Yamaha Japan announces new digital sound projector for home theater systems [Audio]

Yamaha Japan today announced the YSP-5100 [JP], a digital sound projector for your home theater. Sized at 1,200×90×212mm and weighing 11kg, Yamaha says the device is suitable for 50-inch TVs or video projectors. It supports 7.1 surround sound and is compatible with dts-HD, dts ES and Dolby TruHD/Digital Plus/Digital/ Digital EX/Pro Logic and Pro LogicⅡ/x.

The 120W（2W×40＋20W×2) projector sports five HDMI interfaces, an iPod port and an additional sub woofer connection.



It will be out at the end of this month in Japan (price: $2,280). The projector has both Japanese and English menus so we can expect it to hit international markets soon, too.
[CrunchGear]

Panasonic rolls out new Toughbooks with Windows 7 and 16 hours of battery life

Panasonic’s Let’s Note (aka Toughbook) series is the favorite choice among many Japanese hackers. And today the company announced [JP] two new notebooks from the series with Windows 7 on board. Panasonic says their 16 hours of battery life is unmatched in the industry.
The so-called N8 and S8 are the models Panasonic will market in Japan as “winter season computers”. The S8 has an internal super-multi drive, but otherwise the main specs are identical for both Toughbooks: Intel Core 2 Duo P8700 processor (2.53GHz), 250GB HDD, 12.1-inch WXGA LCD, 2GB RAM (max: 4GB RAM), Wi-Fi, WiMax, one SD slot, one HDMI interface and three USB 2.0 ports.

The S8 and N8 will go on sale in Japan on October 22 (prices: $2,400 for the S8 and $2,300 for the N8). No word yet on international sales plans from Panasonic.


[CrunchGear]

Picsio: Victor JVC goes after the Flip with new 1080p camcorder

Victor JVC seems to finally have realized how well the Flip sells over in North America. The company has now announced the Picsio GC-FM1 [JP], a mini camcorder recording video at 2.03MP and shooting pictures at 8MP. The Picsio offers 1080p output at a 4:3 ratio (1,440×1080, 30fps). Alternatively, you can go for a 720p, VGA or QVGA mode.

Weighing just 95g, the device measures 53×97x17mm. It features a 2-inch LCD screen, an HDMI interface, USB 2.0, and 4xdigital zoom. Users can record video on SD or SDHC cards in MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 and upload them easily to YouTube or iTunes through a special “media browser”.

The GC-FM1 will go on sale in Japan within this week (street price: $220). There will be models in black, blue and purple. Victor JVC hasn’t said yet if the Picsio will ever be available outside Japan (which is highly likely).
[TechCrunch via AV Watch]

VIA Mini-ITX board features dual HDMI, on-board 1080p graphics chip

VIA’s got a new Mini-ITX setup that ought to appeal to HTPC builders, as it features a dedicated GPU capable of handling 1080p video, four distinct video outputs (two HDMI, DVI, and VGA), RCA audio output, and a quiet, cool 1.6GHz VIA Nano processor.
The platform is collectively called the VIA VB8003 and, according to VIA, “is the world’s first Mini-ITC board to feature discrete on-board graphics, delivering 1080p HD content through a range of multi-display configurations.”
Here’s more from the press release:

“The VIA VB8003 takes advantage of the ‘VIA Trinity’ platform, the codename for a unique combination of 64-bit VIA Nano processor, VIA VX800 media system processor and a dedicated S3 Graphics processor; producing a perfect blend of Hi-Def video playback, DX10.1 graphics and multiple display connectivity, all within a ruthlessly low, industry-leading thermal envelope…
…The VIA VB8003 Mini-ITX board is powered by a 1.6GHz VIA Nano processor coupled with the VIA VX800 media system processor and the S3 Graphics 435 ULP graphics processor. Supporting up to 4GB of DDR2 system memory, the VIA VB8003’s dedicated GPU can take advantage of 256MB of dedicated GDDR3 graphics memory.
On-board I/O includes dual HDMI, a DVI port, VGA port and two RCA jacks, dual Gigabit Ethernet RJ-45 ports, four USB 2.0 ports, serial and PS2 ports. Storage includes two S-ATA ports, a 40-pin IDE and a type 2 Compact Flash slot.”

No word on pricing or availability for regular consumers but since it’s part of VIA’s “embedded” line, we may see it directly integrated into complete systems offered by various resellers.

VIA VB8003 [VIA Embedded]

Samsung Opens the Door to PC-Level Performance on Mobile Devices with 1GHz Low-power Application Processors

There is hope my friends, yes there is! Samsung announced today two new 1GHz ARM Cortex A8 application processors the S5PC110 and S5PV210 capable to able High Speed 3D graphic rendering video as well as support of both HD Videos and the possibility to output video with HDMI 1.3 interface…

These 2 new CPU are good news, finally HTC will be capable to propose less sluggish device from now on! If only they could focus on ROM optimization rather than wasting their time on UI Eyes candy.

