Category: Cord Cutters

Earlier this week, Locast announced that Cleveland can now receive Locast supplied channels over the Internet! If you live in the Cleveland DMA (Designated Service Area) for TV, you can connect and use Locast.

https://www.locast.org/

The Roku Channel is coming up in the world. Roku has long offered it’s own “Free Channel” to Cord Cutters. Now, they are debuting their first exclusive content. This is related to their buying Quibi’s content. They will be showing more of Quibi’s shows on the Channel as well. See the trailer below for more info:

Plex & Locast: Recording Local TV Without the Antenna

Locast says of themselves: “Locast is a public service to Americans, providing local broadcast signals over the Internet in select cities. All you have to do is sign up online, provide your name and email address, and certify that you live in, and are logging on from, one of the select US cities (‘Designated Market Area’). Then, you can select among local broadcasters and stream your favorite local station.

Locast.org is a ‘digital translator,’ meaning that Locast.org operates just like a traditional broadcast translator service, except instead of using an over-the-air signal to boost a broadcaster’s reach, we stream the signal over the Internet to consumers located within select US cities.

Ever since the dawn of TV broadcasting in the mid-20th Century, non-profit organizations have provided ‘translator’ TV stations as a public service. Where a primary broadcaster cannot reach a receiver with a strong enough signal, the translator amplifies that signal with another transmitter, allowing consumers who otherwise could not get the over-the-air signal to receive important programming, including local news, weather and of course, sports. Locast.org provides the same public service, except instead of an over-the-air signal transmitter, we provide the local broadcast signal via online streaming.

You need a broadband Internet connection for optimal performance. Using a laptop, smartphone, or computer connected to the Internet, point your browser to www.Locast.org to sign up. You then can choose which local broadcast station to watch from your Internet-enabled device.”

This article linked above shows how to set up Plex to use Locast (assuming you have Locast in your area) to view “local” TV channels via Plex through Locast, and using the Plex DVR function. I do not have Locast for my DMA (“Designated Market Area”) for TV, so I couldn’t try it, but it looks cool!

This is a re-post by Lon Seidman of the original video I saw (which he later pulled down, and has now reposted) on Locast2Plex:

Putting Wonder Woman 1984 on HBO Max Is a Smart Move

Wired – By: Angela Watercutter – “FACE IT, STANS: This was inevitable. After having its release date bumped no fewer than three times, Wonder Woman 1984 is going to debut in US theaters and on HBO Max on December 25. That means you may not get the big popcorn-filled summer-weekend blockbuster opening you would’ve liked—and that Diana Prince probably deserved—but you will be able to see director Patty Jenkins’ sequel to her 2017 hit Wonder Woman, and you will, if you so choose, be able to watch it from the comfort of your couch.

It’s probably for the best. As much as any film fan worth their salt wants to plop their butt in a stadium seat with an overpriced soda to watch a superhero movie, Covid-19 is still tearing through the country, and the one villain Wonder Woman can’t lasso is ’rona. The US is averaging more than 150,000 new cases per day, and as winter sets in, there’s a chance that number gets worse. Half of the country’s theaters are closed, and cinema chains have been frustrated with studios delaying their major releases this year. (A spokesperson for the National Association of Theatre Owners declined to comment for this story.) While fans are being asked to wait for other films that had been primed for a 2020 release, like Dune or the James Bond flick No Time to Die, getting to see the year’s Last Film Standing on any platform is a bit of a respite.

Warner Bros. has called its move to release Wonder Woman 1984 in theaters and on its streaming platform at the same time “historic.” It could also prove to be a bellwether. Even before the pandemic, the streaming wars were heating up. Every content-producing company with a back catalog—and even some without (ahem, Apple TV+)—was launching its own service, walling off its own garden of movies and television shows. Now, with theater attendance plummeting as Americans quarantine, services like Disney+, Peacock, and HBO Max allow their corporate owners to test whether going straight to consumers with major movie releases the same day they hit the big screen is a viable option.

Whether this strange experiment’s results are what Warner Bros. will want to see is another story. Wonder Woman 1984 was originally projected to be a billion-dollar blockbuster. It’s unlikely the release will have that kind of performance now, but it could significantly impact HBO Max’s subscriber numbers at a time—the holiday season—when folks are home and looking to be entertained. When Disney released the live-action remake of Mulan on Disney+ this past summer, downloads of the app reportedly increased 68 percent. HBO Max could see a similar spike, especially since the new Wonder Woman will be available to all Max subscribers automatically. (Disney charged $30 for Mulan on top of the regular monthly membership fee.) WarnerMedia also just made a deal to get HBO Max on Amazon Fire TV devices, opening up a whole new market of potential customers. (If they could do the same with Roku, which represents about half of the connected TV market, they’d be swimming, but that stalemate continues apace.)

