CES 2008

The Zyxel DMA1100P digital media adapter

There are many devices that aim to let you share the multimedia content stuck on your PC with that large HDTV in your living room. Zyxel's DMA1100P digital media adapter is the only such device, however, that uses HomePlug AV Powerline technology to do so. (Netgear's Powerline HD Ethernet Adapter isn't certified as a HomePlug AV device, but it promises the same 200Mbps theoretical throughput as the Zyxel DMA1100.)

Still, for those looking to stream HD video and music and can't do it wirelessly--perhaps your TV and your home theater are too far apart or you simply have an aversion to wireless networking)--Powerline networking is an easy and effective way to go. Zyxel claims the DMA1100P is a snap to set up and will automatically recognize and connect to DLNA-certified devices. And unlike Netgear's adapter, Zyxel's unit features an HDMI port. The DMA1100P will be available in February for $270.

(Credit: Samsung)

(Credit: Samsung)

Bearing a striking resemblance to Sony's Bravia Internet Video Link, Samsung has announced the Home Digital Media Adapter (DMA). The Home Digital Media Adapter is designed to attach to the back of certain 2008 Samsung HDTVs and streams media from the internet or networked connected PCs. Connecting to your home network is possible either by a wired Ethernet connection or by buying a separate 802.11n module. It also works as a Media Center Extender, which gives you access to Microsoft's user interface and features like an electronic programming guide. The initial list of supported file types is decent, with WMV, MPEG2 and h.264 video support, MP3 and WMA music support, and JPEG photo support.

The $199 list price is considerably less than Sony's Bravia Internet Video Link, and it compares favorably to standalone media streamer prices. Still, we're always skeptical of integrating functionality as complex as media streamer with another product (in this case an HDTV). We'll wait for a hands-on review for our final verdict, but we'll be surprised if it outclasses standalone media streamers. The Home Digital Media Adapter will be available in April.

One of our predictions for CES 2008 was that DVD recorders with ATSC tuners would get a couple of key features upgrades that take full advantage of the built-in digital tuner. Well, if Panasonic's new line of DVD recorders is any indication, we were wrong.

Despite some significant clamoring for a DVD recorder with a hard drive, the new Panasonic Diga line of DVD recorders includes only two standard DVD recorders, plus two DVD/VHS recorder combo units. There's also no mention of a few features we were hoping for: true HD output for ATSC programming, an EPG that pulls content data embedded in the ATSC signal, and an IR blaster to control other gear, such as a cable or satellite box.

While that's a lot of doom and gloom about the upcoming units, they'll still work perfectly fine for the standard usage of archiving content to DVD. As usual, all of the Panasonic recorders support all of the recordable DVD formats, including DVD-RAM. Also note that Panasonic is offering two models, the DMR-EA18 and DMR-EA38V, that lack a tuner of any kind--which is a nice option for those who are going to use the units with a cable/satellite box and want to save some money. Additionally, we anticipate that the recorders will include Panasonic's standard array of features, including flexible recording length, an outstanding LP recording mode and chasing playback on DVD-RAM discs.

LAS VEGAS--The winner in the Blu-ray and HD DVD war is the hard drive, according to Bill Watkins, CEO of Seagate Technology.

"People are saying Blu-ray won the war but who cares? The war is over physical distribution versus electrical distribution, and Blu-ray and HD lost that," he said during a breakfast meeting at the Consumer Electronics Show here this week. "In this, flash memory and hard drives are on the same side. The war is over and the physical guys lost."

Bill Watkins

(Credit: Seagate)

Watkins, naturally, speaks from personal interest, but he's got a point. (A former Army grunt and a decades-long Deadhead, Watkins is also one of the more entertaining CEOs in the technology industry to interview.) Consumers haven't been buying Blu-ray or HD DVD players and by the time they do, technology companies will likely be hawking sophisticated on-demand services and Internet Protocol TV. IPTV, in fact, is the dominant theme of the show. Sharp, Samsung, and Panasonic all unfurled content alliances that will let consumers look at headlines or videos from the Net on their TVs.

That's good news for Seagate, because electronic distribution means more hard drive sales. "If (data) is in the cloud I get more storage sales because you have to back up everything," he said.

