Isn’t ‘Yet Another’ a fun phrase?

What is it with the new raft of set-top boxes being announced? Just as Moviebeam and Akimbo pull out of the market, Apple TV, Vudu, and others jump into the fray. This time it is DivX, and Engadget has the scoop. DivX has developed the ‘GejBox;-)’ - yes, the winky is part of the name. (Gej was the coder who developed the initial codec he named ‘DivX;-), a knock on the dead DIVX DVD competitor.) Fortunately it is just a prototype, so it doesn’t look like an actual product name - and it is silly so I won’t be writing it that way.

It looks like a prototype and reference platform that they can use to pitch to consumer electronics vendors. It is unlikely that DivX will want to jump into the hardware market themselves. There aren’t many details, but there are some interesting things in the photos.

The front of the unit has a LAN and a WLAN light, which implies built-in wireless as well as the Ethernet port. The back of the box has Ethernet, HDMI, S/PDIF over coax and optical, S-Video, composite video, and stereo audio. There is also a large black block connector, it isn’t clear what that is. In the photos it appears to be connected to a monitor, so perhaps DVI - though it seems big, so perhaps SCART? It seems to basically be a DivX media extender - music, photos, video. There’s also a direct connection to the DivX Stage6 media-sharing site. If you want to beta test the GejBox, sign up here.

It looks like a decent enough design, but it is Yet Another Box. The market is already crowded with DVRs, media center extenders, Apple TV, gaming consoles, Slingboxes, etc. I already have a A/V receiver, my old LD/DVD/CD deck (Yes, I still have laserdiscs - look it up kids), Pioneer DVR-810H TiVo Series2 (my primary DVD player/recorder now), TiVo Series3, VHS VCR (hardly ever used, but I still have a lot of tapes), Slingbox Pro, and a Netgear Ethernet switch to connect things - all under my TV. (Technically the VCR is hidden behind it - no room under it.) I’m probably going to pick up a SlingCatcher when that is released, and I still plan to get a PS3 at some point for both gaming and Blu-ray playback. (I have a bunch of older game consoles which aren’t set up right now too.)

It is getting a little ridiculous, I’d really like to see more convergence. Bring more of these features to existing platforms like TiVo and Slingbox. Right now you get ‘box exhaustion’ - too many devices to deal with and the market is too fragmented. Things will shake out in the end, likely leaving just a handful of players.

I noticed the GejBox via ZatzNotFunny.

There have been a few recent reports of leaked news of another coming Treo model on Sprint and/or Verizon. They’ve just replaced the 700p with the 755p, now it looks like another model, the 800w, is coming in Q4. And now Gizmodo has details from a tipster. It looks like a step up from the current 700wx. EVDO Rev.A instead of Rev.0, 256MB Flash, 128MB RAM, 1.3MP camera, BlueTooth, and an expansion slot (probably Mini SD). But the big changes are the additions of GPS and WiFi, and a 320×320 display - enabled by the new Windows Mobile 6 OS. (Current WM Treos have 240×240 as WM5 didn’t support 320×320.)

Unfortunately it runs Windows Mobile, which I won’t touch. But, since Palm has been sharing their basic hardware designs between the Palm OS and Windows Mobile products, hopefully there will be some kind of ‘800p’ model as well.

How many of these details are true remains to be seen, but there have been enough 800w leaks that it is almost certain that something is coming.

Amazon Unbox is having a sale this weekend, through June 10th. As a tie-in with the release of Ocean’s 13 (which I saw last night and enjoyed) six other movies staring the stars of the Ocean’s films are available for rental for just 99-cents. The films are Three Kings, Scarface, Smokin’ Aces, The Departed, Out of Sight, Babel, The Good Shepherd, The Bourne Identity, and The Bourne Supremacy. With The Bourne Ultimatum hitting theaters in August, if you haven’t seen the latter two, now’s a good time. Remember you have 30 days to watch a rental before it expires, so you can ’stock up’ now and watch sometime in the next month.

I just rented Babel and Out of Sight, since I’ve seen all of the others. Thanks to TiVo Blog for the tip.

Rumors started swirling today about a possible new Palm Treo model, code-named ‘Gandalf’. The blog Morning Paper started it off by posting a photo. They posted an un-zoomed version later which includes some basic details - camera, BlueTooth, EVDO, and Micro SD. It is clearly an all new form-factor, very rounded with a new control-cluster layout in the middle. They followed up later with a post that includes a color image as well as additional info - 4th quarter, sub-$200 target price, youth market, and the EVDO is Rev.A.

Then is spiraled from there. Gizmodo picked it up. Palm Infocenter also covered it. Palm Infocenter’s entry is especially interesting as it lends some weight to the rumor. They have a spy photo from the field, originally posted on the Treo Central forums, of what appears to be a white version of the Gandalf running Windows Mobile, branded for the Vodafone network. That implies a GSM version as well, as EVDO is CDMA.

A lot of comments criticize the look of the device as kind of the offspring of Zire and Treo. Personally I like the look of my 680 better, but if this device is really sub-$200, then is really is basically the Zire version of the Treo and I don’t think it is really a bad design. Being able to sell a cheap Treo is a good thing in any case.

I picked this up initially from Gizmodo.