Articles about TV

It has been an incredibly long time coming, but Disney+ subscribers are, at long last, being given control over the oft maligned Continue Watching list.

While an ostensibly useful feature, making it possible to easily pick up a viewing sessions from where you left it, Continue Watching lists have also been the cause of complaints. They have become wastelands of abandoned shows, movies that have been bailed on, and accidental additions -- but no more!

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You may remember a couple of years ago when Kate Bush’s song "Running Up That Hill" peaked at number one on the charts. Not unusual, given somebody always has the top song, but this was different. You see, that particular track was released decades earlier -- 1985 to be precise.

What caused this unexpected resurgence in popularity? In 2022, during the fourth season of the smash-hit Netflix series Stranger Things, the song was featured multiple times, bringing it back into the spotlight.

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It seems that almost everyone is talking about (or with) ChatGPT these days. ChatGPT, for those who do not know, is a language model developed by OpenAI. It is optimized for dialogue and text in general, and works similarly to chatbots, only more human-like and not limited to certain keywords.

ChatGPT is used for numerous tasks, including getting answers for knowledge-based questions, research, ideas for novels, getting answers for homework and exams, and more.

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Online live TV is here to stay, but like its ancestors cable and satellite, it has occasional problems. Nothing is perfect, so you’ll always have a hiccup here and there. This may be one of the stranger problems I’ve encountered though. 

Sling, one of the leaders in this new online TV market, is currently roughly half down. No, that doesn’t mean a portion of subscribers lost service, it’s a bit more odd than that. 

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It’s no secret that the NFL’s contract for Sunday Ticket with DirecTV expires after the upcoming NFL season, the 2022-23 one. That’s good news for pretty much anyone who doesn’t or who can't get the satellite service. 

While rumors abound of who will get the new Sunday Ticket deal -- Apple TV+ has long been rumored to be the front runner -- the real preferred favorite of the people out there has been to make it available through all services, like any channel -- sign a contract with the normal restrictions (blackouts, etc.) 

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Streaming video has been a big deal for a while and for many it’s replaced cable and satellite services, with some choices offering live TV over the internet. You might think you'll save money by cutting the cord but really, voice of experience here, you'll end up paying just as much in the long run, depending on the services you choose to have. 

Yesterday, Netflix announced a price hike going into effect in the month of March. The price will be jumping from $13.99 per month for the standard plan to $15.49. The company today sent out an email to its considerable user base stating:

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Thank God for streaming live television services, which have freed us all from cable TV's stranglehold. While streaming isn't always more affordable than cable, it is absolutely beneficial to have more options. My household uses YouTube TV, for instance, but there are many other streaming TV options too, such as fuboTV and Sling TV.

Speaking of Sling TV, today, consumers get a new platform on which to watch that service -- VIZIO SmartCast. Yes, if you own a compatible smart television from that company, you can watch Sling TV without the need of an external media box, such as a Roku. How cool is that?

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As we recently told you, Google and Disney had a dispute that lead to many channels being removed from YouTube TV. Essential television offerings like ABC, FX, Disney, ESPN, Freeform, and more were abruptly pulled from the service.

This hit me hard as a YouTube TV subscriber, as it meant I could no-longer watch Jeopardy (which airs on ABC) in the evenings -- something I truly look forward to. Not to mention, my family loves watching Christmas movies and shows on Freeform.

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Getting up this morning with a plan to turn on the news and see what’s going on? Or perhaps you want to watch any number of other things. Well, that may or may not work out for you. If you use Sling there’s a chance you’re down. 

The popular television service is currently experiencing an outage. There has been no official word from the company as of yet, but we’re awaiting a reply from them. This means we aren’t clear about much of anything -- how many users are affected, if there’s an expected resolution time or what exactly has caused the issue. 

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"Did you hear that? It’s probably nothing; I’ll go check." According to leading expert Chucky, this is a mistake too many people make. The best thing to do during this next week is to stay relatively safe in your home and tune into various modern-day sources to get your entertainment. 

It’s a great time to have various digital media services to get in the proper mood to send your kids out to soap mean Mr. Wilson’s windows, and then beg neighbors for food the very next night. 

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Not long ago, Sling rolled out a major change to its platform, adding and removing features and altering the overall look of the interface. While I welcomed some of those changes, the majority of them I panned. 

One I failed to mention when I went over the new, greatly altered look and functionality of Sling, was the inability to browse the guide while continuing to listen to the broadcast you’re currently watching. That feature had been available in the earlier iteration of the service -- you just had to press the up-arrow on your remote to access it. 

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The United States doesn't have an official language, and that's totally cool. It highlights our diversity, which is one of our biggest strengths. While English is currently the predominant language, it may not always be that way. Who knows, one day Spanish may be the most popular language in the USA. After all, we already have many wonderful Americans that speak it.

For those that speak Spanish, there are several TV channels that offer programming in that language. One of the most popular such channels is Univision, and today, it is finally coming to YouTube TV! In addition, the TV service is gaining access to UniMás and Galavisión -- two Spanish-language channels owned by Univision. Best of all, this isn't just quality live programming, but access to video on demand too. YouTube TV subscribers even get access to content in the Univision app.

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It’s been rumored for a while that Amazon was planning to make its own smart TVs -- rather than just partnering with other television manufacturers to offer 'Fire TV Editions' (sets with Fire TV and Alexa built-in) -- and today the retail giant confirms this with the announcement of two new 'Amazon-built' smart TVs -- the Amazon Fire TV Omni Series and Fire TV 4-Series.

The Fire TV Omni Series is Amazon’s premium offering and it comes with far-field voice controls so you can talk to Alexa from across the room. Alexa voice controls are always available, even if the set if turned off. Don’t worry though, you can disable this feature if you’re not keen on the idea of a television set listening to your every word.

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If you are a cord-cutter, a phrase some people like to debate, then you may be familiar with a great way to get your local over-the-air channels. The service is called Locast, and it rebroadcasts all the OTA without the rabbit-ears. That fills one of the great empty spots that folks had when it came to getting rid of cable or satellite. 

Unfortunately, there are some rather powerful entities out there that don’t like this idea very much. Why? Because Locast doesn’t charge (although it does request a monthly "donation" to keep the stream flowing uninterrupted), so there’s no cut for them to take. On Tuesday, Locast was dealt a huge blow when Judge Louis Stanton said a copyright infringement lawsuit brought by ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox would be allowed to proceed to trial.

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Kodi is a wonderful open source media player that provides users with an immersive experience that is optimized for the living room. While the software gets a bad reputation because some (most?) people use it for piracy, many strictly use it for legal media consumption. As more and more illegal Kodi add-on maintainers face legal trouble, and streaming services like Netflix, HBO Max, and Disney+ remain competitively priced, fewer folks are seeking pirated content nowadays.

LibreELEC is a Linux distribution that exists solely to run the aforementioned Kodi. It supports many hardware configurations, including traditional x86_64 for PC and some ARM devices like the Raspberry Pi 4. And now, a stable version of LibreELEC 10 becomes available for download. Sadly, support for the Raspberry Pi 0 and 1 is now discontinued.

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