Friday, January 12, 2007

Apple TV

From http://www.apple.com/appletv/

Your computer is the center of your digital life. Your TV is the center of your entertainment life. But what if you want to watch movies, TV shows, movie trailers, podcasts, and photos from your computer on your TV? At $299, Apple TV brings iTunes to the big screen.

The revolution will be televised.

Say you've just downloaded Cars from iTunes. Instead of huddling around your computer to watch, you pop some popcorn while your computer wirelessly syncs your new flick to Apple TV. Then you pull up a seat, put up your feet, and pick up the included Apple Remote to play your movie on TV. Give yourself a hand: You've just changed the way you watch digital media.

iTunes to Apple TV, wire free.

Apple TV connects to your TV via an HDMI port or component video and audio ports. Its built-in, superfast 802.11 wireless capability syncs your iTunes library to any Mac or PC in the house. Best of all, what's on Apple TV stays in sync: Anytime you change your library in iTunes, it changes on Apple TV — wirelessly, automatically.

What’s on TV? Whatever you want.

Apple TV puts your iTunes library — movies, TV shows, music, and podcasts — plus movie trailers from Apple.com on your TV. And your digital photos from iPhoto on a Mac or Adobe Photoshop Elements or Adobe Album on a Windows PC appear in high definition, so you can put on a stunning big-screen slideshow.

How it works

1. Download movies, TV shows and more from iTunes.
2. Sync wirelessly from your Mac or PC.
3. Watch everything on your widescreen TV.

Blu-Ray DVD

Video technology has increased significantly over the past few years, and is continuing to grow at an incredible rate. DVD is most likely the last big jump in consumer video technology that everyone is familiar with. To keep up with the ever advancing world of electronics a new format of video storage will be released soon called Blu-ray.

Blu-Ray is a next generation optical disc which will blow the socks off of what we all know today: DVD. Conventional DVD uses a red laser which has long wave lengths, and limits the storage capacity on a disc. Blu-Ray uses a blue laser which has much shorter wave lengths. Because the wave lengths on the Blu-Ray are much smaller, it can focus on a spot with much greater precision, allowing for data to be packed much more tightly than the red laser DVD.

Blu-Ray discs can hold up to 50GB which is 10 times that of a 4.5GB DVD. 10 times storage will greatly increase the quantity of which we can save on any other disc and will change the way we save information. Dual Layer Blu-Ray disc will be able to hold up to 4 hours of High-Definition Video. High Definition video is going to hit big here, Blu-Ray is an example of a technology that is going to make it happen. 50GB is probably comparable to size of many of our hard-drives, and to picture having all of that information on a small disc that we can slide into a pocket and take wherever we want is a bit scary.

Hope to see Blu-Ray replacing DVD and VCR over the next few years, following along with the transition of video to High Definition Video. Video isn't the only thing that will benefit from Blu-Ray technology; I would expect that it will also become the standard for PC and other types of storage.

Thursday, January 11, 2007

Audio & Video formats

AVI
Audio/viedo interleave, the most ubiquitous audio/video container format, which support the most audio and video formats.

MPG
The audio/video container for MPEG,has a streaming attribute. It can be further classified into PS, TS, used respectively as a container for DVD and HDTV.

VOB
The audio/video container format for DVD, supports multi-video, multi-track, and multi-title etc.

MP4
The audio/video container format for MPEG-4, based on QuickTime MOV, and features many superiorities.

3GP
3GPP uses 3GP as a video format to transmit streaming media.

ASF
Windows Media applies ASF as its audio/video container, to be used for transmitting streams, script included.

RM
Real Media uses RM to transmit streams.

MOV
The audio/video container for QuickTime, maybe the most powerful container at present. Besides many common technologies it supports, it even upholds virtual reality and java, an edge over its variations such as MP4 and 3GP.

WAV
A kind of audio container. People often refer to WAV as the unzipped PCM code, but as a matter of fact, WAV also includes other ACM zipping codes such as MP3.

MP3
MPEG Audio Layer 3, as has been mentioned above.

Wednesday, January 10, 2007

Freeware: PSP Video Manager

PSP Video Manager 1.1.14.0101 is a PSP Video file manager freeware developed specially for PSP owners by Sharewareguide.net, which can transfer PSP video files between your PSP and computer with ease and is very popular with the PSP owners. PSP Video Manager helps you easily import PSP MPEG4 files to your PSP. At the same time, the freeware also allows you to export PSP MPEG4 files located in your PSP to your computer. While transferring PSP video files, you can copy or move the video files to decide whether or not keep the original files. The whole process is easy. You don't need to manually rename PSP MPEG4 files to play in Sony PSP, and just a click can do it with PSP Video Manager.

Key features of PSP Video Manager:
  • The simple and easy-to-use user interface;
  • Two beautiful skins are offered in the program to select;
  • The program supports two languages- English and Chinese;
  • The size of the selected file will be displayed;
  • Both veterans and beginners will love it, and you can know what function is available from the status of the buttons;
  • What a best and powerful PSP MPEG4 file manager freeware!

With PSP Video Manager, you will no longer be confused by how to manage your PSP video file. Why not free download and enjoy this freeware right now?Before using PSP Video Manager, you need to know what kinds of file can play in PSP. PSP just can play PSP MPEG4 file (.mp4) so that you can not import AVI or another video files to PSP. If you have not PSP MPEG4 file in your computer, you must use other software of converter to convert PSP MPEG4 file, e.g. Xilisoft PSP Video Converter. Interface of PSP Video Manager:


From this icon of easy-to-use interface, it is not difficult for you to see how to use PSP Video Manager.

The middle button area:

Copy button: You can copy PSP MPEG4 files located in your computer to your PSP and also copy PSP MPEG4 files located in your PSP to computer.

Move button: You can move PSP MPEG4 files located in your computer to your PSP and also move PSP MPEG4 files located in your PSP to computer.

Delete button: You can delete the file located in your computer or PSP.

The left blank area: When you want to copy or move PSP MPEG4 files located in your computer to PSP, the selected files from your computer using the Browse button will be displayed in the left blank area; or when you want to copy or move PSP MPEG4 files located in your PSP to computer, the copied or moved files will be displayed in the left blank area.

The right blank area: When you want to copy or move PSP MPEG4 files located in your computer to PSP, the files copied or moved to your PSP will be displayed in the right blank area; or when you wnat to copy or move PSP MPEG4 files located in your PSP to computer, the selected files will be displayed in the right blank area.