What is an HD Network Media Player?

hd-network-media-player

Here at Nixeus we sometimes forget that high definition network media players aren’t common knowledge that everyone knows and loves (yet). Since all of our time is spent working to perfect these little pieces of machinery, we admit sometimes the level of tech gets a little too fancy. Regardless of whether you are just researching new multimedia technology available for the home, or if you are interested in streaming HD videos from your computer to your tv; we’ve got you covered.

In this post we’ll provide a quick breakdown of just exactly what a “network media player” is, and tell you a bit about why the Nixeus players really stand out.

 

So, what is an hd network media player?

A box or device that connects to your HDTV & home entertainment system to play high definition media.  The media player does not make any sound, or display any video, it simply sends the audio & video to your respective devices.  Think of it as a DVD player on steroids, then you’re starting to get the idea.

 

What’s inside these contraptions?

Every box has a remote control as well as controls on the front, and a bunch of techo-gizmo gear.  The important stuff revolves around have an internal hard drive and processing units which actually run commonly used operating systems.  The Nixeus Fusion XS and Fusion HD both come with the open-source android operating system, how cool is that?

 

What can they do?

While every different product contains various different features, Nixeus stand above them all by offering several key features that really benefit the home entertainment lovers like you.

    • Download and play torrents directly from the player
    • Stream HD quality video from your pc to your TV
    • Browse the web, watch YouTube videos, or browse your photos
    • Install unlimited android apps from the marketplace
    • Stream internet radio from your TV
    • and more

 

The bottom line

HD network media players are an up and coming technology that are really starting to gain popularity.  If you don’t already have one in your living room, it’s about time to start doing your research and adding one of these wonderful gizmos to your home entertainment system soon!

If you’d like to learn more about our products, take a look at the Nixeus HD Network Media Players here.

 

Google Enters Hardware Devolpment With Motorolla Purchase

On August 15, 2011, Google announced their intensions of buying Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion which indicates their focus on getting into the hardware market and to acquire Motorola’s extensive patent portfolio. The main goal of Google may be to strengthen the Android Smart Phone OS by complementing it with Motorola’s expertise with hardware development along with their portfolio of patents to protect themselves from the likes of Microsoft, Apple, and Oracle’s recent purchase of Nortel’s patents. It is hard to ignore that Motorola also has some hardware experience in the set-top box and networking hardware industry which may help revamp their recent failed Google TV experiment.
With the announced purchase of Motorola, Google TV may finally have more in-house hardware development in their preparation of developing a suitable media player after their failed attempt with the Logitech Revue Google TV solution that resulted in over $30 million loss for Logitech in the previous quarter. The recent purchase of SageTV back in June 2011 combined with their Motorola purchase and business relationship with Logitech; it seems that Google is preparing to bring the Google TV experience to both Home Theater PCs, set-top, and media player market. A combined SageTV and Google Android OS may provide a suitable middleware development to bring a market ready product to the media streaming industry. Hopefully their execution this time is more promising than their previous attempt and may help further development for the overall good of Android OS for media players and set-top boxes.

Nixeus Technology Broadens Product Availability with D&H Distributing

LOS ANGELES–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Nixeus Technology, a leading manufacturer of HD network media players, today announced the company has officially partnered with D&H Distributing to carry the company’s innovative line of multimedia solutions. As one of the nation’s leading technology distributors, D&H offers end-to-end solutions for today’s reseller and retailer and the clients they cater to across the SMB and consumer markets.

“We’re happy to invest in Nixeus’ technologies as a distribution partner, delivering a quality selection of multimedia devices to our dealers.”

Since 2010, Nixeus Technology has created an innovative line of multimedia solutions, including HD Network Media Players and HDMI cables. Nixeus Technology is committed to bridging the gap between personal computers and home entertainment centers, producing reliable products and quality service.

As a national leading technology distributor, D&H prides itself on creating business partnerships with a strong focus on ease-of-doing-business, relationships, value and performance and service. The company provides a vast amount of resources to empower the dealer, installer and reseller channel, delivering a broad selection of categories, products and applications. With offerings spanning the areas of consumer electronics, home entertainment, home networking and automation, and many others, D&H is widely recognized as a trusted advisor to the consumer electronics supply channel.

“Streaming media, Internet-ready TV and digital media playback has captured the interest of consumers everywhere, making this an important development in how America views its content,” said Rob Eby, vice president of purchasing, D&H. “We’re happy to invest in Nixeus’ technologies as a distribution partner, delivering a quality selection of multimedia devices to our dealers.”

D&H ships out of five separate locations in North America, with US headquarters in Harrisburg and Canadian headquarters in Mississauga, Ontario. More information about D&H can be found by visiting www.dandh.com. Additional information about Nixeus Technology and the company’s multimedia solutions can be found directly at www.Nixeus.com.

About Nixeus Technology

Nixeus Technology was founded in 2009, and is dedicated to providing consumers worldwide with the most innovative multimedia solutions the market offers. The company provides cross-platform interoperability and is compatible and an extensive list of codec files, including the most updated file formats. With a solid background in digital network media and audio-video peripherals, Nixeus Technology is committed to bridging the gap between personal computers and home entertainment centers.

Contacts

Canyon PR
Megan Saulsbury, 408-857-9527
megan@canyonpr.com

Video Rental store? What’s a video rental store?

Video Rental store? What’s a video rental store?

