Audio Video News

Dolby Atmos Comes to Tablets via Lenovo’s Tab 2 A10 ($199) and Tab 2 A8 ($129), with 10- and 8-inch screens and Android OS. The surround effects work with any headphones...

TiVo’s Network Comedy Collection is a new DVR feature that “curates” and automatically records comedy programming from CBS, NBC, ABC, and Fox. It may prove especially useful to users of the Roamio broadcast tuner-based DVR, though it works with any TiVo model...

HBO Now, the new $15/month streaming service, has launched with the season five premiere of Game of Thrones. Cable operators have been responding by offering their version of HBO at reduced prices or bundled with other products...

Xbox One’s First News App is ABC News. It offers up to five streams with morning, evening, and weekend editions...

Hulu’s Got CSI, the first such deal for the 15-season CBS series. The first 14 seasons are now available for streaming...

Local NBC Stations are now available on the network’s TV Everywhere app. You’ll need a cable, satellite, or telco TV subscription to access your local affiliate on computer, tablet, or smartphone...

If You Like LG’s Curved TV, you may also like the LG G Flex2 smartphone, available from Sprint. It includes a 6-inch P-OLED screen, octa-core processor, 13-megapixel camera, improved optical image stabilization, self-healing anti-scratch coating on back, and a battery that charges from 0 to 50 percent in 40 minutes...

Led Zeppelin Streaming started as a Spotify exclusive but has expanded to Rdio, Beats Music, Google Play Music, Xbox Music, Deezer, and others. Tidal is the first streaming service to stream Zep in a lossless format...

The Technics Tracks High-Res Download Store offers British and German citizens tens of thousands of tracks in 24/192, hundreds of thousands of 24-bit tracks at other sampling rates, and CD-quality tracks as well. Custom-built by 7digital, the store is part of the re-emergence of the Technics audio brand...

DTS Headphone:X is being built into smartphones for the Chinese market. No word on when it’s coming to U.S. phones...

Unit Shipments of Soundbars rose 37 percent in 2014, with revenue up 31 percent, and the greatest growth in the $300-to-$399 range. Eighty-three percent of models sold had audio streaming, 55 percent had external subs, and HDMI-equipped units were at 32 percent and rising...

Soundtrack LPs to be reissued by Universal include Animal House, Beetlejuice, Boogie Nights, Clueless, Do the Right Thing, E.T., The Godfather, Jaws, Juice, Rocky, School Daze, Silence of the Lambs, and Blaxploitation classics such as Willie Hutch’s The Mack, J.J. Johnson’s Willie Dynamite, and Marvin Gaye’s Trouble Man...

Connected Audio Products will skyrocket from 1.5 million units shipped in 2010 to 66 million in 2018, says an IHS Technology forecast. That includes wireless speakers, soundbars, and A/V receivers, though the drivers are actually tablets and smartphones...

Sony’s A/V Division has been spun off into a wholly owned subsidiary with a greater focus on profit. A similar move has enabled the TV division to turn a profit for the first time in a decade...

Sony’s Retail Strategy is shifting from Sony Stores, with 8 out of 10 closing, to Sony Experience in-store shops, with 100 being added to the existing 400. Sony was the 20th largest U.S. consumer electronics retailer for a decade...

No HDTV for You, customers of small cable operators. The FCC has extended their HD carriage exemption to 2018...

Pay-TV Companies lost 125,000 net video subscribers in 2014, though the pain was felt entirely by cable operators. They lost 1.2 million subscribers, while satellite subscriptions were up 20,000, and telco TV gained more than a million...

ISPs Added Three Million U.S. subscribers in 2014. Cable operators got 89 percent of those new bodies, up from 82 percent in 2013...

Verizon Has Commissioned 200 hours of original content per year for its forthcoming mobile streaming service. “It’s increasingly clear that ‘mobile first’ is the way millennials are consuming all kinds of content,” said an exec...

The Weather Channel was suddenly dropped by FiOS TV in favor of Verizon’s AccuWeather Network with associated apps and widgets. The Weather Channel pointedly noted that its live coverage of harsh winter weather, much of it within the FiOS footprint, made it the only major cable network to grow in February...