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| This week on TechHive: Streaming with faraway friends |
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| With much of the world hunkering down to limit the spread of COVID-19, many of us have more time than ever to work through our TV show watchlists.
But this can quickly become a lonely affair. As self-quarantines stretch on, we’ll need more ways to stay entertained at home while remaining in contact with friends and family members.
To that end, I’ve rounded up a list of “watch together” apps, websites, and extensions, which allow you to converse with other people while watching videos in sync with one another. Some let you communicate through text, and others through voice and video, but they all help fulfill the need to stay in touch with others even when you’re stuck at home. Read the full column on TechHive. |
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| More video chat advice |
| This week, I’m unlocking the feature topic from Advisorator, my other newsletter covering tech advice beyond the world of cord-cutting. This week’s issue covers all the ways to get more out of video chat, whether it’s for work or for keeping up with friends and family members from home. I’d rather have more people read this than put it behind a paywall, so check it out here.
If you’d like to get more tech advice in your inbox every week, you can try Advisorator free for 28 days. Thanks so much to all the current subscribers who make it possible for me to produce thes newsletter, thereby allowing me to share it with you all. |
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| Weekly rewind |
| Raspberry Pi DVR: Also on TechHive this week, I put together a detailed walkthrough on building your own DVR with a Raspberry Pi mini-computer, HDHomerun tuner, and Channels DVR software. I’ve reviewed Channels before and have been impressed with both its slick software and its optional TV Everywhere integration, which can record cable channels if you have access to a pay TV subscription, but up-front costs have always been a major barrier. At $35, a Raspberry Pi is a lot cheaper than running the DVR server on a PC or NAS box.
Setting up the Raspberry Pi isn’t for the faint of heart though, as you’ll need to be comfortable working with non-graphical command line interfaces and with poking around in your router’s settings. Most cord-cutters who want to record live channels should instead consider a simpler over-the-air DVR, such as as the Tablo Quad, or a live TV streaming service that doesn’t require any in-home DVR hardware in the first place. Still, there’s nothing quite like freedom and flexibility of running your own DVR server if you have the wherewithal to set it up.
Data cap suspensions: Last week, I noted that AT&T was lifting its data caps for home internet customers. Several other home internet providers around the country have since followed suit, including Comcast, Cox, CenturyLink, and Mediacom. (PCWorld’s Mark Hachman has a good roundup of how internet providers are—and aren’t—responding to coronavirus overall.)
It’s never been a secret that home internet data caps don’t prevent network congestion, and are really just a way for internet providers to boost profits in non-competitive markets. But that point should be extra clear now that major providers are suspending data caps amid soaring internet use. I suppose some credit is due for them doing the right thing now, though the alternative—exploiting a pandemic to increase profits further—might not have been worth the publicity nightmare anyway.
Fox buys Tubi: The free streaming video service Tubi is being acquired by Fox in a $440 million cash deal. The ad-supported service has over 25 million monthly active users, and has a catalog of about 20,000 movies and TV shows available on most major streaming platforms.
As we saw with the free service PlutoTV after it was acquired by Viacom (now ViacomCBS) last year, Fox is likely to build up Tubi by injecting more of its own content. Fox, however, no longer owns its own studio for scripted movies and TV shows, having sold its 20th Century Fox studios and FX cable channel to Disney last year. A statement by Tubi CEO Farhad Massoudi specifically mentions Fox’s “dominance in news and sports programming” as an asset, so maybe we’ll see Fox weave in content from its national sports network, cable news channel, and local broadcast affiliates in lieu of more movies and shows. |
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| Save more money |
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| With so many people stuck at home, the big story in streaming this week is the number of services that are now offering extended free trials, or in some cases free service with no strings attached. Here’s a roundup:
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