High-definition video

Six 'High-definition video' stories March 2011 - March 2014

Want to upgrade your iPhone 5s camera to 2k video? All you need is this app …

Ben Lovejoy Mar 31 2014 - 5:41 am PT

[vimeo 90202587 w=800 h=451]

If you like to use your iPhone to shoot video and Apple offered to upgrade your iPhone 5s from 1080p HD to 2k video for just $7, the decision wouldn’t require much thought. That’s exactly the trick Ultrakam has pulled off with its new iPhone app.

If you’re wondering how a mere app can convert your camera to a higher resolution, it doesn’t: it simply allows the software to use more of the hardware capabilities of your camera. Apple may say that your iPhone 5s has a 1080p HD videocamera, but that’s not quite true: the camera hardware itself is capable of anything up to 3264×2448, it’s just that the software can’t process that many pixels at a sensible frame-rate …
Expand
Expanding
Close

Real Racing 3, YouTube, Socialcam 5.0, AVP: Evolution, DayOne, Cycloramic, Dunkin’ Donuts, Rabbit, deals, more

Jordan Kahn Feb 28 2013 - 8:10 am PT

0 Comments

Real Racing 3: The highly anticipated third installment in EA’s Real Racing iOS series has officially arrived in the US App Store today (via 9to5Toys). Available now for free, the game’s new in-app purchase model is getting a little bit of negative attention, but otherwise reviews of the game have been quite positive.

Trailblazing new features include officially licensed tracks, an expanded 22-car grid, and over 45 meticulously detailed cars from makers like Porsche, Lamborghini, Dodge, Bugatti, and Audi. Plus, racing with friends gets kicked into another dimension with the reality-bending Time Shifted Multiplayer™ (TSM) technology.

AVP: Evolution: Fox has released another app in the Alien vs Predators series with the release of AVP: Evolution. The game was developed by Angry Mob Games, makers of PREDATORS and Guerrilla Bob iOS titles, and takes cues from multiplayer modes in recent AVP console releases.

*Two distinct gaming experiences as you engage in the ultimate battle as both the Alien and Predator
*Vicious attacks and brutal finishing moves give players a lethal arsenal to wreak havoc on the enemy

Socialcam version 5.0: Autodesk is making some major improvements to its popular Socialcam app, which has now reached 20 million downloads, with the release of version 5 on the App Store today. The update should be hitting the App Store shortly and with it will come “a complete redesign of visual effects, 720p HD video, video High Dynamic Range (HDR), and a new icon for Socialcam.”

Major new features on the iOS platform include a complete redesign of visual effects, 720p HD video, video High Dynamic Range (HDR), and a new icon for Socialcam… Developed in collaboration with Autodesk’s expert professional video effects teams, the new 720p HD video and video HDR with one click real-time mapping and color correction enables Socialcam—with more than 20 million downloads—to continue to break through barriers to mobile video adoption by making it easy to express creativity and individuality wherever inspiration strikes—anytime, anywhere, and on any device.

Day One version 1.10: The well reviewed journal/diary app known as Day One gets new features today including new options for PDF Export and Printing, historical weather reports for 30 days, a new reminder sound, Sanchez font option, and improvements to HTML styling. There are also a number of performance enhancements include for startup time, Dropbox syncing, and more. An update for the Mac app is coming soon.

Cycloramic version 2.1: The app that received much attention for its unique use of the iPhone’s vibrating motor to snap hands-free 360 degree video gets new features today. Among them is the ability to “convert panoramic photos to 24 second panoramic HD movies.”

YouTube 1.2.1: Google updated its YouTube app for iOS bringing the Send to TV feature that it originally introduced on Android devices back in November. The app will allow users to send YouTube videos from their iOS devices to a Google TV, PS3, or Xbox and Google confirmed back in January that the feature would be coming to even more smart TVs this year.
Expand
Expanding
Close

Verizon announces ultra-high speed FiOS ‘Quantum’ service, up to 300 Mbps for $210 a month

Jordan Kahn Jun 18 2012 - 6:28 am PT

0 Comments

Verizon announced tiers for its new high-speed Internet FiOS “Quantum” service today. It ranges from $65 to $210 a month, and it is available in double or triple-play bundles and stand-alone plans. Verizon will continue offering its entry-level $65 15/5 Mbps service, but it will introduce new plans including: 50/25 Mbps, 75/35 Mbps, 150/65 Mbps, and 300/65 Mbps. The company noted they are “by a wide margin the nation’s fastest, mass scale residential Internet speeds.”

Three of those speeds ¬¬ 75/35, 150/65 and 300/65 — are twice as fast as those previously offered.1 In addition, Verizon will continue to offer its entry-level speed of 15/5 Mbps… The two highest downstream speed offers – 150 and 300 Mbps – and the new 65 Mbps upstream speed are by a wide margin the nation’s fastest, mass scale residential Internet speeds available. By contrast, the fastest Internet speeds offered by cable-company challengers top out at 105 Mbps downstream and 20 Mbps upstream. (This FiOS Internet speed grid shows specific examples of the benefits of faster downstream and upstream speeds.)

Verizon noted existing customers can upgrade free, but they will on-average pay $10 to $15 more per month. The company also outlined the different pricing options for new customers:

For new customers, prices of triple-play bundles of 15/5 Mbps FiOS Internet, FiOS TV and FiOS Digital Voice unlimited calling will range from $99.99 to $144.99 per month, depending upon which FiOS TV package is ordered. The packages are: Prime, with more than 200 channels and more than 50 HD channels; Extreme, with more than 290 channels and more than 70 HD channels; and Ultimate, with more than 380 channels plus premium movie channels, and more than 110 HD channels).

