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| This week on TechHive: Don't fret over FilmStruck's demise |
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On November 29, WarnerMedia will shut down FilmStruck, a streaming service for classic films. While Filmstruck had some devoted fans, ultimately WarnerMedia didn't think it was popular enough as the company streamlines operations under new corporate parent AT&T.
For the folks who did love FilmStruck, the news is indisputably a bummer. But as with so many other happenings in the world of cord-cutting, we're now seeing some observers turn this story into a broader--and mostly bogus--indictment of streaming video as a vessel for classic films. In fact, streaming video will make classic films more accessible than ever. Read the full column on TechHive.
Also on TechHive this week, I reviewed Amazon's Fire TV Recast DVR, which records local over-the-air channels from an antenna and streams the video to other devices around the house. The $230 device is similar in nature to the Tablo Dual Lite DVR, but it offers better video quality, a large built-in hard drive, neat Alexa voice controls, and no subscription fees for full DVR service.
The catch? Recast requires a Fire TV device to watch on televisions, and is incompatible with other streaming devices like Roku and Apple TV. At the same time, out-of-home streaming only works on iOS or Android, so you can't take a Fire TV with you to watch local broadcasts on the road. Because of those limitations, I still think Tablo is the best over-the-air DVR for most people. The Recast is a better choice if you're already all-in on Amazon's ecosystem.
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| Weekly rewind |
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Roku's new speakers: Speaking of lock-in, Roku is now shipping the wireless speakers it announced over the summer. For $200, these speakers are only compatible with Roku smart TVs. They won't work with Roku's standalone streaming players or with other streamers like Fire TV or Apple TV, though they can function as standalone Bluetooth speakers.
Why bother, then? Roku says the integration between its speakers and smart TVs allows for dead-simple setup, along with some helpful features like volume leveling and dialog boosting. (Roku's streaming players offer similar features that work with any TV, but presumably the company's own speakers will presumably work even better.) Phil Nickinson at CordCutters.com praised the speakers' ease of use, but wished for more bass.
If you plan to use a Roku TV for several years and are interested in these speakers, Roku will sell them for $50 off on Black Friday.
HDHomeRun's big push: HDHomeRun picked up some press coverage this week by advertising itself as an "all-in-one" solution for cord-cutters. This involves connecting an HDHomeRun antenna tuner (like the $75 Connect) to your router, installing its DVR software (on a PC, NAS box, or Nvidia Shield TV), and subscribing to both a $35 per year DVR service and a $35 per month bundle of cable channels. You can then can record dozens of channels and stream them to the HDHomeRun app on iOS, Android, Android TV, Fire TV, Xbox One, and Windows.
This all-in-one reveal is mostly just a marketing campaign, as HDHomeRun's DVR service launched last year, and the Premium TV bundle of cable channels arrived a couple months ago. Still, the announcement did include some updates to HDHomeRun's apps, including better organization of shows and easier ways to manage recordings.
I still think Plex or Channels DVR provide a slicker experience with HDHomeRun's tuner, and they both work with HDHomeRun's Premium TV service as well, but given the need for additional server hardware (such as a PC) in all cases, HDHomeRun remains a solution for power users only.
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| Save more money |
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We're still a couple days away from the earliest Black Friday deals on streaming devices, so I'll just rehash some of the ones I've pointed out previously, along with some new announcements:
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