Austin360 blogs > TV Blog > Archives > TV Technology category
TV Technology
November 13, 2009
TV Guide launches 'Online DVR'
So you missed the first 10 minutes of Tuesday’s episode of “V.” Say you don’t have a DVR — or that you forgot to set it (as I did … oops!) — what do you do? If you have access to a computer (and you do, or you wouldn’t be reading this) you can probably find your show online. But “V” is relatively new and, let’s face it … with online program guides, who besides a television writer really pays attention to which shows are on which network anymore?
You could surf on over to Hulu.com; they have a lot of shows. But not all networks distribute through Hulu. And the newest episodes of some pay and basic cable programs are only available online through pay sites such as Amazon.com or iTunes.
TVGuide.com aims to turn your computer into a DVR with its new “My TVGuide.com DVR” service. TVGuide.com already has an outstanding online program guide — it’s just like your TV’s online guide and its listings are customizable to your television service provider. The new service sports the ability to add shows to a virtual, online DVR that will alert you, when you visit the site, to new episodes that are available and allow you to watch them right there, without having to navigate to various network sites and find your way back.
The site claims that more than 700,000 videos are available to users, including full episodes of television shows, music videos, movies and web-only video content. It seemed pretty comprehensive — they offered episodes of both the new and the old “Knight Rider.”
I gave it a spin, adding shows from ABC, CBS, NBC and FOX, as well as Showtime and the Discovery Channel for good measure. I was able to watch those first 10 minutes of “V” (with limited commercial interruption). Shows from last night were already listed in my virtual DVR, and it showed me how many episodes total from each show were available and how many were new, which was handy.
I was a little disappointed to click on “Mythbusters” and be told I could watch the show — provided by Amazon.com — for $1.99 (ditto for “Mad Men” and “Weeds”), and that show and others provided by Amazon pop up in a new window, which is a little annoying. But Amazon shows you the first few minutes for free and purchasing, if you decide to do so, is as simple as clicking a button (if you already have an Amazon account).
All you need to do to use the service is to browse to tvguide.com and register (it’s free). I suspect that “My TVGuide.com DVR,” and other services like it, will lead me to watch more television online. How about you?
Permalink | Comments (1) | Post your comment Categories: TV Technology
October 22, 2009
Hulu to begin charging for content in 2010
Do you catch up on your favorite shows online?
Broadcasting and Cable quotes News Corp. Deputy Chairman Chase Carey as saying Hulu, an Internet service which currently allows viewers to watch television content online — its slogan is “Watch your favorites. Anytime. For Free.” — will begin charging for some content as early as 2010.
“It’s time to start getting paid for broadcast content online,” Carey said. “I think a free model is a very difficult way to capture the value of our content. I think what we need to do is deliver that content to consumers in a way where they will appreciate the value. Hulu concurs with that, it needs to evolve to have a meaningful subscription model as part of its business.”
While Carey did not suggest that users would have to pay for all content, he suggested there could be fees for exclusive content and television previews.
Would you pay for Hulu? Is this a smart move? Sound off.
Permalink | Comments (12) | Post your comment Categories: Entertainment, TV Technology
September 18, 2009
Digital transition causes problems for some
The Associated Press published a story about the continuing problems some viewers have picking up signals following the June 12 switch to digital broadcasting.
The article quotes Austin’s Andy Couch:
Some TV viewers simply have the wrong antennas. For years, “HDTV” antennas were sold that brought in only UHF. Andy Couch, a Web developer in Austin, Texas, installed one in his attic and was happy with it until this summer, when the local Fox station, KTBC, disappeared from his set. It had moved its digital signal from UHF to VHF.
“Now I have to get a VHF antenna for just one channel? No thanks,” he said.
How has the digital switch affected you? Is your television experience vastly better, about the same or — like Andy — are you having problems?
Let us know.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: TV Technology
September 17, 2009
Time Warner launches Hispanic programming package
Time Warner Cable has launched El Paquetazo, a Hispanic programming package that includes a basic service tier of channels (ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC, Telemundo and Univision, among them) as well as “English Plus” programming from networks such as Animal Planet, CMT, ESPN, ESPN2, Food Network and Travel Channel, according to Multichannel News. It also offers Music Choice, video on demand and high-definition channels.
Information about the package, which was previously made available in Los Angeles and New York City, can be found on Time Warner’s El Paquetazo site. Warning: There a short, looping clip of borderline-offensive, stereotypical mariachi music, but there’s a button you can click to turn off the sound.
Permalink | Comments (2) | Post your comment Categories: Entertainment, TV Technology, TV tips
May 7, 2009
New digital channels replace KLRU2, KLRU-G
Get ready to say goodbye to KLRU2 and KLRU-G.
The two channels, available only to Time Warner Cable and Grande Communications customers, respectively, will disappear June 30 and be replaced in July by a new digital channel, 18.3, available to cable subscribers as well as over-the-air viewers.
