This time around Amazon Unbox
And I do still have more news from CES to post – I spent more time with TiVo as well as Sling Media and XStreamHD. I’ll post as soon as I have time. I was going to do it last night, but I was exhausted after the show ended and I couldn’t keep my eyes open. Right now I’m getting ready to fly back home. I’m on the red-eye back to Boston tonight.
It seems that Monsoon Multimedia’s tactic this CES has been to spread their press releases out over several days. Today we have two more HAVA related releases touting more features of their platform.
The first is the announcement of HAVASoft, a software application for tuner equipped PCs which gives them streaming abilities like those of the hardware HAVA platform. So if you have a PC with a tuner, you can use HAVASoft to stream that content to another, client PC, or mobile device, with the HAVA client software.
The second is more of a rah-rah puff piece announcing their ‘ongoing development commitment’ to the Windows Rally Platform. I had no idea what ‘Windows Rally’ was, I had to look it up. It is just a framework to simplify connecting wired and wireless devices with Windows.
The press releases:
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Hauppauge today announced a new forthcoming product, the HD PVR. It is a high-definition DVR USB add-on for the PC, which can record HD content in the H.264 or AVCHD formats from component video input. The HD PVR comes with a software application that allows the recordings to be played on the PC. It will also ship with software applications capable of burning DVDs, and recordings in the AVCHD format can be burned to DVD in what is known as the BD9 format and played-back in HD on Blu-ray players. It includes an IR blaster to control the external cable or satellite STB. It will be available in 1Q2008 with an MSRP of $249.
As I said the other day, chip technology has hit the point where component input DVRs are economically feasible. They’re still going to be a bit more expensive than other products, but the pricing will come down over time. I did discuss these developments with TiVo, with respect to possibly seeing an HD TiVo with component input. There are no official plans at this time, but they acknowledge that the chips are there with some very interesting capabilities. But also that if anything were to appear that takes advantage of the new chips, it would probably be a while. My gut feeling is that we might see something along those lines from TiVo at CES 2009. And it would be based on the TiVo HD platform, which is becoming TiVo’s primary platform for product development.
The press release:
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With Warner’s switch to Blu, Universal is the largest studio releasing HD DVD, so there are a lot of eyes watching their every move. And there have been mixed reports over the past day.
First up, Variety is reporting that Universal’s exclusivity contract with HD DVD has expired. This leaves them open to releasing on Blu-ray. They’re committed to some HD DVD promotional efforts in the coming months, so they may not announce a change until after fulfilling those commitments. Via EngadgetHD.
Universal has stated:“Universal’s current plan is to continue to support the HD DVD format.” Sure, that’s their ‘current’ plan, and I believe that. Note that a couple of weeks before making their Blu-ray exclusivity announcement Warner denied that a change was in the works. How was that worded?“We have made no decision to change our present policy which is to produce in both HD DVD and Blu-ray.” Present policy, current policy… same thing. Universal will release Blu-ray, count on it. But it may be a few months off yet before they announce anything.
Scientific Atlanta is now Cisco, OCAP… I mean the OpenCable Platform is now Tru2Way, and, as of October 1, 2008 Matsushita will be Panasonic. After 90 years Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. has decided to adopt the name of their most famous consumer brand, Panasonic, as their corporate identity. The Matsushita name will be retired in favor of Panasonic Corp. worldwide. The company had been named after founder Konosuke Matsushita. Via Engadget.
