by Adeptus CEO | May 7, 2014 | Apple, Cord Cuttings, Home Audio and Video, Theater, Video
If you’ve read my past post’s you’ll know I am an avid cord cutter and have been a Netflix aficionado for a few years now. I am also a big Apple fan and love my AppleTV and combined these two bring together much happiness for me. Recently Apple TV added HBOGO to their line up of available “Channels” and I jumped in head first, however HBO has been missing some points that I feel a well established company entering a well established market with well established technology should not be experiencing. The trouble first presented itself with the season finale of True Detective and the complete collapse of HBOGO which plenty has been said about. However I was recently on vacation in Key West and of course my wife and I had to keep up with Game of Thrones so I rigged our really small Condo TV up to my MacBook Pro and patched the audio into the Sony HTIB (home theater in a box) system and sat on the couch and watched Season 4 Episode 4 , Oathkeeper. The stream was good, which with my speed test pegging out at 100mbps I should hope so. It was so much better than what we experience at home I began to get agitated. Why? Why was this so much better? I got back to the house and decided to look into our video stream quality and our actual speed numbers. Our internet is a mediocre 30mbps/5mbps Comcast package which if you do a 2wire sustained speed test turns a 2.5mbps constant stream speed which by standard basic math equates to...
by Adeptus CEO | Apr 24, 2014 | Cord Cuttings, Home Audio and Video, Video
Cord-Cutting, you’ve got to admit it’s getting better. HBO and Amazon have made the deal, a deal that adds HBO shows to the Prime Library. Now Amazon Prime members have access to HBO’s Catalog of shows without needing HBOGO. As a prime member myself this is a win. Woke up today and my Prime membership got better, then I had my coffee. With shows like Sopranos, Deadwood, and Six Feet Under on Amazon Prime you can now see the tide turning away from Cable distribution to Net distribution. HBO still has its hold outs like Game of Thrones (Personal Favorite) and Sex and the City which HBO obviously feels warrants more “value” (read $$$). But a step in the right direction is a step away from the old. For years Cable customers have been begging for a’la Carte Access to Channels they want and whether Cable wants to or not the heavy hitters are starting to provide. This is called Adaptation and the ones that fail to adapt will fail to survive, I’m looking at you Big Cable Company X. ( Soon to be bigger Cable Company X) Don’t be afraid to take the leap. No one misses commercials. No one. Free 30 Day Amazon Prime Trial Available Here – Don’t be afraid – Do it….. Dooooo Itttttt -Phil ...
by Adeptus CEO | Apr 22, 2014 | Cord Cuttings, Home Audio and Video, Theater, Video
Apple TV Update April 2014 So I turned on Apple TV last night to discover a new set of channels. The History and H2 Channel (in one), The Lifetime Channel, and The A&E Channel all sitting pretty in the middle of my carefully manicured home screen. “WOW! This is great!”my wife an I both exclaimed , BUT IT WASN’T. Sure you can now watch the OLD Episodes of these Channels but if you want to watch the new you need a cable subscription – Bummer for Cord Cutters like us. However our Internet came with a basic cable plan that included HBO, we don’t use it except for HBOGO access, now we’ll use it for more! So off to the internet I went this morning to see if I could link my account to The History Channel to watch all its crazy goodness, BUT WAIT I CAN’T. Apparently you have to be a DirecTV – Optimum – Verizon Fios subscriber to get access to the new material ( this is all taken from the www.mylifetime.com/activate page ) Sadly I am a Comcast subscriber – This is sad on many levels, and thusly can not subscribe to the new goodness. Sure I can watch the older stuff but we Cord Cutters have been shoved to the back of the line the whole time and It’s nice that channels like HBOGO allow us to see a show almost in realtime the day its being aired -*note: When it works. I noted before that my information came from the Lifetime website – This is because at this time 9:00AM 4/22/14 I am unable...
