HD Beat

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  • P2POD pimps P2P HD content

    We're thinking that companies are just starting to mash-up popular buzzwords just for now. Take the P2POD from AHT International, play a little "Wheel of Fortune", buy a vowel and combine "P2P" with "iPod" and whaddya get: we're not sure other than a mash-up name. The P2POD is touted as an HDTV device, but we don't think you'll be watching any broadcast, cable or satellite on this. No, the P2POD looks like a peer-to-peer vessel to get high-def and other audio or video content from the Internet. There's no display, just a box with 64MB of RAM, an HDMI port, and a video decoder. There are more hardware buzzwords on the product page, but even more interesting is the MyMo Media service that provides an interface and content database. It also provides a nominal subscription fee, so we'll likely pass.[via Engadget]

    Kevin C. Tofel
    02.16.2006
  • Pioneer's BDP-HD1 Blu-Ray player works with Windows Media Connect

    No, we haven't seen the expected BDP-HD1 Blu Ray player from Pioneer since CES, but might have overlooked an interesting feature. Aside from full 1080p output, the BDP-HD1 will also work natively with Windows Media Connect, which opens the door to additional content in the flavors of MPEG-2, MPEG-4 AVC, WMV, MP3 and more. According to Pioneer, the BPD-HD1 will also support the PlaysForSure platform from Microsoft. As happy as we are with this additional info, we have to ask: what's with all this Microsoft stuff working on a Blu-Ray machine? Didn't they "back" the HD-DVD crowd?

    Kevin C. Tofel
    02.16.2006
  • HDTV Listings for February 16, 2006

    What we're watching: There are some good gold-medal finals on tonight, so we'll cut the networks some slack for their repeats or HD no-shows (that means you Fox). We'll tune in to Torino for medal matchups in men's figure skating, snowboarding, team pursuit speedskating and women's skeleton, even though that event still gives us the shivers. Grab a blanket, some mittens and a hat to join us for the Olympics on NBC at 8 p.m. in 1080i or some other funky converted format thanks to your local programming provider.Our traditional high-def listings continue below.

    Kevin C. Tofel
    02.16.2006
  • Sharp's PN-655 1080p 65-inch LCD

    Look out plasma, the big LCDs are on their way! Sharp super-sizes their latest 1080p LCD, the PN-655, to provide a whopping five-foot, five inch diagonal display. Don't rush to the local electronics retailer, these are just hitting Japan next month and they're really geared towards corporate and professional crowd because every office should have 1920 x 1080 progressive videoconferences. Not many other details in the official press release that we translated from Japanese, but the new monster LCD is said to have a 700:1 contrast. More to follow unless we see the price in the "you don't want to know" category.Read (Japanese) [via i4u]

    Kevin C. Tofel
    02.16.2006
  • Interview with TiVo's E. Stephen Mack - Thomas Hawk

    While we lunch on leftovers in front of our HD sets, Thomas Hawk gets to have lunch with E. Stephen Mack, the Director of Service Operations for TiVo. Hey, it's fair: Thomas had the moxie to call TiVo out on their apparent half-hearted attempt at corporate blogging. It's all good now since the two wise men have met over munchies in San Fran. Among the interesting tidbits of info: Stephen was one of the first 70 or so TiVo employees, so we figure he's been with the company for a good six or seven years; it started in 1999 if we recall correctly. The new standalone TiVo Series 3 unit, you know the high-def DVR, appears to be undergoing some pre-public beta testing, but no word on a release yet. Here's hoping it's within the next six months as HD adoption is really hitting its stride. No word on additional CableCARD support details, but some exciting info on plug-in development to extend the TiVo for RSS or other web-based applets. Overall, this was a great read, but since we don't get out much, how about a little more deets on the menu items next time, 'kay?

    Kevin C. Tofel
    02.16.2006
  • LCoS shootout continues with part three

    The LCoS round up continues with part three of four over at ExtremeTech. In the latest installment, we get to the good stuff: test pattern analysis and viewing opinions from the 34 lucky dogs that got their peepers on the five test sets. Right up front, all but one of the sets in the shootout get a grade of "A" or "A-" for the test pattern evaluations. JVC's HD-61Z886 consumer edition set shown above scored a "B-" here,due to some artifacting that didn't appear on the rest of the bunch as well as a 4% overscan issue. The same general grading results followed suit in the viewing tests and it's worth a note that JVC's profession edition, the DLA-HRM1, came out on top here with the highest marks. Then again, with a list price of $44,995, it should have, since it's actually a reference monitor.

