If you are a fan of comic book movies and you haven’t seen Thor Ragnarok yet… I really don’t know what’s wrong with you. In Norse mythology, Ragnarok, or the Doom of the Gods, represents the end of the mythical cycle and of the world as we know it. It’s an Armageddon of sorts. Funnily […]

DISH is now the first major U.S. pay-TV provider to offer a whole-home 4K Netflix experience. After offering Netflix Ultra HD titles on its Hopper 3 DVR since April 2016, the company added the app to its 4K Joey client. Now DISH customers have the ability to stream the robust catalog of Ultra HD TV shows and movies on Netflix […]

Futuresource Consulting has recently released its annual evaluation of the health and shape of global home video entertainment, detailing the macro trends of 2016, in addition to insights for 2017 and beyond. This latest analysis highlights that households are spending more than ever before on video entertainment, and in 2016, the combined home video and […]

It began in August 2013 when Google introduced the Chromecast. A small, Rubenesque HDMI dongle that allows you to stream music and video to your TV or home theater, the $35 Chromecast was an instant hit. This groovy petite player allows popular media services like Pandora, YouTube, and Netflix to easily be sent to your home theater from any […]

Most middle class homes have multiple mobile devices floating around. From iPod Touches to smartphones, tablets and laptops, the average family has quite a few gadgets relying on its Wi-Fi wireless connectivity to get to the internet and consume social media and streaming content like video and music. Many consumers don’t realize that there’s an alternative to Wi-Fi called Ethernet. […]

  In 2004 Blockbuster Video had 60,000 employees, 9,000 video stores and did 6 Billion, (yes, with a “B”), dollars in revenue.  By 2010 they were bankrupt.  What happened? Netflix. The strangest part of the whole thing though is that Netflix never wanted or intended to be in the DVD business long term.  You don’t […]

If there’s any one trend that residential AV integrators need to come to grips with, it’s the fact that what’s driving the business today isn’t hardware, it’s content. Time was you could tell a great AV system on sight not just by the quality of the gear, but the number of source devices involved. At […]

According to a recent interview at Stuff with Netflix Chief Product Officer Neil Hunt, Netflix will stream the second season of its popular TV show House of Cards in 4K to select Smart TVs (brands to be announced at CES) next spring. The TV show’s second season has already been shot in 4K and is being […]

By Lee Distad In case you hadn’t noticed, the CE industry is square in the middle of a major shift in how entertainment media is distributed to consumers, as well as how it is stored and played back. The key question, which has yet to be truly answered is: Who are going to be the key […]

Streaming content from providers like Netflix, Blockbuster and others is gaining rapid popularity with consumers. But my personal experience in watching content from Netflix suggests the image quality is not very good compared to other sources. Consumers seem to love it, so maybe they prefer free, cheap or on-demand over image quality. To get a […]

By Gary Kayye, CTS Two of the best things to happen to my home theater over the past couple of years are Netflix’s Watch Now feature and Apple’s AppleTV media player. I love movies. And, I used to love Blockbuster. I’d love heading down the street and picking up a movie, popping it into the […]

Today I’m revisiting one of my favorite topics: The Blu-ray optical disc format, and its continuing struggle to supplant red laser DVDs while fending off challenges from broadband-delivered video; in particular, Netflix streaming and direct digital downloads of movies in the 1080p HD format to DVRs. My file of BD-related stories has grown enormous over […]

In the third such move in a month, a new device was announced that can stream Netflix movies directly onto the television. Previous announcements included players from Roku and Xbox. Only THIS time, it’s LG, and THIS time, it’s combined with a Blu-ray player. LG and Netflix announced plans for the first Blu-ray disc player […]