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Gizmag: The name McIntosh Labs has been synonymous with outstanding audio quality for more than 60 years and its iconic MC275 tube amp certainly left its mark on me when I first encountered one many moons ago. Hot on the heels of the MX121 audio/video control center featuring Apple’s AirPlay wireless technology released earlier this year, the company has launched the McAire free-standing personal music system that allows a new generation of discriminating consumers to stream audio from an iTunes library on a Mac or PC – or music from an iDevice – over an existing home network. (more…)

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Engadget: While it’s hardly pulling the curtain back on its entire CES 2012 slate of products, Samsung’s earliest preview for your AV pleasure is an updated range of HTIB systems and sound bars, as well as two new Audio Docks that support Apple devices as well as its own Galaxy S phones and players. (more…)

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Gizmodo: AirPlay arrived this week, perhaps not quite as ass-kickingly as we had hoped. Here’s a clip of Air Video, the excellent stream-any-video-you-want-to-your-iPad app rigged up to beam video to an Apple TV. Basically, this is how AirPlay should work.

And hopefully will, once Apple sorts out the relevant APIs. This demo was done with private ones, so the functionality won’t be in the App Store’s Air Video anytime soon. In this case, the workflow is admittedly circuitous—the video’s being streamed from a computer to the iPad, encoded on the fly, and beamed from the iPad to the Apple TV—and it’s not clear if the iPad has quite what it takes in terms of processing power to do the on-the-fly conversion itself, say with an app like VLC, and then stream that video to the ATV. But it all comes back to what we really want here, and hopefully what Apple will let developers implement, once they iron things out a bit more: use AirPlay to send any video we’re watching on our mobile devices, in any app, to our big screens. Here’s to hoping.

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TechRadar: Sonos has announced that it plans to launch a wireless iPod and iPhone dock next month, making it even easier to stream your tunes from anywhere in your house.

Sonos’ new WD100 Wireless Dock will set you back £99 although, of course, you will have to have a Sonos multi-room music system already installed in your crib to begin with.

Multi-room music streaming

“The leading developer of wireless multi-room music systems for the home, today introduced the Sonos Wireless Dock (WD100), an accessory for the award-winning Sonos Multi-Room Music System,” reads Sonos’ press release just in.

“With the Sonos Wireless Dock you can now play all of the music stored on an iPod or iPhone in every room of the house.

Phil Abram, President, Sonos, Inc. adds: “The Sonos Wireless Dock is the perfect accessory for our music loving customers who own an iPod or iPhone and want to enjoy the music stored on them in any or every room of the home.

“This new dock reinforces our mission to provide our customers with access to all of the music on the planet, including everything available on an iPod and iPhone in the home.”

The dock sends your iPod/iPhone tunes to Sonos ZonePlayers dotted around your home before converting the music to analogue “guaranteeing the best possible audio quality.”

For more check out www.sonos.com.

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Engadget: Here’s an interesting tidbit. Denon’s admittedly pricey AVR-4311CI — which was introduced in late April — may very well end up being the first major product to gain iTunes AirPlay compatibility retroactively. Yeah, retroactively. According to an updated product listing, the AVR will see a “planned upgrade” in the fall of 2010 that will “provide Apple iTunes AirPlay compatibility [that will let you] stream your favorite music to the AVR-4311CI.” Now, we already knew that Denon was a partner of both Apple and BridgeCo (the enabling company behind AirPlay), but this is first mention of any existing product receiving a simple upgrade (firmware, we’re guessing) that would add support for Apple’s newly touted streaming feature. In other words, this may mean that hundreds, if not thousands, of AirPlay compatible devices are already on the market, and just as soon as Apple and / or BridgeCo green-lights the respective firmware updates, home entertainment systems everywhere may gain support for a protocol that wasn’t even public before last week. Here’s hoping, right?

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Dvice: Now that simple home theater gear like soundbars is popular, is there really any reason to own a home theater receiver anymore? One thing holding back receivers is that manufacturers have been slow to include features that are in sync with how people get their music and movies today — namely, digitally. That’s why we were so glad to hear about Pioneer’s new receivers and their ability to play music via Bluetooth streaming. (more…)

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Techradar.com: In a plan outlined by the chief executives at Sony, the company is looking into ways it can beam its movies straight to its manufactured hardware, essentially cutting out the need of Blu-ray.

The signs of change came this week when the company outlined its planned for a movie service via the PS3.

But Sony isn’t containing its movie streaming to its games consoles, as the company has also revealed that it is looking to deliver streaming movies and television to broadband-connected Bravia TVs in the US this autumn.

Even though Sony has a vested interest in Blu-ray, it is great to see a company actually use its initiative and become competitive in all aspects of movie distribution, rather than staying stubborn and putting all its film eggs in one basket.

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I4U: Orb Networks announced OrbLive that enables to stream live TV to Apple iPhones.

Orb enabled live streaming of TV from users’ homes to almost any mobile phone with a streaming player and a web browser already. To get around the iPhone’s extreme limitations on supported video formats, Orb created a special application, OrbLive, to enable the streaming of any video format to iPhones.

The OrbLive application can only be installed on a jailbroken iPhone or iPod touch. I hope they can convert the OrbLive application to the upcoming iPhone SDK so you do not have to hack your iPhone to make this work.

Orb optimized media streaming so it works over WiFi and over AT&T, O2, and Vodafone networks.
More details on the Orblive page.

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Newlaunches: The latest Digital Media Port accessory from Sony is the TDM-NC1. This cube, when connected to the BRAVIA’s DMP let’s you stream music from your PC straight to your home theater; via the home WiFi network.

The cube features a bright, digital screen that displays the song, artist and other audio information. It is compatible with ATRAC, AAC and WMA music files. It is equipped with ethernet port for wired connection. The WiFi router is not included in the pack. It is also not compatible with all digital music files and DRM protected file playback only from CONNECT Music download service.

Sony’s new DMP- TDM-NC1 is not compatible with Apple computers. It requires PC with Microsoft Windows XP SP2 operating system or newer. Its available for €150.

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Pocket-lint: Sony has outlined plans to allow Arsenal fans access to game highlights and live streams of the matches at the Emirates Stadium via their PSP at all games at its Media Experience in Rhodes.

Under the system, called S.PORT, which is still in a prototype stage, the software will allow you to see replays, stats and other game scores via a wireless feed.

“We see four screens in life; Cinema, Television, Computer, and a portable device,” Eric Siereveld, Director of Retail Transport Venues at Sony told us. The service is expected to be available by the end of the year. “It will allow you to check to see whether or not a player really was off side,” continued Siereveld.

Sony has said there is still lots of issues to be worked out, such as whether or not to allow it to work on other devices, in or out of the stadium and which games it will be available at.

Siereveld also suggested that the service wouldn’t just be limited to Arsenal: “It could be used at any stadium around the UK, or even a golf match where it is sometimes hard to see the ball flying through the air.”
A trial with 4000 Arsenal fans is expected to start shortly.

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