Sony’s PSX – Full Details and Pricing Revealed

After a number of months of speculation, Sony have released the full details the PSX. Combining the ability to play PlayStation games with a television tuner, PVR, ATRAC3/MP3 playback and a DVD player/recorder, the box will also be equipped with a 100Mb Ethernet port – opening the door to the delivery of digital media.

The visually arresting box (312x88x323mm, weighing 5.6kg) will be launching in two guises; the DESR-5000 with a 160GB hard drive (79,800 yen, ~$730, ~£440) and the DESR-7000 with 250GB (~$900); arriving in Japan by the end of year and in Europe and then US in 2004.

Labelled as PlayStation 2.5 by some, it has already received very positive press reaction, mostly for its styling and features, as they have not had extended use of it. In addition of an Ethernet port, interfaces include USB1.1, Memory Stick slot, digital S/PDIF, PlayStation 2 peripheral connectors, composite AV-in/out.

Nearly all reaction to the price has been surprise at how expensive it is, but we feel this is a misguided as they are viewing it in the context of the currently low cost games console – which is just part of it. Just adding up the constituent parts; PS2 (~£100), TiVo (second hand eBay UK price ~£200); DVD burner (~£150) – it appears about right – especially as the PSX is one sleek box rather that three bulky boxes the separate approach would give you.

We feel the Trojan horse feature of the PSX is the combination of a device that connects to the family TV, the Ethernet port and Sony’s significant music and film empires. This would give them total vertical integration enabling the sale of media content direct to the public.

Emuzed supply PVR hardware for Microsoft Media Center OEMs

Following the announcement of Microsoft’s Windows XP Media Center Edition 2004 (MCE) , Emuzed, who supply video capture and encoding cards, have signed deals with a number of Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) that are using MCE.

Their two products Maui-III PCI PVR and Bali-II USB PVR Beanbag have the ability to encode to MPEG 2 on-board from PAL or NTSC signals, write out the recorded content out to CD or DVD and support an optional FM tuner. The Bali-II connects via USB 1.1 or 2.0

Two deals that they’ve announced recently are the Samsung MagicStation Q Media Center PC, HP’s new 17-inch widescreen Media Center zd7000 notebook PC which uses the USB version and most recently, the ViewSonic Media Center PC – the M2100.

A relative new comer, they look like they are taking trade from the previous default supplier, Hauppauge, which is based in Europe.

Emuzed

HP zd7000 notebook

ViewSonic Media Center PC – the M2100

Hauppauge

New lawsuits against DVD backup/copying software companies

Paramount Pictures and 20th Century Fox have filed in a New York court against Tritton Technologies, QOJ, World Reach and Proto Ventures. They are asking the court to halt sales of their software, and are seeking unspecified monetary damages. The software is sold both in US retail stores or online.

Tritton distribute CopyWare, a DVD backup/copying application created by UK software company Redxpress that we’ve covered previously.

The Motion Picture Association of America is currently in legal actions against 321 Studio and their DVD X Copy software both in the US and the UK. In a interview with Digital-Lifestyles.info, Rob Semaan, CEO of 321 Studios told us that they intend to vigorously defend both cases which he felt were attacking the consumers Fair Rights usage. The film industry views the software as tools for piracy.