All PVR

LG Electronics released an all-in-one home theater in South Korea.

With no word on a US release, you’ll just have to admire it from afar. This “Chocolate” inspired Theater-in-a-Box, has a touch screen along with 1000 watts of amplification for 5 of it’s 5.1 speaker system. The “.1″, or subwoofer, rates at 155 watts. The speakers may be somewhat bland for the home theater crowd, but the machine is refreshing.

Along with a touchscreen, here are some features:
1. Upscales videos to 1080p
2. Contains both HDMI and USB ports
3. Plays MP3s, WMAs, JPEGs, and DivX videos, as well as playing and burning capabilities of DVDs and CDs.

If LG can hit a certain price point in the US, it might do well. Unfortunately, all-in-one theaters don’t sell well in the arena of serious home theater lovers. What will the future hold for this boxed Chocolate Home Theater?

Found on Coolest-Gadgets

Also check out Athusa and Limited Edition Foods

From Teleglass comes the T4-N Limited Edition Video Glasses. The glasses create a simulated 45 inch screen (as if sitting from six feet away), with a resolution of 640 x 480. Coolness abound, you can focus and adjust each monitor to reduce eye strain. As you can see by the picture above the audio comes from frame-mounted earbuds.

Just connect any NTSC viseo player and enjoy. They look stylish, unlike the competition, and it’s hidden components reside in the frame and nose-piece. Word on the street is that they cost $1150 per pair, but you’ll have to hurry, because there’s only 500 available.

Pink Tentacle via Teleglass

And now for something completely different… Athusa and Backyard Birding

The “mythical” Traveling Terabyte Gear

In reference to an entry published on Sept. 23 (“Hacker Sends War-Tough Marines a Befitting PVR�?), I have received a generous update about the Traveling Terabyte Project. Go to www.travelingterabyte.org for all the official information.

This is an important project that connects us to our beloved Devil Dogs (Marines). It provides them a care-package that we can all share in to show support. Hopefully it gives the soldiers a bit of home when they’re abroad, and keeps them grounded when they’re in hell (Ooo-Rah!).

They are not yet taking donations (as this is a grassroots movement stemming from the generosity of one person, Deviant Ollam), though there should be something set up soon.

And, as a big fan of this project, I will also be posting updates and hopefully finding more supporters, at Athusa.net. Let make it work.

Very, very special thanks, and American gratitude to: AST Cell. As well as to all the people involved with this project.

Get your HD-DVR’s warmed up people. Like Jay-Z, you’re going to have a busy recording schedule ahead of you. With the launch of 21 new HD channels, DirecTV promises there’s more channels to come, “,more than any other cable or satellite provider”.

They say, “By the end of October, DIRECTV will deliver over 70 HD channels. And by the end of the year, you’ll get up to 100 of the channels you really want to see in breathtaking HD” (examples: CNN HD, A&E HD, The History Channel HD, premiums like HBO HD, Showtime HD, and Starz HD).

What do you think?

In keeping up with this week’s “mini-theme”, Western Digital also offers a 500 GB DVR expander for Scientific Atlanta, models 8300 or 8300HD DVR’s. It stores 60 hours of HDTV or 300 hours of standard-def TV (SDTV). It’s plug-n-play, utilizing a SATA (eSATA) port. It’s also super quiet, designed with no fan and a quiet hard drive. The LED used is also low-light as not to be annoying when in use.

“Deviant Ollam” is a New Jersey hacker/network engineer who saw fit to create the Traveling Terabyte Project (TTB). A program in which he sends hard drives, filled with popular movies, television shows and music, in Pelican cases, to Marines in the former Soviet republic of Tajikistan.

Deviant said this about his revelation, “I’ve got this extra storage and thought ‘what could I do with it?’. It didn’t really make sense to put the disks into my already hugely ridiculous raid array.�? So, why not send them to a few Leathernecks? Everyone needs a little inspiration (even tough-guys). But, shipping the drives to a war-torn country could’ve been an obstacle, “You can’t really put the drives in bubble wrap and throw them in the mail,�? So he instead packed the equipment into the olive-drab cases with international power adapters and USB cables.

Once Marines receive the cases they often add their own files customizing and personalizing their gifts (becoming a snapshot of our modern heroes lives). And, like any grassroots movement, these drives have become a small overseas urban-legend. Eventually being delivered to the American embassy in Dushanbe Tajikistan, just to prove they exist.

Hopefully the Traveling Terabyte Project will get legs. I’m still searching for a donation website. If anyone knows of one, please comment. Anything we can do to remedy some of the stress of being in a war zone, is something we should do. They’re heroes.

From one American cyber-geek to another, thank you, ‘Deviant Ollam’.

More thanks to TG Daily for getting the word out on this project.

Need an external hard drive for movie storage? Look no further, Western Digital has come to the rescue. Introducing “My Book Essential Edition 2.0″, a hard drive the size of a paperback book. Contained within it’s cover is 1 TB of disk space, and a 2.0 USB port. It’s a plug-n-store device for all your PVR needs, and it costs $349.

The Diamani DUO line of LCD’s from Viewsonic has been launched. It’s a unique hybrid of TV and computer monitor. There’s a 19″ version for $349 and a 22″ version $399. Both sporting slim, sexy HDMI inputs, as well as HD tuners. They’re also equipped with VGA inputs. And to address your analog desires, there’s component, RCA, and S-video inputs. It’s the “be all to end all” of TV’s… I mean monitors… I mean… where was I? Oh yeah, It’s fine time someone tried to invent something useful for the practical man.

