Considering that Hugo was a flick capable of earning 4 out of 4 stars from noted 3D hater Roger Ebert, it will be interesting to see how it's received upon its home release February 28th. Nominated for 11 Academy Awards and currently rocking a 94 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes, the fantasy tale of a boy who crosses paths with legendary filmmaker Georges M
Apple added a new wrinkle to its hobby overnight, as AppleInsider reports the Genius recommendation feature added in iTunes 8 now offers up suggestions for movies and TV shows. The new Apple TV feature appears to have been switched on from the back end servers with no firmware update, displaying the new Genius option under Movies and TV Netflix-style as shown above. We're not sure you really needed anyone else telling you it's definitely time to check out The Wire or Breaking Bad, but with competitors like Google already taking aim at improving content discovery and recommendations it's a logical next step for whatever Apple's living room ambitions ultimately become.
Apple TV gets into video discovery, adds movie and TV show Genius Recommendations originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 04 Feb 2012 06:16:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
The Google TV update that rolled out to Sony units earlier this week (no word on the Revue, yet) brought tweaks to Chrome and support for Blu-ray 3D playback on the player, but that's not all. The bump to Android 3.2 also improved hooks for developers to access channel listings in their apps, enabled hardware acceleration and last but not least, improved support for HTTP Live Streaming. That last detail is particularly important to those streaming video from their PCs using Plex, since additional HLS tweaks were necessary to allow viewing of files transcoded from otherwise-Google TV unfriendly formats. Also supported as in the Plex update is selection of alternate audio streams, subtitles, more channels and a few other fixes. Check out a Google+ post from Les Vogel of the Google TV team for all the Honeycomb 3.2 (API Level 13) details you can stomach, the Plex blog for more info on its software, or just make sure you're running the latest updates and take a look around yourself.
Google TV 3.2 update enhances HLS video streaming support, Plex update takes advantage originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 03 Feb 2012 23:52:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Continue reading Netflix teams with eyeIO to lower bandwidth use on movie night
Netflix teams with eyeIO to lower bandwidth use on movie night originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 03 Feb 2012 21:44:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Panasonic's released its 2012 quarterly report (its financial year runs from summer to summer) and concedes it's been as bad for them as it was for Sony and Sharp. It's blaming the Japanese Earthquake for damaging its supply chain, a strong yen for keeping prices high, plus having to write-down the costs for its acquisition of Sanyo. The company's promising to restructure (in the face of stern competition from Samsung and LG) to become a "green innovation" business as well as to streamline its operating costs. It's predicting a quarterly loss of $9.2 billion as it takes the hit for this turmoil, and it doesn't look like things will improve with an anticipated further loss of another $2 billion at the end of the (financial) year.
Continue reading Panasonic 2012 Q3: $9 billion loss, Sanyo writedowns, restructuring
Panasonic 2012 Q3: $9 billion loss, Sanyo writedowns, restructuring originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 03 Feb 2012 05:54:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
The old guard's attempt at a social TV companion just got real with the launch of ConnecTV in open beta for iPad, PC and Mac -- smartphones and Android tablet versions are coming soon. The idea is you'll load up this app while watching TV and find a whole new way to discover details of your favorite content while at the same time share with your friends. The app uses a mic to detect what you're watching just like IntoNow and links up with both Facebook or Twitter (it'll also work on its own). Overall we were underwhelmed and quickly realizing that the other startups are way ahead in both release date and functionality. For starters, there are plenty of channels missing and not a single channel number. You can't even search for your favorite shows or channels. But even when it did manage to figure out what we were watching, we felt like we were being forced fed useless data like trivia and ads rather than having useful information like actors or players names at our finger tips. There's no doubt in our mind that the app was designed more to make us discover certain content rather than discover shows based on our actual tastes. Then again, this is the first version out of the gate, but somehow we think ConnecTV's business model will get in the way of ever making anything truly useful.
Continue reading ConnecTV social companion beta launches for iPad, PC and Mac (hands-on)
ConnecTV social companion beta launches for iPad, PC and Mac (hands-on) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 02 Feb 2012 22:04:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
The thing about the American civil court system is you can almost never stop looking over your shoulder, even when you thought you won. Things get appealed and what was a favorable ruling can become your worst nightmare five years later. That's what the folks at Kaleidescape are facing if the latest tentative judgement in its case vs the DVD Copy Control Association, which licenses DVD's defunct copy protection, CSS. Last time around Kaleidescape was on the other side of the ruling with the Judge agreeing that there was no violation of any terms of service. This time around? Not so much. It would mean a shift in legal DVD servers, but we'd imagine Blu-ray takes up most of the market by now anyway. Currently Kaleidescape's Blu-ray products authenticate the disc is in the vault before playing, and its CEO has testified modifications could be made to the DVD products within a few months. So with Managed Copy being DOA and UltraViolet being anything but disappointing to anyone, days without keeping track of discs to watch the movies you own seems like a fairy tale -- legally anyways.
Latest Kaleidescape tentative judgement could mean the end of untethered disc servers originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 02 Feb 2012 09:39:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
We were told at CES last month to expect Vizio's ultrawidescreen LCDs would hit the market sooner rather than later, now we know how it will fit into our budgets, even if we're not sure how the aspect ratio will fit in our living rooms. Similar to the way its first Theater 3D TVs popped up last year, the XVT 3D CinemaWide product page reveals a 58-inch model (50- and 71-inchers are also planned) sporting its trademark 21:9 aspect ratio (compared to a traditional HDTV's 16:9) and 2560x1080 resolution will start at $3,499. It also has an array of specs, measuring the 120Hz Edge LED lit screen at 56.7-inches wide by 29-inches high and 1.8-inches deep. Just as we saw when they were first announced at CES 2011, Vizio upscales Blu-ray and other wider-than-widescreen sources to fill the screen without those black bars we've become accustomed to. If you're watching standard HD programming, the extra space alongside can accommodate tiles for Yahoo! Widgets pulling information from the internet without blocking the picture at all. Check our gallery below for a better look and a demo video after the break, we'll keep an ear to the ground to find out when and where these displays might hit the market first.
[Thanks, chilipalm]
Continue reading Vizio reveals $3,499 price for its 58-inch ultrawidescreen HDTV
Vizio reveals $3,499 price for its 58-inch ultrawidescreen HDTV originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 01 Feb 2012 20:59:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Sony Google TV gets update this week, brings speedier Chrome and 3D Blu-ray support originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 01 Feb 2012 15:19:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
It's been less than a year since CyberLink revealed PowerDVD 11 and now along comes PowerDVD 12. Among the new features in 12 is the ability to sync media -- we can only assume this excludes protected content -- to PowerDVD Mobile for Android as well as automatically transcode videos for most of the popular mobile devices. Said mobile clients are only free, though, if you opt of the $99 Ultra version of PowerDVD. PowerDVD Mobile is available for everyone else for $19.99, as well as PowerDVD Remote for $4.99. Overall it seems like an iterative update that might not hit the spot at $45 (for an upgrade), but there are other new features like OGG and FLAC support that might just push you over the edge.
Continue reading PowerDVD 12 brings syncing and transcoding for mobile devices
PowerDVD 12 brings syncing and transcoding for mobile devices originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 01 Feb 2012 14:23:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
