Plex Live TV and DVR features arrive on Android and Apple TV
Plex has some good news for cord cutters with Plex Media Server installed and a Plex Pass. The Plex Live TV and DVR features are now out of beta!
Live TV does very much of what you would expect, allowing live TV broadcasts to be streamed from a TV tuner to Plex. Plex DVR also lets you record shows, and time shifting has also been added so you can pause and rewind live broadcasts.
Google Play Music and YouTube Red to merge into a new streaming service
YouTube's head of music, Lyor Cohen, has confirmed that Google Play Music and YouTube Red are going to merge. Speaking in New York at the New Music Seminar conference, Cohen said that a new streaming service would be created.
Rumors of the merger have been circulating for some time, and the move will see Google consolidating its services into something rather more manageable -- both for the company and for users.
YouTube Video Editor and Photo slideshows to close September 20
YouTube has quietly revealed that its Video Editor and Photo slideshows features will close down in just two months. It seems that not enough people are using the two tools to warrant keeping them alive, so they are being "retired".
Users are warned that while videos that have already been published will remain accessible, projects currently sitting in Video Editor must be completed by the shutdown date of September 20.
If you're downloading Game of Thrones, HBO has its eye on you
As the new season of any major series kicks off, torrent traffic for episodes clogs up internet pipes around the world. This has been true of everything from True Blood to Lost, and it's no different with season seven of Game of Thrones.
Clearly the networks behind shows that are shared via BitTorrent and through other means are keen to clamp down on piracy, and anyone planning to download Game of Thrones is cautioned that HBO is actively monitoring people pirating the series, and warnings are being sent out.
Nintendo Switch finally gets a video streaming app -- in Japan
Nintendo is finally bringing a third-party video streaming service to its Switch console for the first time since the system launched in March. However, it's not Netflix or Hulu.
It's Niconico, Japan's main YouTube rival which launched in 2006 but has become an increasingly popular platform in the country in recent years (it's currently among the top 10 websites in Japan).
Facebook, Twitter and Snap Inc may bid millions for World Cup 2018 streaming rights
World Cup 2018 is not far off, and social media networks are preparing to offer millions to obtain streaming rights from Fox Sports. The soccer tournament is to be held in Russia next year, and Facebook, Twitter and Snap Inc are all eager to be able to show highlights online.
As Fox Sports is the exclusive US rights holder, there is potential for bids for access to highlights to become high. A report from Bloomberg suggests that the social media giants have already put up "tens of millions of dollars."
Three's Go Binge tariff lets you stream Netflix and more without using your data allowance
UK mobile operator Three has introduced a new tariff that lets subscribers stream music, TV and movies from a number of services without eating into their data allowance. The Go Binge Tariff allows for all-you-can-eat streaming access to Netflix, TVPlayer, Deezer and SoundCloud.
If this sounds a little familiar, that's because T-Mobile has a similar tariff with an incredibly similar name: Binge On. Of course, there is potentially a slight catch: price.
Nearly half of football fans watch illegal streams of matches -- a third do so regularly
A survey by the BBC reveals that over a third of Premier League football (or soccer, if you insist) fans are getting their gaming fix using unofficial (that is, illegal) online streams.
Kodi boxes and similar dedicated devices are used by more than a quarter of fans for this very purpose. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it is younger adults who are more likely to make use of illegal streams.
Sony launches program for original TV shows on PlayStation
Sony is seeking submissions from filmmakers across the country to help develop a new TV series that will be distributed primarily through its various PlayStation-branded channels.
In a partnership announced today with a group called Ideas United, Sony is opening up submissions for anyone to submit their best ideas for a new TV show with the eventual winners seeing their idea come to life in a professionally produced pilot.
Subpoenas mean owners of TVAddons and ZemTV Kodi add-on could be revealed
In recent weeks numerous Kodi add-ons have disappeared, and the popular site TVAddons also suffered the same fate. It had been presumed that the disappearances were related to a lawsuit taken out by Dish Network, and now the broadcaster has been granted subpoenas to help identify those developing the ZemTV Kodi addon and running the TVAddons website.
The subpoenas relate to a number of online services including Facebook and Twitter, and successfully identifying defendants will be key to the success with any lawsuits relating to copyright infringement.
BBC iPlayer now requires you to sign in for your catch-up TV fix
Last month, the BBC announced plans to force iPlayer users to sign into their account in order to watch the catch-up service. The requirement is now rolling out, and this means that the option to skip sign-in is starting to vanish.
Visitors to the site are now greeted by a message that reads: "You now need to sign in to watch. It's quick & easy. And we'll keep you signed in." Without following the instruction to sign in -- which gives the BBC the opportunity to check for a valid TV license -- it is not possible to watch any programming.
Kodi add-ons site TVAddons vanishes from the internet
The negative attention that Kodi has been attracting recently continues. A number of high-profile add-ons, such as Phoenix, have disappeared recently as interest in the piracy potential for the media player increases.
The latest victim appears to be TVAddons, a site which lists unofficial Kodi add-ons. The site was sued last week in a federal court in Texas, so the disappearance is not entirely surprising. But the removal of DNS records -- rendering the site inaccessible -- without any explanation is a little strange.
Phoenix is the latest Kodi add-on to vanish as developers fear piracy probes
Kodi -- built from the ashes of XBMC -- remains a popular but controversial streaming media solution. The beauty of the software is that it allows for the streaming of just about anything, and that includes contents of questionable legality (oh, OK... let's just admit there are a bunch of add-ons that can be used to stream pirated content).
There has been a great deal of legal interest in so-called "fully-loaded" Kodi boxes of late, and this has had something of an unfortunate side-effect -- for fans of certain add-ons at least. Seemingly fearful of the legal implication of what their add-ons make possible, the developers of numerous well-known plugins are closing down. One of the latest is the popular Phoenix add-on.
What it's like to live with the new Sling TV cloud DVR
The digital video recorder has been around for quite a while now and it revolutionized home media. The way we watch TV completely changed when we no longer had to pop in a blank tape and manually plan our recordings. Now we just set a show to record whenever it happens to be on.
Sling has been rolling out a cloud DVR over the past couple of months, and I've been using it since it arrived -- so, around two months or so. I'd like to give you a bit of the ups and downs from my experience.
Plex rolls out Live TV and improved DVR to Plex Pass subscribers
Coming out of beta, Plex's DVR feature is now rolling out to all Plex Pass subscribers. On top of this, the platform is also gaining Plex Live TV -- a way to stream OTA broadcasts from your TV tuner to the Plex app.
To start with, Live TV is coming to the Android TV and iOS apps, but it will also make its way to Plex's other offerings meaning subscribers will be able to watch live TV from just about anywhere. On top of this major announcement, Plex has also unveiled -- in a blog post entitled "#$%@ it! We'll do it live!" -- a number of key improvements to its DVR feature.
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