by ·Comments Off on Channel Master Dumps Rovi?

Logo showing DVR+ Firmware Update 135RLooks like I found something else that Channel Master was working on. Minutes after I posted my belated recognition that the company was coming out with another receiver, it posted a tweet about its old receiver, the DVR+:

New Firmware 135R has been sent to DVR+ units. This important update is required in order to continue receiving the 14-Day guide data. Your guide data has been migrated to a new CM-owned server (yay!) 2-day PSIP guide data is not affected.

That old guide data was provided by Rovi, which used to supply it to a lot of companies. Then in 2016, Rovi bought TiVo, which makes a direct competitor to the DVR+. After the firmware update, that name is gone from my receiver’s listings.

Maybe it’s all my fault. I asked Channel Master in mid-September to fix the listings for one of my local channels. After a short flurry of information gathering, the support staff wrote, “We will address this ASAP and will email you when Rovi confirms it has made a change.” Then silence for six weeks. Around the first of this month, I got an odd email from them that said, “I’m sorry that we were unable to resolve your issue this week but will ASAP.” I’d say the move has been in the works at least that long.

Here’s hoping that the new listing service will work even better than Rovi’s, and that it’ll mark the start of a new wave of refurbished functionality for the DVR+.

by ·Comments Off on Channel Master To Market AirTV Clone

At my desk at FreeTVBlog World Headquarters, I’ve got a TV on either side of my monitor. The right TV is hooked up to my AirTV, Sling’s Android TV-based receiver. The left TV is attached to my Channel Master DVR+.

AirTV is great for dishing up all sorts of internet-based TV. Thanks to my distant cable TV subscription (long story, I’ll elaborate in a few days), I can watch Fox Sports, ESPN, and other cable channels through their apps. On the other hand, its integration of over-the-air TV is just enough to watch live; there’s no way to record it.

The DVR+ is the opposite – great at recording OTA but with a much weaker selection of internet-based channels. In fact, those channels haven’t changed in a very long time, so I’d been wondering whether Channel Master was focusing on something else. I also found myself wishing that the DVR+ were also based on Android TV, the better to add complementary functionality to its OTA recording.

Today I noticed, thanks to Jeff Baumgartner, that Dave Zatz of ZatzNotFunny had connected the dots and then some. Zatz said that Channel Master would introduce the Stream+ at CES in January 2018, and he posted the YouTube video above. It’s supposed to be based on the Technicolor Skipper, a 4K Android TV receiver. Technicolor makes the AirTV.

The Stream+ sounds like could be a worthy addition to one of my desk TVs. I wonder which box it will replace.

by ·Comments Off on No CBS On Sling TV – So What?

Sling TV iconWhen Dish (probably) caved in late Thursday and signed a retransmission consent deal with CBS, that was as unexpected as a turkey sandwich on the day after Thanksgiving. It was never a matter of whether the two sides (mostly Dish) would give in, it was when.

So I was a little surprised to get settled in on Cyber Monday and see pundits still picking at the bones of this non-story. Daniel Frankel of FierceCable and Jon Lafayette of Multichannel News both noticed the same thing: CBS and its networks were still missing from Dish’s Sling TV despite the new contract. It might be a coastal bias, but they just don’t get it.

Despite occasional brave noises, Sling TV doesn’t carry any English-language affiliates in most of its subscribers’ markets. As Frankel himself wrote in January, “Sling TV has pointedly noted that its service is not a replacement for traditional pay-TV.” Exactly! By keeping its price very low, Sling has become the supplement for some otherwise-OTA cord-cutters. If they want a local station, they’ll pick it up over-the-air for free. If they want to watch the latest South Park, which they can’t pick up with their antennas, they’ll flip over to Comedy Central on Sling. In that context, it makes no sense for Sling to pay for CBS or any other OTA network.

On the other hand, Frankel ended his latest Sling story by writing, “Dish is expected to include Sling TV rights in its next program licensing agreement with CBS Corp.” So if those networks weren’t bundled with the CBS retransmission deal, those would be candidates for Sling to pick up. I could easily see CBS Sports added to Sling’s Sports Extra add-on, and Pop and Smithsonian could work in Comedy or Lifestyle. I guess we’ll find out soon enough.

by ·Comments Off on IA #28: The Inspector General (1949)

The Inspector General (1949) on IMDb

This colorful Danny Kaye vehicle won a Golden Globe award for Johnny Green’s musical score. The Inspector General is loosely based on Nikolai Gogol’s play of the same name, but with the setting vaguely French instead of Russian.

Kaye plays an honest buffoon who becomes mistaken for the disguised inspector who would discover the rampant corruption in a nearby town. The mayor and other townsfolk pamper the buffoon while plotting whether to kill him. It’s a fun comedy, well worth its lofty ranking in the Internet Archive Top 100.

by ·Comments Off on Black Friday: Buy Stuff From My Links, Please
Female hands grabbing shiny coins.

© winterling / DepositPhotos

First the good news – Dish has come to terms with CBS this morning. The bad news is that the rest of this post is a shameless money-grab. Maybe I’d have been better off waiting for Cyber Monday, but Fridays are often depressing (it’s still early as I type) and Mondays tend to be newsworthy. The following notes contain affiliate links to some of my advertisers. If you click on one and buy something, I’ll briefly get one of the coins in the photo before sending it along to my web host. (Hmm, adding to my Todo List: Get an affiliate link for my web host.)

Antennas Direct has a very interesting ClearStream TV™ Over-The-Air WiFi Television Digital Tuner that’s on sale as I type. I haven’t tried it yet, and I don’t expect that I’d prefer it to my HDHomeRun and Tablo devices, but yaneverknow.

On the other hand, I’m already very happy with my Roku, so much so that I bought a second little one to keep in my suitcase. If I break down and buy a 4K TV, it’ll probably be one with Roku built-in, so then I’d have a spare to send off to college with my kid.

If you’re one of the people who create those streaming videos to send out instead of just watching them, then you could do worse than use Vimeo, especially now that there’s 10% off Vimeo Live! Use Code LIVELAUNCH10.

Finally, for some serious coins, you could use TripAdvisor to book your next hotel in Las Vegas, maybe for CES or NAB next year. I love the reviews, and you’re going to see some hotels (cough downtown) that are convenient to the LV Convention Center at a lower price that most conference-based booking agencies. Then again, if you’ve got the cash for a really expensive, nearby hotel, you’re probably better off booking with at the conference site. Maybe I’ll see you there!