If you're a "The Sopranos" fan and you have HBO On Demand, you're going to be in Heaven. On your on-screen guide under HBO series look for the "SopranosCountdown" selection. While I can't find any details from HBO, it appears that HBO On Demand is going to show all of the Soprano episodes leading up to season 6 in March of 2005 (I'm speculating they'll show all the episodes). Right now you can watch Episodes 1-13 up till Jan. 02, 2006.
We love you HBO. If you don't have HBO On Demand, I'd definitely make a call to your cable company today!
Doctor Who: The Complete First Series Coming to the US on DVD
Since I live on the U.S. side of the "Pond", I haven't seen the new "Doctor Who" series on BBC, but I do know the hit series is causing quite a buzz in the U.K. It's now been announced that the series will be available to U.S. viewers on DVD according to SCIFI.com:
The BBC told SCI FI Wire that it will release the complete first season of the new British SF TV series Doctor Who on DVD in the United States on Feb. 14, 2006, offering Americans their first official look at the hit U.K. show. BBC Video will release Doctor Who: The Complete First Series with all 13 of the first-season episodes, starring Christopher Eccleston as the immortal Timelord and Billie Piper as his sidekick, Rose, as well as more than four hours of extras. The DVD set will carry a suggested retail price of $99.98.
Pretty cool! We'll keep you posted on when you can preorder the DVD.
First "The Donald" cozied up with Dominos Pizza on the Apprentice. Now it appears that Martha Stewart is one-upping Trump by partnering with Buick to promote the Buick Lucerne on "The Apprentice: Martha Stewart". According to Left lane News:
First airing on NBC from 9:00 – 10:00 p.m. EST on November 30, two apprentice teams will design an in-dealership launch showroom display to entice and excite potential Buick Lucerne buyers. The influence of the winning team’s creation, selected by Martha Stewart and Buick executives, will be experienced by prospective customers on December 13, when participating dealerships host a Lucerne V.I.P. Premiere Night. Viewers of the November 30 episode can RSVP for an invitation to a Lucerne V.I.P. Premiere Night party in their area via an online registration process and will be directed to Buick.com during the show.
In addition, elements of the Lucerne V.I.P. Premiere Night party will be teased on Martha Stewart’s daytime show on December 1, 2005. Here, the party-planning diva will showcase her influence on the upcoming Lucerne VIP Premiere Parties, from flowers and napkins to punch and hors d’ oeuvres, and will create a scene right out of the “Perfect Party Handbook”– a 20-page guide to entertaining brought to you by Buick and Martha Stewart Living.
Martha may want to invest in some Buick stock. Nah, maybe not!
What's amazing, is that product placement in television is nothing new but it's becoming a lot more "in your face" on reality TV. Anyway, if you're really interested in the Lucerne be sure to watch "The Apprentice: Martha Stewart" tomorrow night.
Commercials That Annoy the Heck Out of Me: What Would You Do For Love?
I've been in a bad mood this week. Maybe it's the Holiday season? No, I think it's the commercials. Because there are so many commercials that annoy me, I'm starting a new series entitled "Commercials That Annoy the Heck Out of Me". Why, you ask? Because it's my blog and I like to gripe, but if you're really good you can send me your commercial gripes to and I might even post them.
All types of commercials have annoyed me this week but I'm going to start with the "What Would You Do for Love" commercial from The Diamond Trading Company (the company that says debt a diamond is forever).
If you haven't seen the commercial (lucky you!), you'll be surprised to know that you don't love your wife/spouse/significant other/secretary! Yep, the Diamond Trading Company has decided that the new token of love "must" be diamonds. So guys, all of those 2 am trips to Taco Bell for your pregnant wife didn't mean anything unless there was a "rock" on top of that Nacho Bell Grande (a "rock" does not mean 2 am Taco Bell beans either). Anyway, the basic premise is young rich model guy (should pay his student loan before buying diamonds) is stuck at a snowed in airport. He calls his wife and tells here he won't be home in time for Christmas. He hangs up and sulks as he pulls out a case that contains a 3 diamond necklace.
All of a sudden with a determined look he closes the case and runs out of the airport into a blizzard with the commercial ending "What Would You Do For Love". Losing all of my digits to frostbite isn't really my first thought for what I'd do for love, but maybe "the world's greatest man" has a plan.
