Sep
03
The rumor became a reality today, folks. Steve Jobs unveiled the 2nd generation Apple TV in a form factor that fits in the palm of your hand (3.9 x 3.9 x .09 inches). The A4 chip powered device can access content online from popular services like YouTube and Flickr, as well as premium movies and TV shows in HD from iTunes and Netflix. In fact, TV shows can be rented from iTunes for $0.99 a pop and require no downloads since they — as well as HD movies — are streamed to the device on-demand from Apple’s servers (more on that below). As for the UI, it hasn’t really changed in appearance from the last update — though it now offers the ability to see an aggregated view of iTunes shared photo, music, video content on the network and can playback content zapped to it via an AirPlay capable device like the iPad, iPhone, or iPod. So the big news then is the new content partners (Steve has opened the gate to his walled garden a bit), AirPlay, and the device itself, which will be sold for $99 and available in the coming weeks. Missing: any kind of details regarding TV specific apps for the platform.
Jul
19
Viewsonic NexTV $129.99
Viewsonic first showed us the NexTV VMP75 media streamer media streamer last month,and the device is now shipping from both Amazon and Newegg. According to Review Horizon, however, the official release date is July 19th, although it seems possible you could receive it before then if you’ve already pre-ordered the device or get your order in soon.
As for the device itself, it’s still listed at $129.99, and will give you the usual Netflix streaming, and support for playback of content from either your home network or an attached drive. Media streamers, in essence, are nothing more than low power, made for TV nettops. Think of it as your traditional HTPC nettop lite!
Jul
19
A few media streamers are popping up at the moment, one of which is the Buffalo’s new LT-V100 Link Theater. You may be asking, what’s media streamer. Well, think of it as a nettop dedicated solely to the purpose of streaming video content to your TV or monitor.
This Buffalo is a little box offering HDMI and composite video plus optical and good ‘ol 3.5mm audio outputs, able to manage 1080p when streaming content either over Ethernet or pulling it right from USB-based storage. It plays anything from RealVideo to Matroska, naturally with various flavors of MPEG, WMV, and Xvid along the way. It’ll also do images and plenty of audio formats as well. And the price, about ¥11,500 — about $130 — if you live in Japan.