high definition
ITV HD Channel Gets Sky HD & Virgin Media Release Date
March 16, 2010
This is big news for those of us who enjoy watching a lot of sport. Football in particular. It has been confirmed that ITV1 will at last be officially broadcast in HD as of this April 2010 for Sky HD and Virgin Media customers. It comes as no surprise seeing as the company have shared broadcasting rights in the UK for this Summer’s World Cup in South Africa.
ITV HD has been airing Freeview and Freesat for a while now, but from next month it will, for the first time, be a standalone channel. Obviously the major news though, is that Sky HD and Virgin Media V+ subscribers will now have access to the high definition channel.
Of course, ITV is more than just a sports channel. A lot more. Although many people may not enjoy all of the shows aired, it is clear that many of us do. Soaps such as Coronation Street and reality/talent shows such as Britain’s Got Talent keep millions pinned to their armchairs for hours upon end throughout the year. Other top shows include Law and Order: UK and Lewis which have become popular more recently.
Continue reading »Sony BRAVIA Monolithic Design Concept – Interview With Takuya Kawagoi
March 15, 2010
Recently here on Zath we’ve covered several new Sony BRAVIA home entertainment products that were unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2010, these included BRAVIA HDTVs, 3DTVs, Blu-Ray players, surround sound systems. All of these new products had a common theme in terms of their design, they all feature Sony’s latest Monolithic Design Concept that certainly makes them look appealing and stand out from the crowded market of home entertainments systems.
Here at Zath we’ve been lucky enough to interview the director of Sony Design Centre Europe (DCE); Takuya Kawagoi who has overseen the implementation of this new Monolithic Design Concept for these products.
Continue reading »LaCie LaCinema Mini HD Announced (1080p Home Media Center)
January 25, 2010
The network media streaming market is continually developing with exciting new products being released year on year… Arguably the pick of the bunch in 2009 was the LaCie LaCinema Classic HD or perhaps the Dell Inspiron Zino HD, which took content from a computer and displayed it on a TV. Simple enough, but there were definite improvements that could have been made on the product.
The beginning of 2010 has seen the release of LaCie’s LaCinema Mini HD player which plays full high definition content at 1080p and bringing a welcome low-cost option to this particular market. The first noticeable feature of the Mini HD is the inclusion of built in 802.11n Wi-Fi alongside the standard ethernet port.
Continue reading »Daniusoft Media Converter Ultimate Review
January 22, 2010
Daniusoft Media Converter Ultimate is a program designed to do a host of things with your media files, from ripping and burning DVD’s to removing the DRM off iTunes downloads. You’ll definitely have a tough time finding more features in another media suite, but how does it hold up against other programs of its nature?
The feature of this media converter that intrigued me the most when I first saw it was the DRM removal tool. This especially piqued my interest as I download a lot of content from the iTunes store, including HDTV shows and podcasts. To me, being able to convert high definition content is a must in any such program, so I was naturally skeptical when adding my files to the conversion list.
Continue reading »New Sony Home Theatre Systems Announced (CES 2010)
January 7, 2010
These new Sony Home Theatre Systems include the new Sony Blu-Ray players but offer a lot more in terms of a complete media experience. Firstly, the surround sound speakers offer 5.1 sound and full HD 3D TV.
For the most part, the features are the same as they come through the blu-ray player itself, which includes featuring the Sony BRAVIA “Monolithic Design Concept”. In terms of DLNA media streaming around your home and all the access to the network is through the XMB.
Continue reading »New Sony Bravia HD & 3D TV Range Announced (CES 2010)
January 7, 2010
As we predicted television manufacturers have already started building up the 3DTV market, as well as broadcasters such as Sky launching 3D TV services in 2010 and it is only likely to continue throughout this year and decade. Sony are no different. With their new range of Bravia TV’s announced at CES 2010 which continue their long tradition of combining style and elegance with functionality and quality.
The first enhancement they have made is with the Sony Monolithic Design Concept that is featured across the new BRAVIA range of products. It is minimalistic as well as practical. You can recline the TV to alter the viewing angle by up to 6 degrees. The screen surface is flush and it looks spectacular in my opinion as always with Sony products. What they like to call ‘monolithic design’ has been deployed throughout their new range of Bravia TV’s, Blu-Ray players and home cinema systems. Which going by the look of these new TV’s is not a bad thing at all. They’re curvaceous, spacious and absolutely stunning.
Continue reading »LG’s CES Press Event Roundup (CES 2010)
January 6, 2010
LG held their CES press event earlier today, and after moving past sales figures for the past year (yes, LG are still booming in the recession), we got to some pretty interesting technology…
LG TVs
A particular point of interest was wireless technology in TV’s. All LG TV’s will be wireless ready in 2010. If you’re not familiar with wireless TV, it does what it says on the tin, allowing you to stream 1080p video to your HDTV remotely without the need for a host of wires ruining the view. It’s certainly a promising technology, and definitely beats the good ol’ cable organiser!
To go along with this, LG also announced improvements to their ‘Broadband Services’, bringing 35 different internet services directly to LG TV’s and hard drive equipped Blu-Ray players. They call this ‘DivX TV’, and I love the idea, as it helps cut out the set top box or PC you’d normally use and allow you to bring these directly to your TV.
Continue reading »Lenovo Skylight Smartbook Announced! (CES 2010)
January 6, 2010
There’s nothing like a flagship model to get a new category of devices booming, and that’s exactly what the Lenovo Skylight could be for the Smartbook market in 2010. With its incredibly thin design, the Skylight is the first Smartbook released from a major player in the market, and it’s certainly lived up to expectations.
The Lenovo Skylight is available in red, blue and silver – it’s extremely thin at under 20mm and weighs less than 2 pounds. The keyboard and trackpad are extremely well designed and implemented considering the size of the device. The keyboard used in the Skylight is actually the same keyboard that Lenovo use for their ThinkPad Edge 13and X100e, so it’s very high quality, with space between each key to make typing easier.
The trackpad is a decent size for a Smartbook, with no physical button in sight – taking a leaf out of Apple’s book, the whole trackpad acts as a button. A lot of people don’t like this design, but as a Macbook user myself, I now prefer it to a discrete button on a notebook.
Continue reading »Marvell Smart…Smartbook Announced! (CES 2010)
January 6, 2010
Don’t say I didn’t warn you about Smartbooks in 2010! Smartbooks are on the rise, and ever present at this year’s CES. Marvell have a new smartbook on display, and it looks very interesting… The first thing that’s striking is how incredibly thin the device is – it’s thinner than the Macbook Air with the screen measuring a very respectable 12.1”.
Under the hood, it has an Armada 510 processor clocked at 1.2GHz, and the demo can handle 1080p video without a hitch, which is a good sign for a Smartbook. At the moment, a demo model is all that this is, but it shows what we could be seeing from Marvell in the near future and the design is definitely spot on.
Continue reading »HD Ultra Slim Pocket Video Camera
December 7, 2009
The HD Ultra Slim Pocket Video Camera is a beautifully sleek, and extremely portable video capture device. Capable of snapping high definition video, or 5 megapixel still photos as well as being an MP3 player. It’s compact, light and stylish.
This camcorder stores its videos in .AVI format which is suitable for almost any user as it is compatible with Windows Media Player as well as other media playing software such as the VLC media player. Therefore viewing your creation on your PC is as simple as possible.
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