"Surveillance is a big deal," he added. "You're being filmed right now (we were in a casino) and they've got to store it somewhere."

Hard drive makers are right now living through good times. In the 1990s, excess manufacturing capacity and price cuts led to stagnant revenues and losses for many companies. Since then, many players have dropped out. New markets such as digital video recorders opened up for drive makers. As a result, both Seagate and rival Western Digital are seeing double-digit growth. Seagate has already upped its revenue guidance twice for the quarter that just ended.

And the future continues to look good. Hollywood, Watkins said, will have no choice but to get into home delivery of content in a big way. People are leaving home less and less. And if the movie studios don't deliver their content to their home, people will watch whatever they can find on the Internet. At CES, XStreamHD is showing off a box that gets on-demand movies from a satellite. Actor Michael Douglas is an investor.

"They will watch lousy content if it is easy to do," he said.

Other notes from Watkins:

•  Seagate doesn't have its solid state drive out yet, but it's coming.

•  Flash memory, he added, will never completely take over the hard drive market. The demand for storage is too big. If a flash maker wanted to provide just 15 percent of the world's market for storage in 2012, it would have to invest $50 billion this year alone.

"And right now, no one has made that investment," he said.

He further argued that flash memory gets too much attention from Wall Street. "I'm making 75 cents a quarter, and I get half the valuation of SanDisk or Micron," he added.

•  Consumers still seem buoyant in Europe and Asia, so a lengthy, full-blown global recession may not occur. Admittedly, he adds, that's his own spin.

•  America has got to reform its immigration laws by letting in more immigrants. Nearly 60 percent of the companies in Silicon Valley were founded by people born outside the U.S. Last year, close to 70 percent of the students getting Ph.D.s in engineering were from other countries.

"And none of them got a green card," he said. "Because of this, U.S. companies will have to put R&D overseas."

•  Speaking of foreign lands, the government-to-university-to-private sector triumvirate (the government provides grants, universities invent stuff, and the private sector sells it) that helped build the tech industry in the U.S. no longer works as well as it once did. However, they have copied it pretty well overseas.

"They are following the made us successful and here it's broken," he said. "We used to say that what is good for GM is good for America. Now, what is good for the stockholders is not necessarily good for America. That drives me crazy."

Funai's new Blu-ray player might finally bring standalone Blu-ray players within reach of the average buyer.

(Credit: Funai)

The major gripe against Blu-ray has always been that the hardware is just too expensive, especially when $99 HD DVD players were flying off the shelves at Wal-Mart a few months ago. While videophiles on a budget could opt for the $400 Sony PlayStation3, there hasn't been a real alternative for those looking for a cheaper standalone unit. Funai is looking to fill this gap with its latest announcement of a Blu-ray player slated to come in the second quarter of 2008 for less than $300--which is the lowest price we've seen on any Blu-ray player.

Other than the price, the Funai didn't release many other details about the new Blu-ray player, which it is referring to as the NB500 series. Like all other Blu-ray players released this year, it will be fully compliant with Blu-ray Profile 1.1, which means it can handle "picture-in-picture" video commentary tracks available on some new Blu-ray discs coming out in 2008. Like all other Blu-ray players, it will also be capable of upconverting standard DVDs to 1080p over its HDMI 1.3 output. The NB500 series also includes an SD card slot, which Funai claims can be used to display digital video from a camcorder or digital camera.

The XStreamHD media server is about the size of a Nintendo Wii and features a quiet, fanless design.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

Anytime the format war between HD DVD and Blu-ray is discussed on the Internet, there's always a commenter that chimes in to say that digital downloads are going to beat them both. While we've seen some successful products using the digital distribution model, such as Vudu, we've always been skeptical about true high-def digital distribution taking off in the near future, mostly because high-bandwidth Internet access just isn't cheap enough.

The XStreamHD satellite dish is comparable in size to other satellite providers, like DirecTV and Dish Network.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

Instead of waiting for cheap, super-fast internet connections, XStreamHD is looking to an older technology to provide the extra bandwidth--a satellite dish. The XStreamHD system consists of essentially three components: a small satellite dish to receive content, a media receiver that can store content on an internal hard drive, and a media receiver that sits in your home theater to output the high-def movies. And while the phrase "HD" is thrown around haphazardly a lot these days, XStreamHD is promising full 1080p studio-master quality video--essentially the same video files you'd get on the equivalent Blu-ray or HD DVD disc--along with high-resolution soundtracks, such as DTS-HD Master Audio.

