O!Play adding wireless Full HD streaming?

Feb 5

Posted by andrew in News | No Comments

ASUS’ plans for its next-generation of set-top boxes have been tipped, with the company expected to add wireless HD support to an upcoming model.  According to DigiTimes’ usual shadowy industry sources, ASUS are using Taifatech’s TF-600 chipset, presumably in a new O!Play box, which is capable of streaming Full HD video over wireless or wired networks.

The talkative industry insiders also reckon ASUS are considering slapping the TF-600 into their netbooks, which would presumably allow them to wirelessly connect with a remote media source.  According to the TF-600 data sheet , the Taifatech chipset has onboard rescaling functionality, controllers for keyboards and mice, and can natively support IR remote controls.

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News News News News!!!! HDMI Tackles 3D TV

Feb 5

Posted by neemon in News | No Comments

HDMI Licensing, LLC, the licensing entity behind the High-Definition Multimedia Interface networking technology that is commonly used to provide a secure digital connection between digital TV sets, set-top boxes and Blu-ray players, is working to ensure that television programmers will be able to deliver upcoming 3D broadcasts to new 3D-capable HDTV sets.

The organization, which licenses its technology to over 900 consumer electronics (CE) manufacturers, announced late Wednesday that it is making the 3D portion of its latest HDMI specification, version 1.4, available for free public download on its Website so that television networks and transmission vendors can get the necessary information to deliver compatible 3D pictures to new 3D sets.

Such companies haven’t traditionally been licensees of HDMI technology, and thus didn’t have access to the confidential specification that identified 3D formats. But they need to know how the 3D parts of HDMI work to ensure that early 3D broadcasts are viewable, says HDMI Licensing president Steve Venuti, which is why the organization is making the information freely available.

“I see it as a necessity because HDMI is leading the market in supporting 3D at home,” says Venuti. “These companies don’t want to pay to get the spec, but they need it to understand how 3D will work in the marketplace.”

The HDMI Consortium also plans to include multiple broadcast 3D formats in an upcoming specification, version 1.4a, to ensure that HD sets and set-tops can display networks’ nascent 3D programming.

HDMI Licensing, founded by a consortium of Hitachi, Panasonic Corporation, Philips, Sony, Thomson (RCA), Toshiba, and Silicon Image, had already addressed the growing momentum behind stereoscopic 3D technology by including 3D gaming and movie (Blu-ray) formats in HDMI version 1.4, which came out last June. But that specification didn’t include broadcast 3D formats, explains Venuti, mainly because the organization didn’t expect television networks like ESPN and pay-TV operators like DirecTV to move to launch 3D by mid-2010.

“We’ve really seen a rush of 3D devices, but when we when launched 1.4 in June, it was very unclear what formats would drive content to the home,” says Venuti. “So we mandated a game format and movie format, and said if you build a system with HDMI, you have to have them. But we left out a broadcast format, because we didn’t know where the market was going with that. Since then, broadcasters have stepped up the game quite a bit, and there’s been a lot of movement in the HDMI Consortium to match the 3D release of broadcasters.”

In fact, in December the HDMI Consortium announced that it would ease some of its licensing restrictions to allow existing late-model set-tops to deliver 3D broadcasts to new 3D HDTV sets, without having to support the mandatory movie or gaming formats in HDMI version 1.4. Specifically, it decreed that set-tops with HDMI version 1.3 could receive a firmware upgrade that would enable them to connect to a new 3D set with HDMI version 1.4 to display a number of 3D HD broadcast formats. That is how satellite operators DirecTV and BSkyB plan to deliver 3D to their existing high-end set-tops. Venuti said that Sony PS3 game consoles can support 3D in the same way.

“That’s going to enable the existing infrastructure of source devices to pump 3D content, and you’re going to need a 3d-enabled TV to view it,” says Venuti.

The HDMI movie format that will be used by new 3D Blu-ray players specifies the delivery of two full 1080-line-progressive/24 hertz (1080p/24) pictures, one for each eye, which requires a significantly higher bit rate than normal 1080p/24 video. But the “frame-compatible” broadcast formats that HDMI Licensing is currently addressing are designed to work within the existing bandwidth for HD transmission by using spatial compression to reduce the horizontal or vertical resolution of the picture. That is a compromise that networks and pay-TV operators can currently live with, as adopting “full 3D” would require doubling the bandwidth used to deliver HD to the home.

