CES 2008: Home Entertainment

Media streamers were a dime a dozen at this year’s show, so only a truly envelope-pushing home entertainment system would rise above the others to take the crown as best in class: the Logitech Squeezebox Duet Network Media Player.

Simply hook up the receiver to a stereo system or home entertainment center and you can stream music from your Mac or PC via Wi-Fi. Multiple Squeezebox Duet systems allow multimedia mavens to sync the receivers together to broadcast a song throughout the home, or more remarkably, listen to different songs in each room. Courtesy of Logitech’s SqueezeNetwork, the $399 Squeezebox Duet features always-on Internet radio and aggregation (from sources such as MP3Tunes, Pandora, and Rhapsody) that lets you stream music even when your notebook is off.

The amount of place shifting devices and services has been overwhelming. Its actually hard to find a company that isn’t doing wireless video streaming in one way or another. But, D-Link’s PC on TV caught our eye. The media player allows users to stream their PC’s video to a TV, either wired or wirelessly.

We like to hear that D-Link understands that the Web-based content out there is pretty damn good. Instead of streaming your TV or DVR to your computer Sling style, you can send YouTube videos and Google Video from the PC without the use of a proprietary media player. Supported are MPEG-4 or any AVI videos or virtually any local video content, and use any media player, such as iTunes, Nero, Windows Media Player, RealPlayer, etc.

The device supports photo viewing at 1280×720 screen resolution and streaming video at 640×480 resolution at up to 30 frames per second. Even better it comes with a mouse-like trackball remote control.

We’ve long been fans of the Sonos Multi Zone Digital Music System, which taps into your PC and music services like Rhapsody and streams tunes throughout the home using an elegant mesh networking technology–complete with a remote control that has a scroll wheel and big color screen. But no one I know can afford the $999 it costs for all that wireless goodness. Logitech has found a way to deliver a lot of the same features and functionality for a fraction of the cost. The $399 Squeezebox Duet Network music system is one heck of a bargain for what you get.

Portable digital video recorders are a godsend to boob-tubers who can’t live without their daily TV fixes, but the downside to them is that they tend to be large, bulky, and decidedly non-mobile. Not anymore. Comcast and Panasonic have formed like Voltron to bring about the AnyPlay Portable DVR.

The device serves as your traditional home DVR, but can be removed from its dock to allow you to check out up to 60GB of your favorite shows on the 8.5-inch display. You can also view DVDs and listen to CDs with a friend via the built-in speakers or dual headphone jacks. Great news, huh? Well, Comcast and Panasonic have stated that this bad boy has an “early 2009″ release date, so, uh, I’ll guess we’ll be blogging about it again in a good 365 days.

Yesterday, Sony finally announced that the Rolly, a 2GB digital music robot that “dances” to the music it plays, will be available in the U.S. later this spring. The Sony booth at CES has been absolutely crowded with people waiting to have a close look at this cross between R2-D2 and Ozone (from Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo).

According to Sony, Rolly users will be able to program their own custom dance routines and then transfer them to the device via USB. The company anticipates that users will want to upload and share their routines online.

While lots of people have been waiting for this product, I can’t help but think that the Rolly is nothing more than a latter-day dancing Coke can or Big Mouth Billy Bass. Those earlier products “danced” to music and the Bass even “sang.”

Call me scrooge, but this video of the Rolly makes it seem so sickeningly cute that I want to drop it off a tall building just to see what happens.

Archos is known for its killer wireless portable media players, but the company’s looking to bring some of that magic to the living room with Archos TV+, the first Wi-Fi DVR that doubles as a recording box and wireless receiver.

Available with 80GB ($249) and 250GB ($349) hard drives, the Archos TV+ lets users stream audio (MP3, WMA, WAV, AAC with plug-in), video (MPEG-4, WMV, H.264 with plug-in), and photos (JPG, BMP, PNG) from their notebooks to their televisions using their home Wi-Fi networks. In addition, multimedia mavens can wirelessly download content from CinemaNow via the Archos Content Portal, and record up to 700 hours of TV (in 640 x 480-pixel resolution) using the built-in TV Program Guide. Hooking up any of Archos’ Generation 3, 4, or 5 PMPs will let users transfer a two-hour movie in under two minutes when using a USB 2.0 connection. Archos includes a QWERY-styled remote (which you can check out after the jump) and the Opera web browser.

On the topic of Opera, Archos announced the availability of Opera Widgets, which brings seven mini-applications (including a weather forecaster, news reader, and unit converter) to Generation 5 players. In an unexpected swing, Archos is bringing Playin’ TV Games (which requires the Flash plug-in) to the Archos TV+, Archos 605 Wi-Fi, and Archos 705 Wi-Fi. Game packs, featuring titles such as Golf Practice, 3 Pointer Basketball, and Poker: Texas No Limit, will cost $9.99.We’re looking to get all hands-on with these hot products, so check back for more deets as they become available.

