Media Streamers

We don't watch FCC filings quite as closely as some sites, but word that Western Digital has a new media streamer moving through the FCC offices seemed worthy of note. The WD TV Live series of media streamers have achieved a fair measure of mainstream success, and the company's latest entry appears to take direct aim at the Roku family by adding support for games. The WD TV Play will sport a redesigned remote and at least two casual game services at launch, along with all the usual media streaming capablities that we have come to expect from Western Digital. Streaming and casual gaming services are looking to be an increasingly important part of the feature list for any new media streamer or smart TV these days, and Western Digital appears ready to play with the big boys.

Western Digital’s WD TV line has been one of the more successful forays into the connected media player market, and the company appears to be ready to introduce a new model that brings with it a little big-screen gaming action. The WD TV Play has checked in at the the FCC for the standard battery of tests, and its user manual has revealed a few tidbits about the as-yet-unannounced device.

Geek.com

Google took to the stage in San Francisco this week for the Google I/O Developer's Conference. The company had several things to announce this year, including a version of Chrome for iOS devices and the Nexus 7 media tablet poised to take on the Amazon Kindle Fire, but around these parts, there was probably more interest in some of the anticipated Google TV announcements. Unfortunately, only Sony and Vizio seemed interested in showing Google TV some love this week. Google was busy announcing their new media streamer, the Nexus Q. The Nexus Q is a small, spherical device that supports both wired and wireless networking and offers HDMI and optical audio outputs, as well a 25-watt amplifier and banana plugs for direct speaker connections. The Nexus Q's announcement came as a surprise, but the biggest surprise had to be that the Nexus Q is not powered by Google TV. Instead, the Nexus Q is a brand new type of media streamer intended to bring YouTube and Google Play media to the living room, in much the same manner that Apple TV brings iTunes media to the living room, but without support for any other streaming media services or awareness of personal media. In addition to being narrowly focused, the Nexus Q is pricey at $299 and can only be controlled via the Nexus Q Android app. There is no 10-foot UI or remote control at all. I've expressed some reservations regarding Google TV before, but based on some of the early reviews for the Nexus Q, I would probably be more far more bearish on the future of this new device.

Six months ago former Google CEO Eric Schmidt predicted that Google TV would be embedded on the majority of new televisions by this summer. That hasn't happened, but it's not stopping Mountain View from entering the living room from a different angle — with its own branded media streamer, the Nexus Q. The Q acts exclusively as a receiver for audio and video content from Google's online media services, all controlled with your Android tablet or smartphone.

The Verge

Google was looking to give their Google TV platform a boost at CES this year and at least one new hardware manufacturer pledging their support was LG. In particular, LG was showing off a Google TV-powered smart TV along with a special version of the motion-sensitive LG Magic Remote Control with a QWERTY keyboard. It has been a few months, but LG is finally ready to try selling their Google TV sets later this month. The new TVs will reportedly be available for sale the week of May 21. There are no firm details on how extensive LG's lineup will be or on pricing, but it does sound like we can expect multiple models. Google TV seemed ready to gain some momentum with the announcement of Google TV 2.0 and with a strong showing at CES, but the delay in bringing that new hardware to market has quieted the buzz considerably, so it will be interesting to see if LG's new hardware actually attracts any attention in the mainstream.

The executive didn’t reveal any details relating to screen sizes or pricing, although according to PC World, the South Korean firm has previously said that its Google TV-powered lineup would include LG Cinema 3D displays between 55 and 84 inches (diagonal), a 3D conversion engine that can turn any 2D TV show or movie into a 3D spectacle, and an LG Magic Remote including a QWERTY keyboard.

TechSpot

I was a bit surprised when D-Link announced their new MovieNite media streamer the other day. After all, doesn't D-Link sell the Boxee Box? At $200, the Boxee Box is obviously targeted at a different market than the $50 MovieNite, but I would have expected D-Link to work with the Boxee team on producing a more limited version of the Boxee Box for introductory price points. However, a recent tweet from Boxee reveals one possible reason why D-Link may not have felt much incentive to build out the Boxee brand for new devices and markets. At the moment, Boxee is only reporting about 200,000 Boxee Box users. Undoubtedly some percentage of Boxee Box users are not going online and thus are not being included in Boxee's count of users, but it is unlikely that this constitutes a particularly large percentage, which means that D-Link and Boxee have only sold in the neighborhood of 200,000 Boxee Box units. The media streamer market has proven to be a tough nut to crack, but at 200,000 units, the Boxee Box is still going to be way down the list. Making the possible sales numbers even more disheartening is the acknowledgement that the defunct Boxee for PC software is evidently rocking 10 times as many users as the Boxee Box that the Boxee team has decided to concentrate all of its attention on.

The total number of Boxee Box users is around 200,000, according to a tweet sent out by the company Wednesday. The tweet also revealed that Boxee now has a total of 2 million users, if you include users of the discontinued PC client.

GigaOM