CES - Home theater

Ray Zone 'King of 3D art' bullish on 3D TV (podcast)

Ray Zone has been an expert and advocate for 3D since the early 1980s. A pioneer in the field, he is responsible for more than 100 3D comic books, along with plenty of movies and other 3D productions. His interest in 3D began in 1953 when, at age 6, he started reading 3D comics starring Mighty Mouse. He has been converting flat art to 3D for 25 years and has worked on many feature films. He's now involved in the revolution to bring 3D to TV.

I caught up with Zone in the 3D exhibit area of CES where … Read more

Promise releases fuss-free NAS server

LAS VEGAS--Network-attached storage servers have always been among the harder products to install and use. Most of them require at least some know-how of computers and networking setup. This might change, however, with what Promise has to offer.

The company released at CES the new SmartStor ZERO NS2600, which it claims is the first no-muss, no-fuss NAS server. According to Promise, all you need to do is plug the server in, power it on, and install the included software and the rest is taken care of. The software will map an open network share, allowing instant access for data backup … Read more

Buffalo refreshes its LinkStation Duo NAS server

LAS VEGAS--Buffalo Technology announced Friday at CES a refresh of its popular LinkStation Duo NAS server, which is designed for the home or small business environments.

The new NAS server has a new, sleek look with two front access bays that allow for user to change and swap out hard drives. Buffalo makes it very easy for users, as the hard drives can be installed without any tools and don't require trays. Instead, all you have to do is just insert the drive into the bay and close the latch that's designed to hold it firmly in place. … Read more

3D Blu-ray player roundup--what you need to know

CES 2010 isn't over for a few more days, but the big news regarding 3D Blu-ray players is out. There hasn't been many specifics announced, but we've broken down the most important details below.

Four standalone 3D Blu-ray players were announced

The four 3D Blu-ray players announced are the Panasonic DMP-BDT350, Samsung BD-C3900, Sony BDP-S770 and Toshiba BDX3000. Sony also announced the BDV-HZ970W home-theater-in-a-box (HTIB) system with a built-in 3D Blu-ray player. Samsung announced a 3D Blu-ray HTIB but didn't have a specific model name.

The Panasonic DMP-BDT350 is the only player with dual HDMI outputs… Read more

QNAP debuts Atom dual-core-based NAS servers

LAS VEGAS--Less than a month after Intel launched its redesigned Atom processor, the Atom D-510 dual-core, QNAP is now the first vendor to introduce new NAS servers powered by the new Intel chip.

The company showed off at CES four new high-performance Turbo NAS servers: the TS-259 Pro, TS-459 Pro, TS-659 Pro, and TS-859 Pro, which is a QNAP exclusive as it's the only eight-bay server on the market.

According to Richard Lee, QNAP CEO and president, all of these NAS servers have been certified as compatible with VMware's vSphere4 (ESX 4.0) virtualization platform and are designed … Read more

LG's unannounced, awesome Blu-ray sound bar

LAS VEGAS--We covered all of LG's major product announcements on Wednesday, but when we swung by the booth yesterday the LLB915 Blu-ray sound bar caught our eye. We're not quite sure why LG didn't mention it at the press conference, but the feature set is impressive. Here's what the product card said.

Key features of the LG LLB915:

Sound bar with built-in Blu-ray player 2 HDMI inputs, 1 output 430 watts of power Wireless subwoofer Built-in Wi-Fi LG's NetCast suite of streaming media services, including Netflix, Vudu, CinemaNow, YouTube, Pandora, Picasa, and AccuWeather DLNA-compliant No … Read more

Samsung's trio of Blu-ray HTIBs get DLNA, Wi-Fi, apps

LAS VEGAS--We liked most of the Blu-ray home-theater-in-a-box (HTIB) systems we reviewed in 2009, but the Samsung HT-BD1250 stood as the best, thanks to its excellent sound quality (for an HTIB, at least). Samsung has announced a new line of Blu-ray HTIBs at CES 2010, adding features like DLNA-compatibility, Samsung Apps, and Wi-Fi. Here are the details.

Key features of the Samsung HT-C6500:

5.1 home theater system Built-in Blu-ray player Built-in Wi-Fi 1GB onboard storage Supports Internet@TV/Samsung Apps, which will provide content from Netflix, Pandora, Vudu, Blockbuster, Picasa, and Twitter Automatic speaker calibration No release date or … Read more

Avner Ronen on the Boxee Box (podcast)

LAS VEGAS--Boxee is in the business of letting you watch Internet content on your TV. The company has long offered software to make that possible via third-party hardware ranging from Windows PCs to Apple TV boxes, but it now plans to launch its own hardware--the Boxee Box--in partnership with D-Link.

Boxee founder and CEO Avner Ronen has a lot to say about this powerful new trend, including advice for independent producers who can use Internet technology to "get an audience and monetize it."

I spoke with Ronen at the Showstoppers press event at CES.

Subscribe now: … Read more

Hands-on with the Boxee Box

When Boxee announced its first hardware product in December 2009, details were pretty scarce. But the company is using the Consumer Electronics Show to provide a more complete picture of the Boxee Box.

To recap what we already know: the funky Box is a media player that can play a wide variety of local media files, as well as a large and growing array of online content. Local files can be accessed via the SD slot or USB ports, and the list of compatible files is comprehensive: … Read more

Netgear debuts first Wi-Fi Direct device

UPDATED on January 11 at 12:30 PST: Though based on the final Wi-Fi Direct specification, the Push2TV is not yet certified by the Wi-Fi Alliance group, which is the owner of the Wi-Fi Direct designation and plans to start the certification program for Wi-Fi Direct later this year.

LAS VEGAS--Remember the time you needed to hook up your laptop to an external screen, be it a monitor or a TV, and had to fumble around with cables, ports, and the laptop's keyboard? Now, you won't have to do that anymore.

Netgear, in collaboration with Intel, unveiled Thursday … Read more