Rather than connecting your camcorder to your HDTV by wires, if you use one the new Samsung S-Series camcorders on display at CES 2010 you can beam your videos to you TV instantly with just a click of the Samsung AllShare button.

No wires, no mess, no fuss.

This magic happens through the S-Series camcorders (the HMX-S10, HMX-S15 and HMX-S16) being the first in the world to come equipped with both WiFi (apart from the S10) and DLNA.


Obviously this means that the HDTV must also support both WiFi and DLNA for this magic to happen, but even if it doesn’t, you can wirelessly beam your vids to your PC, which does.

Obviously the camcorders also come with an HDMI cable as well, though, in case you want to view the vids on a normal telly.

The S-Series cameras also come with a plethora of other top-end features, including:

• 1080p Full-HD
• 3.5″ touchscreen LCD
• 3D user interface (no idea why!)
• New Victoria Engine video processor that suppresses noise and results in crisper videos
• Internal Solid State Drives (SSD), which are more robust than normal hard drives, yet offer more storage than SD cards. The HMX-S16, for example, offees 64GB of storage
• 10 megapixel camera with flash
• Super-slow modes shoots at up to 600 frames per second, slowing the scene down 20-fold.
• Time-lapse recording feature
• Schneider Kreuznach Varioplan-HD lens with 18x zoom

That’s some pretty cool specs, particularly when WiFi is added to the mix. I can’t help but feel that an opportunity was missed, though, in not offering automatic YouTube uploading via WiFi. It’s great being able to wirelessly connect to your other home entertainment devices, but sharing your videos is what we all want these days.

Oh well, maybe for CES 2011?!

[Source: Engadget]

In other words, it’s a DVD player, digitial photo frame, home cinema, radio and an MP3 player! Not like Samsung to be so modest with one of their new products!

None of this is what makes the IceTouch stand out, though. As you can see from the pics, the IceTouch’s screen is its unique feature – it’s transparent!

The reason for this is that it’s an AMOLED screen, which makes it super-sharp, crystal clear – and viewable from the front and the back, as you can see form the video below.

It’s also the world’s first touchscreen based on AMOLED technology (that’s more like it – this is Samsung, there had to be a “world’s first” there somewhere!). This makes accessing all your content extremely easy, particularly when the user interface is a variant of the same Touchwiz interface that Samsung uses in its mobile phones.

The IceTouch MP3 player supports tonnes of content formats, so you should be able to watch and listen to whatever yuo want. In particular, it supports the following formats:

Audio

• MP3
• WMA
• OGG
• FLAC
• AAC
• M4A
• WAV
• MP3 HD

Video

• MPEG4
• WMV
• H.264
• Xvid
• Divx

With 8GB and 16GB variants, the glorious looking Samsung IceTouch MP3 player will be out sometime in the first half of 2010.

[Source: Engadget]

The Samsung SMX-F40, SMX-F43 and SMX-F44 camcorders do this via Samsung’s Intelli-studio 2.0 software, which lets you edit, play and upload videos from any PC.

The interesting thing about Intelli-studio 2.0, though, is that all of the software is contained and executed within the camcorder itself. In other words, you don’t need to install any software onto the PC. You simply plug the camcorder into a PC via USB, and start editing, viewing or uploading.

The actual software runs on the camcorder itself, so you don’t need to worry about bringing a CD with you to get the editing software onto the PC you’re planning to use.

This is a nice feature. Not quite as easy as automatically uploading videos to YouTube via WiFi, but at least it cuts down on a lot of hassle, and lets you upload your videos from pretty much anywhere – even Internet cafes – with the minimum of fuss.

The cameras themselves aren’t bad, either. They each offer 65x zoom (52x optical), offer a timelapse recording option, 4 hours of continuous shooting, and capture over 6 hours of video per 16GB SD card. You can also use the camcorders as a digital camera, taking 1.9 megapixel images with 1600×1200 resolution.

Annoyingly, they only 720p HD, but this should at least keep the cost down when they’re launched in February(ish!) 2010.

