Quibi was designed for a busy lifestyle—for those times when we are on-the-go and only have short snippets of time to kill. Now that it's launched, I have checked out the app and here's what I found.
Roku released two new products mid-May. The Roku Express 4K+ is a value priced streamer that performs at a level much higher than its price tag suggests. We tested both the Express 4K+ and the Roku Voice Remote Pro, a new, hands-free voice remote. Both may have a place in your Roku streaming arsenal.
Roku is aiming to simplify the process of setting up a home theater by making it easy to pair its subwoofer and soundbar with its wireless speakers. Let’s see how it works.
The newest Roku Streaming Stick 4K model may not make you abandon your current Roku player, but it does provide a step-up in performance, and is priced at a low $50. It's powered by a new Roku OS 10.5 update that ups the surround sound capabilities of Roku soundbars from 3.1 to a full 5.1 wireless setup. The combined updates deliver excellent video quality and decent surround sound at a reasonable price.
The Vidgo Live TV streaming service launched at the end of 2019. Similar to lesser-known PhiloTV and FuboTV, it is holding its own against the popular YouTube TV and Hulu+Live TV. The experience is not as robust as what you'll get from YouTube, Hulu, AT&T TV, or Sling TV, but it may be enough to give basic cable channels to those who've cut the cord.
In a year when few new products surprised me, Lifeprint woke me up. Lifeprint demonstrated its photo printer and smartphone app that can make still photos appear to come alive and move. The experience brought to mind the excitement of the magical world of Harry Potter where printed photos in frames and newspapers would move like a short video.
HBO has officially announced a standalone HBO Go option will be available in 2015. The new option will allow users to stream to the HBO Go app without requiring a subscription to the HBO premium cable channel.
The WarnerMedia and Discovery merger has been finalized. The new company, dubbed Warner Bros. Discovery, will bring significant changes to HBO Max and Discovery+ streaming and will likely affect the CNN+ streaming app. It’s expected that all the content will be aggregated into one streaming service, but it won’t happen immediately.
This past year has been a wake-up call for streaming studios. As post-pandemic churn set in, these services started to report huge losses. The strategy to offer as many original titles to their users was a losing proposition, resulting in mergers, restructuring, and a reduction in new production.