Archive for April, 2010
No More Sonicview I-HUBS! Woes Continue
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Its official. According to the SonicviewUSA website, they are no longer offering Sonicview IHUBS for sale. Many EBAY auctions have been closed and most well known FTA Dealers are unwilling to sell Sonicview Dongles because legal action could be pursued against them.
It is a well known fact that Sonicview has been in a lengthy court battle with many well known Satellite Broadcasting companies, and a recent court injunction has prohibited Sonicview from Selling the dongles, putting a damper on their profit margins.
Here is Sonicviews official announcement regarding the situation.
“Until further notice, Sonicview iHub has been discontinued. Due to a court order, Sonicview will not be able to sell, traffic, or market this product until a final decision has been made in the court. We are not able to accept exchanges or returns for this item due to the order as well. All of our receivers are uneffected by this decision. We continue to sell, market, distribute, and support them. We are aggressively defending ourselves and our products, and do not recommend purchasing the Sonicview iHub or clones of it at this time. We appreciate your understanding in this matter, and sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you.”
Sonicview had thought to circumvent this injunction with the Sonicview PRO line of FTA Receivers, but when reached for comment, an anonymous source from Sonicview USA has told GoodFTA that the PRO line of receivers were initially going to have a built in ethernet adapter, then was switched to the IHUB for savings on manufacuring costs, now internally there is a large divide against the people that made the call to not have an internal ethernet dongle.
The Built in Ethernet device could have saved Sonicview, but it seems as though, this court case will not end any time soon. This is bad news for anyone who wants to purchase a Sonicview FTA Receiver
If you have your heart set on getting an IHUB you might want to check around with lesser known dealers wanting to get rid of stock, you will not be able to buy the dongle from an official Sonicview Dealer.
This has been a scoop from GoodFTA – FTA News Make sure to sign up at our FTA Forum for more news and support for Free to Air
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Nfusion News seems to be a bust.
Posted by: | CommentsA small Nfusion forum claimed big news for April the 24th 2010 and it turned out to be nothing to be a tactic for people to join another site.
We are not giving this new site any free promotion by mentioning its name, suffice to say, they have 20 posts and a thousand members.
The small Nfusion Site claiming to have big news, had nothing but a server that was crashing all day long with nothing to note. They once had a banner displaying big news, it has since been removed.
Time and Time again in the FTA Industry people make big claims, and it turns out to be nothing at all. At GoodFTA we will always tell you the truth behind all of the worries and concerns of FTA!
GoodFTA has for the last three years been the leading provider of FTA News, Files, Firmware and a great community! Over 80% of all of our paid members are still with us years later! That says allot about our customer service, and support.
GoodFTA is the leading provider of FTA Support on the internet! We have dozens of FTA Instructional videos that show you how to setup, scan and fix common FTA Receivers, such as CNX, Viewsat, i-Link, Sonicview, Nfusion, and more! We also have videos to help you understand common FTA Equipment like DISEQ Switches, Coax Cable, LNBS, Satellite Dishes and more. While other sites may offer videos, they just show ours, we are the LEADING provider in FTA Videos, bar none.
We also do the GoodFTA Radio show, where we talk about all of the latest FTA Events, News, we take your calls and emails, this is available to paid members only, other then our free youtube videos we do sometimes.
Our FTA Support is quality! We help our members over Live Chat, SKYPE and many other methods to be able to give you the help you need, when you need it. Most FTA people are new at this hobby, and have a ton of questions, most forums make them feel bad, or run them away by being mean spirited. At GoodFTA we take pride in helping people not only follow tutorials and guides, but help them UNDERSTAND what they are doing, and why.
Sign up today, for as little as $10.00 you can get the full GoodFTA Multi-Media FTA Experience.
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Nfusion News for April 24
Posted by: | CommentsRumor has it there is some big news coming out of the Nfusion camp this Saturday. There is no definitive news on what it is to be, but rampant speculation is that either a new file will be coming out, or that new firmware will come out that will let your nfusion do some preety nifty things.
