Nov/090
ASUS O!Play HD Media Player
Asus has announced a new model of its O!Play HD media player, the Air HDP-R3. The new O!Play brings WiFi, as well as a card reader, while the rest of the features remains the same as on the previously released ASUS O!Play HDP-R1.
The new O!Play AIR HDP-R3 comes equipped with 802.11n WiFi, as well as the card reader for CF, SD/MMC and Memory Sticks (MS/MS Duo) cards. The rest of the features remained the same as this one still supports MPEG1/2/4, H.264, VC-1, RM/RMVB video formats in almost every known container, including popular avi, mkv, wmv, mp4, mov and a bunch of others. It also supports almost every known audio format.
It has HDMI 1.3, composite audio/video and optical digital audio outputs and has one USB 2.0, one eSATA/USB2.0 combo port, one RJ-45 LAN port and a card reader. The dimensions remain at the same 181×125.3×47.7mm, and the only design touch is the WiFi indicator LED on the front of the device.
It is nice to see that Asus included WiFi on its O!Play HD media player as it is much easier to share media content over network and without cables. We just hope that WiFi and a card reader won’t affect the price which unfortunately hasn’t been announced. The WiFi-less ASUS O!Play HDP-R1 is available at around €90, and we just hope that the new one won’t be much pricier.
Nov/090
Atlona Comes to Apple’s Rescue with DVI-To-Mini DisplayPort Adapter
One strategy applied by quite a few consumer electronics and computer manufacturers out there is to stimulate sales by making it impossible for customers to use their older hardware with the latest product releases. To some extent, that’s exactly what happened with Apple, whose DisplayPort-enabled 24-inch Apple monitors will not work with computers manufactured prior to 2009.
Plus, going from Mini DisplayPort to DVI is simple, and many products that allow this conversion are already on the market; however, there have been no products that allowed the opposite conversion, until now.
Plus, going from Mini DisplayPort to DVI is simple, and many products that allow this conversion are already on the market; however, there have been no products that allowed the opposite conversion, until now.
Atlona’s new AT-DP200 (the converter in question) inputs DVI and outputs Mini DisplayPort signal while passing along all EDID and HDCP information. This device converts while allowing one’s computer to scale to the optimal resolution offered by the display, including here 1920 by 1200 or 1280 by 800.
Furthermore, Atlona claims that the AT-DP200 was put through extensive testing in Apple’s compatibility lab, going up against every single Apple computer with a DVI port, and every monitor featuring Mini DisplayPort. Atlona Technologies also put this product through PC interoperability testing with all standard DVI video cards, all the tests being successful, of course.