CEPRo, Exceptional Innovation, Intel, HP & Microsoft Star in Next Gen Home, has some photos from the Next Gen home at CES where Media Center got a great showing. Hopefully future Next Gen homes are air conditioned :).

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At CES I stopped by the Sony booth to check out their Media Center display. They had a Sony XL100 on display (though they were also referring to it as the XL2?). What I gathered:

• Dual tuner: NTSC tuner & ATSC tuner
• Available late January/February
• Same price as XL1
• VIIV PC (though I don’t think those dates line up then?)
• Changer is optional – Does this mean they will start to sell a standalone changer!?

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How busy was the Microsoft booth? Here are two photos from Saturday afternoon.

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CNET, Best of CES 2006

Top awards went to the Creative Zen Vision:M.

iPod killer? With a brighter screen, better battery life, and more features, the Creative Zen Vision:M certainly has the goods to give the iPod a run for its money. In addition to a voice recorder and an FM tuner, the $330, 30GB Zen Vision:M supports a wide range of video formats, works with a growing number of online stores, and is compatible with subscription services. Cementing it as our Best in Show pick is its winning design; any product that cares to take on the stylish iPod must be able to turn heads. Though it’s thicker than the iPod, the Vision:M boasts a sturdy, comfortable feel, a rainbow of color choices, and glossy good looks.

I played with one and if someone wants to build an iPod killer the first thing they need to compete on is size. Unless it’s the same size or smaller it doesn’t matter about anything else.

However, I do agree with them on the Sanyo Xacti HD1 Camcorder. I’m definitely considering ordering one before my end of season ski trip because once you have an HDTV at home all you want to show on it is HD content.

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Wow. CES06 was crazy. It’s going to take me some time to digest everything and get posts out. I know some other bloggers found time while down there but I barely had time to eat and sleep never mind blog.

For me the highlight was getting to meet all of you and show you Vista. Especially Thomas, Ed, Ian, and the Niveus crew. But a big thanks to all who stopped by the booth and introduced themselves. The next highlight would have been working on the floor and talking about Media Center.

My lowlight was of course the long transportation lines, but also, the show itself. I did not find walking the floor very useful. First the show is huge. There’s no way you’re going to see everything and what you want to see is spread over two convention centers and two hotels. Secondly, some of the companies I wanted to see didn’t have booths or only superficial ones. Thirdly, booths I wanted to spend more time at had marketing people doing booth duy and were unable to provide any information about the product other than their 30 second spiel (I’m proud to say that our booth had at least 50% core technical people who actually work on the products doing booth duty). Fourthly, it’s impossible to discern any sort of trends across companies, there’s just too many. However, it is possible to see what is important for one company (for instance, VIIV for Intel, Vista for Microsoft,…).

Conclusion? I’ll probably go back, but I’m in no rush to. And if I was to attend my priority would be booth duty (to meet readers, introduce MCE to newbies, and answer questions of owners) and attending the company party (it was too much fun). I’d rather read about what’s on the floor from Engadget than try and see anything myself. (Check out this short video, it’ll give you everything you need in a minute and a half :) )

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The CES special issue of CE Pro has lots of articles on MCE:

Is 2006 the Year of MCE?

Enough about MCE!!

MCE Tips, Tricks, and Tweaks

Inaugural Media Center Boot Camp a Sell-Out

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Mark and I arrived in Vegas around 8pm and only had to wait about 20 minutes for a cab, then spent some time unpacking. Here’s what I packed:

(As you can see, I expect this to trip to be a bit of a marathon).

We then grabbed dinner with Veronica, one of our program manager co-workers who spent the last few weeks providing backstage support for the CES demo tonight. Needless to say she’s completely burnt out, but did an amazing job. Sadly, Mark and I missed the keynote because we were in the air at the time (where’s my in-plane wireless broadband?). After dinner we met up with our design team for drinks at The Mix on top of The Hotel at Mandalay Bay; there are some great views there.

Now I’m back checking on all the post-keynote talk. Looks like Engadget has great coverage if you missed it.

One of the biggest Media Center highlights for me is that they showed off the ‘Movies Library’, one of my features:

The Movies Library enables users to store all their recorded TV movies, DVDs, DVDs in their changer, and local DVDs all in one location. Think of it as the grown up version of ‘My DVDs’ in Emerald. I’ll post more screenshots and details when I get a chance (expect the next four days to be fairly manic).

Other big highlights:

• DirecTV – Holy cow is this big news! Finally, satelite HDTV!
• CableCard demo – Finally, cable HDTV!
• 6.5 million units!
• HD-DVD & managed copy
• Comedy Central and the Daily Show come to Online Spotlight

I’m sure there’s lot more goodness but it’s getting late, so check out our press release site for all the details.

And Thomas, on your Media Center tax issue, I completely agree that the free way is the way to go, but the reason why people will pay for Vongo or comparable services is the convenience of getting the content in the correct format without timely transcoding and with the ads removed. It’s the same reason people pay for bottled water; packaging and convenience.

Expect posting, moderation of comments and responses to email delayed over the next bit. I’ll post when I can. I’ll definitely be prowling the floor with my camera, and hanging out at our booth so feel free to stop by and say hi. And if you have any rocking parties going on, don’t hesistate to call my cell 206-618-1600 :).

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Niveus press release, Niveus Media Announces Patent-Pending Network Virtualization Technology for the Niveus Disc Changer:

Niveus Media, Inc., manufacturer of media entertainment devices for the high-end audio/video market, has announced the development of network virtualization technology for the Niveus Disc Changer – Ice Vault 200. The latest of Niveus proprietary add-ons to the Windows XP Media Center Platform, Niveus virtualization technology allows single, or multiple, Niveus Disc Changers to serve up an entire collection of DVD Movies to any zone on the home network powered by a Niveus Media Center.

Great to see a company like Niveus not just doing hardware innovation but also software innovation on top of our platform. This additional functionality should also justify their high price tag for the Ice Vault as compared to the Sony XL1. Of course, the first question that comes to mind and everyone with an XBox 360 is, will it stream to the XBox 360 or just other Media Centers? I suspect not since Niveus’s motivation here is to sell more Niveus machines and not XBox’s and very likely this requires both client and server software to work.

I’m excited to see this first hand on Thursday down at CES.

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After a month of parties I’m a bit burnt out but none the less will try to rally for CES 06 later this week. Interested in chatting about Media Center? Want to know more about movies, DVD changers, networking MCE? Have a cool MCE related product that I should blog about?

My plans for CES are as follows:

• Wednesday
  • 8pm – Arrive in Vegas
• Thursday
  • 1:45-6 – LVCC booth 7144 at the DVD Changer station
  • 7:30-11:30 – Microsoft/MTV party at Pure (Caesar’s Palace) w/The Killers
• Friday
  • 12:00-1 – Lunch with Ian, Thomas, Sean
  • 1:45-6 – LVCC booth 7144 at the DVD Changer station
  • 5-6 – Media Center Show Party Hilton Towers Suite #HC1010
  • 6-8 – eHome Team Dinner
• Saturday
  • 8:45-1:30 – LVCC booth 7144 at the Vista MCE Movies station
  • 7 – Cirque de Soliel
• Sunday
  • 2:08 – Depart Las Vegas

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