Niveus goes consumer-level with tantalizing Zone HTPC
Filed under: Media PCs, Others
Each year at CEDIA, we’ve been downright floored with Niveus‘ lineup. Unfortunately, it’s out of reach for the vast majority of “mainstreet” dwellers. At long (long!) last, the company has decided to expand its reach and offer a product for the blue collars in America, and on paper, the Zone looks like a real champ in the flagging HTPC arena. Measuring in at 6.5- x 6.5- x 1.97-inches, this 3.2 pound box packs an awful lot of media playing oomph into a ridiculously small enclosure. Specs wise, we’re looking at a 2GHz Core 2 Duo T5750 CPU… Continue reading
HDTV Listings for April 1, 2009
Filed under: ABC, ESPN-HD, Fox, HDNet, NBC, Listings
What we’re watching tonight:
- Fox (720p) has Lie to Me at 8 p.m. and American Idol at 9 p.m.
- Comedy Central (1080i) has South Park at 10 p.m.
- NBC (1080i) brings Life at 9 p.m. and Law & Order at 10 p.m.
- ABC (720p) queues up Scrubs at 8 p.m., Better Off Ted at 8:30 p.m., Lost at 9 p.m. and the series finale of Life on Mars at 10:02 p.m.
- FX (720p) has the season finale of Damages at 10 p.m.
- Sci Fi (1080i)
Emulator runs Wii games in 720p while we wonder what might have been
Filed under: Other hardware
Using PCs to do what Nintendon’t, YouTube user renebarahona is running Wii games in HD resolutions through the Dolphin emulator. One peek at Super Smash Bros. Brawl in 720p is enough to make any of us wonder what a world where Nintendo didn’t hate HD (even yanking 480p capability from the Gamecube, we’re still not over that) would be like. These games aren’t merely upscaled like DVDs, they’re being rendered in a high resolution natively with extra anti-aliasing Xbox 360 BC-style, producing surprisingly crisp visuals. Check out the embedded videos after the break (remember to hit the HD button) for an example, including how to set… Continue reading
HDTV Listings for March 31, 2009
Filed under: ABC, CBS, The CW, Discovery-HD, ESPN-HD, Fox, NBC, TNT-HD, Listings
What we’re watching tonight:
- CW (1080i) has Reaper at 8 p.m. and 90210 at 9 p.m.
- Fox (720p) has American Idol at 8 p.m
- TBS (1080i) has the season premiere of My Boys at 10:30 p.m.
- ABC (720p) has Dancing With the Stars at 9 p.m. and the series premiere of Cupid at 10:02 p.m.
- CBS (1080i) has NCIS at 8 p.m. followed by The Mentalist and Without a Trace
Panasonic DMP-BD60 Blu-ray player reviewed, are the new features worth it?
Filed under: Blu-ray, Players, Panasonic
Panasonic’s DMP-BD60 hits the scene as the successor to the well-received DMP-BD35, packing Viera Cast features on top of BD-Live capability in a slim (& more power efficient) package. CNET’s reviewers threw the new boss on their test bench and found a lot to like, while the Internet features weren’t flawless with some control issues on YouTube videos, however it lags the competition without wireless Internet capabilities. Picture quality was up to par, but it seems to have fallen off the pace compared to the latest offering from
Ion-based Acer Hornet nettop specs leak out: 1080p HDMI playback, Wii-like gaming, $299
Filed under: Media PCs
Well, well, what’s this? We just received a ton of information on that hot little Acer Hornet nettop we’d heard about a while back, and if this pile of documentation is as real as it looks, this thing could be the holy grail of cheap HTPCs — not only does it support 1080p video playback over HDMI, the “Media Center” version will indeed come with a Wii-like remote that can be used for gaming as well as media control. Specs look more than decent for the targeted $149-$299 price range: the low end model pairs what sounds like an Atom N230 with 1GB of RAM and an 80GB drive… Continue reading
Monsters vs. Aliens tops weekend box office, is this the big break for 3D?
After a massive promotional push, Monsters vs. Aliens early results are promising, with an estimated $58.2 million box office take over its opening weekend, 56% of that from people viewing the movie in 3D. Still, after dropping $175 million on worldwide promotions alone, you can bet Dreamworks Animation is expecting a bit more in the future to justify its investment, and carry over to its future films, which, if you haven’t forgotten will all be in 3D. Early reviews gave the 3D effects a much better rating than the Super Bowl ad, so… Continue reading
Samsung shows off new HT-WS1 soundbar
Filed under: Receivers, Speakers, Samsung
In addition to that new AS730 HTIB, Samsung’s kicking around a new soundbar audio system, which packages a 260W 2.1 setup (capable of virtual 5.1) with a sizable wireless subwoofer for the passable price of $350. The HT-WS1 is fairly diminutive as far as soundbars go, and is wall mountable if you’re into that. The bar is styled in Samsung’s “Touch of Color” grey and red to match your Samsung TV (you do have a Samsung TV, don’t you?), and the whole kit will be available in April.
