Tag Archives: Entertainment

PlayLater: A Digital Video Recorder For PlayOn

Posted by Steven Swafford on July 28, 2011

PlayLater is a digital video recorder that gives you the freedom to record your favorite online videos and enjoy them on your schedule. As more and more of you are getting your favorite shows online, we felt that it was high time the rest of your entertainment technology caught up. After all, the same reasons that apply to recording TV shows and movies in the old world apply to the new world, right? Convenience, access, and frankly — sometimes you don’t have an Internet connection available and that shouldn’t bar you from watching your favorite shows. The future of entertainment is online and now you can record the future.

Folks, If you are still paying that cable or dish bill every month you have to stop! I will not go into the reasons why here but you should read Fire Your Cable Provider And Save Your Money With PlayOn, Internet Ready TV And Digital Media Devices, and Are Traditional Cable Providers Becoming Extinct to understand the reasons and options you have at little or no cost with no monthly bill.

PlayLater

I purchased PlayOn many months back and I have been extremely happy and now with PlayLater I have DVR capability and it works extremely well after a few days use. Before you get too excited it is worth noting that PlayLater is in beta and only available via invite. I find the interface is easy to use and list all of the available channels and plugins that are installed in Playon.

playlater Interface

Say for example you want to record Covert Affairs that resides in your Hulu queue. Just click on the Hulu icon then find the episode you want to DVR and click on it. From there you have the option to begin recording. If you want to queue a a number of shows you only have that option after an initial recording has begun. Hopefully this is something that will change in future versions of PlayLater.

playlater interface

Once your recording have finished, click on My Recordings and fire up you favorite show all on your own schedule.

playlater interface

Conclusion

Overall the beta version performs better than expected. It is also important to understand that recording can only be viewed on the computer which were recorded. Of course there may be ways around this but I will leave that endeavor up to you.

Are you a PlayOn customer? If so what are your experiences and is DVR capabilities important to you?

Sony Crackle Make Its Debut On The iPad

Posted by Steven Swafford on April 19, 2011

Today Sony Crackle for the Apple iPad and so far I am impressed. This free app puts hundreds of movies from Columbia Pictures, Screen Gems, Sony Pictures Classics, and Tri-Star libraries, as well as hundreds of TV shows owned by Sony all for free with of course advertisements. Don’t let the ads turn you off. They are small and unobtrusive and in my opinion well worth the delays for watching free content. You may recall a previous post titled Are Traditional Cable Providers Becoming Extinct and with the release of Crackle this is just another step in the direction when those coaxial cables are just begging to be cut. If you’re interesting in cutting the cord and saving your money then be sure to read Fire Your Cable Provider And Save Your Money With Playon.

The interface on the iPad is exactly what one would expect. It is crisp and clean and extremely easy to navigate. Take a look for yourself.

crackle ipad interface

There is a fairly good range on content available to include The DaVinci Code, Big Daddy, and Quarantine just to name a few of big ticket Hollywood movies. As a child I grew up watching television shows like Bewitched, I Dream of Jeannie, and of course Charlie’s Angels. Now all of with you can turn back the clock for yourself and watch these classic shows should you have never been so lucky.

You can download the app from iTunes and it’s free.

Are Traditional Cable Providers Becoming Extinct

Posted by Steven Swafford on March 26, 2011

Just the other day I was visiting Best Buy to pick up a Wii game for my daughter when a gentleman from Direct TV approach me about their service. Little did the salesman know that I walked away from traditional cable providers well over six months ago and I have never turned back. Anyhow I let the sales rep throw out his sales pitch and once he finished I asked a very simple question. I asked him why should I pay Direct TV any amount of money for a service that I can easily locate for free or even for a small fee from streaming media providers. The look on his face initially was one of confusion. A few seconds later he began pitching the sports packages and I quickly pointed out that my Apple TV has me covered when it comes to Major League Baseball and the National Basketball Association. Next he began talking about the wide variety of movies and I quickly pointed out that NetFlix has me covered, not to mention the movie database over at YouTube. From this point I even explained that as a PlayOn consumer I can stream media across devices in my home as well as my mobile devices. At this point the representative gave up and said should I ever change my mind that I should reconsider Direct TV. I can honestly say that will never happen!

Stop for a moment and think about how much you’re paying that traditional cable provider. The average consumer pays close to $75 a month and others may pay $100 or more depending upon all the additional programming choices. Is it really worth $900 to $1,200 annually to watch that ball game or your favorite reality television show? Have you ever considered alternatives? Do you know what these alternatives are? More importantly what can you get at will it cost you the $75 – $100 a month? You may be surprised at the answer.

