An Italian company called TVBLOB has announced the BLOBbox, a product that lets people share their digital photos and videos via standard or high-definition television. Additionally, the BLOBbox brings multimedia content and social networking to people who are averse to using computers and mobile devices for accessing the Internet. In short, the BLOBbox blends the traditional characteristics of broadcast TV with new Web TV possibilities.

Website: BLOBbox

TVBLOB Press Release

Watch TV like you have never seen it before! Discover the world of online videos, as well as share, comment and upload your own directly from your TV!

Until now you haven’t been able to fully appreciate the Internet’s potential because no one has brought you the Internet on TV in High Definition! Discover how easy YouTube®, Flickr®, Picasa®, websites, and online television can be away from your PC. What do you have to learn to use it? Just the remote control! Watch BitTorrent®, YouTube®, streaming video and podcasting. BLOBbox facilitates the downloading and playout of content shared on the network with BitTorrent Peer-to-Peer file sharing technology. Find your favorite videos, schedule the download, and later view it from the comfort of your own couch! Thanks to Internet services already integrated, you can search and view YouTube video, as well as access and record video content from around the world! Are you a fan of surfing, cooking or even CNN®? Subscribe to the free podcasts and your BLOBbox will automatically update and download the content for you, ready to watch, when you want!

Record your favorite digital TV with a double DTT digital tuner. With the BLOBbox TV tuner, you can watch all of the available free-to-air digital terrestial television channels. Plus for the ultimate viewing
freedom, you can watch one TV program while recording another, and even program a recording with the timer, all thanks to a double DTT tuner. The recordings will be saved digitally on the built-in internal hard drive.

View your video in High Definition up to 1080p. Using a HDMI port, your videos and photos can be viewed with the distinct qualtiy of High Defintion, providing you with incredible realism and depth. Share web 2.0 online services and social networking, or alternatively create your own! BLOBbox is based upon the TVBLOB platform, one which allows any programmer to add their own online services. This means that the functionality available will continually expand, enriching the viewing experience to always be more entertaining and useful! You will be able explore new social networking options such as Facebook®, forums, newsgroups and blogging. With the BLOBbox, you also will be able to comment, send photos and video on websites with web 2.0 interactivity.

Easily access hard disks with a UPnP network. BLOBbox offers UPnP and NAS hard disk functionality to allow copying of files from your home PC and remote control of the box for recording, programming, copying and reproduction of films from PC’s connected to the network.

Technical Specifications

Video formats         PAL, NTSC, HDTV (720p, 1080i, 1080p)
TV Tuner               Double tuner DVB-T with pass-through
Hard Disk             160gb Hard Disk incorporated, 7200 giri (another 100 hours of recording
digitial terrestial TV flow, 400 hours of video Internet content)
Outputs               HDMI, SCART (double SCART with pass-through for another A/V device),
digital audio output SPDIF, analogic audio stereo
Media Formats       Full support for TS, PS, MP4, MOV, ASF, MP3 (MKV in progress)
Traffic shaping         Accurate packet scheduling to maximize operativity and fluidity on
network best effort
Network Interface     Ethernet 10/100 RJ45 (optional Powerline Adapter and Wi-Fi)
Network Protocols     DHCP, IGMP, RTP, RTCP, UDP, TCP
NAT Traversal Automatic UDP NAT Traversal; managed NAT option with External IP
Address and External Port defined by user or Network Administrator
SAP Option to set SAP Multicast Group and Port (for Multicast streaming
announcements)
Remote Access via PC Box and installed disc control via Web Browser installed on the PC in
local
Diagnostic           Automatic Testing of the Network, Internet, TVBLOB service with onscreen
help
Periferial ports       USB 2.0.
Browser             HTML 4, XHTML 1.0, CSS, Javascript 1.5, SSL/TLS
Operating system     Linux-based
Others               Forward Error Correction

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