Topic: HD - Engadget

By Steve Dent posted Oct 21st 2013 6:28AM 0

Netflix could have more paid subscribers than HBO by the end of the year HD

Netflix is about to pass a milestone by having more paid US customers than HBO, according to a poll of analysts by Bloomberg. The streaming outfit, which was originally a DVD rental service, probably has around 31 million subscribers now stateside compared to 28.7 million for HBO (including free trial accounts, it topped 31 million back in April). The premium cable-TV network isn't standing still, though, expanding video on-demand access to its shows via Google Play. However, Netflix is also reported to be dabbling in cable, and is in talks to pop up on boxes as a service to Comcast and Suddenlink subscribers. We'll have to wait and see if analyst consensus lines up with actual subscriber numbers, but stay tuned -- Netflix will report its earnings and customer numbers by the end of the day.

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By Richard Lawler posted Oct 20th 2013 1:22AM 0

All three Indiana Jones movies are finally coming to Blu-ray individually HD

Last year Paramount and Lucasfilm delivered The Complete Adventures of Indiana Jones (minus the TV series) on Blu-ray, bringing Raiders of the Lost Ark, Temple of Doom, and Last Crusade home in HD for the first time. Of course, obtaining any of those movies meant buying the pack (including a fourth movie), but this year Indy fans can finally pick and choose, as the three movies will hit shelves individually on December 17th. If you can live without a physical copy, Digital HD versions from the usual assortment of internet movie stores go on sale even earlier on November 19th. Each copy is up for pre-order on Amazon already for about $19, so if you want more than one and/or the extra disc with all the behind the scenes featurettes, the $45 complete set might be the way to go -- even if it means owning that other movie too. Choose wisely, and check after the break to have Raiders of the Lost Ark ruined for you forever.

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By Mariella Moon posted Oct 19th 2013 5:07AM 0

BBC's 'Moving On' will be the first drama to premiere on iPlayer later this fall HD

BBC's iPlayer is shaping up to be a workaholic's best friend for lazy weekends. This time, it's the fifth season of daytime drama Moving On that's hitting the service, which has also scored 30-day catch-up programming and exclusive content in recent months. While the network has previously experimented with pre-TV airing, it has focused on comedies like BBC Three's Jack Whitehall's Bad Education -- this marks the first time a drama will premiere on iPlayer. There's no word on when Moving On will debut online other than that it'll happen sometime this fall, and that all five standalone episodes will be available at once. According to the BBC, this is all part of a trial that explores "the role of online premiering," so we can likely expect more titles to follow suit in the future.

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By Sean Buckley posted Oct 18th 2013 10:29PM 0

Microsoft: no third party Xbox One headsets until 2014 HD

The Xbox One may come with its own beefed up audio accessories, but audiophiles waiting on Turtle Beach's XO Ear Force headsets will have to wait: Microsoft won't support them until 2014. According to a statement confirmed by Microsoft, the Xbox One Headset Adapter that enables the use of third party audio accessories will ship early next year, leaving early adopters to make due with the official pack-ins. Redmond says it'll use the spare time to help manufactures "create new headsets that will take full advantage of the Xbox One technology," also noting that the console's included headset is free, after all.

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By Nicole Lee posted Oct 18th 2013 4:19PM 0

Dijit collaborates with 11 TV networks to remind you to watch their shows HD

Say you're surfing around online and come upon an interesting promo for a new TV show. You could stop what you're doing, find the show on your DVR and hit record, but most likely you'll just make yourself a little mental note to catch it later. The problem with mental notes, of course, is that they're often forgotten. Dijit, however, aims to change that by collaborating with broadcast and cable TV networks to incorporate NextGuide-powered reminder buttons on their websites. The reminder buttons have been in testing since August, but the official rollout is today.

Eleven companies are on board so far, three of which are BBC America, Fox and truTV. If you go to one of the network's show pages, you'll see a "Remind Me" button with a small alarm clock icon. Click that, and you can sign up for an email or Facebook reminder that'll arrive a half hour before the show airs. If you just don't have the time to watch it then, the message'll also have a one-click "record to DVR" option with participating providers (Comcast, DirecTV and Dish are the only ones for now). Of course, there's nothing to remind you to hit the reminder button in the first place, so maybe make a, er, mental note of this going forward. Head past the break for the PR or hit the source for more info on how to sign up for the service.

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By Ben Gilbert posted Oct 18th 2013 1:29PM 0

Hands-on with NVIDIA's Gamestream, the evolution of Shield's PC streaming tech (video) HD

NVIDIA Shield's PC streaming tech is impressive, but NVIDIA's Gamestream tech is even more impressive: employing the Shield's HDMI-out port, games can not only be streamed to the Shield, but also to your living room TV. The functionality goes live on October 28th and officially takes PC streaming on Shield from beta to final. It'll add "Console Mode" as well, which enables control of the Shield's entire OS on your TV screen via connected Bluetooth controller. Though gaming is, at launch, limited to 720p, NVIDIA says 1080p is on the way -- you'll of course need a pretty hefty GPU to make that happen.

