Smart Home Blog

PlatformaHD, one of the bigger Russian satellite TV provider, has announced together with Samsung Electronics and General Satellite the first 3D channel in Russia and Eastern Europe! Subscribers will be able to use modified satellite receiver HD-9300 from General Satellite and 3D TV Samsung – PS42B450B1W, PS42B451B2W, PS50B450B1W, PS50B451B2W, produced and available in Russia, or active 3D-glasses SSG2000.

Currently there is no any information about the date of starting 3D broadcasting and the price for subscription. Hope it’ll be available this Summer at the latest. Also it’d be interesting to see what another big player on the Russian satellite TV market NTV+ will do.

ThinkFlood recently launches RedEye universal remote control system for iPhone and iPod Touch. The system is split by two parts – hardware and software. Hardware component includes a IR transmitter which is also a dock-station for iPhone or iPod Touch and WiFi access point. Software part is an application which can be downloaded from iTunes. Device communicates with IR transmitter via WiFi. It’s possible to use several transmitters in the different rooms to control IR equipment in whole house.

The RedEye allows to create your own layout for remote control. It also utilizes accelerometer to switch channels or control volume (see demo video below). The RedEye offers also a huge database of IR codes. You just select your device and the application will download its codes. For unknown devices the RedEye provides learning mode as all universal remotes.

The RedEye system for iPhone and iPod Touch is available at $188.00. It isn’t so cheap but considering offered functionality it looks reasonable.

Read more »

Syabas, well-known producer of networked media tank Popcorn hour, is going to release the media player for non-geek users. Because NMT Popcorn Hour is not easy configure and user friendly device. Also it’s expensive a bit regardless the rich set of offered features. So, the new Popbox is a compact and elegant box with redesigned rich user interface. It still can play all known media files and containers from attached USB storage or network shares (it doesn’t have internal HDD). Popbox support wired connection to the home network as well as WiFi (802.11 b/g/n). Sure the device is fully compatible with HD (720p or 1080p).

Another good advantage of Popbox is access to the online services such Twitter, Revision3, Netflix, SHOUTcast via built-in apps. The number of apps is growing fast. Thanks to available App Development Platform. So, if you’re interested to add new app you can do it easily. Also the Popbox allows to you organize your media library more efficient by retrieving metadata from IMDB for video or AllMusic for audio files.

The Popbox should be available this Spring at just $130! If the price won’t be changed it’ll be probably the best network media player on the market!
See the demo of the Popbox UI after jump
Read more »

Next step after releasing of Boxee Box Boxee is going to offer a paid content to their users this Summer. There is a big number of comments about that topic on the Boxee blog. Many people like it on conditions that the payment will be monthly/yearly for unlimited access to the channel or bundle of channels. The most difficult part of that task is finding providers with interesting content. Wish good luck to Boxee team with that and wait for Boxee Box.

Recently GeeXboX announced its new software for HTPC called Enna. It offers a standard set of functions such playback video and audio, showing photos from local drives, USB storage or network shares. However, there is one unique feature in the Enna. It’s a BookStore allowed to read your favourite eBooks from different Internet content providers. Also the new GeeXboX media center software comes with VDPAU supports which is very important for HD video fans.

Enna development team has a huge todo list which includes adding games, integration with VDR to watch and record digital TV, supporting UPnP and DLNA. Long-term plans include online services integration (currently there is no one, even YouTube), Instant Messaging, VoIP Telephony and Video Conference and TelePresence. Souns very promising. But we’ll see the progress this summer.

To install Enna under Ubuntu 9.10 (Karmic) just add GeeXboX repository to your apt sources list and use apt to get it. Also note that Enna is a part of GeeXboX distribution. Users of other Linux distributions can install Enna from the sources.