ScreenScribe

As I write in this week’s The Box cover story for The Press newspaper, “Choosing the television that’s right for you can be as bewildering as trying to fathom the programming strategies of TV networks.” Among the considerations is the high-end option of apps, or widgets, such as those analysed in this CNET.com update of [...]

TiVo users frustrated by filling up their hard drives so fast with HD content can triple their storage for less than half the usual price from this weekend. Customers shortly will be advised of a special deal on the 1TB Western Digital Expander drive: $174.00 (plus $15.00 postage) — or $195.00 off the recommended retail price. Of [...]

Nurse Jackie ended its HD run last night with fewer viewers than usual tuning into the season finale. It was out-rated in all the key demographics by TV2′s HD rival, Fringe, and TV One’s Real Crime doco about chimps that kill, and kept barely half of the viewership that HD lead-in Outrageous Fortune delivered. TV2′s [...]

Troy: Sky Movies Greats, 8.30pm Saturday. The Achilles heel of this lavish historical epic is its clichéd human dimension. But its spectacle, action and CGI effects are sensational, particularly the screen’s biggest pyrotechnics bash since Atlanta was razed in Gone With the Wind. Like The Lord of the Rings trilogy, Troy used ingenious software that [...]

TV3 will replace its HD hospital hit, Nurse Jackie, with another outrageous HD offering, Californication, on August 24. The same week it will air in HD a repeat of the movie, Transformers (8.30pm Monday), and the free-to-air premiere of the Ashton Kutcher-Cameron Diaz comedy, What Happens in Vegas (8.30pm Friday). Season three of Californication guest stars [...]

TV3′s HD comedy special, Ben and Jeremy’s Big Road Trip, didn’t generate the ratings traffic it deserved last night but hopefully will lead to more primetime vehicles for the charismatic 7 Days duo. The innovative, funny, and largely improvised spin-off with a Goodbye Pork Pie flavour was watched by 7.7% of 18-49 year-olds, compared to [...]

TV3′s HD combo of NZ’s Next Top Model and the movie, Juno, helped the network to win Friday night’s ratings contest. The season-two launch of Model attracted 9.1% of TV3′s target audience, 18-49 year-olds, and the free-to-air premiere of Juno, 10.9%. Model ranked behind TV2′s comedy duo, Two and a Half Men and Gary Unmarried, but [...]

Does CASPA stand a ghost of a chance against Sky TV? TVNZ thinks so – that’s why it invested $8 million in 33% of Hybrid Television Services, the licensee of TiVo in NZ and Australia. Hybrid has used the belated launch of TiVo in this part of the world – a decade after it revolutionised [...]

New chapters in the Twilight, Ice Age and Harry Potter franchises will premiere in HD next month on Sky Movies. Twilight Saga: New Moon will screen on September 19, and Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince a week later. An earlier Potter adventure, The Prisoner of Azkaban, also will [...]

TiVo owners could be in for an early Christmas present: HD and 3D downloads. The licensee of the world’s top-selling PVR, Hybrid Television Services, has revealed to ScreenScribe.tv ambitious plans to not only make TiVo more popular in New Zealand but also to accelerate the rollout of its CASPA video on demand (VOD) service. “It’s [...]