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Welcome to lounge0101, your source of consumer electronics news and information since 1998. Our website offers a wide scope of interests, including;
Our free discussion forum is the most popular area of the website allowing you to discuss your favorite topics and get your questions answered quickly and easily. So pull up a chair, sit back and relax.
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Satellite Radio Articles
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DOJ gives Sirius/XM merger the green light
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Posted by : RiseStar , Lounge0101 Administrator
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 The XM Radio/Sirius Radio mega-merger, proposed more than a year ago as cleared a major hurdle as the U.S. Department of Justice announced Monday that they have given the proposed merger the nod of approval.
The DOJ had been carefully scrutinizing the proposed merger, to ensure that it would offer benefits to consumers, rather than creating an abusive monopoly. Opponents of the merger, including other broadcasting entities and politicians had weighed in, claiming the merger would ultimately be harmful to consumers. However, in its decision, the DOJ determined that the merger was not anti-competitive, citing a multitude of alternatives available to the consumer, including conventional radio, Apple iTunes and iPods as well as cellular phone music services. Other factors, including low attrition rates showed that the two companies were not overly competitive with one another, with both focusing on attracting customers from conventional radio mediums, rather that from one ...
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 Posted on Mon 24 Mar 2008, 8:15 PM
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Digital Satellite TV Articles
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Directv to limit pay per view viewing time
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Posted by : RiseStar , Lounge0101 Administrator
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 In a move that can be interpreted as a cave in to major movie studios, DirecTV has recently announced that they will begin limiting pay per view movies recorded to the Directv DVR. Effective April 15, 2008 all pay per view movies recorded by the DirecTV DVR will automatically be deleted 24 hours after initial recording.
"Major movie studios have required that satellite and cable providers alike may no longer allow their customers to view these recordings for longer than 24 hours” reads the DirecTV announcement.
This move will eliminate the ability to view a PPV recording several times, or even the ability to view a recording made more than a day after recording, which will force consumers to pay for each viewing, or go out and purchase the movie from a retailer. For example, a customer may record a pay per view movie on a Sunday night, intending to watch it the next day, but does not have the opportunity until Tuesday. The recording that has been paid f ...
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Posted on Thu 20 Mar 2008, 11:30 PM
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High Definition Television Articles
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Retailers begin helping with HD-DVD blues
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Posted by : RiseStar , Lounge0101 Administrator
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 With Toshiba's HD DVD throwing in the towel, conceding to the more popular Blu-Ray platform, many consumers are finding themselves in the same position that Betamax purchasers found themselves in during the VHS vs Betamax wars; stuck with expensive equipment that is now obsolete.
Circuit City is one of the first retailers to step forward however with a trade in offer. The offer extends to those customers who purchased a HD-DVD player within the past 90 days from the retailer. The return program offers a 100% credit towards a Blu-Ray player. The customer is responsible for paying any differences in price and is only valid for HD-DVD equipment, not the high definition videos. The offer is not being advertised, so customers need to ask for it in the store. An alternative to the exchange is your HD-DVD player can also be exchanged for a Circuit City gift card.
Toshiba, in abandoning the HD-DVD format, has stated that they will instead focus their attent ...
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Posted on Thu 6 Mar 2008, 8:41 PM
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Personal Video Recorder Articles
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Tivo ends quarter with mixed blessings
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Posted by : RiseStar , Lounge0101 Administrator
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 TiVo has released their latest quarterly report which ended January 31 with a reported net loss of $6.36 million, a significant improvement over the $19.5 million loss the same quarter a year earlier. Revenue fell slightly to $74.1 million, down 3.6%. TiVo service revenue, rose to $58.1 million, up from $57 million a year earlier.
TiVo’s long term future looks brighter, primarily due to a big patent infringement appeals court win in January, which ruled in TiVo’s favor over Echostar Inc. The court upheld the damages, which has now grown to $94 million, as well as upholding the earlier court’s ruling that Echostar must disable DVR services which have been held to infringe on TiVo’s patents.
The substantial award is still being disputed by Echostar, which claims that its latest DVR systems no longer infringe on TiVo’s patents due to a “workaround” software upgrade. At the end of the day, Echostar may have little choice but to license TiVo’s technology or ...
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Posted on Wed 5 Mar 2008, 11:44 PM
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Digital Satellite TV Articles
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Bell Expressvu dishes out new signal security upgrade
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Posted by : RiseStar , Lounge0101 Administrator
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 Similar to its security upgrade in July 2005, Canada’s leading satellite broadcaster, Bell Expressvu is in the process of a new signal security upgrade in an effort to curtail its’ rampant piracy problem.
Bell Expressvu utilizes equipment and signal encryption technology manufactured by Echostar, the U.S.’s second largest digital satellite broadcaster. Echostar’s Dish Network has been plagued by piracy issues for many years, despite numerous expensive attempts to resolve the problem. This has lead to widespread piracy issues for Bell Expressvu due to the similarity in technology. Recent estimates peg more than 2 million pirates are currently receiving Dish Network and Bell Expressvu programming without payment.
The Bell Expressvu satellite signal is encrypted, allowing only authorized users, such as subscribers to decode the signal and allow them to view the channels that they are subscribing to. Signal pirates exploit vulnerabilities in the encrypti ...
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Posted on Thu 28 Feb 2008, 6:12 PM
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Digital Satellite TV Articles
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Liberty Media closes deal to assume control of DirecTV
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Posted by : RiseStar , Lounge0101 Administrator
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 The deal allowing Liberty Media LLC to acquire control of DirecTV Group Inc., the leading U.S. direct to home satellite company was closed this week.
Liberty and News Corp. entered an agreement in December 2006 to trade Liberty’s 16 percent ownership of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. for News Corp.’s 39 percent controlling interest in the El Segundo, California-based Directv.
Earlier this week, the deal was approved by the FCC, which was the final hurdle needed to make it a reality. In its decision, the FCC required that business relationships between Liberty Cablevision of Puerto Rico and Directv be severed within a year.
For Liberty Media’s founder John Malone, the agreement creates a domestic television empire not seen since his TCI cable conglomerate was purchased by AT&T Inc. TCI is remembered by many for running very aggressive anti-satellite ads nationwide in the mid 1990's while fighting for subscribers which were flocking to th ...
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Posted on Thu 28 Feb 2008, 4:58 PM
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Digital Satellite TV Articles
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Directv leasing program triggers class action lawsuit
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Posted by : RiseStar , Lounge0101 Administrator
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 A Chicago-based law firm has filed a class action lawsuit in Los Angeles federal court against Directv Inc., charging the satellite broadcaster with failing to adequately inform customers that they must return their Directv receivers upon cancellation of their Directv service, even if they paid hundreds of dollars for them at retail.
The suit, which also includes electronics retailer Best Buy, accuses the companies of not adequately disclosing that a customer cannot keep their Directv receiver after canceling their Directv service even though they paid for it, with prices now ranging from $69 to $199.
Directv considers the set top receiver purchase a “lease”, charging additional monthly lease fees which range from $4.99 to $10 per month. Previous to their lease program, which began on March 2006, customers were required to pay outright for their receivers. The leasing program allowed subscribers to get Directv with a lower upfront cost.
Th ...
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Posted on Sun 24 Feb 2008, 10:18 PM
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09/19/2007 12:08 AM
Welcome to our new site. digitalinsurrection.com is now lounge0101.com. Please excuse our mess as we complete a long overdue redesign of our website. The new primary url of our website is now www.lounge0101.com. Please update your bookmarks. With the redesign, you will find all areas of the website have been updated. Stay tuned for more coming soon.
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