Tag Archives | Dolby

HP’s New ProBook: Serious Sound and Pay-as-You-Go Broadband

PC manufacturers like to draw sharp lines between their machines aimed at consumers and the ones built for business. In the real world, things aren’t that simple. I know consumers who like to buy business computers, since they’re often built at least a bit sturdier, aim for reliability rather than bleeding edge-components, feature industrial design that avoids the trendy, and typically come with better warranties. And I also know worker bees who like to get their hands on cool stuff fast and therefore buy consumer systems.

Lately, computer makers seem to be acknowledging that the line between consumery and businessy design is increasingly blurry. HP’s new ProBook 5330m notebook is a case in point: it’s HP’s first business notebook to come with Beats audio, the sound system endorsed by Dr. Dre. The 5330m also features HP’s “Forge” brushed-aluminum industrial design, whose basically philosphy is “Let’s try to make a business notebook that has a bit of style to it, without getting so splashy that it’ll turn off conservative buyers at big companies.” And it’s got a 13.3″ display and no optical drive, a form factor that was pretty darn scarce among corporate machines until recently.

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Vudu on LG Blu-Ray, Rotten Tomatoes on Vudu

Vudu LogoOver the past few months, Internet movie company Vudu has been in the process of morphing from a company that makes a box into a company that (also) licenses its platform to much larger consumer-electronics companies for incorporation into other devices. Yesterday, owners of LG’s BD390 Blu-Ray players got a software update that put the ability to rent and buy movies from Vudu capability on their players. To celebrate, Vudu held a press event at a screening room at Dolby Labs in San Francisco, where it streamed video in its HDX extra-high-quality HD onto a theater screen. It played without hiccups, held up well, and generally helped confirm that Vudu is a neat option for folks who want movies delivered via the Internet without any compromise in visuals or sound.

Also on display at the Dolby event was Mitsubishi’s 52-inch LT-52249 LCD TV with built-in Vudu–a drool-worthy $3099 1080p display that showed off Vudu’s razor-sharp video to impressive advantage. (The Bolt trailer has never looked so good.)

Vudu’s biggest limitation is that unlike humongous archrival iTunes, it’s only available in the living room–not on computers and portable devices. A Vudu representative at the event said that the company said that figuring out how to bring Vudu to more devices is on its to-do list.

The company also announced that Vudu has now integrated Rotten Tomatoes movie reviews into its service’s slick user interface, providing access to a much richer database of critiques as you browse for stuff to watch.

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