New OTA DVR from Simple.tv
PC Magazine's Mark Hachman writes about Simple.tv's Cord-Cutting DVR Set to Ship in June. This is another device for recording over-the-air or basic cable (ClearQAM). It is a little different in that rather than providing an HDMI output to the TV set, it works through an IP connection to an iOS application, Boxee, Roku or Google TV. Hachman says an HTML 5 version is in the works. Mark Ely, founder and chief executive of Simple.tv explains, "It's basically a TiVo experience, but remoted onto a connected television." An IP bandwidth of at least 1 Mbps is required and a specially formatted hard drive is required to record TV programs. The box costs $149 and there are monthly fees for the program guide. In-home streaming is free but there is an additional charge to add remote streaming. More details and pictures at Simple.tv.
WLW-AM Celebrates 90 years of Broadcasting
If you have an interest in the early days of broadcasting, read John Klesewetter's TV and Media Blog article Celebrating 90 years of WLW-AM on Cincinnati.com. The article includes a picture of WLW-AM founder Powel Crosley Jr. standing next to the transmitter – you can only see part of it. The station began broadcasting on March 23, 1922. Klesewetter describes the history of WLW-AM and some of its first, including being the first and only station broadcasting with 500,000 watts. That was in the 1930's. The maximum power allowed today is 50,000 watts.
While the article focuses on radio, it was interesting to see the station provided the foundation for WLWT-TV, Cincinnati's first TV station in 1948 and NBC's first TV affiliate. WLW-AM fed more than two dozen shows to the NBC Radio Network.
Read Klesewetter's article for the unique method WLW-AM used to avoid any chance of problems with the Y2K bug on January 1, 2000!
