Win A TiVo T-Shirt

Posted on Tuesday, April 1, 2008 by MegaZone

TiVo Blog is giving away TiVo T-Shirts – see Alex’s post to enter.

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Gizmo Lovers Logo Finalists

Posted on Tuesday, April 1, 2008 by MegaZone

Here are the finalists for the Gizmo Lovers logo contest. It wasn’t easy narrowing them down, and I want to thank everyone who submitted a design for participating in the contest. I’d like to get feedback from my readers on which designs they like, or dislike. I’ll take feed back through Friday, April 4, 2008, and then I’ll make my final decision on the winner over the weekend. I am leaning toward one design, but it is a close race, and I’m not going to give my opinions lest I taint the feedback. I’d also like this to be feedback based on the designs, which is why I’m not putting any names with the submissions. I’d also like to ask those who submitted the designs to please not lobby friends, etc, to leave feedback.

And note that the order of the submissions doesn’t mean anything, it was just how I happened to save them from the submission emails.

And now, the submissions:

Submission 1:

This submission also included a solid color version of the logo, which may be better for business cards and such, as well as a concept for the site banner. The banner would be transparent in the final version, so it would be white letters on the black background.
Logo favicon logo
Logo favicon logo banner

Submission 2:

This submission also included a solid color version for cards, and a banner concept.
logo favicon logo banner
logo favicon logo

Submission 3:

And a third submission with a solid color version and a banner concept.
logo favicon logo banner
logo favicon logo

Submission 4:

logo favicon
logo favicon

Submission 5:

logo favicon
logo favicon

Submission 6:

This one has a banner concept as well.
logo favicon
logo favicon banner

Submission 7:

This was one of the more original concepts. A final version would be transparent to work on white, etc, but the submission is just on black.
logo favicon banner

I may work with the winning designer to tweak the design for the site. Whatever I end up using will have a transparent background to work on black, white, or other colors – as I do intend to allow readers to set their colors. The contest is really primarily for the logo, secondarily the favicon. I may work with the designer on the banner concept as well if they’re willing. Some of the designers already submitted concepts, as you see.

Posted in Site Updates | Tagged , | 30 Comments

Monsoon’s HAVA Player On Nokia Internet Tablets

Posted on Tuesday, April 1, 2008 by MegaZone

Monsoon Multimedia’s HAVA products are a lesser-known competitor to the Slingbox in the place-shifting market. One of the largest limitations to the HAVA product line has been the limited client platform compatibility, which has amounted to Windows or Windows Mobile (which is still in beta), while Sling Media supports Windows, Windows Mobile, Mac OS, Palm OS, and Symbian OS, with a client for BlackBerry in development. Instead of launching a client for one of these popular smartphone platforms, or even Mac OS, Monsoon has made the interesting choice of developing a client for Nokia Internet Tablets, such as the N810. While the Nokia tablets are certainly interesting gadgets, they’re not exactly a huge market. Internet Tablet Talk got a chance to play with the beta version of the player on a Nokia tablet, and they made a video of it.

I will warn you that the video is, well, slow paced. There isn’t a lot exciting there – it is a new version of the HAVA Mobile Player running on a Nokia tablet. The most interesting thing about that, to me, is that the Nokia tablets run Linux, so maybe this was an exercise to prepare for the growing number of Linux smartphones, etc. I just don’t see support for the N800/810 really selling any HAVA boxes, since the tablet market is fairly small. I’d think Monsoon would’ve gotten more return on investment by releasing a client for Mac OS or Symbian OS.

Picked up from EngadgetHD.

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Sling Media Announces SlingPlayer Mobile for UIQ on Symbian OS

Posted on Tuesday, April 1, 2008 by MegaZone

Sling Media Announces SlingPlayer Mobile for UIQ on Symbian OS

Company will demonstrate award-winning mobile TV solution at CTIA on a variety of Symbian smartphones including the Sony Ericsson W960i and the Nokia N95 8GB

SlingPlayer Mobile Symbian W960

Foster City, CA and London, UK – March 27, 2008 – Sling Media, Inc., a digital lifestyle products company, today announced SlingPlayer™ Mobile for UIQ on Symbian OS™, bringing the best mobile TV experience to this popular smartphone platform. The company will showcase its new software at the Symbian booth (#4855, Hall N4) at the CTIA Wireless Show in Las Vegas, NV April 1 – 3 2008. Separately, Sling Media is announcing that its existing SlingPlayer Mobile for S60 on Symbian OS will soon support Nokia’s popular N95 8GB, which will also be demonstrated at CTIA.

With today’s announcements, Sling Media adds to the already robust smartphone support it offers its customers and gives Slingbox owners the ability to watch and control their home TV using even more of the most popular smartphones available in the U.S. and in Europe. Sling Media expects to release SlingPlayer Mobile for UIQ worldwide this summer and expects the new version of SlingPlayer Mobile for S60 to be available this spring.

