Review Horizon

The new Apple TV was announced by Steve Jobs during today’s Apple Product annual conference. The new box is tiny, cheaper at $99 than the predecessor, and will include Netflix, YouTube and Flickr support. TV shows will be available in HD for 99 cents and full feature movies for $4.99. What is disappointing though is the lack of iOS applications support and the lack of movies/music streaming from the PC. The web clients are limited as well. To be honest, I can’t quite recommend it. You are much better buying a Western Digital WD TV Live Plus (Reviewed here) or a Roku box which just lowered their prices.. Buy the Apple TV only if it gets hacked and gets some network video/music streaming love.

Here are the major iTV Specs:

• really tiny, about one quarter of the original Apple TV
• 720p output
• WiFi 802.11n, HDMI, optical, USB
• no storage management = no purchases, just rental (although you could purchase them for streaming)
• Prices: $4.99 first run movies, $0.99 a TV show – the rumors were true. For now you can get TV shows from ABC and FOX as the announced partners
• Netflix streaming is confirmed, YouTube will be supported as well
• Apple TV will also stream pictures from Flickr and MobileMe
• supports slideshows from your computer (yes, we know, nothing new here)
• can stream media from your iPad
• will cost $99 which is reasonable
• available in about a month, you can pre-order today

Check after the break for photo gallery and the full press release. Read More…

One of my earlier posts was a review for LG 60PS80 connected TV. Purchased specifically for its connected capabilities, I complained that, while the TV supports Yahoo TV Widgets, it didn’t receive any software update in more than a year. I will try to analyze why this happened and if there is a signal that the TV manufacturers just are not interested enough in the Yahoo TV Widget platform.

Designed specifically for TV, Yahoo TV Widget platform evolved from Konfabulator^® (KON) widget platform for the PC, with specific customizations to make it work properly on the TV screens and other consumer electronic devices. Yahoo makes and distributes a Widget Development Kit (WDK) and recently opened their developer forums to a larger audience.

Read More…

I built myself a really nice Home Theater System around my LG 60PS80 Plasma TV, VSX82-TXS Pioneer Receiver and a custom build HTPC. I will add more details in the following days, when I’ll begin a new series related to Windows 7 Media Center (7MC) and various available plug-ins. Stay tuned. Meantime, enjoy these pictures.

[salbumphotos=15,max,4,n,n,uploaded_timestamp,center,]

Well, well, guess what, I got myself a new TV. With the reluctant acceptance of my wife, I went on Amazon (which at the time had a pretty good deal including free shipping and interest free for a year) and I bought the LG 60PS80 Netcast connected TV.

Without going into details about image quality, sound and so on (there are already a number of sites concentrating on this aspect and I am not the type of person to hunt for minor differences) I want to talk a little bit about the connected part. According to some recent articles, about a quarter of the TVs sold/launched this year are connected. That means they have wired/wireless network connection and a number of clients embedded that support popular services.

This particular TV supports the following clients:

NETFLIX – Arguably the most popular movie streaming service in the world. NETFLIX can be accessed currently on a large number of   TVs, set-top boxes and it might come very soon on iPhone.

There are two main interfaces implemented to access NETFLIX. The so-called Version 1.0 displays your current queue and that’s about it. If you want to see something not currently available in your instant queue, you need to go to your PC and add movies to it. Not necessarily a hard thing to do but I don’t want to access my computer when I am watching TV.

The NETFLIX interface version 2.0 (similar with the one implemented on XBOX 360, PS3 and 7MC) allows you to browse and select movies from multiple categories, so you are not limited only to the movies from your instant queue.

Well, unfortunately LG 60PS80 has only NETFLIX 1.0 so you are stuck with the old style interface. Version 2.0 is available on LG 2010′s TV line and they don’t seem willing to update the firmware for 2009 line (even if the price paid, around $2000 would entitle someone to better support, at least during the first year of ownership). From this perspective, LG as a company seems to not care too much once they sell you a product. I have seen this behavior on their DVD/Blu-ray players as well. However, while I can imagine buying a new Blu-ray player every year, especially with the costs going down, I’ll certainly won’t get another TV for the next 5 years (my wife could read this post ). OK, enough ranting.

[simage=5,max,n,center,]

Read More…