After today's announce of Gamestream, we had a chance to sit down and try it out with a Falcon Northwest Tiki PC and a Nyko wireless controller, playing Borderlands 2. As you'll see in the video below the break, streaming and controlling the Shield via Bluetooth controller is a snap -- we're actually quite looking forward to using a DualShock 3 with the Shield for controlling our favorite PC games.

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By Ben Gilbert posted Oct 18th 2013 12:40PM 0

Oculus Rift's John Carmack says a new Rift dev kit is in the works, sees consumer model running Android (video) HD

Oculus Rift's new Chief Technology Officer John Carmack says a new Oculus Rift dev kit is in the works and will arrive in developers' hands before the retail unit ships some time next year. In an interview with Engadget this morning, Carmack also spelled out what he sees as the future of the Rift's consumer model: an Android-powered standalone headset powered by an SoC. "The way I believe it's going to play out is you will eventually have a head-mounted display that probably runs Android, as a standalone system, that has a system-on-a-chip that's basically like what you have in mobile phones," Carmack said.

Echoing company founder Palmer Luckey, Carmack said that the Rift was born from mobile technology's constant push forward, bringing down the price of Rift's components and making it accessible to consumers. He expects mobile tech to reach 4K resolution in the not-so-distant future, making future models of the Rift much sharper visually. The bigger issue, though, is head-tracking -- something Carmack's actively concerned with and working to solve ahead of a retail release. "A lot of the work at Oculus has gone into working out better position tracking," he told us. "The tracking side is something that there hasn't been as much of a push for and we're frantically working on a lot of that, because that is one of the other really large issues. But we expect that the next developer kit will have higher resolution and position tracking addressing some of these significant issues."

As for how the Rift consumer version will launch, that's another question altogether -- he said that there are several camps within Oculus arguing for a retail release vs. direct-to-consumers vs. other options. Head below the break for the full video interview with much more from one of gaming's most famous faces.

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By Ben Gilbert posted Oct 18th 2013 11:33AM 0

NVIDIA reveals the GTX 780 Ti, a new 'high-end enthusiast' GPU HD

NVIDIA's news day apparently isn't over just yet, as the company just revealed a new graphics card: the NVIDIA GTX 780 Ti. It's apparently hitting retail shelves this November, and it's just one step below the company's super high-end GPU, the Titan. CEO Jen-Hsun Huang didn't offer many specifics on the new graphics card, instead choosing to leave it to reviewers who are apparently receiving units any day now. We're gonna go ahead and call it safe to assume that this is a pretty powerful little card, but we'll get some hands-on time in the coming hours with any luck!

Zach Honig contributed to this report.

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By Jon Fingas posted Oct 18th 2013 11:04AM 0

Aereo TV streaming arrives in Detroit on October 28th HD

Aereo spent much of the summer expanding its presence in southern states, but it's swinging its attention back to northern climes today. The TV streaming provider just revealed that it will launch in the Detroit metropolitan area on October 28th. Motor City viewers can pre-register for a chance to subscribe ahead of the public launch, with service starting at $8 per month for access to over 20 local channels that include ABC, Fox and NBC. The rollout is just one of many this year, but it's well-timed for Android fans; Detroit should be the first city to get Aereo service following the Android app launch on October 22nd.

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By Ben Gilbert posted Oct 18th 2013 10:46AM 0

NVIDIA's G-Sync is a module for gaming monitors to alleviate screen tearing (update: video demo!) HD

NVIDIA head Jen-Hsun Huang revealed G-Sync this morning, a module for gaming monitors that helps alleviate screen tearing and skipping issues. A variety of display companies are already on board, including ASUS, BenQ, Philips and ViewSonic. Huang said the module kills stutter entirely, pushes down lag and kills tearing. The monitors with G-Sync look the same as a normal display, as the module is built into the rear (as seen above). We're told by NVIDIA's Ujesh Desai that the module won't make new monitors much more expensive, and the module works with GPUs that have Kepler architecture (so the GTX 660 and up). G-Sync monitors will be available starting in Q1 2014.

"This eliminates the penalty for the drop in frame rate," Epic's Mark Rein said of the module. "The whole Rein family will be getting new monitors this year," he said with a laugh. A quick demo we were shown of a V-Sync'd monitor versus one with G-Sync did what NVIDIA promised: screen tearing was eliminated and lag was imperceptible. We'll have a video of NVIDIA's new G-Sync module coming up shortly -- stay tuned!

Update: We've added a hands-on demo with G-Sync. It looked fantastic in person, but due to the limitations of our camera equipment, some of the improvements may not be apparent in our video. Find that demo just after the break.

