Later this month marks the release of the Sony PlayTV, a Tivo-esque HDTV recorder that hooks to your PS3 and records television to the PS3’s hard drive. They’ll be asking $169.95, at least in Australia, and can actually be used to record TV while the Playstation is actually playing games or Blu-ray discs.
Even more interesting, the PSP will work like a remote for the system, similar to how Apple uses the iPod touch or iPhone as a remote on its own stuff.
This has actually been something of a bit of vaporware for the Aussies, who’ve been waiting on this one since the start of 2009, but Sony made a bit of a splash when they put the announcement that this would come out in the second half of 2009 in writing. Will it actually make it to market? Time will tell, but not much of it.
The T3 Gadget of the Year went to none other than the Humax Foxsat HDR, a gadget that even got me doing a double take when I first read about it.
The Humax Foxsat HDR is a set-top box for your home theater, allowing you to access Freesat, a satellite TV network where there are a hundred and forty television and radio channels available entirely for free. There is a downside to this box, though–the HD channels are unavailable ot current users, and when the HD programming (like ITV HD and BBC HD) actually becomes available, users will have to get an entirely new settop box.
I hadn’t even heard of Freesat before this–mostly because it seems like this thing’s big only in Great Britain and possibly only Europe–and the thought of largely free television is definitely an appeal. Here’s a channel listing if you’re considering overthrowing your cable or dish provider for a crack at Freesat.
So in case you haven’t heard, Californian gadget buffs, there’s a push on in Sacramento to ban certain types of big screen TV that use too much energy. Of course, by “certain types”, I mean roughly a quarter of all TVs in production today and every single plasma TV over sixty inches. Needless to say, the people are not happy about this, and small businesses are firing back also, but perhaps the worst news came today with a simple pronouncement from Wired Magazine’s Gadget Lab that declared that such a law would be useless within two years, as “energy hogging TVs” would be gone by then anyway, thrown over in favor of LCD and “greener” TVs.
Basically, California’s planning to blow a bunch of money it doesn’t have to make a law it can’t enforce that’ll be rendered moot in two years anyway when the kind of TV it would ban can’t be found on the market.
Way to go, California legislature! Best start checking the want ads–come November I’d be plenty of you will be run out on a rail.
Congratulations, folks–America is now officially the Land of the Geek. We’re a nation of total gadget addicts, or so says a study from Forrester Research. Here are some highlights from said study, which surveyed 53,668 households in the United States and Canada by mail:
Half are gamers.
Sixty-three percent have a broadband Internet connection.
Three-quarters have cell phones and PCs.
Ten million American households added an HDTV in the last year.
It’s clear, folks–we love our tech. Whether we want to chronicle the growth of our children or just have some fun after work, we turn straight for boxes of plastic and metal to handle that. This survey makes a lot of sense given that our economy is somewhere around seventy percent consumer-driven, and consumers have to have something to buy. It’s small wonder we turn to devices that save labor or entertain.
Okay, so everyone pretty much knows by now that Sony’s dead last in the console wars, right? The Xbox 360 has games that the PS3 will never see in a million years and the Wii is so singularly outrageous that anything either does in that direction will be derided as just copying. So what’s poor Sony to do?
Well, if you’re Sony, you start developing a line of Bravia TVs that can display in 3-D, special glasses and all. And offer Playstation 3 support for same. Not to mention Vaio and Blu-ray support, too.
Now this, much like the desperate last-ditch doomsday weapons the Nazis were constantly coming up with back in the 1940s, just might be what Sony needed. Imagine a first person shooter so realistic that the monsters lunge out at you directly. Think about your first go-round with a Resident Evil installment…and how you would have felt had one of those things jumped out at you.
It SOUNDS cool, at least on the surface. The only real question will be how the execution goes off. And especially, given the down economic climate, if anyone cares enough to replace a perfectly good TV with a brand-new Sony Bravia in 3-D. They’ll start showing up next year, so you know we’ll keep our eyes front.
It’s not secret that Vizio has become the 500 pound gorilla in the room. They went from being perceived as the Costco ‘cheapo brand’ to the best selling flat panel TV manufacturer in the last few years. And now they’re stepping up their game by integrating a number of Internet Apps into their soon to be released high performance XVT HDTV range. The WiFi enabled sets will be able to stream content from Amazon Video On Demand, Blockbuster On Demand, Showtime, Vudu, Netflix, Pandora and Rhapsody and access web content on sites such as eBay, Facebook, RadioTime, Revision3, Rallypoint Sports and Twitter. The sets will also support Adobe Flash and Yahoo’s Widget engine to access additional Internet related apps and more robust content.
