If you are thinking of changing your DVD player for a Blu-ray player and getting rid of all your DVDs to start buying only Blu-ray discs, wait don’t do that!
To help consumers simplify and manage their living room entertainment experience, Sony is launching a new 400-Disc Blu-ray Disc/DVD MegaChanger, this player will organise all your DVD and CDs as well as Blu-ray discs all in one player.
The company also announced the BDP-S1000ES single disc ES player expanding Sony’s Blu-ray Disc line to 13 models offering a broad set of performance and features.
The Blu-ray Disc MegaChanger models store and play 400 Blu-ray Discs, DVDs, and CDs, allowing consumers to relocate their disc library to a convenient, easy-to-access location.
This will also feature the ability to download information from Gracenote’s MusicID and VideoID(TM) products to organize movies and music. When a disc is inserted into the device, Gracenote technology automatically downloads information across an existing Internet broadband service and saves title, director, some cast information, release year, and genre information for most titles, allowing users to easily navigate the library intuitively through the player’s xross media bar(TM) menu system.
Chris Fawcett, vice president for Sony Electronics’ home audio and video business said:
“Think about all those great movie and music discs in your collection. Wouldn’t it be great to instantly play those movies or CDs — definitely gives a new meaning to the notion of a movie marathon!”
MSN UK’s new video-on-demand service will let people watch some of their favourite TV programmes.
Microsoft’s MSN Video site is extending the length of some of the programmes it streams in the UK, having agreed content deals with BBC Worldwide and All3Media. MSN Video is planning to offer 350 hours of free content, supported by advertising.
There are over a dozen BBC series in the pilot, including The Young Ones, Mock The Week and That Mitchell And Webb Look.
Programmes will come in both WMV and Flash formats, to cater for both PC and Mac users and the streams are optimised for 512kbps broadband, to reach a wide audience.
Crossen says MSN UK reaches about half the UK’s broadband audience, second only to the BBC. “We’ve learned to understand the different audiences and their different requirement. We’re aiming to be one of the most popular services in VOD [video on demand].”
However, it seems unlikely that MSN Video will have the same impact as the BBC’s iPlayer.
Online-demand is becoming increasingly popular so MSN are right to join in, but have they left it too late??
Either way you can view MSN video on the Macbook or the Sony Living Room PC available here at AJ Electronics.
According to an Ofcom report the average broadband speed delivered in urban areas is 4.6 megabits per second compared to an average of 3.3 Mbps delivered in rural areas.
Ofcom have reported that over half of broadband users are on packages that promise speeds of “up to” 8 Mbps but research found that in practice they received an average of 4.1 Mbps.
They also found that no broadband customers were receiving the top download speeds advertised by the country’s largest internet service providers.
The highest speed that can be received is around 7.2 Mbps if they lived close to the telephone exchange through which their connection is routed.
In rural areas, households are further from the exchanges leading to a great number of internet “not spots”.
The six-month study involved more than 60 million broadband performance tests in 1,600 homes, and found the average broadband speed in the UK in April to be 4.1 Mbps.
According to the communication regulator Virgin Media’s next-generation fibre-optic broadband network achieved closest to the advertised speeds, while other suppliers, offered users much less than the “8 Mbps” speeds advertised.
Regardless of whether you get 4 Mbps or 8 Mbps broadband speed, your internet service will look fab on the desktops and Macbooks available here at AJ Electronics.
For more information please visit our website.
Predictions for the LCD TV industry couldn’t be better and everything indicates that the industry is in full recovery. According to DisplaySearch, global LCD TV shipments are expected to grow 21% this year with 127 million units shipped worldwide, while for 2010 shipments are expected grow another 16.5% with a total of 148 million units shipped worldwide.
“LCD TV shipments from the world’s top-10 brand vendors are likely to expand 35% to 141.5 million units in 2010, accounting for 96% of the total global shipments, according to the paper. In 2009, the top-10 vendors are expected to see their LCD TV shipments increase 25% to 104.8 million units and account for 83% of worldwide shipments, it noted.” DisplaySearch
Leading the pack in annual shipments is Samsung Electronics, Samsung LCD TV shipments are expected to climb to 25 million units this year and grow another 28% in 2010 with 32 million units shipped.
Another sign of recovery is the new highest monthly record for large-size panel shipments, according to DisplaySearch global large-size TFT-LCD panel shipments reached 46.7 million units in June 2009, up 8% sequentially and 24% on year.
Some pundits thought that with the credit crunch people where going to stay in more and watch films on their home cinema equipment. Ordering in takeaway pizzas rather than going out to restaurants and cinemas. The positive figures for shipment of LCD TV’s seem to bear this out.
What about you are you upgrading your TV and staying in more?
Apple have been rumored to be producing a tablet pc for several years now and this year looks like it is finally the year that Apple will launch a tablet PC. The FT has a story which confirms that Apple will be launching according to the FT:
A portable tablet-sized computer in time for the Christmas shopping season, in what the entertainment industry hopes will be a new revolution.
The New Apple tablet computer will have a 10 inch screen and be positioned between the iPod Touch and an entry level Mac Book. The system will run the same operating system as the iPhone and will also offer a book market place offering a colour alternative to the Amazon Kindle and the Sony Reader.
Apple is hoping that it can succeed with a tablet PC where everyone else has flopped, including Microsoft, which has had a tablet-ready version of its Windows operating system – a favorite of founder Bill Gates - for a number of years.