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By Ben Gilbert posted Oct 18th 2013 10:24AM 0

NVIDIA's GeForce Experience will stream directly to Twitch, Shadowplay coming on October 28th HD

NVIDIA's GeForce Experience software is getting an update by the end of the year that'll add Twitch streaming directly from the application. The company says that Shadowplay, its DVR-esque service that automatically captures the last 20 minutes of gameplay video, will arrive on October 28th in beta. A live demo was shown of Ubisoft's Splinter Cell: Blacklist, streamed directly out and shown running natively on via GeForce Experience on a desktop. It looks like we're getting demos of all of today's NVIDIA announcements in the coming hours, so stay tuned!

Zach Honig contributed to this report.

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By Ben Gilbert posted Oct 18th 2013 10:07AM 0

NVIDIA reveals Gamestream, a game streaming initiative powered by NVIDIA GPUs HD

NVIDIA announced Gamestream this morning, an initiative aimed at pairing the company's GPUs with streaming gaming via its Shield handheld game console. Company head Jen-Hsun Huang says the service takes NVIDIA's GeForce Experience software and pairs it with NVIDIA GPUs and the Shield to push streaming gaming to the living room.

Huang said Gamestream's first stop is a re-branding of the Shield's streaming tech -- sounds like that PC streaming tech on Shield is coming out of beta. But Huang's not stopping there: he pulled NVIDIA's Ujesh Desai on-stage, and he showed Shield powering PC game streaming on a nearby LG 4K television. "What makes Gamestream special is the low-latency of it," Huang said. Desai used a Nyko wireless controller that he paired via Bluetooth with the Shield, and the Shield's Android OS ran on the television. Apparently the computer that powered the demo of Batman: Arkham Origins -- an unreleased WB game demoed via Steam's Big Picture Mode on Shield -- runs NVIDIA's $1,000 Titan GPU.

The game sure looked snazzy running on a big 4K television, though we couldn't help but notice the same hitching issues with streaming that we encounter at home with our review Shield. Of course, the streaming will work on any old TV that has an HDMI-in. The Shield connected to the TV via its HDMI-out port -- something that previously made little sense. Huang said the game console mode of Shield will arrive in the coming months, as well as the update to GeForce Experience that enables streaming to televisions via Shield.

Zach Honig contributed to this report.

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By Sharif Sakr posted Oct 18th 2013 8:40AM 0

Sony's Driveclub becomes second PS4 launch title to be delayed in a week HD

Sony has just announced that Driveclub, one of its original launch titles for the PlayStation 4, is running behind schedule and will miss the big day. The magnitude of this loss will obviously depend on how much your personal PS4 unboxing fantasy involved loading up a team-based, arcade-style driving sim -- and honestly, ours didn't. Nevertheless, the postponement comes in the same week that Watch Dogs was also pushed back to spring 2014 -- though that delay affects all consoles, not just Sony's. There's another issue, too: Driveclub was one of just two launch games that were meant to be offered free to PS Plus subscribers, as an extra inducement to spend $50 on a year's access. By way of a replacement, Sony will offer the dark platform-puzzler Contrast as part of its PS4 instant game collection, and you'll find a trailer for that title lurking in the shadows below.

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By Daniel Cooper posted Oct 18th 2013 5:40AM 0

Amazon gently hints this might not be the best time to buy an Apple TV (update) HD

When we were kids, our mom told us never to take Amazon listings as evidence for anything. That retailer, she'd say, is so big and complex that its stock decisions can't be used to learn about new products. Still, the fact that Amazon's French and German outlets have marked the Apple TV as out of stock has got our heads a-scratching. After all, the company is saying that the product won't be available until October 23rd -- one day after Apple's forthcoming launch event. So maybe we'd hold off on buying one of those hockey pucks until the middle of next week, just in case.

Update: Well, Amazon France is now offering the hardware again, but with orders fulfilled by a third-party retailer rather than from its own, presumably empty, stocks.

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By Ben Gilbert posted Oct 18th 2013 3:00AM 0

Xbox 360's 'Games with Gold' becomes permanent, still no word on Xbox One version HD

Microsoft's Xbox 360 monthly free game promo, "Games with Gold," is being extended indefinitely. The program is essentially Microsoft's response on Xbox 360 to Sony's PlayStation Plus initiative on PlayStation 3 and Vita: members who pay the monthly or annual fee to the programs receive a variety of free games each month. Sony announced an extension of its program to its next game console, the PlayStation 4, back at E3 2013 -- anyone who already pays for PS Plus on PS3 or Vita is automatically a member on PS4.

Microsoft, however, won't say if "Games with Gold" will extend to its upcoming game console, the Xbox One."We're excited to announce we are extending Games with Gold for Xbox 360. We will share more details on the program soon. Stay tuned for our plans on Xbox One," a Microsoft spokesperson told Engadget. There are, of course, many other benefits to paying for an Xbox Live Gold account on the Xbox One, the least of which is the ability to play online multiplayer games.

Games with Gold kicked off in July 2013 with the aged Xbox Live Arcade title Defense Grid, and has since offered a smattering of other titles, from Crackdown to Dead Rising 2. This month's free games are Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes and Halo 3.

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