Tag Archives: movies

Reviews

Golden Globe Awards – What Did You Miss?

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The Golden Globes were presented on Sunday, January 12 on NBC, and kicked off this year’s annual Awards season (with a February intermission for the Super Bowl and Olympics). Presented by Amy Poehler and Tina Fey, the best movies, series, music, actors, and actresses were nominated in different categories, the winners being voted by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association.

Here are some of the highlights:

You can find the list of this year’s nominees and winners here.

Five memorable moments, according to CBC can be found here. Emma Thompson was hilarious indeed!

The Golden Globes’ best jokes, as listed by EW are here. Amy and Tina did a great job this year again!

What we were really interested about: THE DRESSES! Here are slideshows from Entertainment Weekly and the Huffington Post, a list from Buzzfeed, and many more all over the internet. Jennifer Lawrence (American Hustle, The Hunger Games) is quickly becoming a meme with her Dior outfit, which is said to resemble Ariel’s dress in The Little Mermaid.

Many of these movies hit theaters in the last month or will be premiering in the weeks to come. They will eventually make their way to Pay Per View for those who prefer to enjoy movies at home. While you wait for them, why not take a look at the selection of series we offer through Shaw Direct On Demand? The Ray Donovan, Masters of Sex, Behind the Candelabra, Michael J. Fox Show, The Good Wife and other House of Lies are available and most free with your subscription to Shaw Direct (additional subscription to a movie premium might be required, depending on the show). If you wish to get more information about a subscription, don’t hesitate to chat with a member of our eCare team via our Chat feature, from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. MT, Monday to Friday, or to contact our Social Media team on Facebook and Twitter.

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Fun Facts

International Animation Day

In honour of International Animation Day, here are 10 facts about the history of animation:

1. An early predecessor of the projector existed around 1650. This was called the “magic lantern,” and consisted of a translucent oil painting, a very simple lens, and a candle or oil lamp. The images would be projected in a darkened room, and often were used to convince viewers that they were witnessing something supernatural.

2. The flip book was patented as the “kineograph” in 1868 by John Barnes Linnett.

3. Thomas Edison announced the creation of a device he called the kinetoscope in 1889. This projected a 50 foot length of film in about 13 seconds.

4. Charles-Émile Reynaud is considered the pioneer of projected animated films. After inventing the praxinoscope, his animation Un bon bock was the first he showed publicly in 1892. It was shown alongside Le Clown et ses chiens and Pauvre Pierrot. In 1910, Reynaud threw most of his films into the Seine in Paris. Pauvre Pierrot is one of two that survived.

5. The first entirely animated film recorded on standard picture film was created in 1906. This was called Humourous Phases of Funny Faces, and was created by James Stuart Blackton. This featured scenes drawn on a chalkboard. Blackston is considered the father of North American animation.

6. In 1908, Émile Cohl created the first animated film using what became recognised as traditional animation – hand-drawing the images on paper. The film, called Fantasmagorie was made up of 700 separate drawings (cells), and is about 80 seconds in length.

7. Not one to stop trying new techniques, Cohl created another animation called En Route in 1910, which was the first paper cutout animation. This allowed the animator to save time by simply repositioning the paper drawings rather than having to redraw each new cell.

8. Walt Disney owned a studio in Kansas City called Laugh-O-Grams prior to opening Disney Studios. It went bankrupt in 1923, which is when Disney moved to Los Angeles and opened his new studio.

9. Disney originally wanted to call his famous mouse Mortimer. His wife disliked the name and suggested Mickey instead.

10. The first time computer animation was used for an entire film was with Toy Story in 1995. The last film of the franchise, Toy Story 3, was the first animated film to earn more than $1-billion worldwide.

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Technical Tips

Parental Controls on 600-Series Receivers

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We carry a wide selection of programming for audience members of all ages. Of course, this means that there may be content that you don’t want the young ones in your home to view. That’s where parental controls come in. Parental controls on the Advanced 600-Series receivers allow you to enable locks specific channels, and certain ratings for both TV shows and movies.

