Hasta La Gadget!

We’re excited about the Boxee Box, and the new-look Apple TV is intriguing, but no single box is as good as a box that doesn’t exist yet does the same stuff. Confused? Sit down, let us explain. That’s the point Plex is making in announcing its new partnership with LG, which will integrate Plex software into its 2011 Netcast HDTVs and Blu-ray players. Plex enables the same sort of functionality as those smart little boxes mentioned above, letting you serve content from a machine running OS X and push it to your TV or to a mobile device (iPhone and iPad right now, Android coming). Plex also supports all the major online streamers, like Netflix, Hulu, and even the BBC iPlayer. Lack of PC support is something of a bummer, but a Windows version is said to be coming, so even your beige box can soon get in on the box-free fun.

Continue reading Plex announces partnership with LG, pledges to beat Boxee Box and Apple TV for free

Plex announces partnership with LG, pledges to beat Boxee Box and Apple TV for free originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 03 Sep 2010 07:26:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Stuck with an ODD-less netbook or laptop, but can’t quite shake the urge to watch a Blu-ray Disc on your next flight? If you call Japan home (or you know a good importer), Buffalo has just the solution. The BP3D-PI6U2-BK measures 137- × 147- × 20mm, and the operation is pretty simple. Just wrangle an XP / Vista / Windows 7-equipped PC, locate an open USB socket, blow out the dust (optional, but highly recommended) and plug this guy in. Best of all, the unit also supports the boatload of 3D Blu-ray titles that are bound to show up over the coming months, but the privileged of being prepared doesn’t come cheap — it’ll land later this month for ¥28,500 ($338).

Update: Speaking of importers… White Rabbit Express has this up for pre-order at $350, along with a slew of other Japanese wares. Huzzah!

Buffalo serves up USB-powered portable 3D Blu-ray player in Japan originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 02 Sep 2010 09:47:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This week Netgear made a battery of new product announcements related to home entertainment and Powerline networking. On the media side, the NeoTV 550 & 350 HD players look a lot like last year’s Digital Entertainer Elite, minus the 500GB of internal storage and access to VOD services like CinemaNow. Both are however capable of playing a robust list of codecs in full HD from a variety of attached sources like USB, eSATA (in the case of the 550) or SD storage, as well as streaming content from UPnP, DLNA or WMP11 networks. The 550 adds in support for external Blu-ray drives and BD-Live too, all for $219, which should appeal any of the poor souls with an unused standalone drive.

Three new Powerline kits — AV 200, AV 500, and AV+ 500 — were also announced to help consumers avoid the pain of stringing Ethernet in every direction. The entry level AV 200 appears to improve on the previous HDXB101 kit by offering the same theoretical 200mbps in addition to push button security enhancements and greener power consumption. The AV 500 kit provides the same and ramps the networking speeds to up to — you guessed it — 500mbps, while the “+” version throws in a pass-through filtered AC socket to avoid sacrificing precious outlets. Priced all below $200, every kit will available by mid November for all the fall home networking networking your heart could desire. Peep the galleries and PR below for further details.

Continue reading Netgear announces NeoTV 550 & 350 HD Media Players plus other networking goodies

Netgear announces NeoTV 550 & 350 HD Media Players plus other networking goodies originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 27 Aug 2010 02:39:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Mitsubishi Japan has announced three brand new, full HD tvs for your home theater-loving pleasure. Much like the Panasonics recently unleashed, all three boast the ability to record to their hard drives or Blu-ray. Spec-wise, they’ve got full HD, backlit LCDs, 1TB HDDs, a ten speaker Diatone system, USB and SD slots, and HDMI. The sets, which come in 40, 46, and 55-inches, also come with a pair of 3D glasses. They’ll be available in Japan in October for roughly $3,500, $4,700 and $5,900, respectively.

Mitsubishi debuts three full HD 3D televisions… coming to a sweet home theater near you originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 25 Aug 2010 19:04:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The BDXL format offers 100GB on a single-sided disc, and while that sounds great for archiving content, we’re a little leery about Hollywood adopting it to stuff even more deleted scenes on our discs. Why? Because no current Blu-ray players can read the things, and we can’t say we’re keen to buy another. We’re getting a little closer to that kind of support with Panasonic’s new Diga-series recorders. There are six in total, all shipping on September 15 and each offering dual tuners used to stuff HDDs ranging from 500GB up to 2TB. From there, content can be dumped onto BDXL discs, so Panny is also announcing availability of its first 100GB, single-sided, write-once media. Naturally BDXLs can also be played back on the things and, in all but the smallest two models, can even be played in 3D. We’re still warming up to 3D, Panasonic, don’t push too much change too fast.

Panasonic launches six new BDXL-compatible DVRs, the media you’ll need to feed them originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 24 Aug 2010 08:46:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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