Today’s Sellout.Woot deal is a refurbished Philips Blu-ray Home Theater System for only $149.99 + $5 S&H.
The system includes:
It supports BD-Live and Full HD 1080p. Not a bad system to take to the dorm, it is about that time.
Amazon has a slew of consumer electronics deals again. This time around you can save on HDTVs, Blu-ray players, HD projectors – and for a change of pace, some HP printers.
First up, I’m not sure I’m sold on Sharp’s Quattron technology or not. I haven’t seen a set in person in conditions where I can really judge it. Basically they added a yellow pixel to the standard red, green, and blue pixels and claim in provides sharper colors. But in any case, you can get the Sharp LC40LE830U Quattron 40-inch 1080p 120 Hz LED-LCD HDTV for $649.98. That’s 41% off of the $1099.99 MSRP, a $450.01 savings.
Now, on to less specific deals. Through August 27th, Amazon is offering deals on select LG consumer electronics products. The selection includes two 720p front projectors, five network connected Blu-ray players, and thirty one HDTVs. The Blu-ray players are the BD630, BD640, BD650, BD670, and BD690. The two lower end models are connected, with the BD640 having WiFi. The BD650 and BD670 are similarly a wired/wireless pair, with the addition of 3D and Smart TV. And the BD690 has WiFi, Smart TV, and a 250GB drive for storing media including Vudu downloads. The HDTVs are a mix of ten plasma, sixteen LED, and five LCD, some with 3D support.
Sticking with LG, Amazon has another promotion running through October 1st. This one is offering a free family pack (six pair) of 3D glasses with the purchase of one of five select LED 3D sets. The sets are available in 47″, 55″, and 65″ sizes and each includes four pairs of glasses.
Switching to Sony, through August 27th save on select Sony BRAVIA HDTVs. Thirteen sets to choose from, LED & LCD, nine with 3D. Sizes from 32″ to 55″.
From Sony over to Samsung, where through September 3rd you can get a free Blu-ray Disc player and two free pairs of 3D glasses with the purchase of a select HDTV. The player is the Samsung BD-D5500 3D Blu-ray player, which carries a $159.99 MSRP (and currently stickers for $114.28). The glasses are the Samsung SSG-3100GB 3D Active Glasses which carry an MSRP of $169.99 (and a $43.79 sticker) – and that’s per pair. There are six LED 3D sets to select from, in 46″, 55″, and 60″ sizes.
And finally, for a complete change of pace, save up to 50% off select HP printers. Twelve Photosmart, Officejet, and Officejet Pro printer models to choose from.
Enjoy.
I like Android as a platform, but I also like the Droid marketing campaign Verizon has used since they launched the first Motorola Droid. The ads have been different, eye-catching, and distinctive. The next major Droid ‘superphone’ launch is the Droid Bionic, and it looks like the ad campaign will be even more over the top. The first ad in the campaign is just a brief teaser, and we never even see the phone. It looks more like the trailer for a violent sci-fi cyberpunk film than a phone ad.
Via Droid Life.
I’ve been an Android fan since early on. While I still worked for Sling I had a G1 for a while to evaluate as Android was then slated as a SlingPlayer Mobile platform. And I’ve been a full time Android user since the Droid landed at Verizon in November, 2009. In fact, I’m still using that Droid (now running Cyanogenmod 7.1-RC1), as I’m waiting to see how things shake out in the coming months with the Galaxy S II, Droid Bionic, Nexus Prime, Asus PadPhone, and a few others. But that’s another topic…
So, anyway, one of my few complaints with Android is the browser. Not that it is really lacking in any significant way, just that it isn’t Chrome. We already know Chrome can run on Android, Google TV uses Chrome on Android. And we know ‘desktop’ browsers work in general as Motorola has Firefox in their ‘webtop’ app on the Atrix. There’s also Firefox Mobile and Opera for Android, which are closely related to the desktop kin. As a Chrome user on the desktop, I’ve really wanted Chrome on my phone, complete with extensions, etc. And it never really made much sense to me that the Android browser was a different codebase.
Well, apparently Google is finally bringing everything together. They’re bringing the Android browser into the WebKit fold – Chrome is based on WebKit. ‘Browser’, as it is simply named, has always been based on WebKit, but it has long since been divorced from the core project. That meant that changes in WebKit couldn’t be directly brought into Browser, and vice-versa. That’s finally coming to an end, as the Android Browser finally shares enough code with the Chromium branch of WebKit (the open source basis for Chrome) that it can be based directly on that branch. That should benefit all around as enhancements to one can be easily shared with the other.
As reported by CNET News, Google stated:
The Android Browser and Chrome already share a lot of code, such as the same WebKit rendering engine, V8 JavaScript engine, and HTTP [Hypertext Transfer Protocol] stack. We expect them to continue to share more code over time and have actually started harmonizing our efforts so that Google will have just one port of WebKit to maintain. Beyond that, we have nothing further to share at this time.