The moves are unrelated to this week’s budget cuts and have been in the works for some time now, according to station manager Bill Stotesbery.
“We want to focus on a channel that’s available more broadly,” Stotesbery said. “We’re going to try some interesting and fun stuff.”
Viewers can expect much of the programming to be in blocks designed to encourage extended viewing. Several British comedies, for instance, could be aired over a few hours on a particular night each week.
Create, a station that airs cooking and how-to shows, will continue on digital channel 18.2.
KLRU’s main over-the-air signal, as well as channel 18.2, will sign off from 1 a.m. to 6 a.m. beginning Tuesday night, while KLRU2 and KLRU-G will continue to broadcast 24 hours until they cease operation. Channel 18.3 will also sign off in the early morning hours once it begins broadcasting.
Permalink | Comments (0) | Post your comment Categories: TV Technology
February 5, 2009
Austin TV stations mulling: DTV delay or not?
The federal government’s decision Wednesday to push back the deadline for broadcast TV’s digital conversion from Feb. 17 to June 12 is wreaking havoc on local stations around the country.
In Austin, CBS affiliate KEYE announced on its Wednesday night newscast that it would adhere to the original Feb. 17 deadline and drop its analog signal at that time.
But on Thursday, the Federal Communications Commission informed local stations that they had to file a notification by midnight Monday to make the switch on Feb. 17, and that request could be denied.
Meanwhile, PBS station KLRU plans to drop its analog signal on Mar. 31, while Fox-owned KTBC and Univision’s KAKW are holding off until the new June deadline.
Final plans are still pending for NBC affiliate KXAN. ABC affiliate KVUE did not respond to several requests for information about the timing of its digital switch.
“We’re ready, and we think it’s confusing to viewers to push it to June,” said KEYE general manager Amy Villarreal, who plans to file a request with the FCC on Monday to keep the February deadline. “I’m conscious of the rest of the market and that we all need to help out viewers, but we think it’s time.”
Mark Rodman, KTBC’s general manager, said his station is “pleased that through the actions of Congress and the Obama administration, American consumers will be given additional time to prepare for the digital television transition.”
Cost as well as confusion are major factors in stations’ desire to turn off analog signals sooner rather than later.
Most broadcasters have been simulcasting analog and digital signals for months if not years. In preparation for the switch, which was mandated by the government to free up analog signals for emergency operations and commercial auctions, the stations have devoted hours and hours of promotion and outreach education efforts.
“It’s a significant amount of money,” Villarreal said. “The electric bill alone (for the analog signal) is $20,000 a month.”
PBS stations such as Austin’s KLRU, which operate on viewer contributions and government assistance, face even more dire economic constraints. PBS executives have said they could be out as much as $22 million if they have to run both analog and digital signals until June.
“We didn’t budget to go later,” said KLRU general manager Bill Stotesbery. “It costs us thousands of dollars a month to keep analog going.”
Stations nationwide are wrestling with the delay. Salt Lake City, Spokane and several TV markets in West Virginia have kept the Feb. 17 deadline, with all the stations in those cities agreeing on the same course of action.
According to the National Association of Broadcasters, 143 TV stations already have made the switch, and 60 more likely will follow suit by Feb. 17. More than 200 additional stations have notified the FCC that they want to shut off their analog signals on the original date.
The delay was intended to give consumers more time and resources to prepare for the switch. When analog signals are cut off, viewers with older analog TV sets that receive programming over-the-air with an antenna will need to buy a converter box, get a new digital TV or hook up to a pay service such as cable or satellite.
An alarm sounded among some consumer groups and politicians when the federally funded program to distribute the $40 coupons for converter boxes ran out of money. Since then, more than 3.3 million consumers have been placed on a waiting list for the coupons. Without coupons, converter boxes cost $40 to $75.
Nielsen Media Research estimates that more than 6 million U.S. households are unprepared for DTV.
A recent survey by the Texas Association of Broadcasters found that about 6,000 households, or 1 percent of the 667,670 TV households in the Austin viewing area are unprepared for DTV, with an additional 6,000 households waiting for coupons.
In November about 11 percent of Austin homes were unprepared, so considerable progress has been made.
FCC advisors and broadcasters agree that the best advice for consumers caught up in the confusion is to prepare now.
If you have cable or satellite service, you don’t need to do anything. If you receive programming on an older TV set with an antenna, you need a converter box, a new digital TV or a hookup to pay service. If you can’t afford a converter box, apply for a $40 coupon now and use it before it expires in 90 days.
Permalink | Comments (5) | Post your comment Categories: TV Technology
February 9, 2007
Free 'Friday Night Lights' download on iTunes
Clear eyes, full hearts alert: in an iTunes store message sent out last night, Apple announced it’s adding “Friday Night Lights” to its TV offerings. Here’s the kicker: you can download the pilot episode for free.