    Kevin C. Tofel
    02.16.2006
  • Mitsubishi's laser projection RPTV

    Oh, go ahead and throw out that DLP bulb that burned out early, why don't you. Mitsubishi might make that expensive bulb obsolete by developing the first rear-projection television that uses a laser as its primary light source.According to the company, the laser can be split into red, blue and green colors in a way that provides up to 1.8 times more color variety than current LCDs in a package no deeper than current RPTVs in the Mitsubishi line, which is about 26-centimeters. Actually, you'll need that bulb for another two years, so go dig it out of the trash; the company figures it will take a solid two years before the manufacturing process is cost feasible. We're OK with the wait; it gives them time to figure out how to split off some of the blue portion of the laser for built-in next-gen DVD integration, right?

    Kevin C. Tofel
    02.15.2006
  • Itiva speeds HD downloads with Quantum Streaming

    While we struggle to shoot high-def content via WiFi, start-up company Itiva is laughing behind our backs with their Quantum Streaming technology. Itiva demonstrated their method by pulling down a 720p movie trailer in just seconds over a 5.5 Mbps pipe; considerably smaller than the 19.39 Mbps we're using to fling movies. Even better yet, the trailer started playing as a stream instead of waiting for the full download. Itiva believes their new approach can download a 1.5 hour high-def movie in less than ten minutes, which is less time than standing in an actual movie ticket line for less res.Itiva takes the content and breaks it down into smaller HTTP-based pieces called "Quanta" that can be cached by ISPs to speed up the perceived download rate. With some public applications of the technology coming within the next month or two, this could be just what Hollywood needs.

    Kevin C. Tofel
    02.15.2006
  • NBC Olympics HD coverage from an insider

    The "HD Engineer," as he's known, has just fired up a blog providing behind the scenes info and pics at the Torino Olympics. HD Engineer is a broadcast engineer working with NBC on the high-def coverage and has some tidbits o' info on what's really happening with the coverage. There's not much content on the blog yet (so we'll be watching), and we mostly knew this anyway: TOBO is the host broadcaster providing coverage to other venues without any commentary. Filming is mostly in HD, but some is in 16:9 digital SD. The uncompressed coverage is 1.5 Gbps. Different distribution methods are clearly varying the content quality. Check out the blog for some pics you wouldn't normally get a chance to see, such as the Master Control room and a map of the International Broadcast Center.

    Kevin C. Tofel
    02.15.2006
  • HDTV Listings for February 15, 2006

    What we're watching: Hmm...new episode of "Lost" on ABC or the third night in a row of the "Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show" on Universal-HD at 7 p.m. (and then yet again at 10 p.m.)? I'm thinking we'll go with "Lost" at 9 p.m. in 720p. What, you don't want to watch prancing puppies or prolific plots? No problem, because you won't see either of those in "Resident Evil: Apocalypse" on HBO-HD at 8 p.m. in 1080i. Of course, if you record the 2004 movie on a WMCE device, you might not get to see it at all.Our traditional high-def listings continue below.

    Kevin C. Tofel
    02.15.2006
  • AACS still not finished: is this intentional?

    That's the word according to German mag heise; apparently disagreement from within the Blu-ray Disc Association over how AACS and BD work together means no high definition DVD formats yet. Beyond just noting the delay, they also dropped a few dimes on what we can expect from managed copy: the content holder gets to decide how many copies can be made and any device they are copied to requires an Internet connection for verification. Microsoft's COPP (Certified Output Protection Protocol) makes sure you're actually watching a movie and not dumping the video to a file, after which that HDCP-compliant videocard that doesn't exist yet finally lets you play HD-quality content on your monitor.I really have to wonder, is the BDA that far apart on the DRM issue, or is there any possibility that this is intentional to delay the launch of HD-DVD, which was supposed to debut last year but can't until AACS is finished. Being the first mover was part of HD-DVD's advantage in the face of Blu-ray's greater storage capacity but that continues to shrink and may even be nonexistent by the time they launch. I'll tell you what though Toshiba, how about we just forget the whole AACS, DRM thing? We won't tell if you won't.

    Richard Lawler
    02.15.2006
  • SavRow AXEN-X1 notebook with dual GPUs but no WMCE

    We got all excited thinking that the SavRow AXEN-X1 notebook would make a sweet mobile DTV solution, but as we dug a little more the disappointment set in. The $4,000 system sports dual NVIDIA Go 7800 GTX graphics cards paired with a 19-inch widescreen display capable of 1680 x 1050 pixels. Sounds promising for some expensive 720p high-def right? Then we hit the system configurator because if we're willing drop four-grand, why not go all in?Unfortunately, there's no option to upgrade from Windows XP Home Edition to Windows Media Center Edition, so it logically follows why we didn't see an option for a DTV tuner either. Clearly the AXEN-X1 is geared towards gamers, but at that price you can snag an Xbox 360 and have enough left over for three 34-inch widescreens from Sony. Maybe it's just us, but perhaps the DTV tuner inclusion rule should start applying to these monster notebooks and not just televisions.[via i4u]

    Kevin C. Tofel
    02.15.2006
  • DTV tuner added to Nintendo DS in Japan

    Nintendo is adding a digital tuner to their beloved DS over in Japan. No word if they plan on releasing it over here in the States, but let's hope they do. Japan is saturated with more over-the-air digital signals and a different system then we have though. This brings back fond memories of the Game Gear and their TV tuner. That tuner was of course a normal NTSC tuner that pulled in a nice snowy picture; but boy was it sweet! Come on Nintendo, release an ATSC tuner over here.

