Gadgetell | Tech News, Reviews, and Interesting Things

TiVo was working the phones.  Staying up late, chain-smoking, downing coffee and Red Bull while forging big deals with partners to make it easy for Best Buy customers to leave the store with a Tivo HD for their newly purchased HDTV.  TiVo scored some deals with their partners in addition to getting Best Buy to knock $100 off the price.  More details after the break.

MORE »

Disney movies, independent films, anime and Bollywood flicks have something in common – starting soon, you’ll be able to download them directly to your TiVo.  TiVo has struck deals with Disney, CinemaNow and Jaman.com to get new downloadable content to TiVo boxes everywhere. 

The content will be rolled out over the next couple of weeks.  Stuff from Jaman.com, like indy films, anime, and Bollywood flicks, will be available today.  CinemaNow brings the Disney content and that won’t be available until next week.  More information, including pricing, after the break.

MORE »

Looking for the next video format war?  It might be in the last place you want it: movie theaters.  Sony announced Thursday that has teamed up with Twentieth Century Fox and Paramount Pictures to promote the new Sony-developed digital projection setup.  This came only a day after five major studios including Twentieth Century Fox and Paramount Pictures as well as Walt Disney Motion Pictures, Universal Studios and Lionsgate Films were announced to be part of a deal with Digital Cinema Implementation Partners (“DCIP”) to expand digital screens.  The DCIP deal would try to upgrade 20,000 screens across the U.S. and Canada, while the Sony deal has plans to use put its system into 9,000 screen across North America, Europe and Asia.

According the to most recent MPAA numbers from 2007, just under 5,000 screens across the U.S. use digital systems, with 6,455 screens worldwide.  Both deals want to increase that number, but it might get a bit tough if there are multiple proprietary formats.  The last thing we need is another format war.  More after the break.

MORE »

Walt Disney is set to release one of its popular animated creations, “Sleeping Beauty” as a Blu-ray DVD. Apart from this modern-day feature, the classic Disney movie will allow youngsters to watch it along with friends in other locations via chat. They can watch the movie while toying with their laptops, PDA’s, and cellphones, which will allow for greater interaction among the young audience. Parents too, can participate by recording video messages that are set to appear on the screen at particular scenes, the child can virtually watch the movie with their parents.

MORE »

Some of you might remember back when Disneyland had their “House of the Future”.  I’m guessing it was located in Tomorrowland, and it featured such futuristic advances like speakerphones, big screen TVs, and microwave ovens.  Most homes of the present have these devices now, but during the ten year period that the exhibit was open (1957-1967), this was the future. 

Disneyland has just recently opened their new house of the future, otherwise known as the Innovative Dream Home.  The 5,000-square-foot house has been built as a collaborated effort with HP, Microsoft, and LifeІware.  Visitors can watch the everyday adventures of the fictional Elias family with their more modern advancements. 

Some of Microsoft’s contributions include the ever-so-popular Surface, the Home Server, but it also has some advancements we are all familiar with, such as Vista, the Zune, and even the Xbox 360.

MORE »

I’ll admit it: every Christmas will probably be a Disney Christmas in my house for the next few years, thanks to a four-year-old daughter who knows why Ariel has daddy issues and a two-year-old son who wants to be Lightning McQueen when he grows up.

As an unrepentant tech enthusiast who also wants to keep his kids happy ever after, you can imagine my curiosity about the announcement from Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment about the company’s plans to maximize Blu-ray technology for its DVD releases, beginning with “Sleeping Beauty” in October. Disney is promising live chat rooms as the story of Princess Aurora unfolds on your flat-screen HDTV. Division president Bob Chapek pictures grandparents in one part of the country chatting with grandkids in another part as they all watch the movie together. He also previewed video messaging and an onscreen DVD menu reflecting the weather conditions where you are, all thanks to Blu-ray’s Internet capabilities:

MORE »

The direct-to-TV movie/video rental market is heating up with each of the major industry players coming up with their own proprietary movie rental services for the movie-watching public. The latest news that we have is coming courtesy of TiVo which has just sealed an agreement with Disney-ABC and CinemaNow to a offer direct-to-TV movie rental service. Under the said agreement, TiVo subscribers can now download their favorite Disney movies from TiVo for a 24-hour rental period.

