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Tech News
March 12, 2010
by Rapid TV News
Website: Rapid TV News
Samsung’s latest range of TVs will go on sale in the US at the end of March.
Indeed, some models are already available, and will be in key European markets very shortly.
We know their prices, and the 3D sets will not be cheap.
Samsung’s debut into the 3D set market is its range of UNC7000 models which are ...
by Rapid TV News
Website: Rapid TV News
This time next week SES Astra will unveil its latest data as to the number of homes viewing one or other of its satellites.
The numbers will be good, but the number of HD channels now being offered in Europe is near-spectacular.
But Astra admits there are complaints about too many broadcasters cutting their data-rates, leading to softer ...
by David Allen
LG is the next TV producer out of the trap to deliver details and prices of its range of 3D televisions, destined for the UK.
There will be a late launch for the LG LD920, as the company estimate this one will be ready for late summer.
However, the LG LX9900 3D TV will be on the shelves of ...
by David Allen
It has to be a sign of the times when a terrestrial TV broadcaster like Five can have its value literally cut in half overnight, but that is what happened when the owner of Five, the RTL Group, reported figures that were a lot worse than anticipated.
Five ended the year with a loss of £37.4 million, with revenues ...
by David Allen
The TV tuner made by Elgato has always been a good piece of kit but the latest addition to the range, the Elgato Netstream, is not a USB device that has to be plugged into a computer as it plugs straight into the home's broadband router.
Once connected to the TV aerial and the router, this little silver box ...
by David Allen
Following in the steps of the other broadcasters, Five has announced the signing of a deal with the CBS owned and run TV.com on-demand TV service.
This will be TV.com's first deal with a UK based broadcaster and should there be more deals in the pipeline with other broadcasters, TV.com will have the upper hand over other on-demand services ...
by David Allen
As if the talk of 3D television, laptops, film and games is not enough it seems that Sony is working on building a new camera for the home user that uses 3D technology, and with that announcement it seems that 3D is definitely here to stay.
It is not the fad that many experts predicted.
As for Sony, it ...
by David Allen
When BSkyB first announced it would be bringing out a 3D TV Channel, it was feared that with the different formats available it would never work, but this is BSkyB and the broadcaster is not going to let a little thing like formats get in the way.
Now it seems that the first 3D Channel in Europe will be ...
by David Allen
One of the ways to keep customers happy is to offer them more, preferably without charging too much for it either.
One company that is good at doing this is Dell, and in order to attract new customers the company is offering the new Dell Mini 5 tablet computer with a special deal on content.
Little is known about the ...
by David Allen
As the time gets closer for the government and the media regulator Ofcom to decide the future of spectrum, it seems that choices could be limited, so much so that a decision that could be considered by the industry as radical may have to be made.
Ofcom has 60 MHz located close to the 800 MHz position and 190 ...
by David Allen
Recently Virgin Media has had a problem with set-top-boxes being altered so that the user can receive more services without paying for them.
For pay-TV operators this pirating is serious worry, as most of the time they are unaware that it is occurring.
However, STMicroelectronics has come up with a chip for set-top-boxes that prevents signal theft and therefore in ...
by Janet Harris
Microsoft has now launched its own free online video player, after seven months of beta testing.
The ad-funded service is based on Microsoft’s Silverlight development platform.
MSN Video Player follows the launch of Arquiva-owned SeeSaw on 17 February 2010.
However while the content offered by the two services is pretty much the same, SeeSaw has the advantage of offering catch-up TV.
Microsoft ...
March 11, 2010
by Janet Harris
With online banking fraud on the increase, Get Safe Online has called for wireless broadband users to step up their security measures.
The UK Cards Association reported a 14 percent increase in online banking fraud in 2009, with £59.7 million lost as a result.
With cybercrime become more sophisticated, as well as more prevalent, Tony Neate, the managing director of ...
by Janet Harris
Exterity, which delivers an organisations’ TV and video content over a building, campus, or metropolitan-area IP network to TVs, PCs, and AV display equipment, believes that the Building IPTV market will continue to grow over the next 12 months.
The company carried out a survey of attendees at Integrated Systems Europe 2010 (ISE 2010), a trade event for professional AV and ...
by Rapid TV News
Website: Rapid TV News
Spain's Ministry of Industry, Tourism and Commerce will oblige TV sets from 21 inches up to integrate high definition tuners by a Royal Decree. The decree is in the preparation phase.
This Decree will also incorporate the standards for HDTV in Spain according to Francisco Ros, general secretary for Telecommunications and the Information Society.
Currently, some TV sets ...
by Rapid TV News
Website: Rapid TV News
Andrew Sukawaty, CEO at Inmarsat, says the satellite operator is looking at its 5th Generation plans, and is considering L-Band and Ka-band for investment.
“We really should be shot as a management team if we weren’t looking at this,” Sukawaty told Space News, a specialist trade newspaper.
“But we have made no decisions. We need to consider spectrum ...
by Rapid TV News
Website: Rapid TV News
Russian pay-TV platform NTV+ is to carry the Russian CIS states' national channels.
Subscribers will have to pay a “nominal” 50 Roubles (about $1.60) to watch the channels.
