作者彙整: Phil Nickinson

Get your Star Wars, Marvel and so much more a little earlier this spring.

Live in Europe and been waiting for March 31 for the official launch of Disney+? There’s a bit of good news. The streaming service everyone wants to have will launch a week earlier.

Pricing has been confirmed at £5.99 or €6.99 a month, or £59.99/€69.99 if you’re paying annually.

And the countires that will see the expedited — OK, at least seven days early — release are the UK, Ireland, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Austria and Switzerland.

Disney Plus has basically scorched the streaming industry since its launch in November 2019. The app itself saw more than 30 million downloads in the fourth quarter, according to some estimates. And that’s not overly surprising given that it’s the new streaming home for the bulk of Disneys holdings, including Disney proper, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and a little franchise known as Star Wars. It’s also where you’ll find National Geographic content, as wel… 閱讀全文 →

Henry Cavill in “The Witcher,” which Netflix says has been viewed by at least 76 million households.

The streaming giant has changed the way it reports whether someone has watched something.

Netflix has released its Q4 2019 earnings. As far as earnings reports go, it’s pretty standard. You can ready the highlights here. But the most interesting thing tucked amid all those numbers is that Netflix has changed the way it’s reporting — crowing, really — about how many people watched a particular thing.

Previously if you had watched 70 percent of a show or a series or a film, you were considered to have watched it. But the thing is that shows and series and films are of varying lengths. So 70 percent of a 5-minute short (that’s about 3 and a half minutes) is a bit different than sitting through 42 minutes of an hour-long special.

Going forward, Netflix will consider you to have watched something if the following criteria are met:

You chose to watch it and
You watched it for at … 閱讀全文 →

YouTube TV on PlayStation 4 looks pretty much like YouTube TV everywhere else. That’s a good thing.

Good thing, too, since PlayStation Vue is no more.

What you need to know

PlayStation Vue officially shuts down on Jan. 30.
PlayStation Vue subscribers have been recommened to use YouTube TV.
And YouTube TV is now available on PlayStation 4.

PlayStation Vue is officially dead on Jan. 30. Effectively, though, it’s been gone for weeks. And that means a couple things. First is that PlayStation owners need a new favorite streaming service. And for that, the folks at Sony have been pushing their customers to YouTube TV. (Undoubtedly Google pitched in a little cash to help ensure that the two would be come fast friends, but that’s neither here nor there.)

Just one problem, though. YouTube TV wasn’t ever available on PlayStation consoles. Until today.

Yes, you can now watch YouTube TV on a PlayStation 4. (And, presumably the PlayStation 5, once it eventually becomes more than a logo.)

… 閱讀全文 →

Its SmartCast user interface also gets a major update, and new soundbars are here, too.

Vizio today at CES in Las Vegas has unveiled a massive upgrade to its television lineup for 2020. New sets. Bigger sets than it’s done before. Its first OLED set. Sets with newer, faster processing across the board.

And that’s just for starters.

Here’s how to look at things: Vizio is still going with its “V-Series,” “M-Series,” and “P-Series” televisions, with the former focused more on affordability, and the latter on performance. In other words, V is good. M is better, and P is best. The M- and P-Series sets also get the “Quantum” designation because they employ Quantum Dot technology, which is better than not having it.

And to separate things out a little further, we now have an array of P-Series Quantum X televisions, in 65-, 75- and — in a first for Vizio — 85-inch flavors.

And to separate things out even further, Vizio also is rolling out its first OLED televisions — basically … 閱讀全文 →

All you need is ESPN+. (And Amazon Fire TV.)

UFC 245 is nearly upon us. It’s the final UFC event of 2019, and it’s going to be good. (At least it better be good, because we keep saying it will be.

On tap this Saturday, Dec. 14, is Kamaru Usman, who’s taking on Colby Covington in the welterweight division. The fight is coming to us from Las Vegas.

Like all big UFC events, this one’s on Pay-Per-View. And like all UFC Pay-Per-View events, it’s on ESPN+. That’s the streaming-only flavor of ESPN. And if you don’t already have it (it’s very good), you’ll need it to watch UFC 245. That’s true whether you want to watch on your phone, or on a Roku — or, yes, on your Amazon Fire TV. Which is what brings us here today.

The ESPN+ is excellent on Amazon Fire TV, whether you’re using the Amazon Fire TV Cube, or the Fire TV Stick 4K, or even the new Anker Nebula Soundbar, which is a Fire TV Edition joint.