“We are excited to expand our support for Symbian smartphones, providing customers with the best possible mobile TV experience. With over two-and-a-half billion global 3G and WiFi connections the market potential for mobile TV is huge,” said Blake Krikorian, co-founder and CEO of Sling Media. “In order to meet this growing desire for mobile TV, we will continue to expand the availability of SlingPlayer Mobile to as many platforms and devices as possible. Adding SlingPlayer Mobile to such a cutting edge platform as UIQ on Symbian OS is a great step forward in expanding user accessibility to their home TV set-up.”

The personalized mobile TV experience for smartphones is enabled by the award-winning Slingbox, which allows customers to watch and control their home TV on an Internet-connected Mac or PC as well as a range of mobile phone platforms including Symbian OS, Windows Mobile, Palm OS and coming soon, BlackBerry.

Sling Media expects to support the following UIQ handsets at launch and will continue to expand handset support thereafter.

  • Sony Ericsson P1i
  • Sony Ericsson P990i
  • Sony Ericsson W960i
  • Sony Ericsson W950i
  • Sony Ericsson M600i
  • Motorola MOTORIZR Z8

A full list of compatible smartphones for all SlingPlayer Mobile-supported platforms can also be found at http://www.slingmedia.com/go/spm-requirements.

“SlingPlayer Mobile for Symbian smartphones extends the reach of home TV viewing to a user’s phone with the same diverse line-up of viewable content. We’re excited to have the SlingPlayer experience delivered to UIQ — it’s fast, it’s fun, and it offers an enjoyable user experience,” said Jerry Panagrossi, Vice President and General Manager of North American Operations, Symbian.

SlingPlayer Mobile gives Slingbox customers their entire home TV experience, including local channels, local sports teams, video on demand, pay per view, etc. Any program that you can watch on your sofa back home, you can now watch via a PC or Mac, as well as UIQ, Symbian S60, Palm OS, and Windows Mobile-based smartphones anywhere you can get an Internet connection (3G Cellular or WiFi). In addition, SlingPlayer Mobile users can also control their home digital video recorder (DVR) to watch recorded shows, pause, rewind, and fast forward live TV and even program and watch new recordings while away from home.

SlingPlayer Mobile does not require a monthly fee or other recurring charges. Slingbox customers simply need to purchase SlingPlayer Mobile for a one-time charge of $29.99 US, $34.99 Canadian dollars or £19.99 Inc VAT British pounds. All versions of SlingPlayer Mobile include a 30-day free trial and can be purchased at www.slingmedia.com.

About Sling Media
Sling Media, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of EchoStar Corporation (NASDAQ: SATS), is the world’s leading digital lifestyle company offering consumer services and products that are a natural extension of today’s digital way of life. Sling Media’s product family includes the internationally acclaimed, Emmy award-winning Slingbox™ that allows consumers to watch and control their living room television shows at any time, from any location, using PCs, Macs, PDAs, and smartphones. For more information on Sling Media or the Slingbox, visit www.slingmedia.com.

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Bright House Giveth, And Bright House Taketh Away – And Giveth Back

Posted on Tuesday, April 1, 2008 by MegaZone

Back in February Bright House cable decided to pull HD channels from their CableCARD customers. This, understandably, created a backlash of complaints from users, as there wasn’t a good reason for the loss of the channels. Bright House did it to ‘prepare’ for deployment of SDV, but that isn’t happening until late in the year. By that time the Tuning Resolver should be available for TiVo users.

This time it looks like the complaints paid off, not only is Bright House restoring the HD channels they took away, but they’re also giving CableCARD customers access to the new HD channels added on February 1st, as well as the digital SD History and Biography channels. Bright House has started emailing those who complained:

Dear [Customer],

Thank you for getting in touch with us regarding our cable programming services. This letter is to advise you that Bright House Networks will activate for your cable service the following channels on an interim basis at no additional charge:

TBS HD Discovery HD
History HD Animal Planet HD
Food HD National Geographic HD
HGTV HD History International (SD)
Biography (SD)

When interactive Switched Digital Video (SDV), or other interactive advanced delivery technologies are deployed, Bright House Networks may need to reclaim these and other channels to create those platforms We expect the first of these new technologies, interactive Switched Digital Video to be available in our service area later this year. You will be notified thirty days in advance of this change.

If you have TiVo equipment, Bright House Networks fully supports the cable industry and TiVo initiative to design an external adapter to support Interactive Switched Digital Video. This external adapter will enable TiVo digital video recorders that use CableCards to access digital cable channels without using a set top box. Based on our understanding, the external adapter will be designed to attach to TiVo Series 3 HD DVRs. Once the external adapter is designed and made available, customers with this equipment will be able to directly access digital channels offered by Bright House Networks.

Thank you for being a Bright House Networks customer; we appreciate your business.

Sincerely,

Sherrie Wrenchey
Customer Care Quality Manager
Bright House Networks Central Florida

I give Bright House credit for listening to their customers and reversing their decision to benefit their CableCARD customers until they really need the bandwidth and need to deploy SDV, by which time the Tuning Resolver should offer a more permanent solution for users.

Picked up from EngadgetHD.

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