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Austin American-Statesman Omar L. Gallaga column [Austin American-Statesman :: ](Austin American-Statesman (TX) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Sept. 01-- I wonder if the next area of hot tech products will be aimed directly at cord-cutters of cable and satellite TV services. In June, a service called Aereo that operated in Austin was dealt a Supreme Court setback and suspended operations. It allowed people to pay a monthly fee to access local broadcasts and DVR them to a cloud to watch whenever. Now, it looks like we're going to see companies step into the breach to offer more legally palatable options along the same lines. Last week, TiVo introduced a new version of its Roamio recorder that doesn't require cable service. It sells for $50 -- plus a $15-a-month fee -- and stores local broadcasts and can access services including Netflix and Hulu Plus for additional costs. It's competing against a more expensive product I got to try out, Tablo, which was sent to the American-Statesman for review. For $219-$299 -- the more expensive version records four programs at a time; the cheaper one just two -- you get a small box that can record over-the-air HD broadcasts, store them and stream them to devices like iPads or computers. It requires a $5-a-month fee to download programming guide information. The device works. It has slick, easy-to-understand software and solves a problem that cord-cutters face without access to DVR hardware. You can watch live TV with it or store programs to see later. But at such a high price, it lacks several key things, including: --An HDMI connector. You can't plug it directly to a TV, so without jumping through some hoops or using additional hardware such as a Roku streaming box, you'll be watching your shows on a tablet or computer. --Phone apps. You can watch programs via Tablo on your iOS or Android tablet, but not on your iOS or Android phone. Strange. --Storage. You'll have to connect your own USB flash drive or external hard drive to one of its USB ports. It can't record anything on its own. --An antenna. You'll need to connect one on your own and fiddle with getting a solid signal. --Internet connectivity. You provide the router and Internet service the Tablo connects to. Over the long run, the $219 Tablo would cost less than the $50 TiVo model in fees, but you have to wonder if Tablo will be around that long without either a price cut or a new version with more built-in capabilities. You can learn more about it at TabloTV.com. Game-watching going mainstream. Demonstrating that there's a growing audience for video games as a spectator sport, "The Know It All: Leaderboard," a new weekly show focused on e-sports, made its debut on YouTube last week. The gaming news show is the first content in a new venture that brings together two Austin new-media companies: Rooster Teeth Productions and The Daily Dot. "Leaderboard" airs on "The Know," one of Rooster Teeth's popular YouTube channels, which as of this writing has 343,298 subscribers. Less than 24 hours after its debut, the first episode of "Leaderboard" had received more than 40,000 views. The show is hosted by Rooster Teeth's Jon Risinger and Meg Turney and features Daily Dot's Jared Wynne as an e-sports correspondent. While Rooster Teeth has long been known for its rabid fan base and huge audience for video, The Daily Dot is primarily an online news site covering web and social media culture. It is now making a big push into video after hiring Josh Rubin, a longtime Austin-based producer for CNN, as an executive producer and director of its video efforts. Rubin, who has been in the position for about a month, said The Daily Dot -- which devotes seven regular contributors, a full-time reporter and an editor to e-sports -- is handling editorial content while Rooster Teeth is handling productions. Rubin believes that The Daily Dot's seriousness about covering the space sets it apart from other news organizations that might dabble in e-sports. "People are very passionate about it," he said. "The worst thing you can do is show up and be a poseur and not pronounce names correctly and not understand the ins and outs of the sports." The first episode covered a massive "Team Fortress 2" tournament and the recent acquisition of the Twitch game-streaming network, which was snapped up by Amazon for $970 million. That news was breaking just as the episode was being put together, Rubin said, and it became the lead item for the show while also demonstrating the huge appetite for online video about pro gaming. The show will regularly cover players who switch e-sports teams, updates on specific players' activities and trends in the industry. "We'll cover this as diligently as 'SportsCenter' would cover football or soccer," Rubin said. New episodes of "Leaderboard" will be posted to YouTube on Tuesdays. The companies, both privately held, are not revealing financial details of the deal. Made-up tech definition. Slackbacking (verb): To back a project on Kickstarter knowing it won't meet its goal and you won't have to spend any actual money. ------ On the web: Read Omar L. Gallaga's tech blog, Digital Savant, at austin360.com/digitalsavant. And listen to Omar and Austin Eavesdropper blogger Tolly Moseley on the "Statesman Shots" podcast at statesman.com/shots. ___ (c)2014 Austin American-Statesman, Texas Visit Austin American-Statesman, Texas at www.statesman.com Distributed by MCT Information Services |