With our notebooks often doubling as digital music jukeboxes, it’s easy to feel tethered to a system when we want to listen to our favorite tunes. Logitech looks to free us from our notebooks with the Squeezebox Duet Network Media Player, a receiver and controller (with a full-color LCD display) that lets you sing along to ditties from virtually anywhere in the house.

Simply hook up the receiver to a stereo system or home entertainment center and stream music from your Mac or PC through the magic of Wi-Fi. Additional Squeezebox Duet systems lets users listen to different songs in each room or synchronize the receivers to hear the same song throughout the house. Even better, Logitech’s SqueezeNetwork, Logitech’s always-on Internet radio and music aggregation service that pulls content from Pandora, MP3Tunes, and Rhapsody, lets Squeezebox Duet owners stream music even when their notebooks are off.

You can expect this dose of $399 freedom in late January. 

Not every major player is awaiting CES in order to lift the curtain on their new gear for 2008. Sling Media, for example, just announced two new products for streaming video from your TV, DVR, cable box or other source to your mobile devices: The Slingbox Pro-HD and SlingPlayer for BlackBerry.

The Slingbox Pro-HD ($399) features four sets of A/V ports (ATSC, S-Video, composite, component) that road warriors can use to watch and control multiple high-definition video sources from any super-highspeed broadband connected Mac or PC. Palm, Symbian S60, and Windows Mobile smart phones equipped EV-DO, HSDPA, or Wi-Fi can get in on the action, too. BlackBerry users, you’re no longer left out of the loop as SlingPlayer for BlackBerry (photo after the jump) will let you indulge in you favorite guilty pleasure programming as your buds for just $29.99. ‘Cause when you’ve got that Rock of Love fix, it just has to be scratched no matter where you’re located.

Slingbox Pro-HD will be available in Q3 and SlingPlayer for Blackberry “later this year”, but with the prospect of Brett Michael’s antics on our notebooks and cell phones, they can’t come soon enough.

Netflix and LG Electronics linked arms today and announced their plans to develop a set-top box that will stream movies and other programming from the Internet to HDTVs. Forget watching Netflix’s selection of 6,000 movies on your laptop – subscribers can watch streamed movies from the Netflix site on their home theater HDTVs.

Can this duo rival the rumored Apple/Fox movie rental service? We are always up for a good doubles match.No details yet on the pricing of the boxes, but LG says networked players are planned to release in the second half of 2008. We would like to see the Netflix service integrated in LG TVs in addition to the set top box option. The announcement according to the press release ”sets the stage for next week’s 2008 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES), which will emphasize digital content as well as hardware solutions.” We are all set to meet with LG at the show and hope to be hearing more details on the options.

DCViews is reporting that Digital Foci has announced plans to introduce three new digital photo frames at CES. Included in the new batch of frames is one 15-inch model, the IMT-153 (shown at right). This is not the world’s first 15-inch frame, but it does beg the question “how big is too big for a digital photo frame?”

Fifteen inches and a 1024×768 resolution is probably not the largest frame we’ll see at CES, not in a world where you can get 22-inch frames at Bigeframe.com(although these display at only a 640×480 resolution). But we have to wonder. At what point does a device stop being a photo frame and start being a monitor or a TV? A lot of frames can play MP3s and movies. Can we still call them photo frames?

Numerous sources, including Mac News Network, are reporting that Apple is set to announce a deal with Fox that will allow iTunes users to rent the studio’s latest releases online at the same time they appear on DVD. The staff at MacNN also believes that Apple is engaged in similar talks with the other major movie studios.

If Apple is getting into the video rental business with iTunes, we have to wonder what effect the new competition will have on NetFlix, Amazon Unbox, and Blockbuster Video. We’re not aware of any planned announcements from NetFlix or Amazon Unbox at CES, but we’ll be keeping our eyes and ears open and, if our writers run into Amazon’s Jeff Bezos or Net Flix CEO Reed Hastings at a party, we’ll corner them and ask about their plans.

The Daily Yomiuri reports that Panasonic is set to unveil a 150-inch TV set at CES 2008. Last year, the company made headlines by showing off the world’s first 103-inch plasma set. Expect the MSRP to clock in at well above the $69,995 Panasonic is charging currently for the TH-103PF9UK.

The likely landing place for a 150-inch TV is not the living room, but the conference room. Imagine renting a hotel space for your next meeting and paying a premium to use the hotel’s giant TV to show a presentation? Next, imagine how bad your presentation will look if it’s in anything less than 1080p resolution.

(via TV Snob)

As Mark said in his CES preview, this year’s show will be all about connected devices. We wouldn’t be surprised to see a Wi-Fi can opener in Las Vegas, so we’re not shocked to hear that Cambridge Consultants will be demonstrating a Wi-Fi radio.

What makes the Iona Cube interesting is its unique button-less user interface. According to Cambridge Consultants, the cube will offer users the chance to choose four Net radio stations (out of tens of thousands of possible streams) to serve as presets. The cube will then switch stations or turn off, based on which side of the cube is facing up. The volume can be lowered or raised by twisting the unit right or left.

We haven’t seen anything like the Iona Cube before and hope to see a working model at the show. Stay tuned.

(via T3)