This deal will boost TiVo’s lineup of movie offerings coming from major movie studios as well from Amazon Unbox, Music Choice and other movie content providers. If things go well with the Disney tie-up, TiVo is even planning to make the service available to its broadband-connected TiVo Series2 and Series3 subscribers.

Although pricing for this service has not yet been announced, we are hoping that it would be competitive enough to match up with related offerings of its competitors such as Blockbuster’s planned set-top boxes for movie streaming and DirectTV’s still undisclosed movie rental-related offerings. In the meantime, parents we suggest that you don’t let your children know about this service as you might find yourself being forced to partake too much of what TiVo has to offer because your kids won’t stop bugging you until you rent them that old Cinderella animated classic.

Via [Crave]

• TiVo offering big deals at Best Buy for holidays
• TiVo launches TiVo Mobile
• Pizza gets TiVo’d

Sections: Video, Content, DVD Players/DVRs, Portable Video, Web, Online Music/Video

The most famous mouse of all time makes a dazzling comeback with an updated Mplayer Season 2. It now features 1GB of internal memory, USB 2.0 connectivity, a 3.5mm headphone jack and is available in 10 colorful variants. It is Windows 2000/XP/Vista compatible so you can pretty much just plug it in and be good to go in a minute. Aside from the 10 listed fruity colors on iriver Japan’s web site, where it is currently available for about $77, you may also opt to have a custom-made Swarovski crystal version or a military-style Camouflage version of it. I don’t know how well that’d work though. This music player is cute enough as it is.

Via [dvice]

• iriver upgrades their E100 series
• Gadgetell Roundup:  Top 5 overlooked Black Friday gadgets
• TiVo offering big deals at Best Buy for holidays

Many, giant companies are using iTunes as a way to get there videos, movies, and music to the general public and it really is helping them grow. Take Disney, for example, by selling their movies and video through iTunes, which began in 2006, they have already reached earned at total of just around $123 million. Keep in mind, in this day in age, many people download videos and such illegally and for Disney to make this much money legally, it’s pretty impressive. This just goes to show how online video sales really elevated in the past few years.

MORE »

Sections: Apple, Audio, Video, Content, Video Providers, Web, Downloads, Online Music/Video

Walt Disney Co. on Tuesday launched an online subscription service aimed at preschool children, completing its plan for what a Disney executive called “an online theme park.“ Playhouse Disney Preschool Time Online costs $49.95 per year and is the most learning-oriented of Disney’s Internet subscription services for kids, said Disney Online Executive Vice President and Managing Director Ken Goldstein. Developed with the help of educational experts, Preschool Time focuses on pre-kindergarten skills, such as letter and number recognition, and features “fun learning” tools such as interactive story books.

“When you’re dealing with preschoolers, there really isn’t a difference between education and entertainment at that age level,“ Goldstein said. “This is all part of our age-banded strategy where we are looking to follow the consumer through all their age levels and have something for them at every age,“ he said.

Disney Online offers Disney’s Toontown Online, a multiplayer game for ages 8 to 12, and Blast, a multiplayer game for 5 to 9 year olds. The emphasis in those products is on action and strategy, Goldstein said. The company is also developing broadband services for older game players with a multiplayer game based on the hit film “Pirates of the Caribbean” due to launch this year.

Preschool Time Online can be purchased only through Disney, but the company has plans to integrate it into Disney Connection, a free kids “channel” offered to subscribers of high-speed Internet services provided by Comcast, Adelphia, MediaCom and Verizon.

Now only if I had this when I was younger, things would be so much better now.

Read [Reuters]

• Disney makes TiVo the happiest box on Earth
• TiVo offering big deals at Best Buy for holidays
• Mid-Ohio-Con 2008: Comics, games, Hulk, Jay and the Batmobile

Sections: Tech News, Web, Websites