Amazon Unbox weekly 99-cent sale, and more free downloads

Posted on Friday, September 21, 2007 by MegaZone

This time around Amazon Unbox is offering We Are Marshall, Hot Fuzz, Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, Lucky You, The Contract, and Superman: Doomsday as their 99-cent rentals.

The lineup of free TV pilot/premier episode downloads has expanded as well, and now includes Back to You, Til Death, K-Ville, Prison Break, Big Bang Theory, Journeyman, Bionic Woman, Life, and Chuck.

So far I’ve watched the last five of those, and decided to add a Season Pass for Bionic Woman (which I was going to check out anyway, as BSG fan) and Chuck (which I hadn’t heard of before, so chalk one up for the promo download). Life just totally failed to interest me. JourneyMan just didn’t work for me, I felt the writers tossed in things that weren’t needed and didn’t work. And I see the romantic triangle thing getting old real quick – it was old for me before the end of the first episode. All in all it felt like an attempt at an ‘edgy’ Quantum Leap.

Big Bang Theory I might give another chance, I’m still thinking about it. But it seemed to me mostly juvenile humor with a wrapper of pseudo-geek-speak. I am a big geek (unabashedly so), most of my friends are big geeks. I attended a geek school (WPI), work in the Internet industry (in development and IT), and have been in SF & anime fandom since high school. I’ve even helped run conventions (Anime Expo, AXNY, Pacific Media Expo, etc) since 1992 and I’ve seen many people who make me go “Damn, that person is such a geek it is scary”, and even people who really have no social skills at all – and the characters on the show were still unbelievable to me. Too one-dimensional.

I’ve downloaded K-Ville but haven’t had time to watch it yet. But the description makes me roll my eyes a bit: “…and Trevor Cobb, the redemptive tough and committed cop harboring a dark secret…” What is up with characters “harboring a dark secret” these days? I swear if the networks made a new Smurfs they’d have at least one of them harbor some ‘dark secret’. (Shady Smurf is really an undercover Snork!) It is really getting worn out. Prison Break – never got into it, don’t intend to start now. Back to You and Til Death – just based on the description/clips online I’m giving them a miss. Frankly, I’m reluctant to watch any new programs these days, as it seems most of those I end up liking get canceled anyway.

So, what do you think of these new shows? And what about this kind of marketing, allowing people to download the first episode free to check out ahead of the airing?

Posted in Amazon Unbox, TiVo | 3 Comments

A good reason not to buy a Hava

Posted on Friday, September 21, 2007 by MegaZone

Hava is a line of place-shifting devices from Monsoon Multimedia, similar to a Slingbox. Well, apparently, they’re not being good net citizens. Monsoon admits that the Hava used code from the open-source BusyBox project, which is a toolset for embedded Linux platforms. The code is covered under the GPL, and one of the requirements of the GPL is that anyone using GPL’d code must release any changes to the code back to the community.

Well, Monsoon is not doing so, in violation of the license. This has caused the Software Freedom Law Center to file a copyright infringement lawsuit against Monsoon Multimedia on behalf of the creators of Busy Box, the first ever US GPL violation lawsuit. So this could be a major test case for the GPL in the courts.

As an example of a company that does it right, TiVo, which uses the Linux kernel (which is under GPL), makes all of their kernel source changes available as required.

I’ve always felt that the Slingbox is a better product that the Hava, with certain narrow exceptions (the Hava can work as a remote tuner for Windows-based DVR software), but to me this is the best reason not to buy a Hava – or any Monsoon Multimedia product for that matter. I believe in open source and it rubs me the wrong way for a company to violate the terms of a license for their own benefit to the detriment of the community at large. Until such time as Monsoon complies with the terms of the GPL, I will strongly recommend that no one buy their products, simple.

Picked up from Technocrat.

Posted in General Tech, Sling Media | Leave a comment

Blu-ray & HD DVD news round-up

Posted on Friday, September 21, 2007 by MegaZone

A smattering of format war news from the past few days…

Most of the time retailers announce what products they will carry – so it is a little unusual that Wal*Mart has gone out of their way to say they will not be carrying the $199 Venturer SHD7000 HD DVD player. Picked up from Gizmodo.

