Weekly Rewind
Apple TV’s new software: Beyond just Prime Video, the Apple TV got a software update to tvOS 11.2. It adds a new Sports section to Apple’s TV app, letting you browse through live and upcoming games, and providing notifications when your favorite teams are playing. The feature is a letdown for now, largely because it only works with content from ESPN and the NBA app. But like the TV app itself, it has potential.
The update also lets users disable Apple’s automatic HDR upscaling and conversion to 60 Hz refresh rates. Effectively, this lets the television decide which video format to use based on the content that’s playing. It should help eliminate judder in movies and avoid issues with incorrect colors in standard dynamic range videos, at the expense of brief black screens as the TV switches between vdeo modes.
Plex DVR adds an ad stripper: Speaking of over-the-air DVR, Plex recently added an optional feature that removes commercial breaks from its live TV recordings. The feature is available in the beta version of Plex, and will attempt to automatically recognize and mark ads for deletion.
That’s a bold approach compared to Channels DVR and TiVo, both of which also offer ad-skipping features, but don’t actually remove the commercials from their recordings. In Plex’s case, there’s a risk of either leaving too much advertising in place or inadvertently deleting part of the actual program. That may explain why Plex is testing the feature in beta for now. I’m eager to hear from any Plex users who end up giving this a shot.
New Roku remotes for old Rokus: If you have an older Roku box or stick, and are envious of the TV volume and power controls on this year’s remotes, you can now buy them on their own. The new remote for older Roku Streaming Sticks (3500 and 3600 models) costs $20, and the remote for Roku boxes (Premiere+ and Roku 4) costs $30.
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