Microsoft to Toshiba: with HD DVD, we go down together
Filed under: Industry, Blu-ray, HD DVD, Others
We’ve been looking for some new paper to turn here at the Engadget HD offices, and it looks like Marshall Phelps’ “Burning the Ships” may be our next purchase. Penned by a top Microsoft lawyer and co-authored by David Kline, the book lays out details on how Microsoft had decided to sink right along with Toshiba even as HD DVD took its last dying breath. Apparently Microsoft pledged its unconditional support for the format in hopes of winning a rare cross-license deal with a large… Continue reading
55-inch Vizio VF550XVT1A review reveals a sibling rivalry in the making
Filed under: Displays, Others, LCD
Anyone waiting around for CNET’s take on the 55-inch Vizio VF550XVT1A LCD can relax now that it’s hit the test bench to be judged against its peers. As it turns out, despite light black levels, funky bottom mounted soundbar and some motion processing quibbles, the biggest knock against this set is its own local dimming LED-backlit followup due to hit shelves in just a few more months (and don’t even get us started on the Connected HDTV due shortly after that.) Still, that two grand in your pocket won’t stimulate the economy by itself so check out the… Continue reading
Tranquil’s AVA RS5 is an all-in-one 5 bay server with Blu-ray burner, for a hefty fee
Filed under: Blu-ray, Media streamers, Others
Tranquil’s latest storage, the AVA RS5, has a pretty useful trick up its sleeve. While this five-bay drive system looks nearly identical to the company’s previous SQA-5H home server — and indeed, we’ve got the same dual core Atom 330 processor here — it’s also packing a disc drive that rips content straight to memory without needing to be attached to a PC. Music CDs are converted to high quality MP3s in about four minutes, and DVD and Blu-ray discs are straight copied over. Base price is… Continue reading
The early release of Bolt on Blu-ray caused more harm than good
Filed under: Blu-ray
We commend Disney on always trying new things to promote Blu-ray like the recent decision to release Bolt on Blu-ray two days before DVD. But just like in the comments of our weekly HD release post, it confused more people then it motivated to upgrade to Blu-ray. Evidently as a result of the confusion, employees at retailers all over the country were scratching their heads and ended up breaking the release date on the DVD version. Although we can totally understand the confusion, we figure the pain is over, so don’t stop now Disney! We don’t know about anyone else, but we really want to see this… Continue reading
Samsung’s 2009 HDTV lineup gets priced early
Filed under: Displays, Samsung, LCD, Plasma
While Samsung should confirm / deny all of this on Tuesday, those who simply can’t wait to crunch the numbers over the weekend while they’re already hammering out the 2008 taxes need look no further. The HDGuru has discovered MSRPs from Samsung’s absolutely gigantic 2009 line of LCD and plasma HDTVs, and he’ll be adding more as they flow in. Hit the read link to get an idea of what you’ll be forced to fork out when these ship out in the not-too-distant future, but don’t blow that tax refund all in… Continue reading
Engadget HD Podcast 129 – 03.25.2009
Filed under: Podcasts
There’s plenty to talk about this week, and we kick things off with a lot of internet-related discussion — Apple turned loose HD video purchases, Amazon has some HD TV show sales, and Netflix opened up its Facebook Connect program. After we ramp this all up to the long-term future of TV, we come back to reality with Windows Home Server’s inclusion of Media Center features — while not to the level of a true headless Media Center PC, this move might foreshadow (maybe not too-distant) future development of just such a kit. Microsoft certainly seems to keep up with support of the platformAleratec slashes prices of Blu-ray recording wares
Filed under: Blu-ray, Recorders
If you’ve been holding off on buying yourself a Blu-ray duplicator, bravo. Aleratec has just announced price drops of up to 65 percent on its 1:3 Copy Cruiser Blu LS LightScribe-enabled disc publisher and its 4x BD-R Blu-ray recording media. The former has seen a 25 percent dip down to $1,575, and for those unaware, it provides the ability to produce a trio of Blu-ray Discs at 6x each. The latter is potentially most riveting, with a 10-pack of “duplicator grade” BD-R media falling all the way down to $57.99 (MSRP). By our math, that’s under six bucks a disc, and that’s definitely hovering a… Continue reading
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