TV Premieres: What to Watch 6/7 - 6/13

This weeks list of premiering summer TV shows includes The Closer, Raising the Bar and Weeds among others.  Read on for all of the details.

Note:  Download a free, PDF of all summer 2009 TV premieres. 

            

         Weeds Season 5 Premieres on Showtime Monday Night

 

NOTE: All Times are Listed for EST

Sunday 06/07/2009

Tony Awards (8pm on CBS - Available in HD) - the 63rd annual Tony Awards Show

Gene Simmons Family Jewels (9pm on A&E-Available in HD) - Season 4 starts with Gene trying to turn Sophie's birthday celebration into the ``Sweet Sixteen of the Century.''

Next Food Network Star (9pm on Food) - Season 5

Bridezillas (9pm on WE) - Season 6 starts with Valerie discovering that her wedding venue is in the middle of dangerous wildfires.

Discovery Special: Inside Planet Earth (9pm on Discovery - Available in HD) - a Special Presentation profile of the Earth's core and its protective powers.

Army Wives (10pm on Life) - Returns for season 3

Brooke Knows Best (10pm on VH1) Season 2 of the reality show starring Brooke Hogan, daughter of the wrestler known as Hulk Hogan

Kendra (10pm on E!) Series premiere.  Kendra Wilkinson grabs the spotlight in this reality series on E! Formerly one of the three stars of Girls Next Door, Kendra has since left the Hefner mansion and is now engaged to Eagles wide receiver Hank Baskett.

Denise Richards: It's Complicated (10:30pm on E!) Season 2.  Really season 2?  The only thing complicated here is how this show got renewed.

 

Monday 06/08/2009

Law & Order: Criminal Intent (8pm on NBC-Available in HD) - Law & Order CI new for NBC, but already aired

Closer (9pm on TNT- Available in HD) - Season 5 of the closer begins.  One of the few bright spots of summer TV.

Raising the Bar(10pm on TNT- Available in HD) - Season 2 begins.  From the creators of NYPD Blue, Hill Street Blues, and L.A.Law; Raising the Bar is about a group of young lawyer friends and former law school classmates who find themselves on opposing sides of this legal drama on TNT.

Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List (10pm on Bravo) - New timeslot.

Weeds (10pm on Showtime- Available in HD) Season 5 begins with Mary Louise Parker, marijuana and the suburbs...

Nurse Jackie (10:30pm on Showtime- Available in HD) Series Premiere with the return of Edie Falco to TV.

   

Wednesday 06/10/2009

Top Chef Masters (10pm on Bravo- Available in HD) - Series premiere of another food-based reality TV show on Bravo

 

Thursday 06/11/2009

She's Got the Look (9pm on TVLand) Season Premiere

 

Saturday 06/13/2009

Kings (8pm on NBC- Available in HD) - returns from a long break.  Will end forever after these few summer episodes.

 

Season Finales this Week:

• 6/13 10pm "Pushing Daisies" ends forever on ABC
• 6/13 10pm "The Graham Norton Show" on BBC America

 

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GeekTonic Week In Review June 7

Below is a quick summary of the past week's news and stories on GeekTonic.

• State of the Art TV Remote – from 1961 - I got a kick out of this commercial for a state of the art TV set circa 1961.  The focus was on the remote control.
• Hulu Premium - Free Online TV May Not Last - Hulu continues to get a lot of interest from the tech world and mainstream press as well.  As the media companies try to find their way through the evolving TV distribution world.
• MediaPortal 1.1.0 (alpha) Coming Soon - The MediaPortal development team has a challenge on their hands keeping version 1 of their software updated at the same time they work towards an entirely new HTPC platform they are calling version 2.
• Customize your BeyondTV Icons - A little customization goodness for BeyondTV brought to us by users of the software-based PVR program BTV.
• Deal of the Day - 1TB Hitachi Hard Drive $74.59 $70!!!  A coupon makes the deal I posted for this 1TB hard drive even better
• Month in Review - May 2009
• TwitterMCE - Twitter from your Couch - Another option for twittering on your MediaCenter PC.
• Google Makes Move into eBooks - The eBooks market is moving quickly - mostly behind the scenes, but Google's move is a push towards the mainstream if ever so slowly.
• eBooks Future Form Factor - I really like the concept of the Plastic Logic eBook (only in concept form currently).  It's more like the paper we are all used to and even easier to carry with you - I think something in this form will be the future.
• TV Premieres: What to Watch 5/31 - 6/06

It will be light posting this coming week as I'll be mostly disconnected from the Internet.  I will have a few auto posts though so keep an eye out.

