TVSquad

So you've got that new high definition television in the living room, your 120 gig TiVo recording all of your favorite shows and a cable box with more channels than a Roman aqueduct.

Think you've reached the pinnacle of home entertainment? The Consumer Electronics Show would beg to differ.

Some 3-D TV's popped up on the convention floor and the advent of the burgeoning technology is starting to create a bit of buzz that it could become the next step over HD TV.

• At 7, CBS has a new 60 Minutes.
• NBC has a new, two-hour Dateline at 7.
• At 8, Disney has a new Kim Possible.
• At 8:30, FOX has a new episode of The Loop (another new episode airs at 9:30).
• At 9, USA has the season premiere of The 4400, followed by the season premiere of The Dead Zone.
• A&E has a new Gene Simmons Family Jewels at 9.
• Watch Dustin Diamond flip out on a new Celebrity Fit Club, at 9 on VH-1.
• HBO has a new John From Cincinnati at 9, then the season premiere of Entourage.
• Also at 9: HGTV has highlights of the 2007 Consumer Electronics Show.
• At 10, Lifetime has a new Army Wives.
• Cartoon Network has a new Robot Chicken at 10.

Check your local TV listings for more.

Several of our favorite actors from Lost were kind enough to do a spoof on their "final episode" for the fans at CES earlier this month. Evangeline Lilly (Kate), Josh Holloway (Sawyer), Naveen Andrews (Sayid), and Michael Emerson (Ben/Henry Gale) all played out the two big questions that we will be left with at the end: 1) Who will Kate choose?, and 2) What the hell is going on?!? It's actually quite amusing.

The video I've embedded in this post was shot by someone in the audience at CES, so it's from an angle and the auto-focus keeps kicking in. There's one scene where some text pops up on the screen that you cannot read, but I don't think it's that important. The audio quality is good and so is the humor.

Video after the jump:

It seems like CBS is really trying to get on board with this whole Internet thing. In a keynote address to the Consumer Electronics Show, President and CEO Leslie Moonves told the crowd that old and new media are pretty much the same thing now, and that networks and other content producers should embrace the newer forms of media rather than fight them, like the music industry did.

To that end, Moonves and Sling Media CEO Blake Krikorian introduced a new product, called the Clip + Sling, which will get loaded into Slingboxes starting in the second quarter. What the software will allow users to do is grab clips from CBS shows and then e-mail them to friends. You may eventually be able to "mash" clips together for your friend's amusement, though I'm not sure what purpose that serves. Anyway, it seems like Moonves really likes these new-fangled video thingies -- he brought one of the YouTube guys on stage during the speech -- but I just have one question: why the hell doesn't inntertube ever freakin' work right?

Have you heard about the new phone? No, not that one. The one that's for die-hard fans of The Simpsons! This week in Las Vegas at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), Samsung is quietly showing off a bright yellow Simpsons telephone (photo attached). The phones have the Simpsons movie logo on them so apparently they are tie-ins to the upcoming movie and they do say 'Limited Edition'. Hopefully they have personalized ringtones too. I'd love the 'squeak-squeak' of Maggie's pacifier as a text message notification.

How many of you would buy a Simpsons telephone? It kinda pales in comparison to the big phone, doesn't it? I bet it's a lot more affordable, though.

[Via TV Tattle]

Okay, first of all, let's be fair: Ellen's "exclusive" interview with Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes? Um, she actually just sort of ran into them – her "old friends" – at CES and cobbled together a small on-the-spot crew for a brainless, 2-minute chat. Because neither Tom nor Katie is inherently interesting on their own, Ellen had to work overtime to stretch the dialogue out to fill the segment. She chose the "name your baby after me" angle:


Ellen: "Have you thought about a Godmother?"
Tom (wearing sunglasses inside and freeze-smiling like an android): "Not yet - are you available?"
Ellen: "Have you thought of a name?
Tom (android laughter): "Not yet."
Ellen: "Ellen."
Tom (more android laughter): "If its a boy?"
Ellen: "Dylan."

Then they just kind of babbled for a long time. Tom said that "Kate" had just learned how to snowboard, and "Kate" said, "Snowmobile", and dipped her head into Tom's neck. Ellen looked on, confused, until Tom changed the subject: "Inside joke."

This was the closest it got to resembling an actual conversation between human beings:

Ellen: "I'm serious about really helping out. How often do babies have to eat?"
Tom: "I think it's a couple of times a week?"

So, all in all, pretty crazy-free, and as such, thoroughly disappointing. But Ellen fans would still be well served by tuning in – at the end of the show, she bumps-and-grinds with the Pussycat Dolls, and it's totally worth the wait.

While we didn't attend the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) this year, I've done my fair share of reading about it. If I had to pick one theme that seemed to pop up several times a day, it'd be television. Not just television as in new TV hardware and gear, but also in how content will reach the masses. A few highlights:

• onthegoLIVE -- Stream TV audio to any phone
• Google Video Store -- Selling episodes of CSI, NCIS, Survivor and other CBS shows.
• Yahoo! Go TV -- Link your computer with your television (also, Ellen DeGeneres showed up on stage for this)
• AT&T and Verizon turning to Microsoft for IPTV to the home
• Intel's Viiv -- Intel's digital entertainment computer specification
• Westinghouse's 56-inch 4x 1080p LCD -- So what if it's $10k -- look at that monster!
• If that's a little too large for you, how about Pioneer's 50-inch 1080p screen?
• Bill Gates's views on TV content delivery in the future -- Facinating stuff, Vongo, etc.
  
• TiVo's own wireless adapter -- 60% faster than other brands!
• Finally, a TiVo desktop is coming for Mac OS X
• TiVo's Series 3 recorder -- Dual CableCARD slots and dual HDTV recording
• The MediaREADY 6000 -- Pricey, but oh, the features
• HD Beat's LG booth tour -- Some awesome TV technology in there

There's a lot more over at Engadget's CES coverage, so be sure to go check that out soon.

Rabbit ears, or television antennas, could soon become a relic of the past. A new poll, out in time for the CES convention in Las Vegas, finds that 22% of Americans get their television "over the air". That is, through television waves transmitted by stations. The big powerhouse for television is cable, with 51% of people receiving their signal that way. Only 26% of American households have satellites. The report says the findings "are significant, because they indicate that analog services are now the minority in the TV marketplace." Interestingly, the poll also found that 25% of adults have a DVR hooked up to the television set.

Personally, I like DirecTV and TiVo over rather than cable. How do you prefer to get your television?

[Via Lost Remote]

Now, knowing me - and just reading that title - you'd think this article was something perverted, but believe it or not, it's a little on the technical side. The Starz premium cable channel has just launched a new service named Vongo, hoping to be the "iTunes for movies." You can download and install the program for free and have access to a number of movies, TV shows, and concerts on up to three portable media devices. There is a $9.99 subscription fee, which allows you to download as many of their offerings as possible. On top of that, there's also a $3.99 charge for "first run" movies that have just been released. This announcement comes just in time for the Consumer Electronic Show (CES), starting this week in Las Vegas, and is, I'm sure, timed to give those new devices a little extra "presence" there.

Personally, I love my Windows Portable Media Player and Windows Media Center Edition PC, so I can't wait to play with this new service more. I just downloaded it a couple of minutes ago, and will get back to you in a week or so and let you know what I think of it. In the meantime, let me know what you think.