Hasta La Gadget!

Loyal subjects of the United Kingdom who also embrace the cutting edge of TV may get an extra treat this year. Queen Elizabeth II has reportedly recorded her annual Christmas Message in 3D, supposedly becoming the first member of the British Royal Family to embrace the video format after Prince William turned it down for his wedding. We’ll naturally need 3D glasses to catch all the nuances if it happens, although the extra dimension wouldn’t be exclusive to the producers at BSkyB who captured it: both the BBC and ITV should supposedly have access as well. While donning funny-looking eyewear for a speech isn’t usually our first choice for entertainment, we’ll make an exception for Her Majesty if Buckingham Palace confirms the 3D broadcast. Besides, it may be the perfect test of a new 3D TV waiting under the tree.

Update: Thanks to reader Steve, we now know that claims of this being the Queen’s first sojourn into 3D weren’t right. While it would certainly be the first Christmas Message in 3D, we’ve learned that a CBC TV crew only just got to shoot in 3D earlier this year. Technically, the very first 3D footage of Queen Elizabeth II was recorded on her coronation in 1953, but it wasn’t discovered and processed until just recently.

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Via: The Verge

Source: The Independent

While Yahoo has had a tumultuous last few years, one unit that has consistently been at the top of the heap is its sports news division. At the same time, NBC Sports has been getting a boost — even without the NHL’s help — ever since Comcast bought NBCUniversal. Apparently between Yahoo’s need to better leverage its media properties and NBC’s free agency after calling it quits with Microsoft the two have found common ground and struck a deal. Although both websites will continue to operate independently, expect multi-platform crossover between TV and internet, cross-promotion with links to NBC Sports Live Extra streams from within Yahoo, new made-for-the-internet video shows combining their assets and Yahoo’s fantasy sports will be the exclusive game for NBC’s Rotoworld site. Check after the break for the press release and a heads up on why even non-sports fans that pay for TV may need to keep an eye on this move.

Continue reading NBC Sports and Yahoo Sports cut a deal to fuse internet, TV coverage

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You may have not noticed, but your cable box at home has a Firewire port on it, designed to serve up content to other devices in your home. This almost useless port — thanks DRM — is a result of an FCC mandate that has been enforced for almost ten years. Due to the lack of use, the cable industry asked that the rules be updated to require an IP interface instead. That request was granted in the fall of 2010 and was supposed to go into effect this very month.

Evidently two years wasn’t long enough to find an acceptable industry standard stack to deliver video over IP, so TiVo and the cable industry requested an extension. The FCC let it be known last week in a Memorandum Opinion and Order that a single standard wasn’t actually required, as long as the IP interface on the cable box used an industry standard — the Commission did bless the DLNA Premium Video Profile as a suitable example. We’ll have to wait and see if any other standards are in the mix, but regardless, TiVo and the rest of the cable industry now have until June of 2014 before every one of their boxes has to be able to deliver HD content to 3rd party devices like TVs, Blu-ray players and tablets via IP. In this particular context, TiVo is being treated as a cable company box supplier, although we’re not sure how this will apply to its retail devices. Only time will tell if this mandate will bear fruit, but with any luck, the second time will be a charm.

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Source: FCC

Our favorite shows, anywhere, that’s all we really want. Of course that is asking too much but we’ll be closer to the dream now that Silicondust has announced its three tuner HDHomeRun Prime CableCARD is a certified DLNA Digital Media Server (DMS). While the options this opens are seemingly limitless, one specific use case is watching premium cable on a PS3. CableCARD tuners aren’t exactly known for their ease of setup, but once you do get this working with your cable company and on your network, it’ll show up like any other DLNA source to your PS3. From there you can browse the list of channels and watch any you happen to subscribe to.

The PS3 isn’t the only DLNA Digital Media Player (DMP) or Digital Media Renderer (DMR) that works with a DLNA DMS, and plays MPEG2 video. However, at this point it’s the only one we know of that also supports DTCP-IP, which is the DRM required to play premium content. A representative of Silicondust told us he’s confident more compatible devices are on the way, while even more devices will support the unprotected content. Keep an eye out for an official list of compatible hardware on its site some time after this update starts rolling out later this month. Finally, yes, you will be able to use your DLNA Digital Media Controller (DMC) to record content to your other Digital Media Servers — is that enough acronyms for you? If this interests you, then stay tuned for CES where Silicondust plans to announce phase 2, which is where we think things could really get interesting.

Continue reading HDHomeRun Prime is the first CableCARD tuner to deliver live TV to DLNA Devices

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The second official beta of XBMC 12 “Frodo” is ready for testing, and if you’ve been waiting to move up from the nightlies you finally can — as long as it meets a few requirements, like supporting Neon processor code (most HTC and Samsung devices do). There’s a compatibility list of devices known to work, although there are known issues with Android 4.2 that won’t be addressed until Beta 3. Also improved in this version is support for the Xbox 360 controller, no matter what platform you’re using it on, along with some audio fixes and other tweaks. Hit the source link for the full list of updates or just go straight to the download page if your media device can’t wait.

Filed under: Home Entertainment, HD

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Source: XBMC, Download