Unlimited Downloads of Showtime TV Shows and More

Sarah Perez on November 27th, 2007

sync_tv SyncTV is a new download service that will make various TV programs available to download on a subscription basis. The video formats used are touted to be of “DVD quality”, and in high-definition, where available. Additionally, the sound quality will be 5.1 Dolby® Digital Plus surround sound. SyncTV’s program library will be organized by channels, and when you subscribe to a particular channel, like that belonging to your favorite TV show, you can download all the episodes of that show for a small monthly fee. Where this type of service differs from iTunes’ “Season Pass” is the fact that, in many cases, these channels will not be just the current season, but every episode of every season of that show. Back catalog! Although a small minority of the video content will be set up on a pay-per-download basis, the majority will be based on this subscription model. Instead of paying $1.99 per show, like at iTunes, an entire SyncTV channel will be available for $2-4 per month.

As SyncTV prepares to launch their private beta, they already have one high-profile partner lined up: Showtime. The network will initially be offering “Dexter,” “The L Word,” and “Brotherhood” (ummm…where’s “Weeds?”), with more to come in the future. Other channels include “Boing,” a children’s programming channel; “Far Out,” a classic programming channel offering shows like “The Bill Cosby Show,” “I Spy,” and “The Invisible Man”; “Geneon,” Japanese anime; “Ultra Z”, a “tween” channel with original content; and “Zone11,” a channel for kids between 6 and 14. It’s odd to see so much children’s television on a player whose featured item is a serial killer drama! However, SyncTV promises there is more to come as they plan on “creating one of the deepest libraries of TV shows available anywhere.” The SyncTV service will work on Windows PCs, Macs, and Linux PCs, but what’s intriguing is that they plan to make it available on other devices in the future, including TVs and portable players. You will be able to play back shows on up to five “home” devices (sound familiar?) until compatible portable devices launch; then, SyncTV will allow you to specify an additional ten portable devices for playback. Whose has 10 portable devices? Maybe they plan for a family of 5 to use the service on each family member’s mobile phone and portable music player?

If you want to sign up for the beta, you can do so on their homepage. Beta testers will then need to download the SyncTV media player to their computer in order to view SyncTV shows.

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…Or MT4?

Sarah Perez on November 27th, 2007

Those of you who are regular readers know that I recently became frustrated with the limitations of my TypePad blog and then became even more frustrated by TypePad support’s response. I made plans to finally move away from TypePad to everyone’s favorite blogging platform, WordPress. I’ve been messing around with WordPress for nearly a month now (and, as you can see, I have not migrated yet). I know everyone loves it, but, I have to admit, it’s a much different world over there, and the learning curve has been a little steep in some areas. And maybe I’m just used to my restrictions, but the fact that there are plugins for EVERYTHING is almost too much of a good thing. How do you know which ones are good? It seems everything I want to do in Wordpress, I have to google to find a plugin.

So, before I committed to WP, I had to check out Movable Type. (You can too, here. The login & pwd is “demo”). Although from the same company that dissed me before, ultimately, it’s about what works best for me.

I discovered that many people abandoned Movable Type a while ago they introduced the pricing structure (for commercial use) and that’s when WP became king of the blogosphere. Apparently, choosing between the two platforms is the blogging world’s version of the cola wars, and WP is Coke.

So without further ado, here are a few things I liked about Movable Type 4:

Movable Type has a new version, MT4, which “feels” more like what I’m used to from a blogging platform - a polished interface.
The thing that really caught my attention about MT4 is the ability to have multiple blogs with a single installation - something that WP is incapable of unless you’re using WP-MU, which, quite frankly, looks hard.
Built-in spam control - no plugin needed
MT4’s Asset manager is built-in and integrated with native tagging functionality. It’s also pretty sweet.
Built-in search of posts & pages
OpenID built-in
Nifty dashboard with traffic, stats, etc - built-in
I read somewhere that if you get Dugg, your MT site stays up and your WP site goes down…something to do with the database…? Anyone who can explain this, please comment!

On the other hand, my favorite things about WordPress are:

The themes! So many themes! I love the themes!
The plugins - yes, there is one for everything.
It’s really free. Actually free. No strings.

Obviously, there are a million things that set the two platforms apart, but these are just the main things that interested me. I’m not really concerned with all the nerdy, back-end stuff - only how it affects me. I use web hosts that do the installations for you and offer platform support, so the geeky details are handled. I just want to blog.

I’m torn.