Home video

Even those with perfect eyesight would get ocular fatigue trying to watch the small screens on most media players for extended periods. And for those of us who are legally blind without corrective lenses, it's almost impossible.

In these cases, the "iProjector" from Ion Audio is designed to prevent early bifocals by taking the video from your iPod and projecting it onto a screen of up to 30 by 90 inches, all the while charging your player. It will also work with a computer, DVD player or game console.

Ion claims 800-by-600-pixel resolution, but it remains to … Read more

Wireless digital video connections are all the rage these days. Or at least saying you've made the appropriate chipset is. Companies keep putting out press releases promising that one day soon your television will be able to receive high-definition signals sans wires, but consumers have been, for the most part, left hanging.

Though many have claimed to be first, Texas-based WiQuest Communications says its WQST100/101 chipset is "currently shipping to customers." That still doesn't give us an actual date as to when these will be sold as adapters for TVs, game consoles or DVD players, … Read more

Remember Roxio? You most likely used its Easy CD Creator to burn CDs from your PC before iTunes came out. (Ah, the Napster days.) Well, Roxio makes a lot of other software, too, and now it seems to be getting into the Blu-ray/HD DVD wars.

Roxio released new software on Wednesday that will allow people to organize and burn movies to both DVD and Blu-ray recordable discs. The Roxio DVDit Pro HD is available at Roxio.com for about $500. It does DVD DLT and Blu-ray Disc CMF mastering with the ability to add CSS or AACS protection from … Read more

Not all gadgets are the technological equivalent of genetic mutations. Some hybrids actually make sense and don't even look like lab experiments gone awry.

On paper, at least, Hitachi's hybrid camcorder appears to be one of these exceptions. Gizmag says the video camera, which Hitachi calls the first DVD/HDD product of its kind, can easily burn videos directly onto a DVD inside the camcorder, bypassing the need for a computer altogether. It comes in 1.3- and 3.3-megapixel models, each with an 8GB hard drive that can store 110 minutes of video, at about $1,450 … Read more

Eighty percent of the world's DVD players come from China, so what happens when that country decides DVD is a dumb format? We're about to find out.

On Wednesday some 20 Chinese companies unveiled their "EVD" players, which aim to replace DVD with a format they say offers better picture & sound -- though not high def, more capacity and stronger copy protection (that's ironic). The firms behind EVD predict they will cease making DVD players for their home market by 2008 and start exporting EVD players around the world even sooner, in 2007.

If … Read more

There's a simple reason that large flat-screen TVs have gained in popularity, and it's not just the cool factor. Even before their prices of plasmas and LCDs began to come down, longtime home theater enthusiasts simply got tired of their impractical projectors, which couldn't be used in the daytime without blacking out the room.

The "Supernova Screen," however, might bring be reason enough for some to switch back. Made by Danish company DNP, the screen uses a special filter to absorb light that would otherwise wash it out. At the same time, according to Electronista, … Read more

Blog noise earlier this week documented news from the recent Electronic Home Expo that Windows Vista-based CableCard recordings will come with some heavy restrictions on what you can do with those files. As CE Pro reported, the only way you'll be able to send CableCard-recorded content to another display is if that display is connected to a Windows Media Center Extender. You can't send it to another PC on your home network, for example. Blogger Chris Lanier followed up that report with his own, declaring that you also won't be able to put CableCard recordings on a … Read more

If you love your favorite gamer so much that you're willing to plunk down four grand for him (or her) this holiday season, then here's something you might be interested in. Kotaku recently wrote about this 100-inch video arcade center from Dream Arcades that comes with just about everything from a DLP projector to a bunch of games from brands like Atari and Namco. Only problem is, I don't see a rifle. If I'm going to pay $4,000 for an all-inclusive arcade center, it had better be compatible with Big Buck Hunter Pro.

So you've been meaning to waterproof your iPod but haven't gotten around to it. And now the rainy season has begun, and you're afraid of getting it wet.

Why not just watch your videos on the umbrella? That's what researchers at Tokyo's Keio University do, with their invention called the "Pileus": a system that projects photos and videos onto your open brolly. According to Plastic Bamboo, it can even stream Flickr photos and YouTube videos directly through a Wi-Fi connection.

We assume the university won't be held responsible for the sidewalk accidents … Read more