Lowyat.NET: Latest topics by chewkl

Bevix BV8088

chewkl — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 14:08:44 +0800

http://www.bevixtech.com/en/products/index...%DC%BD%E9%C9%DC

Supports BD Navigation like the Dune and BD1. Wonder how much it will be...anyone wants to bring it in and test market?

» Click to show Spoiler - click again to hide... «

BV8088 HD Player is a standalone, multimedia hard disk player which plays digital videos, digital music, digital still images and DVD files to a TV display and home entertainment system. You can enjoy digital contents in your living room without having to burn discs or having to play it back on a DVD or CD player anymore.

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Using the latest SMP8643 processor, BEVIX BV8088 HD PLAYER supports the latest multimedia formats MKV, MPEG-4 AVC(H.264), VC-1( MP@HL, AP@L3), WMV9 & WMV HD as well as MPEG4 3.11,4.0 , 5.0. H.264 is a brand-new and superb compression technology today. It makes you more stunning HD movie with lower storage capacity.
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BEVIX BV8088 HD PLAYER plays back high definition video (up to 1920x1080P) and still images. The BV8088 HD Player features a HDMI connector and component, which will match the high resolution of HD level video contents.
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BEVIX BV8088 support BD navigations.
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BEVIX BV8088 HD PLAYER plays back DVD movies with the full functionality of DVD navigation. You can create your own virtual DVD library by storing your personal collection of DVDs in .ISO or .IFO format and watch them exactly as if they were running from the original DVDs (all original features included: Menu, Chapter, Audio Stream, Subtitle, Fast Forward, Rewind, Slow, Pause, Step Forward, Repeat, Search etc.).
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HDMI provides unparalleled qualities to digital video and audio, while DVI only serves digital video. You dont have to mess around with several AV cables. It provides single, pure and simple way to connect your display. It can deliver uncompressed digital video up to 1080p as well as multi-channel digital audio.
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BEVIX BV8088 HD PLAYER supports DTS hardware decoder to mix DTS sound into 2 channels for a more dynamic sound quality.
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BEVIX BV8088 HD PLAYER can be networked . You are able to play the files on the internet from its original destination operated by a USB mouse without having to copy it into the hard disk first.
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With two USB2.0 host ports, you can now attach additional external USB hard drives to further extend the storage capacity. You can also playback files from a digital camera, USB flash driver, USB flash card reader, or a MP3 player.
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DMB-T/ DVB-T(optional USB DMB-T/DVB-T dongles available).

Samsung 3D LED TV Malaysia launch

chewkl — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 15:54:26 +0800

Any one got FR on the event?

Splitting 1 Astro cable to 2 decoders

chewkl — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 12:44:45 +0800

Guys, wanna ask how do I actually split 1 single Astro cable to 2 decoders, without pulling a new cable from the dish. Reason is my new place uses centralized dish and the cables are already concealed in the wall by the developer.

I found this device in an electrical shop and the guy said it will split the cable with no signal loss. Does anyone have any idea about this? Picture of the device as attached.

Thanks in advance...

Samsung 2010 Plasma talk

chewkl — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 09:36:58 +0800

LINEUP:

HD Ready:
Series 4
42"
50"

Full HD:
Series 5:
PN58C5000
PN50C5000

Series 6 (2D):
PN63C6500
PN58C6500
PN50C6500

» Click to show Spoiler - click again to hide... «

Series 7 (3D):
PN63C7000
PN58C7000
PN50C7000

» Click to show Spoiler - click again to hide... «

Series 8 (3D):
PN63C8000
PN58C8000
PN50C8000

» Click to show Spoiler - click again to hide... «

Sources:
Samsung USA
AV Buzz
AVS Forum
Plasma TV Buying Guide

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

chewkl — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 18:47:36 +0800

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year everybody. May 2010 be a year of more gears, upgrades and BDs (and HDDs for some)...

Free Chocobo pet from FF XIII

chewkl — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 13:17:51 +0800

Just head on over to http://www.xbox.com/en-US/games/splash/f/finalfantasyXIII/ and click on register. U need to be using a US account though...

Xbox 360 to go Blu, says Ballmer

chewkl — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 00:15:15 +0800

Lucily I sold my PS3 fat and just gotten Elite 2 days ago.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer has promised that an external Blu-ray drive is coming to the Xbox 360.

During a recent interview on the future of Project Natal, the motion-control system for Xbox. Ballmer was asked if Microsoft plans to put Blu-ray into the games console.

