It’s hard not to see the handwriting on the wall. Literally. But let’s recap. First, it was select studios announcing the dropping of HD DVD and focusing on the better selling Blu-ray line. Then, it was Best Buy announcing it would only sell Blu-ray. Then, Amazon announced a 50% off clearance on 150 HD DVD movies. Microsoft drops the price of their Xbox HD DVD add-on player to $129. But the real killer was when WalMart announced it would drop HD DVD effective in June. So what to do when the war is over? Toshiba finally raises the white flag.

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When I was a kid my parents would load my brother and I up into the car and take us to the drive-in theater to watch a couple of movies. I honestly enjoyed that more than I’ve ever really liked going to indoor theaters. Sure, there are more bugs, but there’s just something about being outside that makes it more fun. Unfortunately when I was still rather young it closed down, and I haven’t been to another since. If you’ve been longing for an outdoor movie experience like me, why not make your own? This projector screen would certainly come in handy for doing so.

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I still want to believe that HD DVD is going to pull out of its slump and emerge victorious. Sure, it’s a pipe dream, but I can still hope right? I figured that with the cheaper players, they were sure to come out on top. Well, if you’re still convinced that they’ve got a shot, and you own an Xbox 360, now is a good time to get yourself and HD DVD player add-on.

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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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