TV, Movies & Home Theatre News - Page 82

Being one of those people who love to tear things apart to see what makes them tick, I look forward to iFixit's new device teardown every time something new is released. This weeks Amazon Fire TV was no exception, but it is a little disappointing to say the least. iFixit managed the teardown in no time at all, and what was reveled is a single-board design that leaves little repair room that a DIYer would be capable of.

Scoring just a 6 out of a possible 10, the Fire TV is nothing more than another board in a box, meaning that no other electronic components reside off of its PCB. This is the way most devices are being manufactured in modern times as components are continuing to shrink and SoC's are increasingly becoming more powerful and capable of multi-tasking. The device does feature a Qualcomm Processor, 2GB of RAM and 8GB of NAND flash. It's basically any smartphone produced in the last two years minus the screen.

iFixit also tore down the devices remote and optional video game controller since the main box provided little eye-candy for the post. Just like the Fire TV, its accessories are simple single board devices that are quite hard for the average consumer to repair. iFixit did manage to confirm that the microphone that has been utilized in the remote control is the same microphone used in the Kindle Fire HD table.

Rumors of an Amazon-built set-top have been floating around for the better part of the last year, and today those rumors proved to be true. This morning Amazon.com announced the release of its all new Fire TV set-top box, a media streaming device that fully incorporates the Amazon ecosystem. Amazon is pulling out all the stops as well, and has enlisted Gary Busey to even record a promotional video for the new device.

Measuring in at less than an inch thick, the new Fire TV set-top box is capable of streaming full HD content to your TV over a common HDMI connection, and includes a remote that allows you to voice your commands, search for movies, and a wealth of other things. Amazon is also offering a separate video game controller that retails for just $40. Fire TV is not just closed to Amazon content, but features apps that integrate Netflix, Hulu Plus and many more services right on the box.

Fire TV is powered by a dedicated quad-core CPU and features 2GB of RAM that allows the device to continue smooth operation even when under a load from watching a House of Cards marathon. 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi is on-board and 8GB of internal storage is present. Amazon is retailing Fire TV for just $99 and is available now on Amazon.com. Do you think that a $99 set-top box is a justifiable purchase since Google's $35 Chromecast and Roku's $50 Streaming Stick do almost all of the same task for much less money?

Pioneer Electronics has been making audio gear for years. The company has a full line of home theater receivers that run the gamut from entry-level models up to high-end offerings that can cost thousands of dollars. Pioneer has rolled out a new home theater receiver aimed at custom installers called the VSX-80.

This receiver will ship at the end of the month for $700. The VSX-80 has a lot to offer for the price. It features seven HDMI 2.0 ports allowing you to connect a lot of sources to the receiver. It is Roku Ready certified so all the user has to do is plug in a Streaming Stick to get access to all sorts of streaming content.

Pioneer built-in support for 4K UHD video pass through. The best feature if the VSX-80 is that it is able to upscale standard HD content to 4K resolution on-the-fly. Using the receiver, you can set up a 7.2 channel audio system or use a normal 5.1 set up with the other channels for multiroom audio.

This week, Roku unveiled a new version of its Streaming Stick, a major upgrade from the $99 model it released in late 2012. The major difference is that the new Roku Streaming Stick will work with any TV with a HDMI port instead of only working on models that are deemed "Roku Ready."

The Roku Streaming Stick works on the same principal as Google's Chromecast, and features both iOS and Android apps to control the device. Not everyone likes using their tablet or smartphone to control their TV though and Roku has included a remote for those who still like to use them. The stick is basically an HD version of the Roku 1 that fits into a package the size of a large USB thumb drive and has more than 1000 channels of video programming.

The Roku Streaming Stick retails for about $50 which is $15 more than the Chromecast, and it includes major players like Showtime, HBO, Netflix, Hulu Plus, PLEX, and many more. It is up to you to decide if the extra $15 is worth it to you or not, but with Google recently opening up its SDK for the Chromecast, there is bound to be a wealth of apps arriving for it as well.

Voting for American Idol (that show is still on the air?) has never been easier thanks to a new feature from Fox and Google. Fans of the show can now vote on their favorite contestants up to 50 times per day straight from Google's search results. This new voting method virtually eliminates the need to ever vote via text messaging again, and has to open up the door even wider than before for vote scamming.