Hardware and Software

PlayOn

playon channelsPlayOn makes it easy for you to watch your favorite videos, shows, and movies from websites such as Netflix, Hulu, YouTube and more on your TV using your Wii, Xbox 360, or Playstation 3 over your home internet connection. PlayOn also works on your iPhone or Android phone.

There are three different license options and they range from $4.99 a month, $39.99 annually, to a one-time fee of $79.99 which is the option I selected. You can even kick the tires with a free 14 day trial to see if it works in your situation.

Out of the box you have access to Hulu, NetFlix, CBS, spike, and many more. This just to start and with plugins you can pull in a variety of content from many other party site to include:

  • Channel 9
  • Crackle
  • Discovery Channel
  • Food Network
  • HGTV
  • South Park Studios

I have PlayOn installed on both my Android device and iPad for mobile viewing. You can even use a number of DLNA/UPnP media devices such as the LG Network Blu-ray Player. Bottom line for a fee of less than a monthly cable bill you have access to the media of your choosing.

Apple TV

apple tvThe Apple TV is a simple mechanism for getting iTunes content from computers to TVs as well as first run movies, sporting events, radio, NetFlix and so much more. There is more than 15,000 streaming movies and television shows for as little as $8.95 per month. It can also handle content from YouTube, MobileMe, Flickr, and a large variety of streaming radio stations, as well as accessing your favorite podcast.

The  beauty of this device is the average consumer can just plug in the Apple TV, connect to their iTunes or Netflix  account and  in no time media is streaming. It is that easy! On top of the ease of use the device itself comes in a just under $100 and can be purchased from Amazon at $99.00.

Roku XDS treaming Player

Roku XDS Streaming PlayerRoku coming in at $99.00 for the XDS or $79.99 for the XD is a little box that allows you to instantly stream tons of entertainment on your TV. Watch over 100,000 movies and TV shows from Netflix, Amazon Instant Video, Hulu Plus and more. Listen to music on Pandora, or listen to your own iTunes playlists. Watch major sports, news, or original Internet programming. It’s all available whenever you want it.

The all-new, top-of-the-line Roku XDS sets a new standard with 1080p streaming video, the latest wireless technology, and Instant Replay. All for under $100. Works with any TV—up to 1080p*. The XDS delivers the biggest and best streaming video experience you can get and it’s really easy. Be up and running in 5 minutes and best of all Roku works with any TV.

Boxee

boxeeBoxee coming in at $193.66 gives you the freedom to watch what you want. It’s thousands of TV shows ready to watch, instantly. It’s tons of free movies, Hollywood blockbusters, and critically acclaimed films. It’s web-only videos from Funny or Die or College Humor. It’s your videos, your Pandora and Facebook feeds somewhere they’ve never been before – your HDTV: organized, simplified and enjoyed from the comfort of your couch in 1080p. No keyboard or mouse required. For serious!!

Get tons of free stuff, and pay for the premium content you want.

No monthly bill.

No more paying for stuff you never watch. No biggie. Finally, TV gets it.

Streaming Web Sites

Amazon Instant Video

With Amazon Instant Video, you can watch thousands of movies and TV shows on a compatible handheld video player commercial-free, using the Unbox application. You also can’t share your Instant Videos benefit with the rest of the family — while a Prime membership. For more information on Amazon Instant Video, visit getting started.

Crackle

Crackle is the place to experience pure entertainment: full-length movies, TV shows, and original series from genres that embody cool — all uncut, uncensored, and unbelievably free. Crackle is one of the fastest growing entertainment destinations today, featuring only the genres you love — comedy, action, drama, sci-fi, horror — anywhere you are. Crackle’s vast distribution network ensures that you have access to Crackle everywhere: on your favorite video site, your television and your mobile device. Learn more about where you can find Crackle on the distribution page.

Hulu

Hulu brings together a large selection of videos from over 260 content companies, including FOX, NBCUniversal, ABC, Criterion, A&E Networks, Lionsgate, Endemol, MGM, MTV Networks, Comedy Central, National Geographic, Digital Rights Group, Paramount, Sony Pictures, Warner Bros., TED and more. Users can choose from current primetime TV hits such as The Simpsons, 30 Rock, Modern Family, Glee, The Office, Jersey Shore, The Daily Show and The Colbert Report; classics like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The A-Team and Alfred Hitchcock Presents; full episodes and clips from Saturday Night Live; and original videos like The LXD and The Confession. Hulu also offers a wide array of acclaimed movies and documentaries, including hundreds of titles from the renowned Criterion Collection.

YouTube Movies

YouTube movies allows billions of people to discover, watch and share originally-created videos. YouTube provides a forum for people to connect, inform, and inspire others across the globe and acts as a distribution platform for original content creators and advertisers large and small. If you’re looking for a current movie or one from 5, 10, or even 20 years ago then YouTube has you covered.