The 3D compression techniques described by HDMI Licensing as “informative formats” include Frame Packing; Field Alternative; Line Alternative; Side-by-Side (Half); Side-by-Side (Full); Left + Depth; and Left + Depth + Graphics + Graphics-depth. The organization also announced in December that it will add the “Top/Bottom” frame-compatible technique, which ESPN plans to use for its 720p 3D HD pictures, to the updated 1.4 specification.

Venuti says the HDMI version 1.4a specification, which will make the support of such broadcast formats mandatory in new 3D-enabled CE devices, should come out soon. He notes that a pay-TV operator’s set-top could support as little as a single broadcast format, such as 720p top/bottom, but that 3D sets will have to support all broadcast formats to ensure interoperability.

“We hope that will provide leadership and guidance to the broadcast world,” says Venuti. “We don’t expect it to be the way to deliver 3D content forever. But at the least, it’s a minimum way to support interoperability.”

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Download HDMI 1.4 3D freely online now

Feb 5

Posted by Rachel Green in News | No Comments

This means companies and organizations that have not executed the HDMI Adopter Agreement can now have access to the 3D portion of version 1.4 of the HDMI Specification. Prior to this, only parties that have signed the HDMI Adopter Agreement have had access to the information. However, the document available for download is extracted from version 1.4 of the HDMI specification. However, HDMI version 1.4a will be released shortly with updates to the 3D portion of the specification. According to HDMI Licensing, as soon as the 1.4a version is published to adopters, an update to the 3D portion of the document will also be made available for public download. Steve Venuti, president of HDMI Licensing, said this public access is to show that the HDMI Consortium recognizes the importance of standardized 3D formats for movies, gaming, and broadcast content and the need for nonadopters to have access to that portion of the HDMI specification. HDMI 1.4 is the latest and most powerful version of the HDMI standard with many new capabilities designed to enrich the HD experience. Examples of these capabilities includes HDMI Ethernet Channel that allows for networking via HDMI cables; support for 3D and 4K video resolution; and a lot more. HDMI Licensing is the agent responsible for licensing the High-Definition Multimedia Interface specification. Late last year, the agent announced the new meaningful labeling conventions for HDMI cables to help consumers find the ones they need.

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DVI to mini DisplayPort converter

Feb 4

Posted by andrew in News | No Comments

It’s not uncommon as we upgrade parts of out computers to need adapters and other gear to make things work together. If you have your eyes set on a new display for your computer that uses DisplayPort and your machine lacks the right output Atlona has a new adapter just for you.

The adapter is called the AT-DP400 dual link DVI to Mini DisplayPort Converter. The converter is USB powered and works with Mac or PC systems. The device is specifically designed to work with the 27-inch iMac computer with resolutions up to 2560 x 1440. The screen connected to the adapter can be used as a main display or have the desktop extended to it.

The adapter is HCDP compliant and it also supports the 2560 x 1600 resolution that 30-inch LCDs use. The adapter will also let PS3 and Xbox users connect the consoles to the iMac without additional hardware at a resolution of up to 720p. The adapter is up for pre-order for $199 and is expected to ship on March 10.

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Feb 4

Posted by neemon in News | No Comments

For those early adopters who bought an HDTV without an HDMI connection, I can verify that those HDMI to component adapters sold on ebay really do work. I bought a Toshiba HD-XA2 on clearance on Amazon (now sold out) but wanted to use HDMI so that I could take advantage of the excellent upconversion afforded by this player. The video put out by this player is stunning. My regular DVDs look HD and the HD-DVDs look 3D. It passed the “wife test” with flying colors. I can’t quite understand how these adapters can be legally sold but I am glad they are. If not the DVD player would not upconvert non-backup DVDs to 1080i. It might be something I am doing wrong but I had to use the 5.1 analog output of the XA2 to get Dolby Digital/DTS/DolbyTrueHD to work properly. I think it is because the HDMI to component adapter outputs 2 channel audio. Since my AV receiver has 5.1 inputs, this is not a problem. I have to say that the audio is equally stunning.

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Olympus leads in competition, feature packed

Feb 4

Posted by Rachel Green in News | No Comments

To show that it’s still a leader in the rugged compact camera market, Olympus on Tuesday announced two Tough series models. Available in February, the $399.99 Stylus Tough-8010 is shockproof to drops of 6.6 feet and waterproof to depths of 33 feet, while the $299.99 Stylus Tough-6020 is shockproof to drops of 5 feet and waterproof to depths of 16 feet. Also, both cameras are freezeproof to temperatures as low as 14 degrees Fahrenheit.