Regular episodes are $1.99 and the whole season is available, up to this week’s episode, “Blinders.”
We’ve had mixed experiences watching the show online on NBC.com, so for those with video iPods or a preference for watching iTunes shows nice and legally on their computer screen (or via the TV with Apple’s new Apple TV box), this sounds like a good option.
Permalink | | Categories: Entertainment, TV Technology
May 11, 2006
Time Warner moves National Geographic Channel
If you settled down to watch “The Dog Whisperer” on the National Geographic Channel recently, you may have been surprised — and miffed — to find a blank screen.
That’s because Time Warner Cable bumped National Geographic Channel off its standard analog service and moved it up to digital-only service. You want “The Dog Whisperer?” You’ve got to get digital cable. Period.
This channel jiggle has not set well with a number of cable subscribers.
“Why did you take the best TV channel off the air in Austin?” wrote one not-so-happy viewer. “I am so disappointed and can’t really afford to upgrade to digital right now. Please put it back on the air and tell me why you did this.”
Time-Warner spokesman Roger Heaney responds:
“By moving the network (NGC), it has allowed us to maintain competitive pricing for our standard packaging. Moving this channel is not because we want to ‘up’ people to digital, although we believe that by paying a little more for digital they’re getting so much more in terms of programming and services.”
Hogwash, says Russell A. Howard, vice president of communications for NGC. By moving NGC from standard service to digital channel 232, the channel plummeted from 260,000 local subscribers to 110,000 subscribers.
“Time Warner Cable used to deliver NGC to nearly every home in Austin as part of its basic service, but recently decided to move NGC to digital so that almost 60 percent of the homes in Austin that previously received NGC no longer do. We have been getting e-mails from viewers in Austin who are upset and confused as to why this happened.
“Many people have asked us to put the network back where it was; others asked whose decision it was to move in the first place. Some e-mails even stated that Time Warner informed them that we requested the move, which is blatantly untrue. In fact, we strenuously objected.
“And, just for the record, we have not increased our costs to Time Warner. We would like to set the record straight and clear up any confusion. It was entirely Time Warner’s decision to move NGC to their digital service. It’s a completely reversible decision, and we hope they will reconsider and once again make the National Geographic Channel widely available to the people of Austin.”
The chance of Time Warner reversing its decision is slim to none. The company has been trying to ooch more and more of its customer base away from analog and up to digital. I won’t be a bit surprised to see other channels shifting to the digital tier in the future.
Analog subscribers, who remain the majority of Time Warner’s subscribers in Central Texas, are further irritated by the blank screen on Cable Channel 51, where NGC used to be. The cable company’s spokesman says there are no “immediate plans” to replace NGC on Channel 51 with something else.
“I would like to voice my strongest displeasure to you for this move,” wrote another angry e-mailer. “The channel (NGC) was probably my favorite channel to watch, so I really would like to know who to be mad at.”
Well, that would be Time Warner and the entire cable industry, which is determined to push all of us, whether we want to go or not, into a digital-only world … which, of course, costs more than the old world. It’s called “progress,” folks, and we can’t avoid it.
By the way, the customer e-mails repeated in this blog were provided by NGC, not Time Warner. The newspaper also has received phone calls and written questions about the move.
Permalink | Comments (10) | Categories: TV Technology
April 11, 2006
Online TV? Not for me!
I’m still trying to figure out if this is good news:
The Walt Disney Co. said Monday it plans to offer four ABC prime-time shows — including “Desperate Housewives,” “Lost” and “Commander in Chief” online for free beginning in May and lasting until the end of June.
The entire final season of “Alias” also will be available.
Do I really want to watch watch TV on my computer, the screen of which is a fraction of the size of my actual TV?
I don’t think so. In fact, absolutely not. Besides the relatively tiny screen, the sound on my computer isn’t anywhere near as good as it is on my Big TV.
And, yes, video streaming has improved since its first stop-action, fuzzy-looking birth. But it’s still not nearly as good as the crystal images of HD or any version of digital TV.
Plus, the reason these ABC shows will be pulsing through your computer for free is they are ad-supported, which means sponsors such as Ford, AT&T, Procter & Gamble and Toyota, will be popping into these shows on a regular basis. Computers don’t have that fabulous little DVR function that allows you to zap through ads. At least not yet.
I know this free-TV streaming is considered a Big Deal. The Wave of the Future, in fact. But I still relish watching my favorite shows in the comfy room in my house with the big leather couch and the big-fat real TV. Call me crazy.
But that’s just me. Congratulation to those of you who are always on the move, always moving with your computer and never want to miss an episode of “Lost,” “Desperate Housewives” or “Commander in Chief.” Good for you.
Permalink | Comments (2) | Categories: TV Technology
June 7, 2005
30 ... or not ... Happy birthday, VCR!