BBC Monitoring reports that Russian Federation Minister of Telecoms and Mass Communications Igor Shchegolev said at a meeting with the Russian president dedicated to CIS countries' media presence in ...
by Rapid TV News
Website: Rapid TV News
Dish Mexico is a j-v between Echostar and MVS Telecommunications, and is seeking to acquire rival SatMex. Dish Mexico’s latest numbers are just out.
Dish Mexico achieved 478,000 subs, as at Dec 31.
While this might be seen as a perfectly acceptable result for a business that went live only a little over a year ago, the ...
by Rapid TV News
Website: Rapid TV News
Samsung’s latest range of TVs will go on sale in the US at the end of March. Indeed, some models are already available, and will be in key European markets very shortly. We know their prices, and the 3D sets will not be cheap.
Samsung’s debut into the 3D set market is its range of UNC7000 models ...
by David Allen
Owners of the Humax Foxsat HD and the Foxsat HDR Freesat set top boxes will be able to access the highly desirable BBC iPlayer through the red button on the remote control.
However before the viewer can use this service a little bit of planning will be needed, as the set top box needs to be connected to the ...
by David Allen
Sharp will be releasing the first versions of its new Freeview HD set top boxes towards the end of April.
Naturally, one of these machines will be a personal video recorder (PVR) but unusually it will offer a USB port as an additional storage connection.
The Sharp TU T1UR, which comes with three USB ports, allows the consumer to ...
by David Allen
Households in the West TV region that are still watching television via an analogue signal have only two weeks to switchover to a digital TV service or face missing out initially on BBC 2 and, after BBC 2 is switched off, the entire analogue signal will soon be switched off.
This will affect any home that has not made ...
by David Allen
With the prospect of a General Election brewing the leaders of the main political parties have to get themselves in front of as many people as possible.
This can make a lot of difference to how the voters see these leaders and ultimately could affect the outcome of the election.
So what better place to start for the PM ...
by David Allen
Microsoft officially launched the MSN Video Player today.
This is a service said to rival that of the BBC iPlayer but in reality these are two different services altogether.
The BBC iPlayer offers the user a catch up service of programmes that have been shown during the previous week, but the MSN Video Player offers thousands of hours of ...
by David Allen
Music on YouTube has been a big hit in the US, with viewings for the month of January increasing by fifty per cent according to the US-based tracker service comScore.
The figures throw up some interesting facts about the market, with 173.3 million internet user watching a staggering 32.4 billion videos.
YouTube is the top provider of this service, while ...
by David Allen
Samsung will be launching its version of the 3D television by the end of the month in the UK.
The Korea-based firm confirmed the launch of the televisions and Blu-ray devices well in time for the start of the UK’s only 3D Channel from BSkyB.
The company has joined forces with the DreamWorks Studio to include a copy of the ...
by David Allen
Once again, spending on digital television services has increased.
To the end of 2009 the figure for subscription based services was £4.6 billion, which shows an increase of 6.4 per cent.
According to Future Source Consulting, in total a staggering £19.7 billion was spent on media products, with pay TV taking around a quarter of that total.
Packaged digital entertainment products ...
by David Allen
It may be funded by the TV Licence but the regional channel for Wales S4C, effectively Channel Four for Wales, showed around two hundred programmes last month and because this channel is directed at the Welsh, it is easy to think that the viewing figures would be pretty substantial.
However, according to the broadcaster's Audience Research Board the viewing ...
March 10, 2010
by David Allen
As the DTG Summit continues, claims and counter claims from the major players continue to take place.
One of the best comes from the MD of Freeview, Ilse Howling.
In a speech she predicted that half of the UK will be able to watch the World Cup in South Africa in HD.
This would imply that Freeview is expecting ...
by David Allen
Just as the BBC plans sweeping changes across the corporation, the colour TV Licence is due to increase to £145.50, while the black and white TV Licence will rise by £1 to £49, as part of the BBC settlement agreed back in 2007.
The latest settlement sees the TV Licence increasing by three per cent for 2007 and 2008, ...
by David Allen
The phone, broadband and video on demand provider, BT, has announced that its business division will be taking over the operation of one of the largest private television networks in the UK.
BT Business will be taking over the day to day running of the Life Channel Service, which broadcasts to around two million viewers through a network that ...
by David Allen
Could the search experts at Google be planning an assault on the digital TV market now?
Well Google has been testing a new search algorithm especially designed for television channels since last year.
The testing has been limited to people inside Google, but the basics are that they have a Google based search system designed specifically for TV programming, ...
by David Allen
Sony has joined the ranks of the 3D TV manufacturers with the launch of the NX800-based 3D televisions.
The LX900's screen runs right to edge of the display, offering the viewer a beautiful looking television.
The unit comes in 40”, 46”, 51” and 60” versions with an IR emitter built in and the TV actually comes with two pairs ...
by David Allen
Within a few months the FA Premier League will have been won, the season will be finished and fans will be waiting for the next season to start, when digital TV sports provider ESPN will be showing just twenty three games from the league.
For the season starting in September, ESPN will have its quota of live Premier League ...
by David Allen
For the first time Microsoft will be taking out advertising for its search engine Bing.
