Apple TV remote replacements

The Apple TV remote is kind of neat, but the downside is that it's small and people often seem to lose it (people like me).

What's neat is that you can use third party remotes to control it.

I had programmed the remote for the Oceanic DVR to control the Apple TV, but the DVR crashed and I returned it.

So now I either have to use the Apple TV remote again or use another remote for the Apple TV.

I choose the latter.

My first option was to use my One For All remote.  I'm already using the AUDIO function for the Roku (used learn mode), so I wanted to use the STB function for the Apple TV.  Unfortunately it didn't recognize the buttons in STB mode (which had been programmed for the Scientific Atlanta cable box).  Actually most of the AUDIO buttons worked, but some didn't.

How about this?  Let's try the Sony BD remote.  That worked.  The only problem would be if the BD player is on and it might get confused and do something when I'm trying to use the Apple TV instead (actually it did as the player turned on and the TV sensed the HDMI output and switched to the Blu Ray player).

Another option is the replacement remote I bought for the Toshiba DVD Recorder.  That worked too.  But I kind of don't want to use it since it was kind of expensive and I don't want to break it through over-use.  (Don't know if that's true, it seems a lot of my non-functioning remotes stopped working after I just let it sit lying around and not using it.)

How about the Panasonic TV remote?  The problem with that is that I have to find buttons that I don't use normally use with the TV.  For example, if I use the MENU button, it brings up the TV menu.

OK, that might work.  I'll use the Sub Menu button instead of Menu.  And I'll use the Return button for skip back.  Couldn't find a button that made sense for skip ahead, but that's OK.

Back to the One For All.  Since it recognized the Toshiba replacement, it should recognize the One For All since it's been programmed also as a Toshiba.  But for some reason, the up button didn't work.  So let me reprogram the up button in learn mode.

OK, how I do that?  Let me look.  Nope not there, actually here (from when I had it learn the Roku).

"press and hold the LEARN button, then the device key, the press the button you want to learn.  It flashes.  Then you aim the original remote at the One For All.  If the button is learned, then it flashes twice.  [Then Press and hold the LEARN key to save your settings. The indicator light flashes twice.]"

At first it didn't work.  The problem was with the Toshiba replacement remote.  Apparently the battery contact in the replacement isn't that good.  I think I had put in leaky batteries.  Another reason not to use that remote.  OK, twirl around the batteries.

OK that worked.  The One For All remote doesn't have a next chapter, previous chapter, or skip ahead button.  But I'll live.

So now I have five remotes that can control the Apple TV.  The original Apple remote, the Sony BD remote, the Toshiba DVD-R replacement remote (RMC 10339), the Panasonic TV remote, and the ONE FOR ALL remote (which is actually programmed to emulate the Toshiba DVD-R).  So actually I should be able to eliminate the ONE FOR ALL remote since it should be using the same codes as the Toshiba replacement.

Checking the ONE FOR ALL in DVD mode, the Menu key didn't work. I think I used the Top Menu on the RMC 10339 instead of the Menu/List.  Let's reprogram that key.  Nope didn't work.

OK, let's learn the Top Menu key as the Menu key for the ONE FOR ALL.  OK.

Trying it out... Actually the left and right buttons work fine instead of using the fast forward, rewind keys.  That's how it's used on the original remote (which doesn't have fast forward and rewind buttons).  And after playing around, the fast forward, rewind keys actually don't work very well.  They lead to the picture pausing.  At least on my slow network.  So I'm better off without them.

OK, put away the Apple TV remote.  And the RMC 10339.

Wait, here's another idea.  Let me program the ONE FOR ALL STB function with the Apple TV functions using Learn mode.  Yay, that worked (did it one by one, don't know how to do a sequence of keys).  OK, so the ONE FOR ALL should work in both STB and DVD mode.  Yep.  Cool.

I kind of like pressing the Guide Button instead of the Menu button on the One For All since the Guide is to the left which is where the Menu button on the Apple TV is.  OK, I'll learn that button as the Menu button as well...

Actually the original Apple TV remote only has seven buttons: up, down, left, right, select, menu, play/pause.  Good enough.  So these other controllers are actually overkill.

[My old Roku remote has 14 buttons.  Back (which is essentially Apple's Menu), Home (Apple's Menu pressed down), up, down, left, right, OK (select), rewind, play/pause, forward, asterisk, Netflix, Pandora, Crackle.]

[Here's Apple guide to using the remote.  Couldn't get slow motion to work though.  Didn't work in Netflix in Hulu anyway.  It's mentioned here too.]

And actually it seems you don't even need the play/pause button as the select button serves that function when a video is playing.

I guess I should delete the Panasonic.  If I press MENU, then navigate the TV menu with the arrows and the OK button, it also controls the Apple TV, leading to mass confusion.

Maybe I should delete the Sony BD remote too to prevent possible future problems (since I now have the Sony BD hooked up to the main TV, now that the DVR is gone).  Yeah, that simplifies things more.  I can always easily add it back later if desired.

So that brings it down to the RMC 10339.  And actually I can delete that too I can use the One For All in Apple mode instead of the Toshiba mode.

Down to no learned remotes!

Wait, I kind of like the skip back button.  I'll add back the 10339 for now, programming the repeat button for skip back and the skip button for skip ahead.

So I can use the One For All in Toshiba DVD-R mode when I want to skip back.  Now if I hook up the Toshiba DVD-R to the main TV again, I might run into problems.  But maybe not, because I won't be using the Apple TV and Toshiba DVD-R at the same time.  [The Sony BD is odd because it seems that pressing certain buttons on the remote turns it on.]

OK, one learned remote.  Which is the Toshiba DVD-R replacement remote.  But I'm not planning to use it. Instead I'll use the One For All remote instead either in DVD mode or STB mode.  The AUDIO mode is for the Roku.  And the TV mode is for the Panasonic Plasma TV (the main TV).

I guess that's enough for today...

(switching to) Oceanic basic cable

My DVR crashed.  I had it unplugged for a few days.  Plugged it back in.  Apparently it needed to be activated as there was a message that showed on the screen for a little while.  Unplugged it.

Plugged it back in the morning.  The screen said boot, then some scrambled letters, then blank, then back to boot, then back to the scrambled letters, and on and on for hours.

I heard some clicking sounds so apparently the hard drive crashed.

Called Oceanic and the call center girl went to their standard trouble-shooting (which is unplug and plug back in, send an activation signal, send a signal to turn off) which predictably didn't work.

OK time to turn in the DVR.  Actually I hadn't been using it that much as I've been watching more Netflix and Hulu.  Though I hooked up the cable box if there was a basketball game in HD that I wanted to watch.  But once we got to the NBA finals, the games were shown on ABC, so I just bypassed the cable box and plugged the cable directly into the TV.

The main reason I was keeping the DVR was that I had some old sports games on it.  Most notably the Linsanity vs. Dallas game.  And the 2012 "Dream Team" Olympic game.  Also some old UH volleyball replays.  And some What Color Is Your Dog?  episodes (which I had transferred to DVD).  The main one was the Linsanity game which I wanted to record in HD somehow, but hadn't figured out the best way to do it.  Probably with a Hauppage PVR.

Unfortunately they said there's no way to transfer the videos out of the DVR, especially now that it crashed.  So I guess I don't have to worry about that now.

So this gave me the opportunity to cut the cable.  But I kind of like the idea of watching the network channels in HD especially for live sports.  And also the UH Sports Channel.  So I figure I'll switch to Basic cable which is supposed to give you only the local channels, but I know a couple others with Basic cable who have a lot more than the local channels.  So hopefully I'll get the others too, like CNBC and OCSports.  The TV guy is supposed to come today to filter out the other channels, so I want to see how much they filter out.

