Hasta La Gadget!

Aereo has restructured their pricing plans for their antenna television and DVR service. Plans will now start at $8 per month, which gives you access to the service with 20 hours of DVR storage. $12 per month will see your DVR storage bumped up 40 hours to a total of 60 hours of DVR time. Furthermore, there’s no contract to sign, allowing you to sign up for the service essentially risk-free for a whole month.

Aereo is also giving new customers one month free when they sign up, and since there aren’t any contracts or commitments to sign your life away, new users could basically use that first free month as a free trial if they’d like. This is certainly a smart move on the company’s end, as it gives potential users the opportunity to try out the service in depth without paying any money at first.

By moving down to just two plans, Aereo got rid of three of its previous options, including the one hour free trial, as well as the $1 per day plan and the $80 per year annual plan. The annual plan allowed to save more money by committing for a year, but the new plans give you more incentive to upgrade to the $12 per month plan, which offers 60 hours of DVR time, as opposed to just 40 hours.

The $8 per month plan stays the same, and you’ll get free month of service instead of just an hour of trial time. Overall, the plans are a lot more simplified, but they aren’t all that much better or cheaper. The only big difference is that the $12 plan gives you 20 hours more of DVR storage, which Aereo is hoping that most people will opt for. The new plans officially go into affect on May 15.

If you haven’t heard of Aereo before, or aren’t really sure what it’s all about, it’s essentially a service that brings live broadcast television to users over the internet by taking regular antenna signals and streaming them online for customers. The company has been in some heat with television networks, claiming that Aereo is taking away viewers illegally. However, Aereo remains to stay for now, and it’s continuing its expansion across the northeast US as well speak, just recently hitting Boston.

Aereo streamlines pricing plans by axing annual and daily options is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

NHK’s 8K Super Hi-Vision is an extremely bandwidth-heavy format — so much so that earlier tests used gigabit-class internet links rather than traditional TV broadcasting methods. Thankfully, both the broadcaster and Mitsubishi have developed an encoder that could keep data rates down to Earth. The unassuming metal box (above) is the first to squeeze 8K video into the extra-dense H.265 (HEVC) format, cutting the bandwidth usage in half versus H.264. Its parallel processing is quick enough to encode video in real time, too, which should please NHK and other networks producing live TV. We’ll still need faster-than-usual connections (and gigantic TVs) to make 8K an everyday reality, but that goal should now be more realistic.

Filed under: Home Entertainment, HD

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Source: NHK (translated)

Though it’s not as good a another full season, the creator of the cult-classic geek comedy “The IT Crowd” has promised one more episode for the fans. This comedy ran for a total of four seasons starting back in 2006, starring Chris O’Dowd, Richard Ayoade, Katherine Parkinson, Matt Berry, and for a single season (with some guest appearances throughout), Chris Morris. Each of these comedians have found relative success since the end of the original series run.

It was at the German re:publica digital conference that a Q&A session saw The IT Crowd writer and original creator Graham Linehan announce a final episode. This final episode was promised to be a lovely 40 minutes long – right around twice the length of a standard episode – and will contain at least the main four members of the cast.

According to Linehan, the script for this Very Special episode was prepared over a year ago but was delayed until now due to a collection of reasons, pregnancy to alternate obligations. The final episode is set to be filmed in three weeks time, according to Bleeding Cool, and may not end up appearing in any sort of final form until quite a bit later this year.

Since appearing in The IT Crowd, Richard Ayoade has appeared in Bunny and the Bull (in 2009, during the series), Noel Fielding’s Luxury Comedy, Full English, and the made-for-America comedy movie “The Watch.” Matt Berry is perhaps best known for his appearances in other cult-classic British television shows like The Mighty Boosh and Snuff Box, but has ramped up appearances in titles like Snow White and the Huntsman, Portlandia (TV series), and Svengali.

Katherine Parkinson appeared in The Great Outdoors, The Old Guys, Whites, and The Bleak Old Ship of Stuff in extended runs on television and popped up in several movies in the past few years as well. You’ll find Parkinson in Easy Virtue, Pirate Radio, and How to Lost Friends & Alienate People as well.

Chris O’Dowd has perhaps seen the biggest amount of success on television as well as the silver screen, having appeared in the Kristen Wiig comedy movie Bridesmaids in 2011, television shows such as Family Guy (voice), Moone Boy, Girls (yes, that Girls), Family Tree, and Monsters vs. Aliens (voice). He appeared in the film This is 40 and is part of a set of films coming out in the next couple of years: Hippie Hippie Shake, Epic (voice), Cuban Fury, Calvary, St. Vincent de Van Nuys, The Coward, and Thor: The Dark World!

IT Crowd bonus “Final Episode” promised for 2013 is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Samsung’s desire for deep integration of TV services was painstakingly obvious when it unveiled the Galaxy S 4’s WatchON feature. However, that may prove to be just the tip of the televisual iceberg: it’s buying MOVL, the developer of Samsung’s own SwipeIt media sharing as well as the MOVL Connect Platform and KontrolTV. We don’t know exactly how the two sides will mesh, but MOVL expects to merge its connected TV savvy with the “scale and innovation” of its new overseer, according to a company statement at TechCrunch. The only safe prediction is that existing support for generic Google TVs and iOS will likely take a back seat.

Filed under: Cellphones, Home Entertainment, HD, Mobile, Samsung

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Source: TechCrunch

May the 4th is a very special day for those who are fans of Star Wars. Just like the common phrase in the movies "May the Force be with you", the phrase has since been adapted to "May the Fourth be with you", making this day into an international holiday for a movie IP.