So you are a tech geek and proud of it and you got the best of the best all running though a 60 inch flat screen plasma TV and the best surround sound on the market but its it still ain't 3D now is it, guess what it could be real soon.
Gaming.Hexus reports on this major leap forword: At CES 2009, Next3D has revealed the Next3D player wihich will allow Xbox 360 and PC owners to receive theatrical 3D films, 3D IMAX films, movie trailers, real-time stereo camera webcasts and other 3D content directly to their screens.
“We believe that gaming is likely to drive stereoscopic technology into the home, and we’ll be there to complete the media experience,” says David Cole, CEO of Next 3D.
In an effort to prepare for the expected demand, Hollywood is now releasing big-budget 3D movies at the rate of one per month and professional sporting events are being broadcast in 3D. Low-cost 3D cameras and even 3D web-cams are becoming available. This week at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, many top television manufacturers around the world including Sony, LG, and Panasonic have announced 3D ready TV’s, and both Samsung and Mitsubishi have already shipped an estimated 2 million 3D ready plasmas and DLP-based TV’s.
Next3D content is encoded with a tool that allows it to be viewed in full stereoscopic 3D 1080P high-definition. Like YouTube, Next3D will offer user-created content channels for stereo enthusiasts to post and share 3D video and still images. Premium, pay-to-view content channels will also be available by mid-year. Initial Next3D content providers include rights holders to 3D IMAX films, theatrical 3D films, and movie trailers.
The Next3D Movie Player will be free to consumers on every platform. “Remember how iTunes revolutionized getting the music you want?” adds D.J. Roller, Co-founder of Next3D, “That’s how easy we’re making 3D.”
The Next3D Player will be available for Xbox 360s and PCs this spring.
Engadget believes that the 3D player announcement is vapourware, but a spokesperson from Next3D responded:
"Next3D is producing a player for the XBOX 360 as well as other DirectX and Open GL paltforms. We use the GPU to decode and checkerboard (among other interlacing techniques) the signal, then squirt it out the HDMI port. In many ways, the XBOX 360 is an easier target that the PC or Mac - as the hardware is 100% consistent across the installed base.
As for the streaming strategy, we'll announce our first rights-holder partners in less than 1 week. They aren't huge studio names out of the gate. But, one is an IMAX film distributor with a fantastic 3D catalog. It will take time to hit critical mass with the online offering - there is a LOT to prove about a home 3D audience to rights holders. We do believe that there is enough inertia that, when combined with the stereo gaming market, a viable audience is worth cultivating.
The proof is in the seeing, and we'll be out on the coast early next month."
Want to participate in the Xbox 360 beta? Sign up HERE
I was floating around the net before the super bowl started and hit a link that i just had to look over, with NetFlix now on the 360 and all the requests from Xbox Media Center (XBMC) users from XBOX-HQ there needed to be a single APP to let you run them all from your PC and stream them to the 360 and here it is.
Here is the run down on what PLAYON can do for you and your new console: With PlayOn, you can access your favorite Internet videos (YouTube, Hulu, CBS, Netflix, CNN, ESPN, and many more) on your TV. Most folks don't want to gather the family around the PC in the office to settle in to catch up on missed episodes of your favorite sitcom or check out the latest YouTube videos from your favorite producer. Of course, there are times you want to watch video on your PC, and there are times when you'd much rather take advantage of the investment you made in your Home Entertainment System and watch on the big screen. In fact, according to a Neilson survey 94% of adults who subscribe to a cable or satellite service prefer to watch programming on their traditional sets rather than online.
What is so special about how we do it? PlayOn leverages your existing set-top boxes, game consoles, and home PCs – so you don't have to buy any new devices or connect them to your TV. And, we believe in the power of the World Wide Web – no "walled gardens" here – we want you to be able to access all sources of video content. We also believe in universal access; we want to make it affordable to everyone – so we offer a free trial followed by a $29.99 one-time fee. We also want the experience to be great, so we built for TV viewing – so you can see the entire screen on the TV (not like trying to browse web pages on your TV) and use a remote control or joystick to navigate and play the videos! It is really just like watching TV – only with the access to the World Wide Web of Video.
This is in no way a free program but if you have Netflix and have set up a Hulu account or just get Hulu to try out the new PLAYON software you will see that this is a good buy at 30 bucks, get it quick before it gose up to $40.00.
Microsoft has released an update for Media Center Extenders for Windows Vista. This update is intended for computers that are running Windows Vista Home Premium or Windows Vista Ultimate.
Issues that are resolved by this update:
This update addresses the following issues. These issues occur when you use Media Center on an Xbox 360 console.
This update addresses a picture quality issue that occurs when you use Media Center Extender on an Xbox 360 console that has a High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) connector to the TV for video and a Sony/Philips Digital Interface Format (S/PDIF) connection to the audio device for audio.
This update addresses an issue in which the Media Center Extender stops responding (hangs) when you play a large non-WMV video over an HTTP session.
This update provides support for 50Hz output together with better quality for HD models. This feature applies primarily to regions that use the PAL video standard.
There are several ways to provide your customers with the Windows Media Center experience. This post covers one of those design strategies simply referred to as centralized Extenders. Like all designs, this approach has certain advantages and disadvantages and it will be up to you, the installer, to determine which is right for your customer’s system.
This solution is particularly advantageous for the customer that wants a minimal amount of AV hardware in each room, or who wants to distribute the audio from their Media Center experience throughout the house using a conventional distributed audio system, or desires the elegance of both.