So let's see what I get now, then see what he filters out.  Here's what I have currently, by plugging in the cable directly into my TV.  And while I'm at it, let me rescan them.  63 analog channels, 56 digital channels

Here's the lineup (updated 3/27/15)

2  QVC
3  KHON
4  KBFD
5  KFVE
6  KITV
7  KGMB
8  KHNL
9  KIKU
10  KHET
11  KWHE
12  OC16
13  HLN
14  CNN
15  Fox News
16  OCSports
17  MTV
18 - VH1
19  NBCSN
20 - FSW
21  ESPN2
22  ESPN
23  TWCSports
25  KALO
26  KAAH
27  KPXO
28  TBS
29  USA
30  Golf
31  Prime Ticket
32  Nick
33  Disney
34  ABC Family
35  CN
36  TVland
37  Syfy
38  MSNBC
39  Spike
40  Bravo
41  FX
42  AMC
43  TNT
44  TCM
46-1  KPXO-HD (ion) [see below, formerly 66-1]
46-3  KHON-HD
46-55  TEC 355 (currently UWtv, also on 78-30)
47-1  MeTV
47-2  this
47-3  KHON-SD
47-4  CSPAN
47-5  KFVE-SD
47-7  KGMB-SD
47-8  KHNL-SD
47-10  KHET-SD
47-25  KALO
47-27 KPXO
48-1  KGMB-HD
48-9  KITV-HD
49-1  KFVE-HD
49-3  KHNL-HD
49-12  KHET-HD
50-6  KUPU
50-7  CW-HD
51-1  OCSports HD [see below]
51-3  CNBC-HD [see below]
53  Olelo 53
54  Olelo
55  Olelo 55
56  Zap 2 it
57  HSN
58  travel
59  HGTV
60  food
61  E!
62  Comedy Central
63  Hallmark
64  LMN
65  Discover Life
66-63  QVC
66-64  OC16 (also on 79-16)
67  OWN
68  LIFE
69  Discovery
70  Animal Planet
71  TLC
72  History
73 - NGC
74  A&E
76-6  C-SPAN3
76-10  HSN
76-49  Olelo 49
78-21  KBS WORLD
78-29  Civil Defense
78-30  UWtv (also on 46-55)
79-1  PBS Kids
79-10  On Demand trailers
79-16  OC16 (also on 66-64)
98-1  OCSports
99-16  OC16 HD
115-3  KBFD HD (!)
134-8  C-SPAN2
134-13  Antenna
134-14  KWHE
134-26  TBN
134-49  olelo 49
134-53  olelo 53
134-54  olelo54
134-55  olelo55

[so a few more digital channels than the "official list"]

Channels 102-2 through 132-2 are probably temporary and will fade away.

[6/27/15]  Checking again the next day:
gone are
104-2  tbs

106-4  Hallmark

131-1 arirang

131-2  ntdtv.com

Changed

120-2 AMC from TCM

added were
102-4 OC16

Still waiting for the Oceanic guy to come and take away my ESPN and other channels

[6/28/15]
120-2 changed from AMC to Nat Geo TV
102-5 Hallmark has been added
132-2  syfy is gone
[that afternoon]
102-1 CNBC changed from 102.2
102-4 Hallmark changed from 102.5
120-2  Nat Geo is now gone

[7/11/15]
66-1 KPXO-HD has disappeared (which is odd because it's been on over a year)
still getting ESPN, etc. / I'm wondering what my next bill will be

let me rescan:

compare my last scan

gone
66-1  KPXO-HD (ion)
102-1  CNBC *
102-4 Hallmark *

(102-1 and 102-4 were likely gone before today)

added
103-5 Animal Planet (gone seventh, in the afternoon)
105-1 insp (gone the next evening, only TCM now left)
105-4 msnbc (gone third)
106-2 arirang (gone fourth)
110-1 A&E (gone late evening)
110-2 syfy (gone minutes later)
118-1 ntdtv (gone sixth)
119-2 Hallmark (gone fifth)
121-4 National Geographic (gone minutes later)
126-2 TCM

manually going to 102 gets
102-3 SURF (now gone)

the added channels will likely be gone soon enough

now 110-2 syfy is already gone
and 110-4 tbs is added
121-4 Nat Geo is gone too
105-4 msnbc is gone

[7/12/15 a.m.] all the added channels are now gone except for 105-1 insp and 126-2 TCM.

[7/17/15] 66-1 KPXO HD is back

[8/14/15] OCSports HD (51-1), CNBC HD (51-3), Prime Ticket (66-1), LMN (66-2) are now scrambled :(  Hopefully they'll come back.  They're listed on the "official list" as linked above.

[8/15/15] OCSports and CNBC are back.  (Whew.)  Prime Ticket and LMN are still scrambled, but no biggie.

*** [6/27/15]

I'm wondering how much they'll take away from my TWC app.

Let me check what I'm getting now on my iPad

Live:
AlJazeera
BBC HD
beIN n Sports
beIN Sports
COOKING HD
DIY HD
EL RAY
FOOD
FOX Sports
FOX Sports 2
FXM
FX HD
FXX HD
HGTV
HSN HD
natgeo
NatGeo Wild
QVC
QVC PLUS
REVOLT

There's a bunch of other channels you could catch if you were hooked directly to your Oceanic cable network, including TBS and TNT (don't know if they work if you hooked up via wifi).

These are the On Demand channels currently available on my account

A&E
AlJazeera
AMC
BBC America
BET
BeIN n Sports
CMT
Comedy Central
COOKING
diy
E!
El Rey
Esquire
Food
FOX
FOX Sports 1
FX
FXM
FXX
fyi
GSN
H2
Hallmark
HGTV
History
IFC
Lifetime
LMN
Logo
MTV
MTV 2
National Geographic
Nat Geo Wild
Nick
Nick Jr.
REVOLT
Smithsonian
Spike
Sundance
Teen Nick
Travel
TV Land
VH-1
VH-1 Classic
WE

*** [7/18/15]

Checking my cable bill, still got charged $114.25.

I turned in my cable box on 6/25, but the bill is dated with a statement date of 6/20/15 with date due 7/17/15.  But the monthly charge is for dates Jul 16 to Aug 15.

I shall assume that this will be adjusted in the next bill since apparently this bill was generated before I cut my service.  The next bill should be generated in a few days and I can check to see any adjustments were made.

[8/14/15]  Yep, my Oceanic bill is now listed as negative.  Evidently there's a lag between payments and the service.  They charge you in advance so my bill was already generated before I cancelled.

[2/26/16] most of the TWC On Demand channels (on my ipad) are inaccessible are gone from my basic account (as noted here).  I'm only getting Fox now.

[3/27/16] KPXO HD is now 46-1, formerly 66-1.

just plain Hulu

got this email from Hulu:

We've had a blast with our old friend Plus but it's time to move on.

We just wanted to let you know that we are retiring the Hulu Plus name. From now on, we will just be known as Hulu. No "Plus."

Though the name is changing, your subscription is not. You'll still be a subscriber with all the benefits that come with that. You can keep on watching your favorite shows on all your devices — without having to change a thing. Same great stuff. Slightly different name.

Thanks for watching!

Sincerely,
Your Friends at Hulu

***

P.S. It still says Hulu Plus on my Roku.

upgrading Quicken

Believe it or not, I'm still using Quicken 2000.  Hey, it works so why change.

However, I can see a problem might occur if I upgrade to a new computer and Quicken 2000 might not work.

As it is, I'm running it on Vista and though it works, I get prompt screen before I can enter the program.

So I was considering upgrading to a newer version of Quicken.

Actually I tried Microsoft Money first, but it had some problems with converting the data exactly and I noticed a few pennies off here and there.  One penny off was unacceptable, so I gave up on that idea.

Anyway, Quicken has a handy website with the steps needed to upgrade old versions of Quicken.  Depending on how old your version is, you have to convert it first to an intermediate version of Quicken.

In my case, I would need to convert to Quicken 2004 before upgrading to the latest version of Quicken.

What is really handy is that they have other old versions of Quicken available online.  Up to Quicken 2004 anyway.

OK, this is on my to-do list.

Maybe I'll upgrade to 2004 and see if it's good enough for me.  Well, actually 2000 is good enough for me, but 2004 has been tested for the later versions of Windows.

***

OK, installed Quicken 2000 on the laptop.  It turns out that this is Quicken Trial.  Whatever that means.  It expires?  Yeah, it expires after 60 days.  And if you try to register this, you get a broken web page.

I guess I'll try Quicken 2004 later.

[6/26/15] Apparently this Quicken 2000 Trial doesn't expire, because when I start it up, it still says it'll expire in 60 days.

CHIP, the $9 computer

CHIP is a proposed $9 computer that officially beats the famed Raspberry Pi as one of the world’s cheapest and smallest computers, at only 1.5-by-2.3 inches. A Kickstarter campaign recently was launched and already has gone well above its $50,000 goal (at more than $1.4 million as I write this).

The small wonder runs on a Debian Linux-based OS CHIP, is fully open source and is powered with a 3,000 mAH battery. It has a 1GHz Allwinner A13 processor, 512 MB of DDR3 RAM, 4GB of built-in eMMC NAND Flash storage, a fullsized USB 2.0 port, a micro USB port with OTG (also used as the 5V DC power input for battery charging) and supports 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0. There is a 1/8- inch audio jack with a microphone that doubles as a composite video-out. It also has an output for composite monitors, but you’ll need to use an adapter if you want to use VGA or HDMI.