The idea behind this is to attempt to attract Google users to try something else for a change.
The advertising will begin today on Sky TV, Virgin Media TV, ITV, Channel Four and Five.
The adverts will be using the headline “Bing and Decide” and ...
by David Allen
A five million pound property deal for ITV’s Bristol studios has fallen through after six months of negotiations with London-based Verve Properties.
The deal would have seen the ownership of the studios change hands, but ITV would have then leased them back in order to keep its regional presence.
TheBristol Studio complex was part of a 125-year, long-term lease agreed ...
by David Allen
The media regulator Ofcom is due to release the results of its Pay TV Review this month and, whatever the outcome, it is either going to upset BSkyB or the other digital television providers.
The review is a record breaker, lasting longer than any other television consultation, probably because of the implications.
At the end of the day it ...
March 9, 2010
by Darren Allan
So we're all well aware of the issues surrounding online passwords – and why you should use a difficult to guess series of letters and numbers.
Preferably with some cases thrown in for extra security. And, of course, never use the same passwords for different accounts.
But research from the universities of Cambridge and Edinburgh has criticised one largely overlooked ...
by Darren Allan
A consumer watchdog's latest round of research has indicated that many poorer UK citizens who aren't connected to the Internet view the web as irrelevant to them.
These findings come from Consumer Focus, and are aimed at the government who are currently trying to get more low-income families online, with their universal service commitment which aims for 2Mbps broadband ...
by Rapid TV News
Website: Rapid TV News
DVR specialists TiVo, still in the news because of its legal victory against Echostar last week, reported Q4 and end-of-year numbers last week.
TiVo lost money again, but less than anticipated. TiVo is anticipating an ingest of cash of some $400m as a result of its legal actions.
Revenues for Q4 (which ended Jan 31) were $45.3m, ahead ...
by Darren Allan
Another biscuity LG phone has been unveiled, and this one is called the Cookie Fresh.
The handset, which will be launched later this month, comes with a 3 inch touchscreen, a 2 megapixel camera, an FM radio, and built-in social networking support.
It won't do 3G, and by all accounts is a budget pitched effort (hence the 2 megapixel ...
by Darren Allan
Asus has taken the wraps off a new netbook, the snappily named EEE PC 1005PR.
The selling point with this model is that it can handle 720p High Definition, thanks to a 10.1 inch 1366 x 768 resolution display, and a Broadcom BCM 70015 HD Decoder.
Although there is a limit to how impressive an HD picture will be on ...
by David Allen
There is a potential problem brewing when it comes to high definition television.
For the consumer who is used to terrestrial TV, switching to digital is becoming more confusing as broadcasters launch HD channels.
One of the latest channels to be given the HD treatment is the Channel Four movie channel Film 4.
According to Virgin Media, Film 4 HD ...
by David Allen
One of the main ways for a business to retain customers is through excellent customer service, yet all companies at some point are guilty of offering bad customer service.
It looks as if BSkyB is taking customer service very seriously, with plans to create over five hundred and fifty jobs at its new call centre in Stockport on ...
by David Allen
Following the lead started by Sky Sports in the UK, BSkyB's sister company in Germany, Sky Deutschland, is planning to launch 3D coverage of live football matches.
The 3D sporting event will take place on the 14th March and will cover the game between Bayer Leverkusen and Hamburger SV.
The live event will be produced by the German Football League ...
by David Allen
The BBC expanded its online presence too fast according to Eric Huggers, the head of digital at the BBC.
However, the proposed cutbacks will not destroy the BBC’s online presence, in fact it would seem that these cutbacks will give the service more focus.
As the online presence grew almost out of control the BBC has found itself ...
by David Allen
If there is one thing that can persuade internet service providers to do exactly what an organisation wants them to do, it is by increasing the amount of money they can make out of it.
In this case the carrot is around £200 million per year and this could be made by the ISPs every year should they decide ...
by David Allen
Finally the cable TV provider Virgin Media has confirmed that it will be deploying the TiVo software to it set top boxes towards the end of the year.
According to the CEO of Virgin Media, Neil Berkett, speaking at the Cable Congress, Virgin Media will be putting TiVo inside all of its customers set top boxes.
TiVo is a flash-based ...
by David Allen
Sky TV is taking 3D HDTV on the road over the next twelve months or so, as the broadcaster plans to showcase its 3D TV service at major shopping centres and malls around the UK.
The first 3D TV Showcase will take place on the 12th March at the Westfield Shopping Centre in West London.
The company will be showing ...
by David Allen
Children’s television programme producer, Boomerang, has announced that it has signed a deal with the Welsh channel S4C to provide a pre-school programming service for the broadcaster.
The Cardiff based company will start the three year long contract in October of this year.
It is believed to be worth £1.33 million per year.
It has to be said that Boomerang ...
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HDTV News
So we're all well aware of the issues surrounding online passwords – and why you should use a difficult to guess series of letters and numbers.
Preferably with some cases thrown in for extra security. And, of course, never use the same passwords for different accounts.
But research from the universities of Cambridge and Edinburgh has criticised one largely overlooked ...
