Vizio rolls out dual-band ‘HD’ router, trio of WiFi-equipped Blu-ray players

WiFi-equipped TVs may have been Vizio’s big focus at CES earlier this year, but it’s now expanding things to some other devices as well — it’s just announced a trio of WiFi-equipped Blu-ray players, and a dual-band ‘HD” router to go along with them. That router, the XWR100, apparently earns the ‘HD’ designation by prioritizing HD media streamed to Vizio’s VIA-enabled devices, like the company’s three just-announced Blu-ray players. Those include the VBR210, VBR220 and VBR231, the latter of which is the first dual-band wireless Blu-ray player, and all of which include Vizio Internet Apps (or VIA) to stream content from Vudu, Netflix and other services. Look for the router (pictured after the break) to set you back $99.99 when it rolls out sometime in the third quarter, while the three Blu-ray players will be available this month and next for $189.99 and $199.99. Head on past the break for the full press release.

Continue reading Vizio rolls out dual-band ‘HD’ router, trio of WiFi-equipped Blu-ray players

Vizio rolls out dual-band ‘HD’ router, trio of WiFi-equipped Blu-ray players originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 22 Jun 2010 13:10:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Marshal’s new media drive is no laughing matter, plays Blu-ray and DVD ISOs

Yes, it’s just a hard drive that plays 1080p content, but this one can connect to your PS3; according to some machine translated Japanese, Marshal’s new “Media Joker” can also act as an external hard drive for your Sony game console or a Toshiba REGZA TV. While you won’t be able to install games on the up-to-2TB hard drive that you’ll provide yourself, the black box can notably play Blu-ray ISOs — though that, the company carefully cautions, will surely void your warranty. The case admirably provides most all ports you could want, including component, composite, both flavors of S/PDIF, HDMI 1.3, LAN, an SD card slot and a pair of USB sockets, and supports a host of audiovisual formats, the full list available at the more coverage link. Find it retailing for ¥16,800 (about $184) this Saturday in some neon-lit corner of Japan.

Marshal’s new media drive is no laughing matter, plays Blu-ray and DVD ISOs originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 22 Jun 2010 04:43:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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LG’s BX580 network 3D Blu-ray player now shipping for $100 less than expected

LG's BX580 network 3D Blu-ray player now shipping for $100 less than expectedIs there an HDMI 1.4-compatible Blu-ray player in your future? LG’s BX580 wants to be your player of today. The device is now shipping, more or less falling in line with the “month or two” estimate we got back in May, but clocking in at $100 less than the $400 we’d expected it at. Sure it’s listed on Amazon’s page at $399, but add it to your shopping cart and (spoiler alert) it’s actually just $299.86. That’s a relative bargain — though we’d still have a hard time choosing this over an equally 3D-ready PS3.

LG’s BX580 network 3D Blu-ray player now shipping for $100 less than expected originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 21 Jun 2010 08:11:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Tranquil PC iXL takes you up to 2.93GHz sans fans, has equally lofty price

We told you Intel’s 32nm Clarkdales were power efficient, right? Well, Tranquil PC’s slapped one of those chips, a 2.93GHz Core i3-530 to be precise, into its all-new iXL Power PC and now boasts a total system juice consumption of a measly 30W at idle. That means this HTPC can get away with living the quiet, fanless life, while HDMI, a trio of eSATA ports, a multicard reader, and a Blu-ray option flesh out a comprehensive package. Naively, we thought we’d throw the Blu-ray drive in with a 500GB hard disk to see what this might cost us, and were stricken with grief at the sight of a £742 ($1,100) price tag. Should four-digit entry fees not scare you off, you’ll want to know that the iXL is shipping now. For everyone else, hit the source link for a bunch of glamor photos.