Seoul September 22, 2009 -- Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., a world leader in advanced semiconductor solutions, today introduced two new 1GHz ARM® CORTEX™-A8 based application processors, the S5PC110 and S5PV210, for advanced mobile devices at the sixth annual Samsung Mobile Solutions Forum held at the Westin Taipei Hotel. The S5PC110 is targeted for small form-factor connected devices such as multimedia intensive smartphones, while the S5PV210 is aimed at portable computing devices such as netbooks that demand high performance and design flexibility.

“More and more, user generated contents currently accessed via the PC will be spread to mobile devices,” said Dr. Kwang Hyun Kim, senior vice president, strategic marketing team, System LSI Division, Samsung Electronics. “PC-level performance with lower power consumption will become mainstream requirements for advanced mobile devices. Samsung developed S5PC110 and S5PV210 application processors to satisfy these conflicting requirements to enable a new level of user experience not previously possible.”



Both the S5PC110 and S5PV210 ensure longer battery life for mobile devices running on standard size batteries through a variety of low power technologies, including the use of a 45-nanometer (nm) Low Power fabrication process and intricate low power architectures. Each of these application processors comes with 32KB data and 32KB instruction caches, and is equipped with a 512KB L2 cache. With the 1GHz clock speed and large size L2 cache, these processors enable real-time applications such as web browsing and user interface (UI) to run smoothly with a fast response time.

High speed 3D graphics rendering and high resolution video support are two key differentiating features for advanced mobile devices. Both the S5PC110 and S5PV210 are equipped with a powerful built-in 3D graphics engine to support sophisticated 3D UI and high-caliber games. In addition, the two processors integrate a1080p full HD codec engine that supports 30fps full HD video playback and recording. A built-in HDMI1.3 interface allows output of captured or downloaded mobile multimedia contents to an external high definition digital display.

These two new application processors also feature a wide variety of interfaces and peripherals to maximize design flexibility and reduce system BOM cost of targeted mobile devices. In particular, a high speed USB 2.0 host interface is integrated for hosting various USB peripheral devices.

Targeted for small form factor mobile devices, the S5PC110 is housed in a 0.5mm pitch, 14X14mm2 FBGA package that allows package-on-package vertical stacking of low power, multiple chip package (MCP) memory such as OneDRAM™, mobile DDR and LP DDR2, greatly reducing the overall foot print of the memory and processor combo.

Designed for portable computing applications, the S5PV210 is packaged in a 0.65mm pitch, 17X17mm2 FBGA package with a high performance 2-channel 32-bit DDR2 memory interface that is essential for computing devices.

Customer samples of both products will be available in December, 2009. ...

ODROID in the Wild, Demo’s HDMI Output [VIDEO]

Remember that Android-based entertainment device from a couple of weeks ago called the ODROID? It’s back today in the form of a demo video. The clip below shows how Android looks running through an HDMI cable out to a television. We get to see a little gameplay, the Transformers 2 trailer, and typical Android navigation running at high definition.

We have to admit it – playing games might be pretty fun with something like the ODROID. Hopefully we see more devices like this come to fruition and spur development for Android games.

Creative Zen X-Fi 2 Trades Buttons for a Touchscreen, High Price for Low [PMPs]

It's a new model name, sure, and the distinctive button panel has been booted in favor of a touchscreen, but the most important part of the X-Fi update has nothing to do with hardware, and everything to do with dollars.
Aside from the slightly larger, ever-more-fingerable TFT screen, the X-Fi 2 supposedly adds improvements to sound quality, which are down to murky machinations inside Creative's X-Fi audio processing system, as well as TV-out, which is particularly useful considering the player's generous video codec support. The rest of the specs are more or less unchanged: There's an FM radio, built-in mic, a microSD expansion slot, and syncable calendar, task list, contacts and RSS reader apps. It actually looks like the player has lost a feature since v1 too, since the prior model's Wi-Fi access is nowhere to be found. Not that it ever did much, but still.

Anyway, price! It's pretty low, considering what you get: It's 230 for the 32GB model, $180 for the 16GB and $130 for the 8GB. The highest price point seems like a dig at the iPod Touch, and it could be a clever one: The two players offer completely different things, and if you want to do more than play music and videos, the iPod is the clear choice. On the other hand, if that's all you want to do, a 32GB touchscreen PMP makes a case, if not a particularly strong one. It's available for preorder now, and should ship within a few weeks. [Creative]