Player

Cheapest Blu-ray Player comes from Samsung

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Finding a cheap Blu-ray player is still rather hard. One would expect that they would be selling under the magic $200 price point by now, but they do not. Of course you can always use the PS3 to play Blu-ray movies, but if you do not own one and do not want to pay $399 for it, you do not have that many options.
Low cost electronics brands like Daewoo and Magnavox have Blu-ray players in the pipeline or already on the market. Searching for the best deal on a Blu-ray player I actually landed on a Samsung Blu-ray player. Read more

Posted on Thu, 2 Oct 2008 11:04:37 CDT | by Luigi Lugmayr

iPhone Flash Player almost finished

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Adobe said that they are almost done with a Flash player for the Apple iPhone. Apple is in control of when Flash support will be rolled out for the iPhone though.
The details on what the iPhone Flash player would actually be supported are still unkown.
Given that many sites use Flash in the layout it is important to support Flash on web pages. Additionally many videos are only offered through Flash video players, which do not currently play on the iPhone. Read more

Posted on Tue, 30 Sep 2008 23:07:51 CDT | by Luigi Lugmayr

Warhammer Online Grabs 500k Players in a Week

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EA says that in the first week of Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning being available over 500,000 players have registered for the game. The game has become the fastest selling new MMO game of all time. It still has a long way to go to match World of Warcraft.

The game is available everywhere for $49.99 and is rated T for teen. EA and the game developer expect the title to be around for years to come. Read more

Posted on Fri, 26 Sep 2008 05:38:19 CDT | by Shane McGlaun

COWON iAUDIO 7 MP3 Player Reviewed

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The Techlounge published a review of the COWON iAUDIO 7 MP3 Player.
Quote from the review: "I don't hate the player, and I'm certainly not disappointed with it. I just have a hard time recommending it, unless you know you're willing to spend time with a machine and learn how to really manipulate it, as opposed to going on intuition. Read more

Posted on Wed, 24 Sep 2008 20:00:00 CDT | by Luigi Lugmayr

Superstruct Massively Multiplayer Forecasting Game

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A new game called Superstruct, being billed as the world's first massively multiplayer forecasting game was announced today. The game was designed by renowned game designer Jane McGonigal. Superstruct is set in 2019 and begins with fictional findings of a supercomputer that predicts the human species will be extinct in 23 years.

The game revolves around a set of super-threats that represent the collapse of the environment, economy, social risks, and society disruptions. The game is played on forums, blogs, videos, wikis and other online spaces. Read more

Posted on Tue, 23 Sep 2008 15:00:00 CDT | by Shane McGlaun

Roku Netflix Player Review

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The TechLounge published a review of the Roku Netflix Player.
Quote from the review: "It's clear that the shortcomings are all Netflix-based, the greatest of all being selection. They don't have a lot of recent content, and they have a lot of content rated three stars and worse. Often with TV shows, they will have some but not all episodes of a season. But they're adding things constantly, and generally expanding as fast as they can afford to. By the time I thought I'd watched everything I thought was worth my time, I checked again and found an equal quantity of media gems. (Like Jesus Christ: Vampire Hunter. Read more

Posted on Mon, 22 Sep 2008 22:00:00 CDT | by Luigi Lugmayr

Panasonic DMP-BD50 Blu-ray Player is I4U Top 100 Holiday Gift Guide Tip #32

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You want the latest in Blu-ray technology, but do not want to deal with a Sony PS3 console in your living room? The Panasonic DMP-BD50 is the answer. The BD50 features the latest Blu-ray profile 2.0 (BD Live) support and as another added value has an integrated decoder for lossless Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio formats.
This means you can keep your existing Audio Receiver and still enjoy the new audio quality the new formats available on Blu-ray discs offer. Read more

Posted on Fri, 19 Sep 2008 12:00:00 CDT | by Luigi Lugmayr

Slacker G2 Personal Radio Player unveiled

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Slacker unveiled the new Slacker G2 Personal Radio Player replacing the first Slacker player introduced in 2007.
The Slacker G2 gives you the freedom to listen to your favorite Slacker Radio stations on a full-featured portable player, wherever you go.
Slacker Personal Radio enables listeners to personalize over 100 expertly programmed stations and create, edit and share their own Personal Radio stations. Slacker listeners also have easy access to artist profiles, album reviews and cover art within the Slacker Web Player and on their Slacker Personal Radio Players. Read more