Well, the great thing is we get a second commercial. Young rich wife is sadly asleep on the couch in the house she and rich husband are way to young to have, when she's awoken by the sounds of a snow plow in front of the house. All of a sudden rich boy shows up from the snow plow (snow plow theft is a crime mister!), hugs rich wife and hands her the diamond necklace as she gasps and so frickin' on.....
Anyway, at the end of the second commercial they flash "What Would You Do For Love" again. So it's not just enough to give diamonds these year, you have to be a freakin' hero. I'm thinking a 1/500 carat necklace on top of the wife's Nacho Bell Grande is kinda hero like (hey! it's cold outside and I did have to drive a mile!)
There's quite a few new TV releases out this week. I'm going to order my "Nick and Jessica" DVD before they sell out (enter laugh track here). Actually probably one of the coolest releases this week is Season 1 of The Rockford Files. Long live Jim Rockford! If you want to take a little nostalgia trip, be sure to read the messages left on Rockford's answering machine at the beginning of each episode here
So you're ready to invest in a new flat panel TV but not sure whether to go with Plasma or LCD? The Times Dispatch has a small article that bullet points a few of the Plasma and LCD differences like:
Plasmas give deeper blacks which translate into more 3-D views and are considered better for dark home-theater viewing
LCDs have a higher resolution with more color in a normal setting and are better for high-definition programming
Be sure to read the whole article for some more tips.
The ability to search for commercials on TiVo is coming. According to The Wall Street Journal:
TiVo users will be able to set up a profile of products on their television screens by clicking on categories such as automotive or travel or typing in keywords such as "BMW" or "cruises." On a regular basis, TiVo will then download relevant commercials to TiVo recorders over the Internet or, for those users who don't have broadband, send the video via traditional broadcast signals. The commercials will appear on-screen in a folder next to the list of television shows TiVo users record.
Basically this means that sometime next spring, TiVo users will be able to search for commercials. At first this might sound a little lame but it's really ingenious. As consumers we don't like to be advertised to, but how often do we do web searches for a product we're interested in? I'd bet that giving consumers control of commercials will be even more profitable for advertisors than cramming something down our throats.
TiVo is looking at having advertisers bid on keywords just like Google Adsense. I could see this really taking off for TiVo and even cable services. While people will continue to skip commercials as they do now, I bet they wouldn't hesitate to search and watch commercials at their convenience.
Lately I've gotten several emails asking about DVD region codes. Region codes are important when buying DVDs online, especially on auction sites like Ebay. You may find a great deal on your favorite movie, but if it's the wrong code, you won't be able to play it on a standard DVD player (you can buy region unlocked DVD players). Here is a breakdown of the DVD region codes:
If a disc plays in more than one region it will have more than one number on the globe.
1: U.S., Canada, U.S. Territories
2: Japan, Europe, South Africa, and Middle East (including Egypt)
3: Southeast Asia and East Asia (including Hong Kong)
4: Australia, New Zealand, Pacific Islands, Central America, Mexico, South America, and the Caribbean
5: Eastern Europe (Former Soviet Union), Indian subcontinent, Africa, North Korea, and Mongolia
6: China
7: Reserved
8: Special international venues (airplanes, cruise ships, etc.)
*Rank is based on U.S. Household Rating % from Nielsen Media Research's National People Meter Sample
**A household Rating is the estimate of the size of a television audience relative to the total universe, expressed as a percentage.
As of September 20, 2004, there are an estimated 109.6 million television households in the U.S. A single national household ratings point represents 1%, or 1,096,000 households.
***Total viewers includes all persons over the age of two.
Used with permission:
Nielsen Media Research, Inc. The Information contained herein is the copyrighted property of Nielsen Media Research, Inc. Unauthorized use of this copyrighted material is expressly prohibited. All Rights Reserved.
You tune your Piano (actually we've never tuned ours and it sounds like crap), so why not fine tune your HDTV? The Home Theater Dude has a nice article on HDTV calibration that asks:
Why should I calibrate my HDTV?
Well, just like any other fine piece of technology, why have it if you aren’t getting the most out of it? You wouldn’t own and regularly drive a high end sports car without it being properly tuned and maintained, so why not do the same for your high end HDTV?