Conclusion

I hope that you have begun to see a trend here. These devices are easy on the wallet, easily installed, and user friendly and depending upon the hardware you settle on and how much your traditional cable bill runs a month you may find that within 30 – 90 days you’re no longer throwing away you hard earned cash.

If you have dumped your traditional provider leave a comment sharing your experience and what you have in place to watch you favorite television shows an movies. If your on the fence and have questions, feel free to ask and we will see if we cannot help you make this move.

How To Use ScreenFlow To Capture Netflix Streaming Media

Posted by Steven Swafford on March 19, 2011

streaming media

First things first, I am not advocating violating copyright laws and you should clearly understand the Digital Millennium Copyright Act surrounding digital media before you try capturing media. Previously I wrote about How to Backup DVDs with Handbrake and this article is very different in nature. Because you do not own the content that you wish to capture you will likely find yourself in a legal battle should you distribute such content. That being said since I am a paying NetFlix subscriber there are often times that I may be traveling and I don’t have access to the internet. Because of this fact I thought to myself there must be a way to capture that movie or television show and play it on my iPad and then ultimately deleting the media once I have watched it.

In the past few months I have begun using my MacBook Pro more and more and when it comes to digital media and software associated in this area I feel nothing performs better than the Mac Operating System. Case in point is ScreenFlow which is a professional screencasting studio. Just stop and think about it for a moment and I am sure you will begin to understand just how simple it is to capture streaming media.

Recording NetFlix Streaming Media with ScreenFlow on a Mac

  • Grab ScreenFlow, a screen video capture software for Mac.
  • Launch ScreenFlow for Mac and the following dialog window will appear:

screenflow dialog

  • When you finish your recording, press command-shift-2 to stop recording. ScreenFlow will create a new video files with the recording.
  • Press Command-E or select “Export” from the File menu to export your recorded video:

screenflow export recording dialog

The end result is a high quality recording, grab ScreenFlow and see for yourself.

Update, I just ran across an article titled Media Converter for OS X is the Simplest Drag-And-Drop Video Converter Around where Whitson Gordon says, “If you need to convert a video for your iPod, a DVD, or even just rip the audio out of a movie, free app Media Converter will do it with just a quick drag-and-drop.”

How to Backup DVDs with Handbrake

Posted by Steven Swafford on February 26, 2011

Before moving into how to backup a DVD it is worth stating that you must understand copyright laws and how they apply in order to keep from finding yourself in a situation where you may be facing fines or jail time. This being said make sure that you legally own any DVD that you wish to backup. I’m not a lawyer nor do I pretend to be, so be sure of what your about to set out upon.

I for one do not like the idea that I have a DVD collection that contains a number of films that I still enjoy watching today. Years ago it was not a problem as a DVD typically played on either my computer or my DVD player. Fast forward to today and I have a number of my Android device, iPad, wi-fi blue ray player and a number of laptops. With all of these different electronics I was to be able to stream my DVD of choice to any device that tickles my fancy. In that I mean inside of my home and only on my personal devices.

There are a number of products that fit the bill of ripping your DVD, but the product I have settled upon is Handbrake. Handbrake is open source software and the it is cross platform which means you can download a build for Mac OSX, which is my preferred operating system, as well as Windows, Ubuntu, and Fedora. I cannot speak from experience, but I have read numerous write-ups from folks running Handbrake on Windows that is was extremely slow. In fact some references I have came across made claims of 6-12 hours to fully backup a DVD on Windows. I’m not entirely positive that I buy into blaming the Windows operating system as much as I would tend to lean to hardware as the problem.

So head over to Handbrake’s web page and download your copy. Once you’ve downloaded and installed the software, you’re ready to start backing up you DVD collection!

How to Backup DVDs to Your Mac (other operating systems vary)

Basic DVD back ups is fairly simple. In truth is is so simple anyone can do it with little or no technical knowledge:

  • Insert your favorite DVD into your Mac. Apple’s DVD player will start and when it does, just close it.
  • Fire up Handbrake.
  • First, Handbrake opens the selection screen. Make sure the DVD Volume is selected, and click Open.

handbrake dialog

  • At this point in time Handbrake begins to scan the DVD in order to to determine the various titles and chapters.

handbrake dialog

  • Now, go to the Destination section. Handbrake’s default destination is your desktop. To make life a little easier, though, you can select any location you like. Also, choose a name for your backup file.
  • Click start to begin importing your movie. Sit back and relax it may take a little while!

Now plug up your iPod, iPhone or iPad and sync or if you manually transfer from iTunes, drag the movie on to your device. Thais all there is to it! Now you’re no longer tied to that DVD and you favorite movie is now as mobile as you are.

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