Richard Doherty, from the infamous Doherty family and Microsoft’s program manager for Media Entertainment Convergence, slung some proverbial poo at both the HD-DVD and Blu-Ray loving manufacturers and studios. With one quick exhale of his M$ paid voice, he claimed that both formats, as well as any other optical format that is out or may come out in the future will become obsolete in five years.
I showed up just in time to scream “No Shit!” and then ran away into my troll house to wait for the next obvious statement to be spewed from someone’s mouth. Dick went on to say that at Microsoft, they would rather HD content was not on a disc at all, and also added that for the time being they are supporting HD-DVD because it has better interactive content (and Toshiba makes their XBOX 360 hardware, there is an HD-DVD add-on for the 360, the PS3 has a Blu-Ray drive, and Microsoft hates Sony- but they didn’t mention these parts).
Now that the future of disc formats is settled, and before I go back to my trollhouse for some trollhouse cookies and such, I will make another outlandish claim about the future of tech: In five years, today’s processors will be considered ancient and slow when compared to current micro computer processors.
Media centers seem to be all the rage nowadays, as high definition movies and television shows, as well as higher quality picture and music have started to invade the market. While some recent additions to the media center families, like AppleTV and distinguished models from several startup companies have been impressive, none have really captured the idea of replacing a Tivo, computer, amplifier, receiver, Netflix deliveries, media players, DVD player, and catch-all computer … until now.
As Alienware describes it, the Hangar 18 can do just about anything:
* Watch - Watch, pause, and record your movies, TV shows, photos, and internet videos on your widescreen TV in high definition
* Listen - Listen to all your favorite songs and artists with Hangar18’s onboard 5.1 surround sound amplifier
* Share - Wirelessly stream all your media to other PCs, mobile devices, and media extenders throughout your home.
* Download - Download content from all over the internet to one secure location to store and share with your home and others.
Hey rich face! Have more HDMI components that you have inputs? In that case you may have more money than you need, which works out well since this 4X4 HDMI splitter is gonna set you back close to 2 grand. Of course if you really need one, this puppy does cover all the bases including HDCP and HDMI.
Switch easily between any four HDMI sources
Distributes any of the four inputs to any or any combination of the four HDMI output displays
I’m just going to say it: I hate YouTube, but have yet to find anything worthy enough to replace it. I like it’s huge collection of videos, but the fact that people spam video tags so badly that searching for a video can sometimes bring up posts with hundreds of categories with no relation to the desired result makes me want to rebel against humanity.
With the introduction of the beta for DivX Stage6, web video just got better looking. By using the slick interface and tools provided by the DivX format, up to 1080P resolution, and the ability to download the videos for viewing on other devices such as a DivX compatible DVD player, Stage6 could be another big contender for YouTube. This video can attest to the quality that is available from the site:
They’ve been a long time coming, but we finally have a company getting ready to release some Media Center PCs that are CableCARD-ready. Up until now there hasn’t been an easy way to get HD television into a PC if you were getting the signal from a cable company. They all make you use their own decoder (crap-tastic) boxes.
Luckily for all of us the gov’t forced the cable companies to offer an alternative to the boxes, and the CableCARD was the solution. It’s the way TiVo can offer an HD box (I had to get 2 cableCARDs from my cable provider for it to work). And now you’ll be able to do the same with this PC, thanks to its inclusion of AMD’s TV Wonder Digital Cable Tuner.
“The TV Wonder DCT is the first of its kind, giving PCs the ability to tune NTSC, ATSC over-the-air, QAM encrypted ATSC and CableCARD support.”
Building a media center is something that can take a lot of time, effort and above all else: money. So testing the foundation before building the house makes sense right? Right.
Finding the right cables that work for you can, if not anything else, be a real pain in the rear. Thats why we’re sacrificing our hard earned paychecks testing this stuff so you don’t have to. (insert smiley face)
This review is actually just a portion of a much larger walkthrough for building your own media center and doing it for under $1400. But since that project is taking much longer than expected, please enjoy this quick review of one of the basic components. (more…)
There’s a little known problem with HDTV’s. I’m not going to get into the whole thing here but I’ll just say this. When you’re watching standard def (SD) stuff on your HD set, it’s being upconverted to HD so you can see it. That takes time (usually a few frames). But it can make playing old games difficult, since the video lags a little behind the audio. Newer HDTV’s are much better, but it’s still a case by case basis. Make sure to check into it before dropping the coin on a new TV.
To those that don’t buy it, it’s true. To the people that have been dealing with it, here’s a potential solution.
This little box will take in any component source, and output every resolution up to 1080p over VGA. It’s the perfect way to upconvert your video signal before it gets to the TV. Some older HDTV’s can only take in 1080p over VGA, and this’ll accomodate that too. And if you don’t have a TV, just hook it up to your VGA monitor. If you’re in the market, this one is actually a pretty good deal at only $60.
I’ve recently been looking into going HD, problem is I’m not made of money. I would love to drop $3,000 on a beautiful 1080p LCD, but I’m realistic and try not to live beyond my means. I’ve been looking at different options and every cheap HDTV I’ve come across is either:
1. A no name brand or worse, a company that is known for making crappy toasters
2. Something that gets horrible reviews from users on sites like Newegg
So you can understand my skepticism when I found the Syntax Olevia 37 inch for under $700. I was originally looking for a modest 32 inch and willing to pay over $1000 so to say the least, I was a little apprehensive. Further inspection showed that TV had an overall higher than expected review score.
Victor is keeping the lead on the growing HD camcorder market with the GZ-HD7 (part ot the Everio series), bringing a full 1920 x 1080i resolution to the table. This “full HD” camcorder, with its 60gb hard disk and HDMI output, looks to kick the ass of anything else out in the consumer market, far outshooting the current max resolution of 1440 x 1080i. Your naughty movies have never looked better.
Victor will bring this to the market in March, and will be asking ¥200,000 (roughly $1650 US) for the unit.
Personally, for me it’s TiVO or nothing at all. But if you’re really stuck, or just like the lastest and greatest, check out the new line of HDTV’s from LG. They have a built in 160GB hard drive for recording all those HD channels we all love so much. There’s also a USB port to add an external drive.
There’s a few reasons why this isn’t a great idea. 1st, if the drive dies where does that leave you? Plus, is 160GB really enough? There’s a few different sizes, in both LCD (37″, 42″, and 47″) and Plasma (50″ and 60″). These puppies are gonna set you back though. Ranging in price from $2,650 to $9,435 for the 60″ Plasma.
