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BillShrink now compares Cable/Satellite TV Packages

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BillShrink LogoRemember BillShrink, the service that compares pricing on services and items like credit cards, cell phone plans, gas, and bank accounts? Well they’ve just added a new item – TV and cable packages.

They claim that they compare over 1 billion packages. Cable TV? Satellite? Fiber? Throw in a DVR? What if you have multiple TVs and rooms?

By the way, did you know that the average American house has almost 3 TVs? Or that we spend over $1000/yr on TV services?

Adobe Flash coming to a TV near you

Audio/Video, Home Theater, Networking & Internet / By /

Adobe plans to bring its Flash technology to your TV screens by having TVs and set-top boxes built with support for Flash. Flash is the format used for roughly 80% of video online as well as many online video games.

This will certainly make it easier for studios to create content that is viewable on both TV and the Web.

I think that one of the things that needs an update is many of the interfaces and remote controls for the set-top boxes. Why? Because one of the powerful uses of Flash is building applications that are interactive. Take games for example. If Adobe would really like Flash to be used to its fullest, then those set-top boxes need to improve their current horrible non-intuitive interfaces as well as their power (I’m looking at you Motorola).

Adobe expects Flash-supported hardware to begin selling late this year.

VDSL2 ups the ante on DSL technology – 500Mbps possible

Networking & Internet / By /

Ericsson has shown that they can achieve 500Mbps speeds over copper lines, using a next-gen DSL technology called VDSL2 (Very High Speed Digital Subscriber Line 2).

Just one caveat – the 500Mbps rate was only over 500m, and it degrades as the distance gets longer. However, even at 1km, you may still get 50Mbps which beats the pants off of commonly available ADSL.

This may be a crucial technology in bringing broadband to areas with telco infrastructure, but no cable TV or fiber lines.

Sci Fi channel changing its name to SyFy

Audio/Video, Home Theater, Miscellaneous / By /

This has been blogged about ad-infinitum, so I’m not going to add to the chorus of cries from geekdom about the horrible new name.

But it did occur to me that this could be the start of something worse – the Sci Fi channel drifting away from its roots, Science Fiction and related material. Yes, I know that it already airs wrestling and gaming, but I can forgive them a few tangents if it helps pay the bills.

What I’m thinking of is best described by an example – MTV. MTV, the original cable channel, has pretty much nothing to do with music any more. So much so, that they had start a new channel, MTV2 just to air the music that they were formed in the first place for.

I’d rather that didn’t happen to the Sci Fi channel. And yes, I’m still going to call it that!

Holiday Gift Ideas 2008: TiVo!

Audio/Video, Home Theater, Gizmo of the Day, Holidays / By /

Once you start watching TV using a DVR, you know you can’t go back. It beats watching live TV by oh, at least 1 million miles!

If you’ve got a friends or family who don’t have a DVR (TiVo or built into their cable/satellite box, or a homebrew system or something similar), then this can be a great gift.

Right now TiVo is offering a deal of 3 months FREE with a subscription.

A brand new TiVo Series2â„¢ Dual Tuner DVR is $149.99 or a brand new TiVo HD DVR is $299.99.

Comcast to cap broadband users’ bandwidth

Miscellaneous / By /

Ok, so 250 gigabytes of traffic is a pretty high limit, especially compared to some other providers, but why such a cap if they say that the average usage is 2 to 3 GB? Well, it’s their call, but if you’re going to have a limit, you better make sure you give users a way to check their usage.

I can hear it now… somewhere around the end of the month “Sorry honey – I didn’t get your e-mail or pay the bills as we’re over our bandwidth limit for the month.”

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