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Category: hdtv

  • JOBS: Manager of Hardware Engineering with consumer video electronics experience


    Cisco’s Emerging Technologies Group (ETG) focuses on creating solutions in new and adjacent technology markets, and is looking for high energy, high impact individuals who want to help shape Cisco’s future by building our next USD $1B business.

    Consumer TelePresence is a new Business Unit being incubated in ETG, and we are currently seeking a Manager of Hardware Engineering to help lead this incubation through to a significant business. Leveraging technology developed for our enterprise TelePresence product, the fastest growing product in Cisco’s history, CTBU will bring to market a breakthrough, consumer version of TelePresence which will provide a unique, in-person experience when communicating with friends and relatives over the internet.

    Job Description:

    Reporting to the Director of Hardware of TSBU, the Manager of Hardware Engineering will be responsible for the following:

    • Build world-class engineering team
    • Work with product management, market development, and customers to develop, refine, validate, and prioritize product requirements and product roadmaps
    •Work with industrial design team to ensure constraints are met in developing compelling consumer designs.
    • Define product hardware architecture and system level designs based on product requirements and business model.
    • Work with director of software to ensure a complete system and make appropriate trade offs as a team
    • Develop product hardware functional specifications
    • Develop product prototype
    • Make strategic trade-offs in make-buy-partner technology decisions
    • Drive to develop and protect intellectual property for market leadership.
    • Lead development, launch and successful revenue growth of the product(s)
    • Develop, and adhere to, resource plans, schedule, and budget

    Requirements:
    • Previous multiple year experience in the consumer electronics market, bringing multiple successful products to market.
    • Experience with video, audio products and solutions.
    • Track record of developing “disruptive” products and bringing them to market
    • Very high technical competence, individual technical accomplishments with repeated, proven track record for product delivery
    • Entrepreneurial drive, demonstrated ability to achieve stretch goals in an innovative and fast paced environment
    • Strong leadership and management skills, ability to deliver results with a small, fast-paced teams, and ability to work across teams
    • Strong ability to stay in sync with key customer requirements and deliver products to meet the requirements, making appropriate trade-offs
    • Experience in building high performing engineering teams
    • Strong inter-personal skills and teamwork
    • Ability to work and thrive in a true “startup” mode

    Other desired qualifications include:
    • Work experience with successful startups
    • Brought products to market with cameras or displays
    • Experience with visual communications systems.

    This position is located in San Jose, CA, US

    Please click here for more information.

  • Blu-ray For Macs?


    An upgrade to the Mac OS X Leopard that would allow Blu-ray is one of the more interesting rumors circulating ahead of Tuesday’s Apple event.

    Currently at 10.5.5, it could be that version 10.5.6 would allow Blu-ray discs to be handled without the need for third-party software add-ons, and would then allow Apple to add Blu-ray drives to its machines.

    If that happens and the MacBook family gets Blu-ray, then it’s likely to happen with the iMac and Mac Pro as well.

    Among the other Apple speculations is one suggesting Apple is working on networked LCD HDTVs.

    Jason Calacanis told CNET UK that an Apple LCD HDTV would be able to stream all your iTunes content from your Mac or PC. Basically the Apple TV box would be integrated in the TV sets.

    While Apple has been specific about what will be discussed at tomorrow’s event – "The spotlight turns to notebooks", according to the invitation, other announcements can’t be ruled out.

  • Will Iron Man and Dark Knight, Finally, Ignite Blu-ray?


    Iron Man is quickly becoming the highest selling Blu-ray disc yet, with an estimated 20 per cent of all discs of the super-hero movie sold last week being on the high-def format.

    Sales of Blu-ray versions of the blockbuster reportedly represented as much as 50 per cent of total Iron Man disc sales for some online stores.

    Although Paramount Home Entertainment has made no official statement on the sales figures, the movie is expected to exceed one million units sold.

    Until now, Blu-ray versions of popular movies, including I Am Legend, represented about 9 per cent of sales in the format.

    Iron Man’s success undoubtedly owes something to its appeal to comic book, special effects and videogame fans, all who are more likely to have PlayStation 3 consoles, which play back Blu-ray discs.

    But, after what can only be described as a sluggish start, could it also suggest that the format is finally reaching a level of acceptance that will tip it over into the mainstream?

    With the release of the Dark Knight – including a BD-Live version – still to come, the year the format war was decided may actually end on a high note for Blu-ray.

  • Sanyo Laser Could Double Blu-ray Discs' Capacity


    Sanyo has announced that it has developed a blue-violet semiconductor laser capable of outputting 450mW.

    The company said this allows it to read and write data on discs with up to four data layers at speeds of 12X.

    At present, Blu-ray discs store 25GB of data on each of its two layers. Sanyo’s four-layer disc would hold 100GB of data or about eight hours of HD video.

    Sanyo claims that a device equipped with the laser would be able to burn an entire two-hour program to disc in as little as ten minutes.

    The only thing you’ll have to wait for is the new laser coming to market – Sanyo said it’s unlikely to be available for at least another two years.

  • Picture Quality Not Price Driving Purchase of HDTVs


    Fifty per cent of US HDTV owners bought their HDTV sets because of the superior quality of picture and video on high def programming.

    This improvement over standard definition – and not significant price drops – was the most influential factor in their purchase decision, according to a survey by PriceGrabber.com.

    The consumer survey notes that the popularity of HDTVs has grown significantly over the past two years.

    So much so that fifty-seven per cent of US consumers own an HDTV, compared with only 30 per cent in August 2006.

    Today, LCD TV is the preferred HDTV, with 57 per cent owning one.

    And despite economic uncertainties, 73 per cent of online shoppers who do not currently own an HDTV indicate they plan to purchase a set within the next 12 months.