1) Rumor 1 – New factory firmware that will allow your Nfusion to have a new interface, with such things as Google Maps, RSS Feeds and other goodies that will enhance the Nfusions baseline features. Think of it as a gateway to the internet via your receiver. There is strong chance that the new firmware will come to be, what exact features it has, is unknown.
2) Rumor 2 – New Files will come out, that will allow people once again to connect to a public IKS Server. There is a chance, who knows. Given the state of affairs with Nfusions programers being arrested and most of their websites and main operators are in court, this is less then likely, but stranger things have happened.
3) Rumor 3 – A combination of the two. There is allot of talk about a new factory file with extended Ethernet features. Nfusion is on rocky ground and is under a microscope by the authorities. If Nfusion can somehow justify that their devices are not for intercepting satellite signals, but they are in fact for a multi-media home experience, with features such as Google Maps, the Live Online Weather Updates, RSS Feeds, Widgets and more, the Nfusion may be a viable Windows Media Center contender, and it will allow the viewer to prehapes get true FTA, or other online offerings.
The Dream
nfusion has made a fair amount of money in the last few years, the company and its importers have had some minor set backs to say the least. Nfusion is still a name that people know, and if they an somehow rebrand themselves as a home media pc replacement, and intergrate television ala HULU and other companies, they might jump to the top of the FTA and the online television field.
No one really knows what the April 24th major news will be, we will report on it, and let you know, so keep on checking back for new updates. Whatever the case may be, it could just as well be a publicity ploy.
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New Wireless TV Service using FTA Air Waves
Posted by: | CommentsMany US broadcast station owners and two big media mega conglomerates will form a joint venture to develop a Hulu-like wireless television service by employing unused airwaves, even as regulators are desperate to recover the airwaves for other uses.
A launch date for services, which will make its debut under one brand, has not been determined, but one executive expected that by 2011 “we will have something to talk about”.
“This venture takes to the next level the work we embarked upon three years ago with the development of mobile DTV technology,” said Brandon Burgess, chief executive of Ion Media, a participant.
The ambitious undertaking is considered a response to the US Federal Communications Commission’s plan to convince TV station owners to voluntarily relinquish valuable airwave or spectrum that can be used for next generation wireless broadband services.
Wireless companies have warned of an impending bandwidth “crisis” with the explosion in popularity of downloading and streaming video from devices such as Apple’s iPhone and have asked regulators to step in.
Twelve participants of the venture, including founding members of Hulu – NBC Universal and News Corp’s Fox – as well as Ion Media and Gannett Broadcasting have quietly sketched plans to use the spectrum to launch mobile digital television services over the past three years.
The formation of the group will take these plans from the conceptual stage to launch viable businesses that will include free, live and on-demand TV, print services and paid offerings.
Participants will finance the venture and contribute content, spectrum and marketing services. Equity split will be determined by the level of contribution, one person familiar with the plan said, and expected NBC and News Corp to possibly own a larger share.
The companies involved currently reach an estimated 150m Americans. Early tests of mobile television have been launched in the Washington DC area, executives said.
It was not clear if the venture would put media companies in conflict with regulators. “It is fair to say that if someone wants to use their spectrum, they’re not going to give it away,” Mr Burgess said.
But some TV executives were pleased by comments by Julius Genachowski, FCC chairman, who acknowledged mobile TV as a part of his plan. “Under the incentive auction plan, broadcasters will be able to provide mobile DTV,” Mr Genachowski told broadcast executives on Tuesday.
Participants said they will also court wireless providers to join the group.
“It’s becoming increasingly apparent that this is an efficient spectrum play for wireless,” Dave Lougee, president of Gannett Broadcasting.
Other members of the group are Belo, Cox, E W Scripps, Hearst, Media General, Meredith, Post Newsweek and Raycom.
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