This is the Last Week for Roxio Discounts – Ending 10/15/11

Posted on Monday, October 10, 2011 by MegaZone

Roxio Logo Back in July, just after I relaunched, I posted a number of discount offers for Roxio products. And I posted a reminder a couple of weeks ago. Now this is the last week to use them, they expire on 10/15/11. So don’t complain to me if you miss out, you can’t say I didn’t warn you. ;-)

Roxio is the only official endorsed third party software for use with TiVo & TiVoToGo. And the only sanctioned solution at all for MacOS, since there isn’t a TiVo Desktop Plus for Mac. Here are the discounts once last time, for your convenience:

All Products – 10% Off – Expiration – 10.15.11

Buy Toast 11 Titanium and Save $20 Instantly – $79.99 – Expiration – 10.15.11

Buy Toast 11 Pro and Save $30 Instantly – $119.99 – Expiration – 10.15.11

Buy Popcorn 4 and Save 50% Instantly – $24.99 – Expiration – 10.15.11

Buy Creator 2011 and SAVE $20 Instantly – $79.99 – Expiration – 10.15.11

Buy Creator 2011 Pro and SAVE $30 Instantly – $99.99 – Expiration – 10.15.11

Buy Easy VHS to DVD (PC) and Save $10 Instantly + FREE Shipping – $49.99 – Expiration 10.15.11

Buy Easy VHS to DVD (MAC) and Save $10 Instantly + FREE Shipping – $69.99 – Expiration 10.15.11

Note that since I originally posted those links Roxio Creator 2012 and Roxio Creator 2012 Pro launched at the end of August and they also have a $20 savings.

Enjoy!

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TiVo Premiere Elite Officially Released – Surprise?!

Posted on Monday, October 10, 2011 by MegaZone

TiVo Premire Elite with remote - front Surprise, the TiVo Premiere Elite officially releases today! What? Yes, I know, I have been posting for the past few days about it being available for pre-order, and even initial customer impressions after it hit Best Buy stores yesterday. But just pretend that all never happened, because this is the official announcement!

Four-Tuner, Two Terabyte, THX® Certified TiVo® Premiere Elite Now Available

New Set-Top Box Joins the TiVo Premiere Line and Delivers Unprecedented Offering to High-end Integrators and Home Theater Enthusiasts

ALVISO, CALIF., Oct. 10, 2011 – TiVo Inc. (NASDAQ: TIVO), the creator of and leader in advanced television services including digital video recorders (DVRs), today announced the availability of its latest premium offering – the TiVo® Premiere Elite set-top box. Designed for the most discerning home theater enthusiasts, the TiVo Premiere Elite offers four digital tuners and an unprecedented two-terabyte hard drive for unmatched recording capabilities, as well as THX® certification for optimal sound and video fidelity.

The new product, available today, is TiVo’s first and only retail DVR with four tuners allowing for simultaneous recording of four different shows while viewing a fifth recorded program. Plus, its industry-leading two-terabyte hard drive allows for up to 300 hours of recorded HD programming, that’s two times more recording space than current offerings.

“The sheer power and expansive range of capabilities on the TiVo Premiere Elite answer a demand from our high-end and custom-entertainment consumers; it rounds out our range of products to meet the entertainment needs of all consumers, from general entertainment lovers with TiVo Premiere to the home theater enthusiast with the TiVo Premiere Elite,” said Doug Bieter, Vice President of Retail Sales for TiVo, Inc. “By making the TiVo Premiere Elite available at Best Buy Magnolia locations and through select home theater installers, we ensure our customers receive the best advice and professional expertise for their home theater or whole-home solution, and will enjoy TiVo’s gold standard user experience.”

The TiVo Premiere Elite is intended for use with digital cable systems only and does not work with analog cable or over-the-air antennas. With the added distinction as a THX Certified DVR, the TiVo Premiere Elite offers a high-end solution to get the most out of a customer’s high definition television and cable subscription. It maintains TiVo’s gold-standard, easy to navigate user interface, integrating Web entertainment from Netflix, Pandora, Hulu Plus, Amazon Instant Video and YouTube, bringing Brilliant TV to life.

TiVo Premiere Elite Key Specifications:

  • TiVo Series4™ architecture
  • Supports digital cable, high-definition digital cable and Verizon FiOS®
  • THX Certified DVR, offering optimal video and audio fidelity
  • Outputs: HDMI, Component video, Composite video, Optical audio, Analog audio
  • Video output modes include: 480i, 480p, 720p, 1080i, 1080p
  • Inputs: CableCARD™, Cable coax, Ethernet
  • Additional support for USB 2.0 (2 ports), eSATA for external recording space, TiVo Wireless N or G Network Adapter
  • 2 Terabytes of recording space for up to 300 hours of recorded programming

The TiVo Premiere Elite will be available through tivo.com, authorized home theater installers and Magnolia stores nationwide for $499.99 MSRP. To learn more about the product visit www.tivo.com/elite.

