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WESTBURY, NY – March 5th – VidaBox LLC is proud to announce new HD DVD & Blu-ray storage and streaming abilities on their line of premium media center systems. Unencrypted titles can be copied onto a VidaBox server, and then streamed to VidaBox extenders. These capabilities will be debuted in Demo Alley Room 240A at the Electronic House Expo (EHX), running from March 13th through the 15th in Orlando, Florida. “We’re excited to include yet another ground-breaking feature in our line of media center systems,” comments Steven Cheung, President of the company. “With HD discs becoming more prevalent in movie … Continue reading VidaBox Media Servers Now Provide HD DVD & Blu-ray Storage and Streaming Capabilities

Microsoft made it official that the Xbox 360 HD DVD drive is now dead.  If you wanted one, I hope you got it already.  You will likely find stock marked down all over the place, some retailers going as low as $50 now. DivX Inc has pulled the plug on their streaming service Stage6 mainly do to the high costs of keeping it running.  This will impact Media Center users that take advantage of Yougle to stream Stage6 content.  It also puts into question their DivX Connected STB concept that I’ve questioned in the past.  DivX does say “Products powered … Continue reading Short Bits: Xbox HD DVD, Stage6

I’ve gotten a fair amount of reaction to the various articles I’ve posted on Microsoft and Blu-ray, and it still seems the overall consensus on the web is that Microsoft will fall head over heels for Blu-ray in their products. I want to preface this post by saying that I’m not advocating Microsoft not supporting Blu-ray.  The fact is that Blu-ray won, while I think HD DVD had its clear advantages those don’t matter anymore.  I want Blu-ray support in any product that markets itself as part of a digital home. Fiction: Microsoft should support Blu-ray on the Xbox 360 … Continue reading Fact or Fiction: Microsoft and Blu-ray

Ian Dixon had Microsoft’s Steve Lindsay on the Media Center Show today talking about various including Windows Home Server, Extenders, Home automation and his new blog. Some other stuff that I have not talked about, On10 has videos with S1Digital, Inteset, and Niveus Media.  The Windows Mobile team is looking for feedback from users with Zune’s and Windows Mobile devices which is always good to see. Missing Remote has some tips on integrating PowerDVD Ultra with Media Center for a better Blu-ray/HD DVD playback experience. Lastly, Jeff Atwood has an interesting article on Tivoization and the GPL.

Some websites are reporting “rumors” of Microsoft getting ready to add Blu-ray support to the Xbox 360.  I’m not going to link to the main website in question, because nothing on that site has ever been true (unless there is an Xbox 360 with HD DVD intergated out there, it was said to be true by this website on at least three different occasions.  There are several other false stories out of this site too). Jason Unger of CE Pro does have the basic rundown of the issue, but don’t believe that Blu-ray is on the way to the Xbox … Continue reading Blu-ray on Xbox 360 Not Going to Happen

Customer demand and format war influences Niveus to add support for Blu-ray Disc playback and to cease production of HD DVD-based servers. Milpitas, CA – February 15, 2008 – Niveus Media, the leading manufacturer of high-performing digital entertainment solutions for the connected home, announces support for Blu-ray Disc playback on Niveus Media Servers. Additionally, Niveus announces that new production of HD DVD-based servers will be phased out in the next 30 days. “Incorporating Blu-ray into our offering has always been part of the plan but the demand from our customers, market trends, and recent announcements expedited our decision to come … Continue reading Blu-ray Now Available on Niveus Media Servers

I’ve got five (5) Hulu invites that I’m giving out.  If you want one, reply to this post saying that you would like an invite and put your e-mail address as your URL.  I will randomly select five people tonight and send you an invite. It look like Netflix is dropping HD DVD and going with Blu-ray only.  It’s amazing how things can turn in just a matter of weeks.  Once again, HD DVD support in Media Center would be pretty pointless at this stage and native Blu-ray in Media Center is far away. I’m looking to buy an internal … Continue reading Short Bits: Hulu Invites, Netflix BD, USB Card Reader

I’ve been busy as of late, but have some really interesting articles lined up as soon as I can finish them up. If you didn’t hear, Vista SP1 is officially coming in March. Derek Flickinger has a great article up on CE Pro about those pesky interactivity layers in HD DVD and Blu-ray.  Much like some of my thoughts, Derek goes though why Blu-ray might not be supported by Microsoft in the future (Derek also sent me bits of his article a few weeks ago). High end Media Center PC maker Inteset has a video up on Microsoft’s On10 (Via … Continue reading Short Bits: HD/BD, Inteset, More

Taipei, Taiwan—-Jan. 31st, 2008—-CyberLink Corp. (5203.TW), today announced it is participating in the formation of a joint HD DVD patent license based on its ownership of a patent determined to be essential to the HD DVD standard. CyberLink’s patent relates to the specifications for interactive content over a network for prerecorded HD-DVD Discs, for playback according to the DVD Specifications for High Definition VIDEO (HD DVD-Video). “Innovation is the key to CyberLink delivering leading products to our customers as well as sustaining long-term business success,” said Alice H. Chang, CEO of CyberLink. “We’re extremely proud be a part of a … Continue reading CyberLink Patent Included in HD DVD Essential Patent Portfolio

Ben at Engadget HD picked up my post about the lack of native HD DVD/Blu-ray in Media Center today.  I’ve been reading some of the comments the post is getting and wanted to add a few thoughts. First, I’m talking about native support.  This means that it works without launching an external application, just like playing a DVD or any other video within Media Center.  PowerDVD and ArcSoft TotalMedia currently launch external applications for playback, so you don’t have native support for either HD DVD or Blu-ray at this point.  Media Foundation would be used to do this, much like … Continue reading More Thoughts on Native Blu-ray/HD DVD