Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment

Blusens hit the scene in a big way last October, but for whatever reason, we haven’t heard from ‘em since… until now, that is. The Blu:Brain Home Entertainment Device features a somewhat misleading name, as there’s (regrettably) no built-in Blu-ray drive to speak of. What it does have, however, is a remarkably sexy shell, twin digital TV tuners (DVB-T), a removable internal hard drive, Ethernet / WiFi connectivity and a USB port. Essentially, this here box can serve up all sorts of multimedia (high-def content included) via HDMI, though word on the street says it won’t even be available to order until 2009.

[Via Gizmos]

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Filed under: Home Entertainment, Media PCs

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Filed under: Laptops, Media PCs

Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about technology, multimedia, and digital entertainment.

Even as Microsoft continues to support broadcasting standards around the world to bolster Media Center’s support for broadcast television, the future of noisy, black 17-inch-wide boxes sharing a cramped cabinet with your stereo receiver remains in jeopardy. Indeed, the future of the living room PC may be sitting in your lap.

When Microsoft announced the Media Center edition of Windows XP, it was in some ways the desktop counterpart to the Tablet PC mutation. Whereas the Tablet PC was envisioned as a new form factor for notebooks, Media Center held the promise of transforming the desktop into its own new form factor. Indeed, in one of Bil Gates’s final CES keynotes promoting innovative PC designs, he didn’t mention desktops at all, referring to stationary computers as “entertainment PCs” in an AV component style.

But while a few companies continue to sell Media Center PCs explicitly designed for connection to a television — among them Sony, Alienware, and companies targeting custom installers such as Niveus Media, the form factor hasn’t taken off for a variety of reasons. Microsoft, in turn, has focused more on Media Center Extenders such as the Xbox 360 and HP MediaSmart Connect to bring the Media Center experience to the big-screen TV. And despite some technological improvements coming to help the cause, that situation is unlikely to change dramatically.

Continue reading Switched On: Rethinking the living room PC

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Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment

The 2008 Beijing Olympics — the first covered entirely in high definition, with super slow-motion cameras and 3,600 hours of coverage, online and on TV — approach. Think you’re ready to get the most out of the Games, and maybe, just maybe catch the event you actually want to watch live as it happens? Head over to Engadget HD and get the full rundown on the different ways the Games are coming home and how to take advantage of them all.

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Filed under: Home Entertainment, Peripherals, Wireless

Ever since we got our hands on Samsung’s Media Center Extender at CES last year, we’ve wondered how the CE giant’s rendition would stack up against the rest. Rather than build the Media Center Extender functionality into a TV the way HP has, or make a completely separate set-top-box like Linksys or D-Link, the $200 MediaLive Media Center Extender is designed to be a companion product for Samsung HDTVs. It can be mounted to the back of certain Samsung sets, and with the help of HDMI-CEC, the TV’s remote will control the box even while it’s out of sight — of course, this begs the question of whether or not it will work with other TVs, but we’ll just have to wait and try it ourselves when it launches next month. Oh, and in case you don’t know already, Media Center Extenders are not just another media streamer, because it will allow you to have the full (almost) Vista Media Center experience — including the ability to watch live HD from CableCARD tuner — on any TV (connected wired or wirelessly) in your house.

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Filed under: HDTV

Here it is folks, the matchup you have (or haven’t, that’s cool) been waiting for: Microsoft’s Xbox 360, Linksys’ DMA2100 and D-Link’s DSM-750 have been pit against one another and put to the test in order to find the champion of Media Center Extending. Here’s a hint — the race is a lot tighter than you probably think. Check out the full rundown (video included) over on Engadget HD.

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Filed under: Desktops, HDTV, Home Entertainment, Media PCs

Your options are fairly limited when scouring the market for a twin-CableCARD HTPC, but thanks to a new partnership between Cannon PC and Microsoft, yet another rival will be jousting for your business. Here soon, the outfit will be offering its Home and Pro A/V series Media Center PCs with dual CableCARDs pre-installed, and if you’re willing to wait a touch longer, a quad-CableCARD model will also be available. Oh, and if that chassis above looks strangely familiar, that’s because it is: Cannon has simply grabbed OrigenAE’s famed shell, painted it black and slapped its own logo up there (though we aren’t complaining or anything). The pictured EX line is just one of the many families with the new functionality, so head on over to the company’s website if you’re interested in shelling out.