Although he told website Gizmodo that he doesn’t know if Blu-ray needs to be integrated into the console, Ballmer added that “you’ll be able to get Blu-ray drives as accessories”.

Since the downfall of the HD DVD format, for which Microsoft famously produced a now defunct external Xbox 360 drive, the firm has been very cagey about the potential addition of Blu-ray to its console.

In fact, Aaron Greenberg, Microsoft’s Group Product Manager for the Xbox 360, stated back in October 2008 that Microsoft had “no plans to integrate Blu-ray into the Xbox experience”.

Perhaps Greenberg actually meant that Xbox 360s with integrated Blu-ray drives will never be produced and that external Blu-ray drives will arrive for the console? Who knows - it's certainly been rumoured often enough that one is on the way.

One thing we can be certain of, though, is that – according to the horse's mouth – Blu-ray is coming to the Xbox 360. ®

Sauce

Xbox Live 12 month card from Amazon.com

chewkl — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 09:51:23 +0800

Guys, I have a SG console and plan to create a SG gamertag account. I can get the 12 month Gold card from Amazon.com but my question is will it work here. I've done some search on the net regarding this but there was no mention about the card purchased from Amazon.com.

Thanks.

Popcorn Hour C-200

chewkl — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 22:23:19 +0800

Official website at http://www.popcornhour.com/onlinestore/ind...info&item_id=12

It's Time To Unleash Your TV

The ultimate digital media player, the Popcorn Hour C-200 is the most powerful and versatile member of the Networked Media Tank family. Building on the success of the Popcorn Hour A-110, the C-200 combines an upgraded processor, optional Blu-ray capability, and Gigabit Ethernet connectivity for blazing fast file access and transfer.
All Media, One Box

With Popcorn Hour you can stream or playback digital media content from a variety of sources, such as your PC, network-attached storage, digital camera or USB storage (Flash drive, HDD, DVD drive). Popcorn Hour also makes it easy to download and stream content directly from popular Internet sites like YouTube, Blip.tv, Revision 3 and dozens of other online content sources. Popcorn Hour even has a built-in download utility, eliminating the need to rely on your PC to download files from the Internet.
Expand Your Possibilities

* Add a Blu-ray drive** to turn your Popcorn Hour C-200 into a full-featured Blu-ray player.
* Create a central library of all your movie and video files, ready to play on your TV at any time.
* Enable local playback and offloading of media files from other devices.
* Easily share media with friends and family—Popcorn Hour can act as a file server to send files over the local area network and the Internet.

Digital Entertainment Your Way

Popcorn Hour's interface uses familiar HTML features and navigation prompts, so first-time users can quickly get up to speed on even the most advanced features. The C-200 uses RF remote control technology, which is functional over greater distances so you don't need to be right in front of the device to control programming. What's more, the newest Popcorn Hour has a built-in LCD front panel and navigation so you can access, manage and playback your MP3 music without going through the TV interface.
Features

* Organize your media library with the myiHome Media Server streaming video utility.
* Play virtually any digital media files on your TV.
* Supports the most advanced high-def video and audio standards, including Blu-ray and Dolby.

C-200 Technical Specifications
Connectivity

Bonjour
UPnP SSDP
UPnP AV
Windows Media Connect
Windows Media Player NSS
Samba
NFS

Media Servers: myiHome, myiHomeLite, myiHomeMS (UPnP), MSP Portal
Third-party media servers: WizD, SwissCenter, Llink, GB-PVR

BitTorrent P2P
Usenet downloader

NAS Access : SMB, NFS, FTP

Casgle iDVR RSS feed downloader
Web Services

Video : YouTube, Vuze, Revision 3, Videocast, CNET TV, Mediafly, Veoh, Mevio, Bliptv, Break Podcast, CBS Evening News, CNN Anderson Cooper 360 Daily, CNN The Larry King Podcast, NBC Today Show, The CNN Daily, CNN In Case You Missed It, NBC Nightly News, NBC Meet The Press, CBS Face the Nation, Podfinder UK, Motorz

Audio : Jamendo, iPodcast, BBC Podcast, Indiefeed, CNN News, ABC News

Photos : Flickr, Picasaweb, Pikeo, 23, Photobucket, SmugMug

RSS feed : Yahoo! Weather, NMT Forum, Bloglines, Cinecast, MSNBC News, Traffice Condition, Yahoo! Traffic Alerts, Yahoo! News, Weather Bug

