I haven’t seen much from XStreamHD since I saw them at CES back in January. Though, while I don’t think they’re going to hit their 4Q08 ship date, based on the lack of any product updates, it looks like they’re still out there working on their product. Design & Reuse reports that XStreamHD has just licensed audio processing technology from ARC International to support decoding of Dolby Digital Plus. And checking XStreamHD’s press page it looks like they added members to the executive team in May, and licensed SATA IP tech in June. Not really any indication of what kind of progress, if any, is being made toward bringing their product to market, but signs of life at least.

Picked up from EngadgetHD.

This weekend Amazon VOD brings the $0.99 sale back to frightening levels with the Scary Movie Sale. Ten titles each $0.99 to rent: John Carpenter’s Ghosts of Mars, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, The Forgotten, Asylum, Beetlejuice, Twilight Zone: The Movie, fear dot com, The Eye 2, The Nun, and Candyman 2: Farewell To The Flesh.

VUDU has been trialing higher quality HD downloads for a little while, but now they’re officially available for all users. The so-called HDX downloads are 1080p24 downloads which take longer to download but offer superior image quality compared to their usual ‘instant on’ highly compressed downloads. I’ve said before that I’d rather have quality over speed for most of my movie viewing, and I’d take Blu-ray over HD downloads be cause the services out there over-compress the content. As I said, all 1080p content is not the same.

So it is nice to see VUDU giving users the option to wait a little longer and get higher quality content instead of being limited to fast but comparatively poor quality playback. However, they don’t say just what the quality level is. They talk resolution, but, as I’ve said, resolution is just part of the puzzle. All 1080p24 content is, by definition, the same resolution. But if one is 40Mbps and the other is 4Mbps, all else being equal (same codec, etc), one is going to be much higher in quality. I really would like to know what the HDX bitrate is. Conventional non-HDX HD content from VUDU requires 4Mbps, I’m presuming HDX is higher, but how much?

Some press is calling it Blu-ray quality, but that’s bunk. Even without knowing the bitrate being used I’m positive it doesn’t match Blu-ray, and I’m just as positive it doesn’t use lossless audio like Dolby TrueHD or DTS HD-MA. The website says:

HDX technology delivers the best available surround sound quality for Internet delivered movies with immersive, high resolution sound at a 40% higher bit-rate than standard surround sound DVD’s.

‘Standard surround sound DVDs’ use Dolbly Digital at 448Kbps, sounds like they’re using Dolby Digital at 640Kbps.

HDX is definitely a step in the right directly, IMHO, but don’t believe it is Blu-ray quality.

EDIT: Found this from David Pogue at The New York Times:

To see why HDX looks so good — especially on big screens — check its data rate, a measure of how much information is used to describe each frame of the video. It averages around 9 megabits a second, but spikes to 20 during action scenes. Compare that with Vudu standard definition: (2.2 megabits a second), Vudu and Apple TV high definition (4), regular DVD (8) or Blu-ray DVD (40). In other words, HDX quality is somewhere between DVD and Blu-ray. The audio offers a 40 percent improvement, too.

That is a marked improvement over their normal HD streams, but yes, still not Blu-ray quality. It does make the product more appealing in my eyes though, and certainly puts VUDU in the lead as far as HD download services go. I’m not sure if he’s comparing just video bit rates or what - DVD’s full video rate is ~10Mbps, but that’s MPEG-2 so apples and oranges to the others which are H.264. Blu-ray is 40Mbps max for video (not that it is all used normally), 54Mbps total bit rate.

HDX raises my personal interest in VUDU, though with a TiVo Series3, PlayStation3, and SlingCatcher already it isn’t high enough yet to get me to put another box under my TV.

Or anyone’s Moxi? I specifically mean the Digeo Moxi 3012 which was supposed to be be distributed to consumers by Charter by the end of 3Q08. Here we are in the fourth quarter and as best I can determine Charter is not yet shipping the Moxi 3012 to consumers and no further announcement has been made. At best it seems it may be in the hands of a handful of Charter employees. Anyone out there have one of these mythical beasts yet? Someone who doesn’t work for Digeo or Charter? For a company so fond of announcements and releases I can’t believe they started shipping without telling anyone about it.

(No, I didn’t really expect them to ship, but I was kind of hoping they would because I’d like to see them deliver on a promise someday. And yes, I was feeling snarky.)

The Slingbox PRO-HD just started shipping a week ago, on 7/25, and most sites and stores are still selling it at, or very near, the full $299.99 MSRP. But I’ve become aware of two deals on it right now.

Buy.com has it for $249.99 + $9.85 shipping, $259.84 total!

But that’s not all, PROVANTAGE has it for $235.11 + $6.95 shipping, just $242.06 total!

PROVANTAGE is also listing the SlingCatcher, also $299.99 MSRP, for only $241.03 + $6.95 shipping - $247.98! The SlingCatcher isn’t shipping just yet, but will be shipping very soon.

PROVANTAGE offers faster, and more expensive, shipping options. And if you order both at once you save a little bit on shipping ($11.35 for ground together).

I’m really surprised to see them discounted so heavily already - especially before the official release of the SlingCatcher.

Disclaimer: I work for Sling Media and I am the beta program manager on the PRO-HD.

CableLabs has certified two tru2way-enabled CableCARD HDTVs from Panasonic, paving the way for them to be available to consumers this holiday season. The two models sport 42″ and 50″ HD displays. This is an important turn around from June, when Panasonic reportedly failed in their first tru2way certification attempt.

However, even if consumers can get their hands on the sets, there is no guarantee that they’ll be able to access tru2way content immediately. The cable industry has pledged to implement tru2way across their networks by July 1, 2009 - except for Charter which has until July 1, 2010. So early adopters may wish to check with their local MSO to see if tru2way support is available before jumping on these sets, or they may find themselves stuck with unidirectional CableCARD features until tru2way support is rolled out.

From Light Reading’s Cable Digital News.

Netflix has done a deal with Starz Entertainment, immediately adding 1,000 titles to Netflix’s streaming service, with 1,500 more to follow in the coming weeks. Following on Netflix’s deals with Disney and CBS to stream current and back episodes of TV content, this is a solid step towards increasing the relevance of their streaming service. The largest drawback to the service to date has been the dearth of first tier content.

From The Hollywood Reporter.