Tranquil PC iXL takes you up to 2.93GHz sans fans, has equally lofty price originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 21 Jun 2010 06:33:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Toshiba Qosmio V65 laptop brings Core i5, SpursEngine and Blu-ray to low-res screen

With Toshiba’s Core i7-toting Qosmio X500 series laptops starting at a bit over a grand these days, we’re not sure how excited we are about the company’s new V65 portable PC. Though the former model spun Blu-ray discs into a fine-pixeled 1080p, this new model’s SpursEngine-powered content’s been relegated to a 1,366 x 768, 15.6-inch backlit screen. While Japanese consumers do get a 2.4GHz Core i5-450M processor, 4GB of DDR3 memory, 500GB hard drive, plenty of ports and a digital TV tuner for the price, said price is an estimated ¥180,000 — or about $1,972 in hard US currency if the machine ever comes stateside. A wee bit steep, in our estimation.

Toshiba Qosmio V65 laptop brings Core i5, SpursEngine and Blu-ray to low-res screen originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 16 Jun 2010 09:17:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Samsung SE-S084D claims to be world’s thinnest external DVD drive, SH-B123 the fastest Blu-ray drive

Oh Samsung, always setting world records. At an intimate (though slightly awkward) press conference yesterday, Samsung pulled the wraps off its newest SE-S084 external DVD as well as its 12x SH-B123 Blu-ray drives. The former is pretty much your standard external 24x CD-ROM / 8x DVD-ROM peripheral, except it’s only 17mm thick. Samsung is claiming it’s the world’s thinnest, but in all honesty, we weren’t all that blown away by its slimness. We have an HP drive sitting right here that looks to have very comparable dimensions, but at .5 pounds it was incredibly light in hand — we actually thought the model on display was a dummy at first. Available in seven colors that apparently match Samsung’s netbook line up, the drive should be available just about now for $69.99.

On the total opposite end is Sammy’s new 12x SH-B123, which it’s claiming to be the world’s fastest BD-ROM/DVD writer. The player packs DVD up-scaling technology and uses an aerodynamic design for lowering acoustic spinning noise. There’s no pricing details on the SH-B123 yet though it should hit stores in July. Until then, there’s a bunch of shots of both the new drives below and full PR after the break.

Continue reading Samsung SE-S084D claims to be world’s thinnest external DVD drive, SH-B123 the fastest Blu-ray drive

Samsung SE-S084D claims to be world’s thinnest external DVD drive, SH-B123 the fastest Blu-ray drive originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 15 Jun 2010 09:04:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Plextor gets all zen with PlexMedia: a modular, network-attached Blu-ray player

It’s not often we come across an external drive that looks like anything but a brick, so we were pleasantly surprised to see Plextor demoing something a little more svelte at Computex. We can tell the PlexMedia network attached media player (bottom) is a looker right off the bat, but it truly becomes useful when you plug in the PX-B120U (top) designed to go with it. The combination is a fully-functional Blu-ray disc player that apparently outputs to a TV, but the smaller box can also detach, slip into your bookbag and become an external Blu-ray drive for your PC. Since there’s no specs or pics of the unit’s rear, we honestly have no idea how it accomplishes either, but we imagine the info will spontaneously pop into our being if we stare long enough at those azure ripples, and thus complete our meditation. On the off-chance that doesn’t work, we’ve also dispatched a carrier pigeon to Plextor HQ for the answers; in the meanwhile, you can peruse the presser after the break.

Continue reading Plextor gets all zen with PlexMedia: a modular, network-attached Blu-ray player

Plextor gets all zen with PlexMedia: a modular, network-attached Blu-ray player originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 03 Jun 2010 08:47:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sharp plunges headfirst into 3D market with LV-series Quattron TVs, Blu-ray DVRs

