gadgetPhreak Gadget News Blog. Futuristic Gadgets and Portable Electronics

June 7, 2006

SavitMicro’s Dueple: HD media player with DVD

Filed under: DriveEnclosure,DvdPlayer,HDD,HardDrive,MPEG-1/2/4,MediaPlayer,component,divx,drive enclosure,dueple,dvd player,dvi,geekstuff4u,hard drive,high-definition,media player,mp3,ogg,s-video,savitmicro,wma,wmv — Evan Blass @ 11:02 am

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We've seen Korean manufacturer SavitMicro a few times before, once with a hub for multi-cam recording and another time with a media-playing drive enclosure, and now they've popped up once again at Computex with yet another device that promises to simplify your digital life. Like their drive enclosure, the new "Dueple," as it's known, also accepts swappable 2.5-inch or 3.5-inch drives for multimedia playback, but throws in a DVD player as well for spinning any of those old-fashioned discs you may have laying around. The Dueple features DVI, component, S-video, coax, and digital audio outputs for hooking up to your home theater gear, Ethernet and USB ports for data transfer, and lets you watch/listen to MPEG-1/2/4, MP3, DivX, WMV, WMA, and OGG files, including high-definition content. There are probably better ways of getting your digital swag onto a TV than this particular solution, but if it sports a reasonable pricetag when it comes out within the month -- from e-tailer GeekStuff4U -- we imagine that it will draw some interest.
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June 6, 2006

WD adds FireWire 800 to MyBook Pro external drives

Filed under: 250gb,500gb,DecorativeDrives,ExternalDrives,Firewire400,Firewire800,HDD,Hard Drives,HardDrives,ProfessionalSeries,Usb2.0,WesternDigital,decorative drives,external drives,firewire 400,firewire 800,mybook,professional series,usb 2.0,wd,western digital — Evan Blass @ 3:19 pm

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So if you were interested in one of those decorative MyBook hard drives from Western Digital, but the spouse/kids felt that its FireWire 400 port just wasn’t fast enough for their data transferring needs, now the whole family may be able to agree on these drives-in-disguise thanks to a key spec bump in the Professional series. Both the 500GB and 200GB Pro models now come with a FireWire 800 connection — giving you maximum transfer speeds of 800Mbps — along with the previous FireWire and USB 2.0 jacks, which offer pokier 400Mbps and 480Mbps, respectively. Shipping now, these models will set you back $350 or $220, depending on capacity.

[Via Reg Hardware]

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May 24, 2006

Samsung, Seagate show off ReadyDrive HDD prototypes

Filed under: HDD,Hard Drives,HardDrives,Laptops,PowerConsumption,Samsung,WindowsHardwareEngineeringConference,buffer,microsoft,notebooks,power consumption,readydrive,seagate,storage,vista,windows hardware engineering conference,winhec — Evan Blass @ 12:15 pm

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No surprises here: we’ve known since last WinHEC that Samsung was working on a so-called ReadyDrive hard drive that sports a 128MB flash buffer for enabling lower laptop power consumption, and just as we suspected, they’ve unveiled a working prototype of the technology at this year’s conference. Also on hand with their own ReadyDrive was Seagate, who, like Samsung, plan to release their model when Vista finally starts shipping, as only the next-gen operating system will have the proper ATA driver command sets to allow for such a large buffer. PCMag was on the scene for one of Samsung’s demos, and claim that a laptop running an office apps script only needed to access the hard drive every three to four minutes, which could result in ReadyDrive-equipped laptops sipping up to 40% less juice than models with those outdated, perpetually-spinning HDDs.

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May 14, 2006

Lower-end PS3 to ship with wired controllers, non-upgradeable HDD?

Filed under: 20gb,Bluetooth,Gaming,HDD,HardDrive,KazHirai,Playstation3,Sony,WiredControllers,consoles,controllers,e3,hard drive,kaz hirai,non-upgradeable,playstation 3,ps3,video games,videogames,wii,wired controllers — Evan Blass @ 12:30 pm

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Besides the disheartening news that the cheaper version of the PlayStation 3 will lack WiFi, a memory card reader, and mosty significantly, an HDMI port, we've now learned that the $500 PS3 may also be shipping with wired, and not wireless, versions of that rumble-less, Wii-like controller. While adding separate Bluetooth controllers would only set you back a few bucks -- if, in fact, the lower-end model actually ends up shipping with BT functionality -- boosting your console's storage capacity in the future may be a non-starter, as Sony reps supposedly told Games Radar that the 20GB hard drive isn't upgradeable. With so many significant differences between the two configurations (and let's not forget the snazzy metallic lettering you get on the $600 models), it's not clear how many consumers are going to agree with Sony's Kaz Hirai that the "crippled" version of the console is a "good value" for them.

