At the CES keynote Microsoft announced enhancements to the MediaRoom IPTV service in version 2.0 that is coming this year. If you’re in America you can experience MediaRoom if you use AT&T U-verse as your television provider. The major enhancements include the ability to watch U-verse through an XBox 360. It will also take advantage of MicroSoft’s Silverlight and SmoothStreaming technologies to bring you more internet content. And lastly, they showed off an on demand video store that not only works on the PC, but also on Windows Mobile phones.

Vizio is typically regarded as the best of the low-end high definition television manufacturers, but they may be trying to change that image with these latest two offerings.
These two models fit into Vizio’s new line, the XVT Pro Series. The first is the massive, and feature packed, 72″ XVTPRO720SV LED TV. It is a back-lit LCD also sporting wireless HDMI, a total of 5 HDMI inputs,Smart Dimming technology, Internet Apps, and Full HD3d that matches the Blu-ray 3D specification. If your spouse won’t go for hanging a 72″ screen in your …

They showed it off a bit at their event in NYC on December 7th and now D-link has announced before CES even opens that yes, the Boxee Box is coming and sometimes during the first half of 2010 for under $200. 
Boxee has struck a deal which will see D-link pushing out a hardware version of the popular media streaming and aggregating software turning any TV or monitor into an instant content outlet.  With access to Pandora, Youtube, Last.fm as well as Revision 3 and other online content, the …

It looks as though we’ll be getting another wireless HD streaming technology out of CES this year.  In the home theater and digital media space, this is starting to trend up as much as 3D.
ProVision’s AXAR streaming will push HD content to, well, basically anything that supports it.  The tech supports two streams and while ProVision has said that it can support more, at this time they don’t intend to offer it at the consumer level.  Why is beyond me, but hopefully they’ll see the lunacy in that move.  If …

There’s been more than one time over the last few years when I wished I had a TV outside.  While it’s easy to move a laptop out there and watch shows as the kids play in the backyard, a full set would be great.  While I’m no closer to owning one due to the fact that it’s out of my price range, SunBrite will be showing off their new 55 inch 5510HD LCD all-weather TV at CES 2010.
While most sets can’t stand the variable temperatures, dirt, bugs and other …

We know that even more than last year, this year’s CES will be slammed with companies looking to push internet content to your television.  It started with widgets built into TVs last year and that seemed, for the most part, to go nowhere.
Syabas, makers of the Popcorn Hour, recently unveiled their new Popbox.  The device is intended to make getting internet and local content to your TV easier and more mainstream.  The device ships with an HDMI port as well as USB and SD slots for connecting external drives …

Coby isn’t exactly known for high quality products but that isn’t stopping Swiss company Sonic Emotion from teaming up with the discount producer to introduce (what they’re calling) the “first soundbar on the market that plays 3D sound from simple stereo input”.  That’s what the VP of Sonic Emotion is saying but saying and doing are two very different things. 
Again, Coby isn’t a super high quality company by reputation.  How well this speaker will sound is suspect to me but hopefully they can bring some sort of innovation …

If you’re anything like me, it’s impossible to memorize everything you need to know to properly setup and maintain a great home theater experience in your home.  It used to be easy.  Hook up a good 5.1 receiver with some good sounding speakers and a DVD player and you were set.  Well things have changed.
Now you damn near need a Ph.D. to understand what’s going on behind the scenes.  I highly doubt there’s anyone out there who knows everything and if they tell you they do, they’re lying.  Nope.  …

We all want quiet and good looking HTPCs for the living room.  Well what about one that you never see and that is so well hidden no one will even know it’s there?
The Piixl EdgeCenter 3770 hooks straight to the back of your TV using the VESA mounting interface.  At only 30mm deep, it won’t do much to change the look of how your TV hangs and if you have your set on a stand, no one will ever know.  The PC can fit devices 37 to 70 inches.
The …

One of the two competing groups looking to make wireless High Definition transmission a reality has released a spec.
The Wireless Home Digital Interface group (WHDI) released their spec into the wild earlier this week.  Backed by Sharp, Hitachi, Motorola, Samsung and Sony, the specification uses a 40 MHz channel in the 5GHz unlicensed band.  The interface should support 1080p resolution, HDCP and an uncompressed signal.  (Compared to the original stream.  If that’s compressed, no additional compression is added.)
WirelessHD is a competing product that uses the 60GHz band and also …