Peer-to-peer TV : SayaTV

Internet Radio : Radiobox, Live365 Radio
Supported Media File Formats

Video containers:
MPEG1/2/4 Elementary (M1V, M2V, M4V)
MPEG1/2 PS (M2P, MPG, DAT, VOB)
MPEG2 Transport Stream (TS, TP, TRP, M2T, M2TS, MTS)
AVI, ASF, WMV
Matroska (MKV)
MOV (H.264), MP4, RMP4

Video Decoders:
XVID SD/HD
MPEG-1
MPEG-2 MP@HL
MPEG-4.2 ASP@L5, 720p, 1-point GMC
MPEG-4.10 (H.264) : BP@L3, MP@L4.0, HP@L4.0, HP@L4.1
WMV9 : MP@HL
SMPTE 421M (VC-1) : MP@HL, AP@L3

Audio Containers:
AAC, M4A
MPEG audio (MP1, MP2, MP3, MPA)
WAV
WMA
FLAC
OGG

Audio Decoders:
Dolby Digital
DTS
WMA, WMA Pro
MPEG-1 Layer 1, 2, 3
MPEG-4 AAC-LC
MPEG-4 HE-AAC
MPEG-4 BSAC
LPCM
FLAC
Vorbis

Audio Pass-Through:
DTS, DTS-HD HR, DTS-HD MA
Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby True HD

Other Formats:
ISO, IFO navigation
AVCHD navigation
Blu-ray** ready (requires addition of compatible BD-ROM and at least 2GB USB memory stick)

Photo Formats:
JPEG, BMP, PNG, GIF, TIFF

Subtitle Formats:
SRT, MicroDVD SUB, SSA, SUB/IDX
DRM

Cardea DRM (WMDRM-ND)
Janus DRM (WMDRM-PD)
Chipset

Sigma Designs SMP8643, 667MHz CPU with floating point coprocessor.
Memory

512MB DDR2 DRAM, 256MB NAND Flash
Audio/Video Outputs

HDMI v1.3a with CEC, 36bpp deep color, 12-bit xvYCC processing and HDCP 1.2 content protection
Component Video
S-Video
Composite Video
Stereo Analog Audio
S/PDIF Optical and Coaxial Digital Audio
Other Interface

192x64 dots white text on blue background LCD display, with software adjustable brightness
Power button with standby, reset and full power down
2x USB 2.0 host at the front
2x USB 2.0 host at the back
1x USB 2.0 internal
2x SATA (one occupied by HDD tray)
3.5" HDD tray
Internal mounting for 2.5" HDD
2.4GHz RF Remote Control
Infra-Red Remote Control port (Infra-Red Remote Control optional)
Network

Ethernet 10/100/1000
miniPCI MII interface for 11n WiFi card (optional)
Power

100~240V AC, 50~60 Hz, max 2.5A
typical: 13 W (no additional device installed/attached)
maximum: 70 W
Footprint

Width x Depth x Height : 425mm x 290mm x 80mm (16.73" x 11.42" x 3.15")
Weight

3.7kg (8lbs 3oz)
Package Content

Popcorn Hour C-200 (HDD not included)
IEC 60320 C13 power cord
1.5M length HDMI cable
RF Remote Control with 2 "AAA" batteries
Quick start guide

Dolby Digital: "Dolby" and the double-D symbol are trademarks of Dolby Laboratories. Manufactured under license from Dolby Laboratories.

Lossless audio really that much of a difference?

chewkl — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 20:56:15 +0800

I have to admit I have never experienced lossless audio before and reading about all your boom boom pow biling balang reports here really is poisoning. So much so that I bought a HD Audio capable receiver although I was more than happy with my old one that can only do DD/DTS. (I have to admit there was a firesale then )

Then yesterday, I had the opportunity to experience DTS-HD MA in SenQ as they were playing Fast and Furious 2 in one of their Jamo demo rooms. I have to say if memory serves me right, I cannot hear any difference at all comparing to my copy of DVD. I was let down on the spot, but thought maybe it was the speakers.

Then I came back home and did some research on HD audio, and this article was very eye-opening (eardrum busting in this case):

http://www.hemagazine.com/node/Dolby_TrueH...ncompressed_PCM

Some of the excerpts from the article:

QUOTE

To get the latest scoop on these new codecs, Editor-in-Chief Geoffrey Morrison and I made arrangements to visit both companies’ respective headquarters, where we would be able to hear definitive A/B comparisons that would be otherwise impossible to properly set up in our own facilities.

