Boxee is augmenting its broadband box for cord-cutters with a USB dongle that provides users access to broadcast TV.
According to paidContent: “Boxee, which has been working mightily to get people to cut their cable cords with its own broadband box for five years, is preparing a new add-on product in January that will let users pull out the cable cord and plug a USB device into their cable box, giving them access to broadcast TV channels like ABC, CBS, FOX, and NBC for free.”
“If you live and die by ESPN, then yes, you have to stay on cable. But we believe there are plenty of people who just want access to regular broadcast channels,” says Avner Ronen, CEO and co-founder of Boxee.
However, Ronen believes there are consumers interested in basic broadcast content that would benefit from this approach. “The problem with canceling your cable subscription and relying just on the Internet has been the lack of live sports, a presidential address, local news, special events and live TV shows,” he told paidContent. “But these things are all available on broadcast TV channels…for free, over the air in HD.”
The Live TV stick will be available for $49, as an add-on to the $180 Boxee Box.
Cisco recently launched a wireless IPTV service with AT&T U-verse that features new wireless receivers and wireless access points (WAPs).
“Consumers can now rely on wireless technology to deliver high-quality video services throughout the home without the need for cables or wires,” explains the press release. “TV content is sent from the Cisco wireless access point via in-home Wi-Fi to the Ciscowireless receiver next to the TV.”
Based on the 802.11n standard, the wireless solution can deliver SD and HD programming to multiple receivers with integrated Wi-Fi, provide interactive services and function as an HD DVR.
In addition to enabling consumers to view television anywhere they choose in the home, the “wireless TV solution offers service providers the means for faster service activations and consumer self-installation with easy-to-use Wi-Fi kits…The integrated Wi-Fi receiver also offers service providers the ability to monitor the device’s performance via the network, as the receiver comes equipped with remote diagnostics.”
Panasonic, Samsung, Sony and X6D Limited (XPAND 3D) are collaborating in an effort to standardize 3D glasses. The companies have launched the “Full HD 3D Glasses Initiative” licensing program and will open a test center later this month.
“Currently, we have wholly incompatible active-shutter models based on different technologies, which the consortium wants to replace with a unified standard that will let you use the same pair of spectacles on any display or at any theater that uses the XPAND 3D standard,” reports Engadget.
According to the press release: “Infrared and Bluetooth enabled radio frequency system 3D active glasses technologies are licensed within the licensing program. All information including licensing fees and process requirements to become a licensee, are available on the Initiative’s official website.”
For any old school film fans in our audience, check out the $80 LomoKino analog camera that shoots 144 frames on a single roll of 35mm film (at a frame rate of approximately 3-5 frames per second).
“With the LomoKino, you can give your films a sense of style, all the while escaping the megapixel-obsessed society we live in today,” reports Digital Trends. “You can even pair it with the LomoKinoScope so you can watch and enjoy the movies you’ve created.”
With HD getting all the attention of late, “it’s nice to see a cool new analog camera enter the fray and represent the colorful, unique, and sometimes blurry world of Lomographic photography.”
The LomoKino site features some interesting package deals, including the $150 “Film Noir” bundle: LomoKino & LomoKinoscope, Lomography Lady Grey B&W 400 35mm (Pack of 3), Lomography Lady Grey B&W 400 35mm (Pack of 3) & Lomography Earl Grey B&W 100 35mm (Pack of 3).
You can also check out some sample footage on the LomoKino site.
Panasonic has announced its first all-in-one 3D point-and-shoot camera.
The Micro-Four-Thirds Lumix DMC-GX1 features “16.01-megapixel Live MOS sensor and Venus Engine, designed to deliver high-resolution stills and video with image rendering and high quality color reproduction,” reports TWICE.
The $700-$950 GX1 records 1,920×1,080/60i video, with 30p sensor output in the AVCHD format. According to the report, the new camera “is positioned as an upgrade to the Lumix DMC-GF. In includes an new ultra-fast auto focusing system and includes a built-in flash and a hot shoe allowing for such accessories as external electronics viewfinder.”
Additionally, the $500 Lumix DMC-3D1 is another P&S 3D-capable offering. It uses two 25mm ultra-wide lenses with 4x optical zoom extensions and has a 12-megapixel MOS sensor.