LCD HDTVs are improving continuously to catch up to the Plasma HDTV quality and to reduce their power consumption. We are now entering the LED Backlight era for HDTV’s, LED backlit HDTV technology is now maturing with Samsungs new UN46B7000 LED backlit LCD TV being a good example of the new breed of LED LCD TV’s.
This 46 inch LED LCD HDTV from Samsung has one of the best picture quality seen on a LCD HDTV, it is only 2.1 inches thick and uses less power than just about any HDTV of its size and power.
The Samsung UN46B7000 also offers one of the best contrasts seen on a LCD TV with a resolution of 1080p and the innovative custom 120 Hz settings.
A optional Wi-Fi dongle allows network connectivity which includes DNLA and Yahoo Widgets. This system gathers Internet-powered information, called snippets, into a bar along the bottom of the screen. These widgets include information such as stocks, weather, news, and access to Flickr photos.
Other highlights on the LCD HDTV include four HDMI inputs, two USB inputs, a VGA style input and a single component-video input/composite video. An RF input for antenna or cable, an optical digital audio jack, and an Ethernet port complete the picture.
Overall the Samsung UN46B7000 LED backlit LCD offers excellent picture quality, great design and tremendous colour accuracy rivalling the best Plasma HDTV’s with much lower power consumption.
The latest HDMI cable Spec has been announced HDMI 1.4:
Steve Venuti, president of HDMI Licensing said when announcing the new HDMI Cable spec.
Our goal is to address 5 key industry trends
• Networking
o Consolidation of HD video, HD audio and now high speed data with the addition of Ethernet in the HDMI cable.
• Audio Return Channel
o Elimination of a S/PDIF cable by allowing a TV to send audio streams upstream to an A/V receiver for processing and playback over the HDMI cable
• Performance
o 4kx2k and 3D are high performance features to be met by increasing the upper limit of the HDMI link
• HD in your Car
o New connector specification for the auto industry as worlds’ largest auto makers move to digital HD video and audio for 21st century cars with HDMI
• Smaller connector
o New smaller 19-pin connector
The main advantage as we see it is the ability to do a way with the S/PDIF cable to link the HDTV to the home cinema amplifier which will reduce cable clutter. The area where HDMI have failed in defining the HDMI 1.4 spec our opinion is that the inclusion of Ethernet to interconnect devices has been handled poorly as it is an optional feature and the standard also allows for a high and low data rate with the high rate being a whopping 100MBS – so the low data rate version of HDMI 1.4 is going to be useless.
Mr Venuti should know all new Ethernet networks use Gigabit Ethernet which is 10 times faster and he might want to check out the 10GBASE-T standard which is 100GBS and has a maximum cable length of 90M.
Some people have commented that the new HDMI connector for cars which has a physical latch to hold the HDMI cable in place is something that should have been in the HDMI spec from day one.
According to The Guardian, Sony Pictures has bid $50m for the film of Michael Jackson’s rehearsals of his ‘This Is It’ comeback tour.
AEG Live, Jackson’s concert promoter, offered the distribution rights for about 1,200 hours of footage to all the major studios last week, bids were then received from major companies Sony, Fox, Paramount and Universal.
The winning studio will produce a film with AEG and his estate, AEG are eager to get back the money it spent on producing the concert, with the amount said to be around $30m.
Sony Music are in a strong position to receive the footage because they distribute Jackson’s recordings and are in a 50-50 partnership with his estate in Sony/ATV Music Publishing. So will therefore benefit from the music licensing rights attached to the film.
Not only do Sony own the music licensing rights to Michael Jackson’s music but they also make the means to listen to it.
Here at AJ Electronics we retail a wide variety of Sony sound systems, from MP3 players to Mini Hi Fi Systems, so you can listen to all of the late and great Michael Jackson hits to your hearts content.
For more details please visit the AJ Electronics website.
One leading online store has said that the market for mobile applications, will become “as big as the internet”, reaching its peak at 10 million apps in 2020.
According to the chief executive of GetJar, a leading independent application store:
“Apps will be as big if not bigger than the internet.
They will peak at around 100,000 by the end of the year. That will be a tipping point and after that there will be a gradual fall in the rate of development.”
They add: “The full blossom will come in ten years and mobile apps will become as popular as websites are today with consumers.”
Apple currently runs the most popular application store with over 65,000 applications. Just last week it notched up another milestone with 1.5 billion downloads.
Its success was a shock both to Apple and the industry. And now every smartphone company is trying to do the same thing, from BlackBerry makers Research in Motion to Nokia.
All of these Apple app’s are on the iPod touch available here at AJ Electronics, for a full specification please click here.
Sony’s S5500 series entry level LCD TV’s are a good way to get into HDTV or as a second HDTV set in the bedroom.
Internet connectivity has emerged as the current must have accessory on high end HDTVs, but if you don’t need these features, Sony’s S5500 series have some of the best performance for the money on the market.
You don’t get all of the high end bells and whistles like an Ethernet port to connect to the internet. What you get in the Sony s5500 series HDTV’s is Full HD (1920 x 1080) resolution screen and all you need in an entry level HDTV
The Sony S5500’s have decent connectivity with 3 HDMI’s and an USB 2.0 input. The S5500’s only have Bravia 2 rather than the latest version of Sony’s picture processing engine, Bravia 3, but there is 1080p/24fp compatibility for those who need to connect a Sony Blu-ray player.
The Sony S5500 HDTVs are available in store now from AJ Electronics in the following sizes.
