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Streaming HD

DTV Transition Streaming HD

HDTV Expert - Aereo And The Law Of Unintended Consequences

Aereo's Internet retransmission service, which re-encodes terrestrial digital TV broadcasts using AVC coding over IP, faces mounting legal and technical scrutiny as a 10th Circuit judge ruled its operation indistinguishable from a cable company under the 1976 Copyright Act. The service's antenna-per-subscriber architecture, while designed to sidestep copyright liability, likely contributed to catastrophic buffering failures during the Oscars and Golden Globes broadcasts. For cord-cutters, alternatives like the Channel Master DVR+ with dual tuners and USB-expandable storage, or Hauppauge WinTV USB receivers, may offer more reliable local HD reception without the legal uncertainty.

Pete Putman •
Columns
HDTV Expert - CES 2014 In The Rear-View Mirror
OLED TVs Streaming HD Events & Trade Shows

HDTV Expert - CES 2014 In The Rear-View Mirror

CES 2014 showcased a wave of 4K LCD and OLED televisions, with HEVC H.265 encoding poised to halve required bit rates and enable 4K streaming at roughly 10-20 Mb/s over existing broadband infrastructure. Quantum dot film technology, already deployed in Sony's 55-inch and 65-inch 4K LCD TVs, offers a compelling alternative to OLED by delivering stable, narrow-bandwidth color without the differential blue-emitter aging that threatens OLED longevity beyond 5,000 hours. Consumers weighing early adoption of these technologies will find the display interface landscape still evolving, with HDMI 2.0 capped at 18 Gb/s and DisplayPort 1.3 promising higher headroom for 10-bit 4K at 60 Hz.

Pete Putman •
Columns
Home Theater Streaming HD 4K Ultra HD

HDTV and Home Theater Podcast - Podcast #616: HDTV Predictions for 2014

Two home theater enthusiasts lay out their 2014 predictions for the HDTV and streaming landscape, including Netflix reaching at least 50 4K titles and 9.1 surround sound receivers displacing 7.1 as the mainstream standard. OLED is expected to remain a niche product due to its steep price premium over plasma and elite LCD panels, while 4K is forecast to gain traction driven by Chinese manufacturers pushing prices down rapidly. For consumers, these shifts signal a pivotal year for display and audio hardware upgrade decisions.

The HT Guys •
Podcasts
Cable HD Streaming HD

HDTV Expert - A La Carte TV: No Blue Plate Special?

A Needham and Co. analyst estimates that a la carte pay TV delivery could eliminate at least 124 smaller channels, costing $80B to $113B in U.S. consumer value, while a typical cable channel requires roughly 165,000 annual viewers just to break even at $280 million per year in operating costs. Cord-cutting continues to accelerate, with Netflix approaching 30 million subscribers and services like Aereo charging around $10 per month to stream over-the-air broadcasts via the Internet. Canada's upcoming mandate to unbundle TV channel packages will serve as a real-world test of whether a la carte models benefit or burden consumers.

Pete Putman •
Columns
Streaming HD Smart TVs

HDTV and Home Theater Podcast - Podcast #610: Why are the networks upset with Aereo?

Aereo routes dedicated over-the-air antenna signals to Internet-connected devices, letting subscribers watch and record live OTA HD broadcasts outside the traditional cable or satellite ecosystem. Courts have so far upheld the service, yet networks remain hostile because retransmission fees - not ad revenue - are the core financial stake, and a DirecTV-style adoption of the same model could cost them significantly more. For cord-cutters already abandoning pay TV, Aereo offers a legal, measurable viewing path that could preserve advertiser reach and enable targeted ad insertion rather than simply eroding network audiences.

The HT Guys •
Podcasts
Home Theater Streaming HD

HDTV and Home Theater Podcast - Podcast #597: Google Chromecast review

Google's Chromecast is a $35 HDMI dongle powered via micro-USB that streams Netflix, YouTube, and Google Play content by establishing direct connections to those services rather than routing through the casting device, delivering quality comparable to Roku or Apple TV. Browser tab casting, however, relies on screen sharing from the host computer and suffers from video stutters and reduced resolution, with JavaScript and AJAX-driven pages such as Google Docs failing to update in real time. At one-third the cost of competing streamers, Chromecast is a compelling option for casual cord-cutters, though its value depends heavily on expanded native app support.

The HT Guys •
Podcasts
Cable HD Streaming HD

HDTV Expert - Time To Stop Whistling Past The Graveyard?

Pay TV providers in the U.S. lost 316,000 subscribers between June 2012 and June 2013, with cable operators alone shedding 591,000 video subscriptions in Q2 2013, according to Moffett Research. Competing services like AT&T U-Verse and Verizon FiOS gained 371,000 subs in the same period, while over-the-air antenna reception, Netflix, Amazon Prime streaming, and digital downloads are increasingly viable alternatives for cost-conscious viewers. For consumers paying upward of $185 per month for bundled packages, the math increasingly favors dropping channel tiers and supplementing broadband with streaming.

