Recently in Video Hardware & Software Category

Can you believe that shipments of Internet-Protocol (IP)-enabled consumer electronics reached 64 million units in 2007 -- a growth of more than 70%?

However, the market continues to be dominated by Internet-enabled video game consoles.

While many of these game console IP interfaces remain unconnected, the enormous developing installed base represents a "Trojan horse" with enormous potential for online gaming, music and video downloads as well as for a variety of Internet-based value-added services.

Already, in late 2007 Activision announced that more than 2 million songs associated with Guitar Hero were accessed through Xbox Live over the previous five months.  

All this comes from MultiMedia Intelligence. And there's much more to delve into to see where this is all going. 

(Thanks to Wired.com for the image.)

Sony Pictures Home Entertainment and Blu-ray have teamed up with Brickfish to launch the "Why Blu?" campaign at http://www.brickfish.com/Entertainment/whyblu?tab=entries&=blu_pr.

The campaign asks entrants to create a poster, ad or video highlighting the "supreme quality" of Blu-ray Discs.

The grand prize winner, selected by Sony from the top 50 highest-scoring entries, will win a Sony PlayStation 3 with a built in Blu-ray Disc player, and a collection of 8 Sony Pictures Home Entertainment Blu-ray movies. Prizes will also be awarded for the entry that gets the most attention across the Internet and to weekly sweepstakes winners.

Be quick though - only 14 days 14 hrs 15 mins to go!

Cool Blue-ray promotion from Amazon I thought I'd share. Buy 2 Blu-ray DVDs get 1 DVD free. Sweet! I keep threatening to buy a Blu-ray player, specifically a Sony PS3, but I just can't seem to pull the trigger. Could have something to do with the $1500 Jeep transmission repair.

Blu-ray Buy 2, Get 1 Free Promotion

Now through July 27, the Amazon DVD team is offering a special Buy 2 Get 1 Free promotion on over 100 Blu-ray titles. This is a fantastic opportunity for your customers to start building their Blu-ray libraries with Amazon's great selection of titles, including Shooter, 3:10 to Yuma and Mr. and Mrs. Smith.

In addition, Amazon.com is currently offering exclusive Blu-ray bundles of Kill Bill - Volumes 1 & 2, now available for pre-order ($39.99), and Weeds Seasons 1-3 ($65.99), in-stock now. Plus, the epic saga The Godfather Collection ($86.95) has arrived on Blu-ray, now available for pre-order. Explore hundreds of titles available in our Blu-ray store, all at least 30% off.

Click to see the Amazon Buy 2 Get 1 Free promotion with available titles.

According to Yahoo News, Microsoft Corp said today that its Xbox 360 console will sell better than the Sony PlayStation 3 over the lifetime of the machines.

"Xbox 360 will sell more consoles worldwide this generation than PlayStation 3," Don Mattrick, a senior vice president at Microsoft's Xbox division, said at Microsoft's news conference before the start of the E3 video game industry trade show. Microsoft said the Xbox 360 has outsold the PS3 in the United States by 5 million.

Yeah, well you wouldn't be forgetting the Wii now would Wii? The Nintendo Wii might just kick both your butts in worldwide units sold. Still, the PS3 is a more applicable comparison to the Xbox 360. The Wii is for the casual gamer where as the Sony PS3 and Xbox 360 are for your hardcore gamers. Actually, I've been eyeing a PS3 just so I can have a Blu-ray player.

In related Xbox 360 pwn'ing PS3 news, Microsoft's Xbox 360 video game console will be able to stream thousands of movies over the Internet, thanks to a deal with Netflix. It was announced today at the E3 Media & Business Summit in Los Angeles. This deal will give Netflix's 8 million subscribers the ability to stream movies on a TV instead of a computer.

And don't forget the Netflix-backed startup called Roku already sells a small streaming device that connects to TVs.

The Netflix streaming service offers 10,000 movies and TV shows. Your move Sony...

No wires!  

Love that concept no matter how you mean it!

Belkin's FlyWire now makes it possible to place your HDTV where you want--without cables. Featuring an intuitive and simple setup, FlyWire wirelessly connects devices such as Blu-ray players, receivers, video game consoles and set-top boxes to HDTVs and projectors, transmitting 1080p HD.

As the first offering in the FlyWire family, this solution provides a whole-home range with the capability of penetrating walls and AV cabinets. AV components can now be hidden away in a cabinet or a closet, creating an uncluttered living and home entertainment environment. You can also mount your projector on the ceiling without the hassle of cables.

Operating in the open 5GHz band, FlyWire intelligently manages its own connection, adjusting both frequency and power to avoid interference and overcome impedances. Because FlyWire does not compress video, it transmits video content with no latency.

Sounds pretty great?  Want to read more? Click here.

Looks like more action coming on the video gaming hardware front.

According to Engadget, the PlayStation 40GB model will be replaced.

Based on an alleged Wal-Mart spreadsheet, the 40GB PS3 console "will be replaced with [a] new model in early August."

