Pay-TV is skyrocketing in popularity all throughout Europe. Ninety-five operators across 25 countries in the European pay-TV market added 10 million subscriptions in the last 10 years. What will the next five years look like for this market? Pay-TV households will increase by 10.2 percent to 186 million between 2012 and 2017. During this timespan, cable services will decline by 4.9 percent while Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) services will increase by 35.9 percent. What’s the reason for this explosive growth? The growth of HDTV channels is part of the answer—since the end of 2009…

Televisions used to be big and clunky, just like computers and cell phones were when they first hit the shelves. Nowadays it seems the thinner the television set is, the better. Most of us also look for crisper, clearer, and brighter resolution in our TVs, which has ultimately changed the way televisions are made. …

In a head-scratchingly bass-ackwards marketing decision, you can now send recorded videos to friends and family (and enemies, I guess – who are we to judge) via snail mail in the form of TV in a Card. Apparently born of a mind stuck in the late 90s, TV in a Card is what can only be summed up as the logical progression of musical birthday cards – and a logical regression of just recording and emailing a private YouTube video. Each card contains a lithium battery that lasts 90 minutes, and can play up to 30 continuous minutes of video on its 3.4″ LCD screen. Personally, I’m not up for reading a birthday card…

If you’re a gadget hound like me, you probably spent hours agonizing over the purchase of your TV. It’s one of the few purchases in your home most people don’t intend to replace every year or so, so you make your choice and dammit you live with it. But that 1080p flat screen TV you just bought is about to be obsoleted. BIG TIME. The BBC and Japanese opposite number NHK have completed trials of Super Hi-Vision broadcasts across the world at a jaw-dropping 7,680 x 4,320 pixel resolution. At sixteen times the quality of 1080p, this makes current high-def broadcasting look like analog television from 1965….

NBC has announced it will not be joining Apple’s online TV revolution. NBC Universal CEO Jeff Zucker says that 99c is too low for one viewing of it’s TV shows, although currently the price point on iTunes is $1.99 to buy the show for as many viewings as you like. Essentially NBC isn’t betting that people will watch shows more than once. Which kind of throws its commitment to DVD sales and selling shows on iTunes into new light. It’s precisely this kind of politics that turns me off. I can sign up to a monthly subscription to Netflix for $7.99 and see as many old episodes of NBC’s shows as I like, but I can’t…

If you enjoy adrenaline-filled racing, bone-crushing tackles, mind-blowing saves, and earth-shattering home runs, chances are pretty good that you have a satellite or cable subscription. This is reality: sports lovers can’t ditch their expensive television providers — not if they want to continue to enjoy the sports they love. Or can they? Let’s get the obvious out of the way — big media doesn’t like change. Big media would prefer that consumers pay for those expensive cable or satellite subscriptions for an incredibly long time. Big media wants suck people’s wallets dry while…

What do you do while watching TV? People watch TV still, right? I guess I mean it in the classic sense. Like, in your living room, on an actual television. Do you multitask? If and when I find myself in front of the tube, I’m generally on Facebook. That I’m on Facebook all the time anyway is besides the point. Apparently, I’m not alone – a study by YouGov of over 2000 people has found that folks tend to do the social network dance while watching TV. A lot of folks. YouGov calls the phenomenon ‘media stacking’, and revealed that 86% of those asked in the 18-24 demographic have combined their two vices, watching…

Now this is more like it. Assuming you exist, you’re by now doubtlessly familiar with Google’s imminent push into the frontier of your living room. But while we’ve all been made intimate with the idea of Google TV, I for one could go for a taste of the user experience, couldn’t you? Lucky us; Google has obliged by throwing us denizens of the net a reasonably meaty preview of what beef is. ‘Beef’ will hereupon be referred to as ‘Google TV’. Make sure you beatbox a wicked drum n’ bass beat while you click the hell out of this play button, because the internet is just more fun that way. “Watch videos on the web,…

A confirmed tip from a source very close to Apple points towards a new version of Apple TV on the horizon. According to sources, this project will tie in much more closely with Apple’s mobile offerings. The new build of the TV solution will be based directly off of the iPhone 4 (no word on apps and the App Store making an appearance as of yet), meaning it will have the exact same internal components including the A4 CPU and limited amount of flash storage (16GB) and will be capable of 1080 HD. The device has been said to be very small (maybe the same size as the iPhone?) with very few ports (only a power socket…

Here’s some advice. Take the next five years to really get the most out of your binocular vision. Climb a tree. Play baseball. Do that thing where you put your hand in front of your face and wink back and forth for awhile. Trust me, you’ll miss it when it’s gone. According to the Taiwanese Industrial Technology Research Institute, glasses-free 3DTV will be the hip new tech by 2015, and this week they demonstrated a 45-inch model showcasing the technology. It wasn’t exactly ready for primetime, but impressed nonetheless. Apparently, they can go as big as 65 inches. Stephen Jeng, director of 3D systems…