media streaming

Plex Is Going to Make You Pay For Its Best Free Feature

Feeling a little betrayed by Plex at the moment.

Amazon Prime Video’s New Look Hopes to End Decision Paralysis

Amazon Prime Video is rolling out a redesign that leans heavily on AI recommendations in order to streamline your viewing experience so you can get down to enjoying a movie or TV series in a quicker fashion.

How to Install Any App on an Amazon Fire TV

Amazon Fire TV devices, like Amazon Fire tablets, don’t have access to the standard Google Play Store, so you can’t get at as many audio, video and other apps as you can on, say, an Android TV. You don’t have to settle for this state of affairs though—you can sideload just about any app you…

The 10 Settings You Need to Change on Your Amazon Fire TV

In a crowded marketplace, the Amazon Fire TV sticks and boxes remain some of the simplest and least expensive ways to get music and movies up on your big-screen TV—especially if you’re invested in Amazon’s streaming services. If you own a Fire TV device, here are ten tricks to get more from it. 1) Personalize…

Battle of the TV Boxes 2018: Roku vs Amazon Fire TV vs Apple TV vs the Rest

Most of the major names in set-top boxes have been busy upgrading their devices this year, and that means you might well be in need of a refresher in terms of which 4K streamer is going to be the best buy for you. Here’s our (relatively) brief, point-by-point guide to the top devices on the…

Battle of the TV Boxes: Android vs Apple vs Amazon vs Roku

If you’re in the market for a dinky little black box to slide under your living room TV set and pipe through some quality content, you’re in luck: there’s lots of them to pick from. All the major names now have established boxes on the market. While Gizmodo is a big fan of the Roku…

How to Use Your Chromecast in a Hotel Room

Google’s Chromecast is one of the most useful streaming dongles ever invented—but its functionality falls down as soon as your internet access is restricted or just not available at all. Getting a Chromecast working in a hotel room isn’t easy, but it is possible. These are the tricks you can try. As well as some…

Sony’s UHD 4K media player is now available to order for a whopping $700. It comes with 10 movies and rentals are $8 a pop. In case you forgot, this is some real rich people stuff.

Media streaming software Plex now lets you turn your server off and stream content from Dropbox instead. Neat. [GigaOm]

This $100 Dongle Lets You Send Video to a Dumb TV’s HDMI Input via Wi-Fi

This sleek little dongle, called Plair, is a neat little solution for slinging video from any number of devices to your TV. Simply plug it into an empty HDMI port and beam media to it via Wi-Fi. Sure, there are plenty other ways to do that already—principally Airplay and the upcoming Miracast—but this is a…

Amazon Cloud Player Goes Live, Will Let You Upload and Stream Your Music for Free

As we’ve speculated it might, Amazon has announced its own cloud-based media streaming service. It’s called the Amazon Cloud Player and you can start using it right now. https://gizmodo.com/what-the-amazon-kindle-tablet-might-be-like-5785099 It looks like you’ll start out with 5 GB of free Cloud Drive storage, but be offered the chance to upgrade to 20 GB with an…

Orb Media Streaming Finally Available For Macs

Orb’s been out for a while, but now there’s OS X 10.5 and 10.6 compatibility. Mac users can finally use the app to stream all sorts of media from iTunes to nearly any internet-connected device. Oh, and it’s completely free. You can download the Orb application right here. You’ll have to look for porn to…

Netgear RangeMax WNR3500L Wireless-N Router Packs USB, Linux Punch

If you haven’t upgraded to wireless-N yet, now is a great time. The spec is finally ratified and Netgear is celebrating by dropping the WNR3500L with USB networking and pre-loaded Linux for open source tinkerers. https://gizmodo.com/which-flavor-of-wi-fi-do-you-use-5365180 Indeed, having Linux on the RangeMax right from the start means you can load unofficial firmware on the router…

Sensia DAB and Wi-Fi Radio Delivers Big Touchscreen, Twitter and Facebook Apps

Taking cues from devices like the Chumby, Squeezebox and HP’s DreamScreen, Pure is throwing a kitchen sink full of features into their new Sensia radio—including Wi-Fi, DAB and FM support, a 5.7-inch touchscreen and plenty of popular widgets. https://gizmodo.com/hp-dreamscreen-brings-pandora-media-streaming-to-the-d-5361344 Other features include: two full-range 3″ drive units, an optional rechargeable battery, RF remote and a…

Netgear Digital Entertainer Live Streams PC Media to the Television

If you don’t have a home theater PC or a networked console, Netgear’s Digital Entertainer EVA2000 can put all those torrents—along with some Hulu action—onto your TV. Connecting to your TV via HDMI/composite and your router via ethernet, the Digital Entertainer can stream a boatload codecs from your PC or networked storage, load media from…

LaCie’s LaCinema HD Media Streamers Can Play and Record

LaCie has updated their LaCinema HD media streamer lineup with the new Play and Record models. As the names imply, the former can playback media while the latter can also function as an HD DVR. Both of these wireless media players can stream 1080p media from the network to your TV and upscale standard def…

Vudu Releases App For the iPhone and iPod Touch

Fans of Vudu can now download a free app for their iPhone or iPod Touch that allows you to browse their catalog and download titles directly to your box at home. Remote access to their catalog is nice, but I don’t see anything about a wish list or rating system in here —so let’s hope…

VuNow PoD Media Streamer Is Cheap and BitTorrent-Ready

While even Blu-ray players are getting into the media streaming business, Verismo Networks has announced the $100/$150 VuNow PoD, promising everything from YouTube to BitTorrent in a clean Apple TVesque interface. The palm-sized $100 VuNow PoD is standard def and equipped with ethernet, Wi-F and 2 USB ports out of the box. It’s almost hard…

VUDU Offering 120 Channels of Free Media with New App Platform

Vudu has announced a plan of expansion for its formerly closed set top box. The company has initiated a platform for developing web applications while expanding free content on Vudu boxes immediately. As of today, a new Vudu Labs area on standard Vudu boxes will offer access to Flickr, Picasa and YouTube. In addition, the…

Netflix Fixes Video Streaming Glitch

Apparently, Netflix streaming issues were not the fault of Roku after all. Netflix has acknowledged the problem and corrected it—although they have offered no explanation as to the cause. [CNET] https://gizmodo.com/netflix-roku-streaming-box-suffering-from-serious-video-5101593