Stay tuned for more in-depth content for Media Gadget Fans at GeekTonic.com.  If you’re in to the Twitter thing, be sure and follow me on twitter under the name GeekTonic.  Thanks for Reading GeekTonic!

State of the Art TV Remote – from 1961

Watch this commercial for a brand new, state of the art RCA Television with a… you guessed it – a remote control! 

After listening to the announcer explain how it works, I don’t feel nearly as bad explaining our universal remote control and how it powers the HTPC when the mother-in-law is visiting.

Wow, that really was an impressive TV set for 1961 wasn’t it?

Found via TVSquad

Hulu Premium - Free Online TV May Not Last

We're getting back to that old saying, "there's no such thing as a free lunch" with news today of Hulu's possible plans to charge for at least some of their content.  So one of the biggest advantages (and reasons for putting up with poorer quality than broadcast/cable) just might be going away.

According to an article in dailyfinance.com, News Corp's chief digital officer said

"he envisions a future where at least some of the TV shows and movies on Hulu, the premium video site co-owned by News Corp., NBC Universal and Disney, are available only to subscribers."

If this is in fact the direction Hulu is going, it definitely would put a dent on the number of people interested in Hulu.  The exception to this might be if they really are considering putting Hulu on a set-top box or other CE devices.  Dave Zatz at ZatzNotFunny noticed an article that said Vudu might be getting Hulu on their media player and there have been several rumors about XBox Live getting Hulu on the XBox 360.  I can see a paid model being more palatable to the owners of Hulu than the current free for all model.

I kind of hope this isn't true, but it probably is the future.  Newspapers, TV and other media online is very likely moving towards more paid or at least subscription models going forward and this goes along with that trend.  Put Hulu in HDTV or at least much closer-to-HDTV quality, put it on as many CE boxes as possible like Netflix has been doing and I think it just might work.

via DailyFinance.com found via MissingRemote.com

MediaPortal 1.1.0 (alpha) Coming Soon

MediaPortal, one of the more popular open-source and free HTPC software programs is preparing to release the 1.1.0 (alpha) version of MediaPortal 1.  This alpha version is a work in progress (they've labeled it "for testing only") that will move MediaPortal 1 towards a December 2009 final release version.  Many changes will be included and it should "shore-up" this version of MediaPortal that we've all come to know.

The bigger news is that with this final work being completed on MediaPortal 1 this year, the focus for developers moves to MediaPortal 2, the next generation of MediaPortal.  So far, MediaPortal 2 has been developed with a small group of the MediaPortal team so the new focus on MediaPortal 2 means more developers involved and faster progress towards a new HTPC software.  Current estimates are for MediaPortal 2 to take another year or more of development so the sooner they focus on it the better.  The good news there is they plan to begin releasing public "test" versions of MediaPortal 2 so everyone can get a feel for what it will look like.

via MediaPortal Website

Customize your BeyondTV Icons

If you're a Snapstream Beyond TV user and are tired of the same old menu icons, a nice set of replacement icons is available for download on the forums.

There is a 4:3 and 16:9 version of the icon set for download.

Check it out at the Snapstream Forums

Deal of the Day - 1TB Hitachi Hard Drive $74.59

Another 1TB Hard Drive deal is up today at ZipZoomFly (affiliate).

This one has an instant rebate that brings the price to $74.59 with free shipping!

 

HITACHI Deskstar 7K1000.B 0A38016 1TB SATA II 7200 RPM 16MB Buffer Hard Drive $74.59 ($99.99 less $25.40 instant rebate) Free Shipping

UPDATE! There is a $5 coupon code to reduce the price to $70!  Just input ZZFHT805 under "coupon" at checkout

 

A quick check at other prices for this drive show $84.99 as the next best price at Amazon.com

 

For more tech deals with a flare towards media-tech check out GeekTonicDeals!