WebKit is the success that Mozilla’s Gecko always aspired to be but never quite was – the basis for many major browsers. WebKit started out as a port of the KHTML engine from the KDE Linux project for Apple’s Safari browser. Now it serves as the heart of Safari, Chrome, Android Browser, RIM’s mobile browsers, the WebOS browser, Samsung’s Bada browser, the web browser for Symbian S60, the Amazon Kindle browser, and many others – even Valve’s Steam uses WebKit. So the more developers sharing enhancements with each other, the better for all of us.
I’m looking forward to Chrome on Android.
Via CNET News.
TiVo announced their 2Q2012 financial results today, followed by the corresponding quarterly financial call. The call was where the most interesting news came out though. Early on, at the 07:06 mark, TiVo CEO Tom Rogers confirmed what we basically already knew, RCN will be the first MSO to ship the TiVo Premiere Q/Elite and TiVo Preview later this year. He also mentioned things continue to go well with Suddenlink, and that their recent deployments in North Carolina are the first using an Arris head end system for VOD. So that deployment is proving out TiVo’s implementation of Arris VOD support. (Previous deployments were using the SeaChange VOD head end.) TiVo also anticipates the first trial with Charter later this year.
But, IMHO, the real big news came at the 08:01 mark when Tom said:“Our deal with DirecTV is moving toward launch with the DirecTV TiVo HD DVR now being manufactured. And we expect DirecTV to publicly share specific launch details in the relatively near future.” I know we’ve had numerous release date promises in the past, but DirecTV isn’t going to begin manufacturing hardware if they don’t have pretty damn solid plans to release it. Perhaps the new HD DVR DirecTV obliquely referred to on their recent financial call really was the new DirecTiVo after all.
Later in the call, during the Q&A session at the 42:26 mark Rogers talks a bit about the agreement with DirecTV including the“significant marketing obligations” DirecTV has once the new unit launches. He added that DirecTV will“have plenty of incentive to market based on those obligations.”
And finally, at the 46:42 mark he is asked about the 08:01 statement regarding the new DirecTiVo being in manufacturing, specifically if that means the code had been accepted. In response Rogers stated:“…the boxes are in the manufacturing process with our code having been delivered…” So it sounds like things really are, finally, moving forward to release and based on the statements on the call I think we’ll see the units released this year.
I’m not going to place a bet on it though. Not just yet.
As for the financial results in general, TiVo’s MSO business is starting to show positive results.
TIVO INC.
OTHER DATA
Three Months Ended
Subscriptions July 31,
--------------------
(Subscriptions in thousands) 2011 2010
--------- ---------
TiVo-Owned Subscription Gross Additions: 25 32
Subscription Net Additions/(Losses):
TiVo-Owned (43) (48)
MSOs/Broadcasters 10 (77)
--------- ---------
Total Subscription Net Additions/(Losses) (33) (125)
Cumulative Subscriptions:
TiVo-Owned 1,165 1,366
MSOs/Broadcasters 763 1,018
--------- ---------
Total Cumulative Subscriptions 1,928 2,384
% of TiVo-Owned Cumulative Subscriptions paying
recurring fees 57% 56%
So while they continue to bleed TiVo-owned subs, losing a net 43,000 this quarter – which was down from a loss of 48,000 a year earlier, the MSO subs grew by a net 10,000. That’s an improvement of 87,000 from the loss of 77,000 subs a year earlier. I’m sure a lot of that reversal is due to Virgin Media alone adding over 50,000 subscribers, with the rest contributed by RCN, Suddenlink, & TiVo in ANZ and likely reduced losses from DirecTV. Also a positive, the average revenue per MSO subscriber increased from $1.20 a year ago to $1.94. Clearly the new subscribers are worth more to TiVo.
Update: While I was writing up this post, Dave Zatz also posted at Zatz Not Funny. The biggest piece of evidence is this new DirecTV training video which DBSTalk members noticed, and that Engadget obtained and posted:
Unfortunately the video confirms some of the earlier rumored information. It does look like the hardware is similar to the old HR-22 DirecTV DVR. The video confirms that the units do not support multi-room viewing. They do support networking and other DirecTV network-based features, so whole home support could theoretically be added via a software update. And the UI appears to be the old SD UI, as first reported a couple of years back. There had been some hope that all of the delays meant the unit had been updated. On the other hand, the new box appears to come with the same remote as the TiVo Premiere.
Furthermore, Zatz Not Funny received an anonymous comment claiming the new units will be delivered on 9/25/11. Though perhaps there is another model in the pipeliine, as rumored at DBSTalk.