    Matt Burns
    02.15.2006
  • Restricted content and hardware DRM

    So wouldn't it totally blow if you recorded an over-the-air program only to later see a "Restricted Content" error message when you decided to watch it? It hasn't happened via ATSC yet (that we know of), but it just happened to Ed Bott with some HBO recordings. Before we throw everyone in a tizzy, there's no new evil DRM at work here. Turns out there's some old evil DRM at work here: within WMCE, if you change hardware, the DRM system may not exactly work correctly. We mentioned this concern last year when discussing Microsoft Vista, but we didn't expect it to bite us in WMCE 2005. If you do something radical, you know, like update your WMCE with a new graphics card, you might want to check out the workaround.

    Kevin C. Tofel
    02.15.2006
  • Poll: over 50% are watching more Olympics due to HD

    We kicked off our poll earlier in the week and we'll run it through the weekend, but it's interesting how many of you are watching more Olympic programming than planned due to the high-def coverage. Granted, this site focuses on HD and you all have an interest in HD, but that's why we didn't ask the basic "will you be watching the Olympics in HD?" question. There's still plenty of time to vote, so go ahead and click the button!

    Kevin C. Tofel
    02.15.2006
  • MythTV update available

    MythTV, a Linux-DVR alternative to WMCE that supports HDTV via over-the-air, just announced a sizable upgrade. Version 0.19 has an abundant list of features and fixes, so we won't bore you with the full list; you can read it while you download the latest and greatest version. Actually we'll share one just because use a similar function on the Xbox 360 as a Windows Media Extender: a popup keyboard so you don't have to use the remote for text input. And then there's the new support for DTS passthrough audio. Don't forget the signal monitoring support. Oh wait, we said we weren't going to hit you with the list...[via eHomeUpgrade]

    Kevin C. Tofel
    02.15.2006
  • Engadget: How to scale video

    The talented Engadget crew has a fantastic tutorial showing you how to build your own HD video scaler. The pic above shows a before (clearly on the left) and after (even more clear on the right) using the DIY setup. Descaler is the free software app that the Engadget team uses, so you'll want to download that when you get a chance. If you've got a home theater PC with a capture card like we do, just follow the simple steps and you'll increase video quality on your PC in a simple and painless way. Note: This pics above are from a VHS copy of Titanic by by Mark Rejhon.

    Kevin C. Tofel
    02.14.2006
  • Queen HD concert celebrates 30 years of "Bo Rhap"

    Just think, when Queen hit the charts with "Bohemian Rhapsody" thirty years ago, black and white televisions were still lingering around. HDTV back then? That was still being researched by NHK until it hit Japan in the early '80s. No, it was a simple time back then and if you plan ahead, you can relive it somewhat, this Friday night in high-definition. RAVE-HD, one of the VOOM channels, is premiering an HD recording of Queen's 2005 concert from Sheffield. This your chance to see the band with Paul Rodgers standing in for the irreplaceable Freddie Mercury, before they head across the pond for their US tour starting on March 3rd. The 1080i presentation kicks off at 9 p.m. while there will be encore performances throughout the weekend of "Bo Rhap" and other fan faves."Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? Caught in transition, must escape from SDTV...."

    Kevin C. Tofel
    02.14.2006
  • Independent moviemakers do have an HD-DVD option

    Although some people appear to really not like HD-DVD, Pacific Disc has announced that they will be ready to replicate HD-DVD discs for smaller independent producers by this spring. Toshiba expects to have players out in March, while Microsoft is launch their HD-DVD add-on for the Xbox 360 later this year.Just as Erik Hansen championed Blu-ray for it's size and the back of Sony's Playstation 3, Pacific appears to be throwing their hat in with HD-DVDs cost and Xbox 360. Only time will tell who is making the right choice.

    Richard Lawler
    02.14.2006
  • Best Valentines Day Gift Ever

    Right about now is the time for you to look at your S.O. and evaluate your relationship based on how their gift compares to this one. This Massachusetts resident actually won a store opening contest last fall after being nominated by her boyfriend, but the prizes were delivered only a couple days ago. Samsung was courteous enough to come through with several DLP HDTVs for the winner of the "helpful people" contest at Bernie's.Quick relationship test, show this picture to your Valentine and see if they react more quickly to the chocolates or the TVs. If it's that sweet 1080i loving that gets them going, marry them, thats a keeper.

    Richard Lawler
    02.14.2006