Electronista

At HGTV Marketplace, they’re offering a 4 seat spa with a motorized 61″ LCD HDTV. It’s a custom order through Catalina Spas, so there is no price listed. But, I’m sure if you have a vivid imagination you could conjure up a price close enough to what they’re asking. Who says the US economy is bad?

Get DirecTV’s NFL Superfan and Sunday Ticket Packages and you’ll be able to stream live games to your PC. Unfortunately, Apple and Linux users won’t be able to use this feature. Streaming requires Windows Vista or XP. It also requires a football-sized wallet for the $368 clams you’ll be shelling out.

From Ars Technica.com

Joost is a new P2P service coming soon from the good folks that brought you Skype VoIP revolution, and it continues to generate buzz. It promises instant streaming Peer-2-Peer TV, and if the Internet doesn’t collapse under it, should be able to deliver near HD digital quality playback on your computer.
While Joost is still in closed beta, somewhat simplified service in this space, called Pando, is already live and kicking! Pando is designed to download Video Casts, usually in High or HD quality, onto your computer, automatically. Right now it only has few channels, but more will get added, I’m sure.

But, onto the big announcement - Joost struck a deal with CBS ! Yes, big time shows, like the Excellent CSI series, NCIS, Numb3rs and other prime time favorites will be available on Joost !! This is a huge win for all of us, and once it materializes, I predict the shift to the Internet TV will grip hold of everyone, like a wild fire spreading.

So take this weekend to reflect on the following burning questions:

1. Will CSI, Numb3rs and other prime-time shows be free via Joost? Or will they try to nickel and dime us for shows that are otherwise freely broadcast in HD over the air?
2. Will you still need your Cable or Satellite provider after this? Maybe just keep Cable around, for their high-speed Internet only?
3. Why keep a DVR at all, if you can watch with Pause/Play via the Internet at your leisure?
4. Do you have a PC connected to your TV yet? If you did, would this news take on different light for you?

Not ready to ponder these questions just yet? Then click through to official CBS/Joost press release instead.

webtv, joost, pando, internet video, dvr, cbs

In an announcement that didn’t make much news, DirecTV said that users of its DirecTV HD DVR will be able to access pictures and music from their PCs.

DirecTV also said that it will allow the ability to stream video from PCs to the HD DVR, sometime later this year.

The kicker is that it can only work with Intel’s lame Viiv technology.

Pictures and music is something Tivo Series 2 users already get. The ability to stream video, however, would be extra cool and is something that I’d like Tivo to have. In fact, why not have a browser or e-mail functionality as well?

DirecTV, DVR, PVR, HD DVR, Tivo, Viiv, Intel, digital video recorder

Although DVRs are great, they’re usually pretty pricey. And if you’ve upgraded to HD, it’s a great time to look around for a new HD DVR. Well, Dish Networks announced that it was giving its HD ViP622 DVR for free to new customers.

It looks like a pretty decent DVR. It comes with dual tuners and about 200 hours of standard or 30 hours of HD programming.

Oh, and one important part: This deal is available starting February 1st, 2007.

Tip: Here’s a review of the Dish DVR from Cnet.

U.K. satellite television provider British Sky Broadcasting (BskyB) said this week that its Sky+ PVR passed the 2 million mark this week. Two million users is an interesting figure, since Tivo last reported that is has about 4.4 million. Is the U.K. more PVR-friendly than the U.S.?

Some history: Both Tivo and Sky released their DVRs around the same time in the U.K. The Sky+ DVR was introduced in 2001 and it was slow to catch on. BSkyB spent about £20 million marketing the new PVR and now it seems to be leading the way in PVR ownership and subscribers in the U.K. Last year, BSkyB added a cool feature: allowing subscribers to schedule to record shows via their cell phones. (Tivo, are you listening?)

In the meantime, TiVo launched in the U.K. in 2000 but after manufacturer Thomson, dropped production Sky+ began to dominate the PVR market.

In a press release this week, BSkyB said that a video-on-demand service would be coming in 2007, so users can see the week’s best of shows on-demand.

BSkyB also announced research results of their viewers’ TV watching and recording habits. Apparently, drama is recorded most frequently by customers, accounting for 39.3% of all time-shifted viewing. Other genres that did well are documentaries (14.9%), entertainment (13.0%) and movies (9.5%) although news and weather accounted for just 0.6% of time-shifted viewing.

Surprising, time-shifting accounts for an average of 12.2% of total viewing through Sky+ boxes. That seems low, considering I almost exclusively use my PVR to record everything and watch it later without commercials.

Phillip Swan over at TVPredictions.com says that DirecTV’s HD DVR has a bunch of bugs and does not recommend it.

Since I have cable, I don’t know much about DirecTV’s offerings, especially their HD DVR. But this box also got some bad user reviews from CNet’s readers. CNet’s official review, however, ranks it as an 8.1.

Swan says that DirecTV’s new HD DVR has “more bugs than a hot summer night in Mississippi.” After numerous reboots, and recording glitches, DirecTV swapped the box with a new one and he had the same problems.

His conclusion: “DIRECTV’s HD DVR is not ready for primetime.”

DirecTV, meanwhile, has issued a response via CNet to the growing number of customer complaints.