So if the social apps that come with their HDTVs are not to your liking, you can either download a new one, or even create your own!

More details after the jump.

Called Internet@TV, the app store features apps (both paid and free) in the following categories:

• video
• information
• lifestyle
• games
• sports

You can already download apps from a variety of content partners, including:

• Netflix
• Picasa
• Pandora
• Twitter
• VUDU
• Rovi
• Blockbuster
• The Associated Press

As well as games including poker, Monopoly and Sudoku.

“Samsung’s goal over the past two years has been to really push the envelope in terms of consumer experience with connected TV, and 2010 is no different,” said Kevin Kyungshik Lee, Vice President of Visual Display at Samsung Electronics.

“The upgraded Internet@TV feature with Samsung Apps is another major step in terms of a truly personalized, easy to navigate and convenient connected TV experience, which is why we’re offering it in the vast majority of TV models 40 inches and above and now extending those capabilities across multiple products.”

The app store isn’t available until July, but it’s a great move by Samsung. Internet-connected HDTVs were a feature of CES 2009, primarily with Yahoo!’s widgets, but the big problem with such features is that they’re restricted by the range of apps available.

By opening up the apps and creating a single portal to download new ones, Samsung not only increase the desirability of their range of HDTVs and the like, they also extend its use.

And if you’ve bought a load of Samsung-specific apps, when you upgrade, you’re more likely to purchase another Samsung HDTV, simply to continue using the apps you’ve already bought.

Of course, all this relies on the apps actually being usable, but it’s a smart move by Samsung, and shows the different divisions of the company are really working well together.

[Source: WebProNews]

Samsung have managed to endow (for that really is the right word!) the CL80 not just with cracking camera optics and all sorts of image improvement trickery, but also a plethora of connectivity options including WiFi, Bluetooth and DLNA. And HDMI. And then they threw in email as well. Oh and auto-uploads to a range of Web apps!

Seriously, the list goes on and on. So I suppose I’d better start then (deep breath!)

Samsung CL80 camera specs

First, the camera. The CL80 offers the following:

• 14 megapixels
• SchneiderKREUZNACH lens
• 720p video recording
• 7x optical zoom
• Digital image stabilization
• Smart face recognition with up to 20 faces
• Smile shot, blink detection, red-eye fix
• Panorama shot
• Object tracking auto focus
• Smart filter

Nothing too amazing there – indeed, it’s not that different from the latest top end camera phones! However, it’s the other features that Samsung have added that make the CL80 a revolutionary camera.

Connectivity

The CL80 is all about connectivity. To that end, Samsung have given it the following features:

• WiFi
• Bluetooth
• DLNA
• HDMI

This means you can view your shots in loads of different ways:

• Connect the CL80 to your HDTV via the HDMI connection and a cable
• Upload the pics to your PC via WiFi and view them there
• If your HDTV supports DLNA and WiFi, you can view the pics on your telly without the need for wires
• Same goes for a DLNA-equipped PC
• Transfer your pics to your digitial photo fram wirelessly (if your photo frame supports WiFi and DLNA)
• Share your photos with your own or your friends’ mobile phones via Bluetooth

One touch uploading to the Web

What if you want to upload your pics to the Web? Nom problem – if you’re in range of a WiFi connection, you can automatically upload them to the following:

• Facebook
• Picasa
• YouTube

Email sharing

Photo sharing Web sites not your thing? Fine, simply email your pictures instead. Yep, not only has the CL80 got an email client built-in, it’s also got a touchscreen QWERTY keyboard, so you can write an email, attach the pic, and send it to whoever you want!

Somebody from Samsung’s mobile phone division obviously walked into the wrong room one day and started working on the CL80 thinking it was Samsung’s latest wonder phone!

Other Features

I’ve still not finished, though. Aside form all the connectivity and super-sociable gadgets, the CL80 also features a tonne fo super-cool tech, including:

• 3.7″ AMOLED touchscreen
• 720p HD video recording
• SmartGesture touchscreen interface, which lets you access the phone’s various menus using swiping and gestures (told you someone from their phone division got lost!)
• Accelerometer – scroll through your pics by tilting the camera left or right

The Samsung CL80 – superb!