On Monday, the executive editor the Life & Arts section, Kathy Blackwell, cheerfully e-mailed me a little blip that had been sent to her claiming that today is the 30th birthday of the VCR.
Sounded like a terrific topic for blogging — until my dogged reporting determined the date to be slightly suspect. Actually, the VCR was introduced for use by the TV networks in 1956. Before that, all shows on TV were live.
In 1975 or ‘76, depending on which Googled source you believe, Sony introduced the Beta system of video recording. Almost two years later, the VHS format came along, thanks to RCA, and quickly bumped Beta out of contention.
So today might or might not be the VCR’s 30th birthday, but what the heck. It’s still a good topic for blogging.
Where would we be without home video recorders of some sort, whether they be VCRs, PVRs or DVRs?
I can tell you where I was in 1979, when I first started this job without this miraculous device.
Because VCRs still weren’t widely used at that time, I spent hours and hours, shivering in conference rooms at local stations watching closed-circuit feeds of TV shows. That was the only way to “preview” them at that time.
Some stations politely ignored me as I sat in the dark scribbling notes on a legal pad. Others felt compelled to pop in every few minutes to ask if I liked the shows and what I planned to write about them. Not good.
One thing I did like about watching closed-circuit previews was stumbling onto the messages that crept through the airwaves from the network honchos in New York to the station managers and programmers.
None of them was terribly secret or embarrassing, but it was funny to hear an NBC voice tell some poor soul at KXAN that the transmission was so rotten that day that it could break at any minute. Or that the show about to be close-fed was, well, not very good.
The next step in my professional evolution was the purchase of my very first VCR, which was roughly the size of a safe. I think the newspaper bought it for me used, from one of the TV stations. It was too heavy to sit on top of the TV, so it sat next to the TV on a separate piece of really ugly furniture.
And boy was that VCR slow. After pushing a button, the machinery began to chug-chug-chug, and finally the drawer lifted up for the tape to be inserted. More chug-chug-chugging followed, and finally the tape descended and started to play. It took as long to rewind a tape on that old VCR as it did to watch it.
In 25 years, 100 million VCRs were sold. Today nearly 80 percent of U.S. households have VCRs or some kind of recording/playback device. Soon those will be replaced by DVD machines that record for playback. I’m so ready for one of those.
So whether today is actually the VCR’s 30th anniversary or not, happy birthday.
Permalink | | Categories: TV Technology
February 16, 2005
Not for me: teeny-screen TV
There’s a strange contradiction going on in the world of television technology. It’s an outright irony, really.
On one side, we have high-definition TV, those crystal-clear images that really must be seen on mega-screens to be appreciated. Gigantic sets with 60-inch screens were all the rage at Christmas time.
On the other side, we have cell phones touting video streams, news updates and, more recently, original “series” with one-minute episodes. These are teeny-tiny screens that wouldn’t recognize an HD picture if they had one.
But tech innovators are proclaiming that portable, weensy-screen TV/phones are the Next Big Thing. They say consumers are ready to move beyond cameras and e-mail in their phones. They’re ready for Tiny TV.
The creators of “24” have produced “Conspiracy,” about an anti-terrorism agent trying to infiltrate the Department of Defense. The series is available on Verizon’s newest mobile phone for an extra $15 per month.
This so-called V Cast service, which debuted Feb. 7, is in addition to the basic service fee. The phone itself, which has a high-resolution screen (that is nevertheless minuscule), sells for about $200.
Verizon isn’t the only cell phone company offering video. Cingular and Sprint have MobiTV for $10 a month. But Verizon is making the biggest push, with three original series and access to CNN and ESPN updates, music videos and hundreds of video clips.
Mobile video is said to be popular in Korea, Japan and Europe, but it’s so new here most people have never heard of it, let alone bought it.
It’s possible that I’ll change my mind about the advent of small-small screen TV, but I don’t think so.
I have no interest in squinting into a 2-inch screen to watch television. I need a big screen, big sound, a big sofa for my viewing experience. My cell phone is for phone calls only. I don’t take pictures, e-mail or text message with it. It’s a phone, for crying out loud.
Cell phone TV is scary. Can’t you just see people barreling down MoPac at rush hour, checking the latest news on CNN or, heaven forbid, watching a UT basketball on their cell phones? It’s bad enough that people yammer on phones while they’re driving. Just imagine how much worse it would be if they were also looking at their phones!
On the other hand, actors who become stars in these little one-minute series episodes sure won’t have to worry about how they look. Unlike high-def on a big screen, cell-phone TV will allow actors to age without concern. In fact, they won’t even have to wear makeup or fix their hair.
Still, the bad outweighs the good here. Miniaturization is fine for model trains and doll houses, but television sets should be huge.
Permalink | | Categories: TV Technology