Double-play bundles of the 15/5 Mbps FiOS Internet and FiOS TV range from $84.99 to $129.99 per month. Stand-alone 15/5 Mbps service costs $69.99 per month on a month-to-month basis, and $64.99 per month with a two-year contract.

Triple-play bundles of the 50/25 Mbps speed range from $109.99 to $149.99 per month for new customers. Double-play bundles with FiOS TV range from $94.99 to $134.99 per month. The stand-alone version costs $79.99 per month on a month-to-month basis, and $74.99 with a two-year contract.

Triple-play bundles of the new 75/35 Mbps speed range from $114.99 to $154.99 per month for new subscribers. Double-play bundles with FiOS TV range from $99.99 to $139.99 per month. The stand-alone costs $89.99 per month on a month-to-month basis, and $84.99 with a two-year contract.

Triple-play bundles of 150/65 Mbps speed range from $169.99 to $174.99 per month for new FiOS customers. Double-play bundles with FiOS TV range from $154.99 to $159.99 per month. The stand-alone costs $99.99 per month on a month-to-month basis, and $94.99 with a two-year contract.

The new 300/65 Mbps tier, offered as a stand-alone only, costs $209.99 per month on a month-to-month basis, and $204.99 with a two-year contract.3

Skype for iPad with video calling promotional video (update: it’s legit)

Mark Gurman Jun 24 2011 - 11:55 am PT

15 Comments

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5G_CkPfDOU]

We’re not exactly sure what’s going on here, but Skype apparently posted a promotional video for an official iPad application this morning. The video has been deleted (if it ever existed) but it looks like the real thing, based on a purported re-upload by RazorianFly. If legit, Skype for iPad looks amazing, has video calling, 3G and WiFi support, and an easy to navigate interface with animations and clean graphics. Real or fake?

Update: A Skype executive confirmed it’s legit to TUAW.

Try your luck below…

Expand
Expanding
Close

More on Apple's Airport/Time Capsule and a possible refresh

Seth Weintraub Jun 2 2011 - 6:36 am PT

0 Comments

Image via Amazon

We’ve been tracking Time Capsule/Airport shortages reported earlier for about a week. Our sources noted that Airport Express has been plentiful but supplies of TimeCapsule and Airport Extreme have been tightening globally the way products usually do before a refresh.

What we do know is that Apple has been internally testing Time Capsules to cache Software Updates for both Mac and iOS devices. The way we’ve heard it works is that the new Time Capsule learns which devices connect to it via Wifi. It then goes out to Apple’s servers and downloads Software Updates for those products.

When the user wants to install the software update, the Time Capsule, which is also the router, routes you to the locally stored update, rather than downloading the whole thing over the Internet. This works for iOS updates as well, though the updating still happened via the Mac.

Apple’s Mac OSX Servers currently do this for Mac businesses, so the technology already exists externally (though Mac OSX Server just downloads everything – without knowing which devices will be connected).

With Apple’s new iCloud component, we believe Apple has a chance to extend this functionality. Perhaps Time Capsules could cache parts of your iCloud music locker that you use the most so that it speeds up the streaming process. It could also cache large documents and files that get used often or even movies and photos you own.

While Macs have plenty of local storage, this would be particularly beneficial for iOS devices which are limited to Flash storage, especially AppleTV which has very little local storage. As HD video gets bigger (1080P) Apple will need new ways to deliver and store this content.

The system could also work in reverse. Apple could allow these new Time Capsules to back up your backups to the Cloud.

Will this be part of Apple’s iOS 5/Lion/iCloud announcement? We’ll just have to wait and see.
Expand
Expanding
Close

Roxio releases Toast 11 for those who still like to burn

Seth Weintraub Mar 8 2011 - 9:19 pm PT

0 Comments

I remember when installing Toast was one of the first things I did when I got a new Macintosh. Now, I don’t even have an optical disc reader on my main computer and I use optical less and less on the home Macs.

However, I know there are a lot of uses of optical still out there and for those folks that create it, Roxio today updated their Toast software to Toast 11 with some important updates.

For existing users, Toast 11 adds many requested features such as recording to multiple drives simultaneously, a streamlined product update mechanism, and the ability to save custom video profiles, which is very useful for those that are often converting video for a particular device. The latest version now also offers built-in features for directly uploading media to social networking sites such as YouTube, Vimeo, or Facebook and technology optimizations, dubbed VideoBoost, that help dramatically speed H.264 (high definition) video conversion or encoding.

New or exclusive-to-Toast features include: Internet audio recording; the ability to capture, save, and convert Web-based video content; disc spanning (automatically spreading a large amount of data or audio tracks across many discs); one-click backup of HD camcorder footage; dual-platform compatible disc creation; and TiVo-to-Go support.

The boxed package is $99, the Not-App Store download is $79 and a Toast 10 upgrade is $59. Amazon has it as well.

Also launching today is Roxio Toast 11 Pro. Toast 11 Pro includes everything offered in Toast 11 Titanium as well as the Blu-ray Disc Plug-in and four award-winning digital media applications for making stunning video, photo, and audio projects….
Expand
Expanding
Close