Rating information is provided by the individual broadcasters, and this information is entered into our interactive programming guide. When you’re looking at a show that is listed in the guide, press INFO on your remote to see what the rating is.

Certain shows (for example, documentaries or older programs) may not have ratings assigned to them. If you’re concerned about potential content in unrated programs, the 600-Series also allows you to lock content without ratings, too.

In order to set parental locks, press OPTIONS on your remote, and then 2 for “Parental Controls.”

The first time you enter this menu, you’ll see a prompt asking you to enter a four-digit code for your parental locks. Choose your code (as a tip, don’t use something like the last four digits of your phone number, or something like a birth date as these may be common knowledge in your household), and then press ENTER. You will then be asked to confirm the four-digit code you just entered. Punch this in, and press ENTER again.

parentalcontrolscreenYou’ll now see a screen pop up called “Parental Controls.” The first thing you’ll want to do is highlight the line for “enable locks,” and scroll to the right using the arrow keys until you see “enabled.” This will turn on the locks that you’ll set momentarily.

The next two lines will be “TV rating” and “Movie rating.” Highlight whichever you’d like to edit, and then use the right or left arrow keys to scroll through the different ratings. As a tip, the rating you choose means that that rating, and anything above it will be locked. So, if you choose to lock PG for TV ratings, 14+ and 18+ will also be locked.

Next, you’ll see “locked channels.” Use the left or right arrow keys to either “hide” or “show” channels with locked content. The option just below is “locked” programs, which you can do the same with. After this, you’ll see “channel locks,” which allows you to lock the content of a specific channel.

Below this is “change password,” which of course allows you to enter a new four-digit code.

The last item is “unrated programs,” which comes in handy in a couple of different situations. As mentioned earlier, some programs may not actually have a rating assigned, so you can’t be sure if the content is appropriate for your kids. Locking content without a rating removes this risk. The second scenario can happen after your receiver has been reset, or the guide information is reloading. The guide will not have any information in terms of program title or rating, so enabling locks will lock all channels until the guide information has been restored.

Have any questions about parental controls on the Advanced 600-Series? Leave us a comment below!

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How-To

Ordering Shaw Direct Pay Per View

ppv_entertainmentPerhaps you’re a fan of sporting events like UFC. Maybe you can’t get enough of the latest Hollywood hits. Or, perhaps 3D movies are your thing. Whatever your preference, Shaw Direct’s 32 HD Pay Per View channels have got you covered! Pay Per View is available to all Shaw Direct customers, so even if you don’t have a high speed Internet connection capable of supporting Shaw Direct On Demand, you can still enjoy the latest movies.

Our Pay Per View channels run from 950 to 953 for standard definition, or 960 to 983 for high definition, plus 986 is devoted to nothing but 3D movies. If you can’t view all of the listed Pay Per View channels in your guide, you may need an upgrade to part of your system; if you would like more information on upgrading, check out our previous article on the topic.

If you’ve never ordered Pay Per View before on your Advanced 600-Series receiver, it’s easy. First, open up your interactive programming guide by pressing GUIDE on your remote, and then navigate to the Pay Per View channels you’d like to browse (depending on whether you’d like to view standard definition, high definition, or 3D).

You can scroll through the Pay Per View channels by using the up or down arrow keys on your remote, and you can view what’s on later by pressing the right arrow (jumps ahead by 30 minutes), the fast forward button (jumps ahead six hours), or the skip forward button (jumps ahead one full day).

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When you’ve found what you’d like to order, highlight the listing and look at the description of the title in the top right-hand corner of your guide. Just underneath of the title of the program, you’ll see “Order ID” followed by a four-digit number. Note this, and then call 1.866.782.7778. Follow the prompts provided by the phone system, and when asked, enter the four-digit order ID.

Once this has been completed, you’ll just need to go to the channel that the order was made for at the time the program is scheduled to start, and you’re ready to go!

For those of you who use PVRs, you can record Pay Per View titles that you’ve ordered, and you will have 48 hours to watch the title from your PVR list. After the 48-hour period has passed, the title will expire.

Wondering what’s on this month? You can view a list of the newest releases here.