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Filed under: Home Entertainment, Media PCs

Just an update on the broadcast flag controversy: NBC has copped to an “inadvertent mistake” in flagging the broadcast of American Gladiators as content prohibited from recording, while Microsoft stated it is only following the FCC’s rules, and “fully adheres to flags used by broadcasters”. This conveniently ignores the fact that there is no legal requirement for Windows Vista Media Center to recognize the broadcast flag and disable recording, but it does. Errant metadata can and does happen, but for such a “feature” to be buried within one’s software unknowingly is troubling. Expect to hear more from the EFF and others questioning why Media Center unnecessarily turns parts of itself off at a broadcaster’s command, and rightly so. What’s most disturbing, and likely to go sadly without protest is that someone out there is actually watching, and trying to record for later, American Gladiators. The more you know indeed.

[Via Techdirt]

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Filed under: Home Entertainment, Media PCs

Just like efforts to close the analog hole, our old friend the broadcast flag (don’t remember what that is and how it was defeated? Take a quick trip back to 2005 with us) has reared it’s ugly head again. Displaying the kind of tenacity rarely seen outside of horror movie villains and potential presidential candidates, some Vista Media Center users have apparently gotten the above popup while trying to record broadcast TV from NBC. Since the FCC regulation giving the broadcast flag it’s power to remotely disable your recording ability was overturned, not only should it not be enabled, there’s no reason the system should respond if it were. The EFF’s working with the makers of the HDHomeRun to find out why this happened at all (although it’s not the first time); whether it’s an honest mistake somewhere or if Microsoft slipped a bit of extra DRM into its latest OS.

[Via EFF]

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Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment

Amex Digital has certainly dabbled in the home theater space before, but we’ll be honest, we’re still scratching our heads on this one. The lightly detailed iMON HD Mobile is a self-proclaimed “portable media center,” but beyond that, we’re pretty much left to wonder what exactly is going on. We are told that it’s an advanced IR receiver and VFD display device, and aside from delivering IR commands back to your PC, it’ll also scroll across useful information such as news, media information, current time, weather, a graphical equalizer and system details. Guess we’ll just hang tight until it gets fleshed out and goes on sale, though we can’t say that display really gets our hopes up for anything great.

[Via AkihabaraNews]

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Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment, Portable Video

If you’re already taken care of on the HD media streamer front, Mvix is hoping you’ll look its way for a more portable solution. The pocket-friendly MV-2500U checks in at just 5- x 3- x 0.8-inches and makes room for a 2.5-inch internal hard drive. The simple, LCD-less exterior means that you’ll need to access the interface on-screen after plugging in the (component, we presume) cables to your HDTV, after which you’ll be able to watch video files encoded in MPEG1/2/4, DVD (VOB, IFO), DivX, XviD, BivX or VCD (DAT) for both PAL and NTSC systems. You’ll also find support for AC3, MP2, MP3, WMA, OGG and M3U audio formats, and even JPEG photos can be shown in beautiful 720p / 1080i. Unfortunately, this wee piece will run you a stiff $149 before you even go hard drive shopping, but Mvix will happily add an 80GB, 160GB or 250GB HDD in there if you’ve got the coin.

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Filed under: HDTV, Media PCs, Storage

Okoro Media Systems has been offering up well-spec’d HTPCs for quite some time, but it has finally seen fit to jump on the flash-based storage bandwagon. The firm’s new ZX series of Extreme Digital Entertainment Systems gets going with the OMS-ZX100, which comes standard with a 32GB SSD (for the OS and such) and a 1TB HDD for media storage. Moreover, you’ll find a 3.0GHz Core 2 Extreme QX6850 processor, 3GB of DDR2 RAM, NVIDIA’s 256MB GeForce 8600 GT graphics card, Blu-ray / HD DVD playback and your choice of “any automotive color” on the chassis. ‘Tis a shame it costs $5,995 to even join the ZX100 club, but look to spend even more if you’re hankering for a built-in CableCARD tuner and WiFi adapter.

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Filed under: Home Entertainment

We first saw D-Link’s DSM-750 MediaLounge Wireless Media Player at CES way back in 2007, and the company “officially” launched the 802.11n unit in September of that year — but the scheduled November 2007 retail date came and went, and the four of you queuing up to drop $349 on an unheralded Media Center extender were left to sadly contemplate the crushing banality of your existence. Well, buck up, boy-o, because it looks like D-Link’s realized that it’s actually supposed to sell the DSM-750, and it’s also gone and dropped the price down a whole $20, to $329. Sure, you can operate the thing in either MCE or MediaLounge mode, but you’re still limited to 1080i output (even over HDMI), and at that price, it’s pretty hard to see why you wouldn’t just nab an Xbox 360 Arcade to do the same thing — you’re getting far more functionality for the money, even if you have to spring for wireless and the remote. Still, we’re glad this thing is finally here — those four dudes were getting awfully weepy.

