Digital Home Thoughts - News & Reviews for the Digital Home

"Sonic Solutions® (Nasdaq: SNIC) today announced that RoxioNow platform licensee, Sears, has officially launched its online movie download service, Alphaline Entertainment. The new service enables Sears and Kmart customers to download entertainment online, including new movies on the same day they are released on DVD and Blu-ray Disc. Sonic is working with Sears on a multi-phase rollout that includes making the service available from a broad range of connected devices and ensuring compatibility with studio-supported digital programs."

Colour me baffled. I know that streaming movie services are going to get increasingly popular moving forward, but I fail to see what Kmart and Sears can bring to the table...unless it's simply moving the hardware that will tap into this service. If I were to fast-forward to late 2012, I think I'll see this service folding after a failed two years of struggling and Netflix continuing to fight it out with iTunes.

"The award for the second coolest technology I saw today at CES is a late entry, but a good one. Avermedia today showed off their beta SnugTV service, which allows groups of friends (who naturally own Avermedia TV tuners) to stream each others LiveTV feed over the Internet. Internationally."

AverMedia were showing off their beta SnugTV service at CES 2010, which allows you to stream your live TV to your friends over the internet. We Got Served used the following example to explain how it works and as they did it so well I will post it here: "Brits? Frustrated that you won't see the new season of Chuck for months (and even then it'll go to a niche cable channel)? Forget Usenet. Who needs Bittorrent? Simply find a mate in the US with an Avermedia TV Tuner, both sign up for the free Snug TV service and you can watch it live over the web in Blighty as NBC broadcast it in the USA." I'm not sure where TV broadcasting rights come in to the legality of this product, but I do like the idea of being able to at least use it personally to get my TV shows when I am stuck in a hotel room due to work.