With CHIP, you can access the Internet with the Chromium browser, do your work in LibreOffice (including Word documents, spreadsheets and presentations), listen to music and play compatible games. Plus, if you want to learn to code, it comes preloaded with Scratch, an easy-to-learn language that teaches the basics of programming by making stories, games and animations. In comparison, the similar and latest Raspberry Pi 2 released earlier this year costs $35. Visit Kickstarter.com to see the reality of CHIP.

TWC Maxx

Oceanic Time Warner Cable customers soon will benefit from major enhancements that will transform your Internet and TV service as you know it today. Hold onto your seats for TWC Maxx. It features ultrafast Internet speeds, state-of-the-art TV services and best-in-class reliability. Full services are expected to be available on Oahu by the end of June.

Oceanic Time Warner Cable president Gregg Fujimoto states, “With TWC Maxx, we’re essentially reinventing the Oceanic Time Warner Cable experience. We will boost Internet speeds for customers up to six times faster, add to Hawaii’s robust TWC WiFi, dramatically improve the TV product and set a high bar in our industry for differentiated, exceptional customer service.”

Oceanic expects you to see speeds up to six times faster on your residential Internet plans (with no extra charges). If you are a Standard customer (15 Mbps), you’ll now receive up to 50 Mbps. If you subscribe to Extreme (30 Mbps), you’ll now receive up to 200 Mbps; Ultimate (50 or 100 Mbps) customers now receive 300 Mbps. You may need an upgraded modem to receive these new speeds, but you will be notified if it is required (no additional charge). The business plans will be upgraded as well starting this summer.

On the TV side, it features an enhanced DVR, on which you can record up to six different programs simultaneously, with the ability to save up to 150 hours of high-definition (HD) programming on its 1TB hard drive (twice the storage of the largest prior model). You’ll also have access to an expanded On Demand library featuring 20,000-plus titles.

Along with TWC Maxx, Oceanic continues to roll out TWC WiFi Hotspots throughout Hawaii. So far, more than 2,100 hotspots have been deployed. They are located in various businesses including restaurants, cafes, hair salons and doctors’ offices, as well as beaches and public parks. They also are available at public venues, such as University of Hawaii’s Stan Sheriff Arena and Blaisdell Concert and Exhibition halls. I take advantage of these all the time, and they are very helpful when you’re out and about, and do not want to waste your smartphone’s data resources.

***

Personally, I haven't been impressed with Oceanic internet.  Sure the rated speed may be faster, but it seems not to be steady.  Often when I'm at my mom's place watching Netflix of whatever, the service seems to stall for a number of minutes.  But when I switch to the slower HawaiianTelcom network, the service is steadier and more reliable.  Same with the hotspots, I seem to connect the first time OK, but then after a while the service seems to degrade and I lose response.  Of course, this is anecdotal, but that's what it seems to me.

***

Here's the disadvantage of cable:

"You share the available bandwidth of a single cable line with others in your neighborhood. The more people using it at the same time, the slower the performance."

On the other hand, the upload speeds of DSL is much slower.  So if you're routinely sending large files, cable is the way to go.

Google Photos vs. Flickr

If you had to rush into a burning computer and could rescue only one folder, what would it be? I’m guessing you answered: “My photos and videos.”

In the last month, two new free services have opened up that make that kind of disaster impossible: Flickr 4.0 and Google Photos. Quietly, automatically, and privately, they back up all your photos from all your devices — computer, phone, tablet, flash drives, old hard drives, everything — to a password-protected online site. All your photos, past, present, and future.

Once your photos are backed up, you can view them, arrange them, edit them, and share them on the website. You can view low-res versions of them on your phone, too, using beautiful, fluid Flickr or Google Photos apps — without high-resolution images sucking up all your phone’s storage space. It’s like having one of those wallet accordion-fold photo holders — a really big one that reaches to the moon and back.

And above all: If anything bad ever happens to the photos you’ve stored on your phones and computers, you can re-download them all from the site with a couple of clicks.  If you have photos you care about, and you’re not letting these new services back them up automatically, you are, frankly, crazy. They are fantastic.

I reviewed the new Flickr a few weeks ago. Or, rather, I described it; since Flickr is owned by Yahoo (and so am I), I wasn’t allowed to review it. Here’s the article. And here’s the video.

There are plenty of other photo-storage services: Apple’s newly launched iCloud Photo Library feature is very similar to Google Photos and Flickr, except that it works only with Apple products and it costs money.

Then there are SmugMug, Amazon, Dropbox, Microsoft OneDrive, and so on. But for unlimited, free storage with automatic backing up from all your devices, there are only two games in town: Flickr and Google Photos.

As automatic, free backup services, Google Photos and Flickr are exactly the same idea. They are, in fact, almost freakishly alike; you have to wonder if one company poached engineers from the other.

They automatically back up every photo from your computers, tablets, and phones. You can choose which folders, disks, flash drives, and memory cards get backed up, and you can specify whether the phone app should use cellular data to upload new photos or wait until you’re in a Wi-Fi area. Impressively enough, both programs can even back up iPhoto and Aperture libraries on a Mac (but not, alas, Adobe Lightroom collections).

Both websites display your photos like postcards, arrayed neatly side by side. Both let you organize your photos into albums, edit photos, and share them with other people (one click produces a Web link to a private gallery).

Both companies insist that your private photos are truly private. They won’t use your photos, steal them, sell them, or snoop on them. If you don’t believe it, then by all means don’t sign up; it’s more storage for the rest of us.

Both, incredibly, offer image recognition. You can actually search your photos according to what they’re pictures of — even if you haven’t named or tagged any of them.

There are, however, a few important differences between Google Photos and Flickr.

Difference 1: Storage limits. The free photo storage on Google is unlimited; Flickr offers you 1 terabyte for free (or roughly 600,000 five-megapixel images).

How much difference does that make? Not much. Of the 100 million people with Flickr accounts, guess how many have ever reached the 1-terabyte limit?

Fewer than 50, according to Flickr.

Difference 2: Compression. The photos and videos on Flickr are uploaded and stored in their original form, and there’s no limit on the resolution of the photos.

Google, on the other hand, permanently compresses your photos to take up less space. Yes, it actually throws away picture data.

Now, Google insists that the lost data is so insignificant you’ll hardly be able to see the difference — and on small photos, that’s accurate. You can blow them up and study them till you get a headache, and you won’t see any difference.

But there’s a bigger problem: If the photo’s resolution is over 16 megapixels (like almost all photos from SLRs, mirrorless cameras, and high-end pocket cameras), Google scales it down to 16 megapixels. You lose the rest of the quality forever.

Difference 3: Duplicates. Google Photos doesn’t prevent you from uploading duplicate photos. Flickr “de-dupes” automatically.

Difference 4: Video limits. Both services auto-backup your videos, too. But Flickr’s maximum clip length is three minutes; Google places no time limit, but does limit the resolution — 1080p hi-def is the max.

Once again, though, Google does compress your videos, discarding some of the original quality.

In other words, neither service is wonderful as an automatic video-backup service.

Difference 5: Face recognition. Google Photos can round up all the pictures of a certain person. Its facial-recognition feature doesn’t go so far as letting you name these faces — you can’t name Aunt Ethel and expect it to remember her name — but it’s pretty close.

Flickr doesn’t offer face recognition at all. (Coming soon, it says.)

Difference 6: Image-search refinement. Flickr and Google Photos can both pluck “needle” out of your haystack of photos, or “pumpkin,” or “bird.”

But Flickr’s image-recognition smarts go much further. Flickr can search not just your own photos but all of the 11 billion photos people have made public online.

Difference 7: Community. Google Photos is designed to serve as a personal backup locker, and it serves that purpose well.

Flickr, however, began life as a community. That means people can leave comments on your photos (the ones you’ve made public), offering tips and compliments. Thousands of people use Flickr to discover, share, follow, and favorite each other’s pictures. Maybe that social aspect is important to you, maybe not — but if you do embrace it, you’ll discover a terrific way to improve your photography.

Plus, it’s really fun to see how many people have viewed each of your photos, much the way it’s fun to see how many people have “liked” a Facebook post you made.

Google Photos makes no attempt to be a public gallery for the world’s photos. Everything is either yours privately or shared with certain people outside Google Photos, so there’s no ocean of conversation, tips, and admiration from other photographers.

Difference 8: Editing. Both services offer editing tools. Google’s are extremely basic. You get four sliders for Light, Color (saturation), Pop (intensity), and Vignette (shadowed edges), plus cropping, rotating, and filters:

Flickr’s editing tools are far more comprehensive — so complete they resemble a kind of mini-Photoshop. They let you remove blemishes, fix redeye, add text, draw on top of the photo, selectively add color to a black-and-white photo, add a frame or a sticker, or tweak the resolution, brightness, contrast, saturation, warmth, and sharpness.

