Sony PlayStation Store vs. iTunes in Canada

With Hulu not rushing into Canadian market seems like we have two major news in online movies and TV shows availability for canadians.

Sony finally launched Movies section in PlayStation Store for Canadians on July 1st 2010.

Yes, now you can buy and rent movies and tv shows right from your game console.

Prior to that the only options to buy and rent movies purely online (without waiting for DVD arriving at your mailbox from Zip.ca) was Apple iTunes.

That's a pleasant July 1st surprise. Unpleasant one - both iTunes and Sony now charge HST for movies, bought/rented online.

Here we compared prices and offerings from both iTunes Canada and Canadian PlayStation Store.

	iTunes	PlayStation Store
Movies (new releases) buy:	$19.99	$19.99 SD $24.99 HD
Movies (new releases) rent:	$4.99	$3.99 SD $4.99 HD
TV Series (new releases) buy per episode:	$3.49	$2.49 SD $3.49 HD

Green Zone and Breaking Bad are posing as "new release" here.

For oldies, prices on both iTunes and PS Store are the same - $3.99 to rent and $9.99 to buy. $1.99 seems to be universally acceptable price for older episode of TV series.

So, first of all - there seems to be less HD movies on iTunes. There are some, but out of the box just few popping up. While PS Store makes a big accent on HD content.

Second - renting new releases are cheper to rent from Sony. One dollar less or HD version for the price of SD at iTunes.

Where iTunes beats PlayStation is variety and special offers. Way more content available from iTunes and there are some special deals like $0.99 rentals weekly, special price on selected titles, free episodes etc.

More content for consumers and competition is good. Hooray!!! Sony for that... Now the next big thing to watch - Netflix streaming service is coming to Canada this fall. 2010. If they would follow US model here in Great White - you'll be able to get access to unlimited movies and TV series for low flat subscription fee. It's $8.99/month in US. How much it would be up here? Can't tell... Any insight would be appreciated.



Another good thing about Netflix - PS3, XBox, iPhone, iPad and even Wii could be your Netflix box. Can't wait, can't wait!!!!

Rogers on Demand - Canadian Hulu?

Clearly not now. And unlikely in the future.



But anyway - one more source of online TV for [at least some] Canadians. Just launched this week (first week of December 2009) RogersOnDemand.com at the moment hosts few dozens of TV shows and movies.

There are couple of gotchas. First of all you have to be existing paying Rogers customer. To create an account you first should authenticate yourself either by using Rogers Cable Modem (I suppose they just detect your IP address or something), via SMS over Rogers cellphone or presenting your rogers account #. If you are not subscribed to any Rogers services - you are out of luck. No Rogers on demand for you.

Gotcha #2 - even if you are the Rogers customer, you can not access all the shows. For any shows that require subscription to "speciality channel" you'll be offered - yes, to subscribe to that channel. See that "lock" icon on the screenshot? Yes that's restricted channel.


Gotcha #3 - # of the programs available online. Not really a lot. Other non-restricted canadian hulu alternatives do provide more programming online than Rogers. Though - here I'll give Rogers benefit of the doubt - they just went to beta stage and promise to make more programming available soon. Will see...

As far as picture quality goes - good enough. Can't find any HD content there, but for SD - no complains.

DIY Beer Can TV Antenna - How To Improve Antenna Signal

I've been playing with my Beer Can TV Antenna for a while and upgraded my TV to full featured 1080i HDTV model since original post in 2008.

Read orifinal post on Beer Can TV Antenna for details - but in few words - beer can antenna is made of two beer can halfes, connected to TV cable. One half to inner core of the cable and another to the outer sheilding.

There are two simple improvements that would boost your diy antenna signal receprion:
- Reflector
- Location, Location, Location

As for location - if direction is right (beer can halfes are perpendicular to TV tower) the rest is - the higher - the better

Reflector - just an arbitrary piece of metal, placed right besides the antenna (3-5 inches). If you have indoor antenna - you can try to put sheet of aluminum foil there. The important thing is to avoid electrical contact between a reflector and antenna. Do not use any metal to hold them together. In a picture below I'm using cardboard to separate antenna and reflector, and antenna is mounted on a stair's rail.


Foil is good for Proof Of Concept excersize, just to convince yourself that with reflector receprion is better than without one. You may go for something more robust like dish drainer from the dollar store.

Depending on the type of the dish drainer you may use it as is, or assemble final reflector from two draines, by connecting them (with guess what - beer cans and ductape!!!) so they form about 30 degrees angle.

