TV, Movies & Home Theatre News - Page 86

Almost everyone owns an HDTV by this point, lets face it, HDTV has become one of those must have things that we can't live without. Those of us who are not satisfied with a plain old run of the mill HDTV will be happy to hear that Sharp will be releasing a monstrous 60" HDTV with 4k resolution in February of 2013.

With a resolution of 3,840,2,160 pixels, it offers much more detail than current HD 1080p TVs and even besets Apple's famed retina displays. First previewed at CES 2012, the 60″ LCD dubbed "Integrated Cognitive Creation," (or by its product number, LC-60HQ10) is sure to wind up in the homes of early adopters world wide.

With a price tag of $31,000 (£19,000), Sharp is building these to order as no doubt it won't be expecting many to be sold. We are predicting that CES 2013 is likely to hold some much more cost effective systems at the same size or larger than this offering from sharp.

People may want to stay away from the Kinect if they like watching movies on their Xbox 360. Well, at least if Microsoft decides to implement a patent that was just issued to them last week. The patent in question is titled "Content Distribution Regulation by Viewing User" and deals with adjusting prices based upon the number of viewers.

The Kinect, or equivalent, sensor could monitor the number of people in a room and adjust the pricing for movie according to how many people are there. The system could even, theoretically, detect when more people walk into the room and pause playback until more money was provided or some people left the room.

Another thought is that this could be used to control the owner of content so that the person who purchased the video must be present. This patent could also tie in with one Microsoft received last September, called "Parental Control Settings Based on Body Dimensions," which uses various body shapes and ratios to estimate a user's age.

Avengers fans rejoice! Disney has confirmed that the sequel to the massively successful movie, The Avengers, will indeed hit theaters on May 1, 2015. About two weeks ago, a rumor hit the scene that pegged this as the day that the sequel would hit theaters, but most doubted it as the person claiming this, MTV, didn't name sources.

This morning, Disney unleashed the following press release:

SEQUEL TO MARVEL'S THE AVENGERS TO HIT THEATERS MAY 1, 2015

It looks like The Hobbit, which is now a trilogy by the way, will only be shown in limited amounts of cinemas in 48 fps. Variety reports that according to a source familiar with Warner's release plans for the first Hobbit movie, is that the HFR version will only hit select locations, and maybe not even major cities.

Though, people who have had the pleasure of eyeballing the 48 fps version of the movie have said that it now looks much better than the test footage shown at CinemaCon back in April, which had not "undergone post-production polishing" and received a mixed reception from viewers. Warner's wants to protect the HFR format, where they'll be going into a limited release for the HFR version of the movie, hoping that they'll be able to test the marketplace and expand the HFR release for the second, and third Hobbit movies.

Right now, there are no HFR-ready theaters, with some requiring a simple software upgrade that will be ready next month. It also looks like HFR is the future, where myself, and many people in the industry seem to think its going to take off. Does someone want to find me a theater, and fly me over to the US to watch it at 48 fps? Drool.

Despite the disparity in cost and convenience, DVD and Blu-ray rentals through mail and physical retailers still outnumbers streaming. Rentals through retail stores, kiosks, and Netflix's mail service made up more than 62 percent of all movie rentals in the first half of the year according to NPD Group.

In stark contrast to the figure above, subscription streaming, pay TV video on demand, and Internet VOD made up only 38 percent of movie rentals. Even though rentals are still the majority, the size of their majority has been shrinking. Rentals are down 17 percent from last year and stores continue to be replaced with kiosks.

45 percent of rentals came from kiosks, up 5 percent from last year. Netflix's push to streaming has also contributed to the decline in physical rentals. Netflix announced 530,000 new streaming customers while at the same time losing 850,000 of its DVD service. Part of what is keeping streaming down is the lack of extra features and availability of all movies. Often times a movie is only available as a physical copy.

Computex 2012 - We've just walked through AverMedia's booth here in the halls of Nangang at Computex, and their Game Capture HD device is definitely looking great. If you haven't seen AverMedia's Game Capture HD, it's a small device that can connect up to your gaming console and record footage with no delay or lag.

Of course, taking pictures is just as easy and you can also use those taken pictures and use them as your background on your PC or PlayStation 3. This means if you beat your friend or break a record, you could rub it in their face whenever they see you by using it as your background. Something else that caught our eye was AverMedia's Live Gamer HD.

Live Gamer HD is a PCI-Express based card that has a H.264 hardware encoder built in, meaning you can record gameplay without much strain on your CPU and other bits. Live Gamer HD sports both input and output, HDMI and DVI ports and a dedicated 'record' button for instant response. It captures video right up to 1080p@60 which is not too bad at all.

Just over a month ago it was confirmed that That 70's Show and now front runner for 2 and a Half Men star, Ashton Kutcher, would be playing the role of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs in two biopics of Jobs' life.

TMZ have posted the pictures online showing off Kutcher as Jobs on the set of the tentatively-titled film 'Jobs: Get Inspired". Kutcher dons the black turtleneck and faded jeans, the signature Jobs' clothing.

Mark Holme, the films producer, spoke to Neowin about the casing of Kutcher and the theme of the film:

I saw The Avengers on the day of release here in South Australia, and I thought to myself half way through 'why am I smiling so much?' It was just that good. Unbelievably good. I kept my expectations of the movie low, and it just smashed them all away.

But, I wasn't the only one. Ben reviewed it for us, and loved it too. Everyone else that I know who has seen it has also loved it. But, how are the box office numbers? Well, it's an absolute smash hit. The Avengers has raked in $200.3 million for the opening weekend, which has set a new all-time opening weekend domestic box office record, by quite a large margin.

The last record holder before The Avengers was Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2. The Avengers is the fastest film to ever hit the $200 million mark, and has made a mind-blowing $650 million internationally in just 12 days. Now we have to start wondering what's the next movie that could topple The Avengers for raking in that much cash in an opening weekend. The Dark Knight Rises arrives in just under two months time, but I really think it'll have a hard time beating The Avengers.

The Expendables was an all-out 90s action star lover's wet dream, it featured a bunch of muscled-up, washed-up action stars, together again, kicking ass on the big screen. The Expendables 2 amps this up by putting more stars in it, for longer, and introducing more 90s old-school action.

The Expendables 2 features Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, Terry Crews, Randy Couture, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Chuck Norris, Liam Hemsworth, Bruce Willis, and Arnold Schwarzenegger, all in the same movie. Yes, I'm out of breath too from excitement.

The trailer doesn't show much, but the bit with Willis and Schwarzenegger in the hybrid, bitching, is hilarious. This movie has nothing to do with technology, but what tech fan doesn't want to see a movie like this? It's the opposite of movies like Transformers, and has some great 90s action stars. The Expendables 2 opens on August 17.

Here's some news on the lighter side: At a press screening over here in the USA, it would appear that a projectionist is a bigger foe to the Avengers than, say, the evil god Loki. The new film "The Avengers" is already out overseas and garnering rave reviews is gearing up to hit US theaters this Friday.

As a press screening for the new movie, a projectionist accidentally hit the delete button. One would think that some sort of safeguards would be in place but, alas, it appears that this movie file is just like any other file. No word has been given on exactly why it couldn't be recovered or why there was no backup.

This screw up resulted in all of the press having to wait in excess of 2 hours while a new copy was downloaded. The fact that they just download another copy is actually somewhat ironic with all of the piracy claims being thrown around accusing other people of doing the same. I realize that they pay to show the movie, but it still is quite ironic.