I’ll just come right out and say it, I’m a fan of DirecTV. 

 

For those outside the USA, DirecTv is our main satellite TV provider. Sure, there is another one called Dish but from what I have seen they can’t really be called a competitor and we have some crappy cable options…but that’s not the point here.

 

DirecTV has always been very good in terms of customer service and technology (DVRs, whole house sharing of content, etc). They finally updated their set top boxes so that the guides, menus, etc are all in HD (previously they looked like 1982 cable box menus in standard def). The menus, guide, etc all got a bit faster and the overall UI is really slick now.

 

Love it. Then, while using the DVR (post update) I had a little issue popup. I was fast forwarding past a commercial as usual when in the middle of the commercials the fast forwarding stopped. Suddenly I was watching …gasp… a commercial. It was 1998 all over again. I hit fast forward and it then resumed past the commercial.

 

It was at that second I realized the commercial in question was for DirecTV Cinema (they’re movie catalog / pay per view stuff owned by DirecTV). Did they really use their powers for evil here? I back up, tried fast forwarding again and it went right past. Okay, all was good.

 

Then last night it happened again while fast forwarding and the DVR stopped on a DirecTV Cinema commercial all on its own. Essentially, DirecTV is able to stop me from smoothly skipping commercials when they want me to instead watch their commercial. It only does it one time per DirecTV Cinema commercial but that’s not what I ever asked it to do.

 

I checked the settings and there doesn’t seem to be an override for this annoyance. And while we can argue that it is just a minor annoyance, the bigger picture now is that DirecTV has shown its ugly, greedy face. So now it’s just a matter of time before they start selling this as a premium feature to other channels and advertisers and/or to me (their subscriber) to turn off.

 

The one issue I’ve always had with DirecTV is the cost, it’s pretty pricey. I’ve been looking at getting rid of it completely and this is the kind of thing that now gets me looking at other options. We have Netflix streaming here which is great for movies and some older TV content but just curious if anyone else goes the no-cable, no-satellite route and what systems and services you use?

Today is a pretty exciting day for all us here at 3D Systems (our parent company) because we can finally talk about some top secret stuff we’ve been working on since 3D Systems acquired The3dStudio.com last May. I’ve had tons of questions from many of our members over the last 8 months asking all sorts of questions about what our next step would be and now I can finally tell you.

 

3D Systems is launching a beta version of a brand new website called Cubify at www.cubify.com and it is going to change the 3D marketplace forever. What is Cubify? Simple, Cubify is a way to make something 3D and Cubify.com is the marketplace to buy and sell content. Want to turn that sketch you have into a 3D model? Then Cubify it. What to print that 3D model into a real product you can touch and hold? Then Cubify it.

 

Cubify.com will be home to all sorts of 3D related content which includes print ready 3D models as well as 3D apps that will help you build your own 3D models. The entire site will be very community driven and we’re looking for app developers to take a look and start building 3D apps right now.

 

What will happen to The3dStudio.com now that Cubify.com is launching? We’re not going anywhere, The3dStudio.com is still flying along and growing daily and Cubify will be a complimentary sister site to The3dStudio.com. What this means to our authors (developers / artists) is that they now have a new marketplace to sell on which will increase their overall customer base and allow them to expand their sales to entirely new markets and demographics. So, think of Cubify.com as an extension to what The3dStudio.com does already.

 

I’ll keep everyone updated over the next few weeks as we announce the full launch of Cubify, new printers, new content, new features, and so on but I just wanted to share this news with you all now that I can finally talk about it!