In this design approach shown above, all five Extenders are located in the rack with the Windows Media Center PC, with the Extender’s video output connected to dedicated, in room, displays. This connection can be done via one of the various methods used to extend video between rooms that exists today (primarily baluns, and in-wall wiring) In addition, the audio from each Extender is routed to an audio switcher and amplifier, then on to speakers in each room.
For the user who simply wants a display with speakers (and no distributed audio speakers) in each room, traditional A/V or cat 5 wiring can be used to bring the audio and video signals to the displays. We highly recommend using HDMI or component video to ensure HD performance on the display. For distances over 25 feet, an HDMI or component video extender can carry the signal up to 150 feet or more (depending on model/mfg used).
Here is a quick list of the various advantages and disadvantages of using the centralized Extender design strategy.
Click the read more link to view the entire story..
Expanding on the media center angle of the Xbox 360 Peter Safran, the Hollywood producer and talent manager, will be making scripted shows available only to Xbox live users.
Mr. Safran said, “The Xbox is unique. It operates at a level outside of what we generally consider Web entertainment,” in his interview with The New York Times and also included the fact that at least some of the shows would be supported by advertising.
Now what gets me is the article even refers to Microsoft’s previous attempts at this form of entertainment Ware Microsoft put $100 million in to original Internet shows and just ended up canceling them in no time flat.
Feel free to blast me in the forums but i think down loadable movies or even just a youtube browser would be a bigger hit then this flop waiting to happen, the chances of even one of the show making it big are slim to none and even then it wold just get sent over to more main stream form of media.
Its just my two cents but i pay live for my games and Comcast for my cable, stick to what you know and keep your variations small, no need to reinvent the wheel here.
Microsoft today launches a beta of its Windows Media Center Internet TV platform. Microsoft's Internet TV initiative was first hyped for the Xbox 360 platform, but it will first show up on Windows Vista machines.
Owners of Windows Vista Home Premium and Windows Vista Ultimate will be able to access free ad-supported TV content without the need for a hardware TV tuner. Over 100 hours of programming will initially be available during the beta phase including episodes of "Arrested Development" along with music concerts by John Mayer and Snoop Dogg.
Vista users will also have access to news clips from MSNBC and sports highlights from FOX Sports.
Owners of Microsoft's Xbox 360 will be happy to know that their consoles can be used as Windows Media Extenders to view the same content available on Windows Vista.
Microsoft also announced that Linksys, D-Link and HP Windows Media Center Extenders would be capable of streaming Internet TV content to high-definition TVs.
Linksys' Media Center Extender DMA2100 is priced at $299, D-Link's DSM-750 MediaLounge HD Media Center Extender is priced at $349 and HP's 42" and 47" MediaSmart LCD HDTVs already incoporate Windows Media Center technology.
Click the read more link to view the entire story..
As you may remember, back in late 2004 Microsoft's hardware partners announced Windows Media Center Extenders, which were basically STBs that could replicate a cheesy version of Media Center's interface on your TV over your home network. Not surprisingly, people didn't want another box (let alone a box with a crappy UI that wasn't as good as a real Media Center) so those boxes never took off. But the best (and most frequently used) implementation came way later on with the Xbox 360, which was able to far better replicate the XP and Vista Media Center experience.
So today Microsoft is announcing a reinvigorated Media Center Extender effort called... wait for it... Extenders for Windows Media Center. Ok, the name totally sucks, but the important part is Microsoft upgraded its wayward Extender system with a new version that takes full advantage of Vista (including live HDTV streaming), supports 802.11n, and adds something that really blew our mind: codecs we actually care about, namely XviD and DivX. Niveus, Linksys, and D-Link will all be launching new devices based on this software platform, so watch out for those -- as well as DVD players, TVs, and all manner of other home theater devices Microsoft is apparently trying to get this new system built right into. Unfortunately this new Extender rev isn't being announced for the Xbox 360 (yet), so we'll all have to wait a while longer before playing XviD and DivX movies on that thing -- without transcoding, anyway.
Some Vista Media Center beta testers were confused when they were unable to connect to their Xbox 360 during the Xbox Live downtime last Tuesday. Luckily, reader Andy Wismar bothered to read the release notes:
For the length of the beta program the Xbox 360 must have access to Xbox Live. This is typically accomplished by connecting your Xbox360 to your home network such that the Xbox360 has Internet access.
Presumably, Microsoft will drop this un-necessary restriction in the final Vista WMC release. As Andy points out, the reason you have a TV is so that you have something to do when your internet goes down.
Folks looking to integrate Transcode 360(info) with their own apps will be pleased to know that I finally managed to find the time to knock up a quick primer and some sample code demonstrating how to query and control Transcode 360. For more information follow the link.
In related news, I've had word from Brian of My Movies confirming that the integration work is still going ahead and is now in its final stages so stay tuned...
I also found some time to squash a few long-standing bugs and am currently testing a new version of Transcode 360 on my new dual core Media Center setup. I'm not sure whether it might make sense to time its release with My Movies. I should be receiving a release candidate any day now so I'll defer the decision until then.
Want to help the Vista team make sure that the Media Center Extender experience on the Xbox 360 is great? Then sign up for their beta program...but only if you can answer yes to all of these questions:
Requirements:
- You have an Xbox 360 connected to the Internet
- You have a PC capable of running Vista Ultimate or Home Premium (Read the minimum hardware requirements here.)
- You are over the age of 18
- You reside in the US
Then sign up for the beta program here
If you are accepted, you'll get an email directly from the Vista Media Extender team sometime in the next three weeks with further details.
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