Official: HBO arrives on iTunes, standard pricing be damned

Engadget:

“It’s official. HBO content just entered the digital halls of iTunes
with variable pricing. Episodes of Rome and The Sopranos pop for $2.99
while The Wire and Sex and the City (yes the complete series) go for
the iTunes “standard” pricing of $1.99. We just fired-up iTunes and
confirmed it just like the rumor predicted. With Apple backing down from its strict,
flat-rate pricing policy, don’t be surprised to see additional content
from previously iTunes-shy providers arriving in succession.

Update: Deadwood ($2.99) and Flight of the Conchords ($1.99) are also available with “much more” apparently in the works.”

Hands On: NBC streams 30 Rock and The Office over iPhone

DVICE:

“Looks like our parent company NBC has brushed aside iTunes for its
online iPhone viewing, and gone directly to the people. If you navigate
to NBC.com on your iPhone’s Safari browser, you can now watch full episodes of 30 Rock and The Office using the iPhone’s QuickTime player. How does it look? We tested it over Wi-Fi and the dog-slow EDGE network on our iPhone.”

LINK

BSG Closing Animations

Someone has collected a bunch of the hilarious closing animations from the end of BSG:

BSG Concert

The composer of the BSG score held a concert this past weekend and vids and pics are showing up all over the place. Here’s a badarse version of “All Along the Watchtower”…hope they make this concert available via DVD some day:

MORE PICS AND VIDS

Calibrate Your HDTV?

Lifehacker:

As
the HDTV continues its march into living rooms, the New York Times
points out that most new HDTVs need to be calibrated if you want to the
best picture. The article points out several options for how you can go
about calibrating your HDTV, from paying your electronics store to do
it for you (the expensive way) to DIY calibration using the THX
Optimizer, a tool built into many DVD menus. Since many of you have
probably gone done this road already, let’s hear how you calibrated
your HDTV—including what tools you used and how you feel about the
results—in the comments. For a more granular approach to fixing
specific picture problems, check out how to troubleshoot your HDTV picture.”

This Is Not a Test: Calibrate Your HDTV [NYT]

Fox Network Orders Sci-Fi Pilot Movie From GALACTICA Vets Ron Moore & Michael Taylor

Being on Fox means it’ll be canceled after the first episode…

AICN: “Battlestar Galactica” writer-producers Ron Moore and Michael Taylor are headed back to outer space for a newly greenlit Fox Network TV-movie pilot titled “Virtuality.”

Variety describes it thusly:

Universal Media Studios is behind the sci-fi drama, which follows 12 astronauts who are sent on a 10-year journey to find a distant solar system. The explorers pass the time by hooking up to advanced virtual reality modules to explore self-created worlds. But they discover someone has downloaded a computer bug into the system — and one of them may be the saboteur.

NBC passed on the project. “Insiders said was too sci-fi for Peacock tastes,” according to Variety, even though NBC is the network behind “Heroes,” “Bionic Woman” and a new “Knight Rider” series due this autumn.

Moore also wrote the SciFi Channel’s “Galactica” prequel pilot movie “Caprica,” which shoots this spring.

If “Virtuality” goes to series, it could air on Fox early next year.

Read all of Variety’s story on the matter here.

Sony’s new TVs blend into the background

DVICE:

“Some
people want their gigantic TV to be the centerpiece of their living
room, the object that immediately screams out for attention and says
“look at me! I’m a gigantic TV!” Other people, however, just want their
TV to blend into the background and only be the center of attention
when it’s being watched. For those people, Sony’s introducing the
Bravia E4000 TV line.

The TVs, coming in 26, 32, and 40-inch models will offer a “picture
frame” edging in a number of finishes such as Dark Walnut and Midnight
Sky to help it blend in with your décor, looking like a picture frame
on your wall. No word on pricing yet, but they should be available
within the next few weeks.”

Via TechDigest

Blu-ray Firefly Set In Works

HD Firefly on the way…w00t!

Scifi Wire:

Jewel Staite, who played Kaylee on the much-loved Fox SF series
Firefly, told conventioneers in Australia that a Blu-ray special
edition of the short-lived show is coming soon, according to a report
on TV Guide online.

Heroes Returns; Origins Dies

Scifi Wire:

Heroes will return to NBC on Sept. 15 with an expanded third-season
opener, but network executives confirmed that the proposed prequel
spinoff, Heroes: Origins, is officially dead.

New Details Of Battlestar’s Prequel: Cylons Came From Human Grief

i09:

“As soon as people started describing Caprica, the Battlestar Galactica prequel, as “Dallas
in space,” it got a lot harder to take seriously. But the TV movie,
which tells the story of the Cylons’ creation 70 years before they rose
up and wiped out most of the human race, could actually explore some
interesting territory. It turns out the genesis of the Cylons wasn’t
ambition or greed, but grief. (I’m assuming this isn’t an April Fools
thing, but you never know.)

Originally, according to E! Online’s Kristin Dos Santos, Ron Moore didn’t intend to show the forebears of any Galactica
characters. But he’s apparently changed his mind — which could have
something to do with the Sci Fi Channel’s decision to greenlight the
backdoor pilot — and now we’ll see Bill Adama’s father, Joseph. As you
may have heard, Caprica is the story of attorney Joseph Adama and his relationship with the Graystone family.

Daniel Graystone is a computer genius, married to the unfaithful
Amanda, a gifted surgeon. Their daughter, Zoe, dies in a suicide
bombing by religious fanatics, including Zoe’s boyfriend. Also killed
in that bombing: Joseph Adama’s wife and daughter.

Before Zoe dies, she installs the “rudimentary elements” of her
personality and DNA into a computer, creating a digital twin called
Zoe-A. After Zoe dies, her father uses that materials, along with soem
stolen technology to create a robot version called Zoe-R. This is the
“Cylonic Eve.”

And then Joseph Adama works with Daniel Graystone to recreate his
dead daughter as well. But he’s “ethically appalled by the robot
version of his dead [daughter], Tamara, and repents his actions.” In
his grief and remorse, Joseph grows closer to his nine-year-old son
Bill.

As I said, I’m assuming this isn’t an April Fools thing, but it
could well be… The daddy/daughter stuff echoes some themes we’ve seen
in Battlestar itself, particularly between Adama and Starbuck.” [E! Online]