Imagine 5 to 10 years from now. Imagine your kids asking you how family nights were spent. You would tell them that you would go the local video rental store with your family and you would rent the latest movies that were out. Your kids would probably say one thing? What’s a video store? Blockbuster? Hollywoodvideos?  Your kids would ask what those places were.  You would have to explain to your kids that back in the “dinosaur age” movies rentals could be watched by going to a renting store to get your locale movies. Ah a simpler time it was! Now let’s take a look at what has contributed to a change in an old family past time.

Delivering content to your home

Netflix was probably one of the first reasons why the brick and mortar stores have become useless. Netflix was founded in late 90s. The business was mailing movies directly to people’s home and they would send it back whenever they wanted without any late fees. Netflix has began making a big play in the streaming department where customers pay a flat fee and stream any movie they want on the internet. The company has grown tremendously fast. As of September 30, 2010 the company has had over 16 million customers. (Netflix)

Cheap Convenient Rentals

A company that doesn’t really involve digital technology but has become a thorn to video rental stores is Redbox. A subsidiary of Coinstar, Redbox machines are called kiosks that have DVDs in them which you can get for as little as $1. Think of them as vending machines but for movies. You can find them in most grocery or convenient stores.  Why go all the way to a video rental store when you can just rent what you want after shopping for groceries? As of September 30, 2010 they had over 28,500 DVD kiosks in over 24,900 locations. –(Coinstar)

The Elephant in the Room

The biggest cause for the downfall of video stores is downloading. Downloading has caused other brick and mortar stores to go down before.  Tower Records anyone? A large number of people out there download most of their content through torrent sites or other P2P sites. A study in March 2010 showed that in a sample size of 1600 people, 35% of people use torrent websites and 71% of the files downloaded were movies. (Computerweekly.com) With more and more people adopting broadband and high speed internet the number should go way up and with movies taking longer to go on to Netflix and Redbox (30-45 days after its initial DVD release). Downloading movies via Torrents is the fastest way to get the latest movies out there.

The Results

Bye Bye Video Rental Stores. Rental stores such as the once Mighty Blockbuster are now a thing of the past. Faced with losing customers and almost $1billion in debt the company filed for Ch11 bankruptcy in September 23, 2010. The company is left with 3000 stores and it is changing its business model by opening up DVD kiosks throughout the nation (Blockbuster 2010)

Its main competitor Hollywood Video filed for Chapter 7 Bankruptcy on May 2010 (Wall Street Journal)

The Way of the Future

Set top boxes are where entertainment is moving. Every month we here about a company releasing a media player. Network Media Players give users the best of both worlds. A network media player allows users to play digitally downloaded files on to their HD TV. Media players allow users to watch files the way they are supposed to be in a clear and high definition TV with surround sound instead of on a computer monitor. With digital downloads being a huge portion of how movies are being watched, a method to watch them on the TV is necessary.

So there you have it. That’s the story of how the video rental store has gone the way of the dinosaur. The new digital environment has caused the old business model to be obsolete and there is no way a brick and mortar store can compete with that. Technology is advancing at a fast rate. With hardware and software advancements your kids will wonder What’s a video Store?

How to download a movie using Bittorent

Watching movies and music on your network media player is very entertaining and relaxing. Currently, there are 3 options to get a movie onto your media player.

1) Download the movies/musics to your PCs and then save onto the Media Player

2) Stream files from your PCs onto the Media Player via network

3) Download it directly from the Media Player.

This page is focused on the 1st option and it will tell you how to use BitTorrent to download musics/movies to your PCs. BitTorrent is currently the most popular way to download movies and music from the internet. It is very easy to use, but can be a confusing task for older people and people unfamiliar with computers and the internet. There are 3 things you need to know about in order to use torrents.

1. BitTorrent client: This is the program that opens .torrent files, allowing you to download your music or video files. You can find many different BitTorrent clients around the web. Utorrent is my personal favorite and one of the most popular torrent clients.

2. The torrent file: This is a small file that is used by the bit torrent client to find and download the files you want. It is not the actual movie or song that you want to download. You can find .torrent files by searching on Google or on a torrent indexing website or tracker.

3. The torrent tracker: This is a website which hosts and organizes the .torrent files. The torrent tracker does not actually host any media files. You will actually be downloading the media from “peers”. A peer is someone who is connected to you and has the same .torrent file running in a bit torrent client. You will actually be downloading the data from these peers. Some of the more popular .torrent tracking websites are; www.thepiratebay.org,www.isohunt.org and www.btjunkie.com.

So now that you know the basics, lets download a movie using bittorrent.

The first step is downloading the BitTorrent client. Go to www.utorrent.com (copy and paste it to your browser), download and install the program.

Once you have the program installed you need to download a .torrent file from thepiratebay, isohunt, or another tracker.

When you have the .torrent file saved to your computer open it with Utorrent. Once the file is opened in Utorrent it will ask you where you want to save the file you will be downloading. Select a folder or the desktop and click ok.

Depending on the popularity of the movie and your internet connection it may take minutes or hours to download the entire movie, be patient. The status bar next to the torrent will tell you what percentage of the movie is finished downloading.

There is one more thing you have to be aware of when downloading torrents and it is often forgotten. That is privacy. In order to protect your privacy online it is recommended that you use a program like PeerBlock when downloading torrents.

Now that you are a master of BitTorrent and will soon have hard drives full of movies to watch, finding a way to watch those movies on your TV is your next challenge. Luckily there is an amazing product which makes it easy to watch high definition movies from your computer right on your television. The Nixeus Fusion HD Network Media Player! Check it out at http://www.nixeus.com

Disclaimer* Downloading copyrighted content is illegal and we do not encourage it. However there are many movies released for free online and distributed through BitTorrent by their creators.