Using your PC as part of your home theater is a poorly understood and often sorely underestimated  part of your home theater experience.  In fact, the PC can replace a lot of different facets of your home theater, as Jason Klinke discovered.

A former PC engineer, he used his PC not only to play movies via its attached BD-ROM drive (from LG, no less!) but also to store other movies on the network as well as play a custom pre-show presentation with movie trivia and assorted random bits.

What else does he have involved in here, you ask?  Let’s take a look!

He’s got TWO Sony four hundred disc changers, for a start.  When you couple those on to his home theater PC’s hard drive space, you’ve got room for, roughly, a maximum of nine hundred titles.  Nine hundred titles.  That’s no small library, folks.  Plus, you’ve got to consider he’s watching them with a Sanyo projector on a one hundred twenty eight inch Carada screen, with a Denon receiver and Definitive Technologies speakers backing his play.

All this added in together makes for one pretty sweet setup, especially when you consider what all the home theater PC kicks in.

A new LCD TV has been announced a day before CEATEC and it’s a work of art coming from Toshiba. The 55-inch LED-backlit 55X1 Cell Regza LCD TV is probably the company’s flagship HDTV and it will be available in Japan this December.

Why is it a work of art? Well here are some its features:

• 55-inch display
• 240Hz refresh rate
• 5,000,000:1 contrast ratio
• Brightness of 1250cd/m2
• LED backlighting
• 7-speaker sound bar
• Eight-windows simultaneous display
• Opera-based browser
• DLNA
• 3TB hard disk drive
• 2TB space dedicated to up to eight channels of simultaneous recording for up to 26 hours
• DVR recording

So what do you say? Ready to pay around $11,140 to get it? Or is it too much to ask for this beauty?

via Engadget

This product fits its billing to the T. Called a Network Media Tank, the Syabas Popcorn Hour C-200 should be the ideal solution for bringing digital movies, photos, and music to your living room via Ethernet or WiFi. You can also use another option which is by the usual USB drives or internal hard disk drives which can store various media files for your multimedia pleasure.

The whole lot costs $300 but excludes a hard drive. Built at about the size of a Blu-ray player, it can practically accommodate all files of any size and thanks to the flexibility of storage, the amount of files to be stored and played will totally depend up to you.

Unfortunately it lacks in the area of user-friendliness. Unless you are a techie geek, don’t be surprised if you end up groping to operate it. But then again, at $300, don’t expect to get the whole pie since something has got to be missing.

(Source) Dvice

Here’s some interesting news for you, especially those of you who favor the BitTorrent and such for your movie gathering pleasure who live in Great Britain–they’re cutting your cord. Here’s the word:

Under the previous Digital Britain proposals, ISPs would send warning letters to web users suspected of illegal downloading. If those efforts failed to reduce piracy by at least 70 percent, Ofcom would, in 2012, have the power to slow down users’ connections.  However, reports this morning say those regularly downloading copyright content will have their internet connection blocked completely should they continue their file-sharing activities after receiving the warning letters.

Now here’s the worst part of the whole mess–there’s actually a clause in those proposals that say that the blocked connections have NOTHING to do with that seventy percent target.  Rather, those are left to “the discretion of ministers”.

Basically, in Great Britain, under the Digital Britain proposals, anyone can kill your internet for any reason at all, including none.  That’s what the phrase “discretion of ministers” generally means.  Lord Worchester Of Sussex On Avonshropshiresley might wake up constipated one fine October morning and decide that you don’t need your internet access any more.

Next thing you know, bam.  No more YouTube.  it’s lost at “the discretion of ministers”.  How this would apply to public wi-fi hotspots where people stop in and use the internet and leave would be utterly beyond me.

Where’s V when you need him, huh?

We’ve talked about a few home theatre PCs so far around here, and they’ve all been pretty bargain priced.  Some pretty good stuff has emerged from places like Dell and Lenovo, but it might interest you to know that a relative unknown is looking to seize the high ground–specifically, Okoro, with its OMS-BX300.

A mouthful of a name, I know, but it’s for a mouthful of a product.  The “Blu-Ray Digital Entertainment System”, as it’s called, carries an Intel Core i7 processor.  It also comes with a whopping six gigs of DDR3 ram, the ATI Radeon HD with 512 meg ram graphics card, options for a slew of HD tuner cards, a PAIR of two terabyte drives, a sixty-four gig solid state drive, and a PAIR of Blu-ray drives. And ports–you’re not going to believe the ports.  This place has more ports than Madagascar (and they don’t close as easily!), including HDMI, S-video, component video, and optical audio among others.