Some HDTVs look very good out of the box, but oftentimes, we can make them look even better. Sometimes, considerably better. With the chance to get more vibrant colors, better shadow detail, and more immersion in your home theater, you should want to calibrate your set.
Hey, I just rememered something. We don't even have a piano (could be the reason it sounds so bad).
Since we know many of you will be getting up at 5am on Friday (I did that once - never again!), we wanted to give you some ideas for gifts for your kids or even yourself. One of the easiest gift ideas is to get their favorite TV shows and movies in the UMD Mini format. For you non-techie types, UMD Minis are the disks that work in the Sony Playstation Portable. Just don't forget that when you ground Junior from the TV, you confiscate his Family Guy UMD.
So check this list out before you go shopping or better yet, just click through and buy online. Long live online shopping!
Napoleon Dynamite (UMD Mini For PSP)
Family Guy Presents Stewie Griffin - The Untold Story (UMD Mini For PSP)
Pirates of the Caribbean - The Curse of the Black Pearl (UMD Mini For PSP)
Xbox 360 and the Exciting World of High Definition
If you didn't know, one of the big selling points for the new Xbox 360 is that it's High Definition compatible right out of the box. Of course, that leads to confusion about if you have to have HDTV to use the Xbox 360. ColdForged.org has a really nice FAQ that talks about HD on the Xbox 360:
Q. Will games look terrible on anything but high definition televisions?
A. No, games will not look terrible on standard televisions. Given that the graphics in Xbox 360 games will have greater overall detail in terms of polygon counts and texture sizes, Xbox 360 games will almost certainly look better than games from previous generation consoles, even on standard televisions. As an example, Xbox games look considerably better than, say, Playstation 1 games due to the amount of detail the Xbox was capable of producing in comparison with the Playstation. Similarly, Xbox 360 is more capable of producing detail than any preceding console.
For those of you who weren't about to get out of your warm beds for the Xbox 360 midnight madness sales, you can still order online. Amazon has the Xbox 360 Pro Player's Bundle which includes:
Includes: Two months of rentals from Gamefly.com, a one-year subscription to OXM
Includes: Eight eye-popping "E," "T," and "M" rated software titles
Includes: Kameo: Elements of Power, Project Gotham Racing 3, Perfect Dark Zero: Limited Edition, Quake 4, GUN, Call of Duty 2, Tony Hawk's American Wasteland, and Ridge Racer 6
All in all, you'll save more than $60 with this bundle
Includes: Xbox 360 System, additional Wireless Controller, a Play and Charge Kit, a Rechargeable Battery Pack, faceplate
Better order soon since Christmas shortages are planned predicted.
Note: The listing keeps cycling between "Purchasable" and "Not Available", so you'll want to just keep checking back on the link. I'm sure timing will be the key to snagging one of these babies before Christmas!
Trio Cable Channel Moving from the Tube to the Web
It's only fitting that a cable channel that featured the acclaimed "Brilliant, But Cancelled" series is now getting cancelled. According to Online Media Daily:
IN SEARCH OF A MORE receptive audience online, NBC Universal on Monday announced plans to reposition Trio, its arts and pop culture cable channel, to the Web by January 2006.
Under the BravoTV.com banner, Trio will offer online viewers much of the same content currently available on cable TV, such as documentaries, music videos, and its "Brilliant, But Cancelled" series featuring cancelled TV shows.
By next year, the channel will no longer continue as a stand-alone digital cable service. At the beginning of this year, DirecTV stopped carrying Trio, leading to predictions that the channel would fold. Currently, Trio reaches about 8.8 million subscribers, out of approximately 110 million TV households.
I'm disappointed to see the channel go but I'm glad it'll be available on the web. I think it's just another case of a channel being to smart for TV. Anyway, it's good to know I'll still be able to get my "Cop Rock" fix from Trio on the web!
Boo Hoo Hoo! I sit here in a ball of self pity. Why so sad you ask? Cause we're soooo lacking in the comments department. We're building a great reader base and we get lots of email from ya, but I know there's plenty of you out there with something to say. So feel free to start agreeing or disagreeing with us via the new fangled comments contraption at the bottom of each post, we can take it.
