Yes, we’re all still coming down from the Macworld announcements high and now we’re looking at the cold, hard reality of what we really got from this year’s Macworld. Take the AppleTV, for instance. Sure, you can use your iPod and navigate music and videos and even rent movies through it. It’s still quite expensive for not having any DVR capabilities or the ability to read media on a disc.

There’s a great alternative that you can use on your television to watch your videos and music from your iPod. The Tekkeon NavDock is (according to the official website) “a Home Media Center with On-TV Navigation for iPod.” The NavDock “lets you navigate your iPod through an on-TV menu to play videos, photos and music on a connected television.”

The NavDock also supports the following models of the iPod: Read the rest of this entry »

Bang and Olufsen, the Danish manufacturer of stylish AV gear, launches a bunch of new products this year at CES:

The BeoVision8 is a 32" LCD TV, which is new to the North American market this year. At $4000 B&O think their typical customer will see this as a secondary TV for the kitchen, game room etc but they’re also hoping that the price point will entice new consumers to the brand. They’re proud of the the sound quality on the set and I have to say they have a point; For a TV, it does sound very good indeed.

B&O have also applied their design flair to the ubiquitous MP3 player. With it’s polished steel and smoked glass facia, the BeoSound 6 looks the part. A 40 hour battery life makes it unique in the market and it ships with the A8 headphones.

Lastly, to tie your whole system together they give the universal remote a facelift with the Beo5 remote (pictured). If you’re a B&O customer you’ll want this. It brings together a full colour, customisable touch screen with some useful hard buttons. It learns the remote codes from your existing kit so it can control non B&O devices too. It’s not user-customisable – when you buy the remote you’ll also need to set up a consultation with your dealer, who will program it for you to your specifications.

So what is XstreamHD? Think HD PVR (1080p, 7.1 audio) with built in satellite decoder. Add in whole-house distribution via dedicated media receivers/gigabit ethernet. Toss in video on demand for the latest movies, sprinkle with 500GB of upgradeable storage and some really nice extras, and you have a pretty compelling product.

So let’s break that down. The XStreamHD system could be described as a media server but it’s much, much more. They’re selling a complete system that delivers 1080p content to your home via satellite and distributes it internally to wherever it’s needed. It’s completely PC independent, you just hook it up and go.

It’s pretty cheap too. For $399 you get XStreamHD server and one media receiver (price of the satellite dish has yet to be determined). The satellite beams 1080p content with 7.1 surround directly to the server, which sits out of the way in the garage (or wherever). The media receiver takes care of displaying the HD content on whatever TV it’s connected to.

The system will feed up to 4 media receivers at the same time in 1080p, each potentially watching something different.

The video-on-demand content is HD and they’re finalising various deals with content providers to ensure you can pre-order the latest movies for the day of release. The server will download the movies via satellite and store them so you can view them as soon as they’re available.

There’s more: If you have content in mpeg or H.264 format you can store it on the server and use their system to distribute it around the house. You can do the same with audio too – and they support my favourite lossless audio format FLAC, as well as MP3.

Got a PS3 in the game room? XStreamHD is DNLA certified, so it will use a PS3 for playback if you want.

The display adapter has a few tricks up it’s sleeve too. It’s fanless, meaning it’s completely silent. It also has a USB connector for your MP3 player so if you do have your music stored centrally and plug in the player, it will automatically convert your high quality music into MP3s.

The one downside I see is that the whole system runs over ethernet, meaning you have to run CAT5 around the house. This is unavoidable; it’s just not possible to do what they do with any other current technology. Personally I don’t have a problem with this, but I can see it being a stumbling block.

They’re launching in the USA in Q4 this year and have plans to come to Europe after that.

It’s no secret that Microsoft has been a big supporter of the HD DVD camp. The best example is the HD DVD player add-on for the Xbox 360. While it’s not something that comes standard with every system (unlike Sony’s PS3 which has a Blu-ray player in every console) they have chosen to offer only the HD DVD player, and providing no support for its competitor. This however, may change in the future.

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I’ve tried to stay out of the hi-def format war between Blu-ray and HD DVD. If I had to pick a side it would actually be HD DVD. My reasoning behind this decision is quite simple; you can get HD DVD players a lot cheaper than you can get a Blu-ray player. Sure, the choices of the major movie studios should be taken into consideration, but I think the real deciding factor will be a player that the average Joe can buy without breaking the bank. While standalone HD DVD players broke the $200 price barrier in time for the holiday season, Sony has announced the release of their first player to do the same.

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Last year I wrote about Neosonik, who were trumpeting a Wireless HD home theatre solution. Unfortunately they had show gremlins and couldn’t demonstrate the video at the time.

I went back today to check up on progress, and guess what? It really works. I saw "Casino Royale" in 1080p, coming from a blu-ray source. Let me recap that, in case you glossed over it: 1080p high definition video with audiophile grade 5.1 surround (the system supports 7.2), without wires. OK, so you do need to run power to the speakers but that’s it.

The unassuming plastic box in the photo is the picture receiver module which plugs into the HDMI port on the TV. Range is about 200 feet.

Neosonik are running a few demo systems here at CES in adjacent rooms, which not only demonstrates that they actually have a working and reliable product but also that they can run in close proximity without interference. Handy if your neighbour gets one too!

Availability and price? Sometime this year, and since they’re going after the high-end market you can probably expect a price tag with 5 figures when it comes out.

SE2 labs think that high-end custom installs are getting too complicated. If you go it alone you’ve got a bewildering array of choices when it comes to amplifiers, video processors, projectors, sound sources etc and that’s before you’ve tried to make them all talk to each other.

So they’ve done the hard work for you. Take a large box that wouldn’t be out of place in a high-tech computer room. Fill it full of best-of-breed technology (Bryston amplifiers, high def TiVo etc). Make a customised interface to control it all and Voila, you get "The One".

The full list of toys is too long to repeat and includes mechanical as well as electronic devices. Think power conditioners, cable management, anti-vibration systems, your choice of game console, media center PC… the list is endless.

It looks great, it costs $24K and it has a space for you to plug in your iPod. What are you waiting for?

Originally releasing their catalog in both formats to meet consumer demands for choice, Warner Brothers announced today that all future HD releases in DVD will be exclusively in the Blu-ray format. The movie is a stunning blow in the protracted format wars which has stalled market saturation of the high definition format and kept prices higher as a result.

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