Archive for the ‘Home audiovisual’ Category
TV Tuner cards, Tivo, DVR’s are of great convenience allowing you to record your favorite programs for later viewing. But what if you are on the move and want to watch the latest episode of Family Guy which was just shown. Sounds impossible, well not if you are in Japan and have the IO-Data GV-MVP terrestrial broadcaster installed on your PC. What installed this nifty card can record your favorite programs and using NTTDoCoMo’s FOMA service you can check whats recorded and even set the recording from your mobile phone hundreds of miles away. What’s more once you have selected the recording you can watch it on your mobile phone in real time as it is streamed from your PC. This service costs a measly 525 Yen ($ 5) per month.
Samsung today followed up its HDTV announcements with word of its MediaLive add-on. The attachment requires one of Samsung’s sets made in 2008 with CEC automation support but mostly eliminates the need for a media hub such as the Apple TV or the Roku Netflix Player; a compatible TV has direct access to movies from MovieLink and Vongo as well as shorter-form content from Fox Sports and Showtime TV. Streaming Internet radio stations from XM are also available.
MediaLive also turns the TV into a viewing point for local content, Samsung adds. The hub acts as a media extender for Windows Vista’s Media Center and will play H.264, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, and WMV videos at up to 1080p, including with Dolby AC3 surround sound. It also handles multiple common audio formats and JPEG photo viewing. A single PC can serve as many as five Samsung TVs depending on the material.
The new network attachment connects through either its integrated Ethernet connection or else an internal 802.11n Wi-Fi receiver. Samsung ships the MediaLive in tune with its newest round of TVs in August and prices it at $200.
Music fans tend to have vast libraries of digital tracks stored on their computers and PMPs like the iPod. Samson has announced a pair of new StudioDock systems that are aimed at users looking to hear their digital music from more than one device. The Samson StudioDock 3i features USB connectivity allowing users to play digital music libraries from their PCs on the speakers.
On the top of the StudioDock 3i is an iPod dock compatible with most iPod’s including the nano. The dock can sync, charge and allows for playback of music from the iPod. The StudioDock 3i has 3-inch magnetically shielded speakers with a 25mm silk dome high frequency driver. Power for the dock is 15 watts per speaker and the system features a front panel 3.5mm aux input, headphone output and volume control. The MSRP for the StudioDock 3i is $149 per pair. Samson also announced a StudioDock 4i that offers the same features but has 20W of power per speaker and larger 4.25-inch drivers.
RATOC system introduced new mini Wireless Audio amplifier for your computer, the RAL-AMP01. Our new mini-amplifier can be connected to a computer thanks to a 2.4GHz USB transmitter. This device provides a Data rate transfer of 4Mbps.
This Amplifier also provides an output power of 2×10Watts, an impedance of 8 Ω, a frequency response of 20Hz?20kHz(-0.3dB), features RCA input/output, a speaker output terminal, and Jack mini output (3.5mm).
Lastly, it measures 138×180×125mm for 2.6Kg and it should cost around 240€
Corega announced that they’ll release a new NAS enclosure supporting RAID0/1, the CG-NSC2100GT. You can insert two 3.5-Inches SATA I/II HDD.
Our new NAS features iTune Server in order to enjoy your music, video and is DLNA compatible. It also features USB Port, and Gigabit Ethernet interface.
You can get it with one optional HDD of 1TB.
It should cost around 240€….
The latest Giga Juke Hi-Fi systems are all about making music storage simple and flexible, without the need for a PC. The new NAS-E35HD and NAS-SC55PKE have made the Giga Juke the most flexible yet, by making it easy to store and listen to your tunes without any fiddly switches or hassle. What’s great about them too, is that they’ll both organise your music in their internal hard drives. Both systems have particular aspects in common such as, hard disc storage and high-speed copying from the built-in CD player, or external sources such as vinyl or PC to the HDD (Hard Disk Drive). They also have radio tuners and a dock for that infamous Apple device, the iPod. So, both stereos allow you to store all your tunes to its hard drive.
Clock Radios are one of those things we have to deal with. Sometimes it’s nice to have an alarm clock, say if you won the lottery and are waiting for the time to claim your loot. Other times, like Monday mornings, the alarm clock is a tool of Satan. At least if you have to deal with your alarm clock, it should be a cool alarm clock like the Philips digital frame and alarm clock.
Even cooler than that is Philips’ new AJL305/05 clock radio that has five 1.5-inch displays built-in. The displays can show five photos at 128 x 128 resolution and rotate them in a slideshow. The clock can also show a calendar and record voice messages for your family. Its internal memory allows for up to 20 photos and can record up to 2 minutes of audio. When it comes time to get up the clock can wake you to your music, FM radio or an alarm all with progressive volume. You upload images into the clock from a PC via USB.
At the International Planetarium Society meeting in Chicago, Carl Zeiss presented a novel type of video projector which by far surpasses the contrast offered by all existing projector solutions. The new VELVET projector has been designed for use in planetarium domes and other dome theaters. It is based on the DLP chip technology from Texas Instruments, and while projectors from other manufacturers feature a contrast ratio of only 30.000:1, the new projector achieves a ratio that is larger by a factor of 83, i.e. 2.500.000:1…
Denon’s AV amplifiers equipped with HDMI1.3 interface, the AVC-1909 & AVC-1509, will be available at the end of July.
The first one provides an output power of 7×140 Watts (6?), features 3 HDMI input / 1 HDMI output supporting 1080p video signals, uses the 32bit DSP and it can reproduce the latest audio codec such as Dolby True HD, DTS-HD Master Audio… 499€
Brando has been launching new SATA HDD docks at a furious pace recently. Its latest dock does what you expect by allowing you to insert a SATA drive into it and use it as external storage. However, its new SATA HDD Multimedia Dock now combines the function of the traditional USB SATA dock with a media center.
The HDD dock supports both 2.5-inch SATA HDD and 3.5-inch SATA HDDs and connects to the PC via USB 2.0. The device supports MPEG-1/2/4, XviD, Divx 3.11/4.x/5.x video formats and MP3, WMA, and WAV audio. Image formats include JPEG, BMP, and GIF. And outputs for AV connectivity include AV out, S-video and component video. The dock doesn’t seem like it supports optical for surround sound though. The dock retails for $84.00, $25.00 of which is the shipping cost.