Tag: set top box

Seagate shows off Freeagent Theater HD Media Player

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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)

Duncan Geere Home cinema

BBC teams up with ITV and BT for "Project Canvas"

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Following the utter failure of Kangaroo, BBC and ITV bosses have put their heads together and come up with a different strategy. They’re launching a public consultation on a proposal for a IPTV service that they’re calling Project Canvas.

There’s not a whole lot of detail available yet, but it appears that the companies want to put together a set-top box service that’ll deliver television (in HD), a PVR service, internet access (to YouTube and other sites), and some sort of electronic program guide to it all. Sounds messy, but then so did Kangaroo.

The partners hope that it would cost in the region of £100-200 for the consumer, and a 2010 launch is aimed at. The BBC says it’ll contribute £6 million to the project over the next five years, out of a total of £16.6 million that it’ll need.

Don’t know about you, but I’m perfectly happy just plugging in a PC to my TV and using that to watch YouTube or iPlayer as necessary. Why would I need a set-top-box to do the same thing? As with many things, I think the key will be in the implementation. If it’s done as well as iPlayer, it’ll be wonderful. If not, it’ll be an expensive waste of time.

Duncan Geere HDTV

SHINY VIDEO REVIEW: Emtec S800 HDD Movie Cube

Over Christmas I ate a lot of turkey, drank a lot of wine, and fiddled endlessly with this – the Emtec S800 movie cube. I’ll break it to you now – it’s not a cube – but it is a great little home entertainment set-top-box that lets you stream video over a network and record television.

Not one for the technophobic amongst you, but if you like tinkering with your AV setup then it comes highly recommended. It costs £230 and the company claims it’s available now from Dixons, but I certainly can’t see it on the site, or anywhere else for that matter. If you know where you can buy it in the UK, drop us a line in the comments.

Related posts: Emtec S800 HDD Movie Cube – an all-in-one digital media set-top-box | Emtec launches Movie Cube-R multimedia centre

Duncan Geere Digital set-top boxes, Home cinema, Video Reviews

Emtec S800 HDD Movie Cube – an all-in-one digital media set-top-box

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If you want to pump your television viewing experience up to the next level, you might be considering some sort of PVR, or set top box. It’s called a Movie Cube, but I’ve no idea why, because as you can see in the picture above, it’s clearly not a cube. Still, I can overlook that because the specs are surprisingly impressive.

It contains a 500GB hard drive, which will hold 600 or so feature-length movies. It’ll record TV, like a PVR, as well as convert your old videos and DVDs into digital formats – useful for people who don’t like maintaining a vast library of DVDs.

Best of all, it’s networkable, with Ethernet and Wi-Fi built it. That means you’ll be able to stream your content over the network from your Windows or Mac computer. You’ll be able to enjoy all those episodes of Heroes that you’ve downloaded off Bittorrent on your big-screen TV, rather than your little laptop screen.

In terms of formats, it’ll play back MPEG, DivX, XviD, MP3, WAV, and JPG. It’s got a lil’ screen on the front in case you’re streaming stuff to a stereo without your TV on. It’ll upscale video to 720p, has extensive subtitle support, even on DivX files, and has upgradable firmware. All-in-all, a tremendously useful little box.

I’m getting one in for a proper review, so keep an eye out for that. If you’re convinced just by the above, however, then it’ll be available to buy from Dixons in December. It’ll cost £230. Seems, on paper, to be a decent price for a decent device. I’m looking forward to playing with it in person.

Emtec

Related posts: Emtec Gdium Liberty 1000 – a netbook with an OS on a stick | Emtec launches Movie Cube-R multimedia centre

Duncan Geere Home cinema

Shiny Video Preview: TVonics MFR 300

In this video, Dan gets his hands on a tiny tiny digital TV reciever “designed for people who don’t want big freeview boxes”. It’s got very simple, very small design, with just enough space to plug in the appropriate cables. Decent UI too. But don’t take my word for it, watch the video and take Dan’s. It’s £60, and it’s available now.

TVonics

Related posts: Two new Humax Freeview+ PVR set-top boxes out today | SURVEY: DVRs – good, aren’t they?

Duncan Geere Digital set-top boxes, Video Reviews

Netflix set-top box brings internet movie streaming to the living room

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A set-top box for streaming movies right off the internet and straight to your telly? We’ve heard that one before. Apple TV does it, Xbox 360 does it… and although each of those are technically impressive, they haven’t set everyone’s world alight. So at first glance it seems that the Netflix Player by Roku doesn’t have a whole lot to offer.

However, where its rivals have let themselves down – being limited to fairly narrow selection of content – Netflix might be able to find an edge. As the US’s largest online DVD rental service, it doesn’t lack for potential content…

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