Beginning the morning of Tuesday 31st October, owners of the Xbox 360 video game and entertainment system from Microsoft around the world will be able to download a free system update that will provide more than 85 new features and enhancements, including support for native 1080p games and movies, faster Arcade game list display times and even more choices when it comes to video playback options.
Xbox Live is the first and only unified online entertainment network seamlessly integrated throughout the entire console experience, making it easy for people to find the friends, games and entertainment they want from the moment they power on their Xbox 360 system. Xbox Live connects more than 4 million members across 24 countries to enjoy hundreds of multiplayer games, downloadable games via Xbox Live Arcade, free and premium playable game demos, music videos, and movie trailers, as well as new game levels, characters and vehicles for all their favourite retail games.
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The new NOOK HD and NOOK HD+ are optimized to deliver unparalleled experiences in the areas that company research showed NOOK tablet owners use most: reading, Web, video and email. The reading experience is unmatched, offering beautifully rendered text, magazines in spectacular HD and lightning fast page turns. Thanks to top-end processors, the newly designed Web browser in NOOK HD and NOOK HD+ is super-fast, making it simple and smooth to surf favorite sites with a tap, pinch and zoom. New to the Web, ArticleViewTM allows you to customize your online reading experience. Both NOOK HD and NOOK HD+ offer access to a collection of popular movies and TV shows through new NOOK Video. And an all-new built-in email app offers new features in an easy-to-use, clean format that supports a host of popular personal and work-related email services including Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync.
At CEDIA Expo this past fall, LG was prancing like a proud peacock as the first Blu-ray player manufacturer to announce support for the new Netflix on-demand instant streaming service. In addition to playing back standard DVDs and Blu-ray Disc movies in High Def resolution, LG's BD300 Blu-ray Player would be the first to support Netflix for instant viewing access to a selection of movies and TV shows.
But Samsung wasn't far behind with their announcement at the end of October that their BD-P2500 and BD-P2550 Blu-ray Players would also support Netflix instant streaming via a firmware upgrade. This month, the news got even better as both LG and Samsung offered additional updates to their players to support high definition content on Netflix. These players join the PC, Xbox 360, Roku standalone Netflix box and certain Tivo DVRs as client devices that can play back Netflix movies (and TV shows) on demand to Netflix customers.
Once you have at least one device activated in your account, you can begin adding films to your "instant queue" for viewing on the device. Presently movies can only be added to the instant queue from a Web browser (PC, Mac, iPhone, etc.) due to limitations in the Web browsing capabilities in the playback devices, but this may change at some point in the future. As Netflix describes it, the web browser is for "search and selection" while the playback device is for "display and play."
The instant queue concept is similar to your usual Netflix queue for DVDs or Blu-ray Discs, but instead of having to wait to get a new title by mail, your instant queue is available immediately, is effectively unlimited and you can jump back and forth between any titles in your online queue for playback. When I signed up for my free trial, I had movies in my online queue and ready to watch in a matter of minutes, and the first physical disc I rented (the indie film "Once"), showed up in the mail two days after I signed up.
The library of available on-demand titles is currently much smaller than the catalog of DVDs and Blu-rays you can rent from Netflix by mail (currently around 12,000 titles available online vs. over 100,000 available by mail), but there is no limit to the number of movies you can watch in a day or a month (again, as long as you sign up for one of the "unlimited" rental plans for $9.99/month and up). I was able to find a few independent films that I had wanted to check out, as well as some fairly recent mainstream films, and very recent TV programs such as the current season of "Heroes," which was available in high definition.
After adding a few movies and TV shows to my instant queue, I walked from my home office over to my living room to find that the tagged programs and films were already available on my device. That simply and quickly, I had full-length movies and TV shows available for my viewing pleasure, some even in High Def. Cool!
In addition to instant streaming, Netflix customers can get DVDs or Blu-ray Discs by mail for more traditional movie-watching. On standard definition titles, colors were a bit muted compared to DVD and aliasing artifacts were visible around edges and in static backgrounds, but overall the quality was pretty good. For HD films, the quality bar was usually full with the letters "HD" at the end showing that I was indeed getting the high definition versions of the films or TV shows. Video quality on these was noticeably better than standard def titles, with fewer artifacts, richer more saturated colors and improved detail. Panning shots and fast moving images did exhibit some motion smearing, but nothing too drastic. This is not Blu-ray quality, but if you want that, then simply add the Blu-ray Disc for any film in your regular Netflix queue and you'll have it in a day or two.
Although you are streaming the movies in near real-time (nothing permanently stored on your device), you can still pause, rewind and fast forward through content. If you move far enough forward or back, you will get the buffering status bar again (and a slight delay before playback resumes) but this was never objectionable to me. Just the fact that I could watch a movie nearly immediately, in high definition, and without breaking any state or Federal laws was pretty impressive and bodes well for the future of the Netflix instant streaming service.
When Netflix first started in 1997, the name was appropriate as you could rent flicks over the internet, but you still had to wait a bit for the titles to show up in the mail. Now, with instant internet video streaming, the name is even more accurate. By embedding Netflix capabilities in a variety of consumer devices that are likely to be installed in the living room or home theater, Netflix is offering consumers a choice between the instant gratification of movies-on-demand and the higher quality of rented physical media (Blu-ray Discs and DVD). And it's giving us this choice at no incremental cost (for existing customers) and for a low flat monthly fee (for new Netflix customers). I like choices. If a Blu-ray player is on your wish list, then the Netflix-enabled LG BD300 and Samsung BD-P2500 or BD-P2550 should be on your short list.
Apple Gearing Up For Higher Definition, Could Be In Advance Of Its TV Product Line (AppleInsider)A 1080p-capable Apple TV and 1080p iTunes movies are expected to make their debut this September or October, according to sources. Up until now, most Apple products max out at HD 720p and the existing Apple TV even downscales 1080p content to 720p. But a "handful of films" from the major movie studios are reportedly being submitted to the iTunes Store with a resolution of 1920x1080 and an "average bitrate encoding of 10,000Kbps."
The movie service will be available to Boxee users in November, whether they're using the upcoming Boxee Box or Boxee's Windows, Macintosh, or Linux software. This marks the first time Vudu content has been available on a computer. The software will be available as a free download.
Desktop users will be able to stream standard definition movies, while owners of the Boxee Box will get HD or HDX 1080p resolution streams, with Dolby Digital Plus 5.1 surround sound. As a promotion, new users who sign up through Boxee will get one free Vudu rental.
"Boxee is all about giving the user what they want, and that means everything from the most viral video on YouTube to the acclaimed international films, and Vudu gives Boxee a deep library of incredible movies," says Avner Ronen, CEO and co-founder of Boxee. "The fact that Boxee Box users will have access to the largest selection of HD content through Vudu in the highest quality available today really sets us apart from our set-top box competitors."
Many of the top 10 are big movies from this year, like Iron Man 3, Man of Steel, World War Z (I bet a few are happy they didn't pay for that one) and popular TV shows like Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad and Dexter, though the number one spot is an interesting one. It's Yify, the name of a movie ripping group that has risen among the mounds of other torrent providers with its consistence and low file sizes. Often the quality of its releases (particularly the audio) isn't as high as other uploaders, but it's the fact that you see the name appear on torrent after torrent that has seen this group come to dominate the scene in 2013.
KitGuru Says: It's interesting that World War Z is so popular on the list. Perhaps that shows that zombie movies are still relatively niche and are more dominant in the technologically savvy community? 2ff7e9595c
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