According to lots of rumors in the last week, Apple is looking to unveil a home media server that can share a user’s home video, music and photos from anywhere in the home or over the Internet. Yes, that’s all your media served up in a cloud.

According to 9to5Mac, it would run through your MobileMe account, where a dynamic DNS will tie into Apple’s home media server. Essentially, this box will let you access all of your media (video, music or photos) anywhere in the world as long as you have a broadband connection.

According to the rumors, the media server would run on Apple’s Time Machine, not the Leopard operating system.  This makes me wonder what will happen to Apple TV, which has fizzled in the market. It’s sold so poorly that Jobs even called Apple TV a “hobby”.

So is this a real product Apple is working on? I sure hope so! Odds are it won’t be released during this year’s MacWorld show, but you never know. I would pay about $10 to $20 a month for a service like that.  It would be really convenient because I wouldn’t need to carry CD or DVDs with me when I travel, and I don’t have to worry if I have all my music with me wherever I go.

Not to mention, having instant access to all my media anywhere in the world would put my Xbox Windows Media Center to shame. (Uh, Microsoft, maybe you should work on something like this too?)

As if that isn’t enticing enough, there’s talk allowing the iPhone to access your media on the cloud.  So you won’t even need a computer, just your iPhone to access all your media. However, there is already one iPhone app that let you listen to your home music files. Simpfly Media says that their software allows users to access iTunes from iPhone via 3G or Wi-Fi networks.  I haven’t used the software yet, but am testing it in the next few days and will report back here.

Over at Crunch Gear and Crave, they’re showing off a new product called the TVix media hub. It looks cool–somewhat like a coffeemaker–but it connects to your TV (via HDMI or other connections) and lets you access your media from your PC. Apparently, it can play 1080p movies, DVDs, music, photos and movies on a built-in hard drive.  It can also be used as a DVR by connecting a tuner adapter, sold separately.

Not a bad idea, but there are lots of other products like it. But is it really worth $520? Who would want to buy this except media geeks and early adopters?

Sure it looks cool and I’d love to play with it, but do I really need it? Check out the manufacturer’s page here for more info.

[Via NewEgg]

Technorati Tags: TVix, media hub, DViCO, media extender, DVR, PVR

Digeo unveiled a software version of its DVR set-top box which lets PC users record TV from their computers. Digeo makes a line of media recorders called Moxi.

Users must have Windows XP, a TV tuner card to use the Moxi TV for PC software, which is available free during the beta trial period.

Other software-based DVRs include ReplayTV, BeyondTV, Windows Media Center and Orb.

[Via Download Squad]

Technorati Tags: Moxi, Digeo, DVR, PVR

I love media. I’ve got hundreds of CDs, thousands of photos and lots of gigabytes worth of movies stored on my home PC. With so much content, I really wanted space where I could everything without taking up space on my PC. My solution was to get a network attached storage device.

I recently bought a Buffalo LinkStation Live network attached storage (NAS) device. It’s 750GB so it can fit all my music, movies and photos. And since it’s attached to the network I can access it from my home network, or anywhere in the world via the Internet. Pretty cool, eh? 

The one thing I’m missing, however, is the connection between the PC and TV. But since my LinkStation works as a media server, all I need is a compatible device.

Media extenders act as the bridge between PCs and TVs. They connect to your TV set and let you watch movies from your PC. PC Magazine wrote up a round up of products that can do this, including the Apple TV, Netgear’s extender, the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. But the Xbox and PS3 aren’t full media extenders–they’re game systems that can do some movies and media center functions. And Apple TV has just been pretty much ignored by everyone, including Apple.

Now, SanDisk has unveiled a new flash-memory-based device that can take content from your PC to the TV. But no matter how SanDisk makes it look pretty, it’s still sneakernet–you have to physically walk the flash-memory device from the PC to the TV.

Media extenders seem like the best solution for me, especially now that I’ve parked all my media on my NAS. The Buffalo LinkStation that I bought is compatible with DLNA certified media devices, like Buffalo’s own LinkTheater Wireless A&G Network Media Player. I was also impressed by some media extenders that Linksys unveiled last month.

DLNA (Digital Living Network Alliance) is still a pretty new concept that not may people have heard of. It’s simply a way to share media between PCs, TVs and other consumer devices within a home network.

I’m pretty excited about having tons of storage, and am getting ready to buy a media extender to really take advantage of all my media. As much I love my media, I want to have it everywhere I go, and on any device. But alas, we haven’t gotten there yet.

SanDisk announced a USB product that bridges the distance between a PC and TVs allowing viewers to transfer files from the computer to the device and into a cradle connected to the TV.

The TakeTV Video Player, is meant to make it easy to transfer TV shows and movies from PC to TVs but adds yet another equipment residing next to the TV. I guess until TV sets come with USB ports, we’ll need to have a device like this. The device is available in 4GB ($99) and 8GB ($149) versions.

I’m not convinced that this is the best way to get content to your TV, but it might prove to be quick and a good low-cost way. The alternative is to a) run a wire from your PC to TV b) burn a DVD and play it on your TV or c) use a media center extender like NetGear or even Apple TV.

With the SanDisk method, you can get decent content (without going through BitTorrent) and a somewhat easy way to bridge the famous “ten-foot” gap between the PC and TV.

The bad news? You can’t take protected content, like stuff from iTunes or Amazon Unbox.

SanDisk also unveiled Fanfare, a new online video service where users can download TV shows and movies.  Content partners include CBS, Showtime Networks, Smithsonian Networks, The Weather Channel and Jaman.com. Fanfare content will also be downloadable to mobile phones, handheld computers and TVs.

[Via Forbes,  SF Chronicle and others]

Technorati Tags: SanDisk, FanFare, TakeTV, PC-to-TV