Tag Archives: DVR

Don’t Forget Torchwood starts today

Torchwood: Children of Earth BBC WarnerDon’t forget Torchwood is on the the next five days starting today on BBC one. That’s it, the whole season three is only these next five days (more info on Torchwood here).

The mini-series only starts today in the UK, Austrailia and maybe a few others. Each episode is 75 minutes, be sure to pad your VCR DVR in case it runs late. I think most of the rest of the world has to wait until July 20th, 2009 (that’s when it starts on BBC America).

Watch the Torchwood (HQ) trailer here.

And if you didn’t listen to the three radio plays last week, you have a few more hours to download those free Torchwood plays. I think this download is good for anywhere in the world.

P.S. You can order Torchwood: Children of Earth now (available in HD too.

Superman: Doomsday 99 cents

SupermandoomsdaySo Amazon Unbox is having their usual 99 cent sale again this weekend (six different movies). Usually the movies don’t show up cheap until Friday, but it seems to be working today (and there are a few reruns from last week).

This weekend they’ve got Superman: Doomsday, interesting movie it’s based on the whole Death of Superman story-line from 10+ years ago but it was an entertaining movie (I watched it last week on a day I was home sick). Voices by Adam Baldwin, Anne Heche respectively as Superman/Clark and Lois. It was odd though with the amount of death and violence in it, this isn’t a kid’s movie at all. Note the bloody Superman logo, it’s representative of the movie. Lex Luthor is ruthless and totally evil! At least Doomsday was an evil mutant from space!

So if you’re interested it’s worth the 99 cents (at least it entertained me while I was sick). You can download it to your TiVo (which rocks) or your Windows PC (which PC say is an okay process). I think you can even buy them straight from your TiVo menu now, but I haven’t tried that.

This weekend they also have:

  • Lonely Hearts
  • I Think I Love My Wife
  • Lucky You
  • Zodiac
  • The Contract
    The movies change weekly so be sure to check back often; you have 30 days to start to watch them (but only 24 hours after you start watching to finish).

    I just think this service to push movies down to your TiVo is totally cool. It’s NetFlix but without the mailing of the DVDs back and forth. If you use TiVo you need to try this.

    (Later – I noticed this DVD at a store with a sticker on it: “The first Superman cartoon to be rated PG-13!!!”, like it was a bonus and not a warning)

  • The Big Bang Theory

    BigbangtheoryThe first episode of Big Bang Theory is now available as a free download from Amazon Unbox. You can put it on your TiVo(!) or on your PC. Supposedly there are other CBS show for free but I can’t find them…

    This is an awesome show. It’s about a few geeks (science dorks) and the cute (but ditzy) girl next door. If you know any geeks you’ll love this show. It’s by the guy who did Two and a Half Men (and I think Dharma and Greg).

    I’m sure this is only free for a limited time….

    Free NBC Fall Previews

    ChuckjourneymanYou can see Journeyman, Chuck, Life and Bionic Woman for Free with Amazon UnBox. This means you can download them straight to your TiVo and watch them on the big screen (or you can download them to a PC, but I’ve never done that) for a limited time. I haven’t seen Life yet, but I’ve seen the other three: Chuck is awesome, Journeyman is excellent, Bionic Woman is luke-warm but I’ll give it a chance (and you can see for yourself!).

    On a side note, this ties to NBC cutting ties or getting pissed at the iTunes music store (I can’t remember why) and are now partnering with Amazon. I have no idea how long this offer might last or if the link will last but this is a permanent (I think) link to Amazon Unbox.Lifebionic

    Amazon Unbox is an interesting service, more so for your TiVo than your PC (IMHO). You can rent high-quality movies for about $3.99 each, but each weekend they offer a half-dozen 99 cent ones (some are new and some are old), so keep your eyes open for those. Rentals are on your machine for 30 days but once you start to watch you only have 24 hours to finish (or re-watch it). Personally, I think 24 hours is too short, it needs to be about 36 hours; if I start to watch a movie Sunday afternoon at 4 and don’t finish it, I’m probably not going to be home from work in time the next day to finish it. I really think they need to extend the 24 hours (which is starting to be an industry standard) to about 36 hours (48?) or figure out some way to get another $1 out of me so that I can keep it for another day). It’s just more consumer friendly, it’s not like I’ve got the media and they need it to rent to another person. Continue reading

