http://www.ecoustics.com/latest/articles Latest articles, updated every five minutes http://www.ecoustics.com/pcw/howto/150578 Add external storage to your TiVo, beef up your Xbox 360, rip DVDs to your media player, play your iTunes purchases on any device, and use your standard cable remote to skip commercials. Thu, 04 Sep 2008 01:00:00 -0400 http://www.ecoustics.com/dt/talk/259 OK let’s answer the question in the title right up front. I’ve been using the new Toshiba XDE DVD player for about a week and it isn’t better than my Playstation 3 (PS3) Blu-Ray player. But Toshiba did some things very right and it (and other DVD players like it) could keep Blu-Ray from ever replacing DVD. This is because consumers tend to buy on price and the majority of them will gravitate towards quality considered “good enough” and the Toshiba XDE to me IS good enough. Home theater owners will clearly still prefer Blu-Ray. Upconversion DVDWe remain a fan of... Tue, 26 Aug 2008 03:00:00 -0400 http://www.ecoustics.com/tl/23569/ You arrive home, giggling and overjoyed, only to find that the disc... won't... play.  You try everything to get it to work... but nothing works, because there's a bunch of scratches and Cheeto-prints on the back of the disk from the inconsiderate loser who rented it before you. Tue, 12 Aug 2008 12:00:07 -0400 http://www.ecoustics.com/tl/20128/ Keeping kids entertained in the car can be a monumental task. Whether you are running errands around town or on a cross country trip, keeping little minds occupied and little hands out of trouble can be a lesson in extreme frustration. Enter the portable DVD player. This handy little gadget has become a lifesaver for many busy families. While many laptop computers come with a DVD drive attached, the DVD player is smaller, lighter (most weigh less than 2 pounds) and much less expensive than a computer. In addition, it is safer than toting around your valuable computer files. Portable DVD’s also tend to have a longer battery life than laptop computers. While they were quite expensive when they were first introduced, portable DVD players have come down in price significantly, with basic units running less than $200. Shopping Considerations When looking for portable DVD player to meet your needs, it is important to consider how you will be using the unit. If the player’s main function will be to keep the kids entertained in the car, make sure the unit you choose has an AC / cigarette lighter adapter so that you can save the battery life. In addition,... Thu, 17 Apr 2008 15:28:13 -0400 http://www.ecoustics.com/dt/talk/234 Many retailers have been piling on what has been a long string of bad news for the HD DVD camp and announced they were going to stop selling HD DVD players. Most recently, Best Buy and Netflix indicated they would be dropping HD DVD. Then, one Blu-Ray customer figured out he had been screwed by the Blu-Ray side and started a... Wed, 13 Feb 2008 03:00:00 -0500 http://www.ecoustics.com/tl/19850/ The world of DVD players is a different place than it was a decade ago. Back in those days, we were just glad that DVD players existed. At least we could go digital, and no longer be trapped in the world of VHS . Now we have various types of DVD players - HD, SD, Blu-Ray . The world is a more complicated place indeed. So, knowing that, what DVD player should you get for someone (or maybe yourself) as a gift this holiday season? Well, there are hundreds of options out there, but I will give you five of my favorites... Toshiba SD6000 If you are looking for a DVD player that does the job without the massive price tag, this is your pick. You can get it for $70 and it is well worth that. It has a High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) connection, which allows you to connect your DVD player to a digital TV, and with profound results. The SD6000 also features a video "upconversion" option, which can convert standard DVD quality video to a more crisp picture closely akin to HDTV quality (1080p, for the techies out there). Pretty nifty, and not too expensive. More Information ... Tue, 27 Nov 2007 14:00:13 -0500 http://www.ecoustics.com/tl/19834/ Looking for an easy way to take videos from your computer and watch them on your TV? There are certainly a variety of solutions to that problem available today, whether you decide to burn a DVD, build a media PC, or use one of the myriad of wireless streaming devices on the market. Those solutions all work, but SanDisk has created an even easier way to get the job done. Enter the Sansa TakeTV Video Player. SanDisk turned to the simple USB thumb drive for inspiration and came away