Difference 9: RAW files. Many advanced photographers like to take RAW photos — a format that preserves more of the camera’s original sensor data than the usual JPEG files. Back on the computer, you can manipulate a RAW photo with far more freedom than you can a JPEG.

Flickr can’t back up RAW files. Which is weird, since Flickr, overall, seems better suited for advanced and pro shutterbugs.

Google does back up RAW, although it converts them to a compressed format in the process (unless you join the paid plan).

Different 10: Exclusive features. In keeping with its incarnation as a complete photo solution, Flickr makes it easy to turn certain photos into prints, posters, photo books, wrapped-canvas art, and so on.

Google doesn’t offer any options for turning your photography into real-world objects, but it does offer something called Assistants. These are collages, animated slideshows, panoramas, and videos automatically created from batches of your photos.

Face to face

Google Photos is incredibly clean, stripped-down, and simple. For example, it provides zero control over how your photos appear — you can’t alter their size, change how they’re sorted, or view them by the kind of privacy settings they have (you can on Flickr). You can’t even see how many photos you have. 

In short, Google Photos screams “1.0.”

Flickr is mature, rich, powerful — and sometimes confusing. Its newest features, like the primary Camera Roll view (all your pictures in one giant scroll, flanked by a time ruler) are spectacularly clean and easy to use, but some of the older ones (like the Organizr) are cluttered and dizzying.

Now, not everyone will care about Google’s decision to reduce the quality of the photos and videos stored there. You crazy kids today, shooting only with your phones and sharing photos only on screens, may never know or mind that you’ve lost a little clarity along the way.

But to me, that data loss is a deal killer. If I lost all my pictures, I’d be thrilled to have an online backup — but my happiness would be dampened by the fact that my restored photos and videos aren’t quite as sharp and clear as the ones I lost.

Similarly, I find it hard to believe that Flickr can’t fix its own limitations — limited video lengths, RAW-file uploads, and a couple of aging organization screens — and thereby trump Google completely.

But never mind all that. Both give you free, automatic, superbly searchable storage for all your pictures, from all your machines. Choose one or the other and download its auto-uploader (and phone app).

And get started now: The first uploading process takes a very long time — days, in fact.

Thanks to these amazing (and amazingly generous) new services, the world has just changed. As of this moment, nobody will ever have sympathy again when you share a sob story about losing all your photos.

David Pogue is the founder of Yahoo Tech. On the Web, he’s davidpogue.com. On Twitter, he’s pogue. On email, he’s poguester@yahoo.com. He welcomes nontoxic responses in the Comments below.

Video Game Hall of Fame

What are the six most important, influential and iconic video games ever made?

Pong, Pac-Man, Tetris, Super Mario Bros., Doom and World of Warcraft, it turns out.

The Strong National Museum of Play, located in Rochester, NY, has long been dedicated to preserving various forms of childhood entertainment. It is home, for example, to the National Toy Hall of Fame, which includes the Rubik's Cube and the Slinky.

The museum founded the World Video Game Hall of Fame this year, and Thursday it inducted its first class.

The list includes Super Mario, a legendary Japanese game that cemented the console era when it was released for the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1985. That was an easy pick, of course -- it's become such a cultural icon that at one point its characters were more recognizable to American children than Mickey Mouse.

Other inductees included Tetris, the Soviet puzzle game concocted in June 1984 by artificial-intelligence researcher Alexey Pajitnov. There was also Pac-Man, one of the most popular arcade games of all time. Naturally, every one of these titles came after Atari's Pong, which was the first video game to break out among mainstream consumers after it was developed and released in 1972 by the California company.

There were some unusual picks as well: Doom and World of Warcraft. Doom, developed by Id Software in 1993, helped create what is arguably the most successful video game genre in history: the first-person shooter. It was also a violent and often terrifying game -- you play a nameless soldier slaying demons that escaped from the gates of Hell -- though those elements helped influence future game developers' ability to imbue their titles with tone, style and other artistic elements.

World of Warcraft, notable as one of the largest and most successful games played over the Internet, was not the first such Internet game. But it has become one of the most influential titles ever made. Since WoW, as it's called, was released in 2004, the game has become the highest-grossing title in history, thanks to added story lines over the years and the millions of subscribers who have paid a monthly fee to play the game. Even today, there are more than 7 million people still logging in to engross themselves in the fantasy universe.

SiliconDust

SiliconDust raising money developing software (an easy-to-use DVR) for your existing hardware. Sounds promising.  But there's an annual $30 fee.  At least cheaper than TIVO.  Silicondust must be hard up for money if they can't afford 100K.

[via Cordkillers 70]

Pay TV declining

The U.S. pay-TV business keeps shrinking, albeit slowly — but for the first time ever, the sector dropped a net number of subscribers in the first three months of a year, during Q1 of 2015.

The industry is contracting at a 0.5% annual rate, with a net loss of 31,000 customers in Q1, according to MoffettNathanson analyst Craig Moffett. Traditional subscription television providers face an array of Internet competitors, ranging from Netflix and Hulu to YouTube and other digital-video sites, that are discouraging consumers from signing up for cable or satellite TV or prompting them to cancel service.

“Cord-cutting has finally accelerated,” Moffett wrote in a research note Monday. “It’s not too early to get worried.”

Q1 is typically a strong quarter for pay-TV operators, but it’s seasonally weak for household formation, Moffett noted. In the first quarter of 2015, occupied household net adds were down 407,000, according to the U.S. Census Bureau — but over the last 12 months, the U.S. has added 1.26 million households which “are nowhere to be found in the most recent pay-TV data,” according to Moffett. That suggests a significant number of “cord-nevers” who are shunning traditional subscription television.

“To investors, the question of whether all that licensing of content to Netflix and Hulu and other online venues would hurt or help the pay-TV ecosystem seems painfully quaint (of course it will hurt),” Moffett wrote.
The decline in Q1 2015 comes after about 1.4 million households over the course of 2014 either canceled existing pay-TV service or were new households that didn’t sign up at all, according to Moffett’s analysis.

Comcast, the No. 1 cable operator, shed 8,000 video subscribers, while Time Warner Cable — the now-aborted takeover target of Comcast — actually gained a net 33,000. DirecTV, the largest satellite provider, added 60,000 and Verizon FiOS and AT&T U-verse added subs as well. But overall, the gains were offset by customers dropping service with other companies.

Dish Network suffered the biggest losses in the sector, dropping 134,000 satellite-TV subs in Q1. The satcaster blamed that largely on programming spats, including with 21st Century Fox for Fox News Channel, in which Dish dropped the network; Dish restored Fox News in January, but the blackout had a carry-over effect into Q1.

On a call with analysts Monday, Dish CEO Charlie Ergen said that his general sense was the pay-TV business peaked a few years ago, “and is in slight decline in terms of households willing to take the big bundle… but it’s not declining as fast as I thought it would.” He took issue with Moffett’s cord-cutting thesis, arguing that Dish’s sub losses in the quarter went to the satcaster’s competitors. But at the same time, Ergen cited Dish’s Sling TV OTT service as a way to reach younger consumers who aren’t subscribing to traditional pay television.

Dish in February launched Sling TV, aimed at so-called cord-cutters (and cord-nevers) who are averse to paying for big traditional channel bundles. The company did not disclose how many Sling TV users it has signed up so far, with execs saying only that the majority were consumers who did not previously have pay-TV service. In any case, those customers represent a shrinking of the overall pay-TV ecosystem given Sling TV’s stripped-down 20-channel baseline bundle.

Ergen likened the shift from conventional pay-TV to Internet-delivered TV service to Netflix’s shift from DVD-by-mail subscriptions to streaming. “I’m not saying that will happen (with Dish and Sling TV),” he added. But “Sling TV is a different dynamic” in terms of the economic model and the type of consumer it’s aimed at, Ergen said.

[via CordKillers 70]

XBox One DVR?

Microsoft might be killing off Media Center in Windows 10, but the company is reportedly bringing one of its key features over to the Xbox One. Paul Thurrott reports that a TV recording solution for the Xbox One is coming soon, and most likely this year. Microsoft currently supports TV tuners in Europe and North America on its Xbox One console, but there's only live TV pausing and not full DVR capabilities.

It's logical that Microsoft would want to add a TV DVR function. When the software company originally unveiled the Xbox One it was designed as an all-in-one entertainment and games console, with a big focus on TV features. Xbox One owners can use cable boxes with the console thanks to HDMI-in support, but it's not clear if any DVR support would capture recordings from this source. The Xbox One also has relatively small storage (500GB) for a combination of games, media, and TV recordings. Microsoft could opt to ship new Xbox One consoles with greater storage options, like the special edition 1TB version released last year, or simply support TV recordings on USB storage.