The Samsung CL80 is a fantastic new camera, and probably the most sociable camera around. With its huge range of connectivity options and super-easy uploading to loads of different Web sites, the CL80 makes it absurdly simple to share your photos with anyone or any device.

And surely that’s the point of photos – to share? I don’t want to go all wishy washy on you, but how many photos have you got trapped on your hard drive, or in your mobile phoe or camera?

At last, camera manufacturers are making a real effort to help not just take great photos, but to let others see them as well.

Samsung should be congratulated on make a cracking camera with the CL80 that really helps the user get the most out of their memories.

[Source: Gizmodo]

The iPod Touch made existing MP3 players look as outdated as mobile phones when the iPhone came out, but this may not be the case much longer. The Samsung P3 is just one of a new generation of MP3 and MP4 players that offer a brand new touch-based user interface that brings them far closer to the iPod Touch than ever before.

Samsung P3 MP4 player in detail

So what does the Samsung P3 offer? Well, obviously an MP3 player, and a nice set of features for organizing your music. You can access your favourite tunes instantly, for example, through the use of a Music Hot Touch Key, while the touchscreen user interface lets you choose tunes by pushing virtual keys and swiping your finger across the screen. As its a haptic interface, the device vibrates whenever you push a virtual key, giving you instant feedback of your actions.

The screen itself is a 3″ widescreen 16:9 format, which is useful for watching videos on, which you can watch in MPEG4, WMV and SVI formats.

The P3 also sports integrated speakers with Samsung’s amusingly-named DNSe 3.0 sound enhancement technology, and comes with storage of up to 32GB.

As you can see form the pictures of the P3, it also offers a variety of other features, including FM radio, several games, address book, alarm, calculator – in fact, the types of thing you’d find in a mobile phone.

Indeed, the P3′s user interface is called the EmoTure touch interface, which by the looks of it, seems very similar to the Samsung Tocco touchscreen mobile phone. Looking at the P3, then, I can’t help but feel it’s a top-end Samsung phone that’s had its mobile phone internals ripped out – but then, that’s no bad thing!

The user interface certainly looks good, and the brushed aluminium of the device’s body makes it exude a cool and stylish look.

No pricing or release date has yet been announced, which is annoying, as the price will surely dictate how successful the Samsung P3 will be compared to the iPod Touch.

[Source: Electronista]

A pico projector, if you’ve not heard the term before, is a tiny video projector that can project an image from a device onto a wall or other flat surface. In the case of the MBP200, the 2.2″ image you see on the screen can be projected onto a wall with a viewing area of 50″

This is the perfect combination of technologies – the device itself is small enough to fit in your pocket, while the image it projects is large enough to actually see!

Pico projector technology has been around in prototype form for the past two years or so, but this year at CES we’re finally starting to see some real products being released. Several stand-alone pico projectors were on show, but Samsung scooped them all by including a PMP within theirs.

It was assumed that pico projectors would find their natural home within mobile phones, but I guess the electronics and power requirements of a mobile phone + projector are too great for one device at the moment. A PMP, in contrast, doesn’t need the energy-sapping demands of a wireless radio, so it makes perfect sense to use it as the first device to include a pico projector.

Once the technology is proven, it can then be refined and integrated into a mobile phone, probably in 2010.

Samsung MBP200 specifications

Back to the Samsung MBP200 pico projector PMP though. Here are it specs:

