Oh! Gizmo

By Shane McGlaun

It hasn’t been too long now since HDMI specification 1.3 came on the market and it’s already time for another specification to drop. I am glad to see that the HDMI Licensing company doesn’t sit on its laurels when it comes to adding new features to HDMI.

The full specification is due to be available for download no later than June 30, 2009. Until we can see the full specification, we do know a few of the features that HDMI 1.4 will offer. One of the most interesting is an HDMI Ethernet channel that allows HDMI connected devices to communicate at 100Mbps without needing another cable. An audio return channel is also featured in the spec along with support for 3D over HDMI.

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By Shane McGlaun

I have several iPod accessories around the house and each time I dock my iPhone I get that wonderful “this accessory is not iPod compatible” message. That little message means you can’t place calls while the iPhone is docked in the accessory, but I assume calls will still come in. I haven’t had that happen yet.

Pioneer has announced a new A/V receiver series that are certified to work with the iPhone and iPod touch. The receiver models include the VSX-819AH, VSX-919AH, and VSX-1019AH receivers. Users can plug their iPhone or iPod into the receivers and use the full-color GUI to browse album art and control music playback from across the room with the A/V receiver remote.

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By Shane McGlaun

I really like home theater gear and have wanted a projector set up in my living room for a long time. The thought of a massive image in HD resolution for watching the UFC and playing games makes me giddy. The problem is that getting all the gear together to set up a projection system can be a pain and it’s expensive.

Epson has announced new Ensemble HD home theater kits using the latest 1080p HD projectors from Epson. The new Ensemble kits include the firm’s 3LCD 1080p front projectors, motorized 100-inch screen, integrated surround sound, AV controller with built-in DVD player, universal remote, and the components needed for installation.

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By Luke Anderson

How often do you watch the special features that come on most DVDs? Personally I’ll watch the outtakes once in a while, but rarely dive in much deeper than that. If you’re the kind of person that likes to listen to all of the director commentary on all of your flicks, you just might get a disappointment next time you go to rent a movie released by Fox.

It seems that Fox is trying to encourage people to rent less and buy more by taking out the special features on rental DVDs. The first movies to be released with a special stripped-down version will be “Slumdog Millionaire”, “The Day the Earth Stood Still”, and “The Wrestler”. It will be interesting to see the reaction to this move, though I doubt that a lot of people will be all that upset. I mean, if you really care enough about a movie to sit through 4 hours of commentary and behind-the-scenes footage, maybe you’ll actually want to watch the movie more than once.

VIA [ Crave ]

By Luke Anderson

Well it seems that this whole DTV transition delay is finally happening. I’ve hoped that our government would see the light, but that is not the case. The latest bill has passed at the House and is on its way to President Obama’s desk. Since he’s been pushing for the bill all along, we can assume that he will sign it without hesitation.

One interesting tidbit that made it into the bill is that stations that are ready for the switch may go ahead and do so. That’s just great, first you confuse people by telling them that their old TVs will keep working until June 12, then you let stations pull the plug. I can’t see where that would cause any issues at all. I’m pretty sure the only thing they could do to make this worse is attempt to delay it once again in June.

VIA [ Gearlog ]

By Andrew Liszewski

I’m still finding stuff from CES to write up, and one of the very first gadgets I had the chance to play with was the new Logitech Harmony 1100 universal remote. In fact, it turns out the person I was sitting next to on my flight to Vegas was the Logitech ‘demo guy’ for this product, so I had an ‘in’ even before the plane touched down. The Harmony 1100 is an upgrade to the 1000 model, and features a 3.5 inch color touch screen that’s complimented with a set of ’soft’ buttons on the sides, and dedicated volume and channel buttons to the right. Now these buttons technically duplicate functionality already found on the touch screen, but I like the fact that you can adjust the volume and change the channel without having to look away from the screen. Who knows when that crazy island from Lost might up and disappear again while you’re not paying attention?

And like with all the Logitech Harmony models, programming the 1100 to replace up to 15 different remotes is easy thanks to their guided online setup that currently supports more than 225,000 devices from over 5,000 brands. But if things get too complicated, the UI on the large touch screen can also be re-configured to show only the commands you want to see, even to the point of choosing a custom icon for each one. Now that large display does raise the issue of battery life, but the remote comes with a docking cradle, so whenever it’s not in use or lost, the battery should be recharging. (I think the Logitech rep suggested 3 or 4 days of use before it needed to be recharged.)

The Logitech Harmony 1100 is expected to be available in February for $499.99.

[ Logitech Harmony 1100 Advanced Universal Remote ]

By Luke Anderson

When you were a kid, did you ever ask your parents for something, only to be turned down? Sure, it happened plenty. I learned quickly that simply asking again was not a course of action that I wanted to take, as it only served to frustrate my parents (and usually meant trouble for me). It’s amazing how much I can relate simple lessons from my childhood to our government. In case you haven’t caught on by now, I’m once again talking about the Digital TV Transition.

The bill was passed by the Senate earlier in the week, only to be shot down at the House. Well it seems that despite being told “No”, the Senate has once again passed a bill delaying the transition. In all fairness, they made a minor tweak or two, which was apparently just enough to justify a competently new bill. The fundamentals are still the same, with the transition being delayed until June 12. The House is out until Monday, so we’ll see how round 2 turns out.

VIA [ Gearlog ]

By Luke Anderson

If you’ve ever worked at a retail store, you probably know that the margin on most types of cabling is huge. The store only pays a few bucks for that $15 ethernet cable you picked up (or just about any other kind), which is why they’re always suggesting you get one. If you do a lot of networking, you learn to make your own ethernet cables. This is good for two reasons, you make it the exact length you need and you save a lot of money. Well it seems that the same theory will soon be applied to HDMI cables.

Audioquest has announced a like of HDMI connectors that can be terminated by anyone with the right tools. The 19 wires that make up an HDMI cable might look a little daunting (an ethernet cable only uses 8), but their system works by splitting those into a set of 9 and one of 10. By crimping these separately, you’ll save yourself a lot of hassle. They even claim that crimping the wires produces a better signal than with current soldering techniques (take that Monster Cable!). We still don’t know anything about pricing, so it’s entirely possible that this sort of thing will cost more than pre-made cables, but hopefully that won’t be the case.

[ Audioquest ] VIA [ CrunchGear ]

By Andrew Liszewski

I tend to avoid ‘all-in-one’ devices like this because they always seem to prove the old “jack of all trades, master of none” adage. But the only reason I’d buy a projector would be for portability reasons, so having a DVD player and 8 W speakers built-in would definitely sweeten the deal. Epson was showing off their MovieMate 55 projector at their CES booth this year, and while it’s not the top-of-the-line in any category, it seems like a useful device. At 8.3 lbs is not super-light, but it can produce an image up to 150 inches in size (16:9 aspect ratio) with a brightness of about 1200 lumens.

It’s also got standard video hook-ups like RCA and VGA for connecting a laptop or gaming console, though HDMI would have made things easier, particularly when it comes to hooking up a Blu-ray player since the MovieMate 55’s own DVD player doesn’t do HD. But it does support non-DVD video formats like Divx, so you can enjoy your ‘alternately acquired’ media too. And it’s available now on the Epson website for $699.99.

[ Epson MovieMate 55 ]