# # #

About TiVo Inc.
Founded in 1997, TiVo Inc. (Nasdaq: TIVO – News) developed the first commercially available digital video recorder (DVR). TiVo offers the TiVo service and TiVo DVRs directly to consumers online at www.TiVo.com and through third-party retailers. TiVo also distributes its technology and services through solutions tailored for cable, satellite and broadcasting companies. Since its founding, TiVo has evolved into the ultimate single solution media center by combining its patented DVR technologies and universal cable box capabilities with the ability to aggregate, search, and deliver millions of pieces of broadband, cable, and broadcast content directly to the television. An economical, one-stop-shop for in-home entertainment, TiVo’s intuitive functionality and ease of use puts viewers in control by enabling them to effortlessly navigate the best digital entertainment content available through one box, with one remote, and one user interface, delivering the most dynamic user experience on the market today. TiVo also continues to weave itself into the fabric of the media industry by providing interactive advertising solutions and audience research and measurement ratings services to the television industry www.TiVo.com

Posted in DVR, Press Release, TiVo | Tagged , , | 4 Comments

A Look at the Vulkano Lava, the Slingbox’s Erstwhile Competitor

Posted on Monday, October 10, 2011 by MegaZone

Monsoon Multimedia Logo Monsoon Multimedia has long been Sling Media’s erstwhile competitor. First with their line of HAVA devices, and more recently with the Vulkano lineup. Personally I’ve always felt like their units were the cheaper, less polished offerings. I’ve always preferred Sling’s products, they seem to have a better ‘fit & finish’ – both in hardware and software. But Monsoon keeps at it, and they have always had a few features Sling lacks, which gives them a niche of their own. One of their latest models is the Vulkano Lava, and my colleague Brandon has a review up at Vulkano Community. If you’re interested in place shifting I recommend checking the review out. The Vulkano Lava is getting close to a ‘god box’ – it is like having a Slingbox, SlingCatcher and a basic DVR all in one box. I think Monsoon needs to focus on polishing the software and they could have a really solid competitor to Sling.

Posted in HAVA, Place Shifting, Sling Media | Tagged , , , , , , | 6 Comments

DirecTV’s Nomad Now Available – Does Copying, Not Streaming

Posted on Monday, October 10, 2011 by MegaZone

DirecTV Nomad Back in August I posted a number of details about DirecTV’s then forthcoming Nomad place shifting product, and it is finally here for $149. It turns out that most of the info I had at the time was correct and, unfortunately, the rumors were generally confirmed. The Nomad is a copy-based device, similar to how TiVoToGo works, and not a streaming system like a Slingbox. So there is no real-time access to your content. You need to load everything onto your mobile device before you leave home. Which is admittedly useful for something like a plane where streaming generally isn’t an option, but if you’re away for an extended time you’ll probably still want a Slingbox to keep up with your shows from the road.

And speaking of mobile devices, right now your options are very limited. You can use a Windows PC, an iPhone 3GS or better, or an iPod Touch. That’s it. The Mac, iPad, and Android devices are all listed as ‘Coming Soon’. Though you can run the iPhone app on the iPad for now. As I previously reported, the Nomad communicates with DirecTV DVRs via Ethernet. Using DirecTV’s existing multi-room system, shows are streamed from the DVR to the Nomad. There they are transcoded to H.264 and saved for syncing with your device. One thing to note, Nomad is a ‘one size fits all’ system. Unlike TiVoToGo, which will transcode to different resolutions and bitrates for different devices, or Slingbox which can stream in anything from 320×240 up to 1920×1080 depending on the device and bandwidth, Nomad has one setting. It transcodes to 720×480 (which is DVD resolution). The bit rate varies, but seems to be around 1.5Mbps.

Up to five mobile devices are supported per account. You can set it up to auto-convert series, etc. Again, it seems to work very much like TiVoToGo, only in a dedicated HW box instead of software on a PC. Transfers from the DVR to the Nomad happen in real time. So a two hour movie takes two hours to stream and transcode. Fortunately, once transcoded and stored, copying to a device happens much faster, with about an hour of content transferred in ten minutes according to reports.

The folks over at DBSTalk got their hands on one early and have written up a first look document. There’s also a running discussion thread in their forums with more info.

Oh, one thing to note, the player app will not work on any jail broken iOS devices.

Via EngadgetHD.

Posted in Blogs, DirecTV, Place Shifting | Tagged , , , , | 7 Comments

Myriad Alien Dalvik 2.0 Borgs Other Platforms Into the Android Collective

Posted on Monday, October 10, 2011 by MegaZone

Android Logo Resistance is futile! OK, I’ll drop the Star Trek jokes, but I do think this is pretty cool. As you may or may not know the application environment for Android is called Dalvik. To simplify app creators normally write in Java, but instead of compiling their apps for a standard Java Virtual Machine the code is compiled to run on the Dalvik platform. Dalvik is normally found only on Android, but we have seen it elsewhere. For example, RIM is working on a system to allow Android applications to run on their PlayBook tablet. That’s basically a Dalvik engine running on top of their Tablet OS.

Taking this a giant step further, at the CTIA conference which kicks off this week, Myriad will be demonstrating their Alien Dalvik 2.0 software. This allows Android apps to be run on other platforms – smart TVs, non-Android mobile phones, e-books, automotive systems, avionics, and tablets – including Apple’s iPad. In fact, they’ll be demonstrating Android apps running on an iPad at the show.

Alien Dalvik 2.0 is the first step towards creating a single app standard and marks yet another key milestone for Myriad Android innovations. Alien Dalvik 2.0 enables the majority of Android apps to run unmodified using Android Package (APK) files. This in turn allows app store owners and publishers to quickly transcend multiple platforms and screens, leveraging existing software and middleware, all without compromising performance. Furthermore, Alien Dalvik 2.0 enables developers to create once and use many times, while allowing operators, OEMs, and even enterprise to streamline app rollout – taking the headache out of platform fragmentation and content management.

Read the full press release for more. They haven’t released any videos of Alien Dalvik 2.0, but here’s one of the original Alien Dalvik release running Android apps on a Nokia N900:

Posted in Android, iPhone, Mobile Devices, Software | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment