Streaming services for the 4G user – Which is best?

January 14, 2013 by

This is a guest post by Paul Thompson. Paul is a gadget and technology writer from Manchester and can be found on his blog www.techitorleavit.co.uk.

Picture of a retro-style television setIf you’ve just got hold of one of the new 4G phone options that launched with of EE, you’ll probably be all of a quiver at what video streaming options you can now make use of when out and about – without the worry of buffering that often came with 3G.

Of course, there are free options to consider like YouTube and the Sony-owned Crackle – which are absolutely worth having anyway – but what about the major subscription services that are now vying for your attention? Which is best? How are they priced? And what kind of content can they offer?

LoveFilm Player
The truth is, despite being the one that has been in the market the longest; LoveFilm’s streaming option isn’t available on 4G smartphones. So, why include them in the list? Well, two reasons really. The first being that you can access the service through a 4G dongle on a laptop, plus you can download the app for Kindle Fire HD or iPad. The other reason is that, if LoveFilm wants to compete in this market, it simply has to address this so a smartphone app simply has to be in development. At £4.99 per month for a digital only subscription, it’s cheap. And while the user interface is often frustrating to use, it offers a brilliant selection of TV and films – especially for those who like older, stranger movies that they may not have heard of.

Netflix
Netflix arrived in the UK in early 2012 and was the first major challenger to the LoveFilm crown. It is much more mobile friendly, in that it can be downloaded to Android, Apple and Windows handsets. At a cost of £5.99 per month, it’s slightly dearer, but the way you navigate the player is much more intuitive than its rival and even connects nicely to Facebook. In terms of content, the range of films and TV shows is excellent, with a good mix of old and new stuff that might be ever so slightly more favourable to those with more mainstream tastes. Perhaps one of the greatest things is though; you could be out and about watching a film on your phone and then pick up exactly where you left off later when at home or at your desk on any enabled device.

Now TV
Backed by the buying power of Sky TV, which is usually able to bring content to its viewers well before anyone else, it should be no surprise that Now TV is the service that can boast the freshest options. The streaming package was only launched in summer 2012, so it’s definitely the new kid in town, but it could well prove popular. The user interface is nice and an app is available for Apple and selected Android smartphones, which is great news for the 4G crowd. However, it should be noted that as it stands, the selection is way more limited than LoveFilm and Netflix, plus there is the much more costly price to think about. You can currently sign up for a three-month special offer of £8.99, but after that you’ll see it double to £15.

All in all, Netflix has to be the overall winner, but with three big players in this market, 2013 could well see prices, content and application support change significantly.

Do you use a digital streaming service to watch television and films? If so, which one do you use, and why did you choose it? We would love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

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Celebrating the British Games Industry

October 24, 2012 by

This is a guest post by Kevin Ball. Infographic supplied by The Accountancy Partnership

British Games Industry Infographic

Click for larger version

The video games industry is the most profitable entertainment industry that exists, outstripping cinema, DVD and music in terms of profit accumulated and units sold, and this has been the case for a while, particularly in Britain. So why is the British games industry constantly overlooked by the mainstream press? When a British film makes a few hundred million at the box office or wins an Oscar then it is front page news but when a British games company, Rockstar, makes a game that generates more than $1 billion, GTA IV, this news is given a few inches in the technology columns of a Sunday supplement. Why is this?

The argument that people aren’t as interested in games as they are in films or music doesn’t hold much water because the sales figures say different. I would suggest that it might be the case that the games themselves are not particularly British and, therefore, people assume they aren’t. Think about it; ask a non-gaming friend where they think the company that made Max Payne 3 is based. What will their answer be? America? Japan maybe? I doubt they’ll say Edinburgh. The games companies could do themselves and the British industry a favour by announcing their whereabouts in their press releases.

The British government has helped the British games industry by providing tax breaks for the entertainment industry as a whole. These tax breaks are similar to those found in countries like Canada and France. Incidentally, it was the absence of such a tax system that saw Electronic Arts, among others, close their UK offices in recent years; so hopefully these tax breaks may entice a few of the big hitters back Britain. That said, did anyone from the government actually say “Hey, come and make more games in Britain”? No they didn’t – our Prime Minister simply requested that British film makers take advantage of these tax breaks by making more mainstream films. Does David Cameron even know that Batman: Arkham City, which was made in Kentish Town, generated more money than the last James Bond film? Probably not.

The most recent example of clueless government attitudes towards the British games industry came in the form of a Creative Scotland report by the Scottish government that valued the games industry in Scotland at £0. By focusing the criteria of the report on areas that ignored the intricacies of video games development, the report managed to completely side-line not only Rockstar but a number of independent games companies in Scotland. Considering Scotland’s prolific nature within the industry, as well as the industry renowned university courses available at Dundee’s Abertay University, this is frankly ridiculous.

The reason I think it is important for the British press, government and games companies to publicly back the industry in this country is a simple one: the future. Don’t we want to see a Britain that celebrates its game industry the same way Japan does? Don’t we want the future of triple-A games to come from the mind of a kid from a British tower block, suburb, town or village? A kid who is sitting playing a game right now and thinking “I want to do this”? The only way to achieve this is to celebrate what we already have and strive to make it even more successful and accessible.

What do you think? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments.

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An interview with Eddie McClintock (Warehouse 13′s Agent Pete Lattimer)

August 30, 2012 by

Eddie McClintock and Joanne KellyIf you caught the last series of SyFy’s Warehouse 13, you’ll know it went out with a bang (literally). The warehouse has been destroyed, Mrs Frederic, HG Wells and Steve Jinks are dead… where do we go from here? Well, we’re about to find out, because Warehouse 13 returns to the UK on the 6th of September. One of the stars of the show, Eddie McClintock (aka Agent Pete Lattimer) was kind enough to spend some time on the phone with me to talk about the show in general, and what we can expect from this season.

Enjoy.

One of the reasons people enjoy Warehouse 13 is the sense of fun that’s interweaved throughout it. I’ve often wondered how much of Pete Lattimer is actually your personality, just being able to play around. So how much of you is in Pete?
After four years, working, playing Pete for fifteen, sixteen hours a day, five days a week, I feel that it would be incredibly difficult for me to try and be something else. If it were maybe a smaller part or a bit part I could try and play a character but I think the audiences are sophisticated enough now that they know when an actor is lying. There’s a lot of me in there. I have a particularly sophomoric sense of humour so the writers use that and they give me the words, we blend them together and it just seems to work out. People come up and say, “We think you’re so funny, you have such a great sense of humour” and I’m just like, “Well, you should thank the exec producer Jack Kenny because I’m basically just a meat puppet and they give me all the funny stuff”.

I think you’re right, you can tell when an actor is “acting” for want of a better word, or when they’re putting something of themselves into the part. I think that comes across.
Right, I love what I do – Pete loves what he does. You know, I get to run around, save the world and carry a ray gun. How can that not be fun? It’s the best job.

We haven’t seen season 4 in the UK yet [it starts Sept 6th], but I understand it’s already running in the US?
Yeah, I think we’re about halfway through here.

OK, we’re still at the point where the warehouse is gone and three of the characters are dead so we’re all kind of hanging on waiting to see what’s going to happen. I’m curious to know whether it was hard to film the end of series 3. It was quite hard to watch in some ways, was it hard to be a part of?
No – not hard, it was just rewarding – that would be a better way to explain it. When I finally saw the finished product, especially the episode Emily Lake where we discover Jinks’ body after he’s been murdered and, I tell you, I don’t care if it’s SyFy or what channel you’re watching, that was some good TV. That was poignant TV; you felt so much, even me watching Allison [Scagliotti] mourn the death of her friend, Pete being shocked that this new friend was gone, and the fact that you cared so much for the death of Jinks spoke a lot about what Aaron Ashmore was able to do with the character. He made Jinks so likeable that you, as a viewer, really mourned his death and you felt for those characters because we’d been lucky enough, through the writing and through the show to be able to develop characters that people have grown to care about. You always hurt when you see people that you care about hurting. I think it was really well done, I’m incredibly proud of that moment, and I don’t think it was as hard to do as it was rewarding.

From some of the trailers and previews we’ve seen here in the UK, we can gather that there’s going to be some heavy use of artifacts to try and get the warehouse back, but we also know there will be consequences to that and that the writers will kill characters off if necessary. Is it fair to say we’re going to see a darker tone to the series this time around?
What we don’t want to do on the show, obviously, is make it predictable. We don’t want the viewers to be able to go, “Oh, it’s Warehouse 13, it’s sci-fi, they’ll just use an artifact that will turn back time, bring everyone back to life and everybody’s going to be fine”. I think, obviously, the show is not called, “A big hole in the ground filled with dead people”, it’s called Warehouse 13 so, chances are, we’re going to figure out a way to bring the warehouse back. We may see other characters who’ve died come back, but we want there to be consequences and we need those consequences to be severe. Will there be a tonal shift in the show? I don’t think so; I think Pete will continue to be Pete, he’ll continue to have fun. As Joanne [Kelly] said, and I think she put it really well, we’ll continue to paint with the same colours we’ve always painted with but we will be adding a darker tone. So we aren’t taking out any of the other things, we’re adding a new tone to the show. That tone will be reflected in the consequences that we find occur after the warehouse is returned.

It’s really cool; Brent Spiner who played Data on [Star Trek] The Next Gen raises his head to become kind of the new nemesis, so that was amazing to be able to work with Brent because he’s kind of an icon and he does an amazing job. There’s a bit of a dark undertone that carries through this season, and I like it. It doesn’t change the show tonally, but it gives you that sense of impending doom, which I think is kind of cool. You need to up the stakes from season to season or else the show’s over.

With you saying Brent Spiner will be making an appearance, it almost seems like there’s been a roll call of Star Trek actors coming to the show. You’ve had Kate Mulgrew, who turned out to be your mum, and Rene Auberjonous in a previous season…
Jeri Ryan, who played Seven of Nine… how cool is that? My ex-wife is the hottest Borg in the universe and my mom is a Starfleet Captain!

Have you ever found, when you’ve been filming the show, that you’ve wished a particular artifact actually worked and you could take it home?
I’ve always said that if there was one artifact that I could take home and have be real it would be Janis Joplin’s backstage pass from Woodstock, and that whoever held that backstage pass could travel to any concert that’s ever been. That way I could go and see Black Sabbath and the Doors and all the bands that came before me that my dad turned me on to as a kid but I never had the opportunity to see live.

Finally, if you could describe the new series of Warehouse 13 in one word, what would it be?
Awesome!

A huge thanks to Eddie McClintock, and to SyFy for arranging the interview – I have to say it was a genuine pleasure and Eddie was great fun just to chat with.

Keep an eye out for Warehouse 13 season 4 on SyFy. It starts on September the 6th, at 9pm. Check out the SyFy Warehouse 13 microsite for more information and some trailers. You can also connect with Eddie on Twitter.

As ever, feel free leave a comment as well. Are you looking forward to the show? Are you a fan and want to tell us why you enjoy watching? You know what to do…

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Total Recall reboot actually looks quite good

July 17, 2012 by

Battlestar Galactica, V, Star Trek… there have been some big Sci Fi franchises getting the reboot treatment in recent years. It’s the tendency for producers to think, “If I were creating this today, what would I do differently?”. Now Total Recall, the 1990 film starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, is going all reboot on us.

The thing is, it actually looks like it’s going to be a decent film!

Have a look at the trailer below, and feel free to share your thoughts in the comments.

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Friday Fun: Hey Hey 16k

June 22, 2012 by

OK, you need sound (and Flash) this week… today’s Friday Fun is a song all about the halcyon days of 16k computers.

I was talking to one of the parents at nursery the other day about how tech has changed since we were little… how we lived during the time of black & white tellys, before the World Wide Web, and when the remote on the video recorder was attached by a cable.

And, of course, the computers :) Ah, they were great… I learned to program on a C64. So turn up the sound, play the video below, and enjoy the nostalgia!


Hey Hey 16k – For more of the funniest videos, click here

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Eureka – final series starts tonight

May 16, 2012 by

Eureka cast sitting outside a cafeI came late to Eureka – the story of a town full of geniuses (is that genii?) where all manner of mishaps happen – but once I discovered it I was totally hooked. So it’s with a mix of excitement and sadness that I write to say that the fifth and final series of Eureka is starting on SyFy UK tonight (Wednesday 16th May, 9PM).

This series kicks off with the town reeling after the Astraeus and her crew mysteriously disappeared before launching on their voyage to Titan. When the Astraeus finally crash lands Allison and the crew find themselves back in Eureka – four years after they left. As the town copes with the shocking personal changes that have happened during their absence, Sheriff Carter and Henry try to uncover the truth about the forces behind the crew’s bizarre disappearance.

If you want a preview of the series, check out the promo reel on SyFi.co.uk. And don’t forget to tune into SyFy UK tonight, 9PM to find out more.

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What’s that music?

March 14, 2012 by

Do you remember the 1990s advert for Guinness where a man is dancing round waiting for his beer to settle? Don’t worry if not – here it is again from YouTube:

This was the first advert where the music caught my attention to the point where I just had to track it down. Fortunately, Guinness actually released the soundtrack on CD so it wasn’t too hard. Rather nicely, it also introduced me to Perez Prado and the style of mambo. The thing is, if the CD hadn’t come out I would have found it much more difficult to find out what the music was. The World Wide Web was in its infancy, and downloading music files on those slow dial-up modems wasn’t even worth thinking about.

Nowadays things are a mite easier, and when you hear some great music in an advert you can quickly Google it to see what it was… or you can check out TV Ad Music. With YouTube videos of recent adverts, information on the music artists, and links to download the tracks from iTunes where available, you’re pretty likely to find a few items to tickle your fancy.

I found TV Ad Music when searching for information on who sang the song for the O2 “Things are Changing” advert. Unfortunately you can’t buy it, but it’s a lovely song. Another great track (and another that you can’t buy, sadly) is the Halifax Community Choir singing “I believe I can fly”.

Check the site out, and explore some of the great music you hear during those commercial breaks.

What’s your favourite piece of music from advertising? Tell us in the comments.

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The Hobbit movie trailer now available

December 21, 2011 by

It’s been ten years since the epic Lord of the Rings trilogy arrived in cinemas… well, the first part, anyway, and if you’ve been hankering after another fix you’re in luck. The trailer for the prequel, The Hobbit, has been released and is now available on YouTube. Have a look at the embedded video below.

What do you think? It’s been a long, long time since I read The Hobbit as a child, but I’m incredibly excited about this movie. How about you?

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Batman Live World Arena Tour [Review]

August 8, 2011 by

Warning: This review contains some spoilers. If you plan to go to see Batman Live and do not want to learn anything about the story, read no further!

If you’ve been keeping up with recent posts at Geek-Speak you’ll know we ran a competition for one lucky person to win tickets to Batman Live, the new live stage show that’s currently touring the UK. As well as the winner receiving tickets, I was fortunate to be offered tickets myself. So, last week, a friend and I headed to Glasgow for the opening night at the SECC.

We were greeted with a large crowd of people, including plenty of children, and with a fair smattering of people dressed up as their favourite Batman characters. Fortunately, the majority of people were dressed in “normal” clothes, so we didn’t feel out of place at all.

The arena itself was set up in a horseshoe shape around a long stage. We had initially thought we were going to be sat right at the back and unable to see anything, but the setup meant most, if not all, of the audience got a good view of what was happening. I would venture to say I don’t think there would have been a bad seat in the house.

What immediately struck us was the quality of the scenery. I know that sounds like an odd thing to say, but it really did make us go “Wow!”. The stage was interspersed with model buildings, but the backdrop was a massive screen on which was an image of Gotham City. Blimps circled over the cityscape, lights came on and off, and a little railway wound its way across the scene (which my friend had to point out to me three times before I finally saw it).

Batman Live tells the story of how Dick Grayson becomes Robin, and pays great tribute to its comic book roots. Scene changes are done by having the background shrink into a comic book cell, the pages are flicked, and a new cell (scene) zoomed into. Fight scenes are accompanied by comic book inspired images, and the whole thing feels like a high quality graphic novel. This is, of course, just a backdrop to the live action itself which, given Dick Grayson’s genesis as a circus performer, appropriately makes use of acrobatics and circus skills.

The lineup of villains is as important as the hero, I think, and we get appearances by Two Face, The Riddler, Catwoman and The Penguin. We do also get to see Poison Ivy and Scarecrow, although they are so brief as to make me think they were just included to make sure there were as many people’s favourites in the show as possible. The major “baddies”, though, are Harley Quinn and her psychotic crush Joker. Joker’s first appearance is just brilliant, bursting from a jack-in-the-box, and fits his playful yet crazy character down to a tee.

The story was a little slow to get going at first, although it did make sense to show both how Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson lost their parents. Once we get into the action, though, the story really takes off – fights, the Batmobile whizzing through the streets, important revelations about the identity of Batman, and so on. It’s true that time flies when you’re having fun, and the show certainly didn’t feel like it lasted the two hours we were in there.

Let me just give you a couple of real highlights before we round off:

  1. Batman facing Joker’s goons in the circus. A huge Joker face emerges from behind the screen, and you suddenly realise that the hair, eyes, and teeth are people. These people stream from the face’s mouth to attack Batman. That face was pretty creepy, but very, very clever.
  2. Showing Dick the new Batmobile, designed by Gordon Murray (who also designed the McLaren F1). The Batmobile looks a little fragile but very futuristic and when Batman demonstrates the rocket launchers… well… just duck.
  3. Scarecrow’s attack on Batman. I do think more could have been made of Scarecrow and his psychotropic gas, but just watching the actor move was something to behold. He must have been on stilts, but seemed to move in such a strange, lurching way that I have no idea how he didn’t fall over.
  4. The grand finale – which involves a bazooka and some quite spectacular effects I didn’t realise were even possible on stage. I won’t go into more detail in case you plan to go and see the show yourself, but it was spectacular in the true sense of the word.

All in all, Batman Live was an amazing show. The mix of comic book style, amazing effects in the live action, and a good story made for a fantastic evening. The audience, children and (some slightly inebriated) adults included, all seemed to enjoy themselves and there was a great atmosphere afterwards. The show is well worth a look if you can get tickets. As my friend remarked to me as we left the arena once the show was over: “I think I might just have become a batman fan.”

Visit www.batmanlive.com for more info.

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Star Trek Comp :: Who won?

August 4, 2011 by

Good morning all, I hope you have a great day today. Last week we asked you to tell us who played Wesley Crusher in Star Trek: The Next Generation, for the chance to win a bundle of Star Trek goodies consisting of a USS Enterprise pizza cutter, keychain, and a Klingon corkscrew. Wesley Crusher was played by Wil Wheaton, and well over five hundred of you got the answer correct.

The winning entry, selected at random by using random.org‘s very geeky air-pressure seeded random number generator, is…

(drumroll)

T Ryder!

Well done, T. I will be in touch with you shortly to arrange delivery of your prize.

But well done to so many people for getting the answer correct. Thanks for entering, and don’t forget to enter any future competitions – it could be you next time.

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