QUOTE

The shocker came when we compared the lower 448 kbps Dolby Digital DVD bitrate to the original. There was an audible difference, but it was only ever-so-slightly noticeable (and this is with a high end audio system in an acoustically controlled environment that is so far beyond what typical home theater systems are capable of resolving). There was just the slightest decrease in presence with the DD version, not exactly a softening of the sound, but just a tad less ambience and a similarly small tightening of the front soundstage’s depth. Quite a remarkable result, I thought, and I was highly impressed with how much fidelity can be packed into such a relatively small amount of bitspace. If I was doing actual scoring, I would have awarded a 4.8 grade to the results I heard – the audible difference was that subtle.

QUOTE

It was déjà vu all over again. We switched back and forth between the original PCM master and the core DTS version, and here we found only the slightest, barely noticeable difference. From a frequency response standpoint, both versions were identical, with clearly delineated high frequency details, but the compressed version differed slightly only in barely noticeable presence —that sense of being “there”, with the original PCM track having just slightly greater overall richness. Whatever acoustic elements were removed in the code/decode process were clearly superfluous, at least for the most part, as the audible differences were so minor as to be almost unnoticeable—again, another testament to the capabilities of this highly refined codec.

and the finishing blow...

QUOTE

What impressed, or perhaps surprised, me most about these tests was how good the base codecs actually are. The difference between the original audio and the basic Dolby Digital and DTS is a lot subtler than you’d expect, given the extreme amount of compression (around 10:1, a similar ratio to that of 128 kbps MP3).

What a bummer...

A.C.Ryan Playon!HD

chewkl — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 14:55:07 +0800

Anyone have any experience or info on the above? According to 1 of the forum posts in ACRyan, their staff mentioned the below:

http://www.acryan.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=40&t=895

For us, the PlayOn!HD is better than the Xtreamer for some reasons :

- 24p mode is working as well (not on Xtreamer right now)
- M2TS play well (not on Xtreamer right now)
- support 2TB HDD (500GB max on Xtreamer)
- Subtitles are playing well (not for all on Xtreamer)
- BD ISO will be played on PlayOn!HD (not actualy on Xtreamer)
- Card reader (not on Xtreamer)

Damn if this thing is as good as it sounds, I'm sold!

Panny BD-60 vs. Sony BDP-S350

chewkl — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 16:11:08 +0800

Dilemma now...which one to take? I can get both now at the same price.

The sony retails higher, but the panny is newer. Plus, the sony already has the S360 overseas which we should be getting soon...

Spec wise, it seems both are more or less the same.

How ar? I can't seem to find a review that puts this 2 head-2-head.

Reputable HID installer

chewkl — Mon, 05 Feb 2007 10:29:08 +0800

Guys, I'm looking for reputable HID installer around Penang. Any recommendations? Please don't ask me to go to Cosplus or Brother or some shop like that.

I'm driving some European car so installation might not be as simple compared to Japanese car. That's why I need some recommendations.

Thanks.

Buying Zen V Plus from bluetin

chewkl — Mon, 11 Sep 2006 08:56:37 +0800

Hi guys, I want to get a Zen V Plus from bluetin. Anyone has any experience buying from them? Also what about taxes? Any additional info or tips are also appreciated, as this is my first time buying from them.

Thanks.

Dolby TrueHD

chewkl — Thu, 07 Sep 2006 14:05:45 +0800

Pioneer x9x series

chewkl — Mon, 15 May 2006 23:00:57 +0800

Check Pioneer UK site, now they have the 393 series with HDMI out and upscalling to HD! Wonder when it will hit our shores?

Crossover in HT

chewkl — Sat, 22 Apr 2006 21:50:16 +0800

Which is the better way to control crossover frequency between main speakers and sub? Use the HT receiver or use the sub?

Thanks.

LCD TV talk

chewkl — Sat, 08 Apr 2006 18:19:56 +0800

I noticed a lot of LCDs now come with 1366x768 (1 megapixel) HD panels. What's the reasoning behind 1366x768 when HD is either 1280x720 or 1920x1080?

Running in hi-fi / home theatre equipment

chewkl — Thu, 09 Feb 2006 11:22:15 +0800

Guys, would like your expert comments and advise on how to properly run in / burn in all your hi-fi / HT gear. Are there any specific type of songs or maybe even specials CDs to ensure a proper burn in for your amps/speakers/wires?

Thanks.