Fans can vote by simply heading over to Google.com on their desktop or mobile device and searching the keywords "American Idol, or "Idol" during the show's voting window. The sponsored ad will be a voting block which will allow each fan to vote for each contestant up to 50 times before clicking submit. Voting is done by taping or clicking on the contestants photo they wish to vote for. A pop-over will appear with a slider that can be adjusted with the mouse or finger to indicate how many votes that contestant gets. This will definitely make voting for the show easier, but I am left wondering why the show lets each contestant get up to 50 votes each per voter. It would make much more sense if voters were given just 50 votes total to distribute among contestants.

Over the weekend, Comcast and Netflix entered into an agreement that will see Netflix getting priority bandwidth allocation when streamed across Comcast's network. While many of us see this as a violation of the now defunct net neutrality laws, Verizon seems to disagree. Today Verizon's CEO announced that Netflix has also agreed to pay his company for the same type of prioritization over its network.

Verizon's CEO, Lowell McAdams, said that the two companies have been in talks for more than a year, and he fully expects that the two companies will come to terms quite soon. "If you see someone come in with a lot of load on the internet, with video, you've got to get that in an efficient place. So making the connection far out on the network is a good thing, and frankly, paying for it," said McAdams. "To me this shows you don't necessarily need a lot of regulation in a dynamic market here. By doing these commercial deals we'll get good investments and good returns for both parties."

Unfortunately, what this actually means for consumers is that Netflix will have to find a way to make up for the lost revenue that it is having to spend paying off the ISP's to ensure its content gets delivered in as high quality as possible. This means that Netflix will eventually have to raise subscription prices, or cut back on the number of movie and TV show licenses it purchases. This opens the door for the ISPs to do this sort of thing with other services such as Hulu, HBO GO, Amazon Prime, and Google Play.

You may have heard about companies like Sony, Nintendo and SEGA... as well as director and actor duo Seth Rogan and Evan Goldberg, but what do you get when you mix it all together? A new movie coming out which focuses on the early 90s, and the console wars between Nintendo and SEGA.

The idea already exists in book form , with Console Wars coming out in May, written by Blake Harris. Console Wars focuses on SEGA's challenge to Nintendo in the early 90s with the SEGA Mega Drive. A movie based on the book is already being worked on, with Sony Pictures and Scott Rudin (of Moneyball, The Social Network fame) behind it.

Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg will be directing, with the comedy duo taking up the screenplay duties, too. Console Wars' author will serve as an Executive Producer, but is also co-directing a documentary on the same subject, with Rudin, Rogen and Goldberg all sitting on as producers.

In a world where it seems that sharing any form of media with your friends is illegal or against the service's ToS, HBO has stepped up to the plate and said that it is OK to share your HBO Go account with friends and family. In a recent interview with website BuzzFeed, HBO's CEO Richard Plepler went on the record saying that "It's not that we're unmindful of it [ HBO GO Account Sharing ], it just has no impact on the business."

Plepler says that the company sees HBO GO as an added value feature to its Premium Channel cable service and not as an individual product in itself. He went on to say that allowing users to share their HBO Account with friends is a "terrific marketing vehicle for the next generation of viewers," and that it could lead to more HBO subscribers in the future. "HBO Go is value added - what you want to watch," Plepler said, in response to questions about offering HBO Go as a stand alone product. "Right now, that's the right model for us. Are we always thinking about optionality, of course we are always thinking about optionality... if the arithmetic changes and made sense in a different way we are not going to be caught without the ability to pivot."

I take this as a breath of fresh air, and hope that more companies will be open to this kind of thinking, and will lessen their restrictions on account sharing in the future. HBO has the right idea, and if more companies follow suit, we could see a sort of "mini revolution" in the content streaming arena that would lead to more competition and value for the customer in the future.

Something that has just popped up into my radar in the last few minutes, is Transcendence. Transcendence is Wally Pfister's directorial debut, which stars Johnny Depp and Morgan Freeman.

There are two trailers, the one above which is narrated by Morgan Freeman, and the one below, which is narrated by Depp. Transcendence is based around the idea of artificial intelligence (AI), where work is done to create a sentient machine that 'combines intelligence of everything ever known with the full range of human emotion.'

The full synopsis makes it seem very, very intriguing:

The New Zealand government has inked a deal with James Cameron and major studios for not one, but three Avatar sequels to be filmed in the country. New Zealand Prime Minister, John Key, announced the news, stating that there would be a budget of at least $NZ500 million ($461 million or so) spent locally during its production.

Where Cameron and the movie studios benefit by shooting in NZ, is that if the three Avatar movies meet the requirements of the deal between the NZ government and the studios, they will qualify for a total tax rebate of 25%, which gets pumped into the Avatar movies. The requirements include:

The new movies will reach us on Christmas 2017, 2018, and 2019.