Look, broadly speaking, this isn’t an ideal situation for anyone. Sitting in air conditioning in the middle of July to watch a movie at the multiplex is fun, and the prolonged theater closures brought on by Covid-19 are not good for the movie business at large. But according to Ann Sarnoff, head of the WarnerMedia group that oversees Warner Bros., it was the best way for the studio to keep its business “moving forward” while also appeasing fans and navigating a pandemic. Sure, Warner could have pushed the film into 2021 like most of the other big 2020 releases, but at a certain point, something’s gotta give. The problems brought on by the coronavirus may not end next year; studios should be taking a chance on alternative release strategies. If Wonder Woman can’t rope moviegoers into a new way of life, maybe no one can.”

Black Friday prices will be really low this year!

“Roku announced today that many of its devices will be on sale for Black Friday. If you’re planning to purchase a new device on the biggest shopping day of the year, here are the deals you can look forward to.
The prices listed below will be in effect from November 20-30 at major retailers where Roku devices are sold nationally.”

[Roku SE will be on sale for $17] (Walmart exclusive, available Nov. 27)
[Roku Premiere will be on sale for $24.99], down from $39.99
[Roku Streaming Stick+ will be on sale for $29.99], down from $49.99
[Roku Ultra will be on sale for $69.99], down from $99.99
[Roku Streambar will be on sale for $99.99], down from $129.99

The old web address for USTVGO is down, however, they have a new web site:

https://ustvgo.tv

This is a handy site to get a lot of cable channels via a web interface. It is low resolution, but it is handy. I had mentioned it before, so I thought I would share about the update.

Netflix is NOT giving away access during the Coronavirus scare!

PSA: Netflix isn’t giving away free subs due to coronavirus — it’s a scam

TheNextWeb – By: Mix – “Nope, Netflix isn’t handing out free subscriptions to its streaming service due to the coronavirus outbreak — you’re probably being targeted in a phishing scam.

Users have taken to social media to report receiving suspicious texts, offering them ‘free passes’ to the streaming service if they click a specific link. But while a freebie subscription might seem enticing in times of isolation, you might want to avoid the temptation to click: Netflix has nothing to do with these offers.

The company told Business Insider it has no involvement in the campaigns, even though the URL in the suspicious texts contains its name.

“Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we are giving away totally free access to our platform for the period of isolation, until the virus is contained,” a message on the malicious site reads. The campaign then asks visitors to complete a brief survey so they can claim a free pass.

Once completed, users are asked to send the link to 10 other people via WhatsApp in order to ‘activate’ the subscription.

The site also features a fake Facebook-style comment section with tons of positive testimonials from users. None of those are authentic.

One thing that makes this malicious campaign believable is that there’s quite a few services actually offering free subscriptions during the isolation period — even though most of them are porn sites. Unfortunately, Netflix isn’t one of those services.

It’s not the first time scammers have targeted Netflix with malicious campaigns.

Phishers previously attempted tricking users into disclosing their financial details with fake emails asking them to update their Netflix payment details. The new scheme simply puts a coronavirus theme on an old ruse.

Coronavirus-themed scams have inundated the internet over the past few weeks. In fact, researchers found that COVID-19-related domain names are 50% more likely to infect your system than any other domains.”

Google Could Have Second-Gen Chromecast Ultra in the Works

Cord Cutters News – By: Philip Palermo – “9to5Google is reporting that Google could launch a second-gen Chromecast Ultra later this year. Key features include Android TV support, a form factor similar to the third-gen Chromecast, and an external remote control. Sources told the site the new remote could borrow elements from the Daydream View remote as well as Apple TV.

A very remote-like device was also seen passing through the FCC, as spotted on Twitter by Janko Roettgers.

The device itself is said to resemble 3rd Gen Chromecast devices, including the signature G logo and the HDMI connector, with updates to keep the new devices current with Google’s more recent products.

No word just yet on pricing or a release date, but 9to5Google says we can expect 4K HDR support, along with Bluetooth and WiFi. Given Google’s cancellation of its I/O event in Mountain View due to coronavirus concerns, it remains to be seen how the company will announce its latest round of hardware, but we’ll keep you up to date as we learn more.

Google did not have a comment on the possibility of new devices.”