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Apps

Shaw On Demand Search App

Ever wanted to figure out what you should watch when you get home before you get there? With the Shaw On Demand Search app, you can do just that. Whether you’re waiting for the bus or on the train, you can browse our entire Shaw Direct On Demand library from the comfort of your mobile device, and even order your pick so it’s ready to go as soon as you get home.

The app is currently available for Apple iOS devices and Android, so you can get it for your iPhone 3GS and up, your iPad 2 or the new iPad, on any iPod Touch device, and any Android device with version 2.2 and up. You can download it for free from Apple here, and from Google app store for Android here.

sod01When you launch the app, you’ll be taken to a login page with three different options; the first two (“Email” and “Customer Centre”) are for Shaw customers, while the third (“Shaw Direct”) is the one you’ll want to tap on. To login, you need to ensure that you’ve already registered for an online ShawDirect.ca account. You’ll also need to know the password that you used for the online account, as well as your account number.

sod02Once you’ve entered this information and the login has been completed, you’ll automatically be taken to the main “Movies” page, which allows you to browse the listings in several different ways, including by genre, by newest release, and by the most popular titles. Pricing for these titles ranges from free up to $6.99 (taxes extra).

One of the browsing options that we liked was “All Movies,” which takes you to a master list of all available movie titles. The cool thing about this is that you can alter the results by tapping on “Sort” in the top-right corner. Here, you can choose to sort alphabetically by title, by the year of release, by the star rating,  by popularity, and by the date the title was added to our library, which is great if you’re not entirely sure what you’d like to watch yet. You can also choose to only have the app display movies that are available in HD.

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The icons along the bottom of the screen will take you to the other areas of Shaw Direct On Demand listings, including “Movies,” “TV,” “Subscription,”, “Search,” and “More.”

Tapping on “TV” will show you all of the On Demand titles offered by a variety of broadcasters; the titles will be broken up by the different channels, and the content listed here will be available at no charge as long as you have a subscription to the channel.

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sod04Speaking of subscription, the “Subscription” section will list premium channels such as Movie Central or The Movie Network. If you have a subscription to one of the premium channels, you’ll receive On Demand content from that channel at no cost.

“Search” allows you to look for listings by their title, by the name of one of the listed actors, or by the director’s name.

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sod11“More” provides you with the option to view titles that you’d like to watch in future (“Wishlist”), your current orders, settings (including changing your preferred language), general help, and allows you to search for content based on a specific language (“Multicultural”). You can also sign out of your account through here.

To order a title, tap on the listing, which will take you to a description of it. At the bottom of the description, there is a blue icon that says “Order Now”; tap this to choose your format (SD or HD), and then tap “Complete Order.” When the order is successful, you’ll be taken to a screen with instructions on how to watch the title once you’re settled in front of your receiver.

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If you’d rather just add the title to your wishlist, you can do that too. Just to the left of the “Order Now” icon is a small heart icon. Simply tap on this, and the title will appear in your wishlist to be ordered at a later date.

One thing to bear in mind with this app is that you are only able to search titles and remotely order them; it does not stream video.

Any questions about the Shaw On Demand Search app? Don’t hesitate to ask us in the comments below.

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Equipment

600-Series Receivers – Software Update

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If you own a HDDSR 600, HDDSR 605, or a HDPVR 630, your receiver should have downloaded our most recent software, version 08.26. To check if you have received the download, you can go into your Options menu > 4 > 7 and look at line H. If this says 08.26, you are good to go with the below changes!

While the overall look and feel of your interface will remain the same, we have added in some new features and have dramatically changed your On Demand experience!

For all 600-series models, you should notice the following changes:

Shaw Direct On Demand Interests Menu Revamp

  • We have completely redesigned our Interests Menu to make it even easier for you to browse through our 4000 + titles available through Shaw Direct On Demand. This is a direct result of user feedback!
    • Now, in the first column, you select whether you’re looking for Movies, TV shows, Music or your Premium subscription titles.
    • In the second column, you are now able to select the channel or network the title is provided by.
    • With the third column, you are still able to search by genre or other filters.
  • This layout separates content in a more logical manner, providing you with the results you were looking for in less keystrokes.
  • Be sure to check out the hundreds of titles that are available at no extra cost with your subscription! Any titles that are included with a network that you are not subscribed to will appear grey, just as you’re used to in your guide.

