Are BD-Live Capable Blu-ray Decks The Next Broadband STB?

Korean company Dreamer yesterday announced their BIDDLE™ Technology, which appears to be a BD-Live based platform for Blu-ray players to act as broadband content set-top boxes. The BIDDLE technology is currently used by over one million customers in Korea where it is used by #1 IPTV provider Korea Telecom and #1 cable MSO CJ CableNet. Checking out the website, it really looks like quiet an interesting platform, above and beyond the conventional BD-Live content we’ve seen announced to date, or the online content HD DVD used to have. It looks like it could really be a content delivery platform to turn any BD-Live enabled device into a receiver for broadband content.

Here’s Dreamer’s press release:
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Amazon Buy Two, Get One Free Blu-ray Sale

This is nice to see, Amazon is running a Buy Two, Get One Free Blu-ray sale with 34 titles to choose from. Most of the titles are priced at $27.95, though some are $20.95, and two for $19.95. Of course, the way it works is that the cheapest title out of three is the free one. So if you purchase three $27.95 titles and three $20.95 titles, you’d get two $20.95 titles free. Here’s a little tip – make two orders, three $27.95 in one, three $20.95 in the other – then you get one $27.95 and one $20.95 free, saving $7 more. (And you can combine open orders later if you want to.)

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Stark Industries “Iron Man” Mk. I

Not ready for prime time…

Anybody who’s been here a while knows I’m a big fan of Stark Industries products, and I’ve been excited about this product since the first buzz for it hit Popular Mechanics a couple of years ago. We’ve been hearing that the future belongs to exoskeletons for a long time, and it seemed to me that if anybody was ever going to make it a working reality, it’d be the alpha bull engineers at SI.

Well… I’ve had the chance to try out the prototype, and it pains me to say it, but I must be honest: I found it disappointing.
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Hauppauge HD PVR Delayed Until Mid-May

The Hauppauge HD PVR USB add-on for PCs was supposed to start shipping May 1st, but it didn’t make it. Brent Evans over at Zatz Not Funny reports that Hauppauge tells him it has been delayed until mid-May at the earliest, as they work on driver issues. As he reports:

* For those with an online order # of 32700-33600 you’re first in line – your HD-PVR should ship by Mid-May 2008
* For those with an online order # of 33601-34600 you’re second in line – your HD-PVR should ship by the end of May 2008
* If you’re order number is after 34600, it will likely be after May 2008.

So if you’re waiting on your order, you’ll have to be a patient a while longer.

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CableCARD Install Process Still Needs Improvement

Blogger Christopher Price live-blogged his CableCARD install experience in his new TiVo HD today. While his experience is certainly not as bad as others have experienced, it still shows that the cable industry has some work to do on improvement the CableCARD install experience. The first card in his install failed, and Comcast had to provide a second card, which worked. It would really be helpful if the cable companies would update the cards to the latest firmware and test them before sending them into the field to customers. And give installers spare cards. Dead CableCARDs are too common (again, test them first!), and I’ve been burned by the installer needing to call around and hunt down another card too. It has to cost the cable MSOs as well, having installers wasting time waiting for cards, needing to run back to the office, etc. Why not make life better for everyone and give them some spares? (And did I say test them first?)

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