    While price may not be given as the determining factor in a purchase decision, HDTV sales tags have been falling.

    Over the last two years, the average price for LCD and plasma HDTVs has dropped 13 per cent, while the average price for projection (DLP, LCoS) HDTVs has fallen 27 per cent.

  • Solar-powered and Wireless – HDTV Doesn't Come Much Cleaner


    Japan’s cutting edge electronics fair CEATAC just ended but it tossed a few interesting titbits into the mix, including a solar-powered HDTV from Sharp.

    The LED-backlit 52-inch set receives up to 220kWh of power from a solar floor panel.

    If “cleaner” technology is set to become ever more important then Panasonic was displaying a variation on this theme.

    It demonstrated a plasma Viera HDTV that was able to transmit video beamed from a Blu-ray deck via a WirelessHD at an uncompressed 1080p across a 60GHz link at up to 4Gbit/s.

    WiHD replaces HDMI wires with radio links and is designed to handle HDTV video streams between AV equipment.

    Aside from excellent picture quality, the technology does away with the need for the clutter of wires and cables that spoil the clean look of today’s often-wall mounted screens.

    Panasonic says the WirelessHD devices will be on sale within a year.

  • BitGravity To Support Interactive HD Video Applications


    BitGravity has announced the release of an application programming interface (API), capable of supporting cutting-edge interactive video applications.

    The new patent-pending Advanced Progressive API provides extensive control over progressive downloads within Flash.

    According to BitGravity, this enables developers to inject advertising, automatically adjust bitrates, add virtual clips and other additional advanced features into their H.264- and FLV-encoded video.

    Barrett Lyon, Chief Technical Officer (CTO) and co-founder of BitGravity, said its content delivery network (CDN) was engineered to enable a new wave of HD, live and interactive content on the Internet.

    He said the update of the Advanced Progressive API for BitGravity’s Distributed Origin-based content delivery platform unlocked the ability to create affordable and scalable interactive HD video applications for the first time.

    Customers will be able to add a variety of advanced features to FLV- and H.264-encoded video, such as:

    • enabling auto bitrate adjustment between series of encoded videos,
    • seeking to any portion of video by time code without having to download an entire file,
    • showing select scenes from a larger video,
    • creating start and stop points,
    • allowing time-range requests,
    • synchronizing videos from time codes and
    • delivering bandwidth control.

    “From inception, our service was intended for interactive, fast-loading, HD content delivery across the mainstream Internet, and this new release of our Advanced Progressive API with H.264 support is another milestone in keeping with this original vision,” said Lyon.

  • Hitachi Camcorder Wirelessly Streams HD


    Hitachi have been showing off a prototype digital camcorder that can stream HD video on a TV via a wireless LAN, according to Tech-On.

    The camcorder, which was being exhibited at CEATEC JAPAN 2008, can output video recorded on its HDD or video being shot live to a Hitachi HDTV.

    Video selection, playback, stop and other operations can be done using the TV’s remote control.

    Tech-On reported that the prototyped camcorder transmits the HD video compressed in the MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 format through an SDIO standard IEEE802.11g module and delivers it to a TV via an access point.

    DLNA is used to deliver already recorded video.

    Video being shot live is transmitted using the camcorder’s IPTV server capability.

    No details about when the camcorder is likely to be available commercially.

  • VUDU Offers HD Rentals That Rival Blu-ray


    VUDU has launched a new video format that rivals Blu-ray.

    Called HDX, it delivers full 1080p at 24 fps to screens 40 inches and up via web distribution using VUDU’s TruFilm compression technology.

    Just to put the icing on the cake, the company says it won’t be charging extra for HDX titles.

    While VUDU made no reference to Blu-ray in making its announcement, comments from Mark Jung, CEO of VUDU, can be taken as a challenge to the HD disc format.

    He said HDX raised the bar on picture quality for HD movies delivered on-demand, over the air, satellite or Internet and across the entire video landscape.

    “Accelerating consumer adoption of large screen HDTVs has fueled strong demand for the kind of viewing experience and picture quality only HDX can deliver,” he said.

    In August, the BDA reacted swiftly to the DISH Network’s claims that its “full” HDTV 1080p/25Hz image matched Blu-ray quality.

    But David Mercer, principal analyst at Strategy Analytics, suggested satellite providers are competing primarily with cable and IPTV companies, and not with the Blu-ray Disc format itself.

    Delivery times are the big snag to HDX with most broadband connections taking 3-4 hours per title.

    But as there are currently only 65 movies available in the HDX format, it’s maybe just as well.

    While the HDX films are only for rental it is hoped that a purchase option will be offered in the future.

  • Dark Knight To Be Warner Bros' First BD-Live Release


    The Dark Knight is likely to be the biggest Blu-ray release of the year – if not ever.

    So it’s appropriate that Warner Bros has decided to make the Batman tale its first BD-Live capable release.

    The studio will offer standard and limited edition releases when it hits stores on December 9.

    The standard version will include the 153-minute feature film spread across a BD-50 dual-layer disc with 1080p/VC-1 video (2.40:1) and English Dolby TrueHD 5.1 Surround audio.

    Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround dubs and subtitles are also provided in English, French-Quebec and Spanish.

    Extras included on the first disc also include Gotham Uncovered: Creation of a Scene, a version of the film containing behind-the-scenes vignettes with director Christopher Nolan and his team discussing the planning of the film, the use of IMAX photography, the stunts, and more.

    The second disc will feature all-HD extras including featurettes and a collection of six episodes from Gotham Cable entitled Gotham Tonight.

    BD-Live content has not been revealed but Warner said a digital copy will be included in both releases.