Hasta La Gadget!

AC Ryan already took a few precious moments to introduce its FLUXX media player, but given that one new streamer in a month isn’t nearly “enough,” the outfit’s dishing out two more this week. The Playon! HD2 and Playon! HD Mini2 are both based around Realtek’s 1185 media processor, tout gigabit Ethernet and will soon have access to the WePlayon! content portal. For all intents and purposes, both of these boxes are identical save for a couple of major differences: the HD2 ships with space for a 3.5-inch HDD (whereas the Mini2 goes drive-less), and there’s also support for 802.11n WiFi on the big daddy if you spring for an optional adapter. Oh, and the HD2 has a larger chassis — go figure, right? You’ll also get a USB 3.0 port on the HD2 if you’d like to connect up any other media, and you’ll be able to find either in stores starting next month. As for prices? The empty units will sell for $169 (HD2) / $109 (Mini2), while the former can be ordered up with a 500GB ($205), 1TB ($229), 1.5TB ($259) or 2TB ($289) hard drive within.

Continue reading AC Ryan unveils Realtek-based Playon!HD2 and Playon!HD Mini2 media streamers

AC Ryan unveils Realtek-based Playon!HD2 and Playon!HD Mini2 media streamers originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 12 Jan 2011 20:58:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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XBMC might be most famous for spawning Boxee, but the original project is still going strong — and it just got a big boost from Sigma Design, which will support it directly on its new TV streamer SoCs. Sigma chips are already used in streamers like the Popcorn Hour and WDTV Live, so we’d expect to see similar products make use of XBMC directly in the future — just another sign that the connected TV space is growing by leaps and bounds. Sigma’s demoing its XBMC port here at CES, we’ll let you know when we go check it out. PR after the break

[Thanks, Chris]

Continue reading Sigma Designs announces direct XBMC support for wild next-gen streamers

Sigma Designs announces direct XBMC support for wild next-gen streamers originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 05 Jan 2011 17:30:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Let’s try this again, shall we? We were none too impressed with the first iteration of the device you see above, mostly because it failed to support audio. A few generations later, and seems as if Warpia may finally have its ducks in a row. The StreamHD is a USB-to-HDMI adapter, presumably relying on Wisair technology to whisk 1080p content from one’s USB-enabled laptop or desktop onto your HDMI-equipped television. It’ll handle material with resolutions as high as 1920 x 1280, and we’re told that both Hulu and Netflix content will be passed along sans issue. Hooking things up is a lesson in simplicity (in theory, at least) — just plug the USB dongle into your Windows PC, and the transceiver dock into your HDTV. High-def content and 5.1 surround sound should be transmitted, and there’s a reported range of 30 feet. It should be popping up any moment now on Amazon for $169.99, and yeah, that does include an HDMI cable and a S/PDIF cord. How thoughtful.

Continue reading Warpia’s wireless StreamHD USB-to-HDMI adapter supports 1080p, 5.1 surround sound

Warpia’s wireless StreamHD USB-to-HDMI adapter supports 1080p, 5.1 surround sound originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 04 Jan 2011 09:04:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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PrimeSense provides some of the brains behind Microsoft’s Kinect, and wants a bigger piece of the pie; ASUS has a reputation for announcing wonderfully wacky peripherals every year. At CES 2011, the Wavi Xtion will check off both boxes nicely. In a nutshell, the Xtion is a PrimeSense 3D depth camera built exclusively for PC, but with an important twist — it connects to a pair of ASUS Wavi boxes, which wirelessly streams its data to your living room PC between your TV and a Windows PC over the 5GHz band. Oh, and should ASUS attract enough developers, it will even pull down applications from an Xtion online store. ASUS says we’ll see the package commercially available around the world in Q2 of next year — with a UI and selection of apps and games on board — but they’ll release an Xtion PRO developer kit in February to tempt all you Kinect hackers into coding magical things for the platform. No more details for now, but there’s an event in Vegas this week where ASUS is all but guaranteed to show it off. PR after the break.

Update: Did we say HTPC? Turns out it doesn’t quite work that way — the Wavi are actually a pair of boxes that wirelessly sling data between them. You put the Xtion sensor on top of your TV, connect it to Wavi #1, then plug Wavi #2 into a PC up to 25 meters away. Mind you, it looks like the Xtion may not be quite as capable as Microsoft’s unit, as there’s only infrared hardware inside — it might be fine for gesture control, but don’t expect any augmented reality lightsaber fights. See some mockups below!

Continue reading PrimeSense and ASUS team, bring Kinect-like Wavi Xtion to your living room TV (update)

PrimeSense and ASUS team, bring Kinect-like Wavi Xtion to your living room TV (update) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 03 Jan 2011 13:11:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Curious timing, no? This morning, Cupertino’s PR department has blasted out a blurb stating that the newfangled Apple TV — which only started shipping three months ago — is expected to cross the one million mark in sales prior to Christmas Day. The obvious remark is hard to ignore: “That’s a lot for a hobby.” And yeah, it is. But it probably has more to do with trends in consumer purchasing and a delightfully low $99 price point than anything else, and if you doubt that logic, you should probably have a sit-down with Roku CEO Anthony Wood. The folks at Business Insider did, and Wood confessed that Roku media streamer sales have actually doubled since the introduction of the second-gen Apple TV. As the story goes, Jobs did the whole sector a solid by refocusing consumer attention on the set-top box realm, and with the most basic Roku retailing for just $59, it’s pretty clear that the outfit drives a tough bargain. Roku’s also expecting to sell its one millionth box by the close of this year, but of course it’s had a lot longer than three months to do so. Still, for an up and comer, selling one million of anything (let alone looking at $50 million or more in annual sales) is quite the achievement.

Continue reading New Apple TV, Roku media streamers race to break one million in sales

New Apple TV, Roku media streamers race to break one million in sales originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 21 Dec 2010 09:08:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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