Author: Serkadis

As reported on GeekTonic before CES began, SiliconDust has their own dual-tuner CableCard in the works and it will be a networked tuner device just like their other HDHomerun tuners!  We’ve since learned several other details about this exciting device including pricing and ETA.

SiliconDust plans for the tuner to sell for $249 when first available.  They plan a public beta sometime in March 2010 with the device slated to go on sale sometime in 2010.  I know that’s pretty unspecific, but I expect the timing uncertainty has a lot to do with the CableLabs certification process and the unique nature of SiliconDust’s implementation of this CableCard product.

According to SiliconDust, the dual tuner will connect to your home network via Ethernet cable just like the companies other HDHomeRun products.  This is different than other CableCard tuners because it doesn’t take up a slot on your HTPC server.  It also means you can share a tuner with different PCs (with MediaCenter) and extenders (XBox360) in the home albeit only one tuner to one PC at a time.  The caveat to that I see is the dreaded DRM that CableCard has built in.  If the TV content is marked as “Copy Once” by the Cable Company or station, you only get to watch that content on the PC.  I trust SiliconDust will work all of this out in the long run.

I’m intrigued by the way this tuner will work as it just might open up the opportunity for 3rd party solutions.  I’m thinking programs like SageTV and possibly even other operating systems might find this implementation useful because it appears that the video comes out of the HDHomeRun CableCard across the network in the clear as long as those channels don’t have the CCI flags marked.  Many cable companies do not flag most of their channels except for the premiums so it might just open up the possibility for non Windows 7 MediaCenter users at some point without needing an add-on like is being implement for SageTV.

GreenButton has a nice interview of Jason Ludka of SiliconDust about the new HDHomeRun CableCard tuner:

‘ target=_blank>video by Pete Brown of GreenButton

More info on SiliconDust HDHomeRun CableCard tuner and a good explanation of the implementation of this tuner at Engadget

SiliconDust Press Release

We shot exclusive video footage during CES 2010 of a new Sony service called Qriocity, starting in February, and it is the basically the beginning of the Sony Online Service. Sony is going to bring streaming SD and HD to the consumer, but we’re not sure on pricing and I’m starting to believe there might be a subscription model. It’s significance is so strong that it will be added as a main icon on the XMB and as a button on many 2010 Sony remote controls that belong to networked TV’s and Blu-ray players. You can see it in the picture of the BRAVIA LX900’s remote above in the middle right.

You can see the movie titles when you enter the store through a great looking interface with rich album art. At the main menu is the option to go to Media Library, Choose Account, Search, New Releases, Genre, and Most Popular. You can log in with your PSN account, and have multiple accounts for parents and children. There will be the ability for master accounts to control sub accounts so your children dont access the content you don’t want them to.

Upon debut, Qriocity will have “hundreds” of HD and SD movies initially available, with titles from 20th Century Fox, Paramount, Walt Disney Pictures, Lionsgate, Warner Brothers, Universal, MGM, and of course Sony Pictures. I was able to watch the HD version of The Taking Of Pelham 1 2 3 for an extended version of time and felt that it was similiar to 720p/1080i quality with the 6mbps connection they had, and was certainly no Blu-ray. However, I liked how the software judges your Internet connection and plays a bandwidth optimized version. With higher bandwidth connections (very easy in many markets), it could be that kind of solid 720p/1080i that leaves you satisfied, however – especially for a streaming situation. The whole scene looks so much better than the Comcast On Demand I have at home. It was better than anything I’ve seen on a computer too, including Hulu. I noticed some artifacts on certain darker shades of colors, but I think that was because of the connection. A minor detail in comparison to the overall quality, however.

I would say this is a big power play for Sony and allows them to cater an On Demand experience to nearly everyone with the latest 2010 Sony networked home entertainment devices such as the LX900, BDP-S370 and so forth.

I’m pretty sure that Qriocity will also be coming to TV’s, VAIO PC’s, and Windows users overall in 2010. No word if this is coming to the PS3.

Jack of trades, master of none: that, friends, is the Sungale Smart Info Engine. There’s very little this breadbox-sized hunk of B-grade electronics can’t do — but what it can do, it does with the elegance and ergonomic grace of a tank. In the off chance you figure out a good place to set it in your home, you’ll be able to watch YouTube, awkwardly read e-books, get driving directions (heaven forbid you put this on your car dash), connect memory cards, and even check the time — but considering that it’s too big for an alarm clock and too small for a TV, we wouldn’t blame if you if you simply opted to do none of the above.

