Posts tagged as:

HD

From time to time, I have confessed my love for the Vudu set-top box that instantly streams up to 720p quality HD movies (or 1080p quality non-instant) over the Internet to your TV. The Vudu player is not subscription-based, so in addition to ponying up for the hardware, you have to pay an average of $3-5 each time you want to rent SD or HD quality movies. After a while of spending over $50 a month with the Vudu box, I decided check out the instant streaming landscape and take a look at the popular subscription-based Roku player. While the Roku player is often called the Netflix player, that is starting to change as it supports more services, most recently with the addition of Amazon Video on Demand. [click to continue…]

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When I wrote that I couldn’t live without my Vudu box, I already had a Linux HTPC hooked up to my TV and still thought Vudu rocked. Why was that? There was no easy interface for me to work with all of the media files I had on the HTPC. Using a keyboard and mouse to navigate through Nautilus and [click to continue…]

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It has been a while since I have written about my move to an HD home theater setup. Going HD: Part 1 detailed the arrival of Samsung’s 50-inch plasma HDTV while Going HD: Part 2 with discussing the build of an HTPC. Part 3 will discuss the addition of a 5.1 surround sound system and PlayStation 3. [click to continue…]

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Over a year ago I first got my hands on the innovative Vudu set-top box and reviewed its movie streaming capabilities. Unlike the countless gadgets and devices that I come across, I have not outgrown the Vudu box. I use it a ton. It instantly streams rental movies in HD, with the option of even higher resolution ‘HDX’ with a delay. Of course, the Vudu also lets me purchase movies for keeps [click to continue…]

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Taking a note from Hulu, CBS launched an HD video player not too long ago. Their HD video gallery sports streamed, ad-supported clips and full episodes from their primetime shows. The site is plastered with Intel ads and unlike Hulu, videos are not embeddable. [click to continue…]

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Going HD: Part 2 (HTPC)

June 21, 2008

In the first part of this Going HD series I discussed the arrival of a 50-inch Samsung plasma HDTV as the core of my new HD setup. I’ve spent almost two weeks with the HDTV and I have no complaints thus far; it’s a stellar display. The only problem has been getting 1080p HD content [...]

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Going HD: Part 1

June 11, 2008

Many of you have been wondering when or if I was going to impart my thoughts about the recent Apple announcements. To get that out of the way, all I have to say is that iPhone 2.0 is what the first iPhone should have been, and exchange support will be huge for waning enterprise customers [...]

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First Impressions: Viddyou Premium

March 18, 2008

Viddyou, a video startup focused around vlogging, has been beta testing their premium services account over the last week. I’ve been in contact with Aaron Wadler, one of the guys behind Viddyou, ever since I wrote Make This Startup: HD Video Serving Service so I was interested in hearing

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Review: Samsung SC-HMX10C HD Camcorder

March 17, 2008

Around the time that I started getting annoyed with AVCHD and my Panasonic HDC-SD5, Samsung and MWW approached me about testing out the Samsung SC-HMX10 camcorder. After finding out that the HMX10C didn’t use

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Why I’m Avoiding AVCHD

March 8, 2008

Before heading off to the Detroit Auto Show in January, I bought myself a Panasonic HDC-SD5. At the time it was the world’s smallest 3CCD HD camcorder. I loved the form factor and that it was entirely solid state, writing everything to cheap SD memory cards. I didn’t take the time to think about how [...]

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Slingbox PRO-HD: Yes, You Can Finally Stream HD

January 4, 2008

I’m no stranger to Sling Media’s Slingbox offerings and when I reviewed their HD-device-friendly Slingbox Solo in October I was a bit disappointed with the video quality. The main reason for that being I was expecting the Slingbox Solo to actually

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Review: Vudu

September 30, 2007

Ever since I first wrote about Vudu, a Santa Clara, CA based hardware company that had been in stealth mode for 2 years, I have been wanting to get my hands on their innovative set-top box. The Vudu is a $399 set-top box that lets you browse through a massive library of movies (5,000 at [...]

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