Emmys
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Emmys recognize online video with this year's nominees
You knew this was coming. The Emmys announced back in March that it would expand its award categories beyond the conventional, big-budget television productions to include short-form series, virtual reality and internet-only videos -- and it has. At the upcoming 68th annual Emmy Awards, five popular online series are in the running for Outstanding Short Form Variety Series. The nominees include YouTube hits Epic Rap Battles of History and Honest Trailers, Funny or Die's Gay of Thrones, and both Making A Scene With James Franco and Park Bench With Steve Buscemi from AOL.
YouTube creators stand a real chance of winning Emmy awards
While movie and TV award shows are increasingly willing to recognize internet video, they still tend to focus on conventional productions with reasonably big budgets. However, they're about to broaden their horizons: the Television Academy has expanded the Emmys to not only include more internet-friendly short form categories (such as outstanding actor/actress and outstanding variety series), but widen its definitions to make room for more internet-only video shows. While you probably won't see your favorite "let's play" star take home a statuette, this gives YouTubers with artistic ambitions (such as PewDiePie and Lilly Singh) a much better shot at winning a major, peer-voted award.
The After Math: That's Show Business
This week on the After Math, we look back at the week's entertainment news. That includes Amazon's big night at the Emmy awards, Oculus' new product announcements and North America's first 1TB PS4. We also contemplate whether the new Angry Birds movie is more painful than a sharp stick in the eye. Numbers are fun!
Amazon discounts Prime subscriptions to celebrate its Emmy wins
If you haven't heard, Amazon original series Transparent won five Emmys over the weekend, including Jeffrey Tambor nabbing Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series. To properly celebrate, the online retailer is discounting the cost of Prime for new members this Friday. From 12:00 AM ET to 11:59 PM PT, signing up for the annual subscription will set you back $67 instead of the usual $99. Of course, opting for Prime gets you access to Transparent (season 2 starts in December) and other movies and TV shows in addition to music streaming, free two-day shipping and more. [Image credit: Photo by Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty Images]
Television Academy replaces DVDs with Chromecasts for Emmy voting
Emmy voters won't have to worry about keeping up with the remote for their DVD players for much longer. The Television Academy is teaming up with Google to replace the truckload of physical media sent out each year by giving each eligible member a Chromecast. "The initiative represents the latest move by the Academy to evolve and enhance the viewing and voting procedures for the Emmy Awards with state-of-the-art technology and methodology," the press release explains. Opting for streaming rather than mailing out DVDs for the final round of voting isn't only more environmentally friendly, but it'll also open up the voting process. Instead of only being able to make selections in four "blue ribbon panels," members can cast their vote for any of the major programming categories alongside professional categories that align with their experience. As you might expect, the streaming will be handled through from the Television Academy's members-only web and mobile apps.
Xbox One wins an Emmy (but no, not that kind)
The Xbox One may have received an Emmy this week, but don't worry about Master Chief stealing the spotlight from <your favorite actor here>, because these are the Technology and Engineering Emmy Awards, and the award was in the category of Television Enhancement Devices. "Microsoft is in good company with the likes of fellow award recipients Apple, Roku, Sony, and TiVo – and we're proud to be awarded this honor by the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences," a post on Xbox Wire reads. It would seem that, despite the shuttering of Xbox Entertainment Studios, Microsoft's investment in the Xbox One as a multimedia device has still paid off. At least as far as awards go. [Image: Microsoft]
Netflix snags 14 primetime Emmy nominations, mostly for House of Cards
Netflix's push into original content has received its latest positive feedback from the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, netting 14 nominations for the 65th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards. Most of those went to standout series House of Cards, which was nominated for Most Outstanding Drama, with Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright nominated for outstanding lead actor and actress awards. The fourth season of Arrested Development also received recognition with three nominations, while Hemlock Grove is on the list for two. Netflix will need to launch a few more hits if it wants to pass other players in the entertainment space (HBO's Game of Thrones received 16 nominations by itself while the network totaled 108, for example), but with these first-ever nominations for streaming content, it's off to a good start.
Ed Hardy-ruined Palm Centro not available to general public, and that's okay
If you were wondering why Palm just posted another less-than-stellar quarter of earnings despite the runaway success of its Centro line, we think we have the answer: it's been digging into the piggy bank to ice out its gear. Palm has commissioned Ed Hardy to "specially equip" some Centros as gifts for presenters at the Primetime Emmys (which fall somewhere between Cable Ace and Teen Choice Awards for prestige), and the result is... well, this. The designs won't be available to the general public, but we think we're going to reserve our envy for anything else.
Make Love, Not Warcraft wins Emmy
The South Park WoW episode: "Make Love, Not Warcraft" won the Creative Emmy for Outstanding Animated Program (for Programming Less Than One Hour). Though the Primetime Emmys will not take place until Sunday, September 16th, the Creative Arts Emmys were awarded yesterday, September 8th at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, CA.South Park beat out episodes from The Simpsons, Avatar, Robot Chicken and SpongeBob SquarePants for the award.This episode is on the 10th season DVD which recently came out and don't forget you can get a discount just for typing in the code WARCRAFT if you order it from Comedy Central.This isn't the first Emmy that South Park has won, but perhaps this kind of attention will get WoW more positive (or at least humorous) attention in other television shows. Though, when it comes to TV ratings, 9 million people worldwide does not a target audience make. For example, American Idol was considered slipping when it only had 30 million US viewers for an episode.Would you like to see WoW references appear more often on TV? Or are you too busy playing to care?
And the Emmy goes to ... Microsoft!
With the fictional Emmy awards out of the way, Microsoft today announced that it has won an Emmy for, ahem, "Pioneering Work in Near and Real-Time Fully Programmable Shading Via Modern Graphics Processors." It's got to be hard to write that all on one envelope. A simpler way of saying it: DirectX got an Emmy. The official Emmy release doesn't really give any more details, but it's good news for Microsoft nonetheless. Of course, it should be noted that the 360 can't run the latest and greatest DirectX (that would be DirectX 10). Microsoft also won an Emmy last year for Xbox Live. One more year and they'll have a streak. Other notable winners include Nintendo, Sony, and id Software (along with John Carmack). Hit the "read" link for a PDF of all the winners.
New Get a Mac commercial airs during Emmys
I'm lounging in the plush living room deep in the heart of the remote mountain that contains TUAW's HQ watching the Emmys and relaxing. Surely there would be no Apple news during this telecast, which TVSquad is covering live, right?Wrong. Nothing earth shattering, but Apple has debuted a new Get a Mac commercial during the Emmys (and more may be on the way). The ad touts the MacBook's MagSafe powercord while the 'PC' is in a few casts thanks to a nose dive off of a desk.Apple's website has not been updated as of the writing of this post.Update: Apple has updated their website, and all three new commercials are there. Enjoy.
HDTV Listings for August 27, 2006
What we're watching: The Emmys are in standard-def tonight, which would be bad enough but since it also bumps preseason Sunday Night Football it is especially irksome. ABC & Fox decide to combat TV awards by showing movies, with Pirates of the Caribbean and Star Wars Episode II both kicking off at 7. The season finales of Deadwood, Entourage and Lucky Louie are all on deck for tonight so it might make sense to skip that 480i awards show, watch shows in HD that will probably grab a statue or two, and check out the liveblogged recap on TV Squad later. Our traditional high-def listings continue below.