“With its twin-lens design, the Lumix 3D can even shoot HD video through one lens and 2D photos from the other,” says said Darin Pepple of Panasonic, “thus getting still and moving content simultaneously, a unique shooting feature which Panasonic provides so users can stretch their creativity.”
Canon has announced its new Cinema EOS C300 professional camera system.
The company is introducing five new lenses for the system, all available in an EF mount: “The lenses are designed to outlast the camera, as they are each rated for use in 4K productions…The zoom lenses will also be made available in PL mount versions,” reports PCMag.com.
Its 8.29-megapixel sensor is the same size as Super 35 film. It records MPEG-2 with 4:2:2 color sampling and a maximum bitrate of 50Mbps. Frame rate support includes 60i, 50i, 30p, 25p, and 24p.
Canon also announced an unnamed DSLR, optimized for cinema use, which is currently in development: “It will sport a full-frame 35mm CMOS sensor and support 4K video acquisition at 24p using Motion-JPEG compression, although the field of view of its lenses will be cropped to APS-H dimensions when recording at full resolution.”
Andy Setos was honored with an Emmy Award last week — the Charles F. Jenkins Lifetime Achievement Award from the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences.
The award is a special engineering honor recognizing “an individual whose contributions over a long period of time have significantly affected the state of television technology and engineering.”
Setos was at Fox for 23 years where he was responsible for “guiding the company through the digital transition, the adoption of HD technology, content and standards issues and the regulatory landscape,” reports TVB.
“Andy Setos not only led some of the industry’s important technical efforts but contributed significantly to standards that ensure equipment and infrastructural interoperability and go-forward integration paths for new devices and technologies,” said SMPTE president Pete Lude.
NICT, working with JVC Kenwood, has developed a 200-inch autostereoscopic full HD 3D display (the world’s largest), that shows video from 57 different angles. The unit was presented at CEATEC Japan this month.
According to the presentation, “no matter which angle you’re viewing from, you can see a Full High Definition resolution image. With an ordinary display, the viewing range is basically around 180 degrees, but with this one, it’s 13 degrees, which is very narrow.”
“To show such a large range of viewing angles, the display uses 57 projectors in an array, with each one specially tuned to create uniform levels of brightness and color balance across all viewpoints,” reports DigInfo TV.
ETCentric staffer Phil Lelyveld comments: “With 57 projectors(!) this is an interesting brute-force approach to autostereo 3D…”
Apple’s new iPhone 4S touts an 8-megapixel camera sensor capable of recording HD video at full 1080p resolution.
As an experiment, Robino Films recently posted a video comparing HD video shot with the new iPhone against video from the $2,400 Canon 5D Mark II. The two devices were mounted side-by-side on a camera rig, with similar exposure settings, shooting 1080p video at 30 frames per second.
“This test is really only to show that the 4S is coming close to the 5D but in NO WAY is it better,” comments Robino Films. “The iPhone is a great 1080p pocket camera and shows us where technology is heading. Give it two three years and we should see some interesting micro high performance cameras.”
ETCentric staffer George Gerba comments: “Add a professional connected app for news production and the white iPhone 4S might be more like a white news van than a phone…”
Canon’s latest high-end DSLR, the recently announced $6800 EOS-1D X, is expected to ship by March 2012.
Features include: 61-point AF system, 1GB Ethernet port, three DIGIC image processors, up to 12 fps RAW shooting, 18-megapixel full-frame CMOS sensor.
“Images will supposedly be less noisy at extreme ISO settings and the improved processor system will reportedly offer truer colors and more natural contrast, even in low lighting,” reports Digital Trends. “Canon has included continuous Full HD video recording for longer movies sessions (nearly 30 minutes) and new compression files — one in an editing format and another completely compressed file.”
The post features a brief video from PetaPixel showcasing “what shooting an 18-megapixel image at 14-frames-per-second looks and sounds like.”
CinemaNow — the online video service launched by electronics chain Best Buy in 2010 — has announced it will offer 1080p HD movies from Fox and Warner Bros. on personal computers. “Until now, only standard-definition movies were available from CinemaNow on the PC,” writes Carolyn Giardina in The Hollywood Reporter.