[Thanks, J and Ameya T.]
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April 27, 2006

Seagate’s Barracuda 750GB drive reviewed

Filed under: HDD,baracuda,disk,perpendicular,seagate — Thomas Ricker @ 5:21 am

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align="right" src="http://www.engadget.com/media/2006/04/Seagate_Barracuda-750GB.jpg" alt="" />No doubt you
remember the leaked specs on
Seagate’s new Baracuda 7200.10 series of perpendicular
drives. Well, Seagate just made it officially, uh, official and PC World has a review for ya just to prove it. Now, we
already knew it would be the biggest 3.5-incher around, but PC World tells us that it might also be the best. In a
"first look" of the SATA/300, 16MB cache version, PCW found the new ‘cuda to scream across the spectrum of
tests ranking it first overall among the bevy of 7200rpm spinners they’ve tested, bested only be the href="http://www.engadget.com/2006/01/06/western-digital-raptor-worlds-only-clear-cover-hard-drive/">10,000rpm Raptor
X. Expect the 750GB model they tested to hit the streets for about $590, or $0.79/GB, which isn’t really that bad.

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April 20, 2006

Seagate leaks 750GB Barracuda 7200.10

Filed under: 750gb,HDD,HardDrive,barracuda,drive,hard drive,sata,seagate — Ryan Block @ 9:35 pm

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Well, it's been a rather long year or so since 500GB drives came into style as the standard for high end disks, but it looks like perpendicular recording will save the day in stagnant storage. Seagate's inadvertently leaked the Barracuda 7200.10 line of SATA drives with speeds up to 3GBps (SATA II), 7200rpm, 4.16ms latency, NCQ, 16MB cache, and 750GB of storage. 750 freaking gigs, man. Just another step on the magic road to a 1 terabyte petabyte drive though, you know? [Warning: PDF link]

[Via DailyTech, thanks, Diego]
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April 10, 2006

Sony’s RDZ-D97A, RDZ-77A, and RDZ-87 HDD/DVD recorders record directly to PSP

Filed under: DLNA,DTCP-IP,DVD,HDD,HDTV,PSP,Sony,hi-vision — Thomas Ricker @ 2:00 am

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Sony just announced three new HDD/DVD recorder additions to their RDZ series. The new RDZ-D97A (pictured) and 77A bring 400GB and 250GB of storage respectively, to the show with one digital Hi-Vision (1080i HDTV in Japan) tuner and apparently two-analog tuners allowing you to record not one, not two, but three teeveelicious broadcasts simultaneously! They also feature the ability to record directly to your PSP to take your recordings on the go. And in what appears to be an industry first for HDD/DVD recorders, these two also feature DLNA’s DTCP-IP (Digital Transmission Content Protection over IP) to legally stream Hi-Vision recordings to other designated, media kickin’ boxes on your home network. Rounding out the lot is the RDZ-87 which packs in a 500GB disk like the D97A but lacks direct PSP recording and DTCP-IP support. Expect these to drop for an as of yet unannounced price on May 19 in Japan.

[Via Akihabara News]
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April 4, 2006

Hitachi’s Wooo9000 displays deal with Japan’s threatening circle surplus

Filed under: 1080i,HD,HDD,HDTV,Wooo9000,display,hitachi,lcd,plasma — Paul Miller @ 6:58 am

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Today's oddly named gadget from Japan is brought to you by the letter "o" and his drunken twin, the number zero. Actually, we can't really explain to you the thought that went into the "Wooo9000" moniker for Hitachi's new display lineup, but we can give you a rundown on specs while we wait for the other signs of the apocalypse to come. The line includes four plasma displays at 37 and 42-inches, half with a built-in HDD and half without, all of which claim to be "1080" displays. We're guessing 1080 refers to 1080i support, but the specs aren't clear. The 37-inch HDD version includes a 250GB drive, while the 42-incher goes for 500GB. In the LCD end there are two 32-inch displays, each at a 1366 x 768 resolution, with one sporting a 250GB HDD. There's no word when these displays will be available, or at what cost, but we can only hope they're worthy of the prestigious Wooo legacy.
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Hitachi’s DV-DH-1000D 1TB HDD/DVD recorder

Filed under: DVD,HDD,HDTV,hdmi,hi-def,hi-vision,high-definition,hitachi — Thomas Ricker @ 4:22 am

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href="http://translate.google.com/translate?prev=/language_tools&u=http://www.hitachi.co.jp/New/cnews/month/2006/04/0404c.html"> vspace="4" hspace="4" border="1" alt="" src="http://www.engadget.com/media/2006/04/hita4_02.jpg" />

Yeah we
know, those wimpy href="http://www.engadget.com/2006/03/14/pioneers-dvr-dt100-800gb-dvr-with-analog-and-digital-tuners/">800GB video
recorders are for chumps. The cool kids are all hangin’ with Hitachi’s new 1TB, DV-DH1000D HDD/DVD video
recorder. Yeah, that’s 1,000GB of freakin’ storage to fix that high-def recording jones. The rest of the details are
sketchy. The best we can make out from the machine translation is that the device sports HDMI and includes both
terrestrial analog and digital Hi-Vision (HDTV) tuners for simultaneous recording and/or playback. But hey, it’s only
available in Japan so other than reigning  as the "world’s largest" video recorder, what more do you
really need to know?

[Via href="http://www.akihabaranews.com/news-11493-Hitachi%5C's%20new%201TB%20Media%20Recorder.html">Akihabara News]

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