There are two things you’ll need to have if you’re going to watch UFC 245 on an Ama… 閱讀全文 →

Best answer: If your house is already equipped with low-voltage doorbell wiring, the Doorbell Pro is the best consumer-grade video doorbell in Ring’s lineup. Otherwise, the Video Doorbell 2 can run off of a rechargeable battery, and offers most of the same features.

Your wired future: Ring Video Doorbell Pro ($249 at Amazon)
A battery marvel: Ring Video Doorbell 2 ($199 at Amazon)
The most premium: Ring Video Doorbell Elite ($499 at Amazon)
Peekaboo: Ring Peephole Camera ($149 at Amazon)

What is a Ring Doorbell?

Ring’s line of Wi-Fi-connected video doorbells is a great way to secure your home and give yourself some peace of mind when you’re waiting on a package or going away on vacation. They detect motion before anyone gets near your door, alert your smartphone, and start recording video.

That footage gets stored in the cloud (with a subscription fee, of course), so you don’t have to be watching live to catch a would-be burglar. There’s also two-way audio, meaning you can talk… 閱讀全文 →

The NVIDIA Shield TV (2019) is the best Android TV box you can get. The traingular remote that comes in the box is pretty good, but there are better options available if you’re looking for an all-in-one solution to control other devices. These are the best universal remotes you can get for your Shield TV (2019).

A truly great remote

Logitech Harmony Companion

Staff pick

The Harmony Companion is my favorite universal remote, hands-down. It comes with the Harmony Hub, so it’ll hook into the internet via your Wi-Fi and do all the connected home stuff. You can also set up groups of things to turn on along with the Shield TV, so you can game with some great lighting, or set the mood when you’re watching a movie.

$100 at Amazon

The best money can buy

Logitech Harmony Elite

The Harmony Elite is a huge upgrade from the Companion, with a price tag to go with it. Paying this much for a remote control is nuts, but you not only get a remote that can do everything, it also looks… 閱讀全文 →

You’ll soon be able to just tell your Nest Hub to fire up Sling.

Sling TV today announced that it’s getting a deeper integration on the Google Nest Hub displays, including the new Nest Hub Max.

Here’s the gist:

Now you can control Sling with your voice to watch shows on Nest Hub and Nest Hub Max, or use your voice to cast Sling to a Chromecast-connected TV. You can say “Hey Google, watch HGTV on Sling” (or any available channel you want to see!), as well as command controls like “play,” “pause,” “skip forward 10 seconds” or “stop” (but why would you ever want to stop Slinging?). On the Nest Hub Max, you can also pau-se and resume content on Sling with Quick Gestures by holding your hand up and looking at the device.

One caveat here: While Chromecast has (and continues to) work just fine, the deeper Nest Hub integration is waiting on a little server-side action from Google, so that you can directly connect your Sling account just like any other supported third-party account. I… 閱讀全文 →

What you need to know

YouTube TV hasn’t yet carried local PBS member stations.
That’ll change later this year.
You’ll also have access to on-demand content.
PBS today announced that it’s bringing its member stations to YouTube TV. In addition to live shows, YouTube TV subscribers also will have access to PBS content on-demand. The new channels will be available sometime later this year, PBS said in a press release.

It marks the first time PBS has done a partnership of this sort. Until now, you’d need a separate subscription to the PBS streaming apps (which are excellent in their own right), or be able to receive your local PBS station with an over-the-air antenna.

From the presser:

“We’re excited to launch our very first local livestream on YouTube TV,” said PBS Chief Digital and Marketing Officer Ira Rubenstein. “Our goal is to reach as many Americans as possible with content that educates, inspires and entertains. As a broadcaster that is rooted in communities, we appreciate… 閱讀全文 →

There are plenty of other options that actually exist.

It’s easy to point fun at Apple for canceling AirPower — its special wireless charging pad that was supposed to somehow charge things better than other wireless pads. And maybe we should just a little, because when you announce things as breathlessly as Apple does, you damned well better produce. (Note to Apple: That also applies to TV shows.)

But it’s not as if AirPower (seriously, that name, though) was the only way to charge Apple products wirelessly. It’s not even the only way to charge multiple products wirelessly.

Ikea — charging in style since, forever.

Take, for instance, this Qi-standard wireless charger from Ikea, which I’ve been using since (checks Amazon history …) September 2017.

It’s not inexpensive — just north of $100. But it was the perfect fit for my family. Three of us have phones that can be charged wirelessly. (OK, one of us has multiple phones that can be charged w… 閱讀全文 →