uavKim Wilson

This personal digital video recorder is also a media center with a 500GB hard drive that is upgradable to 1TB. The device allows you to record a video or TV program in real-time and supports time-shift functionality. There are editing tools that allow you to cut, splice and merge the home videos you store on the drive. There is a built in iPod dock for playback of your video media through a TV. It's compatible with about every file you can imagine and retails for $349.

For years it was all about Home Theater, however, its clear the home entertainment experience is going way beyond that. D-Box uses transducers and motion sensing algorithms to bring a new dimension to watching movies and playing video games. The chairs are not only comfortable for playing your favorite driving games, they pull you into the action as you feel every curve and bump in the road. The chairs range from $3K to $15K. They also make home theater chairs with motion sensing. Also, get ready for the D-Box experience in your local theater, with the upcoming release of the Fast and Furious.

ZeeVee started delivering product in the fall of 08, so they are hardly a household name yet. What they offer is a solution for integrating your computer, not just your files, to a remote TV or even your home theater. The ZeeVee interface offers a simple scroll and click interface with icons for key internet sites where you can watch TV programs such as Hulu.com, CBS, Fox, CNN etc. Like many other networking systems, you can access the media files on your computer. However, ZeeVee goes a step further and does something I have not seen yet. Your entire desktop is now on a TV in another part of your house, so not only can you browse the internet you can open you applications and launch into Word, Photoshop, or whatever. The basic unit is not exactly cheap at $499 though it includes an RF remote & transmitter that sits at your computer. A RF keyboard is on the way to complete the integration (Price-TBA). Currently, it is only PC compatible but the Mac firmware upgrade should be available in late Q1.

Axar Media, a company based out of the UK, was showing a prototype of a Wireless HD system. The system looked simple enough with a transmitter and a receiver. Using two suites at the Venetian Hotel, they effectively demonstrated the transfer of an HD signal (both from a media player and a Blu-ray player) from one room to the next. They use the H.264 AVC video compression scheme to make the most effective use of the bandwidth. There is some degradation in the signal quality, and I detected some motion artifacts especially from the media server transfer. However, we have to start somewhere and the time for Wireless HD has finally come. Its just a matter of time before it will be as ubiquitous as streaming audio.