[via Cordkillers 70]

The new Roku 2

Here's a rather in-depth review from CNet.

Since it was first introduced in March 2013, the Roku 3 box has been our favorite streaming device recommendation. But Roku's latest hardware update flipped the script. Now our nod goes to the leaner, meaner 2015 Roku 2.

The new Roku 2 offers all of the goodness of the Roku interface and app selection (including Netflix, Hulu Plus, Amazon Prime, Vudu, Watch ESPN, HBO Go and Sling TV among its more than 2,000 channels), and the same lightning-quick response times as the Roku 3 (both new and old), with none of the extra remote-based features you may not use. It also costs $30 less, making the new Roku 2 a better overall value than the Roku 3.

In case you read that last section too quickly, let me reiterate: now the Roku 2 is just as fast as the Roku 3, and matches or beats the speed of pretty much any other streaming device we've tested, regardless of processor specs, RAM and other numbers. It leaves the old Roku 2--not to mention the cheaper Roku Streaming Stick and Roku 1--in the dust.

It also leaves behind a few beloved features. Gone is the headphone jack on the remote for private listening, and the ability to point the clicker anywhere--now you have to aim it at the box, just like most other remotes. (If you want either of those features, spend the extra $30 for the new Roku 3.)
The updated Roku 2 also sheds the old box's yellow, white and red analog video outputs, replacing them with an Ethernet port. That's a fine trade in my book, as it still works with any TV that has an HDMI input. If you're looking to add a streaming box to an old, pre-HD television and need those analog video outputs, the company continues to sell the analog-equipped Roku 1 unchanged.

Roku's interface, search and app selection still lead the pack, so unless you're a devotee of the Apple pantheon, or find yourself inescapably enmeshed in Amazon's jungle of media services, Roku is the best platform for streaming. Apple's upcoming box might challenge that supremacy, and maybe Google will improve Android TV enough to compete, but until then we still like Roku best. And unless you think it's worth the extra $30 cash get a point-anywhere remote with voice search and a headphone jack, the Roku 2 is a better buy than the Roku 3.

[read the review for (a lot) more details]

DVD sales down

Hollywood continued to have a slipped disc problem in 2014: Consumer spending for home video dropped slightly after two years of relatively flat sales according to data out today from DEG: The Digital Entertainment Group. Buyers spent $17.8 billion to buy or rent videos last year, a 1.8% drop from 2013. That follows declines of 0.2% in 2013 and 0.5%  in 2012.

Last year’s numbers show that the growth in Electronic Sell-Through (EST) and subscription streaming at sites such as Netflix was not enough to offset the continuing fall in disc sales and rentals — and a drop in VOD, which had been growing.

DVD and Blu-ray sales at $6.93 billion fell 10.9% (vs an 8.1% drop in 2013). Subscription disc rentals at $829.7 million were down 18.3% (vs. -19.3%). And rentals from brick and mortar stores at $696.4 million fell 27.1% (vs. -21.4%).  The drop in kiosk rentals, overwhelmingly from Redbox, also accelerated: Sales amounted to $1.81 billion in 2014, off 4.4% vs the 2.2% slide in 2013.

Consumers continued to warm to non-disc entertainment. EST sales at $1.55 billion were +30.4%, a slowdown from 2013’s +47.1%. Subscription streaming at $4.01 billion was +25.8% (vs +33.2%). But VOD outlays at $1.97 billion were down 6.7% following a 4.8% increase in 2013.

DEG says the results are “good” as consumers “embraced the convenience and accessibility of purchasing and collecting digital content, while studios reaped higher margins from these digitial sales.” EST sales of theatrical new releases were up more than 60% helped by titles including Frozen, Hunger Games: Catching Fire, The Lego Movie, Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug, and Guardians Of The Galaxy. The industry group also says that the number of UltraViolet accounts grew over 30% to more than 21 million.

[buy those old DVDs/BDs for your collection while you can, then again you can get most of content from Vudu or Amazon Video or iTunes.]

Windows Media Center not on Windows 10

In case you missed it during the early days of Windows 8, the era of the home theater PC (HTPC) is over—at least for Microsoft. When Windows 10 rolls out this summer it will not be able to run Windows Media Center, Microsoft's dedicated software for entertainment PCs.



With Windows 10, Microsoft is finally letting go of the long-neglected dream of turning the PC into a living room entertainment hub. The notion of connecting a PC to your television always made a certain sense. With a PC running Media Center you had access to all your stored digital media, you could watch and record live television, and play a DVD all in one spot. That ignores the pain of getting everything up and running, but once everything's rocking and rolling, HTPCs work very well.

[via cordkillers 69]

[so maybe I should get the Windows 7 laptop from Costco.  or try to run XMBC (don't they know it's now called Kodi?) on Windows 10.  That's my next project, try to Kodi running on my Windows 8 laptop.]

saving the cable box?

The traditional cable TV box is dying a slow death as Internet streaming video services blossom. That has some in the cable industry ready to join the streamers.

Over the past two weeks, a half dozen smaller cable TV companies, including Cablevision Systems (CVC), have announced plans to integrate Hulu’s streaming service into the boxes they lease to customers. Those deals follow several Netflix (NFLIX) forged last year to integrate its fare into the boxes used by several small cable companies and Dish Network (DISH), and are similir to the integrations Netflix has done with European pay TV providers.

The goal is to make switching from cable TV viewing to these “over the top” streaming services as quick and painless as possible for consumers. Cable operators believe merging a streaming video service into the cable box will help them sell high-speed Internet to subscribers by making their Internet connection that much more important. Faster speeds offer a better user experience, and cable providers can charge more for speedier connections. Across the industry, cable companies are investing to increase their speeds, which will allow them to offer new tiers of service—and boost profit margins.

Sling TV

[5/7/15] Sling TV to launch broadcast networks in a tier?

[1/5/15] Dish Network Corp. (DISH) plans to unveil the first major online television service from a cable or satellite company, a $20-a-month set of 12 channels that targets U.S. customers who don’t want to pay for larger, more expensive TV packages.

Called Sling TV, the service will offer live feeds of sports, news and scripted shows on TVs, computers and mobile devices. Walt Disney Co.’s ESPN, Time Warner Inc. (TWX)’s TNT and CNN and others have agreed to supply cable channels.

***

The $20 Sling TV base package includes ESPN, ESPN2, Disney Channel, ABC Family, Food Network, HGTV, Travel Channel, TNT, CNN, TBS, Cartoon Network, Adult Swim, and the "best of Internet video" with Maker Studios. Add-on packs with additional kids and news programming will be available for $5 each.

If Sling TV sounds familiar, it's because Dish owns Sling Media, which makes a line of place-shifting Slingbox products and services that are also integrated into Dish's latest Hopper DVR.

***

So with a good antenna, Dish Network, Netflix, Hulu Plus, CBS app (if it comes to Roku or Apple TV), that ain't bad.

*** [1/7/15]

Time Warner Cable Inc. (TWC) and other pay-TV providers are citing a culprit for the higher bills you’re paying: Sports.

For the first time, Time Warner Cable is adding a $2.75monthly charge for sports programming. Cablevision Systems Corp. (CVC)’s bills first carried a specific fee for sports and broadcast channels in 2013, and that charge is rising by $1, to $6 a month. Subscribers to satellite-TV and phone companies’ TV services won’t escape the hikes either.

Sports is the most expensive programming because it draws large audiences to live events. For example, Walt Disney Co.’s ESPN and ABC and Time Warner Inc.’s TNT are paying $24 billion over nine years to carry National Basketball Association games. Those costs get passed along to distributors, such as cable companies, and then subscribers. Rising bills are already trying consumers’ patience, and now there are more alternatives than ever for customers ready to ditch traditional TV.

“At some point consumers will say ‘Enough is enough,’” when it comes to rising TV bills, said Dan Rayburn, a media analyst at Frost & Sullivan.

While cable providers say they are offering more services and channels than ever before, many consumers don’t want to pay for networks they don’t want to watch. The latest rate increases could prompt some to cancel their subscriptions, Rayburn said.

And if they do, there are more options than ever for Web-based viewing. Cheaper services like Netflix Inc. (NFLX) have millions of subscribers. Even ESPN’s coveted sports content is going to be available live over the Internet, thanks to a new $20-a-month package of 12 streaming channels from Dish Network Corp. (DISH) That’s far cheaper than the typical basic cable package.

[via roy]

*** [1/26/15]  Forbes review

*** [2/19/15] got an email from Roku saying Sling TV is now available.  I'm tempted.

iTunes (non-instant) video

One might think that iTunes video and Amazon Instant Video are more or less equivalent as sources of movies and TV shows, but I have found that they are quite different.