Down side?  The PRICE.  It’ll cost you just over three grand for this beastie in base configuration, and options are available to jack the price up even higher.  Want to have a PC with EIGHT TERABYTES of storage?  Yours for an extra five hundred bucks!

Anyone else remember when one whole gig of hard drive space seemed like a typo?

Let me go on record right now–if the way things are right now remain in this state for the next five years, without significant changes in technology or socio-political factors, streaming WILL NOT replace DVD and Blu-ray within the next five years.

It’s a bold pronouncement, I know…but you don’t come here for weak sauce and milquetoast ideology.  Plain and simple, unless there are significant changes in the way people live, work, and use the internet, streaming won’t replace discs any time soon.

Why?  Three important factors:

1. Internet access.  Even your standard tiny YouTube video weighs in at roughly two meg per minute.  The highest download speed I’ve ever seen here is ten meg per second, and that’s for a YouTube video playing at roughly the size of your hand.  And in many, MANY, places, Internet access is still limited to dialup or satellite high-speed with draconian usage limits.  You can FORGET about getting all the latest movies on demand, not unless everyone suddenly manages to be able to get ten or twenty meg / sec speeds without limits and without outages.  You’re talking about a HUGE revolution required to access most of the country.

2. Expense.  To watch a DVD, you need a TV, often available for under two hundred dollars, and a DVD player, available for as little as twenty.  Pretty much the same with a Blu-ray, only slightly more expensive.  But to watch your movies streaming, you need a computer or other means of download, a high-speed internet connection (and satellite doesn’t count if you want to watch more than one movie a week) and a display option.  For that, you’re talking at least an LCD tv, often over four hundred bucks.  That’s a LOT more cash to put out, and given the state of things, consumer electronics aren’t going to be a super-huge market any time soon.

3. Difficulty of use.  To watch a DVD requires you to open your DVD player, either via switch or onboard button, insert the DVD, close the player and press play.  Not too much different from the VCRs of yore, just with a different media.  But streaming video can, depending on the source and layout, require vastly, VASTLY more than just a click of a switch.

Until these issues are solved, and to solve them will require downright moonshots in the way we think, live and work, you can forget about streaming (or downloads) replacing the disc.

As you’ve already seen, Mitsubishi has decided to launch new gadgets ready to be used for a home theater upgrade. Among those gadgets Mitsubishi has also launched a few new Blu-ray DVRs which we’re going to check out for you. These are the DVR-BZ330, the DVR-BZ230 and the DVR-BV530.

The DVR-BZ330 comes with impressive features like a 1TB hard drive, super resolution upconversion, a Diamond HD chip and Blur-ray/DVD support. The player will be available on October 1 and it will cost you around $1,915.

The DVR-BZ230 comes with only 500GB of hard drive storage space and lacks the Diamond HD chip needed for upconverting low-resolution videos. The player will also be available on October 1 for just around $1,490.

If you want the cheaper DVR-BV530 then you’ll have to wait until October 21 and be ready to pay $1,270 for it. The player will bring you an extra VHS playback feature which is something you won’t probably really use. And you’re only going to be able to count on 320GB available storage space if you pick the DVR-BV530.

via avwatch

A home. Theatre. PC.  How awesome an idea is this?

Lenovo’s taking its first steps into the still somewhat burgeoning home theatre PC market by offering up its IdeaCentre Q700 and its complementary model the IdeaCentre D400, both of which is set to cost about five hundred bucks.

The IdeaCentre Q700 is designed, by the look of it, to take advantage of virtually every possible kind of media that’s been produced in the last ten years. It comes with one of three Intel Core 2 Duo processors, a maximum of two terabytes (as in, one thousand gigabytes) and the capacity for plenty more storage.  Get this–this monster comes with eight USB ports and an eSATA port for an external hard drive.  This is a clear step up over the earlier version we’ve discussed, so they must’ve taken that bit about “lackluster specs” seriously.

It can support 1080p video and graphics, not to mention 7.1 channel surround sound, and also offers ethernet and wi-fi capability for streaming video.  And just in case there’s any TV you actually want to watch, a TV tuner is also available.

That, folks, is a LOT.  A lot of options, a lot of storage, a lot of everything.  Considering that a blank DVD holds roughly four gigs of material, that means the two terabyte hard drive by itself can hold about five hundred DVDs worth of material.  With EIGHT USB ports and an eSATA, you could conceivably bump that up another eighteen terabytes, bringing the whole system up to somewhere in the neighborhood of–brace yourself–FOUR THOUSAND FIVE HUNDRED DVDs.