Differing from traditional video on-demand services, XStreamHD is designed to have movies downloaded before you even pick up the remote. Users will be able to select their favorite existing titles or genres, and the XStreamHD will then preload content based on your preferences. Similar to TiVo, the XStreamHD is also able to anticipate the kinds of movies you like, so that your media server is never empty. Obviously, we'll have to see how well XStreamHD's prediction skills work in real-life as we've seen varying performance on existing services--in our experience, TiVos tend to miss as often as they hit, while Netflix is almost dead-on accurate. We could see users running into some issues if, for instance, a relative is visiting that likes different movies than you do.

The movies are stored on the media server, then are distributed to the media receivers via gigabit Ethernet. As many as four simultaneous HD streams are supported, and any DLNA-compliant network receiver is supported. That means popular third-party network-connected devices such as the Sony PS3 can be used as additional media receivers in the XStreamHD system.

The media server features three ATSC tuners and two hard drive slots, plus an eSATA port for even more storage.

(Credit: CNET Networks)

Clearly, XStreamHD's pride and joy is the digital distribution of movies, but the hardware itself is no slouch. The media server also features three ATSC tuners so you can record free over-the-air HDTV. Adding to its DVR feature set is what XStreamHD calls "Adaptive Recording," which enables the DVR, for example, to properly record an entire football game even though it runs over its scheduled time. TiVo has similar feature, which allows you to add a preset amount of time to programs such as sporting events, but XStreamHD claims its technology is more accurate and eliminates the guesswork on the users' part. The XStreamHD media receiver is also capable of playing lossless FLAC audio files, which is a huge plus for the enthusiast audiophile community, especially considering the media receiver utilizes a quiet, fanless design. And if all that isn't enough, it's capable of handling VoIP phone calls.

The major chink in XStreamHD's armor is that there are currently no announced content partners. No matter how beefed up XStreamHD's hardware is, the service will go absolutely nowhere without getting major movie studios on board. We have to imagine XStreamHD will announce some studio deals as it gets closer to launch (otherwise it's not a very useful product), but there are no guarantees--and only time will tell.

Of course, the XStreamHD system will have to compete with the wide variety of on-demand and pay-per-view options already available to cable and satellite subscribers. Sure, cable and satellite can't currently deliver the same kind of pristine video and audio quality that XStreamHD is promising, but it's going to be hard to convince the average buyers to install a whole new system just for better quality movies. On the other hand, this is the kind of system that will absolutely appeal to home theater aficionados, and we have to admit we were a bit starstruck by the spec sheet when we first laid our eyes on it. Unfortunately, the XStreamHD system isn't slated to come out until the fourth quarter of 2008, but we love the relatively low start-up cost--$400 for a complete home setup, including a media server and media receiver. Hopefully there's not an additional subscription fee (beyond the per-movie cost) to go along with that, but we'll be sure to get more details as the release date draws nearer.

Sony has shored up the problems in its electronics, and will concentrate in 2008 on bringing more video content to its devices and improving its software, said CEO Sir Howard Stringer.

"We will see if we can enter the battle against the software companies. This is probably the year we need to demonstrate that," Stringer said during a meeting with reporters at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas Monday morning.

One of the first examples of this strategy will be an expansion of the PlayStation Network. The network now is mostly used by gamers. Sony wants to turn it into a platform to deliver video, too. Sony will hold a press conference in two months to discuss changes to the PlayStation 3.

The world, of course, will wait and see. Consumers and analysts for the past several years have complained about the functionality of the software in Sony devices. The company, along with nearly everyone in the electronics industry, has also been trying to bridge the gap between the PC and the TV for years. But progress seems to be occurring across the industry. Microsoft says it has put nearly a million intelligent set-top boxes into homes, and Sharp and Samsung announced new TVs that serve up headlines and weather from Web sites.

Overall, Stringer seemed to be in an upbeat mood. A year ago at the same press conference, he had recently launched into a reorganization of the company and was in the midst of a notebook battery recall. Stringer and others noted that the software divisions didn't talk with the hardware divisions, and neither had much contact with the movie unit.

