Filed under: Home Entertainment, Media PCs

What’s this? A little standardization in the TV realm? Announced today at IBC2008, Microsoft has launched its Protected Broadcast Driver Architecture (PBDA), a new worldwide platform that was made possible by the recent release of Windows Media Center TV Pack. In short, this system enables the “PC-TV hardware ecosystem to integrate virtually any free or premium TV service into Windows Media Center,” which keeps content guardians ultra-stoked while giving consumers more choice when it comes to TV tuning. Essentially, PBDA gives OEMs and tuner-makers the ability to develop and ship wares for WMC “regardless of geographic location or television standard.” The initiative is being backed by some serious players, too — Hauppauge, AVerMedia, NEC, and NXP just to name a few — and a couple have already shipped PBDA-based solutions overseas. Hit the read link for more… if you dare.

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Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment

We knew it was coming, and after waiting for quite some time for FreeSat to go from concept to reality, television viewers across the UK can finally indulge. If you’ll recall, a recent survey found that just 5-percent of Europe’s HDTV owners actually bothered to tune into HD programming, but now that number is likely to change. Effective today, 98-percent of the UK can fork out a one-time fee of £49 ($96) to £120 ($234) in order to acquire a FreeSat set-top-box, and after an £80 ($156) installation, users will have subscription-free access to BBC HD, ITV HD (coming soon), Channel 4’s digital service and around 70 other TV / radio channels. Better still, that number is slated to rise to 200 before the year’s end, and unsurprisingly, the launch is expected to boost available high-def offerings in the region. Anyone across the pond have their equipment set up already? How’s the service?

[Thanks, Ivan]

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Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment

In case you’re not content with just keeping your current cable / satellite / fiber TV service and using the recently launched ZvBox to pull in content from the web, a new startup is aiming to satisfy your bizarre desires. In what’s potentially the most befuddling launch of the year, said firm is looking to introduce its 1TB set-top-box to consumers on a city-by-city basis. Put simply (or, as simply as possible), the box will fetch content from a number of places: the built-in OTA receiver will grab locals, and it will use the owner’s broadband internet connection to snag IPTV material and web-based content (YouTube, Hulu, etc.). Sezmi plans to launch the product with “3G and DSL” telcos that don’t currently have a way to offer a triple-play package, and while some sources say that monthly fees will be as low as “half” of a typical cable / satellite bill, we’ve also seen Phil Wiser, co-founder, chairman and president, quoted as saying that it will be “roughly comparable” to its rivals. Hit up the links below for loads more info, and join us as we sit back and wait for this entirely-too-complex endeavor to implode.

[Via PC Magazine]

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Filed under: Transportation

Curb your enthusiasm, young buck. We know you’re pretty stoked to hear that a live Segway Polo match will be coming to a browser near you this Sunday, but really, you don’t want your office mates to come ask what’s getting you all excited. Apparently, The Digital Lifestyle is gearing up to bring us “the world’s first live broadcast of a full Segway Polo match,” and yes, Steve Wozniak will reportedly be in attendance. Go on, cancel any other plans you had for December 16th at 1:00PM EST — your secret is safe with us.

[Image courtesy of Flickr]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless

If you’ve been losing sleep over not knowing precisely what was going to happen to all that spectrum space that will be freed up when the imminent analog-to-digital cutover takes place, your insomnia is about to be cured. Reportedly, a UN telecoms meeting decided today to give mobile service providers access to the bandwidth currently reserved for terrestrial TV broadcasts. The US of A apparently pushed hard for a worldwide agreement on spectrum use, suggesting that a common approach was more reasonable than each nation choosing separate frequencies for next-generation services. As it stands, US citizens can look forward to reaping the benefits of this move sometime in 2009, but most of the world will be waiting until 2015 before making this section of the radio spectrum available for mobile activities.

[Image courtesy of toddemslie]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Filed under: Cellphones, Wireless

If you’ve been losing sleep over not knowing precisely what was going to happen to all that spectrum space that will be freed up when the imminent analog-to-digital cutover takes place, your insomnia is about to be (at least partially) cured. The US of A apparently pushed hard for a worldwide consensus on spectrum use — suggesting that a common approach was more reasonable than each nation choosing separate frequencies for next-generation services — and sure enough, it ended up getting exactly what it wanted. Apparently, the 700MHz band will now be reserved for a mobile broadband standard accessible throughout much of the globe, including most of North America, Central America, South America, Europe, China, India, South Korea and Japan. Of note, Europe was able to land a concession that enables it to offer up “about half of the bandwidth available for mobile services in their region” compared to what is offered elsewhere, but the agreement definitely makes the forthcoming auction that much more interesting.

[Via RCRNews, image courtesy of toddemslie]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!