Place beer can antenna inside the reflector, 3-5 inches from reflecctor, affix it together using some non-metal material as a base (card board, plastic bottle, plastic cookie box in my case.

Hang it as high as possible and enjoy your improved free OTA HDTV.


From Newmarket Ontario I was able to get 5 HDTV channels with antenna without reflector and up to 14 with one, equipped with dish-drainer reflector and hanged right below the roof.

Warning: youy should never place antenna outdoors without proper surge protection due to hazards, associated with lightning.

Hulu in Canada - update

Apparently Hulu figured out how to block HotSpot Shield users from accessing Hulu from Canada.

So we now have no choice, but to use legal Hulu alternatives in Canada from CBC, Global, CTV and others.

Couple to additions to the list:

CTV launched beta version of HD Video site Only Flash Point and Corner Gas are there so far.

YouTube now hosts full-length movies without any restrictions for Canada. Most if not all these movies are pretty old, but anyway - I glad to see some developments there.

Another thing to check out - justin.tv. Not sure if and how to take it from the legality standpoint, but there is bunch of interesting stuff out there.

No HULU in Canada? Try Joost!

Tried to find some compliments for Hulu Canada post, looking at websites of canadian TV broadcasters... Found some limited content available from E! Canada and A Channel

Thanks to their iPhone application, I discovered the perfect free and legal TV content source for Canada - joost.com

Joost, like Hulu, would limit content canadians can watch, but unlike hulu - joost would allow some shows to be watched in canada online right now.

Among the TV programming available to Canadians via Joost online you'll find canadian-created comedy like: Chilly Beach and The Red Green Show. Whole set of National Geographic programming, classic western and horror movies and much much more.

My favorite so far - Australian Food TV - full episodes of australian cooking show. So entertaining Australian accent, eh?

Hulu, watch out!

No HULU in Canada? No problem!

Hulu.com - the internet superhit of last year, delivering tonns of TV programming on-demand online to your PC is not avaliable in Canada. Not yet. The official version is there is legal paperwork to be done in order to "clear" the content for distribution in Canada.



Anyway - whatever real reason is - no hulu for canadians as of january 2009.

However - you still can whatch a lot of your favorite TV shows on your computer here in Canada. Legally. Yes, there are couple of tricks you can play to full hulu.com so it would think you are whatching it in US, services like surfthechannel.com - we are not discussing these here. All below is 100% clear TV content available over internet in Canada.

What hulu can't or not willing to do - Canadian TV broadcasters can and willing to. Publishing full episodes of TV shows online. CTV, CBC, Global - they all are making their shows avaliable to watch over internet.

CBC
- The Border
- Little Mosque On The Prairie
- Sophie
- Coronation street
See all the shows avaliable online at CBC Television website Each show has it's owm site with videos to watch.

CTV
CTV Video page if you'll figure out the navigation part - tonns of shows are there including South Park, Corner Gas, The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, Desperate Housewives, ER, Grey's Anatomy and much more. Best content, but tricky UI.

Global
Global Full Episodes Page Features House, 24 and few others like Family Guy and Prison Break... Though, for some show it may display just "episodes coming soon". The only nasty think about Global's online videos - there is no way to get them to real full-screen. You have two options "small window" and "larger window". No full-screen...

City TV
No joy there. Just couple of episodes of Ugly Betty and Priveledged As of January 2010 CityTV Video site went through major upgrade and now features tons of shows, including 30 Rock, Mercy, Cougar Town, Murdoch Mysteries, Trauma, Supernanny and others.

And don't forget about Antenna. You can whatch all of these broadcasters for free over the air. Super-Bowl weekend is here. Sunday February 1st, 6:20 PM ET. CTV would broadcast game in Canada, NBC in US. All you need to get it for free - DIY TV Antenna.

Update: Sep 11, 2009 - For Kids
TVO KIds hosts full versions of Arthur, Little Princess, Miss BG, Mighty Machines and many other shows here...

TreehouseTV finally get some rather limited set of full episodes online here....

Update: Feb 15th 2009 E! Video Page has few shows like Knight Rider, Secret Millionaire, Deal Or No Deal, 5th Grader and some more. A Channel hosts Last and Private Practice (also available at CTV)

Update: Dec 1st 2009 Rogers Just launched RogersOnDemand.com - promising video-on-demand project, but for Rogers' subscribers only.

Update: Jan. 19, 2010 Major update on CityTV website.

Update: Nov. 18, 2010 ShowCase.ca video site features video od series like Weeds, Trailer Park Boys, Rent a Goalie ant others.