Okay, I'm off to drown my sorrows with Ben and Jerry and some Monday Night Football!
If you want an Xbox 360, you better be lined up for the midnight madness events going on tonight for the official release. According to TeamBox.com:
More than 4,500 retailers will be holding midnight madness events. Best Buy, Microsoft’s retail partner for Xbox 360 launch events, also will open all its U.S. stores at 9 a.m. on Nov. 22. “Xbox 360 takes our customers’ gaming experience to new levels,” said Jill Hamburger, vice president of games at Best Buy. “Walk into any of our stores and you’ll feel the excitement — it’s a complete entertainment solution.”
There's a a lot of talk about Xbox 360 shortages for the Christmas season, so you might want to get one of the suckers fast. Personally, nothing is getting me out of my warm bed and into the freezing air at midnight, so I'll play my Atari 2600 till the crowds are gone.
Remember last year when the NHL decided to endear itself to fans by staging a year long lockout/strike? Well, you can say that pretty much killed hockey as we know it in the US. You know hockey is in bad shape when ESPN doesn't renew it's TV contract and the NHL negotiates a deal with OLN. Yeah, I never heard of OLN (Outdoor Life Network) either.
Since I still have a place in my heart for a good fight on the ice, I decided to try watching a few games on OLN. While my onscreen cable guide shows games I wasn't really interested in, I decided to check the games out. Guess what? Over the last 2 months I've tried to watch at least 5 or 6 games and ended up on some type of hunting show. Where's the hockey? I haven't been able to find any hockey on OLN yet even though it's supposedly on. I can't imagine it's a "blackout" situation since the games aren't even close to being regional.
I have no idea what's going on with OLN. Even the viewers who are lucky enough to get hockey aren't too impressed. According to TheGlobeAndMail.com:
But the main failure of the telecast was the location of the play-by-play camera. It was too high, up in the lofty cheap seats of Joe Louis Arena in Detroit.
What viewers saw were little men skating around below them. They were too far away, particularly for new viewers.
So anyway, I'll use my strong investigative skills to find out for all you readers I haven't bored to death, to where our hockey is.
Ummm, if anyone knows what's going on with OLN and the NHL, please leave us a comment (Investigative work sure is hard!).
We've been sifting around all of the sites for simply the best we could find. With the holiday week coming up here in the US, we're pretty sure you'll need some ideas not just for conversation but also for the gift giving season. Check out some of these other sites and amaze your relatives with a vast array of coffee knowledge, gps insight, cooking grace, wine snobbery, and of course TV chit chat.
If you look at the previous post on last week's Nielsen Ratings, you'll notice that CSI and all of it's offshoots are taking over the world. CSI, CSI: Miami, and CSI: NY all ranked in the top 10.
What I wonder is how long till the show dilutes itself like Law and Order has with all of it's offshoots? I'm a much bigger fan of Law and Order than CSI, so it amazes me why CSI is always on top. If you're a CSI fan, leave us a comment and let me know what I seem to be missing.
And for all of you "Wings" fans, the Las Cruces reference in the title is to remind you of "Das Plane", the funniest Wings episode ever with the line "Maybe it WAS Las Cruces!" Go ahead and chuckle, you know you want to. We won't look!
Nielsen Media Research Top 10- Broadcast Primetime- Week of Nov. 7-Nov. 13, 2005
BROADCAST PRIMETIME- Week of Nov. 7-13, 2005
Rank*
Program
Network
Household Rating**
Total Viewers***
1
CSI
CBS
18.2
20,087,000
2
Desperate
Housewives
ABC
15.8
17,440,000
3
NFL
Monday Night Football
ABC
14.3
15,719,000
4
Without
a Trace
CBS
13.8
15,197,000
5
Grey's
Anatomy
ABC
12.5
13,819,000
6
CSI:
Miami
CBS
12.3
13,538,000
7
CSI:
NY
CBS
12.3
13,574,000
8
Lost
ABC
12.0
13,215,000
9
Cold
Case
CBS
11.1
12,200,000
10
NCIS
CBS
11.0
12,176,000
*Rank is based on U.S. Household Rating % from Nielsen Media Research's National People Meter Sample
**A household Rating is the estimate of the size of a television audience relative to the total universe, expressed as a percentage.