with the simplest way yet to get downloaded television and movie content where it belongs: your TV. Watching downloaded/digitized video content on your TV has never been easier. What Is TakeTV TakeTV is a pocket-sized device that comes with three pieces – the main USB unit, a remote control, and a TV cradle. The main unit looks and works just like a thumb drive. You connect it to your computer by plugging it into your computer’s USB drive. When not in use, the main unit slips into the remote control making for a tidy, portable package that can easily fit in a pocket. The remote itself is very thin with a ... Mon, 19 Nov 2007 11:21:14 -0500 http://www.ecoustics.com/tl/19443/ It had a rectangular body with a snake-like appendage that connected it to a plug on the wall. A number of helpless electrical devices plugged into the rectangular brick that was its power source. Its name was Surge Protector–the guardian of computers and electrical appliances, and preserver of operational voltaic doohickeys. Surge protectors may not be one of the X-Men or Fantastic Four, but they’re definitely super heroes for any techie or techie-wanna-be. But what are they? Why are they so necessary? How do they work? And what kinds are the best? What's a Surge Protector? Surge protectors come in many different shapes and sizes, but they all have one thing in common: they all protect electrical devices (computers, monitors, printers, televisions, DVD players, CD players, etc.) from surges in voltage. That’s what surge protectors do. They're always on duty: during a lightning storm; freak voltage spikes from the power company; or—more likely than not—a surge in power from demands by high-power electrical appliances or devices, like air conditioners or vacuum cleaners. Without a surge protector your electrical devices are helpless sitting ducks, waiting to be crisply blackened by the fire of unrestrained electricity. Besides preventing such an unpleasant scenario, ... Tue, 09 Oct 2007 13:45:11 -0400 http://www.ecoustics.com/tl/18601/ (Syndicated from MyDigitalEntertainer.com )  You’ve probably seen the commercials and heard the hype. But what exactly is Microsoft’s Intel Viiv? Simply put, Intel Viiv (rhymes with “five”) is a catch-all for the latest in a growing line of marketing initiatives by Intel. In fact, if you bought your computer after early 2006, chances are you’ve may already have a Viiv. Much like Intel’s last marketing splash, the Centrino, there’s no set-in-stone configuration for these systems. Instead, the Viiv offers a host of possible features to choose from, including processors, chipsets, and even an optional TV tuner. With an Intel Viiv PC, you can access, play, and share your digital media—all from one convenient spot. You can also use your Viiv with several different online entertainment sources, allowing you to download and play tons of music, movies, and more. The Viiv is capable of connecting directly to your television, plus it offers a quick and easy one-touch on/off function—just like most standard DVD players. Plus, it neatly organizes all of your digital media files so you spend more time enjoying your content, and less time searching for just the right files. Inside the Box Viiv systems offer support for up to ... Tue, 26 Jun 2007 21:36:42 -0400 http://www.ecoustics.com/dt/talk/186 That is the question. Wal-Mart is officially saying they didn’t pick sides, but their spokesman did also say they expected consumers to pick a winner in the coming months. Currently they sell the $350 Toshiba HD-D1 HD DVD and the $900 Philips BDP900/37 Blu-Ray player. But this was a leak and it never was Wal-Mart’s intent to announce to their competitors that they expected to do to the DVD market what they ... Fri, 27 Apr 2007 03:00:00 -0400 http://www.ecoustics.com/dt/talk/184 There is one retailer that has the power to call the winner of the protracted Blu-Ray vs. HD DVD fight and that vendor is Wal-Mart. Over the weekend they apparently leaked plans to bring in a massive number of low cost (possibly sub $200) HD DVD players for Christmas.The manufacturing side of this has apparently been in the works for a few years but this is the first time we have had projected prices for the result.Why Wal-Mart why now?Wal-Mart uses DVDs to build store traffic. They tend to subsidize the price for the movies they fea... Mon, 23 Apr 2007 03:00:00 -0400 http://www.ecoustics.com/tl/16516/ Following up my article from 2 years ago on this topic...I just got back from CES, and one of the cool things I saw while there was LG's new "Super Multi Blue" drive.  It reads HD-DVD's and reads and writes Blu-Ray discs.  