Pete Putman •
Columns
Blu-ray Streaming HD Market Trends & Analysis

HDTV Expert - DEG: Here's The Rest of the Story

The Digital Entertainment Group's mid-2013 home entertainment report buries significant declines behind optimistic headlines, with overall DVD and Blu-ray disc sales falling 4.7% year-over-year to $3.6 billion while subscription streaming surged 32% to $1.5 billion. Physical disc rentals across all channels continued a multi-year contraction, and the 61 million Blu-ray players cited by DEG increasingly function as streaming media boxes rather than disc players. The looming implementation of MPEG-4 H.265 (HEVC) encoding, enabling 1080p/60 streams at 2-3 Mb/s, suggests the shift away from packaged media will only accelerate.

Pete Putman •
Columns
Home Theater Blu-ray Streaming HD

HDTV and Home Theater Podcast - Podcast #593: Blu-ray: Here to stay?

Blu-ray remains the benchmark for home theater quality, delivering uncompressed audio codecs and bitrates that current streaming services cannot match, even as newer compression formats narrow the gap. Physical media also guarantees consistent playback without buffering, bandwidth throttling, or license verification requirements tied to an Internet connection. For viewers with 5.1, 6.1, or 7.1 surround systems and high-end displays, or those in areas with unreliable broadband, Blu-ray is not just the superior choice but often the only practical one.

The HT Guys •
Podcasts
Home Theater Blu-ray Streaming HD

HDTV and Home Theater Podcast - Podcast #592: Is Blu-ray a Dead Format?

Blu-ray delivers the highest quality audio and video available to consumers today, yet its long-term viability is challenged by streaming services already surpassing DVD quality at bitrates around 4-10Mbps and SD cards capable of 40MB/s transfer speeds on 64GB media. BD-Live's community features have been rendered largely obsolete by social platforms, while in-store kiosk downloads and online lockers represent plausible physical-media alternatives. For home theater enthusiasts, the practical question is not whether Blu-ray will be replaced, but how soon gigabit internet and studio DRM policy shifts will accelerate that transition.

The HT Guys •
Podcasts
Home Theater Streaming HD Codecs & Compression

HDTV and Home Theater Podcast - Podcast #588: Netflix SuperHD

Netflix SuperHD delivers 1080p streaming at 7Mbps using MPEG-4 compression, which the authors calculate as roughly equivalent to a 9-11Mbps MPEG-2 signal, placing it near over-the-air HD quality on a multicast channel. Supported devices include PlayStation 3, Apple TV, Roku, and TiVo Premiere, but access requires an ISP participating in the Open Connect network. Picture quality tested noticeably better than DVD and comparable to some broadcast TV channels, though short of Blu-ray, with Dolby Digital audio tracks performing impressively close to disc-based counterparts.

The HT Guys •
Podcasts
Streaming HD

HDTV Expert - Faster Broadband Means Abandoning the Pay TV Ship

Cord-cutting is accelerating as 40% of U.S. Internet users have either dropped pay TV or never subscribed, with Netflix streaming growing from 4% weekly viewership in 2010 to 22% by the time of the Leichtman Research Group study. The FCC has noted that fewer than 10% of U.S. households can sustain 2-3 Mbps consistently, yet codec advances like H.265 promise a 50% bit rate reduction over H.264, lowering the bandwidth threshold for quality streaming. Paradoxically, pay TV operators upgrading broadband infrastructure to compete with Google Fiber and Verizon may be accelerating their own subscriber losses.

Pete Putman •
Columns
Streaming HD Market Trends & Analysis Satellite HD

HDTV Expert - Zero-TV Households and the Second-Season Crunch

Nielsen's Q4 2012 Cross-Platform Report identifies over 5 million Zero-TV households, up from 2 million in 2007, with 67% consuming video via PCs, smartphones, and tablets rather than traditional sets. Network broadcast ratings are declining sharply, with shows like New Girl dropping from 8.4 to 6.16 million viewers in their second season, while cable originals such as Homeland and Game of Thrones command stronger audience loyalty. Notably, 23% of Netflix subscribers have cancelled cable or satellite subscriptions, signaling a structural shift that improved smart TVs and faster streaming will likely accelerate.

Ken Werner •
Columns
Blu-ray Streaming HD OTA HD & Antennas

HDTV Expert - TV, Over The Air and Everywhere!

Aereo's antenna-based internet rebroadcasting service has drawn legal threats from CBS and Fox, who demand retransmission fees despite losing two court battles, while the NFL's silence on Aereo carrying its games without rights payments raises pointed questions about selective enforcement. Nielsen data shows Blu-ray disc adoption grew 14% year-over-year in 2012, yet streaming faces serious reliability problems, with Conviva's analysis of 22 billion video streams finding 60% experienced quality degradation including re-buffering, slow startup, and low bit-rate picture quality. For consumers, the choice between physical media and streaming remains a genuine trade-off between convenience and consistent playback quality.

Pete Putman •
Columns
Smart TVs Streaming HD

Panasonic Announces Pricing & Availability For Its Inaugural Line Of Streaming Media Players

Panasonic's first streaming media player lineup includes two models: the DMP-MST60 ($99.99) with 3D capability, VIERA Connect smart TV platform, Miracast display mirroring (requiring Android 4.2 or higher), and 2D-to-3D conversion, and the DMP-MS10 ($79.99) with built-in Wi-Fi and IP VOD access to services including Netflix, Hulu Plus, and YouTube. Both units support external HDD playback, giving users flexible local and cloud-based content options. Consumers seeking an affordable entry point into smart TV functionality without replacing their existing display have two distinct tiers to consider.

Shane Sturgeon •
Bulletins