Archive for the 'Portable Media' Category

I trekked it (ok, monorailed it) all the way Caesar's Palace today to check out JVC's new HD Everio, along with the rest of their camcorder line. And yes, that is it above, safely tucked behind red roping, shooting a real time product demo. Once the dirty commoners left, PR grabbed me a unit.

By the way, tech specs, etc can be found in a previous post.

First First Impression: They handed me the camera, and I could swear, even in the windowless confines of a Vegas ballroom, clouds parted and shined rays of sunlight on my head. I turned it on. It didn't turn on. No battery?? WTF???

Can I please get a battery, some power source? No? Ok.

First Impression: It's small. Very small. Put it somewhere between your palmcorder and a run of the mill prosumer camera.

Second Impression: It's sexy. They really put some love into this finish. My photography does the grain detailing little justice.

Third Impression: I know I rant about build, but I think it's very important with a camcorder. The weight is surprisingly light, but a battery on the back should give it a nice weight/balance.

They had a tech demo set up, shooting a real time still image of flowers. There was vibrant color saturation, though some minor artifacting around petal edges. Then they had a screen with outdoor Vegas footage (claimed to have been shot earlier this week) that looked spectacular. Movement was very sharp - I could almost see this on an HD channel. Granted, the screen size wasn't a 50-inch where flaws might really show.

Without side-by-sides or shooting time on my own, I can't make strong camera comparisons, but I can say that I doubt you will find better video for under $2000. And if you are an event videographer or documentary maker looking to move to HD, two cameras for the price of one may be a viable option.

Grade: A – Mark Wilson

This is the latest iPod speaker system from Sharp that has an iPod dock. It will be available in black and white and also includes AM/FM radio, front-loading CD player, alarm, sleep timer, etc. Surprisingly, it sounded pretty damn nice, even in the very overcrowded Sharp booth. It will be available in April for $330.

This DK-A10 also has a little brother, the DK-A1, that lacks a lot of the cool movable parts for $230, also available in April. –Travis Hudson

Maybe the boys at Redmond knew what was coming today cause they've decided to ramp up their Zune with games. Microsoft wouldn't say what type of games the Zune will be able to play (Doom? Rad Racer? Bejeweled?), but it's obviously a move to catch up with Apple. The downside, you'll have to wait till July 2008 before you can play them. – Louis Ramirez

Microsoft Will Add Video Games to Zune [Bloomberg]

When it comes to portable media, Sony strayed away from actual Walkman players, rather they added a hefty arsenal of Bluetooth accessories including a Bluetooth Transmitter/Receiver, Walkman Adapter and pair of Bluetooth speakers.

The HWS-BTA2W (pictured above) is a small Bluetooth 2.0 transmitter and receiver. Basically meaning that it will either connect to pair of speakers and transmit to a Bluetooth enabled player, or it can connect to the MP3 player and transmit to a pair of Bluetooth enabled stereo speakers. The two other accessories below complement this receiver that will be coming out later this year.

The SRS-BTM30 is a small Bluetooth-enabled speaker system that has a total power output of 6W. It also includes an auxiliary input that can have other players plug directly in to. This Bluetooth speaker system could easily connect to the Bluetooth transmitter and receiver mentioned above plugged into an MP3 player.

The WL-NWB1 is a Walkman Bluetooth Adaptor about the size of a quarter and plugs into the base of the NW-S703 Sony Walkman. That is the only current model that will support this soon to be proprietary Sony adapter, but all future Walkmans will include this port.

–Travis Hudson

If anything's shaping up to be the theme of the show, it's TV and we don't just mean monster 108-inch LCD sets. It's all about time and place-shifting television content...

Apple delivered on iTV, er, AppleTV, as promised.

Microsoft confirmed IPTV on the Xbox 360, bringing HD broadcasts and most likely DVR capabilities to the 360 with AT&T.

We found out that the Slingcatcher is real.

DirectTV confirmed their portable TV offering, Sat-Go, which mirrors your home subscription for $5 a month. They didn't give us any prices, however.

Verizon announced their VCAST Mobile TV service in conjunction with Media FLO, which we got our hands on. – Matt Buchanan

Here's a video of the iPhone in action browsing & playing music.– Brian Lam

iPhone [Apple.com]