lodging
Latest
Marriott hotels to get LCD HDTVs with digital connectivity panel
We know how it is, out on the road with choices to make in regard to which hotel you stay in the for night, but booking a room in a joint that lacks high-speed internet of the free variety just isn't going to happen. These days, however, the gadget-packed traveler demands even more connectivity options, and apparently Marriott gets it. By the year's end, Marriott International plans to have 25-percent of JW Marriott, Marriott, and Renaissance guest rooms in the US and Canada hooked up with 32-inch LCD HDTVs that boast a nifty "digital connectivity panel" to encourage gadget integration. Guests will reportedly be able to plug in laptops, camcorders, digicams, video games, and iPods (we presume DAPs / PMPs in general) into the swank set, and the built-in PIP functions will allow the business savvy to check their corporate inbox while playing back a video clip in another window. Additionally, the firm plans on throwing in a bevy of new channels to delight couch-dwellers, and the rollout is slated to hit completion by 2009. So if you just so happen to be stopping in the San Francisco area and feel like checking this out, SF's Moscone Center has officially been dubbed the first to offer such niceties in 100-percent of its rooms.[Via TGDaily]
LodgeNet HD reaches 17,000 hotel rooms, offers HD VOD
If you're going to travel, you might as well travel right. While LodgeNet made some stout promises concerning its rollout of HDTV services in 2006, it seems the company is actually following through, as it recently announced that its Signature HDTV services had been "contracted to over 80,000 hotel rooms and was deployed to more than 17,000 already." Additionally, those lucky enough to land a room with this luxury will notice that "around 20-percent" of the films on demand are of the HD variety. Although the size and model of the HDTV can vary from room to room, it's tough to complain about a widescreen flat-panel television that's pumpin' out 1080i when you're on the road, and just think, seeing "Free HBO" used to be all it took to swerve over to a given hotel. Kudos for raising that bar, LodgeNet.
