hbo

A group of technology and entertainment companies appears to have defied the doubters and is actually launching a new cloud-video platform--thanks in large part to Time Warner's HBO.

UltraViolet (UV) is the name for a set of standards and technology designed to enable consumers to store their movies and TV shows in the cloud. Participating retailers and services will store customers' video on their servers and then users can view the films on a wide assortment of devices from member consumer-electronics makers.

UV is what most of the Hollywood film studios, as well as many others connected to online-movie … Read more

Just a few months after Roku introduced a $59.99 entry-level streaming video player, the company has lowered the bar further with a new $49.99 player, the Roku LT. That's half of the price of an Apple TV, which retails for $99.99.

The new player offers the same 720p high-definition video and built-in wireless of the $59.99 Roku 2 HD but leaves out the Bluetooth and microSD card slot (meaning that you can't add the Wii-like remote to play games).

Roku also offers the Roku 2 XD ($79.99) and Roku 2 XS ($99.99). … Read more

commentary Microsoft just turned Xbox into the Swiss Army Knife of cable boxes.

Forget calling Xbox a game console. That doesn't go far enough. Microsoft today announced licensing deals with 40 television content suppliers, including Comcast, HBO, Verizon and even Vevo, a music-video service.

Microsoft can tell consumers, any kind of entertainment you want--games, movies, music--we got it. One important caveat: the price isn't cheap. To watch shows from HBO or Comcast on the Xbox, you have to subscribe to those services.

If you're one of the cost-conscious people who railed against Netflix after the Web's … Read more

Is Netflix desperate to generate positive news?

Sure seems that way. Someone gave The New York Times a heads up on a licensing deal that Netflix signed with DreamWorks Animation, the home of such films as "Shrek" and "How to Train Your Dragon," and the paper wrote a breathless story about the agreement.

But the details of the pact make it clear the partnership doesn't warrant the Times' goose-pimply reaction.

The paper made much of how DreamWorks is walking away from a licensing deal with HBO, the dominant pay TV service. This is supposed to … Read more

While Dan's changing his newborn's diapers, Scott invites his college buddy, David Tze, over to discuss how a discontinued tablet with no current support gets to be the most popular tablet on the market right now. Fox's announcement to delay its program streams on Hulu causes an online piracy upsurge. The NFL Sunday Ticket comes to the PS3 for a price higher than the current price of the console. Lastly, will backward-compatibility on gaming consoles be missed? … Read more

To some, Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes might appear to be a foe of Web distribution.

Remember, he was the guy who last year compared Netflix with the Albanian army--the view that the popular company would remake film distribution, he said, was a little like saying the tiny country's army would conquer the world. Time Warner has also made it clear Netflix subscribers won't be streaming episodes of HBO hit shows, such as "True Blood" or "The Sopranos," anytime soon.

Because Time Warner, one of the world's largest and powerful media companies, … Read more

On today's show, Google is upset that its competitors are using a giant portfolio of patents to attack Android. Never mind that Google could have joined in the purchase of said portfolio or, more importantly, that it's got the clout and cash to lead a fight against software patents in the first place. Good try, though! Also, our government prepares for the next war on terror--cyber-terror--and will HBO Go ever go a la carte? We hope so!

Apparently we were just kidding ourselves and the Internet really isn't going to send us to some digital TV Shangri-La, where all the content is free of charge, available at our fingertips, and stripped of commercial breaks.

All the signs coming out of Web TV over the past year or more tell us that the TV networks are done with their experiment with ad-supported online distribution and super low-cost content. The returns that these companies were collecting from Hulu just weren't attractive enough for them to brush off cable companies and other distribution partners.

Fox announced yesterday that … Read more

I woke up at 8 a.m., bleary-eyed. I realized something was wrong. It hit me: I forgot to watch "Curb Your Enthusiasm" last night. New episodes tend to post instantaneously, or at least a half hour after the start of broadcast. How could I have missed it? I started to plan when I'd watch.

Suddenly, I realized, I'd become TV Man again.

I've spent a summer trying out HBO Go, the iPad/Android/iOS/browser streaming-video app HBO launched at the end of April. While I bemoaned its limited availability for most people, I was able to get a trial code to look at the service--something I couldn't have done otherwise in NY, even if I still subscribed to cable (which I don't). Meanwhile, I'm still watching Netflix as my go-to general streaming service, although I'm considering a drop in my plan from two DVDs and streaming down to no discs at all.

Both HBO Go and Netflix represent two ends of a new world of streaming-video content that's simultaneously exciting and repelling customers. They tackle the issue from two different angles: Netflix is a standalone subscription service, an alternative to standard TV. HBO Go is a service that requires being part of an HBO-inclusive cable package in order to use; it's supplemental to standard cable as we know it.

At this point, neither one is perfect, but each can learn from the other. And I hope they do, because The New Television, as I like to call it, is something I love. I just don't want it to get muddied along the way.… Read more