Other Shaw Direct On Demand Enhancements

  • Other improvements have been made to your Shaw Direct On Demand experience, such as faster rewind and fast forward response, connectivity improvements, more consistent display of season and episode information under a specific TV show, and the ability to order in both HD and SD.

Multi-Audio Selections

  • Some specific TV programs have additional audio tracks available, such as descriptive video (DVS) or another language. This is used to ensure accessibility for all of our customers. When available, you will see the headphones icon (as shown) in the info banner.
  • To select a different audio track, simply hit the ‘Source’ button on your remote and select from the list displayed in the top left hand corner
  • Your default audio preference (as set in Options > 4 > 1) will be restored once you change the channel.

For HDPVR 630 users:

External Hard Drive Support

  • You are now able to connect an external eSATA hard drive to increase your HDPVR 630 recording capacity by up to 2.0 TB! That’s equivalent to over 1000 SD hours, or 300 HD hours!
  • External hard drives must be connected via eSATA, must be externally powered, and cannot be over 2.0 TB. For the most reliability, the drive should also be rated for PVR/DVR usage.
  • For complete information on adding an external hard drive to your current HDPVR 630, please take a look here.

If you have any questions about this recent update or about your receiver in general, feel free to leave us a comment and ask!

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Reviews

Shaw Direct On Demand – Movie Reviews

As you likely already know, Shaw Direct On Demand has an amazing line-up of movies that have a wide variety ranging from family friendly movies, romantic comedies, suspense thrillers, and much more. In case you and your household are planning a movie night on the comfort of your couch, we’re here to help give you some ideas of what’s out there so you can make the best decision for your evening of leisure.

Are you in the mood for something thrilling and dramatic? Cleanskin (2012) might just be what you’re looking for. This movie is something unique in comparison to your regular “007” type movie. Not only do you get the chance to know the role of the secret service agent set out on his journey to eliminate a British-born suicide bomber – you also get a peek into the story of the terrorist himself, reflecting on what has brought him to make this decision. It’s fast-paced and entertaining while allowing viewers to experience a glimpse into the dark reasoning of terrorism.

Alternatively, if your household is looking for something more fun and witty, with the drama known to “slice of life” genre movies, we’ve got you covered with What to Expect When You’re Expecting (2012). It covers several different perspectives of new parents trying in their own ways to adjust to not just having a baby, but the pre-baby jitters. Each couple comes from varying backgrounds and have started a family with either specific expectations in mind, or came across child rearing without any plans at all. The men of the family even create a support group where new fathers get to tell it like it really is. This comedy opens your mind and your heart to real-life facts and humours associated with becoming a first-time parent. The highs, lows, unexpected joys and totally expected pains of pregnancy get a comprehensive going over in this consistently funny, warm-hearted ensemble comedy.

Something with a lot of mystery, suspense and horror is also on the menu for our
customers. The Cabin in the Woods (2012) is a gore-filled, seat-clenching movie designed to keep you jumping while you continue questioning the mystery behind the many surprises in store. It starts off with a group of five friends who merely wanted to take a break and chose a remote cabin in the woods as their destination; however they got more than they bargained for in doing so. Together, they must discover the truth behind the cabin in the woods. This movie was designed to keep viewers on edge all the way until the very startling end.

Looking for a recent remake of an old-time classic favorite? Snow White and the Huntsman (2012)puts a new perspective on old folklore we all knew growing up. With the same storyline of our childhood fairytale, this movie puts you in Snow White’s shoes from the beginning; the joy of a child in her youth, the sorrow of losing a father, and the horror of growing up under the rule of the wicked witch. Her many encounters with the characters along the way are given much greater depth than in the original story, as well as the shocking twist as to who her shining prince actually is.

These are just a few ideas of what’s in store with our Shaw Direct On Demand options. Our movie line-up is an ever-growing list of movies and series, so be sure to check them all out!

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