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Bollywood Content Coming to a Hotel Room Near You
Can't satisfy your thirst for Bollywood entertainment? Never fear, it's spreading faster than swine flu. The Acentic digital TV people have set up a deal with Shemaroo Entertainment (a "leading Bollywood content house") to get more gleeful song-and-belly-dance onto your hotel room television.
They say they've recognized that there's a high demand amongst hotel guests for this kind of programming, although we don't remember putting Bollywood requests on any guest suggestion forms ourselves.
The South Asian video-on-demand content will include Bollywood films, yoga instructional videos and Indian documentaries. Acentic has deals with hotel chains like Intercontinental Hotels, Marriott Hotels and Movenpick Hotels across the Middle East, Europe and Africa, so there's a high probability you'll be switching on to a screen full of Bollywood sometime soon.
[Photo: Generation X-Ray]
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Flick This: Control4 Remotes at the James
Complaining about a room having way too many remote controls is the way things go when hotels get overhyped about their gadgets, but places like The James in Chicago are getting wise to that. The James is one of the first places to want the Control4 remote control in its rooms; the Mandarin Oriental Las Vegas is apparently planning to follow.
We haven’t tried this all-in-one remote ourselves yet, but there are a couple of points the marketing hype makes that do impress us. First up, the remote doesn’t need a “line of sight” to be able to operate something, so it doesn’t matter if your chubby boyfriend stands in front of the TV--the remote will still work.
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Hotel TV Technology: Endless Channels and Fast Channel Surfing
When is a hotel TV more than just a hotel TV? That's easy: it's when it has ultra-fast channel zapping. Yep, that's officially one of the features of the Acentic TV platform that's already in the Sofitel at T5 at Heathrow and has just been rolled out in the Cavendish in London, too.
The TV system features hundreds and hundreds of channels (a whole lot more than Springsteen's 57 channels but we reckon there might still be nothing on), and access to updated info on news, weather and sightseeing. And a really high quality screen.
They're targeting guests who expect all this to be laid on and who also expect "an instant response to their every request". That channel zapping really better be ultra-fast or a few of these guests might be complaining.
[Photo: iwantanimac]
Tags: Viva Vegas / Hotel Openings / Hotel TVs / → All Tags
The Newly Opened Palms Place Gets Thumbs Up and It's Not Just for the TVs
We gave you a sneak peek of the Palms Place Hotel and Spa back in February and now that it's been up and running for a couple of months, we thought we'd check back in to see how guests have been finding it.
Over on the TripAdvisor guest reviews page, only four people have made a comment so far, but three of them are very detailed so we've got something to go on.
Overall, things are sounding very positive. While earlier guests reported a few teething problems related to construction, most seem confident that these will be worked out and everybody would be happy to go back again.
Tags: Sydney Hotels / Hotel TVs / → All Tags
Rydges North Sydney Lets You Take the TV Home
Staying in the north side of Sydney has one big advantage--a trip into Sydney means you get to cross over the gorgeous Sydney Harbour Bridge. Right now there's another interesting advantage if you stay at Rydges North Sydney, because they've recently upgraded their guest rooms to include new "Dream Beds" ... and since they found the old television sets didn't fit in so well anymore, they've also upgraded them to be 32 inch widescreen LCD TVs.
But that's not the good news. The cool part, we think, is that Rydges now has 166 old TVs (less a few that they've already given away) that guests can take home if they want. Rather than just dumping their 24 inch Philips televisions, Rydges North Sydney has decided to let their guests take them away instead, so if you stay at the hotel in the near future, you can pick up a free (working) TV.
Largely targeted at business travelers, room rates can drop to as low as A$139 (US$130) on weekends, making a free TV an exceptionally good deal. Come to think of it, the picture on our TV's been looking a bit crooked this week ...
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Snapshot :: One Remote Makes All Your Dreams Come True
This is a shot of the remote control at the Angler's Boutique Resort Hotel which we wrote about earlier. We felt it was important to give you a close-up of the remote (and the iPod dock next to it) which turns on the TV, selects whether you want basic TV or cable, turns on the DVD player and allows you to order a movie from the in-room risque movie list. We half expected this remote to flush the toilets, draw the blinds, turn down the air and give us a back massage. Now, wouldn't that be nice?
Related Stories:
· Inside the Angler's Boutique Resort Hotel [HotelChatter]
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Hotel Tech Alert: Circus Circus Freezes Outside Video Systems
Blogger Davis Freeburg lets us know that the Circus Circus in Vegas won't let guests hook up their AV gear to hotel TVs. Freeburg writes:
Normally I'd be bothered by a dirty room or poor customer service but, in this case, it was a big fat sticker prohibiting guests from connecting their own AV gear to the television sets.
Five years ago, I wouldn't have cared but, with the explosion in the number of laptop to TV solutions and video cameras with outputs, this has become an important issue for consumers to consider.
What good does it do you to be able to take your PC or camera on the go, if hotels end up freezing you out by neutering their TVs?
Not that we even look at our TV when we visit Vegas but this could be a disturbing trend by hotels. Or else it's just another trick by the casinos to keep you downstairs gambling instead of geeking out in your hotel room.
[Photo: Davis Freeburg]
Related Stories:
· Circus Circus Clowns Around With TV [Davis Freeburg]
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Hotel TV Companies Struggling to Get Your Cash
We will admit we love to walk into a hotel suite and see a high-def flatscreen TV with surround sound and a DVD player. At the luxury end, that's becoming more of a given rather than something special. What about all those pay-per-view shows and movies they want to charge you for though?
According to this article that ran in the Wall Street Journal recently, hotel-room TV is struggling. Two of the biggest providers of pay-per-view entertainment in hotels rooms have merged: LodgeNet Entertainment and Ascent Entertainment. The combined company has operations in a staggering 1.8 million hotel rooms, mostly in the U.S. and Canada.
The problem is, we're now carrying our own entertainment with us on laptops, portable DVD players, and Slingboxes, or we have video iPods we can hook into the TV. So the number of people choosing to pay extra money for to see Scary Movie 4 on their hotel TV is declining. (Though we're guessing the hotel porn offerings are doing just fine. Who wants to have their luggage searched at the airport and have porn DVDs spread out on the counter?)
The combined company hopes their expanded size will give them more leverage with content providers and they'll be able to offer current shows on an on-demand basis. So if you missed last night's episode of 24, you'd be able to pull it up whenever you want for a fee. They also hope to get current movies faster since DVDs are now showing up just a few months after the theater release. Will it all work? Stay tuned.
Related Stories:
·
Technology Journal: Hotel-Room TV Tries to Freshen Itself Up [MediaInfoCenter.org]
· 2006 Must Have Hotel Amenity: Flat Screen TVs [HotelChatter]
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