Would love to see some HD-DVD write action, but I guess that'll have to wait.Either way, it's slow (4x) and expensive ($1200), but it's out ... soon.  The good news is that the connections are there - HDMI, component and composite for video, and optical, coaxial, and discrete 5.1 for audio.  And the even better news...  50GB disc storage capacity for either format.  That's about 9 hrs of 1080i and 23 hrs of standard def.  Rock on!  Beats the daylights out of the 2 episodes of Battlestar Galactica I can get on my current DVD.And I have say that watching high-def DVD video on 72" plasma screens at the show was pretty impressive!A player like this lends itself to perpectuating the war between the formats.  Guess this one won't be ending as quickly as the VHS vs. Beta conflict did.  And of course *that* means more casualties on the losing side when one inevitably wins out.  Interesting BBC report picked up by Slashdot ... Wed, 10 Jan 2007 23:19:19 -0500 http://www.ecoustics.com/dt/talk/159 Last week we talked about the potential ending for Blu-Ray DVD players which was largely the result of execution problems with the PlayStation 3. Since then NPD has indicated, in terms of sales, the PS3 will fall well short of the numbers we used in our analysis and will not only be behind Microsoft (which had a year lead) but behind Nintendo as well. Nintendo, which had dominated this segment before Sony, had done so poorly with the Cube they weren’t expected to even be a real threat to Sony’s dominance.This is not to say that Microsoft and Nintendo didn’t also make mistakes (they... Tue, 12 Dec 2006 03:00:00 -0500 http://forum.ecoustics.com/bbs/messages/34579/275977.html Thu, 05 Oct 2006 07:09:00 -0400 http://www.ecoustics.com/pcw/howto/126822 Your high-definition DVD player--and other electronic gear--may require new firmware to correct problems. Fri, 25 Aug 2006 04:00:00 -0400 http://www.ecoustics.com/tl/14550/ Did your DVD/CD player or combo unit suddenly take a turn for the worse? Did it stop reading some discs, start skipping, or just stop playing all together? If you're the type to dig in and fix it on your own, Larry Dillon has the ultimate guide for you! Read on to learn how to figure out what's wrong, and maybe get that player back in top working order! Wed, 09 Aug 2006 19:36:07 -0400 http://www.ecoustics.com/pcw/howto/126545 Plus: Wi-Fi-ready MP3 players; an OS in your Web browser. Wed, 26 Jul 2006 15:00:00 -0400 http://www.ecoustics.com/dt/feature/59 Philips Electronics in mid-June held their annual mid-year product review in which they showed off previously launched or upcoming consumer electronics and other products for the 2006 holiday season. Amongst the gaggle of portable media players, micro systems, DVD players, digital photo frames, home theater systems, remote controls and televisions, we’ve picked out what we feel are some of the top Philips products for the remainder of the year. ... Wed, 19 Jul 2006 03:00:00 -0400 http://www.ecoustics.com/pcw/howto/126397 The debut of Samsung's BD-P1000 is the latest salvo in the DVD format wars. How will it tip the balance? Tue, 18 Jul 2006 04:00:00 -0400 http://www.ecoustics.com/pcw/howto/126112 The next-generation disc formats are here--and so are hints of where the format war is going. Tue, 20 Jun 2006 04:00:00 -0400 http://www.ecoustics.com/pcw/howto/125805 Wed, 31 May 2006 04:00:00 -0400 http://www.ecoustics.com/pcw/howto/125685 Blu-ray or HD DVD? You may help decide the winning format with your next PC purchase. Wed, 17 May 2006 03:00:00 -0400 http://www.ecoustics.com/pcw/howto/125683 We demystify, test, and make recommendations on the next generation of DVD products. Tue, 16 May 2006 04:00:00 -0400 http://www.ecoustics.com/tl/14092/ My husband and I have a disagreement. Apparently, he's heard from somewhere that it's bad for your DVD Player to pause DVDs. I have researched this and haven't been able to find any evidence that it is in fact bad to pause DVDs. Additionally, why would the manufacturers even add a pause button if the consumer is not supposed to use it? Is it harmful, or is this just some rumor that's stuck with him? Mon, 08 May 2006 10:21:42 -0400 http://www.ecoustics.com/tl/13995/ The HD-DVD Camp has struck the first blow, as Toshiba's HD-A1 HD-DVD player is now available at retail stores. Coming in at a surprisingly affordable $499 for the hardware, this "first of its kind" player is priced cheaper than the initial DVD players of 1997. The ability to own your favorite blockbuster hits in actual high-definition quality is something that early adopters have been looking forward to for... Fri, 05 May 2006 16:04:50 -0400