We’ve rubbed our eyes four or five times now, but the factual heat remains: Blockbuster — of all companies — has decided to dive headfirst into the movie set-top-box arena. We wanted to believe the rumors were false, but sure enough, it has joined VUDU, Apple TV, Roku and the Xbox 360 in the highly competitive market place for your digital download dollars. For a “limited time,” the outfit will offer the 2Wire-built MediaPoint player for free with the “advance rental of 25 first-run movies, TV shows, foreign or classic films from Blockbuster On-Demand (previously Movielink) for $99.” After that, rentals are $1.99 apiece, and a Blockbuster subscription is not required. The unit itself measures 8- x 8- x 1-inch and includes two USB ports, an SD slot, Ethernet / WiFi and an HDMI port, and it should be available at the company’s website and in select retail stores very soon. So, are you interested in the à la carte approach?
Blockbuster joins the movie set-top-box game with 2Wire MediaPoint player originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 24 Nov 2008 21:48:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Tags: 2wire, breakingnews, classic-films, digital, digitaldownloads, four-or-five, hdrentals, joins-the-movie, movie, movie set-top-box, movies, rentals, select-retail, streaming
Filed under: Home Entertainment
Call it coincidence or call it fate, but it seems something is afoot in the land of the Roku Netflix Player. Out of seemingly nowhere, a fair amount of users are finding that their once beautiful downloads have turned to pixelated iterations of their old selves, and to no fault of their internet connection. As the story goes, some users have found that their box is forcing streaming at “one-dot,” or the lowest quality selection available, rather than the four-dot connection they were using just last week. As you’d expect, the quality of the one-dot stream is rather dreadful, and for those who’ve tried forcing a higher quality setting, they’re stuck waiting eons for buffering and such. Have you too encountered this issue? Or are the internet elves looking out for you?
[Image courtesy of PreGameLobby, thanks Tyler]
Is your Roku Netflix Player stuck on one-dot streaming? originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 13 Nov 2008 09:56:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Filed under: Home Entertainment
If you’re not a Netflix subscriber and aren’t interested in becoming one, please pardon yet another post about streaming content from the formerly DVD-exclusive renter — but for those non-Xbox owning, non-Live subscribing readers who want to get in on some HD Watch it Now action, we have some good news for you. Earlier indications were that other Netflix-friendly devices would see updates enabling high-def support and now, in what appears to be an official confirmation from Roku’s VP of Consumer Products, that company’s little $99 box will indeed be “delivering Netflix in HD by the end of the year,” complete with a tweaked interface to suit all those extra pixels. Additionally, streaming here will operate over lower bitrates than the Xbox is expecting; good for those with iffy download speeds, but perhaps coming at the cost of quality. Finally, and teasingly, Roku devs are said to be working on “another major new feature” that will blow your mind. Oh, how we do love surprises.
[Via Hacking Netflix]
Roku’s Netflix Player handling HD content “by the end of the year” originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 03 Nov 2008 05:02:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment
Of late, there has been quite a bit of press circulating which suggests that Blu-ray isn’t faring too well. At that head of those sentiments was a Samsung UK director named Andy Griffiths, who casually predicted that BD only had about five good years of life remaining. Unsurprisingly, senior VP of corporate communications at Sony Rick Clancy has hit back with an epic tale of why the format is actually not nearing its end. In fact, he suggests that Blu-ray will eventually live harmoniously with digital downloads, and he forecast that BD has “perhaps a decade” of growth to come. He also snuck in a few plugs for his PS3 and BRAVIA HDTVs, but more on the point, he essentially stated that not enough of the world had broadband (yet) for downloadable content to pose a real threat. Right, because the vast majority of the globe definitely has a few C-notes to lay on a BD player. We’re only kidding (kind of).
[Via SonyInsider]
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Filed under: Cellphones, Portable Audio
Nothing like a pair of high-brow Europeans slapping each other in the streets, huh? In response to Nokia’s forthcoming Comes with Music service, Sony Ericsson is confirming rumors by announcing a competing unlimited music download service dubbed Play Now Plus. The service, which will be available “solely through telecoms operators,” will provide subscribers with access to millions of tunes, and customers can even keep up to 300 jams after their 6- to 18-month contract expires. According to SE’s marketing head Lennard Hoornik, it’ll be rockin’ on Telenor within a few weeks, and it will spread from Sweden into more of Western Europe in Q1 2009 and into other world markets in Q2 2009. We’re told that the service will run early adopters 99 Swedish crowns ($15) per month, and so far as we can tell, you don’t have to have a specific SE phone to get in on the action.
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