Assume ninety minutes average per DVD, and that means you’re staring at almost seven thousand hours of video.  If you did absolutely nothing but watch movies, eschewing even sleep, you’d spend two hundred and ninety one days, plus sixteen hours, watching movies and never repeat the same one.

Of course, you’d probably have a hard time finding a way to put all those videos on your hard drive, especially since trafficking in the software to transfer them is still illegal….

People who have been aching to watch their old films or movies but have problems due to conversion issues may finally enjoy them once again. Made especially for videos stored on old VHS tapes, a new device called iConvert can now convert old VHS cassette tapes to digital format.

All you have to do is connect your old VHS player to the iConvert device, insert and SD card and allow the VHS Tape to play. The data is then backed up at the SD card which can eventually be played on a PC or laptop.

Other devices can also be used with the iConvert like old camcorders. The unit costs $99.95. Now all you have to do is make sure that the old VHS player or camcorder is still working so you can transfer them to the new digital formats we use today.

(Source) Dvice

In case you’re not looking for a new Blu-ray player then how about getting a HDD/DVD recorder? What if Toshiba were to make it? The company has launched two new machines, the RD-E304K and the RD-E1004K. These recorders come with a 320GB and a 1TB, respectively, hard drive and they also offer HDMI and LAN connectivity. The recorders will be available sometime in August and they will cost $500 or $650, depending on your storage needs. Interested?

via Toshiba

The Seagate BlackArmor PS 110 is a high speed USB hard drive featuring 500 GB. It is one of the newest to hit markets and has received high ranks thus far. It features one of the top data speeds in the industry and is slim and small, easy enough to take with you no matter where you are going.

It also features preloaded backup software and a big 5 year warranty. Another nice feature is the 256 bit security encryption.

The device is a bit more pricey than others ranging from $139 to $170 in price. Still, its speed and sleek design make it an attractive investment.

Recently, Iomega announced the launch of its new eGo HDD Range. Majority of the HDDs in this new range come powered by a single USB cable. The HDDs in this new range of Iomega also features EMC Retrospect Express for keeping the backup for all your data plus applications and settings.

eGo HDD Range from the house of Iomega features McAfee VirusScan Plus with a free six month subscription and anti-virus, anti-spyware, web security protection and 2-way firewall. These HDDs also incorporate Iomega QuikProtect, a backup software. This range comprises of 2.5-inch HDDs with aluminum shell.

The new eGo HDD Range from the house of Iomega is available in 4 colors, including, blue, black, silver and red. The price range for these HDDs starts from $85 for 250GB up to $135 for 500GB.

With so many storage solutions available today, no one comes close to achieving such a feat other than Seagate Technologies. Already a familiar icon in the world of hard disks, Seagate delivers another product in the OpenTV PVR as one of the best PVR file systems available today.

Designed and built by OpenTV specifically for PVR use and as a component of OpenTV’s complete PVR solution, OpenTV’s Streaming File System (SFS) dictates how video, metadata and other information is written to the hard disk to optimize performance and maximize the life of the drive in the PVR set-top, reducing the likelihood of end user issues and PVR returns.

Testing was conducted by the Seagate Technology System Integration Engineering Lab using a DVR featuring a Seagate Pipeline HD hard disk, which captured the behavior of the file system during a 120-minute simultaneous dual-record and playback session of high definition video content. This test represents the high-end workload that a home theater environment can experience. The test results showed that OpenTV’s SFS delivered excellent performance at the set top box level and could also prolong the life of the hard drive in the field, potentially reducing the number of PVR and hard disk returns.

OpenTV’s PVR solution is one of the many advanced television services that OpenTV’s technology enables. It has been deployed with leading pay-TV operators worldwide bringing the PVR experience to millions of television viewers around the globe.

(Source) Press

If you’ve ever wanted to check what’s on TV while on the run and just so happen to subscribe to DirecTV and have an iPhone (or iPod touch), you’re in luck! DirecTV has recently announced that their appropriately branded App has hit Apple’s App Store, fo’ free.

This piece of software has quite a bit of functionality, you’ll be able to search all sorts of information on shows up to 14 days in advance, but here’s the cool part. You can program your home DirecTV DVR from your iPhone to record full episodes or full series.

Imagine, a show is on while you’re at work, just tap record on your iPhone and watch it when you get home, genius.

Read (DirecTV)

Here are the new SSD Monsters from Japan. The PhotoFast G-Monster V4 SLC is an array of 32GB, 64GB and 128GB SATA hard drives. The 2.5-inches type disks feature a 64MB cache and superb data transfer rates. The SSD Monsters can read data at 270MB/s and writes at 190MB/s. The 32GB version is available for 475USD and the 64GB model carries a price worth 860USD. The price quotes for other models of the series are yet to be declared.