But just what this means is open to interpretation -- maybe just a sweet plastic Olympics medallion to commemorate the occasion or a fancy new vibrating controller, so don't go thinking that an entirely fresh form factor is just around the bend.

But wouldn't that make it more interesting ...

The first in a series of new "three-screen" reports by Nielsen shows an emerging shift toward a more video-centric use of the Internet, but not at the expense of television viewing. The report is an effort by Nielsen to "follow the video" as consumer viewing habits shift.

The average American spent 127 hours of time with TV in May, up from 121 hours in May 2007; and 26 hours on the Internet, up from 24 hours last year.

More than 282 million people watch television in a given month and nearly 162 million use the Internet. Two-thirds of Internet users in the United States, 119 million people, watched video in May.

The amount of online video viewing is low compared with TV -- 2 hours and 19 minutes a month on average -- and Nielsen does not have a comparable estimate for last year. But given its popularity, it has attracted much interest from media companies and advertisers. All that viewing, 7.5 billion streams and 16.4 billion minutes in total, amounts to new advertising time for the taking. 

The report also suggests that mobile video viewing is becoming significant. A Nielsen survey of 2,000 Americans projects that 4.4 million subscribe to mobile video on their phones. With 217 million people carrying mobile phones in the United States, wireless video is still far from the mainstream. But the survey found that the average user watches 3 hours and 15 minutes a month, a significant amount of time to be watching such a comparatively small screen. 

All this from Advanced Television.

Click here to view the full Nielsen "Three Screen" report.

I just happened to be checking out our firewall logs and noticed traffic coming from 88.160.222.185. Curious, I did a whois and figured out it was coming from http://www.proxad.net/ which redirects to http://www.free.fr/adsl/.

The first thing I noticed other than the fact that website is in French,-- which I can't read -- is that they offer Internet + Telephone + Television for 29.99 €/month. I was able to figure that out since apparently Internet, Telephone, and Television don't translate at all in French. They're the same words except for some accent letters, as seen here from a website screen grab I did:

What I can gather is that they offer 250 channels, ADSL (ADSL2+?), Freebox HD receiver, unlimited phone calls to 70 destinations, and even a WiFi-MIMO (multiple-input and multiple-output) router. MIMO (pronounced mee-moh or my-moh), is the use of multiple antennas at both the transmitter and receiver to improve communication performance. Their Internet speed says 28 Mega- whatever that means. 28Mbit/s? Although, ADSL2+, which is faster than ADSL, maxes out at 24Mbits/s. Hmmm. Are the French inventing some proprietary ADSL spec that is faster?

Also, if I read their website correctly, they give you 10GB of storage space - mostly likely talking about the Freebox receiver. Seems a bit low to me if doing any sort of Tivo-like functionality (pause Live TV, recordings, etc.) The 29.99 €/month translates into $46.99 U.S. dollars which seems like a pretty sweet deal for a triple-play package!

Any French readers want to translate exactly what this products' feature-set is? Post a comment...

Update: 5 min after post Found some more info on Wikipedia

The box, designed by Free, uses a 32 bits RC32355 processor and is managed by an operating system using a derivative of the Linux kernel. It has many interfaces:

• An Ethernet port 10/100 Mbit/s full/half duplex;
• A USB2 port;
• An HDMI port;
• An RJ11 jack for the ADSL connection;
• An RJ11 jack for phone equipment (two jacks on versions 1 & 2 but only one active);
• A SCART (Péritel) socket
• An digital audio output RCA, or optical SPDIF starting from version 3;
• An extension port of the Serial ATA standard on versions 3 and 4 and Parallel ATA standard on versions 1 and 2;
• A host USB port on version 4;

One cool feature is that it supports a Videolan client in order to get the movies (in any format read by VLC) stored on the computer and watchable on TV through a playlist selector using Freeplayer. See my VideoLan post for more on this free streaming client.

Freebox is indeed an ADSL2+ modem that the French ISP called Free provides to its ADSL subscribers at a cost of around 190 Euros.

It can not only be uses as a high-end wireless modem (802.11g MIMO), but it also enbles Free to offer value-add services such as HD television (1080p), video recording with timeshifting capabilities, digital radio and analog telephony via one or more RJ11 ports.

Yes, and it's coming soon -- as of July 13!

This according to this account of new Xbox 360 store material that reveal a just less than $300 price tag that will make its weekend debut.

So, if you can wait, you can save some cash ... 

And let's see if every retailer across our fair land is going to match that price -- or it they will have the same in-store merchandising material to tout this new lower price.

(Don't you just love how you and I find out this stuff!) 

Can't believe stuff like this still happens!

Can't anybody here play this game!

Sony has been forced to pull the 2.40 version of the PlayStation 3 software from download servers because of complaints that the new update was causing problems for the owners of the console. It was only available for an hour, but apparently caused enough mayhem that Sony pulled the plug.

Bad news -- they sent it out that way.

Good news -- they acted really, really fast to stem to damage.

Read more about it at ZDNet.