Panasonic PZ81 Freesat Plasma TV Range

We touched on this briefly when we announced the launch of the Freesat service, but we thought it would be the ideal time to take a look at the range of Freesat inclusive HD TVs that are being launched by Panasonic. Available, we believe, sometime in June these TVs represent pretty much the entire hardware range that the average tech savvy consumer can actually get excited about.

The PZ81 series offers three different models of plasma television; the 42 inch, 46 inch, and 50 inch versions. The televisions obviously come with a built in Freesat tuner as well as the features that have made Panasonic televisions some of the more popular entries to the market – 3 HDMI outputs, Ethernet port, SD slot, and the V-Real 3 processor.

We believe there will also be two smaller LCD Freesat televisions although these won’t be available until some time in October.

Freesat has launched with a reasonable 80 channels of SD and HD televisual entertainment and this figure is due to increase to more than 200 by the end of the year. The release was a somewhat quiet affair and, in our opinion, there were very few reasonable pieces of hardware available at launch. The set top boxes represented pretty much the entire range, with no televisions and no PVR options available as yet.

TorrentSpy Ordered To Pay $110m In Damages

TorrentSpy, the now defunct torrent sharing website, has been ordered to pay the equivalent of £56m to the Motion Picture Association of America. The site indexed millions of torrents of music, images, TV, and films but the site was plagued by court action throughout its life. Eventually, in a bid apparently designed to protect its users’ privacy, TorrentSpy closed its doors in March of this year.

Valence Media, the parent company of TorrentSpy, as well as its owners Justin Bunnell and Wes Park have filed for bankruptcy. Understandably, the MPAA sees this as being a major victory in their fight against online copyright laws. They began legal action against TorrentSpy in February 2006 and the site was later ordered to being tracking users and submit its findings to the MPAA. In order to prevent this from happening, American users were blocked from using the site.

Dan Glickman, chairman of the MPAA stated that “the demise of TorrentSpy is a clear victory for the studios.” While the torrent sharing technology itself is perfectly legitimate and speeds up downloads by breaking data into smaller packets, the infringement of copyright laws obviously isn’t legal. Legal action is ongoing for many other Torrent index websites as the MPAA and other organizations attempt to stop the illegal downloading of content online.

100MB Broadband Coming Soon To Bournemouth Residents

I’m sure there are plenty of incredible reasons to live in Bournemouth, and H2O have released news that offers yet another. H20 intend to pioneer super fast broadband cables that run through the sewer system within the Dorset town with more towns to be announced in the near future. Companies have been toying with methods to deliver improved Broadband speeds to the country’s residents, and using the sewer seems one of the more viable and cost effective methods.

Work will begin on the network that is currently being offered to businesses, within the next 6 months. This means that residents will be able to enjoy super fast broadband (a term regularly thrown about by Broadband providers already) of up to 100MB.

Ofcom has been at the head of research to develop methods that offer improved Broadband. This action has been taken because the UK has one of the poorest Broadband options in Europe. In other European countries residents can already enjoy the kinds of Broadband connection that H20 wants to develop.

Increased Broadband, like this, will mean greater possibilities of on-demand HD TV and other services that are currently restricted by poor Internet connections. Virgin Broadband currently offers residents up to 24MB broadband and aim to increase their entire network to speeds of 50MB by the end of this year.

Source – BBC Technology News

Next Gen Console Wars – An Update

A lot is always made of the console wars. While Sony had pretty much the run of the battlefield with its first PlayStation, Microsoft and Nintendo have more recently staged serious bids to overthrow the all conquering heir. The Nintendo Wii remains the most popular console worldwide, with the Xbox360 holding firm in second place. However, the PS3 is gaining a real head of steam with news that it has now outsold the Xbox360 in the European market.

The Nintendo Wii was a hugely innovative games console, thanks to the Wii Mote. As a result of this, it is seen as bridging the gap between games consoles and the whole span of generations. Older consumers, as well as much younger, would be more inclined to play the Wii than either the PS3 or Xbox360.

Xbox360 gained a lot of the market share from its fiercest rivals, Sony, by releasing considerably earlier. By the time the PS3 was released, Microsoft’s system already had a plethora of high quality titles available. What was more, the Xbox Live networking play had also attracted large numbers of people.

Sony is estimated to have now sold approximately 16 million unites worldwide (compared to 19 million Xbox360s and 25 million Wiis). Billed as being more of an all-in-one home entertainment system the PS3 is more expensive than the Xbox360 but it represents one of the most affordable and realistic methods to purchase a Blu-Ray player.

As reported by BBC News, Sony believes it will overtake the Xbo360 in the near future and reclaim its crown as the leading games console within its ten year lifespan. Kaz Hirai, the head of the gaming console division at Sony, believes this will be achieved thanks to an improved line up of available games brought about by developer’s learning the technology behind the system.

Freesat Launch Products Look Limited

In light of the news that 98% of the population would be able to receive free satellite through the new Freesat service released today, we thought it may be prudent to look at the equipment that was immediately available. Unfortunately, there is only a handful of manufacturers making equipment at the moment but Freesat does run on open standards so other manufacturers are likely to join in the party once they’ve seen how successful the launch actually is.

The Standard Definition Freesat box offers an affordable way to receive all the standard definition channels. Bush, Grundig, Goodmans, and Humix all manufacture these as well as the High Definition boxes. Prices range from about £50 upwards.

If you want to watch High Definition channels through Freesat on your new Plasma or LCD TV then you will need an HD box. Humix is also promising the release of an HD box that incorporates the functions of a PVR so you can record, pause, and rewind live TV.