Sungale’s Smart Info Engine is none of the above originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 09 Jan 2010 23:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Etymotic is holding down fort in the iLounge Pavilion at CES showcasing its new line of less expensive moving-coil based headphones. The mc-series consists of the hf2, hf3, and hf5, and employs the moving-coil sound tech instead of more expensive balanced armiture hardware. As Etymotic explained, it’s the extra air chamber that makes the moving coil acoustics better than they would normally be. We’re not crazy audiophiles, and we can’t really make a realistic judgment in the middle of the Las Vegas Convention Center, but the sound quality was definitely passable. They’ve got a couple of models sporting in-line remote controls for iPhone / iPod touch, and you can score ‘em in any color to match your iPod nano. Check the neon ‘buds out in our gallery below.

Etymotic moving-coil based earphones ears-on originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 09 Jan 2010 23:12:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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As reported on GeekTonic before CES started, the long awaited Ceton multistream tuner is real and the four-tuner version is scheduled to arrive by March 2010 for $399.

The Ceton Digital Cable Quad-Tuner will be available as a PCI Express, Low-Profile form factor at a suggested retail price of $399.  The Ceton tuner was highlighted at Microsoft’s keynote address at the beginning of CES.  Steve Balmer highlighted the Ceton four-stream CableCard Tuner with a demo during the keynote address showing how Windows 7 could be used with Windows MediaCenter.

From the Ceton Press Release:

PCs running Windows Media Center, included with most versions of Windows 7, with a Ceton Digital Cable Quad-Tuner card installed will natively support high-definition pay TV, including premium cable TV channels, without the need for a separate cable set-top box. In addition to standard- and high-definition channels, the Ceton solution will also support channels delivered using Switched Digital Video (SDV) via a Tuning Adapter. A single Ceton Digital Cable Quad-Tuner card with a single multi-stream CableCARD(TM) (M-Card) and single cable RF connection will support playing and/or recording of up to four live channels of high-definition digital cable TV simultaneously.

The card requires Windows 7 with MediaCenter.

Because there’s quite a bit of interest around the Ceton card, you might be interested in the following two quick videos.  The first is an interview of Jeremy Hammer of CetonCorp.  The second is another interview, but you get to see the card

Interview via Pete at the GreenButton

video via theOnButton.com

Full press release from Ceton

Ceton Website

Crapgadget CES, round 6: Goscam China’s Body-worn DV for Police originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 09 Jan 2010 22:44:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Continue reading Razer hits the Xbox 360 with Onza controller and Chimaera headset, we go hands-on (video)

Razer hits the Xbox 360 with Onza controller and Chimaera headset, we go hands-on (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 09 Jan 2010 22:11:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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With the release of Super Street Fighter IV just months away, Capcom has been busy lately hyping up the game. The sequel of last year’s highly succesful title, the game will feature eight additional characters, new gameplay

Sometimes an idea is so blindingly, obviously good that you have to wonder why it hasn’t already been implemented.

A few years ago, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) had an idea like that. Why not create a free, public, online archive of findings from research studies that were funded by Americans’ tax dollars? That way, members of the public could keep up to date on the latest health findings by reading about discoveries that they paid for and would otherwise be unable to access. To ensure academic publishers could recoup any investment made by publishing research in traditional print journals, scientists could wait 12 months before making the research available to the public, but no more. The policy was voluntary at first, then made mandatory — much to the consternation of commercial science publishers. (Make no mistake — scholarly publishing is a significant profit center, for publishers if not authors. For example, a subscription to Brain Research, the leading neuroscience journal, can cost a library over $23,000. Much of that is pure profit, as authors provide the content free of charge.) When Rep. John Conyers introduced legislation to end the policy earlier this year, public criticism and a wave of protest helped stop the bill in its tracks.

Now the Obama Administration (specifically, the Office of Science and Technology Policy, or OSTP) is considering extending the policy to other federal agencies that fund academic research. For example, the National Science Foundation spends $6 billion a year supporting basic research in America’s colleges and universities. If the fruits of that research were publicly accessible online, the taxpayers who actually paid for it could read and use it in new and interesting ways, just as patients and their families have used the newly accessible NIH-sponsored medical studies to help make informed medical decisions. Scholars and entrepreneurs could also access the research, promoting innovation in science and technology. Moreover, creating a publicly available research archive is simply fair. Your tax dollars paid for this research; you should have a chance to actually see those dollars at work.

Now, the public has an opportunity to show support for this innovative, common sense idea. Since December, the OSTP has been hosting an involved discussion on their blog, asking for input on every angle of public access, including which federal agencies should adopt public access policies, which file formats could help solve compliance and archival issues, and what the ongoing role of the government should be. The OSTP was originally going to close the comment period on January 7, but the moderators have decided to keep it open until January 14 in light of the holiday season’s effect on the ability of the public to comment. If you care about the availability of research and want the government to implement a policy that’s good for innovation, consider contributing to the great discussion taking place on the OSTP blog. You can find the complete collection of public access policy blog posts here, and the most recent call for comments here. Even though commercial publishers don’t like it, public access policies are an obvious way to maximize the usefulness of scientific research that taxpayers pay for. Head to the OSTP blog and share some ideas for how it should be done.

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