Lexicon have announced their BD-30 Blu-ray player, which they describe as being truly “future proof”. As well as playing Blu-ray, BD-Live, BonusView, DVD, upscaled DVD, DVD-Audio, SACD, and CD content, the BD-30 has a USB port which Lexicon suggest will “enable access to future formats”. Now to us, that sounds more like loading media onto a memory key and using the BD-30 as a very shiny mediaplayer, something a whole lot of other decks will do, but we’ll let them have their fun.
Panasonic Japan have announced a pair of new plasma HDTVs, the 65-inch TH-P65V1 and the 58-inch TH-P58V1. Each features Panasonic’s latest neoPDP panel technology with a contrast ratio of 40,000:1, together with the usual VIERACast streaming media and internet widgets.
Dell have updated their XPS Studio 16 notebook with ATI’s Mobility Radeon HD4670 GPU, complete with 1GB of dedicated graphics memory. The new option – which is already listed on the company’s US site – replaces the previous HD3670 with 512MB of memory, and can be paired with up to a Core 2 Duo T9600 processor running at 2.8GHz.
LG have announced a pair of new LCD HDTV ranges, the SL80 and flagship SL90, complete with edge-to-edge glass displays and Yahoo! NetCast internet-connected widgets. The SL80 will come in the shape of 42-, 47- and 55-inch models, while the SL90 – which measures just 1.15-inches deep – will come in 42- and 47-inch models complete with LED backlighting.
As well as two new surround sound systems designed to fill your living room with sweet-sounding speakers, Onkyo have a new Blu-ray player on offer too. The Onkyo DV-BD507 supports BD Live for interactive content, with full 1080p playback and both Deep Color and x.v. Color support.
Kodak have announced their latest point-and-shoot pocket camcorder, the HD-capable Zi8. Intended to rival Flip’s Ultra HD, the Kodak Zi8 packed 1080p recording, image stabilization and face tracking.
Neuros Technology have been spilling the beans about their next-gen open-source mediaplayer, the OSD3, and while it’s not set to hit shelves for at least another 18 months it’s shaping up to be impressive. The company is working with Texas Instruments regarding the OSD3’s ARM-based processor, and have official support for 1080p/60 encoding and decoding.
Creative have announced their Zii EGG developer platform, the test hardware for coders to get to grips with their freshly “Plaszma” branded Stemcell Computing system. The Zii EGG runs Google’s Android OS on top of Creative’s ZMS-05 chipset, and promises not only WiFi, Bluetooth 2.1+EDR and a 3.5-inch 320 x 480 10-point multitouch display, but 1080p video output, HD playback and OpenGL ES support.
Video demo after the cut
Acer’s NVIDIA Ion toting Aspire Revo nettop is getting a much-needed processor bump, with the company swapping out the breathless single-core Atom 230 CPU for its dual-core Atom 330 counterpart. The compact nettop also gets more memory and bigger hard-drives, the former doubling to 4GB and the latter offering either 320GB or 500GB.
Netbooks generally fall flat when it comes to high-definition video playback, with Intel’s GMA 950 graphics chipset struggling even with 720p clips. Broadcom’s BCM70012 video accelerator changes all that, though; a mini PCI-e card, it can handle up to 1080p video with minimal CPU strain on the host system. So far it’s tough finding a netbook with the Broadcom card as an option – HP offer it as an option for their Mini 110 XP – but that didn’t stop Terracode from upgrading their 8.9-inch Acer Aspire One with the HD accelerator.
Video demo after the cut
SlashGear Japan