[Via eHomeUpgrade]

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Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment, Media PCs

Back when the format war was still a-brewin’, Inteset saw fit to offer up Blu-ray / HD DVD combo drives on its media PCs. Now that said war is behind us, the firm is plugging Blu-ray drives into its Vana VA6420-Si media extender system. The device, which can also be used in standalone form, enables users to bring content from varying locales within the domicile to a central home entertainment center, and aside from the 1.83GHz Core 2 Duo CPU, 2GB of RAM and GeForce 8400GT graphics card, you’ll also find 7.1-channel audio outputs, a slew of video ports including HDCP-compliant DVI / HDMI and even an option for a CableCARD tuner. Unfortunately, we’ve no idea how pricey this rig will be, but with specs like that, we can’t imagine it being cheap.

[Via eHomeUpgrade]

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Filed under: HDTV, Household

Sure, your bed is pretty comfortable. you probably even have one of those plush down mattress covers. You may have convinced yourself that you’re in the lap of luxury, but according to Leggett & Platt — you’re nowhere close. Enter the Starry Night bed, the be-all-end-all when it comes to breakneck, nosebleed opulence, and unparalleled extravagance. The sleeper not only combines dual, remote-controlled, adjustable mattresses with temperature control and anti-snore technology (whatever that is), but also manages to embed a 1080p HD projector, four subwoofers and tweeters, a 1.5TB of drive space, 4GB of RAM, Media Center integration, WiFi, and an iPod dock. Seriously. All they forgot was to make it not ugly. Showing at CES 2008, and priced from $20,000 to $50,000 (depending on options).

[Via About Projectors]

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Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment, Media PCs, Wireless

We’re still a bit unsure if we’re looking at a couple of TVs that actually sport built-in Extenders for Windows Media Center or just a couple of pretenders, but whatever the case, the newest duo from Zepto certainly has our attention. The 32-inch Helios A32 sports a 1,366 x 768 resolution panel, an optional “integrated wireless media center,” a 2,000:1 contrast ratio, eight-millisecond response time, a single DVB-T tuner plus twin analog tuners, PIP support, the firm’s own ambient lighting system and an internal amplifier for speakers. As for the 40-inch Helios A40, it steps things up with a 1,920 x 1,080 panel, but otherwise remains identical to its aforementioned sibling. Price wise, you’ll be looking at 15,995 Danish Kroner ($3,085) for the little guy (which is available now), or 19,995 Danish Kroner ($3,857) for the A40 (shipping next month).

[Thanks, Jakob H.]

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Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment, Media PCs

Windows Media Center fans have been dreaming of having access to DirecTV’s programming for at least two years, and just when we think both companies have let the idea fade away, we get new clues that it might actually happen. According to a recent job posting, Microsoft is looking for a qualified individual to help it develop “premium TV experiences from world class satellite TV network operators” with experience in pay-per-view, H.264 and in-band programming data. Currently, Media Center uses the internet to obtain its programming data, but just like the DirecTiVo before it, Media Center looks to get the information via satellite from DirecTV. Mostly, we’re just happy that both companies are (apparently) still working to make this happen, but having access to PPV is just icing on the cake and a new experience for Media Center fans.

[Via Chris Lanier’s Blog]

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Filed under: Desktops, Home Entertainment

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Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment, Media PCs

Those keeping tabs on Niveus’ outdoorsy naming system shouldn’t be shocked to hear that it has chosen the Sierra Edition to follow the Rainier and Denali Edition Media Center PCs. Unfortunately, we’ve absolutely no information on what kind of hardware we can expect to find within this stylish box, but the firm has promised that it’ll deliver “impressive Media Center functionality, digital content management, and superior convenience for the whole family.” Keep an eye on this space for more, and feel free to join us in hoping for an HD disc drive of some sort to make an appearance when this thing gets official.

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

Filed under: Home Entertainment, Networking

Technically, Niveus was the first of the major partners to spill the proverbial beans on its Extender for Windows Media Center, and while it was sitting around for all to see at CEDIA, details were admittedly slim. Now, however, the firm has come clean and doled out the specs for its Media Center Extender - EDGE, following the moves made by Linksys and D-Link earlier. The EDGE boasts a “Glacier Passive Cooling for near silent operation,” RS-232 / IP / IR for third-party control support, a trio of USB 2.0 ports, an Ethernet jack, HDMI / component outputs and two-channel analog / digital optical audio outs. Unfortunately, Niveus’ box doesn’t include integrated WiFi, so its wired or nothin’ here, and while we’d love to know how much this thing will actually cost, we do know it’ll land sometime in November. Click on for a few more looks.

Continue reading Niveus shares official details on Media Center Extender - EDGE

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