Thomas Gewecke, president of Warner Bros. Digital Distribution, indicates that CinemaNow is using Intel technology to make secure HD content available. “Intel Insider is a hardware-based security technology in second-generation Intel Core processors,” reports THR, “which is the fastest-shipping Intel product with more than 75 million units shipped to date.”
“The partnership with Intel and Best Buy’s CinemaNow to bring HD digital downloads of our movies to the PC will expand our reach to millions of devices in the U.S. and potentially more around the world,” adds Mike Dunn, worldwide president at 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment.
CinemaNow currently offers approximately 15,000 movies and TV shows.
Toshiba is showcasing its 55-inch Regza 55X3 TV at CEATEC this week in Japan. The unit boasts a resolution of 3,840×2,160 — and glasses-free 3D at 1,280×720 — for what TechCrunch is calling “the first TV of its kind.”
“The TV features 5,000:1 contrast ratio, LED backlight, a new processor called ‘REGZA Engine CEVO Duo,’ a face-tracking function to enable high-quality 3D pictures for viewers, REGZA LINK, five digital tuners, 10W×2ch+10W speakers, four HDMI ports, and two USB ports,” reports TechCrunch.
TechRadar reports that the Toshiba TV joins Sony’s VPL-VW1000ES projector and Sharp’s 60-inch LCD in the 4K offerings featured at CEATEC this week. The report also suggests Toshiba hopes to ship 1,000 units a month of the Regza 55X3. “This is high hopes for a technology that’s burgeoning in the cinema market but is brand new in the home,” indicates TechRadar. “And with the economic climate as it is will be something of a battle, even with both Sony and Toshiba on board.”
The Regza 55X3 will be available by December in Japan for $11,730 (U.S.).
Sharp is unveiling its new 60-inch LCD TV touting a 3,840×2,160 resolution at CEATEC in Japan this week.
The prototype offers four times the definition of full HD and uses ICC (Integrated Cognitive Creation) technology developed by the I3 (I-cubed) Research Center in Kawasaki. ICC attempts to emulate depth and distance experienced when viewing scenes in real life.
According to the video demo, the technology involves more than up-conversion of HD content to 4K and noise reduction. Instead, it offers “viewers a sense of perspective, 3D dimensionality and texture that’s much more similar to the natural world” by creating images with “an optical signal instead of an electrical signal.”
“It’s not as impressive as that 85-inch TV with Super Hi-Vision resolution (7,680×4,320 pixels) Sharp showed in May this year,” reports TechCrunch, “but in contrast to that model, the 4K TV has a (vague) sales date: sometime in 2012 and in Japan first, according to the company.”
Adobe announced this week Adobe Flash Player 11 and Adobe AIR 3 software to enable “console quality” 2D and 3D games and scientific visualizations for multiple platforms including Android, Apple iOS (via AIR), BlackBerry Tablet OS, Mac OS, Windows, connected TVs and others.
Adobe touts 1,000 times faster rendering performance over Flash 10 and AIR 2 enabling 60 frames per second rendering and console-quality games on Mac OS, Windows and connected TVs. A production release for mobile is coming.
Content protection is available using Adobe Flash Access 3 on supported platforms — “including support for mobile platforms,” explains the press release — with support for rental and subscription options “to more than 80 percent of the U.S. pay TV subscribers.”
HD full frame video quality can be displayed on iOS devices using H.264 hardware decoding to deliver 7.1 channel surround sound.
The first BitTorrent certified HDTV was demonstrated at the IFA trade show in Berlin last week, although ZDNet points out that torrent fans will be “hard-pressed to get their hands on one (especially in the U.S.).”
The Vestel prototype uses BitTorrent’s Chrysalis platform to simplify the process of downloading and converting torrents to view.
Although the idea may be exciting to many, it’s a bit early to celebrate. “Not surprisingly, there’s no information about any kind of release dates or distribution model for the TV (or even basic specs like screen sizes, etc.),” reports ZDNet. “Vestel is obviously not a household name, and past BitTorrent-based networking products from the likes of Netgear haven’t been runaway successes.”
“Major retailers might not want to stock a BitTorrent TV for fear of offending their digital content partners,” adds the post, “so this might be a niche product that you’d have to track down online. Or it could wind up being vaporware altogether.”
ZDNet asks its readers if they would consider buying a BitTorrent TV — a good question for our ETCentric crowd. What are your thoughts?
