I have a feeling Auto Rip n Compress is going to be everyone’s next “must-have” add-in for Windows Media Center. The add-in allows you to easily rip DVD or Blu-ray movies from your couch using only your remote. Of course, you’ll need to have some software pre-installed on your PC — like AnyDVD HD, Handbrake, ImgBurn, Haali Media Splitter, etc. — and a free account with Get Digital Data (aka GD3) to get the whole experience going. But after that, though, you’ll be in ripping nirvana making compressed or uncompressed movie copies complete with metadata and cover art. By the way, if you like Auto Rip n Compress, consider making a PayPal donation to the developer — it’s good karma. [via] MORE »

Sure the idea of ripping all your Blu-ray discs to your PC’s hard drive or networked home server sounds appealing, but the reality of going through the process isn’t quite as pleasant — especially when you consider how much storage space you’ll need (an uncompressed Blu-ray movie copy can be 25+ GB in size). Enter the S1Digital Blu-ray Disc Changer (MSRP $1,499). According to the company’s press release (attached below), the S1Digital Blu-ray Disc Changer can supply your Windows Vista / 7 Media Center PC or Windows Home Server an instant catalog of available movies to play or serve up. In addition, S1Digital is bundling in a free copy of the My Movies add-in to manage your collection and pull all the relevant metadata and cover art to keep your library of Blu-ray movies up to date. MORE »

Eariler this week Sony announced its entrant into the networked Blu-ray player space. And I’ve got to tell you… the BDP-N460 doesn’t disappoint. For $249.99 (great price), Sony’s Blu-ray player out of the box supports Netflix, YouTube, Blip.tv, Crackle, and Slacker Radio online entertainment services, as well as its own BRAVIA Internet Video platform. While the BDP-N460 includes a standard Ethernet port for Internet connectivity, Sony has partnered with Linksys to support their WET610N Dual Band Wireless-N Ethernet Bridge adapter for added flexibility. And like most high-end Blu-ray players available, the BDP-N460 supports BD-LIVE content (requires a USB Flash drive), upscales SD video to HD, and is capable of outputting 1080p video with 7.1 Dolby Digital and DTS-HD audio via HDMI. Ships October 2009. MORE »

Almost every month we hear about new supported services being added to networked Blu-ray players and HDTVs from the likes of LG, Samsung, and others. Today Samsung is pushing out a new firmware update that adds YouTube (not YouTube HD — at least not yet) and Blockbuster video streaming to its line of Network Blu-ray players. But if that wasn’t enough Samsung has added support for the fairly new and popular video container, MKV. According to CNET, an MKV-wrapped AVC file worked well playing off a USB flash drive and had no problems jumping forward and back through the track. MORE »

Damian from A Digital Home Blog has contributed a post to MediaSmartServer.net comparing the efficiency of the mkv, ts, m2ts containers for HD video — specifically for a Blu-ray movie. In short, his results found that with a 38.4GB disc converted to mkv (using MakeMKV) yielded a 27.GB file, ts (using Clown_BD) yielded a 27.8GB file, and m2ts (using Clown_BD) yielded a 28.4GB file. However, Damian notes on his blog that his container of choice currently is ts for HD content due to the fact that Clown_BD allows one to add an additional AC3 track along side the original HD audio for better device playback compatibility.

It’s out! Hard to believe that in less than three years Sony is now unveiling a slimmer, lighter, and less power-hungry PlayStation 3. The new PS3 Slim will sell for $299 [Amazon] this September and include a larger 120GB hard drive — not bad for a combined Game Console, Blu-ray player, PC/Internet streamer device. Attached above is a video of Sony’s Jack Tretton introducing the PS3 Slim. [via] MORE »

Where has this product been hiding? I stumbled on the ASRock ION 330 Series Nettop while browsing the pics from COMPUTEX 2009 in June and saw an attractive little PC sporting Blu-ray capabilities. Intrigued, I did a little research. It turns out ASRock is primarily a motherboard manufacture who has branched out into creating nettop PCs. However, the ION 330 Series is like none anyone has seen to date. MORE »

If you’ve been holding out on buying a Blu-ray disc player until something utterly cool comes out, then Sony’s ES Series player just might fit the bill. The BDP-S1000ES (MSRP $699) offers full HD 1080p (60/24fps) True Cinema video output, Blu-ray BD-Live support (includes a 4GB USB flash drive for download file storage), 7.1 channel audio out, DVD movie upscaling to Cinema HD quality, built-in 802.11n Wi-Fi, and DLNA/UPnP support so users can playback audio, video, and photo content stored on a network PC or media server. Install PlayOn on your PC (for Hulu, Netflix, YouTube content) and you’ve got yourself a nice setup — but then again… Sony may later add Internet Video Link technology to the player at some point via a firmware upgrade. MORE »

In a joint press release with Samsung, Blockbuster is announcing that later this Fall they will begin offering their OnDemand movie service via select Samsung HDTVs and network Blu-ray players. (I’m sure other partners will be announced later.) What’s interesting, is that in order to do this, Blockbuster must have updated their OnDemand service to provide instant streaming similar to Netflix to support these devices instead of progressive download playback – which is how their own hard drive based 2WIRE MediaPoint Player works. What would really be lame (depending on your point of view), however, is if the new service required one to attach an external USB hard drive in order to use the service. Someone please tell me that’s not the case. [via + image credit] MORE »

If you’ve been holding out on buying a Blu-ray disc player or just waiting for one that included both network connectivity and built-in Wi-Fi, then wait no longer. LG’s new BD390 is now the hands-down hottest device of its type on the market (MSRP $450). What makes it so great? Well, for starters, it’s the first network Blu-ray player to offer built-in 802.11n connectivity and provide DivX HD 1080p content playback (from a DVD or USB flash drive) and PC streaming support. MORE »