Olympus does well with the rugged part of these cameras, but their feature sets were never very interesting. This time out, though, they seem rather well equipped and certainly competitive with models from other manufacturers. Both are 14-megapixel cameras with internal 5x f3.9-5.9 28-140mm-equivalent lens’, sensor-shift image stabilization, 2.7-inch LCDs, 720p movie capture with HDMI outputs, built-in LED lamps, and Olympus’ Tap Control system that uses body taps to change settings and shoot.

Other features include in-camera panorama (press and hold the shutter and it’ll take up to three shots and stitch them together) and the company’s art filters: Pop Art, Pin Hole, Fish-Eye, and Drawing. You also get face detection, face recognition (for easier photo organization), USB charging, SD/SDHC card capability, and a full user manual stored in the cameras’ memory. The Tough-8010 has 2GB of internal memory (1.6GB for shooting) and the Tough-6020 has 1GB of internal memory (632MB for shooting).

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Adopter Alert—Updated CEC Implementation Guidelines Available

Feb 3

Posted by neemon in News | No Comments

With Consumer Electronics Control (CEC) already a 2008 winner of the PC Magazine Technical Excellence Award in the Home Theater category PC Magazine Technical Excellence Award, HDMI Licensing, LLC is finalizing guidelines to help manufacturers implement CEC. Version 0.9 (pre-final) of the CEC Implementation Guidelines (Ver. 0.9, January, 2009) is now available to HDMI Adopters for review and comment. The final version of the CEC Guidelines will provide a minimum set of recommended commands useful to consumers as well as guidelines for multi-vendor interoperability.

“CEC functionality delivers much needed system simplicity for consumers who face the increasingly daunting task of organizing and operating a complex set of products from a variety of vendors,” said Steve Venuti, President of HDMI Licensing, LLC. “Updating CEC provides a foundation for products to work together in the most common use cases and should build consumer demand. This will enable our Adopters to develop additional features and functionalities into their next products.”

To receive a copy, Adopters need to simply fill out the online request form. Upon confirmation of a company’s status as an HDMI Adopter in good-standing, HDMI Licensing will send a copy of the CEC Implementation Guidelines within two business days.

Are expensive digital HDMI cables better

Feb 2

Posted by neemon in News | No Comments

“You wouldn’t spend £20,000 on a car then put cheap tyres on it, would you?”

That might seem like powerful argument for road safety, but it’s the kind of line being trotted out in high street electrical stores to sell HDMI cables.

These short, unexciting-looking wires are used to connect devices such as Blu-ray players and games consoles to modern, flat screen televisions.

HDMI cables rarely come included with new gadgets and while they can be bought for as little as 95p, some retailers stock models costing up to £110.

Many shoppers report being steered in the direction of more expensive HDMI cables by eager sales staff, who claim higher prices equal better picture quality.

Kerry Lennox contacted Newsbeat. She said: “I recently bought a home cinema system and was informed by the shop assistant that I would need to buy a £50 HDMI cable. I bought one for £10 from a well known supermarket chain.”

Marcus Hodges wrote: “I’ve got a really expensive one and a cheap one for £12. To be honest, they’re exactly the same!”

One professional HDMI sceptic is technology reviewer James Holland.

“Blu Ray players and the TVs they hook up to are completely digital, so you are talking about ones and zeros,” said James.

“The cable itself isn’t contributing to the quality of that picture at all. It is just moving it from one place to the other. It’s the electronics at both ends that do the hard work.”

Shopping test

Unlike their analogue predecessors, SCART cables, HDMI sends sound and pictures encoded in digital form, theoretically making it less vulnerable to interference.

Dr Eric Chowanietz, Principle Lecturer in Media Technology at De Montfort University, believes there is little to support the claims made for pricier models.

As you connect more and more items together, say an HD box and games console, or multi channel amplifier, you will need better and better quality cables to maintain the quality of the signal

Chris Jenkins, tech labs manager

He said: “You wouldn’t buy a more expensive printer cable and expect to print higher quality documents.

“The document quality depends on the printer and it is much the same with a digital system.”

Newsbeat went on a mystery shop with 20-year-old student Ed Trencher. In each store he asked which cable he should buy for connecting an Xbox 360 to a HD television.

John Lewis: “They said their cheapest cable was £19.99 and I shouldn’t spend any more because they all do the same thing.”

Micro Anvika: “The guy said HDMI is HDMI and the cables shouldn’t really differ. The cheapest one, he tried to sell me, was £29.99. The most expensive one they had was £95 and he said there wasn’t really much difference between them.”