Month in Review - May 2009

Summer has arrived and May, just like the months before it flew by here at GeekTonic. 

GeekTonic continued on a steady path of HTPC and media-tech goodness.  Thanks to you, the readers for reading - I will continue working hard to bring you the content you came here for!

To wrap of May 2009 I wanted to share the most popular posts (as measured by Google Analytics) of the month:

• Linksys Discontinuing All Media Extenders DMA 2100 and DMA 2200
• Ultimate Guide - The Summer 2009 TV Season - I just updated this list with a few additions.  Each Sunday I post the weeks upcoming TV premieres and specials along with whether the content is available in HD
• TV Pulse - What Shows are Renewed, Canceled or on the Bubble? - this list is mostly final now
• Linksys Discontinuing All Media Extenders DMA 2100 and DMA 2200
• Hulu Desktop Fine Print – Non-Computers Not Welcome
• CableCARD Tuner Hack for DIY Vista and Windows 7 PCs
• Microsoft Media Extenders - What Microsoft Should Do

Other Content from past months on the Most Popular List include:

• SageTV Ultimate Guide
• KindleTips - Ultimate Kindle 2 Shortcuts and Tricks
• SageTV HD200 HD Theater GeekTonic Review

TwitterMCE - Twitter from your Couch

TwitterMCE puts twitter in you Media Center.  With the new TwitterMCE app you can post tweets, view friends, followers and timelines within Media Center.

The beta program is a MCML program and works on: Microsoft Windows Vista Premium, Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate or Microsoft Windows 7 Media Center.

You'll probably want a decent MediaCenter keyboard if you do much "tweeting" from MediaCenter, but the app looks nice and worth a try for all of you twitter addicts.

Read more about TwitterMCE at the GreenButton forums and download it from MCEZone

Google Makes Move into eBooks

Google just stuck their other foot in the eBook water.  Depending on how they proceed, it could be good or bad for consumers - particularly current eBook consumers.

Google showed their intentions to begin a program enabling book publishers to sell eBook versions of their books directly to eBook readers through google at the annual BookExpo convention this past weekend.

In the "good" category, the addition of Google to eBooks should mean more books available to eBooks.  And it very likely will mean more eBook readers will arrive providing competition on the hardware side of things.  Google plans to allow access to any device with Internet access, including mobile phones and other devices.

The possible "bad" from Google's entry comes mostly from the wider range Google will allow publishers to price their books for.  Amazon locks the initial "best seller" list at a fixed price of $9.99 and Google's pressure very likely could push Amazon to shy away from that policy.  Also, the multiple formats we're likely to see puts the eBook readers in the position of only having access to "Kindle-format" books or "Google-Format" books.  Much like you had with digital music with different drm'd music, the incompatible formats create their own problems.

Bottom line though, it should be a net positive to have a company such as Google get in the game.  More eBooks available in more places should help eBooks hit the mainstream and lower eBook reader prices.  I don't see Google selling their own eBook device, but I guess you never know - how about a version of the Plastic Logic eBook concept?

 

via NYT

eBooks Future Form Factor

Watching this demo of the Plastic Logic thin-film eBook Reader, I see this form factor as the future of eBook Readers. 

I’m not sure how well it would compete today versus other eBook readers on the market including the Kindle 2 and Kindle 3, but I think the super thin, paper-like form factor is just the thing to help increase eBook Reader adoption – that along with major price reductions.

I can see an eBook reader with this super-thin, flexible form factor really making newspaper reading and magazine reading more palatable on an eBook Reader – especially if you throw in full color and easy touch-screen navigation.



The question is who will be the first to bring this sort of technology for eBook readers to consumers?  The real battle with eBook readers is near.  Amazon has made significant progress with the Kindle brand.  Someone like Google, Apple or Microsoft could push the envelop further and with competition and innovation bring eBooks into the mainstream.

via TechCrunch