As of September 20, 2004, there are an estimated 109.6 million television households in the U.S. A single national household ratings point represents 1%, or 1,096,000 households.
***Total viewers includes all persons over the age of two.
Used with permission:
Nielsen Media Research, Inc. The Information contained herein is the copyrighted property of Nielsen Media Research, Inc. Unauthorized use of this copyrighted material is expressly prohibited. All Rights Reserved.
I'm a big fan of "My Name is Earl", so I really expected it to fail. My liking a show does something to the cosmic balance and immediately causes that show to get canceled. I'm probably the reason that shows like "Brisco County Jr"., "Bakersfield PD", and eventually "Arrested Development" never really made it. Yep, I loved those shows!
Anyway back to the point. According to the FutonCritic:
NBC has ordered two additional episodes of its hit freshman comedy "My Name Is Earl," bringing its season total to 24 episodes.
To date this season, "Earl" has averaged a stellar 12.94 million viewers, making it television's most-watched new comedy. Overall, only "Two and a Half Men" (14.89 million) ranks higher among all half-hours this season.
Wow! I probably just jinxed Earl. Better add him to the list.
I'll Take that Plasma TV on the Wall and a Side of Fries
I'm always looking for the best deal on Plasma TV's but I never thought of going to the Golden Arches for my dream. Some ambitious consumer/thief decided he was impressed with McDonald's TV offerings. According to Record Online:
Town police are looking for a man suspected of stealing a $3,000 plasma television around 9:15 p.m. Tuesday from the McDonald's on North Plank Road.
The TV was installed during a recent remodeling of the restaurant's interior, Town of Newburgh Detective Sgt. Margaret O'Neill said.
Here's the part I really like:
Police could not get a more specific description of the vehicle from witnesses. The theft was caught on videotape, and police are trying to have the tape enhanced.
Hmm! $3000 on a Plasma TV while apparently using an inferior security system. Sounds like McLogic to me.
Congress Wants to Spend $3 Billion to Help You Watch TV
Here's something that's sure to cause an uproar among taxpayers. According to the Washington Post:
The Senate's budget bill, which passed last week, contains a $3 billion subsidy for owners of televisions that are not ready to handle the eventual transition to digital television.
The subsidy would go to pay for converter boxes, which would take the digital signal from the broadcasters and convert it so that it can be displayed by analog TVs. Televisions hooked up to cable or satellite would not need the converters, nor would televisions capable of receiving a digital signal.
"There are enough low-income Americans that would have difficulty coming up with the $40 or the $50 for a conversion box, so we want to help them out on a one-time basis," said House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Joe L. Barton, Texas Republican, who is pushing for finishing the transfer to digital broadcasting.
"Since it's a federal law that we're saying you have to broadcast digitally, and we have lots of TV sets in this country that are still good that aren't digitally capable, I think it's reasonable to have a modest subsidy on a one-time basis," he said.
I'm not against some subsidy to help people, especially in rural areas, but $3 billion? Let's just put the subsidy towards making HDTV even cheaper so everyone can buy one!
One of the most painful memories of my childhood was my parents refusal to take me to see "Jaws 3D". Besides missing out on the great Jaws storyline (okay, I just wanted to see blood in 3D), I was amazed that my parents refused to embrace 3D technology, which was going to be in everyones home in just a few years. Flash ahead 20 something years, it looks like 3D in our homes is getting close. According to Physorg.com:
International Business Machines, a worldwide leader in technology innovation, has announced a new and affordable 3D video system that works with normal DLP (Digital Light Processing) televisions. Before now, 3D video systems would set you back at least $1,800 while the price of IBM’s new system is expected to be only $1000 – if only a grand sounds cheap to you.
the biggest issue though:
On the downside, you still need 3D glasses to correctly view the image and practically no video is shot in 3D as it requires more expensive cameras, but as price drops and general interest rises, this is sure to change.
Some sports TV networks have expressed interest in filming NFL games in 3D. To shoot in 3D, TV networks would need to install expensive 3D cameras and image processing hardware.
It's really hard for me to see 3D becoming popular simply for the fact that people are going to have to wear silly glasses that gives you headaches, but who knows?
The Sopranos Countdown on HBO On Demand
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