Posted on Tue, 16 Sep 2008 08:45:40 CDT | by Luigi Lugmayr

New Zune 120GB and 16GB Players announced

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Just a day before today's Apple iPod announcements Microsoft unveiled new Zune music players and a new Zune software update.
Microsoft expands the Zune player line-up with a new 16GB and 120GB player and a new blue-on-silver and an all-black color scheme.
The new Zune software adds new features like Buy from FM. Buy from FM allows you to tag and purchase songs you hear on FM radio stations directly from the Zune player. Read more

Posted on Tue, 9 Sep 2008 06:00:00 CDT | by Luigi Lugmayr

LG Electronics Announces BD300 Network Blu-ray Player

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LG has a new network Blu-ray player called the BD300 that will be on store shelves this fall across the country. The player claims to be the world's first Blu-ray player that can stream movies and TV programs from Netflix instantly.

The BD300 will be available next month at Best Buy, Circuit City and other retailers for $399.95. The player will upscale standard DVDs to 1080p and supports BD Live and more. USB media plus is supported along with LG SimpLink. Read more

Posted on Thu, 4 Sep 2008 09:42:40 CDT | by Shane McGlaun

Sony BDP-S5000ES Blu-ray Player unveiled

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Sony introduced at the IFA 2008 the new high-end Blu-ray player BDP-S5000ES. Sony says that the BDP-S5000ES is the best Blu-ray player yet.
HD Reality Enhancer and Super Bit Mapping are supposed to generate the best images for full HD TVs.
The BDP-S5000ES features 14-bit, 297MHz Video D/A conversion circuitry. Read more

Posted on Wed, 3 Sep 2008 02:00:00 CDT | by Luigi Lugmayr

Samsung BD-P2500 Blu-ray Player Announced

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Samsung has announced its 5th generation Blu-ray player called the BD-P2500. Samsung says that the Blu-ray player is compatible with the latest Blu-ray features like BD Live. The player also supports 7.1-channel analog audio outputs.

The player offers full 1080p resolution and it uses a HQV video processing. Also supported is 7.1 audio and HDMI 1.3 output with xvTCC deep Color support and 24 fps film mode. The player has a wired Ethernet connection, 1GB of internal memory and a USB port for memory expansion. The player will be available in October for $499.99. Read more

Posted on Fri, 29 Aug 2008 14:00:00 CDT | by Shane McGlaun

Sony Announces New Walkman MP3 Players

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Sony announced new Walkman DAPs today including the NWZ-S736F, NWZ-S738F, NWZ-E436F, and NWZ-E438F. The two new S-series players offer drag and drop loading simplicity and support for various audio and video codec's. The two players are also the first Sony players to offer SenseMe channels to analyze the music collection and suggest channels based on the info gathered from the user's tracks.

The players also offer integrated noise cancellation and an accessory cable to use the headphone in an airline. The screen used in the series is a 2-inch QVGA. The E-series Walkman's have a button that allows the lighting to pulse with the beat of the music and a built-in voice recorder. The players can show video and photos as well. Read more

Posted on Thu, 28 Aug 2008 08:50:31 CDT | by Shane McGlaun

Netflix Player from Roku is I4U Top 100 Holiday Gift Guide Tip #9

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The $99.99 Netflix Player connects to the internet and gives direct access to 12,000 movies on Netflix that you otherwise have to wait for until the mailman drops a DVD at your house.
You can hook up your TV via HDMI or RCA jacks, S-video and component video to the Roku Player.
The Netflix Player is a great gift for people who cannot plan ahead and forget to rent movies in time for them to arrive before the weekend. Until now they had to go to Blockbusters on Saturday to rent a movie. With the Netflix Player they can stay home where it is safe and cozy. Read more

