<![CDATA[Gizmodo: media servers]]> http://cache.gawker.com/assets/base/img/thumbs140x140/gizmodo.com.png <![CDATA[Gizmodo: media servers]]> http://gizmodo.com/tag/media servers http://gizmodo.com/tag/media servers <![CDATA[ $4300 Kaleidescape 1080p DVD Streamer Reviewed (Still Not Real HD) ]]> Sound & Vision gave a gushing review to the Kaleidescape 1080p player, a DVD upscaler that streams movies from a home server for the price of a nice used car. They especially liked the Gennum VXP video processor chip, which upscales DVD content to vividly sharp 1080p detail, with very accurate colors and high contrast. The Kaleidescape's updated ability to play content without importing it to the server first was also a big draw. But seriously, $4300? Come on.

It still doesn't play real HD (Blu-ray support won't be around till 2009) like a much cheaper Xbox, AppleTV, Vudu or PS3, and we can already import DVDs for a streamer using the freeware Handbrake. If we did want to play high quality content without importing it, we'd just buy a $99 upscaling DVD player. Available now, hit the link for the full review, but please don't believe it. [Sound & Vision]

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Wed, 18 Jun 2008 22:41:22 EDT Benny Goldman http://gizmodo.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5017792&view=rss&microfeed=true
<![CDATA[ Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums Come Pre-Ripped For $9,000 ]]> If you're rich enough to have a dedicated media server from the likes of Crestron, Elan, Escient, Kaleidescape, ReQuest or Apple—a strange one to mix in, I thought—you can go off and buy Rolling Stone magazine's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time already ripped and encoded on a NAS RAID drive, for the low price of $9,000, thanks to a company called Terra-San. I can see several problems with this:

• If you love music enough to install a server, you probably already own (or, um, have borrowed) at least 500 really good albums, potentially a decent overlap of stuff. Like me, you may have accumulated most of the 500 totally by accident, not to mention a lot of other less popular music.

• Assuming you don't have the CDs in pocket, and your digital downloads just don't cut the mustard, you can probably buy them all at an average of $8 or $9 a piece, and many are pre-collected in box sets at substantial discounts—and with attractive keepsake booklets to boot. Besides, most of this stuff would be easy to find in used bins, too. We're not exactly talking about the rare and out-of-print here. At most you'd be out somewhere between $4,500 or $5,000.

• The argument that this will save you time ripping CDs only holds true if you can't find someone to rip your CDs for less than $4,000. Ask any kid in the market for a plasma TV if he'd rip all your CDs and he'll probably name a price between $1,000 and $2,000—throw in a USB drive for free—and believe he's getting away with murder. [Electronic House]

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Fri, 09 May 2008 21:30:00 EDT Wilson Rothman http://gizmodo.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=389178&view=rss&microfeed=true