Gizmodo Australia » media centre

Lifeware’s LMS-810 Is the Baddest Media Centre PC Money Can Buy

John Mahoney — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 21:42:00 +0000

In a show full of ultra high-end home theatre installations, Lifeware’s LMS-810 Media Centre piece still manages to be a standout. Taking what they came with last year and doubling it, Lifeware has crammed eight CableCARD tuners (two on board and six more in the external Lifetuner box on top) into a dual Intel Quad Core, 12TB RAID 5 box that can stream out to ten Media Extenders (here, Xbox 360s driving Samsung LCDs). The box can record from all eight of its HD streams while streaming to all 10 Extenders at once, so if you’ve been wondering what to do with your home’s 8 spare digital cable feeds, now you know. No price yet for a pre-Christmas release, but last year’s model with half as many CableCARDs was US$15k.

Denver, CO – CEDIA EXPO 2008 – September 4 – 7, 2008 – Booth #410 – When you take the best possible options for high definition entertainment and combine them into one seriously powerful media server, you’re going to need a new name for the experience you create. Life|ware™, makers of whole home automation and entertainment solutions, have done just that, unveiling a new “High Density Television™” initiative that brings in more high definition entertainment and distributes it around the home more effectively than ever before.

“High Density TV reinvents how we will move and/or view high definition entertainment around the home,” said Seale Moorer, Life|ware’s Chief Executive Officer. “This is the first solution to provide a whole house entertainment server that provides unparalleled capability in terms of HDTV tuners, HDTV streaming and Digital Media management for consumers.”

Life|media™ 810: 8 TV tuners, 10 Extenders, 12 TB of Storage
Several new Life|media units highlight the effort, headed by the company’s new Life|media LMS-810, which has 8 HDTV CableCARD™ tuners and can support up to 10 Media Centre Extender devices.

“The 810 is a very powerful Media Server,” said Moorer. “It deftly handles the high-definition feeds from eight CableCARD tuners and provides HD streaming to ten extenders over the existing home network.”
The 810 provides an incredible 12 terabytes of RAID 5 storage which provide the disk space for a huge digital library of recorded TV, movies, music, photos and videos.

“The Life|media LMS 810 is the centerpiece of a digital entertainment solution as we all envision it,” said Pat King, senior vice president of Seagate’s Consumer Solution Division. “Seagate’s Pipeline HD hard drives are designed specifically for this type of scenario. With HD video optimization, exceptionally quiet acoustics and power management, Pipeline HD drives enable the LMS 810 to provide a reliable way to enjoy digital entertainment.”

Life|tuner™ provides more video options
Also being unveiled at CEDIA is the Life|tuner series of HDTV CableCARD tuner devices that work with Life|ware’s Life|media media servers, allowing the addition of up to six additional HDTV tuners to the Life|media experience.

“Life|tuner is another product that makes life easier for our dealers,” said Moorer. “Obviously, TV tuners themselves are nothing new, but this product allows the easy addition of two, four or six CableCARD tuners to our Life|media servers.”

Life|media media servers feature two CableCARD TV tuners. By adding the six-tuner Life|tuner unit to a high-end Life|media, a consumer has a remarkable 8-tuner DVR solution.

Sony VAIO RT All-In-One PC Is A 25.5″ Widescreen, HDMI-Filled Monster

Benny Goldman — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 23:00:00 +0000

The VAIO RT is Sony’s beast of an all-in-one PC, a widescreen 25.5″ display with HDMI-in and -out ports, Blu-ray recordable drive and up to 1TB of hard drive space. It also comes loaded with 8GB RAM, a multi-card reader and a built-in digital TV tuner. Of course, you’re still stuck with Vista, but with all that power underneath you should do just fine. Unfortunately, the RT has a beastly price tag to match—it starts at US$3300—when it arrives this fall. Press release down below. [Sony]

Video-Editing Powerhouse
The VAIO RT High Definition Studio is a one-stop-shop handling all your high-definition video-editing needs on a single machine.
Its 25.5-inch (diagonal) LCD display, featuring XBRITE-FullHD LCD technology, and Blu-ray optical drive enables you to play, record and edit HD video in 1080p resolution.
In addition to the built-in digital TV tuners, an HDMI In port lets you connect compatible HD cable and satellite boxes to enrich your HDTV viewing experience. An HDMI output has also been included, letting you connect to an external LCD display or HDTV to expand your workspace (HDMI cable, LCD, and HDTV sold separately).
The RT series incorporates Intel® Core™2 Quad processors, up to 8GB of RAM and a terabyte hard drive. It is equipped with a high-speed eSATA port, for extra storage, and a CompactFlash® slot.
The unit comes pre-installed with Windows Vista Ultimate operating system. A wireless keyboard with integrated touchpad and mouse are included. It is also equipped with a built-in power supply enabling you to cleanly mount it to the wall.
The VAIO LV High-Definition PC/TV will start at around $1,600 while the VAIO RT High-Definition Studio PC will go for about $3,300. All three series will be available online at www.sonystyle.com/pr/aio. They will also be sold at Sony Style® stores and select retailers around the country starting this fall.

