High Definition Hardware

Networking your Home

Only a few years ago, home theaters consisted of large tube-based TVs, VCRs, and stereos with two speakers. Today, home theaters consist of flat-panel HDTVs, receivers, surround sound speakers, DVD players, and more. So what components will make up the home theater of tomorrow? Audio, video, and data distribution will be key to the future home theater, which will soon morph into a home theater network.

Acer Aspire 9800 - HD DVD laptop

If you’re looking for a laptop with the potential to fulfill all your multimedia needs, then look no further than the new Acer Aspire 9800.

This new Acer offers a massive 20.1 inch widescreen with a native resolution of 1,680 x 1,050 along with CrystalBrite high-contrast technology and an 8 millisecond response time. To make the most of this, Acer has chosen the popular 256 Meg version of Nvidia’s GeForce Go 7600 graphics card which should have plenty of puff for both games and multimedia tasks.

Sony to release first Blu Ray enabled PCs

Sony have announced they will begin selling their Blu-ray enabled machines in Japan in June. Both laptop and desktop computers will be available.

The Vaio VGN-AR70B laptop is equipt with a large 17-inch widescreen LCD with a 1,920 pixels by 1,080 pixels resolution, so it can show 1080 high-definition content with minimal scaling.

The Vaio VGN-RC729DP desktop offers up a digital TV tuner and will be sold with or without a 19-inch LCD monitor.

Sony desktop offers Blu-Ray

SonyStyle.com, Sony’s US targeted website, is promoting the new VAIO RC 300 desktop PC, the first Sony desktop to offer a Blu-Ray drive.

As regular High Definition Hardware readers will know, Blu-Ray is one of two major new High Definition formats (HD DVD being the other), and offers PC users the ability to play, burn and store a massive amount of data on a single disc (25GB to 50GB).

Fujitsu launch third HD DVD laptop

The third notebook to incorporate an HD DVD drive has been released courtesy of Fujitsu. This follows the recent lead from Toshiba and, more recently, Acer.

 

The FMV-Biblio Loox NX 95S/D - a notebook that strangely seems to share the same model number as Fujitsu's Blu-ray Disc-equipped PC-TV system is based on a 1.67GHz Intel Core Duo T2300 processor and an Intel 955PM chipset.

TDK first to ship Blu-ray Discs

TDK has started shipping 25 Gigabyte (GB) recordable and rewritable Blu-ray Discs pipping its rivals to the production post.  The 25GB discs sport a single layer, whereas the 50GB discs due to ship later this year feature a dual layer.

 

TDK's write-once type BD-Rs are said to be completely different from that used in the current crop of CDs and DVDs. They utilise an inorganic recording material. In case of the rewritable BD-RE Blu-ray Discs, a specially designed high-sensitivity phase-change recording material is being used.

Toshiba launch worlds first HD DVD Laptop

The world’s first notebook offering a HD DVD-ROM has been released in Japan by Toshiba.

 

The Qosmio G30/697HS will be available to Japanese consumers in May. Along with playback of HD DVD content, the new Qosmio will also read and write to a multitude of current DVD and CD discs.

MatrixStream to release High Definition IPTV

MatrixStream Technologies will soon be releasing the world’s first H.264 AVC (advance video codec) Video on Demand and IPTV (Internet Protocol Television) Set Top Box (STB) and PC Player capable of the highest of High Definition (HD) signal formats with 1080 vertical pixels by 1920 horizontal pixels.

MatrixStream’s 1020HD STB will match and even exceed broadcast and satellite quality video over any broadband network the same way that VoIP can be used over any broadband connection.

Sonys New VAIO XL-Series

The entertainment centre for your living

According to Sony's website the New VAIO VGX-XL100 represents the next stage of home entertainment. Unlike a conventional desktop, it is designed to be used in your living room connected to a High Definition TV.

The XL100 offers both HDMI™ (High Definition Multimedia Interface) and Component TV outputs. Simply connect the XL100 to an HD Ready TV to take advantage of a true HD experience.

The VAIO XL100 also lets you watch both analogue and digital TV with its hybrid turner, while the large 250GB hard disk means that the VAIO XL100 can act as a video recorder as well, not to mention a music centre and DVD player.

On top, a wireless keyboard and a remote control enable you to lie-back on your sofa to manipulate your digital entertainment. Setup is apparantly simple with little cabling required.