PC World: “They tried to sell me a £39.99 HDMI cable which was, apparently, clearer picture quality.”

Currys Digital: “They said I should buy the £69.99 HDMI cable because it provided a much better picture quality over the cheaper version, but for some reason [the assistant] decided to knock £20 off.”

Quality cable

Currys and PC World both offer HDMI cables priced between £19.99 and £119.

A statement from DSGi, which owns the two chains said: “We always aim to help our customers find the right product for their choice of hardware by clearly explaining the differences between the cables and our staff receive training on these products.

“The choice of HDMI cable is mainly determined by the level of signal purity that the consumer is looking for in the connection between playback device and television.”

The company said that some cables were more expensive than others because the materials used in them, such as copper wiring, were of a higher quality.

One expert who supports that claim is Chris Jenkins, tech labs manager for Future Publishing group, behind Home Cinema Choice.

He argues that more expensive cables do make a difference, especially in more complex home cinema setups and over cable runs of longer than one metre.

“As you connect more and more items together, say an HD box and games console, or multi channel amplifier, you will need better and better quality cables to maintain the quality of the signal.

“£120 cable for your first purchase? No. But certainly don’t try to get away with a £1.99 cable”

Chris’ advice is to budget around 10% of a system’s price for HDMI cables.

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Cheap NAS Adapter

Feb 2

Posted by Ivy in News | No Comments

Let’s face it, many of us have quite a lot of USB 2.0 external storage solutions around the house, which we use on a daily basis for transferring files between computers, because, in many cases, it’s simply easier than to employ a NAS. However, the guys over at Addonics have come up with an affordable solution that will allow one to easily turn any USB 2.0 HDD, SSD or flash drive into a network-attached storage device.

The NAS 2.0 adapter represents the second generation of the small and portable Addonics NAS adapter and provides a transfer rate of approximately 15-20 MBps when connected to a Gigabit network, double the data rate provided by its predecessor.

Moreover, the NAS 2.0 Adapter provides FTP access for up to eight simultaneous users with Internet connections anywhere in the world and the NAS 2.0 adapter can also be used as a bit-torrent downloading appliance for direct download to the attached USB storage device. Plus, besides the ability to convert any USB 2.0 hard drive or SSD into a Network Attached Storage device, the NAS 2.0 adapter has two high speed USB 2.0 ports: one for connecting USB 2.0 / 1.1 mass storage devices and one for connecting USB printers to share over a network.

The new adapter, which is lightweight and simple to install, can be set as a UPnP AV server to share photo/music files stored on the file server with XBOX 360 video game consoles connected to the LAN. Last, but certainly not least, it’s also worth mentioning that the NAS 2.0 adapter supports both SMB (Server Message Block) and the open source Samba network protocols. This allows cross-platform access of all shared data for most versions of Windows, Mac OS X, and various Linux distributions.

As we’ve said right from the start, pricing for the Addonics adapter is a very interesting one, since the device retails for just around 60 US dollars, which might turn it into a fairly interesting solution for many people out there.

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4HD, great sounding hi-fi component

Feb 1

Posted by Rachel Green in Uncategorized | No Comments

I read Geoffrey Morrison’s review of the Olive 4HD music server on the Home Entertainment Web site with great interest, because I recently heard the 4HD at a friend’s house. The review provides a lot of information that I’m not covering here.

It’s a cool looking device, and I really like that it can be used without being hooked up to a computer. It’s more a like a CD player with a built-in two terabyte hard drive.

There’s a Gigabit Ethernet port and Wi-Fi module if you’re into the home network thing, and a free application to let you use your iPhone or iPod Touch as full remote control. Also, you can use the 4HD’s HDMI interface to hook up your HDTV.

The 4HD can store high-resolution audio files, up to 24-bit/192KHz on its hard drive. But what I wanted to know was does the 4HD sound better than a CD player when playing ripped CDs?

I listened to a number of CD/4HD comparisons and came away a believer. The 4HD sounded “less digital,” cleaner, and just better than the original CDs. The difference in clarity was the single most impressive improvement hard drive replay offered.

We even compared SACDs to CDs (of the same title) ripped to the 4HD. Again in this test, the 4HD’s clarity trumped SACD’s. I love the fact that the 4HD, unlike most music servers, doesn’t need to be hooked up to a computer. It’s just a great sounding hi-fi component that can store up to 20,000 tracks at 24-bit resolution.

The 4HD sells for $1,999; however, Olive also has standard definition models starting at $1,499.

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