There has been a growing buzz that Microsoft will make a big announcement next week at CES in regards to the Xbox 360 and via The Escapist, it looks like Microsoft may license the platform  to other companies.  According to the article: 

According to a Joystiq report, Seattle Times columnist Brier Dudley has suggested Gates may announce that Microsoft “may be preparing to license the Xbox gaming platform to consumer electronics companies.” If true, outside manufacturers such as Toshiba could build Xbox 360-based gaming consoles that would also integrate other technologies, such as DVR capabilities and an HD-DVD drive. Toshiba is tied closely to the speculation due to previous rumors that the company was already at work on a new and more advanced Xbox system.

This could be a great move by Microsoft which has been struggling on the XBox hardware front with many hardware failures. While now the XBox brand is only associated with gaming, it has become more of a powerhouse for video playback including full support as an MCE extender, as well as a UPnP media streamer.

Next week will be interesting.

Once a person makes the leap and buys a high def television, they quickly come to the realization that standard definition video content looks ugly in comparison.   Providers of connected media players are all now trying to fill the void in their product lines by adding players that support high def content.  The Pinnacle ShowCenter 250HD is one of these players, and at a sub-$200 price point, it’s an attractive product. 

The 250HD supports a ton of video formats including WMV (including DRM), MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, XviD and can support up to a 1080i resolution.  It also has a nice selection of inputs including digital audio so it can accompany your home theatre setup rather easy.  The only input missing, which many people will miss, is HDMI but with other products in this price category such as the Netgear EVA700, this is par for the course. 

 

 The first thing I noticed about the product when I cracked open the box was how small it was.  It’s a bit bigger than a Nintendo Wii, but not by much and I appreciated the look of the box in my home theatre setup.   The one negative is the remote which feels pretty cheap and cheesy.  Many computer peripheral companies trying to enter the home entertainment market underestimate the value users place on the remote and it’s safe to say that Pinnacle didn’t spend much R & D to come up with something fancy.  It’s functional and gets the job done, but I think they added it in without much thought of how and where it would be used.

If you have a Windows PC with Window Media Player 10 or above, setup is a snap and I had streaming video within a couple minutes.  The user interface is functional but not revolutionary but it gets you to your content quickly without a lot of hoopla.  I threw a good set of video content at the 250HD, and for most formats, it handled it well.  I noticed some choppy audio in some of my 1080i wmv movie files, but by and large, it handled my video library well.  The one sore spot for me was AC3 audio, which it didn’t handle at all for me, at least using the standard stereo audio cables (it may very well support it through digital audio although the documentation on the Pinnacle website was spotty).

 

 

All in all, the ShowCenter 250HD is a good product, and at the sub $200 price point, it competes well against other products in the market. If you have a lot of video content on your PC server and want to throw up a lot of pixels on your big screen at a little price, the 250HD is worth considering.

Engadget spotted a new HD Media Streamer called EZFetch which sounds pretty cool from the specs. Available for $249 online, it supports a lot of formats and is capable of producing a 1080p output should you have 1080p content. It includes a DVI output with a HDMI adaptor included in the box. It also includes integration with Nokia NSeries phones, if that excites you in some metaphysical way.

Sounds like a cool product at a low price point; the world needs more media streamers with open standards to compete with the AppleTV.

Via DigitalMerging.la, Engadget has a nice primer on HDTV and it’s many different technologies that might effect your buying decision. It’s the first of a multi-part series, but I’ve already learned an important blogging tip from the article: don’t mess with Bea Arthur.

Extremetech.com has a nice primer for HDTV and the main technology options involved.

In another blow to plasma televisions, rumors have it that Sony will pull out of the plasma television market as soon as this next Spring. According to the article, the reason is business related; Sony doesn’t produce the plasma televisions so it can’t compete on price and the profit margins are eroding in the market. Regardless of whether Sony believes plasma has a future, the article then suggests that Sony simply dropping the product line will scare potential plasma customers away from adopting the technology.

The article also highlighted this forecast for the television industry:

According the independent research firm DisplaySearch, the global market for plasma TV sets will reach 5.14 million units in 2005, up 92% from 2.68 million this year. The LCD TV market is expected to double to 16 million units next year.

DisplaySearch predicts that sales of rear-projection TVs will total 6.82 million units in 2005, up 20% year-on-year. While sales of flat-panel sets are booming, traditional cathode-ray tube (CRT) models still make up about 90% of all TV sets sold worldwide.

I guess my old Sony CRT television isn’t that out of fashion yet. It may actually turn out to be retro chic.

Comcast’s HDTV DVR is now available in Tivo’s own backyard, the San Francisco Bay Area, according to the San Jose Merc. Comcast customers will be able to replace their exising set top box with the DVR for an additional $9.95 a month. According to the article, the Comcast unit, which can record 15 hours of HDTV (60 hours regular) is now available to 65% of it’s 21 million subscribers.

This is the moment of truth for the wife and I. It comes down to this: Do we upgrade our television to HDTV and go with Comcast or stick with our old television and our beloved Tivo? Without a standalone, affordable, HDTV Tivo, those are really our only two options. Unfortunately, I don’t think we’re the only ones having to make that choice.

Toshiba is going to introduce some really interesting technology for flat panel televisions next year using a technology called SED according to PC World. It’s supposed to be faster than other technologies like LCD and plasma, and just as bright as a CRT.

One interesting quote from the article is how Toshiba views the future for new technologies:

Toshiba is eyeing SED as a replacement technology for PDP panels, particularly for use in panels of around 40-inches or larger. The company has already begun laying plans to phase out production of PDP televisions in 2007. It plans to keep LCD panels in small and mid-size sets and use SED for larger sets.

If you believe Toshiba, plasma will be a dead technology in the long term.

The funny thing is that I’ve probably owned/used at least 25 new computers and 5 cars over the last 12 years, yet we still use my old Sony TV in our living room and my wife is becoming more amenable to upgrade to something better. The way technology is changing so quickly in consumer electronics, what’s the chance our next personal television is going to last 12 years before it becomes obsolete?

(Hat tip: DigitalMerging.la)

Philip Swann doesn’t think it looks good for HDTV satellite operator, Voom.

Via eHomeUpgrade, CinemaNow announced that it will add HDTV downloadable movies to its product offerings.

This is an excellent time for these services to gain traction in the market. With HDTV sales up and no standard developed to put HDTV on next generation DVD players, this is a good time to push the service because people are looking for content and options are few and far between.