Windows Media Centre Offers ‘Olympics on the Go’

Sean Fallon — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 21:39:00 +0000

If you and your DVR are having trouble keeping up with all of the Olympics coverage, Microsoft is offering Media Centre users the opportunity to catch up with on-demand content. All you need to do is launch Windows Media Centre on a PC or laptop running Windows Vista Home Premium or Windows Vista Ultimate and scroll down to Online Media. There you will find a link to activate “NBC Olympics On The Go.” (Can also be activated via the NBC site). The content is said to be “up-to-HD quality,” whatever that means, so you should get a decent look at your favourite events.

AU: Needless, to say, this won’t be working for Australians.

[Olympics on the Go]

Media Centre Remote Control Gets Elegant: Amex RM-MP1

Gizmodo US Edition — Fri, 23 May 2008 08:43:14 +0000

Amex’s new RM-MP1 Media remote is designed to work with your Windows media centre system and also to run your presentations in a business setting… and it’s rather elegant, compared to some of the offerings out there. That simple design conceals a touchpad mouse, laser pointer, multimedia controls and it functions via a wireless USB dongle. It’s just 10 x 3.8 x 1.3 cms in size, and comes in black or white. No info on pricing or availability yet. [Akihabaranews]

Windows Media Centre Universal Remote IR Quirks Fixed

Jason Chen — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 22:15:26 +0000

Windows Media Centre users who use universal remotes—not the default Microsoft IR remotes—have problem run into a quirk where only some button presses register. Here’s the deal: media centre receivers expect to see an alternating IR code for functions like channel changing or volume switches in order to eliminate IR “bounce”, which is apparently caused by IR signals bouncing off stuff and hitting the receiver twice. In order to turn this off and fix the problem for universal remotes who don’t support the alternating IR codes, just change a registry entry and you’re done. Hit up CEPro for more details. [CEPro]

DirecTV PC Tuner Photos Surface Online

Adrian Covert — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 20:23:47 +0000

Scans of DirecTV’s PC Tuner showed up on the DBStalk forums, which supposedly has two coaxial inputs, one USB output, ethernet and USB inputs, Vista Media Center support, and a DVR interface that uses your PC’s HDD. No word on whether the tuner is HD or SD, but If this is the real deal, it looks promising. [DBStalk Forums]

HP MediaSmart SL4282N and SL4782N HDTV with Media Center Inside

Brian Lam — Thu, 03 Jan 2008 07:23:09 +0000

The Skinny: MediaSmart 1080p LCD TVs are coming of age—both the $US1,900 42″ and the $US2,400 47″ of them will have built-in Microsoft Media Center Extender connectivity and an improved higher-contrast panel (2000:1). They have 3 HDMI ports, 2 component inputs, integrated Wi-Fi in A, B, G, and N flavors and Ethernet. Has ATSC and QAM Tuners and 500cd of brightness.
One catch: Though you can rent movies without your PC, the PC still needs to be running, and there’s a bit of a delay.

Moneual Lab Introduces WMC PC; For Those Who Like It Big And Frumpy

Gizmodo US Edition — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 15:15:09 +0000

Windows Media Center is starting to gain momentum and jumping onto the bandwagon is Moneual Lab with their media centric, I*magine PC.

The cylindrical, stupidly named, ridiculously shaped, WMC PC sports an Intel Core2Duo processor, Vista Premium, HDMI port, 802.11 a/b/g, Bluetooth, 7″ touchscreen and the option to include Moneual’s very own multimedia interface. Set for a release date sometime within Q4, the device shall set you back a cool $4999. Although Moneual are known for their eccentric designs, we are not too sure that having the privilege to set your WMC PC horizontally, or vertically, is really worth $5K. Also, it looks about as fat, round and unappealing as Kelly Osborne when she is feeling bloated. You like that don’t you? You dirty dog. [Cepro].

Life|Ware Shows Quad-Recording Media Center with Four CableCARDs

Charlie White — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 19:10:20 +0000

Life|Ware rolled out what it says is the first media centre PC running four CableCARDs at the same time, and it proved to us that the whole thing actually works today at CEDIA 07. Its life|media Media Centre PC is the new top of the line for the company, and it’s packing an Intel Quad Core processor, 4GB of RAM and 4TB of storage for a cool $15K. The money shot? It can record four HD channels while it’s streaming HD video to four Xbox 360 Elite boxes running the media centre extender at the same time. And, it does all this without even breathing hard.

See the performance monitor shots in the gallery above—it’s hardly working, using just 57% of its processing power while feeding and recording all that video. It’s doing that using NVIDIA’s highest-end graphics card, the 8800GTS (that’s DVI-only, but easily converted to HDMI).

We’re not sure who would really need to run four Xbox media extenders at the same time, recording all that stuff. Might be nice for a small hotel or a family with a dozen children. It was a fascinating engineering exercise nonetheless.

Webguide for Media Center Streams All Your Content to Any Browser

Brian Lam — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 18:59:33 +0000

Webguide was bought by Microsoft and made a free upgrade to all Media Center users. It basically streams all video, music, photos and TV across the net. It even re-encodes HD streams to lesser pixel counts.

There’s compatibility with WM6 and Windows, but it seems like many browsers should be able to hit your photos and music easily, with Windows Media Video streaming support. And you need to either hit your IP manually or use a Dynamic DNS service, but hey, free is free, and look, you just got streaming home video without a Slingbox (plus Music and Photos). [WebGuide]