Panasonic are in the process of developing and launching High Definition TVs with built in Freesat receivers. While you will still need a satellite dish to receive the channels, this presents a good opportunity to buy a new HD TV with a good freeview package that is due to expand and include a lot more channels in the very near future.

In my opinion, it’s a fairly major mistake that no PVR option will be available at launch. However, if you just want a good freeview type offering and aren’t concerned with recording or any of the other features offered with a PVR then Freesat looks to be a superb option. The boxes are all relatively similar and you may want to wait until Panasonic release their impressive looking range of Freesat TVs.

Freesat Launches In UK

Freesat, the free UK satellite TV service, launches today. The free service, established by the BBC and ITV, will reach an impressive 98% of the population including many people that have been previously unable to receive freeview through their terrestrial TV aerial. Prices start at £49 for a standard box, plus £80 installation and set up, with no monthly charges following that payment.

A High Definition version is also available, costing a little more at £120 for the box – installation remains £80. All viewers will initially receive the full 80 channels on offer, and this figure will rise to more than 200 by the end of this year. Both the BBC and ITV hope that the new service will especially encourage an icnrease in HD TV viewing.

Pretty much all new TV sets are HD ready, but few people either have access to HD channels or are willing to pay extra for an HD subscription. With the new Freesat service this should be less of an issue and the service will launch with a BBC HD channel included. ITV HD is set to follow shortly.

The only people that will be unable to receive Freesat are those that do not have a clear line of sight of the satellite, and those that live in listed buildings and therefore cannot erect a satellite dish on the outside of their homes.

Power Your Gadgets With The Solar Coffee Table

Gadgets don’t exactly have to fulfil some groundbreaking task to be appealing. In fact, more often than not, they’re the kind of thing that many of us could do without. However, the solar powered coffee table seems a little extravagant and, for us Brits anyway, completely pointless. The solar powered coffee table is just that – a coffee table that collects and stores power from the sun.

Intelligent Forms, a Canadian design company that are in the latter stages of creating an entire catalogue of “green” products, claim that placed outside or given a lot of exposure to sunlight, the table-top solar panel will store roughly the equivalent of 17kw a year. That’s about enough power for 80 laptop charges, 2,000 digital camera charges, and 1,500 mobile phone charges.

For those of us based in the UK, and not Canada, and those of us that don’t relish the prospect of leaving the contents of our home office in the garden all night, it should be about enough to keep the universal remote and the wireless games controller charged.

In terms of form and design, I can’t help but think of the old Space Invaders table games. It’s supposed to look modern, sleek, and even futuristic, but only in a Buck Rogers TV series kind of way.

9X Media Wins Multiple Monitor Peeing Contest

I didn’t really know one existed either but apparently so. The Masterplex started it all with a six screen multiple monitor rig. More entries subsequently joined the race, but all have been competely eclipsed by the 9X Media system. While it would work with as few as two monitors, it’s the bigger end of the boast that we’re particularly interested in.

The X-Top enables users to combine up to 64 screens in a multi tiled display spanning 1 to 3 rows. The screens on offer range in size from 19” to 40” and are high spec LCD monitors. 9X will completely customise your rig for you, and it’s a hardly surprise when you consider how much you would probably have to pay for this kind of set up.

I say “probably have to pay” because try as I might I can’t find any indication of a price, even for the “smaller” set ups. Again, though, if you have to ask… you know the rest. Incredible though it looks, I do tend to question the actual deployment of a 64 screen multi-tiled display using 40” monitors. I think you’d struggle to play GTA IV on a video wall that size. And another point, presuming you use 3 rows of monitors, that would require two rows of 21 monitors and a single row of 22 monitors. That’s just not symetrical.

Sony breaks out 2.1 BRAVIA DAV-F200 home theater system

Sony has just launched the DAV-F200 Bravia home theatre system, sony sound bites “Bringing cinema sound without cluttering up your living room with speakers” as the major selling point. In terms of specifications its not amazing but fine for casual home use.

DAV-F200 Specifications

• 2.1 channel home theater system

• 300W amplifier

• HDMI output

• MP3 recording via USB

• Playback of MP3, WMA, AAC, and JPEG via USB

• Internal playback of MP3, JPEG, and DivX formats

• BRAVIA Sync

The control box can be mounted to the wall or placed in a cabinet and the hideaway speakers as small enough to hide in any number of crevasses in the living room.With a total amplification output of 405W claims to create virtual surround effects from only two hidden speakers and the reasonably compact sub-woofer. Worded another way sony are selling you 2.1 surround sound but fobbing it off as virtual 5.1 surround sound. unfortunately, there’s no word on price or availability in the US, however in the Europe our sources tell us June 2008 release.

Samsung Soundbar HT-X810T Due For Release In May

Samsung will release its all in one Soundbar HT-X810T next month. First announced at CES 2008, the all in one wall mountable home theatre system is the perfect accompaniment to a wall mounted LCD TV. The Soundbar itself includes an upscaling DVD player that takes standard DVDs and essentially converts them for top notch HD viewing. A wirelessly operated sub woofer is also included to maximise your audio experience.

Despite being a single unit, the latest Soundbar will deliver an impressive 300W of 5.1 surround sound. Plus, it will deliver the depths of sound that only a dedicated sub can produce making your home theatre enjoyment even more enjoyable.

The DVD Player is an impressive piece of gadgetry goodness too. It upscales virtually any DVD, in a majority of formats (including DivX, WMA, WMV, and all the recordable formats) up to 1080p.

In terms of form and design, the HT-X810T is designed to sit neatly below 40-inch wall mounted televisions and larger so not exactly ideal for your 15 inch portable.

Alas, there’s no real indication of a price as yet, which makes me a little apprehensive but I guess if you have to ask then you probably can’t afford it, right?

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