    The Future of Television is selling me individual custom episodes

    So the future of television is certainly changing. The networks haven’t completely caught on yet, but they will. In a day when users can download higher quality video than they currently receive, get shows from parts of the world that aren’t available and have the advantage of having no ads and are free (please note this means stolen). We can also buy many of these videos from the iTunes store or Amazon UnBox for $1.99 an episode (iTunes has some at 99 cents for an episode and sometimes get that cheap if you subscribe for season). I know “legal” is not what people think when they hear the word BitTorrent, but BitTorrent.com even sells shows legally these days.

    If I could subscribe to a lot of the shows I enjoy for 99 cents an episode and have them automatically download to my AppleTV, TiVo, iPod or other device I’d never have anything more than basic cable. I’m sure this goes for a lot of people. Everything needed (except the mentality) to do this currently exists. The networks and producers of these shows need to somehow start embracing this model before it gets even easier for people to get (steal) these shows for free.

    Or charge me significantly less and let me trade the produces some statistical information about myself and let them insert in advertising relevant to me. Give me geeky ads, movie and TV show previews that I like, music that I like. Advertise events and concerts that are taking place where I live. I don’t need diaper ads, tampons, bad credit information, refinancing, ads for cars that cost $50,000+, ways to give up smoking. With the right information instead of advertising a new bed which I may have just purchased, they can advertise new pillows or new sheets (and mark in their files to start giving me new bed advertisements in another 5 years) that I might actually purchase.

    Even better, let me give “them” lots of information about me, which I’ll update a few times a month with information about what I’ve purchased or I’m shopping for (who in my life has a birthday coming up) or where I’m traveling to. And they can actually pay me to watch television! I’m not looking for a lot of money but just something to make it worth giving them info (besides, think of how much you’d save on cable if it was free!). Maybe some hotel discount coupons when I mention a vacation, or a coupon for Best Buy when they know I’m looking for a new video camera.

    Yahoo! GO TV

    With Yahoo’s new Yahoo! Go service you can watch previews, flickr feeds, yahoo photos, download music and burn it to a cd. Of course it’ll play any of those files from the hard drive (or CD/DVD) and with a supported video card you can record television in a TiVo like fashion.

    Unfortunately, Yahoo! generally chokes with a good idea before they get it done, but this is a great one so let’s see how they do. Especially since they are doing this just after TiVo has canceled their lifetime subscription and is now charging monthly rates only….

    Red Trousers – Free Movie from TiVo

    TiVo is giving away a free movie called Red Trousers. It’s only for Series 2 DVRs with broadband (but not the DirectTivo). This is just to test the new “TiVo Video Download” service. Here’s the thing, it’s downloading the movie via your high speed internet! It’ll be interesting to see.

    I’ve always thought there would be a market for showing the first 15 minutes of a movie (or even 30 minutes). Let me pick some movies I’m interested in from a list, it downloads the first fifteen minutes, in exchange I answer a few (5-8) multiple choice questions for them. (If you don’t answer all the questions, you can’t delete it, which means you can’t download another).

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    New TiVo Overlap Protection Enhancement (so you don’t miss over-lapping shows)

    TiVo added a new enhancement this week (or at least it showed up on my TiVo, it might not be on yours yet but it should download it soon) called “Overlap Protection”. Now it can help with goofy network show times, ome shows are scheduled from 9:00 to 10:01 or something similarly goofy, so now the 10 o’clock show previously wouldn’t record it due to the overlap (or depending on your “priority” settings, it might not record the other one). The enhancement is now it won’t skip the second show, it’ll just give priority to the hight priority show and chop the few minutes from the lower priority show! Yeah!

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