Available in sizes ranging from 32 to 55-inches, the 2009 Vizio XVT TV line up will also include a robust Bluetooth remote control with a full slide out QWERTY keyboard that should make navigating the the wide array of Internet apps a breeze. Vizio has also managed to squeeze in 120hz and 240hz refresh technology as well as TruLED and Smart Dimming features (select models) to produce an even better picture.
Expect select sets to arrive this July with others rolling out in September, October and November. Pricing starts at $749 but check the press release after the ‘leap’ for the full price and release break down.
If you’re like me you haven’t completely made the transition to a true HD experience. By that I mean you’re still not utilizing HDMI and instead have opted for component. Honestly, I don’t know if I could tell the difference between the two, but Gefen is willing to get you one step – actually more like a half of step – closer with the Gefen HDMI over RGB Extender. Actually, and probably more importantly, it also lets you extend your HDMI reach by up to 330 feet using just RGB plugs. The box supports 7.1 digital surround sound audio as well as HDMI v1.3 features, including deep color, lip sync, Dolby TrueHD and DTS Master Audio formats. No word on a price or launch date, but I’m checking now. It’s available now for $599.
The streaming set top box battle is most certainly heating up. Yesterday, Netflix announced that the Roku box is now compatible with Amazon’s Video on Demand service. Today, Zillion TV unveiled its set top box that provides streaming, on demand content in exchange for watching ads. But not just any ads. In fact, you select the ads you want to see. Don’t want ads? Then just drop some cash. I’ll go with ads, though.
Zillion TV has agreements in place with not only content creators (Disney, Universal, etc), but with ISPs, such as Comcast and Timewarner. Smart, because one of the inherent challenges that Netflix and those of the streaming type are sure to face is opposition from the ISPs who will cap and ultimately control how much bandwidth a subscriber receives, hence the whole Net Neutrality battle that has been going down.
So what is exactly Zillion TV? They’re essentially a VOD TV service. That means instead of tuning into 30 Rock (one of my favorite shows and big props to Lemon) you ‘demand it’. Simple, clean and easy. As mentioned, you’ll have to watch a preroll ad, or something to that affect, in exchange for the content. Sure, advertisers won’t get to hit you with ads every 7 minutes, but since you’ll select the ads types that you want to see they’ll be much more targeted and even better, at least for the ad companies, guaranteed to play – they’ll also be able to glean your watching habits into their ad targeting. Of note, the ISPs are now facilitating ‘ad skipping’ thanks to the millions of DVR boxes that have flooded the market so it only seems right politically savvy to offer a solution to the ‘fast forward’ button.
As for the technology behind the Zillion TV, you’re guess is good as mine. But, one very notable accessory included with the device is a motion sensing remote courtesy of Hillcrest Labs.
Currently, the Zillion TV VOD service (I think I’m coining it ‘TOD’ from here on out) boasts over 15,000 titles, which includes both movies and TV shows.
If you’d like to be notified of when the service is in your area just hit their site and sign up. I’ve got mixed feelings about the whole thing since signing onto this type of service might negate Netflix streaming. Then again, Netflix doesn’t offer live TV shows, so the Zillion TV service very well could be complimentary, assuming you exclude movies from the equation.
I’m sure anyone using HDMI at this point has noticed that the connection on regular cables just isn’t that secure. You’d think even expensive Monster Cable HDMI’s would provide a little more security. PPC’s new cable offering is a locking HDMI cable available at 3 lengths and promises to be 3 times stronger than your average HD cable. Other mouth watering features include: gold plated fins, 100% shielding, category 2 high speed compliance, and their special “Perfect Flex” jacket coating. The video below demonstrates the toughness of the PPC HDMI, but it’s not going to save any lives.
February 26th, 2009 9:35 PM | by Christen da Costa
Although we’ll never see these in the US, at least in this exact format, it’s still an interesting proposition. Panasonic’s DMR-BS850 and DMR-BS750 are Blu-ray writers, yes writer (or burner) with a dual digital satellite TV tuner compatible with the UK’s Freesat service. Inside each machine is a hard drive (500GB and 250GB respectively) and a USB and SD card port for watching or writing home recorded HD/SD files to a Blu-ray disc. Although Panasonic hasn’t made mention of price, speculation puts the the S850 at £1000, but expect more details to emerge when they launch this June.
In light of my crippled Time Warner box, I highly doubt we’ll see anything like this in the US, but you never know.