As I am used to watching streaming video from Netflix and Hulu Plus, I was astounded to discover that iTunes requires you to download the video first even on the Apple TV.  This can take like 30 minutes to an hour!  I don't know the exact time because I usually abort because I don't want to wait.  [OK, here's a guide as to how long it should take.]

Of course, after you download it, you can watch right away.  But there goes all that space on my iPad.

Amazon Instant Video, on the other hand, is more like Netflix and Hulu Plus in that it streams from the cloud (after buffering for like 10 or 15 seconds or so) and doesn't take up space on your device.

So a big disadvantage in my book for iTunes videos.

Funny nobody seems to mention this in their reviews.

Well, this guy mentioned the problem, but the responders apparently have no clue.

Or maybe there's something wrong on my network?

Looking at this answer, it sounds like you can stream from itunes on the computer, but you have to download first before watching on iPhone or iPad.

OK, trying Tiny House Nation which I had purchased earlier (well it was free so I don't know if you can call it a purchase).  I'm accessing on iTunes on my computer.  It downloaded for a little while (a couple of minutes), then said it was ready for viewing.  Apparently it downloaded/buffered enough to start viewing, but didn't complete download.  Well, the controls are there but it ain't playing.  Still downloading.  Yeah, iTunes sucks.  Don't have this problem with Amazon Instant Video.  68 more minutes.  Forget it.  Abort.

Apparently it's supposed to stream without downloading on the Apple TV.  (So why do I have to wait so long?)

OK, let's try Tiny House Nation on the Apple TV again.  Play from the beginning.  It's now 11:43.  At 11:44, it says ready to play in 3 minutes.  OK, that's not so bad.  Now 1 minute.  Starts playing at 11:46 AM.

OK, let's try the 3 minutes long Scorpion: Behind The Scenes.  Press play at 11:53.  Hey, started playing after like 5 seconds.

OK, now that Tiny House Nation is playing quickly on the Apple TV, let's see how it plays on the computer.

Run iTunes.  Check for updates.  12.1.2 is available.  Current version is 12.01.26.  WTH, let's update it.  Update QuickTime (to 7.7.6) while I'm at it.

Not so fast, when back to Tiny House Nation (actually FYI Networks First Look) and resumed.  Ready to play in 3 hours 7 minutes :(  iTunes sucks.  Well maybe the fact that I'm downloading/updating QuickTime and iTunes on my computer at the same time isn't helping.)  Now 3 hours 28 minutes.

OK, didn't have to wait the 3 hours.  Or even the 28 minutes.  A couple of minute after iTunes finished downloading, the video started.

OK iTunes updated.  Go to purchased (click the down arrow to the right of my name).  Then choose TV shows.  Nothing happens when I click on the icon.  Evidently I have two choices.  I can click on the x at the upper left to hide the item off the list.  (To get it back, go to Account Info, iTunes in the Cloud, Hidden Purchases, Manage, TV Shows, Unhide.) Or I can click the cloud symbol at the upper right.have to click on the cloud symbol at the upper right of the icon.  Then it starts to download.  Showing Downloading 1 item at the top.  Then after several seconds, a windows pops up saying it's ready to watch.  The choices are to Play TV Show Now or Watch Later.  Let's Play.  The player comes up.  Wait.  It's now 12:45.  Hmm. The marker wasn't at the beginning, I guess it was where I had left off on the iPad.  Move it to the beginning and click play.  Now the video is playing!

Play for a while, close window, TV shows from the iTunes Store are being downloaded.  Are you sure you want to quit?  Quit.

OK, let's try it on the iPad.  Used 11.2 GB (6.0 GB of photos & camera)  Available 1.6 GB.  It also says iCloud total storage is 1.0 GB and available 1.0 GB.  But when I go to manage storage, it says on the bottom 5.0 GB available of 5.0 GB on iCloud.

Whatever.  Go to Videos.  Tiny House Nation.  Touch the small picture on the right of the big picture.  The video window comes up.  Move white dot at top to the beginning of video.  Video starts to play then stops with the network thingie going in a circle.  I guess it's downloading the video.  Wait a little while and tap play.  OK it's playing.  Turn on closed caption.  That works too.

Maybe it's downloading to iCloud.  And once it's downloaded there, the other devices stream from iCloud?  I'll wait for the video to complete playing then check my storage on the iPad.

OK, played to about the 7 minute mark and stopped.  I guess it's pausing it's breath to reload.

Forget it.  Abort.  Used is now 11.5 GB with 1.3 GB available.  How do I get back that storage?

Well according to this, the item is stored on iCloud and not on my device.  So why do I have 300 MB less space now?

OK, try this to delete videos.  General, Usage, Videos.  Don't see any videos.  OK, maybe it ain't on my iPad.

Let's try Amazon Instant Video on my iPad.  OK, install it.  Check usage.   Used 11.6 GB.  Available 1.1 GB.  Amazon Instant Video takes uses 40.6 MB.

Sign in to Amazon Instant Video.  Apparently you have the option to download or stream.  Click play.  It plays right away.  Why can't iTunes do that?

TV is helping Netflix kill them

Netflix wants to replace TV, and there’s a growing consensus that Reed Hastings has already started: The new conventional wisdom is that Netflix is the reason behind a mysterious decline in TV ratings that showed up last summer and has stuck around ever since.

Here’s the latest argument in support of that theory: Netflix, which streamed 10 billion hours of video last quarter, now represents close to 6 percent of total TV viewing in the U.S., says analyst Michael Nathanson. More to the point: Nathanson figures that Netflix accounts for 43 percent of the ratings decline the networks experienced last quarter.

The MoffettNathanson analyst figures that trend will continue, and “Netflix as a percentage of traditional TV will steadily rise to the low-double-digit range over the next four years, representing the majority of the declines in traditional TV viewing.”

What makes this more painful for TV networks and the Hollywood studios they work with is that they’ve helped Netflix eat into their own business by selling them their repeats — a very high-margin business they were happy to have.

Now there are drumbeats that the studios will cut back on those sales, but during Netflix’s Q1 earnings call, the company said it hadn’t seen any sign of that yet. Then again, that’s one of the reasons Hastings has been accelerating his investments in original content — he doesn’t want to depend on the TV guys’ leftovers.

So to sum up: Netflix uses TV’s old shows to build its own business, which eats into TV’s business. Then Netflix uses the money it makes from TV’s old shows to make new shows of its own — so it can eat into the TV business some more.

Virtuous cycle for Netflix. Vicious one for the TV guys.

[via cordkillers 68]

Hulu makes its move

It’s a deal that’s about a lot more than nothing.

Hulu, the streaming service part owned by NBC, Fox and ABC, announced on Wednesday that it has picked up the rights to all 180 episodes of “Seinfeld” and will make them available in June.  [I wonder if it'll be available to both Hulu and Hulu Plus.]

That’s 180 new reasons for people to ditch cable.

But wait — there’s more: The company showed off a new original series, “Difficult People,” starring “Funny or Die” phenom Billy Eichner and produced by Amy Poehler, and said it had made a deal to include Hulu Plus as part of Cablevision’s Internet package.

Either development, taken separately, would be big news. Together, they’re a possible game changer — which explains why Hulu hyped the announcement to the fullest, with Jerry Seinfeld himself taking questions from the audience at Hulu’s upfront presentation.

Has Hulu suddenly become master of its (online) domain? Not quite — but it may have made itself sponge-worthy.

• The addition of “Seinfeld” in a reported $126 million deal finally adds some incentive for “cord cutters” — those who have canceled their cable and rely on the Internet for programming — to shell out the $95 annual fee for Hulu Plus, the company’s high-end subscription service. But most would-be subscribers will hold off: Unlike HBO or Netflix, Hulu still doesn’t offer enough original content to make it an enticing alternative to cable.
• That said, Eichner’s show begins in August and is clearly a shot across the bow at Netflix, which already offers a comedy, “The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt,” from another Poehler pal (in this case, Tina Fey).
• The Cablevision deal is tougher to understand. It seems like a calculated move to keep cord-cutters in the family, because they’ll still need Cablevision’s Internet service.

But beyond that, the deal seems redundant — why offer Hulu Plus as part of a cable bundle when nearly all of its programming is already available through Cablevision’s video on demand channels?

Neither company explained the deal on Wednesday.

One thing is clear: Cord-cutting is revolutionizing how people consume entertainment — and cable companies that do not adjust will be unfunny and die.

