By Angie Han/March 16, 2012 3:30 pm EST

The redesign isn’t without its downsides, however. The “Dim the Lights” feature has been cut entirely, and some users have complained about the difficulty of accessing the “pop out” button (you now have to hit the “more” button to find it). Still, as a frequent Hulu user, I’d say this is a win for the site overall. [Venture Beat]

Cablevision has just announced the launch of HBO Go and Max Go, a service that allows HBO and Cinemax subscribers to stream over 1,400 titles from the HBO catalog and 400 from the Cinemax catalog, via computer, iPad, iPhone, or Android smartphone. Though HBO Go and Max Go initially launched two years ago, some Internet providers have been faster to sign up than others. With Cablevision now on board, HBO Go is now available to 98% of HBO subscribers, according to HBO Co-President Eric Kessler.

HBO Go and Max Go are part of the industry-wide push for its “TV Everywhere” initiative, which aims to let customers access their paid cable programming across various devices even when they’re away from home. Cablevision customers can now sign up for the service at HBOGo.com and MaxGo.com, or at optimum.net/TVtoGo. Head to Deadline to read the full press release.

While Blu-ray unquestionably remains the ideal format for home video, it’s not always as convenient as one might hope. On the flip side, while downloading or streaming an iTunes video is about as easy as it gets, the quality often isn’t up to par. But as digital media improves, that gap is closing, and with the launch of iTunes’ new 1080p videos, it’s now narrower than ever.

To find out just how much difference a disc makes, Ars Technica recently decided to do a side-by-side comparison between a Blu-ray of 30 Days of Night and an iTunes 1080p digital copy of the same film. Unsurprisingly, Blu-ray won out in the end — but iTunes turned out to be a closer competitor than you might expect:

See the difference for yourself below:

I was surprised to see how close the iTunes 1080p download comes to Blu-ray, considering that it’s only a fraction of the file size. And let’s be honest: there are lots of Blu-ray titles that look much worse than this iTunes download. But despite an impressive effort by Apple, Blu-ray still reigns king when it comes to image quality. And unlike iTunes titles, BRDs can have uncompressed multi-channel audio, multiple audio language options, and special features. Am I being greedy in wanting both good-looking downloads for convenience, as well as buy-once-play-anywhere Blu-ray discs of my all-time favorite movies?

That’s iTunes on the left, and Blu-ray on the right.

There’s no point in throwing your Blu-rays out the window just yet, especially since Blu-ray still handily beats 1080p video when it comes to audio. But given how difficult it is to really spot the differences between the two images above, I’d think all but the nitpickiest cinephiles would happily turn to iTunes in a pinch. [via Cult of Mac]