Hasta La Gadget!

Figuring out how long to leave your Thanksgiving turkey in the oven feels like a stress nightmare from high school algebra. Converting pounds of turkey into minutes of cooking is way easier when you’ve got a tangible reference point. Say, two adorable holiday-themed kids movies.

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Apple continues to roll out its staged partner additions, with two new channels appearing on the streaming media player today. The Major League Soccer channel brings soccer (or “football,” depending on how European you are) and the Disney Junior channel adds a third outlet for that media giant’s content to invade your Apple TV.

The Disney Junior channel requires authentication via cable providers to ensure you have a subscription that allows access to its live programming and on-demand shows, which is the same et up that Disney Channel XD and Disney Channel on Apple TV use. That’s similar to how its HBO offering operates, and content providers in general seem keen on this kind of arrangement for bringing content to Apple’s streamer that used to be locked to cable company set-top boxes.

The MLS app provides scores and highlights for everyone who enjoys American and Canadian teams playing the sport where you kick a ball towards (or away from) a giant net on a big green field, whatever you choose to call that. It also offers access to live streaming matches via MLS Live, but you’ll need an annual subscription (starting at $14.99, with direct purchase through Apple TV available) to unlock that feature. The nice thing is that it covers an entire season’s worth of games, and also works on the MLS iPhone and iPad apps.

Apple is pretty much always adding new content and channels to the Apple TV these days, and clearly wants to make it a destination device for top-tier providers. It’s competing in a market that includes Roku and various built-in smart TVs from almost every OEM at this point, which have access to channel libraries that can number in the hundreds or even thousands, so building partnerships is a good idea at this point.

The Apple TV is getting lots of love lately from Apple, via a recent software update and a new feature that lets you setup a new streaming box with a simple tap of your iPhone or iPad thanks to the magic of Bluetooth LE. Rumors have been swirling about refreshed hardware coming soon, too, so it’s possible that’s why the company is lavishing so much attention on software of late.

Movie studios are betting you’re crazy impulsive when it comes to picking what movie you want to watch. Apparently, many movie titles are selected purely on alphabetical prioritization, so that they’ll pop up higher on your on demand menu. If your movie isn’t good art, you’ve got to make an art out of the business side of filmmaking.

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It’s just as likely that you’ll know Acetrax from the video services it’s behind, as from its own branded offerings. Regardless of how you might use the service, its owner Sky is pulling the plug on June 21st. Impact to pay-per-view customers should mean nothing more than looking elsewhere, but those who bought titles outright will need to download them before the cutoff (there are a bunch of caveats though). The same goes for account credit — either use it, or face the hassle of claiming it back after the fact. There’s an FAQ on the website outlining the best course of action depending on your situation, so we’d suggest you head there first before working your way through your rental library.

Filed under: Home Entertainment, HD

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Via: CNET

Source: Acetrax

Another sign of the swift rise of tablets today: last month tablet usage of the BBC’s on-demand online TV service iPlayer edged past mobile for the first time, with 41 million programme requests by tablet vs. 40 million on mobile, according to BBC stats for the month. There were 200,000 more requests on tablets than mobiles. Overall, across all device types, the service saw 272 million full length programme requests in March in the U.K.

As a percentage of the overall requests by device type, tablets and mobiles took a 15% of the March pie. Judging by the below graph, the two devices have clearly been eating into the share of the main iPlayer access device: the traditional computer. The stats show mobiles and tablets have driven down the usage on computers from 59% in March 2012 to 47% in March 2013. Over the same period, tablets have grown their share from 6% to 15%, and mobiles from 9% to 15%.

This finding aligns with wider industry analysis that PC shipments are declining as people buy and use alternative smart connected devices, such as tablets and smartphones. Gartner predicts almost 200 million tablets will ship globally this year, powered by YoY growth of nearly 70% (IDC pegs the rate at 78.4%). While, in another related data point to the BBC’s figures, last month, Adobe’s latest Digital Index recorded the proportion of web traffic coming from tablets also pushed past smartphones for the first time.

The BBC’s on-demand TV service, which lets viewers catch up on scheduled programmes after they have been broadcast, is exactly the sort of app you’d expect to thrive on the tablet form factor — which is both portable and has a screen that is large enough to view high production value video content without compromising the overall viewing experience. And the BBC’s iPlayer data bears this out: with considerably higher tablet usage for TV programmes vs radio content.

Looking specifically at TV content, the BBC said tablets took a 19% share of iPlayer programme requests in March compared to 17% for mobile. But its radio only data shows tablets dropping right down to 4% while mobile took 10%. Computers swelled their share to 68% of the radio data — suggesting people who are using their computer to multitask use iPlayer to stream radio in the background while they browse the web or work.

The BBC’s iPlayer data also flags up another interesting difference between how people consumer TV and radio content online — with the majority (88% in March) of TV requests being on-demand (i.e. catch up) requests, rather than live TV viewing. But for radio the proportion is almost reversed, with 83% of the radio requests being for live listening.

The BBC licence fee may explain a portion of this behaviour, since iPlayer users are required to be licence-fee paying to view live TV (but do not need to for radio). But it also suggests continued decline in live TV viewing among the iPlayer demographic (which skews younger than traditional TV viewers, with 76% of iPlayer users aged under 55 as of Q4 2012). The proportion of live TV viewing on iPlayer did increase in August (to 32%), possibly owing to the Olympics.