The “Citron” Zune, which looks like citrus yellow, has been found by deep diving into the Zune software released today. Since Microsoft hasn’t actually announced the color yet, we’re thinking this is either an unreleased surprise for some promotional event—they’ve done many special editions for promotions before—or an old color that was scrapped at the last minute because little kids will say it looks like pee pee to last year’s poo poo brown Zune. What do we think? More colors is better than fewer colors, and traffic cops can always use it to direct cars while jammin’ to their tunes. [istartedsomething]

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Filed under: Media PCs, Peripherals, Storage

All the action in the next-gen format war might be at the front lines of cut-rate players, but the battle rages on across the entire spectrum of devices — which is why we’ve seen the poor $199 DH-401S BD-ROM drive from Philips and Lite-on touted as the answer to those $200 HD-A2s in a couple places. That’s quite a stretch, obviously, but it’s still much cheaper than any other BD-ROM drives we’ve seen. The read-only SATA drive pulls data off BD media at 4X, single layer DVDs at 12X, DVD-DL and DVD±RW at 8x, and CDs at 32X. Giving up write capabilites is obviously limiting, but for those of you building out HTPCs, this bad boy might be just the ticket.

[Thanks, AG23]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

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Filed under: Displays, Home Entertainment, Media PCs

There’s a select group of red flags that appear when a product is, or is dangerously close to becoming, vaporware, and we’ve seen just about all of ‘em when looking at McPerson’s I-TV. Apparently, this so-called do-it-all LCD TV first appeared last year, but now it sports a different look and a flashy website that will make you wish your speakers were inoperative. The set supposedly functions as a home automation controller, DVR, DVD player and Media Center PC, and just in case you doubted its prowess, this thing is somehow Viiv-certified and able to run OS X. Specs wise, you’ll find a 37-inch 1080p panel, dual 40-watt speakers (um, right), 7.1-channel audio out, built-in WiFi / Bluetooth, gigabit Ethernet and a slew of ports. Considering McPerson threw nearly everything in here save for the proverbial kitchen sink, it’s not all that shocking to find a £3,924.49 ($8,235) pricetag floating around the intarweb, and if anyone has any actual proof that this thing exists, feel free to dash our doubts in comments.

[Thanks, Giorgio]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

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Filed under: Media PCs

We’d heard the Okoro was planning shipping entry-level CableCARD HTPCs, and the firm’s made good on that promise, unveiling the $1795 OMS-CX100 today. Apart from that all-important ATI TV Wonder DCT breakout box, the CX100 features a 2.3GHz Intel E6550 Core 2 Duo, NVIDIA 8500GT graphics, 2GB of memory and 320GB of storage, and Vista Ultimate. HD DVD and Blu-ray are separate options depending on your format allegiance, but for someone looking to make the HTPC leap in a Cable Labs-approved way, it’s not a bad deal at all.

[Via eHomeUpgade]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

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Filed under: Media PCs, Storage

Microsoft’s Windows Home Server is saying balls to its dicey launch year and rallying the troops for a holiday hardware blitz. Its original hardware launch partner HP’s on-sale-again-off-sale-again MediaSmart Home Server is officially back and on sale (huzzah!), and multiple hardware partners are (re)announcing their own boxes.

Up to bat with new and “new” WHS hardware: Fujitsu-Siemens, Gateway, Iomega, LaCie, Leo Computers, LifeWare, Maxdata, Medion, and Tranquil. Sure, some have already announced, but those named today will either be introducing new WHS gear in short order, or at least intend to in the next quarter. Also getting official and on sale today: Velocity Micro’s NetMagix (previously VMHS). Expect it with a Core 2 Duo, 1GB of RAM, eSATA, gigabit Ethernet, front / rear USB, and up to 4TB of storage (starting at $1000 for 1TB).

P.S. -We’re sure Microsoft would like us to remind you of the burgeoning WHS software add-on scene, with the dozens of apps now written for the platform. That’s all well and good, but we’ll worry about getting that hardware first, then take a look at that software.