Now, all of Sony's divisions work more cohesively together, he said. Sales in many key areas are also up. Blu-ray players outsold HD DVD players during the holiday season, Sony asserted. Blu-ray accounted for 70 percent of the standalone high-def video players during the holidays, according to the company.

"Three years ago, we were not profitable in electronics. Now we are seriously profitable," he said. Observers will "also probably be pleasantly surprised" with results for Sony's third fiscal quarter, which come soon. Recent economic trends could put a damper on sales "but it's too early to be pessimistic," he said.

The reorganization has also allowed Sony to start coming out with more innovative products, such as the robotic Rolly device.

"We are now getting into the rhythm of innovation," Stringer said.

Stringer and other executives touted Sony's OLED TVs. The company, however, admitted that making large OLED TVs (the version on the market measures only 11 inches in diameter) is difficult.

Other notes:

--Stringer wouldn't directly comment on whether the Blu-ray consortium paid money to Warner to put its movies exclusively on Blu-ray. Stringer said Warner saw the value of the format but dodged discussing financial terms. "I think you are going to have to take that announcement at face value," he said.

The HD DVD group paid Paramount to commit to publishing its movies on the HD DVD format for a specified period of time in 2007. It was seen as a victory by the HD DVD group, but Blu-ray backers called the deal a form of a bribe.

--Sony Ericsson is going to concentrate more heavily in gaining market share in North America. Worldwide, Sony Ericsson has seen its market share rise to around 10 percent, but the weak place is the U.S., admitted Dick Komiyama, who heads up the group.

--Sony is also looking at incorporating its Cell processor, which currently sits inside of the PlayStation3, in other products. Cell is particularly good at manipulating video streams. The company even held a contest among engineers to design new applications. However, Sony didn't put a firm date on when some of these devices might come out or what they might be.

--The PlayStation 2 will become the device that Sony will use to take on the Nintendo Wii. Titles like Guitar Hero have sold well with PlayStation 2 and consumers can expect to see more casual games and non-core gamer games coming out, said Kaz Hirai, chief executive of Sony Computer Entertainment, which oversees video consoles.

EchoStar TR-50: An HD DVR for those without cable or satellite

(Credit: EchoStar)

If you think everybody has cable or satellite, you couldn't be more wrong. In fact, if you live in an area that's well-served by digital broadcasters, now's a better time than ever to get your TV over the air (or "OTA," as the cool kids say): yeah, you get only a handful of channels, but they're in crystal-clear digital quality--DVD quality at "worst," uncompressed high-definition at best. The problem--as we're reminded by many an e-mailer--is that there just isn't a good DVR solution for the rabbit-ears crowd, especially if you prefer high-def. (You can opt for a TiVo HD, but you'd still have to pay a monthly fee for their programming guide.) But that may finally be changing, thanks to the EchoStar TR-50. For all intents and purposes, the TR-50 takes many of the features found on Dish Networks' excellent satellite DVRs (such as the ViP622 and 722) and brings them to antenna-based TV viewers.

The transmitter (top) sends six AV sources to the receiver (bottom), which in turn attaches to a TV or projector.

(Credit: Belkin)

It's a common dilemma: you have the flat-screen TV perfectly placed in the living room or home theater, but the rest of your gear is located halfway across the room. You can snake a long HDMI cable around the perimeter--or you can consider something like the Belkin FlyWire. The transmitter/receiver combo lets you toggle as many as six AV sources and wirelessly transmit the audio and video--up to full 1080p--from one side of the room (your equipment rack) to the other (your big-screen TV or projector). The version Belkin was demoing at its booth had two HDMI inputs, two component inputs, a composite/S-Video AV set, and a SCART input--but the company hinted that that the North American version may drop the SCART jack (useless outside Europe) in favor of a third HDMI input. The generous connectivity means even the biggest home-theater geek will have the capacity for all of his gear--say, a PS3, an HD DVR, an Xbox 360, a DVD recorder, a Nintendo Wii, and a sixth device. Setup is said to be plug and play (the transmitter pairs with the receiver at the touch of a button), and because it's a closed system, it should be universally compatible with any standard video source and an HDMI TV.

Watch the Belkin FlyWire video on CNET TV.