 13:22:53 GMT Microsoft: 'We have no plans for Blu-ray on Xbox 360'




by Thomas Ricker
when Ballmer was asked about making the Xbox a home theater companion of choice and where Blu-ray might fit in, the Windows 7 wild man said, "Well I don't know if we need to put Blu-ray in there -- you'll be able to get Blu-ray drives as accessories." He then added that on-demand is the future of movies, not physical media. Now our bud Major Nelson, Director of Programming for Xbox Live, has stepped up to lay the conflation to rest. The Major says that Ballmer was referring to Blu-ray accessories for the PC and reiterated Microsoft's focus of bringing instant-on 1080p streaming movies to the Xbox 360. So... that should end speculation of Blu-ray on Xbox right? Not if history serves, nope. ]]> General Tech News rajuB4U http://www.fta-gods.com/forums/f103/microsoft-we-have-no-plans-blu-15326.html