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

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Filed under: Home Entertainment, Media PCs

The FCC database continues to be full of weird and wonderful toys, and the EZFetch HD media streamer from EZ 4 Media certainly fits that description — in addition to streaming content off networked PCs, it can also grab content from Nokia Nseries devices and display it on your TV. Connections include the usual SD composite jacks, as well as optical audio, DVI-D, Ethernet, and built-in 802.11g wireless, and codec support is pretty spectacular, including H.264, XviD, DivX HD, MPEG4, WMV, and VOB. The Nseries integration is the big feature here, however — not only does the EZFetch stream content from any WiFi-capable Nseries device, you can also use the Nseries as a remote to control the entire EZFetch system. No word on pricing or availability, sadly, but RF spectrum test geeks can check out all the test results at the read link.

Read — EZ 4 Media website
Read — EZFetch FCC listing

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

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Filed under: Home Entertainment, Media PCs, Portable Video

We haven’t heard much from Vongo since the company announced it was a Vista launch partner in January, but Starz’s scrappy video-on-demand division just unveiled the 2.0 version of the service today — although it’s a little unclear what’s been changed apart from a supported portable device list that now numbers an absolutely astonishing seven. The chosen few PMPs include devices from Archos (which we sort of figured), Creative, and Toshiba, with additional support for any number of Media Center Extenders. Of course, users of the $10 / month service can only use it on three devices at a time including PCs, so you’ll probably run out of activations before you try to add another PMP or Media Center Extender, but it’s a nice thought, at least.

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Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment, Media PCs, Peripherals

Although Vista Media Center supports up to four CableCARDs, we haven’t actually seen the required ATI TV Wonder breakout box for sale by itself yet — it usually only comes bundled with a CableLABS-certified Vista Media Center PC. (In fact, from what we hear, OEMs are strictly forbidden from selling them without a PC.) It looks like Sony’s ready to bust these things loose, however, because SonyStyle.com is now selling them as the “VAIO Digital TV Tuner” for $299. You’ll still need that Vista Media Center PC with the required special firmware to make it work, but those of you itching to add more tuners to your rig — or just hack away at these things — might finally be able to make it happen. Just don’t blame us of CableLABS’s locks prevent you from properly capturing all those delicious high def MPEG-2 streams.

[Thanks, William]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

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Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment, Media PCs, Portable Audio, Portable Video

We’ve never paid much attention to Spain’s Blusens, but we just got hold of the company’s 2008 catalog and frankly, we’re impressed. We don’t know how much of this stuff will ever actually see the light of day, but there’s some seriously sick (hypothetical) gear in there, like the G.41 PMP pictured above, which features a 4.3-inch screen, WiFi, MP3, WMA, MPEG4 and Ogg support, an integrated digital camera, voice recorder, FM radio, and what looks like a well-polished UI. Also worth noting is the G.71 media streamer / DVR, available in DVD or Blu-ray versions, which features a removable hard drive and external storage support, dual DVB-T tuners, IPTV support, Ethernet, WiFi, HDMI-out, and DivX / DivX HD / XviD, H.264 and MPEG2 support. Rounding out the highlights is the C.40 VoIP phone, which’ll let you Skype it up over WiFi. Some of these designs rip pretty heavily from other companies, and again, we’re not at all certain what’s real and what’s not, but damn — Blusens, welcome to the scene. Peep the whole catalog in the gallery.

[Via Gizmología]

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Filed under: Desktops, Displays, HDTV, Media PCs

Keepin’ with the funky fresh crowd, XtremeNotebooks is unleashing an all-in-one PC of its own, and while it may have some form of identity crisis coming from a laptop manufacturer, there’s really no portable nature to this one. Nevertheless, the XN1 consists of a 22-inch WSXGA+ (1,680 x 1,050) LCD HDTV display which is jam packed with an Intel Core 2 Extreme processor, 1GB of DDR2 RAM, up to 2TB of built-in HDD space, an optional 256MB NVIDIA GeForce Go 7600 graphics card and HD DVD drive, gigabit Ethernet and WiFi. As for ports, you’ll find eSATA, four USB 2.0 sockets, ExpressCard, 4-pin FireWire, a coaxial jack for the TV tuner, and the usual assortment of AV inputs / outputs. The XN1 is available now starting at $1,599, or you can scale back with a 19-inch version that gets going at $1,489.

[Via I4U News]

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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

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