Posted on Wed, 27 Aug 2008 12:00:00 CDT | by Luigi Lugmayr

New Archos 5 and Archos 7 Players on Sale

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The newly announced Archos 5 and Archos 7 series portable media players are on sale on Amazon.com.
The top of the line Archos 7 features a 7 inch screen and a huge 320GB hard-drive. An Archos 7 with a smaller 160GB HDD is also available. The Archos 7 320GB sells for $549.99 on Amazon.com.
Read more

Posted on Fri, 22 Aug 2008 14:00:00 CDT | by Luigi Lugmayr

Toshiba XD-E500 DVD Player is I4U Top 100 Holiday Gift Tip #3

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We are starting easy on the Hometheater components holiday gift tips as we still expect several new announcements in the Blu-ray and video streaming categories. The new Toshiba XD-E500 upscaling DVD player is possibly the best affordable DVD player out there this fall.
Toshiba threw all their anger from loosing the HD disc war with HD-DVD into making the XD-500 DVD player. The new DVD player features Toshiba's XDE technology.
XDE takes according to Toshiba the DVD picture quality to a whole new level. In addition to providing upconversion from 480i/p up to 1080p, XDE offers user selectable picture enhancement modes that allow for greater detail, more vivid colors and stronger contrast that bring standard DVD quality closer to the HD experience. Read more

Posted on Thu, 21 Aug 2008 12:00:00 CDT | by Luigi Lugmayr

Locoroco 2 on PSP does Multi-player

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The fun Locoroco is a surprise hit on the Sony PSP. The game appeared already in 2006. Now Locoroco 2 is on its way and it will actually support an ad-hoc multi-player mode for 2 and 4 players.
Other features of Locoroco 2 include 25 new stages including hidden challenges, cast of new characters, and new actions such as climbing inside shells to destroy thorns, jumping from grass blade to grass blade and swimming underwater. Read more

Posted on Tue, 19 Aug 2008 22:42:48 CDT | by Luigi Lugmayr

RealPlayer now available for Intel Atom based Netbooks

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RealNetworks is announcing the availability of its popular RealPlayer on Intel Atom netbooks and nettops at the Intel l Developer Forum (IDF).
By working with RealNetworks, the netbook and nettop OEMs can bundle a Moblin-optimized media player that includes the most sought-after media format support, decreasing their development, legal and administrative costs and reducing time-to-market.

Devices that use the Intel Atom processor with Moblin based OS will have the added benefit of highly optimized performance and battery life when playing media content. RealPlayer can be used to play content in a browser window for an embedded Internet experience, and also as a stand-alone media player. Read more

Posted on Tue, 19 Aug 2008 12:00:00 CDT | by Luigi Lugmayr

Toshiba XD-E500 DVD Player with XDE unveiled

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Toshiba as you know lost the HD DVD format war and had to bury their HD-DVD format and leave the field to Sony's Blu-ray.
Today Toshiba announced a new DVD player technology dubbed XDE. XDE takes according to Toshiba the DVD picture quality to a whole new level. In addition to providing upconversion from 480i/p up to 1080p, XDE offers user selectable picture enhancement modes that allow for greater detail, more vivid colors and stronger contrast that bring standard DVD quality closer to the HD experience.
This is a nice try by Toshiba to reduce the value of Blu-ray by improving the DVD picture quality. Read more

Posted on Mon, 18 Aug 2008 08:29:14 CDT | by Luigi Lugmayr

Microsoft's Zune Player seeking Hollywood Stardom

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By Andrew Wallenstein

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Microsoft's Zune is looking to Hollywood to gain an edge on Apple's iPod.

Microsoft executives have been making the rounds at talent agencies and production companies in recent months in hopes of licensing exclusive original video programming for the portable media player, which has struggled to gain traction in the marketplace.
Read more

Posted on Mon, 11 Aug 2008 07:27:45 CDT | by Luigi Lugmayr

SlingPlayer for Windows 2.0 Public Beta Review

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Sling Media released a beta of the SlingPlayer 2.0 beta for Windows.
SlingCommunity published a detailed review of the new SlingPlayer.

Quote from the review: "SlingPlayer for Windows 2.0 Public Beta is, on the surface, not entirely different than the SlingPlayer of yore. Yet, when you first start using it, it will feel strangely foreign. Read more