Instant messaging has been with us for many years now, with clients such as MSN Messenger, Skype, Yahoo and AIM amongst the most popular.

Things have moved on a bit since the days of good old fashioned text chats though, and video is now all the rage. Lucky then that there are some brilliant, yet affordable webcams on the market made for just that purpose.

Microsoft Lifecam VX-3000

The Microsoft LifeCam VX-3000 is one such contender, and comes from a brand you can trust (assuming you haven’t suffered an Xbox 360 Red Ring of Death of course) in Microsoft.

These cameras are currently being sold on Amazon either separately or as a pair, with the idea of the twin pack being to enable friends and family members to each own one and be able to stay in contact wherever they are around the world.

Continue Reading…

A home projector is becoming less of a flamboyant purchase and more of a necessity in this day and age when many different forms of media are coming together in the living room.

A projector enables you to watch everything from traditional television, to Blu-ray movies and online video on a huge screen for a relatively affordable price.

A projector also enables you to watch all of the above in full high definition. The Mitsubishi HC1500 720p DLP Home Theater Projector is a perfect addition to any home.

Continue Reading…

As online video increases in popularity and starts to replace traditional television as the medium of choice, the options for viewers are going to increase also.

One of the best ways to enjoy online video at this point is via a projector.

Watching YouTube videos are fine on a small PC monitor, or laptop screen, but with services such as Hulu and the BBC iPlayer now launching and offering full episodes of programmes over the Web, a bigger screen is soon to become an essential purchase.

Best-Selling Projector

I wrote an article back in February which explained what you would need, and how to connect a home theatre projector to your computer to enable easy watching of Web video, and now here is a review of one of the best-selling systems on the market.

The Epson PowerLite 77c 2200 Lumen Multimedia Projector is a relatively cheap option, retailing on Amazon at just $693 at the moment. This would classify it as a budget option, but it will still do a great job.

Continue Reading…

The long-awaited Netflix box is finally here, with Roku, better known for making streaming music hardware the first hardware partner to release their product on to the market.

The box, which is available now from the Roku website, costs just $100 and allows users to stream movies and television from Netflix to their TV using the Instant Viewing feature.

Easy Install

Users install the box by hooking it up to their TV sets using composite, component video cables, HDMI or S-Video and then connecting it to their Wi-Fi network or via an Ethernet cable hooked to the box.

Set-up is simple, and as long as your broadband connection is strong and consistent, the picture quality is good, and streaming is aid to be almost, but not quite, lag-free.

Continue Reading…

Microsoft’s Mediaroom is currently the company’s IPTV solution which is used by AT&T U-Verse in the States and BT Vision in the UK, allowing TV to be delivered to your home over IP.

By the simple use of a set-top box, you can currently use the service to grab high quality HDTV that is of a much better quality than you would get using a Cable service.

Current Features

It currently also offers features such as quick channel changing, multi-room viewing, and picture-in-picture, but according to an article on Gizmodo, a lot more is coming soon.

Continue Reading…

Since it’s limited launch last year, and then it’s full public launch over Christmas, the BBC iPlayer has proved massively popular, dragging thousands of UK viewers over to Web TV.

The service has since been added to the Apple iPlayer, and Nintendo Wii, proving the BBC’s commitment to the cause. And now it has added old TV to it’s distribution line-up.

Virgin Media Join The Fray

The BBC iPlayer will now be available on Virgin Media, the biggest cable television provider in the UK, and rival of BSkyB, whose chairman James Murdoch criticised the service just last week.

Virgin Media’s customers will now be able to access the last seven days of BBC programming, which adds up to about 350 hours of content each and every week.

Continue Reading…

The Archos 605 Wi-Fi Portable Media Player is part of a new generation of media players which utilise the Web for content. For the first time, you can now stream content from the Internet to your TV using a media player.

Using the Archos 605’s Wi-Fi feature, you can download media content from the net using the Archos content portal. This offers movies, TV shows, and music for download to your portable media player.

This enables you to be no longer tied to a PC or Mac, and instead be able to download content easily to a device which has a full-colour 4.3-inch touch screen capable of showing an 800 x 480 picture resolution.

Continue Reading…