Silicon Valley Comic Con

Marvel's Stan Lee and Apple Co-Founder Steve Wozniak have teamed up to announce Silicon Valley Comic Con. The convention will take place March 19-20, 2016 at the San Jose Convention Center.

The convention aims to bring together pop culture and technology, and will feature celebrities, movies, television, video games, comic books, and more.

"In life, the most important thing is to have fun, and Silicon Valley Comic Con will be the place to experience all your favorite things at one great show," said Wozniak. "Today, technology is pop culture, in Silicon Valley and around the globe. Entertainment and innovation inspire and bring so much joy to the world, and I’m so excited that we will showcase both at Silicon Valley Comic Con. It’s finally the Age of the Geek, and we’re ready to celebrate!"

Lee added: "The one thing I want Woz to keep in mind is this: With great power comes great responsibility. I love the idea and can’t wait to see it. Excelsior!"

man kills his computer

DENVER - Police in Colorado have cited a 37-year-old man for carrying his computer into an alley then shooting it eight times with a handgun after what authorities said had been a long battle with the uncooperative machine.

Lucas Hinch was cited for discharging a firearm within city limits after officers responded to a "shots fired" call early on Monday evening, the Colorado Springs Police Department said in a statement.

"Investigation revealed a resident was fed up with fighting his computer for the last several months," said the statement, entitled "Man Kills His Computer."

"He took the computer into the back alley and fired eight shots into the computer with a handgun, effectively disabling it," it added.

The Colorado Springs Gazette newspaper cited police as saying Hinch was good-natured about the citation, and that he told officers he had not realized he was breaking the law.

auto-play

[5/14/15] Even though auto-play was set to off on the computer settings, noticed that Netflix still auto-plays in kid's mode (on the Fire TV at least).

[4/23/15] Auto-play for Netflix works on the iPad as well.  And I see a setting on Hulu Plus to turn on/off auto-play.

[4/22/15] OK, turned on Netflix auto-play on the computer.  Seeing if it works on the Fire TV.  Yep.  How about the Apple TV?  Yep.  Roku HD?  Nope.  Maybe it's because it uses the old interface.

Here's the summary.  Amazon Fire TV can turn on/off auto-play for both Netflix and Hulu Plus.  Apple TV can turn on auto-play for Netflix, but not Hulu Plus.  Roku HD can turn on auto-play for Hulu Plus, but not Netflix.  My guess is that the Roku 3 can do both.

[4/22/15] Noticed youtube doesn't auto-play on the Fire TV.  It auto-plays on the Apple TV and Roku.  Sometime you might not want it to auto-play.  Funny, this post indicates that youtube does auto-play on the Fire TV.  This one too.  (Ah, I see you can turn on/off Netflix autoplay for all devices from the settings on the computer.  I'll check on this later.)

Hmm.  Now it's auto-playing NatGeoWild videos.  Maybe it just got stuck earlier.  Or maybe it's where you play the videos from?

[4/8/15] Hey, now I see there's an option to turn off/on autoplay for Hulu Plus on the Roku.  Cool.  Now I'm wondering if there's a way to turn on Hulu autoplay on the Apple TV?  [Apparently not, but you can turn it off on the computer.]

[3/26/15] Hey, now I see I can customize the Hulu Plus captions from the Hulu Plus settings.  Font, color, transparency.  I can also turn on/off auto-play.  Things are looking up.  Now if they would do the same for Netflix.

[split off from the Amazon Fire TV audition post]

Daredevil descriptive audio track

It was mentioned on CordKillers 67 that Netflix has added a descriptive audio track for Daredevil (appropriately).

I was able access it on my iPad and computer, but not on my Roku or Apple TV.  They do have four audio tracks however, German, Spanish, French, as well as English.  And captions for those same languages.

I tried it on my Fire TV and it's there.  But you have to access it after the show starts.  It doesn't appear on the main menu.

Oceanic goes all-digital

Went to my mom's place and noticed snow on her regular channels.

It appears Oceanic has totally changed their channel lineup for those who directly plug the cable into their TV.  The channels now range from 3 to 34 and are all digital.  There's a lot of added channels and most of the channels are in HD!  This would be quite a deal for those who have digital cable and don't watch the extra channels on the digital variety pack.  They don't need a cable box now.

So no more complaining that people are watching stretched HD pictures any more.  However, this will require people with old analog TVs to get a digital to analog converter (or buy a new TV).

I wonder if it's only at my mom's place though?  Not likely, but let me check Oceanic's site.

Well, don't see any news there, but if I click on View the Channel Lineup from the Basic TV & Standard TV page, the page is not found.  So maybe they're in the process of updating the Channel Lineup page.  Zap2it still shows the old analog listings.

I'll check on this more when I go back home.

WTH, let's see list the channels:

3-1 GUIDE (HD)
4-1 FOX (HD)
4-2 KFVE (HD)
5-1 ABC (HD)
5-2 CBS (HD)
6-1 NBC (HD)
6-2 PBS (HD)
7-1 KIKU (SD)
7-2 FNC (HD)
8-1 CNN (HD)

8-2 HLN (HD)
9-1 BLOOM (HD)
9-2 CNBC (HD)
9-3 CSPAN (SD)
10-1 MSNBC (HD)
10-2 TBS (HD)
10-3 E! (HD)
11-1 TNT (HD)
11-2 USA (HD)
12-1 DISC (HD)

12-2 A&E (HD)
13-1 NGC (HD)
13-2 WEATHER (HD)
13-3 BBCA (HD)
14-1 COMEDY (HD)
14-2 VH-1 (SD)
15-1 MTV (SD)
15-2 PLD (HD)
16-1 SCENIC (HD)
16-2 RL HAW (SD)

17-1 NGNHC (SD)
17-2 CHTV (SD)
17-3 TTN (SD)
17-4 KBFD (SD)
17-5 TELEMUN (SD)
18-1 SCIENCE (HD)
18-2 UNIV (HD)
19-1 OC16 (HD)
19-2 OCSURF (HD)
19-3 ESPNU (HD)

20-1 ESPNEWS (HD)
20-2 ESPN (HD)
20-3 TWCSP (HD)
21-1 ESPN2 (HD)
21-2 FSN (HD)
21-3 OCSPORT (HD)
22-1 ESPNC (SD)
22-2 NFL (HD)
22-3 CBSSN (HD)
23-1 GOLF (HD)

23-2 MLB (HD)
23-3 NBCSN (HD)
24-1 FS1 (HD)
24-2 HGTV (HD)
24-3 LIFE (HD)
25-1 FX (HD)
25-2 SPIKE (HD)
26-1 HISTORY (HD)
26-2 FYI (HD)
27-1 DISNEY (HD)

27-2 NICK (SD)
27-3 DISNJR (HD)
28-1 ABCFAM (HD)
28-2 TOON (HD)
29-1 TRAVEL (HD)
29-2 MGM (HD)
30-1 SYFY (HD)
30-2 FOOD (HD)
31-1 APL (HD)
31-2 TLC (HD)

32-1 WE (HD)
32-2 BRAVO (HD)
33-1 AMC (SD)
33-2 TCM (HD)
33-3 BET (HD)
34-1 CW (SD)
34-2 TVLAND (SD)

77 channels.  That's quite a few. The only other ones I might want are NBA TV and Nat Geo Wild.  But I guess I can live without them.

[5/2/15 - and just noticed, no Prime Ticket, just like HawaiianTelcom.]

Oddly, there's no local (over-the-air) channels KWHE, ME-TV, ANTENNA-TV, THIS, ION.  And CW is in SD, while it's available on HD on the old lineup.  No OLELO either.  So I'd have to say this is a limited test run.

But we'll see if all the channels stick around.  Who knows?  Maybe they'll switch it all back tomorrow.

***

Home.  Nope, still got the analog channels.  So don't know what gives?  Maybe I'll get the new lineup later.  Or maybe it'll get taken off at my mom's place.

 [4/18/15 - channels still on my mom's place, but the old channel lineup is still on at home]

participating provider? (Time Warner Cable vs. Hawaiian Telcom)

More comparisons between Oceanic (Time Warner Cable) and Hawaiian Telcom.  Oceanic has On Demand for many of the TV shows, while Hawaiian Telcom does not have any.

However Hawaiian Telcom has support for more websites and apps as a participating provider.  I'm starting the list below.  (Note, even if a provider is not supported, you still might be able to watch many or most of the show on the site.) 

Channel Time Warner Hawaiian Telcom

ABC         no           yes
NBC         n/a          n/a
CBS         n/a          n/a

Fox         yes          no

FX          yes          yes
The CW      yes          yes

PBS         n/a          n/a

TBS         no           yes

TNT         no           yes
CNN         no           yes
CNBC        yes          yes

ESPN        yes          yes
TW Sports   yes          yes

History     yes          yes

HGTV        n/a          n/a

NatGeo Wild yes          yes

So Hawaiian Telcom supports almost every channel except Fox, while Time Warner is missing ABC (you can still watch shows after a week), TBS and TNT.  And yes, you do need a TV subscription to view much of the content.