CNet News.com has an article on the reported pay-off to Paramount and Dreamworks Animation to go HD DVD exclusive, in which Disney claims to have not received any payments to back Blu-ray.

Electronic News reports that the next Intel Centrino, codenamed Montevina, will have native support for both Blu-ray and HD DVD when it launches in 2Q08.

Screen Digest released a study that predicts that both Blu-ray and HD DVD will remain viable formats and will end up co-existing in the market.

Sharp and Pioneer are linking up to advance Blu-ray and other consumer technologies, according to TWICE magazine. Sharp is investing in Pioneer to the tune of $357.3 million to acquire 30 million shares on December 20th. That will give Sharp a 14.28% stake in Pioneer, making them the largest shareholder. In return, Sharp is selling .9% of its shares, 10 million, to Pioneer for $172.3 million. For Blu-ray, Sharp wll focus on the blue-violet laser diodes and Pioneer with focus on the drives. Picked up from Blu-ray.com

According to Forbes.com, representatives from both the Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD camps will go head to head on a panel at the 2007 HDTV Conference on October 10-11, 2007 in Los Angeles, California. Picked up from EngadgetHD.

Posted in Blu-ray/HD DVD | Leave a comment

TiVo looks to raise $100 million

Posted on Friday, September 21, 2007 by MegaZone

TiVo has filed with the SEC to raise up to $100 million through the sale of debt securities, preferred stock, and common stock under a shelf registration. The cash raised will be used for general corporate purposes, (including research and development), sales and marketing, working capital, reducing debt, and/or capital expenditures.

Posted in TiVo | Leave a comment

Site update

Posted on Thursday, September 20, 2007 by MegaZone

Well, I really got behind in posting about site updates – there have been several changes since the last update post in June.

At the time I mentioned I was trying out FeedBurner – well, I’ve been extremely happy with it and I’m actively using it to track the site info. If you have a blog, I strongly encourage you to check it out – and hey, it is free. I’ll also toss in a recommendation for Google Analytics while I’m at it – I’ve been using that since I started the site. Before that even, as I’ve used it on other sites as well.

There have been a few WordPress updates as well as updates to several of the plug-ins I’m using, those have gone smoothly – as evidenced by it not being noticeable on the site. Oh, if you’re doing a global search and replace on your database, be sure to back it up first. If you don’t, it is kind of a pain to write SQL to undo your mess. Not that I’d know, of course. I’m just sayin’…

There is some new content – the TiVo HD review and photos were posted, of course, and the Series3 FAQ is now the Series3 and TiVo HD FAQ, and has been updated accordingly. That will be an ongoing process – and while I’m thinking of it, I think I need to update it to reflect 8.1.7c2. I’ve also updated my Season Pass list a few times since the last update.

I’ve also added more ways to support the site by shopping through the site’s affiliate links. Now you can donate TiVo Rewards points, shop the TiVo Lovers Store, watch Amazon Unbox downloads, shop Amazon.com, shop DVRupgrade.com, shop TiVo.com, shop SlingMedia.com, shop Buy.com, shop BestBuy.com, shop Roxio.com, shop Palm.com, sign up for One True Media, shop the Amazon TiVo Store, or buy paid time for the LJ community.

I like using affiliate programs because they’re win-win as far as I’m concerned. You, the reader, can use them to purchase things you’d buy anyway, and the site benefits from referral bonus for the sale. And sometimes they offer special discounts via the affiliate programs, which I’ll be sure to share with you. I’m especially happy to finally have the site participating in TiVo’s affiliate program for sales directly through TiVo.com. I am selective about which affiliate programs I’ll use on the site. I’ve limited to vendors and resellers most directly related to the content of the site (TiVo, Sling, and Palm and associated products) since I want to stay targeted and not just shotgun all kinds of links at you. Roxio, of course, offers Popcorn 3 and Toast 8 for the Mac, and Easy Media Creator 10 for Windows, all with TiVoToGo support. And One True Media makes it easy to share photos and home movies with friends and family who use TiVo. The links in the upper-right of the site have been updated to reflect these additions. Of course, you can buy anything from the vendors and still support the site, it doesn’t have to be directly related. (So keep that in mind when you’re doing your holiday shopping. ;-) )

Thank you for reading and supporting the site, and I hope I can continue to provide content to keep you coming back.

Posted in Site Updates | Leave a comment