• Features: File viewer, picture viewer, music player, video player
• Projection Panel: HVGA (480*320)
• LCD: 2.2
  ]]> http://mediamentalism.com/2009/01/08/samsung-mbp200-the-worlds-first-pico-projector-pmp/feed/ 0 http://mediamentalism.com/2009/01/08/ces-2009-samsung-hdtvs-with-wireless-dlna-youtube-leds-ktichen-sinks/ http://mediamentalism.com/2009/01/08/ces-2009-samsung-hdtvs-with-wireless-dlna-youtube-leds-ktichen-sinks/#comments Thu, 08 Jan 2009 00:14:54 +0000 Mike Evans http://mediamentalism.com/?p=873
  Last, but by no means least in this little round-up of HDTVs at CES 2009, comes the biggest gun of all – Samsung, the world’s biggest gadget manufacturer, who’ve launched a seemingly endless number of new HDTVs. Joining LG, Samsung have also been showing off a new range of Internet TV-equipped TVs that also feature Yahoo!’s new Widget Channel technology for direct access to YouTube, Yahoo! and Web content and Flickr images direct to the TV.

  Wireless DLNA

  Not content with Internet TV, though, Samsung have also equipped its Series 6 and 8 Plasma TVs with wireless DLNA, which means you can access all the content from any of your DLNA-equipped devices (mobile phones, cameras, PCs, etc.) wirelessly. You can view, browse and control the content directly through the TV without any wires whatsoever. And if your device doesn’t have DLNA, that’s OK too, as the TVs come with a USB 2.0 port!

  These incredible TVs come equipped with 3GPP, MKV, WMV9 and DivX codecs, meaning you can watch videos from your devices in a wide variety of different formats.

  LED TVs

  As if all that wasn’t enough, Samsung also released a new range of LED TVs. Yes, you read right, not LCD TVs, but genuine LED TVs, which give a much greater contrast ratio than LCD technology (which itself is currently capable of 2,000,000:1) for much deeper blacks, while consuming 40% less power than their LCD equivalent.

  [Source: EngadgetHD]

  ]]> http://mediamentalism.com/2009/01/08/ces-2009-samsung-hdtvs-with-wireless-dlna-youtube-leds-ktichen-sinks/feed/ 4 http://mediamentalism.com/2008/12/15/samsungs-interface-from-hell/ http://mediamentalism.com/2008/12/15/samsungs-interface-from-hell/#comments Mon, 15 Dec 2008 19:05:16 +0000 admin http://mediamentalism.com/?p=842

  This weekend I had the unhappy misfortune of using Samsung’s YP-U4 mp3 player; code named Litmus due to its colour graduation. First looks were good: it

  ]]> http://mediamentalism.com/2008/12/15/samsungs-interface-from-hell/feed/ 1 http://mediamentalism.com/2008/09/11/mysterious-samsung-dvr-set-to-topple-sky/ http://mediamentalism.com/2008/09/11/mysterious-samsung-dvr-set-to-topple-sky/#comments Thu, 11 Sep 2008 23:52:33 +0000 Mike Evans http://mediamentalism.com/?p=557
  News has leaked out that Samsung are set to launch a new Set Top Box in Europe that could revolutionize the way you use your TV. It’s an odd-looking box as you can see from the pics, with retro-looking green LEDs giving limited information from the box itself. This suggests to me that it’ll be inexpensive, which is very good news indeed.

  Why? Because the new Samsung STB you see here is actually a DVR, capable of storing HD programmes internally. Better still, it comes with DLNA, meaning it can browse the content from your DLNA-equipped phone and camera (and any other DLNA device) without any configuring; and it’ll also be able to access “Internet media”, which I’m guessing means the likes of YouTube and Flickr.

  Put all this together and you have a low-cost alternative to the Sky+ box that will also help DLNA finally reach market penetration, as well as getting the masses used to seeing YouTube and Flickr on their TV. In other words, the Web is about to go mainstream as a major distributor of video content, and the process of it replacing traditional TV broadcasting is really gaining momentum.

  Better still, with more and more companies supporting DLNA in increasingly-cheaper devices, the vision of all devices around the home being able to seamlessly share each other’s content is at last starting to become a reality.

  We’ll be keeping a close eye on this Samsung box to see exactly what lurks behind its impenetrable facade (i.e. more news as soon as we get it!)

  [Source: AkihabaraNews]

  ]]> http://mediamentalism.com/2008/09/11/mysterious-samsung-dvr-set-to-topple-sky/feed/ 0