AV Rant #249: Liz’s Rack
This may be our last podcast after Liz sees the title. Hopefully she’s in a good mood that day. The title should be “Listener Question Day” as Tom and Liz tackle five different emails. Star Wars Blu-ray in 6.1? Who cares when Tom has a new favorite movie. David gives AV Rant a first and has a few questions about subs. Tim fills us in on Blockbuster closing in Canada. Jason is thinking of mounting his speakers and has a question about center changel placement. Liz found a device that she absolutely loves and a solution for commercials that Tom thinks is brilliant. Movie revenues are up but is attendance? Tom and Liz speculate. Amazon considers a new book lending solution. Liz’s Soup to Nuts is on set-top-streaming boxes (notes below). Thanks for listening and don’t forget to vote for us at Podcast Alley! To see our (mostly) complete collection of show videos, click here. Download Tom’s FREE ebook Bob Moore: No Hero which is pretty much available everywhere. Friend Tom and Liz on Google+ to join in on one of our hangouts.
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Set Top Boxes:
- Boxee Box – dedicated hardware to run the boxee software. this is their primary platform now. The boxee box gets the first software updates. Main focus is on “apps”. Will stream most media from a fileserver or another computer. Made by dlink $230 ($180 via Amazon) Side note. has an awesome remote with QWERTY keyboard. Lots of supported file formats.
- Western Digital — stream movies and internet video to your TV.
- Slingbox -place shifting (record in / stream from one location, play in another location) via internet connectivity (mobile app, or website, hardware box) base model $180
- Squeezebox – network music player, internet radio, your own music collection, wireless streaming to enabled devices: nearly 300$
- Logitech Revue– plug in cable box/tivo and internet — puts a web interface around your tv. Applications like netflix, amazon on-demand, working on a hulu app 99$ value.
- Roku player – netflix, hulu plus, amazon instant video, pandora, ufc (ultimate fighting championship) $60 – $100
- LG Plex — set top box still need to install plex on a home computer to use, but the box will let you connect a non-internet enabled TV to the web. the usual assortment of streaming services.
- AppleTV – content from apple, stream from idevice through airplay. device does have a jail break
Click here for Feature Comparison Chart.
Ah, Scotty Pilgrim. Had so much buzz coming out of Comic-Con, but then sort of fell flat at the box office. Similar to Kick-Ass in that way.
I really enjoyed both of those movies. Scott Pilgrim was definitely the more outlandish, and I found that it also gave more highs and lows. I wasn’t a fan of every scene, but when it struck a chord with me, it really made me smile wide or laugh out loud.
The first “musical” battle was a bit too broad for my liking. It sort of went over the edge and had me wincing a bit because I had absolutely loved everything up to that point. I didn’t much care for the “Twins” battle.
I mostly enjoyed the characters though. I liked Scott’s room mate, I like Knives, I liked the band – so that made the movie very enjoyable throughout.
It’s too bad it didn’t make money. Mostly because it likely discourages Hollywood even further from making anything that’s even just a little bit creative. Kick-Ass still has a chance at a sequel. But that’s pretty much only because of Hit Girl and the fact that Chloe Moretz SHOULD be a huge star in the near future – she’s a pretty amazing young actress…too bad Let Me In totally flopped 🙁
With Lyndsy Fonseca demonstrating that she’s 10 kinds of freakin’ awesome on CW’s Nikita, I’d really like to see a female-centric Hit Girl movie. Throw Aaron Johnson a cameo to tie it into Kick-Ass, but I’d like to see Chloe and Lyndsy take the lead 😀
A couple of technical points.
Squeeze box does not require a pc. My Mom has a Squeeze box sitting in her kitchen and we didn’t touch her pc when we set it up.
WDTV Live, is one of the most versitile playback devices. It can playback just about anything and has a rabid following.
I’ve heard nothing but good things about it.
Woohoo, the first mention of rugby on the podcast was it?! You should be across the ditch supporting your team!
David – Yeah, I found that out after the podcast. Seems they changed that in their newest products (a change for the better).
Cut – I hear the US rugby team is supposed to be playing soon. I just OTA TV so I might have to go to a bar to see it. I’ve got a few rugby loving friends so I may check it out. I hear we’re not bad though NZ and Aus are favored.
Yeah I’m a kiwi so I’ll be supporting the All Blacks, Aus have a good team but the loss to the Irish has definitely put the wobbles on their campaign. I’ve been quite impressed by the US and Canada and some of the other ‘minor’ teams of the cup. It’s crazy world cup fever over here.