For the techies out there who want a piece of new devices in the market, make sure you don’t overlook this one. Western Digital recently unveiled a WDTV Media Player. The WDTV box lets your HDTV play media transferred from any USB storage device (flash drive or external hard drive), without any need for a streaming network device to bridge the distance from your storage drive or PC to the TV.

The WDTV can connect to any standard-definition or high-definition television; it has composite audio/video connectors and HDMI, as well as optical audio output. The WDTV’s two USB ports–one at front, one at back–let you keep two storage devices connected to the player simultaneously.

Setup is minimal: You hook the WDTV up to your TV, power it up, plug in a USB storage device, and you’re set. The device finds your content in real time, and displays it in specific categories. The WDTV displays media in a grid layout with a thumbnail icon (or album art for music) and the title at the bottom. Navigating items is simple and works as expected, though I would have liked the option to view items in a list instead. The WDTV does offer a few playback options. When viewing photos, for example, you can zoom in on photos and pan around, and you can create slideshows. Pressing the option key during playback will bring up these image controls, or similar controls for music or video playback.

Price: $110.00

(Source) Washington Post

Apricorn has recently unveiled its new Aegis Mini External Hard Drive. This newly launched 1.8-inch 240GB drive is said to be the world’s largest capacity hard drive. It is capable of running at 4200RPM and incorporates a 2MB buffer memory.

Apricorn’s Aegis Mini External Hard Drive is also available in 80GB, 160GB and 240GB storage capacities. Out of these two models are available, one is with FireWire interface and another with USB 2.0 that is $10 cheaper that the first one.

Measuring 17mm x 68.5mm x 86mm in dimensions, this new Apricorn Aegis Mini 1.8-inch 240GB External Hard Drive weighs just 3.7 oz. Apricorn Aegis Mini External Hard Drive is priced at $149, $189 and $269 for 80GB, 120GB and 240GB respectively with USB 2.0. While with a Firewire interface, the same drives are priced at $159, $199 and $279 respectively.

Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., one of the global leaders in digital consumer electronics, has launched its new 1.5TB EcoGreen F2EG Hard Drive Disk. Providing the user with an increased recording capability and reduced number of discs, this new drive comes packed with latest features.

Samsung’s 1.5TB EcoGreen F2EG Hard Drive Disk provides low power consumption due to its EcoTriangle, a low power and low noise operation technology. Moreover, its advanced design reduces the power consumption up to 40% in standby mode and 45% in reading and writing mode. This new disk also complies with many environmental regulations.

The new 1.5TB EcoGreen F2EG Hard Drive Disk is ideal for external hard disks as well as desktop PC. It features 3.0 gigabytes per second Serial Advanced Technology Attachment interface and 16MB/32MB buffer memory. This disk is presently available at a price of $149.00.

Iomega DVR drives are now compatible with Pace Americas cable set-top boxes and digital video recorders as announced by Iomega which is an acknowledged leader in data protection.

Hailed by WIRED.com as “the perfect solution to your HD storage problem,” the 500GB* Iomega DVR Expander Drive adds storage capacity for eSATA-enabled DVRs, allowing cable TV customers to record and enjoy more of their favorite cable TV and movie broadcasts.

The Iomega DVR Expander Drive expands users’ digital video recorder (DVR) storage capacity by as much as 300 hours of standard-definition TV or 60 hours of high-definition TV. The Iomega DVR Expander Drive also enables certain Pace Americas cable set-top boxes without an internal hard drive to function as a full featured DVR.

Pace is the latest set-top box manufacturer to certify compatibility with Iomega’s DVR Expander Drive. Pace provides millions of cable set-top boxes to operators throughout North, Central and South America.

(Source) Press

We should really get used to these all-in-one computers. We’re probably going to have more of those in the future, and who knows, our upcoming big screen TVs might have a fully functional computer inside. Today we’re looking at the Gateway ZX2300 all-in-one computer which has Acer written all over it.

This PC comes with a decent 18.5-inch screen with a 16:9 aspect ratio and a 1366 x 768 resolution. To make everything run smoothly we have an AMD Athlon 2650e processor, 1GB of RAM, and a 160GB hard drive. WiFi, webcam and a Lightscribe DVD burner are also worth being mentioned. We don’t have official release dates yet and there aren’t any prices available yet but we should expect to pay $530 for this one.

via techtickerblog