Looks like Sharp’s keeping its word — next month, the fourth-largest LCD TV maker will launch a slate of new 3D TVs in Japan, just as planned. Based on the same Sharp Quattron quad-pixel technology that made George Takei’s jaw drop, the new LV-series of AQUOS panels will come in 40-, 46-, 52- and 60-inch sizes when they debut July 30th, and feature 1080p resolution, UV²A panels and a high-speed signaling technology named FRED that Sharp says increases brightness and reduces crosstalk. More interesting are the AN-3DG10 glasses that come with them, which reportedly allow each individual viewer decide whether to view content in 2D or 3D — we’re guessing by tweaking the glasses to show either the left or right image to both eyes simultaneously, instead of flipping back and forth. Of course, you’ll also need something to watch, and thus Sharp will also release a pair of Blu-ray DVR units, the BD-HDW700 and BD-HDW70, which record two simultaneous Japanese television programs onto terabyte-sized hard drives when they’re not sending Blu-ray 3D content to the aforementioned displays.

While mum’s the word on pricing, Impress Watch believes the TVs will start around ¥280,000 (around $3,067) and top out at a cool ¥600,000 ($6,581) for that 60-incher, and says that US and European variants are expected later this year. While you wait, why not take a deep dive into the details — you’ll find an entire brochure’s worth at our source links.

Sharp plunges headfirst into 3D market with LV-series Quattron TVs, Blu-ray DVRs originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 02 Jun 2010 01:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |  sourceTVs (Sharp), Blu-ray DVRs (Sharp)  | Email this | Comments

Leaked Intel roadmap reveals six new notebook CPUs for 2010, better battery life in 2011

We love the smell of silicon in the morning — especially when it emanates from one of Intel’s legendary leaked roadmaps. Today, we’ve stumbled across one with specs for Chipzilla’s entire fall collection of mobile chips, and a couple new details about that desiccated overpass the execs keep talking about. First up, it appears sources were spot-on about the Core i7s and Core i5s we heard about last week, but the 2.66GHz / 3.33 GHz Core i5-580M won’t be the only dual-core CPU to look for in Q4; it will be sandwiched between the 2.8GHz Core i7-640M (which turbos to 3.46GHz) and the 2.66GHz / 3.2GHz Core i5-560M — all of which peak at a conservative 35 watts.

True juice sippers will want a 15W CULV, however, and it seems more of those exist than Intel initially let on; Q4 will see a high-end Core i7-680UM that starts at 1.46GHz and turbos up to 2.53GHz and a 1.33GHz / 2.13GHz Core i5-560UM, plus a 25W 2.26GHz Core i7-660LM low-voltage chip will also join the fray. All these new dual-cores will have on-die Intel HD Graphics in one form or another, but all are also stopgaps until Intel’s 32nm “Huron River” platform debuts in the first quarter of 2011. Then, we’ll get WiMAX, WiDi and Intel Bluetooth alongside an intriguing new concept dubbed Zero Power ODD, which promises a power-saving sleep mode for our noisy optical disc drives (see more coverage link) and the promise of enough battery life to play two full Blu-rays on a single charge. Don’t believe us? See the slides below for more.

Leaked Intel roadmap reveals six new notebook CPUs for 2010, better battery life in 2011 originally appeared on Engadget on Sun, 30 May 2010 17:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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NEC’s 3D Valuestar N all-in-one PC: orcas all up in your retinas

Golly. We never thought to invest in a 20-inch all-in-one PC just to watch converted versions of Free Willy in 3D, but darn if we’re not reconsidering now. NEC has today revealed its Valuestar N range, with the VN790/BS being the standout in the range. The machine offers up a native 1,600 x 900 resolution panel, integrated Blu-ray drive, 4GB of RAM, a 1TB hard drive, WiFi, six USB 2.0 sockets, an undisclosed Intel Core 2010 CPU, Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit), and of course, native 3D support. You’ll need to spring for an optional (but not really) pair of glasses to fully enjoy the third dimension sans intense headache-inducing blur, but given that they aren’t of the active variety, any ole set will probably get you through. Pricing looks locked at ¥220,000 ($2,422) for a June debut in Japan, with approximately none of that actually going to save the whales. A crying shame, we say.

NEC’s 3D Valuestar N all-in-one PC: orcas all up in your retinas originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 27 May 2010 16:34:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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