Hasta La Gadget!

If you’ve been waiting for cable companies to offer a la carte options, you’ll be waiting a pretty long time. Following comments made by three cable company executives during a panel at CES 2013 last week, it appears as though such subscriptions as a la carte options will remain a fantasy for at least five years, and likely even longer.

Verizon, DISH, and Starz Media are all well aware that many subscribers would love to cut their cable bills down and choose only the channels they watch most often, rather than paying one huge bill for hundreds of channels that will go unwatched. However, Dave Shull of DISH says that, because of various costs, he doesn’t see that happening anytime soon.

Shull said that two companies alone account for about 50% of the DISH’s cost for content, one of them being Disney. If DISH were to unbundle the channels, the cost of the priciest channels would be spread across fewer subscribers, which would mean much higher prices. Shull mentions that mini-packages of related shows, such as sports and family programming, that subscribers can pay for on top of basic cable are about as close to a la carte cable as the industry will get for now.

The panelists acknowledged that the high cost of cable is driving some customers to cancel their service in favor of streaming options. However, John Penney of Starz Media says that these kinds of streaming services will never give customers access to premium content, because an $8 monthly subscription isn’t enough to cover the expense of licensing top shows.

However, this doesn’t mean that other companies aren’t working on similar solutions. Intel was rumored to be introducing their own cable and web TV options at CES, and while we didn’t hear anything about that during the show, it’s possible that it’s still in the making. Of course, Apple could also have something in the works as well. We know they’re rumored to out some new TV hardware, but it’s possible they could have more cable options coming to Apple TV in the future.

[via Tech News Daily]

Cable subscription models unlikely to change in next five years is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

If you let the rows of 3D and 4k displays lining the halls of CES paint a picture of the future of television, you’d be missing a vital component. Tucked away inside a pair of ballrooms on Sin City’s famous Strip, representatives from television networks, software companies, cable providers and advertising firms held a powwow dubbed the Second Screen Summit to talk shop and discuss the fate of such experiences after a very busy 2012.

Over the past year, companies ranging from AT&T to Nintendo created a wave of experiences to complement TV content. Even the 2012 Summer Olympics received the second screen treatment with its very own Android and iOS apps, which let users catch live streams of events, access stats and more from the comfort of their couches. With so many solutions on the market, it’s not entirely clear who will come out on top, or if there’s room on the second screen for these myriad apps to coexist.

Continue reading The state of the second screen: Will TV companion apps proliferate or dwindle?

Filed under: Home Entertainment, Tablets, HD

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The only problem with 4K TV, other than being too expensive for anyone who isn’t a Prince William, is that there’s no good way to get 4K stuff to watch. Right? RED is selling a super-HD streaming box that says otherwise. More »

There’s nothing quite like a war between television manufacturers to bring our the WOW factor at CES, and this year’s Westinghouse presentation includes quite the looker – a 110-inch 4K TV that’ll just swallow your room up whole. This machine is not yet ready for the market, but certainly will be soon – coming in at a cool $300,000 USD when you want to pick yours up with your life savings. Of course this machine isn’t exactly built for the everyday consumer, but getting up close and personal with it will br bringing on the heat to anyone’s eyeballs and brain.

This beast is ready to scale up standard HD signal to fill its monstrous full screen display, running native 4K content with the greatest of ease as well. This is but one of several televisions that’ve been revealed this week by Westinghouse that’ll have you raising your eyebrows, the others being 50, 55, and 65-inch versions of this machine starting at $2,500, moving up to the middle with $3k, and ending on the largest for $4,000 USD.

Each of these sets will be available and shipping in the first quarter of 2013 and will be in stores save the largest of the pack. The giant 110-inch model will be made to order, respecting the idea that if you’re going to pay that amount of cash for a television, the company is going to take care of you. Shake hands with Westinghouse with a 4K television this coming season – and play some Mario Brothers while you’re at it to see how giant the pixels are.

It should be made clear that when we got the opportunity to see this 2013 lineup this week, we saw images so bright and so sharp that we’ll have a difficult time ever looking at a lesser machine again. The room these beasts were in were engulfed in their undeniable wave of image power. Have a peek at the images we have of them above and below, but know that it’s not entirely possible to capture their excellence without your own eyes on the spot.

Westinghouse 110-inch 4K TV eyes-on: massively giant is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Ever since its humble (and very ambitious) beginnings, Aereo has suffered a few hiccups along the way, but that’s not stopping the service from kicking off the new year with a rather striving scheme. The company today announced that it’s expanding outside of NYC and bringing its over-the-air TV broadcasts to 22 more US cities in 2013, with said move expected to reach cities such as Boston, Austin, Dallas, Houston, Miami, Baltimore, Denver, Detroit and Washington, DC. According to Aereo’s CEO, Chet Kanojia, the firm’s been “working hard to bring Aereo to consumers across the country and we’re excited to expand our reach to these 22 new cities,” adding that “consumers want and deserve choice.” Dear, Chet, we wholeheartedly agree. The full list of new markets can be found in the PR after the break, and we can only hope there’s plenty more to come as the year progresses.

Continue reading Aereo plans to launch its streaming TV service in 22 more cities this year

Filed under: Home Entertainment, Internet, HD

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Source: Aereo