home entertainment

Stand and deliver: BDI home theater furniture

I bought a BDI stand for my TV 10 years ago, and it still looks great. That says a lot about BDI's quality -- I'm constantly swapping out gear, and the stand is good as new. They no longer make the mostly glass unit I own, but their range of new models is huge.

Most of BDI's current designs feature medium-density fiberboard (MDF) construction, with gorgeous, real hardwood veneers. MDF is better than solid wood in these types of cabinets, real wood shelves bow or warp when heavy gear is placed on them for long periods of … Read more

Microsoft buys R2 Studios startup to boost Xbox

Word has it that Microsoft was able to get ahead of Apple and Google and buy the home entertainment technology startup R2 Studios, according to the Wall Street Journal. This acquisition will most likely help amplify Microsoft's Xbox platform.

R2 Studios was created by Sling Media founder Blake Krikorian in May 2011. Sling Media developed Slingbox, which let users watch television on their computers. According to the Wall Street Journal, R2 Studios has been working on ways to display content on televisions, which could coordinate with Xbox's focus of adding TV entertainment to its gaming console.

Before R2 … Read more

Time Warner's home-video revenue plunges

The alleged increases in Blu-ray sales that Hollywood is supposedly seeing weren't obvious in Time Warner's earnings report.

The conglomerate that operates such media properties as Warner Bros. Pictures, Time magazine, HBO, and Turner Broadcasting, reported today large drops in home-video revenue for the quarter ending September 30.

The New York-based company said quarterly revenue in home video and electronic delivery for television shows came in at $161 million, down from $215 million a year ago--a 25 percent decrease.

In home video and electronic delivery for films, revenue shrank 21 percent, from $534 million for the same quarter … Read more

MHL demo: Samsung Galaxy II turned home-entertainment system

Around about this time in 2010, I blogged about WHDI and its potential to change the way we entertain ourselves in a big way when this wireless display is implemented in mobile devices. Now a year later, that reality is still in the distant future.

Fortunately, there's something else to take its place. It's already here, and chances are your phone and HDTV at home come with it. It does require a wire, however, but that's a good thing.… Read more

Microsoft in talks with Comcast, Verizon on Xbox TV?

Microsoft is in talks with the world's largest cable provider, Comcast, to bolster its upcoming live TV service on the Xbox 360, according to a new report.

The blog Digiday, citing anonymous sources, reported today that Microsoft is nearing a deal with Comcast that would allow Xbox 360 owners to sign up for the cable provider's service, and watch its programming from the game console. Digiday says that Microsoft is also in talks with Verizon Fios to form a similar deal with that company.

Microsoft unveiled its live television service at the E3 gaming expo in June. Although the company provided few details on the service at the time, Microsoft said that it would "partner with TV providers" for its offering. The software giant promised that local channels, news, sports, and all the other content available from television providers would come to the game console.

Microsoft is expected to make its live TV service available this fall.

Microsoft's decision to rely on Comcast and Verizon Fios rather than try to go it alone in the television space has much more to do with simplicity than anything else, Digiday reported. The blog's sources said that Microsoft simply doesn't want to "pick a fight with cable."… Read more

Best Buy: Delays on DVD rentals boost sales

The agreement by Netflix and other top video-rental services to wait 28 days before renting newly released DVDs appears to be boosting disc sales--as much as 30 percent in some cases, say two national retailers.

Representatives from retail chains Best Buy and Hastings Entertainment told CNET during the past week that disc sales and even rentals are up for movies that aren't available at Netflix or Redbox during what has come to be known as the "sales-only window."

"On sales of specific titles, we've seen our market share go up over time and degradation of … Read more

A high-end audio show may be coming to a city near you

I'm hearing the same story over and over again: two-channel audio is coming back strong. Home theater sales are flat or dipping, but high-end sales are more than taking up the slack.

Talk is cheap, but I can't remember when we had this many high-end audio shows in North America. The Salon Son & Image is being held at the Hilton Bonaventure in the heart of downtown Montreal. The show expects to host 10,000 to 12,000 visitors from Canada and the U.S. The show opened on Friday and will run through Sunday. Tone Audio magazine … Read more

Top 5 home entertainment flops of the last decade

It's been an unprecedented decade for home entertainment innovations. Then there are these five, which don't exactly qualify as the valedictorians.

If you want to know what's new in HDTV, check out CNET's fresh wrap up of the hottest new TV tech we spotted at the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show.

Iomega TV with Boxee + Storage: Media player and NAS server combined

LAS VEGAS--A year ago, during CES 2010, consumers had a chance to experience D-Link's Boxee Box for the first time. This is a funky online media streamer that can play back digital content, especially videos, from various online sources.

The connection is unclear, but a year later, Iomega today announced a similar product called Iomega TV with Boxee + Storage, which, in addition to being able to stream online content, can also play back from local and network storage devices.

The Iomega TV with Boxee + Storage comes with an internal 3.5-inch hard drive with either 1TB or 2TB capacities, … Read more

Survey: People can't live without high-speed Internet

High-speed Internet is the technology that's had the greatest impact on society and the one that people say they can't live without, according to survey results from Zogby Interactive.

Released this week, Zogby's study found that 28 percent of those polled tagged broadband Internet as the one technology they can't live without; e-mail came in second at 18 percent. Facebook was lower on the overall list at only 3 percent, but among the younger crowd (18-24), 15 percent said they can't live without Facebook.

Looking at technologies that have had the greatest impact on society … Read more