OLED vs. LCD vs. Plasma

The mainstream TV tech with the best picture is dead. RIP plasma.

If you're a screen quality purist, LED LCD won't cut it. Though they dominate the TV market, LED LCDs come with picture quality flaws, like uneven screens and poor contrast.

That leaves OLED -- organic light-emitting diode -- television as your only hope. It eliminates the need for a backlight and allows for ultra slim, even rollable screens, as well as world-beating picture quality. For now these TVs are manufactured by one company: LG Electronics.

Just this past fall, when I reviewed the least-expensive OLED TV yet, the $3,000 LG 55EC9300 , I knew I'd found something special. It didn't take long to realize that it had the best picture I'd ever seen.

Why? In the case of OLED, the contrast outclasses that of any LCD TV available. More important than resolution or screen shape, contrast between black and white provides the most visible picture-quality benefit, and these TVs are only going to get better.

But when will they get cheap enough to afford? Don't hold your breath.

"We're not going to sell a ton of OLED televisions in 2015," says David VanderWaal, LG's senior director of marketing. They're too expensive. And LG doesn't expect its 65-incher to fall below $7,000 by the 2015 holidays -- almost a year out. Same-size, high-end 4K LCDs cost a third as much.

Not ready for the masses

The reason for the delay is production yield. Yield refers to the percentage of TVs deemed good enough to sell as opposed to discard, and relatively low yields continue to make OLED TVs more expensive to manufacture than their LCD counterparts.

That difficulty is preventing other TV makers from bringing OLED TVs to market. LG will stand alone as the sole OLED proprietor through 2015 at least.

When asked whether plasma's death provided a cautionary tale of sorts, Alessi dismissed the idea. Compared with dominant LCD, OLED is new and plasma was old -- that's the LG thinking. "Ultimately, the cost of manufacturing an OLED set should become cheaper than an LCD," says Alessi. But he declined to give even a ballpark estimate of when that would happen. As far as video purists are concerned, it can't come soon enough.

Yahoo lost what you were writing?

I've had this happen to me several times in the past.

I'm writing something in the Yahoo editor and when I go to send it, it tells me that I'm not logged in.  So I log in, but then whatever I'm writing is lost.

This seems to work for me to save what I am writing.  What I would do is open another tab in the browser and log into my Yahoo mail.  Once I log in, I go back to my previous tab and hit the back button.  And whatever I wrote is saved.

But actually the safest thing to do when writing in Yahoo is to write in another editor.  Then after you're done, log into your Yahoo mail to make sure you're logged in to Yahoo.  Then go back to your Yahoo editor and copy and paste your text into the Yahoo editor.

I guess I'll try to replicate this later because I just tried to write something in Yahoo groups and it went through fine.  Of all times.. :)

the current price of TV

With Sling TV and Sony Playstation Vue (and the upcoming Apple TV service), there is now some competition in the market.

I'm with Oceanic (which is Time Warner Cable) which is the most expensive, but even they have their tiers.

They do have a basic service which are the local channels plus TBS.  The price is $16.04.  Plus there is a broadcast TV fee of $2.25.

Next is a big jump up to Standard Service which costs $64.74.  This includes the basic service plus a bunch of channels most people are accustomed to watching.  This includes CNN, Fox News, OCSports (UH Sports), ESPN, ESPN2, Time Warner SportsNet (Lakers), Prime Ticket (Clippers), TV Land, SyFy, MSNBC, Spike, FX, AMC, TNT, Travel, HGTV, Food, Comedy Central, Animal Planet, History Channel, National Geographic, A&E, and more.

[6/24/15 - Don't know what how much they charge for the "value service" mentioned in the Channel Listing pdf linked in the paragraph above.  I assume it must be a little cheaper than the Standard Service.]

You catch these by plugging your cable directly into your TV without a cable box.  You can also catch some digital TV channels this way including your local channels in HD, OCSports in HD, CW in HD, CNBC in HD.

Next step up is to rent a Digital Adapter (DTA) for (it says here) 99 cents a month.  It's like a barebones cable box.  With this you can watch additional channels in HD such as Fox News, ESPN, ESPN2, Food Network, Travel Channel, History Channel, Animal Planet, Discovery Channel, National Geographic, Disney Channel.

The next step up is to rent an HD cable box instead of a DTA.  This will cost you $7.31 a month.  Checking the digital lineup, you get HD channels such as CNN, Fox Sports 1, Time Warner Sports Net, Fox Sports West, Prime Ticket, HGTV, TBS, TNT, FX, USA, Spike, AMC.

Next step up is the Digital Variety Pack which is $88.54 (actually I'm getting the Digital Cable Pak, which includes the Digital Variety Pack and the box for $80.99).  This adds HD channels such as Bloomberg, The Weather Channel, NFL Network, MLB Baseball, ESPNU, ESPNews, FXX, CBS Sports Network, Smithsonian, Nat Geo Wild, Fox Movie Channel.

Then I added the HD Entertainment Pack which is costing my an additional $6.95.   With this come HD channels such as NBA TV, SyFy, Universal HD.  They mention you also get CNN, USA, TBS, TNT but I see these now come with the Standard Service.  So actually I'm paying $6.95 just for NBA TV HD since I don't watch the others much.  I think I originally got it because I wanted to see the NBA on TNT in HD.  But now it comes with standard service.  Maybe I'll cancel this after the NBA season is over.  I'd be tempted to switch to the Sports Pass service for $9.49, but apparently the only way you can get NBA TV HD is through the HD entertainment pack.

The other thing that's costing me is the DVR which I'm renting for $12.99.

I'm tempted to get the standalone DVR which accepts a cable card (wherever I saw it).  Maybe that'll be in my next post (after I transfer the recording out of my current DVR -- one day as I'm paying $13 a month for basically nothing.  Well it does give you the capability to pause and rewind shows on the fly which is pretty neat.

So anyway that's why my cable bill is now up to $114 a month.

***

How about Hawaiian Telcom?

If I can trust this page, they have two basic packages: Advantage and Advantage Plus for $68.95 a month and $78.95 a month (plus fees and taxes I assume).

Wait I see they also have a Basic service which includes 30 channels plus the box for $20.95 a month.  You get pretty much local network channels many (or most) of which you could catch over the air for free (assuming you had a good antenna).  None of the channels are HD.  So not as good a deal as Oceanic here.

OK, back to the regular packages.  Checking the lineup, you get a lot of channels, even OCSports (1089) and TWC SportsNet (1069).  What do they carry that's not on Oceanic?  Not much, but I see American Hero, Destination America, whatever they are.  Notably missing is Prime Ticket which is odd since they do carry Fox Sports 1 and Fox Sports 2.  Also no OC16 if you're into local high school sports.

What do you get with Advantage Plus?  Pac 12, SEC, Fox Sports 2, Big Ten, Tennis, NBA TV, Nat Geo Wild, Biography.

So actually this Advantage Plus is a pretty good deal compared to Oceanic, since their DVR is better.  No On Demand TV though.  And no Prime Ticket is drawback.  Well maybe if they bring it back..

***

A cheap option would be to go with SlingTV for $20 a month.  With this you get ESPN, ESPN2, TNT, TBS, HGTV. Food, Travel, History, H2, Disney, ABC Family, CNN and a few more.  However streaming sports over the internet doesn't seem as smooth as over cable TV.  And no local channels.  (But if you get a good antenna, you might have something.)

The other streaming service is the PlayStation Vue currently available only in Chicago, New York City, and Philadelphia.  The plans start at $49.99 a month for the Access plan.  It varies a little per city, but basically (looking at New York City) you get CBS, Fox, CNN, TBS, TNT.   The Core plan for $59.99 gets you NBC, Fox News, Fox Sports 1, Fox Sports 2, FX, Spike, TV Land, USA.  The Elite plan for $69.99 gets you AMC, Animal Planet,  CNBC, Food, FXX, HGTV, NatGeo, Nat Geo Wild, Spike, SyFy, USA.

So you're missing ABC (and ESPN and Disney) here.

Actually the cheapest option would be to get a good antenna if you're lucky enough to be in a good location.

If I were starting from scratch, I think I would go with HawaiianTelcom.  Though no Prime Ticket is a drawback.

[4/7/15] 7 things to consider before canceling cable

[4/8/15] Money's guide to watching TV without a cable bill

[5/23/15] Savings calculator from Slate