Category: Home cinema
Seagate shows off Freeagent Theater HD Media Player
Last night Zara popped over to see Seagate and managed to grab a look at their latest release – the Freeagent Theater Media Player. It’s a dock that plugs into your TV which will play content – music, video and pictures – from any USB hard drive.
Bizarrely, although it claims to be “HD”, it doesn’t have an HDMI-out. Strange. Instead you can use scart or component output. But there’s a lot of media support – AVI, DivX, MPG4, and there’s also 8x of on-screen zoom available if that appeals to you.
Bit of a mixed bag overall, but if it floats your boat then you’ll be able to grab it for £90 within the next couple of weeks.
Seagate (via ShinyShiny)
Mac Mini refresh finally announced
There’s been rumours of a an upgrade of the Mac Mini for ages. First, back in December we thought it’d come at Macworld. Then, in Feb, we tracked down an image with a surfeit of USB ports and some basic specs. Then, yesterday, we thought the refresh would come at the end of this month.
Well, Apple has confounded all our expectations, and has announced a new Mac Mini, with the following specs:
- 5x USB
- 1x FireWire 800
- 1x mini DVI
- 1x Display poort
- Nvidia chipset (like the newest MacBook)
- starting at Intel Core 2 Duo 2.0 Ghz
- 2 GB DDR3 memory (max 4 GB)
- 120 GB hard disk (max 320 GB)
Not bad eh? Not face-meltingly good specs, but they’ll do. As with every Apple product announced ever, it’s available now, and costs £XXX.
Apple UK
LG launches portable, but not pico, projector
LG’s got rather a range of projectors, and the LG HS102 is the newest addition to that range. Rather than the business end of things, the HS102 covers the portable side of the spectrum.
It measures 154mm x 117mm x 50mm, and weighs less than a kilogram (780g), so it’s pretty dinky. It can throw a screen size of 500″, though, which is rather more on the impressive side.
Best of all, there’s no costly bulb replacements involved. The traditional projector bulb has been replaced by an LED variant which uses less power and should last for the entire lifetime of the projector. There’s built-in speakers too, as well as a remote control.
STATTACK:
- DFC: 2000:1
- Brightness 160 (lumens, I presume, though that’s not specified)
- Native res: 800 x 600 (not great, but it is a portable model)
- Lens: Manual focus, fixed zoom
- Aspect ratio: 4:3 (no widescreen action here)
Not sure how much it costs yet, but I’ve got an email in to LG asking nicely. When they reply I’ll update this post. Meanwhile, ProjectorPlanet seems to be selling it for £500. It’s available now.
SHINY VIDEO REVIEW: Optoma Pico Projector
I’ve had this thing for far too long but after a fair bit of faffing around to find the right cables, I finally got a good go on the PK101 Pico projector from Optoma. So, grab yourself a cup of tea, sit back and I’ll tell you all about it…
Philips Cinema 21:9 available from June for €4000
Yeah, not a lot I can really add to that header. It rather says it all.
Basically, in layman’s terms, what we’re looking at here, is that the super widescreen Philips Cinema 21:9 LCD TV, right, well, that’s going to be available, as in, to buy and stuff, for €4000, ok, which is the currency that a lot people are using right now in mainland Europe and happens to be worth far too close to a pound for most people’s liking, and that’s going to happen in June…
SHINY VIDEO REVIEW: 3M MPro 110 projector
I’ve been playing around with 3M’s MPro 110 projector for a couple of weeks now, and I’m not sure what it’s for. It will throw a (small) picture onto a wall in a dark room, sure, but it seems to be built to be portable. The problem is that I can’t see a situation that you’ll encounter on a regular basis where this thing will be useful.
Even in lights-down conditions, it simply isn’t bright enough for you to see what’s going on – a pitch-black room would be fine, but on-the-move – where this product is intended to be used – you’re not going to run into those conditions.
Basically, what I’m saying is that I don’t have a real problem with the product (beyond the cable length issue mentioned in the video) – I just don’t see any demand for it. I guess that’s 3M’s problem, not mine. It can be yours (the product, not the problem) for £299, and it’s available now.
Even in these troubled economic times people still NEED a big new HDTV
Despite the news all being about the end of the universe and how you’re best off mashing up all your remaining money into papier-mache logs to burn to keep warm, one statistic on the UK economic trends chart is pointing UP – sales of HD LCD and plasmas TVs are still rocketing.
Stats compiled by GFK for the BBC show that sales of fancy flat high-def TVs increased by nearly 11% in the last three months of 2008 compared to the same period of 2007, presumably because no one’s got jobs any more, so sitting around in the house watching TV is now the main occupation of the UK population. And if you’re going to do it, you might as well do it properly with a nice new 52″ Samsung…
RUMOUR: Apple to launch streaming film and TV service
There’s a rumour going around that Apple’s building a service for streaming film and TV shows, called iTunes Replay. It would give users the option to either download or stream a video once it’s been purchased. Apple could, obviously, charge different amounts for a stream vs a download.
But if Spotify’s popularity is anything to go by, then always-on broadband internet connections mean that the only reason you’d ever need to download something these days is if you wanted to stick it onto a portable player. Even those are increasingly delivering more and more data services.
So this is essentially “RUMOUR: The sun will rise tomorrow”. Maybe that’s a little on the mean side, but I’d be very surprised if Apple isn’t watching iPlayer and Spotify very closely, ready to follow suit whenever it can. .
In the meantime, we’ll stick with UKNova, 101 Great Goals, The Pirate Bay and iPlayer, thanks.
(via Trusted Reviews)
Literally *INSANE* Sky claims that watching HD broadcasts helps combat depression
Genius. Simple genius. Sky has teamed up with psychologist Donna Dawson to claim that watching broadcasts in HD via Sky+HD can help alleviate the symptoms of depression.
Of course, as men who have just spent an obscene amount of money on an HDTV and Sky+HD subscription, there is indeed something calming and enjoyable about sitting there, basking in the HD glow, smug in the fact that your picture has more pixels in it than the picture your neighbours are lumbered with.
But the completely ludicrous PDF guide to Sky+HD claims that “programmes with vivid, bright and sharply defined colours create a visual sensation for our eyes, which help to lift our spirits and energise…
iTunes UK gets a high definition boost: new TV shows arrive
iTunes stores outside the US have always lagged behind when it comes to new features, but Apple has gradually been adding new video content to the UK store.
Last week’s moderately big news was that high definition episodes of Lost series 5 have made it into the iTunes store. Now, eagle-eyed fans have discovered a range of other titles that have “suddenly hit” the store…
