Microsoft made the official announcement late Tuesday that the Zune HD, the next generation of the Zune media player, would indeed be hitting the market in the near future. The Zune HD packs some new features including built-in HD radio, high-def video out, OLED multi-touch screen, WiFi and an included internet browser.

Seagate recently introduced a new home media player designed to work with its FreeAgent Go portable hard drives. The new FreeAgent Theater HD media player will be available in March for around $130 standalone, or it can be paired with one of several Seagate FreeAgent Go drives for varying prices.

The FreeAgent Theater is designed to let one enjoy media content stored on the FreeAgent Go drive via a home entertainment system. The FreeAgent Theater media player supports MPEG-1, MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 formats, and DIVX files with video resolutions for NTSC, PAL and HD up to 1080i. The audio formats supported include 5.1 channel surround sound, where available, and also plays the popular digital audio formats including: MP3, WMA, WAV and OGG.

Sony’s got some new marine CD receivers (slow news day…) which it says are its first to connect directly to digital music players via a USB connection. The marine head units (models CDX-H910UI and CDX-M60UI) are priced at around $350 and $200 respectively.

These new marine receivers include include a 4.9-foot cable with a USB cable, which allows it to connect to iPod and other USB media players. Both sport sound enhancement technology and play MP3, non-DRM WMA and non-DRM AAC music files.

Addlogix is releasing an upgrade to its IV-2020, which lets you display your computer screen on a television display. This upgrade, known as the IV-2020-RC, will run you around $230.

The IV-2020-RC, as an upgrade, now features an an IR remote control which will allow users to control the mouse and perform basic text entry and other keystrokes from another room. The primary focus of this device is to allow to view streaming video wirelessly to a TV or projector via the computer’s onboard or add-on IEEE 802.11 b/g adapter., according to Addlogix.

Iomega recently popped out a new multimedia device which lets you play media files through attached USB storage media. It is called the Iomega ScreenPlay TV Link and you’ll find it pricing around $100.

The Iomega ScreenPlay TV Link, unlike most other Iomega products, lacks any internal storage of its own. It rather acts as a device bridge between your home entertainment equipment and USB storage media containing compatible digital music, photos and videos. It offers a USB port for attaching compatible storage devices as well as A/V connection options like HDMI and composite.

The wireless mult-room music system developers over at Sonos are releasing some new players to update their line of products. These are the Sonos ZonePlayer 120 and ZonePlayer 90, priced at around $500 and $350, respectively.

The Sonos ZonePlayer 120 offers up what the manufacturer says are “advances in power supply design, digital amplifier engineering, industrial design, and mechanical engineering.” These all amounts to what is perhaps the best ZonePlayer to date. The ZonePlayer 90, meanwhile, is more of a basic unit.

From overseas comes a new HD wireless media center enclosure  - all you need do is add a hard drive. It is called the Chinavision CVSBN-6000 HD Wireless Media Center and there is no pricing information available as of yet.

The Chinavision CVSBN-6000 HD Wireless Media Center is designed to provide 1080p output to your television, making it similar to other products in the media center world. What it does do which is cool is allow for up to 500GB of hard drive storage while also supporting a wide variety of audio and video file formats. It is also 802.11 wireless, allowing for wireless access to media on your PC.

Kodak surfaced today in the set-top box, media player space by unveiling its take on such a device. It is called the Kodak Theatre HD Player and pricing is said to be around $300.

The Kodak Theatre HD Player, like similar products, is designed to bring digital media content from your PC and other sources to your home media room. It offers high resolution as a viewing option, with still images shown at a 16:9 Aspect Ratio and videos at 720p. Connectivity is either wired or wireless.

D-Link said today it is ready to debut its first “DivX Connected” device in the United States. It is called the D-Link MediaLounge DSM-330 and pricing is set around $300.

The D-Link MediaLounge DSM-330 is a high definition media set-top player which uses DivX Connected as “a  powerful, open media platform that allows consumers to experience and control PC-based digital media on their television using a remote control.” This device, like similar players, lets one stream digital media content from a PC to a television.

Unlikely to bring the fanfare that the Canadian iPhone launch did, or even Zune’s own U.S. launch over a year ago, but nevertheless the Zune is launching in Canada on June 13. We had heard that the Canadians were going to get the media player from Microsoft on their own store shelves sometime in the near future, but no one had put a date on it until now. Microsoft is going to launch the 4, 8 and 80 GB capacity players with prices from $140 to $250 Canadian dollars. The launch will be limited to models in red, black and pink colors, only.

via Engadget

first brought you word of the D-Link PC-on-TV Player back during CES in January. D-Link has now announced availability of this media player, pricing the DPG-1200 at around $240.

The D-Link DPG-1200 lets you stream Web-based content normally available through your PC to your television instead. It connects to a TV through several different types of video outputs and uses Wi-Fi to connect to the home network. It includes a remote control for navigation of content.

Buffalo Technology has unveiled a new media streaming device for home networks which lets you playback video in HD. It is called the LinkTheater HD Digital Media Player (LT-H90LAN) and it will cost you around $200.

The LinkTheater HD Digital Media Player (LT-H90LAN) from Buffalo is designed to stream content from a Mac or Windows computer, NAS unit, USB hard drive or DLNA media server to playback on your living room TV or stereo system. It supports a variety of media formats, including Windows Media DRM10 for playback of copy-protected material, and can output at 1080i maximum.

From the depths of cyberspace comes word of an interesting looking HDD media player designed, from what we can tell, to be a desktop device. It is from a Chinese distributor called SourcingMap and pricing is set at around $85.

Sony’s dropping some new, smooth looking Walkmans our way this week led by the NWZ-A820 which features audio and video playback with a 2.4-inch QVGA display at 30 fps, includes EX earbuds and 36 hours of battery life for audio playback, 10 for video. It comes in capacities of 4GB, 8GB and 16GB, is compatible with Windows Media and supports MP3, AAC, WMA, L-PCM formats for audio and h.264/MPEG4 for video. Sony has also added Bluetooth into the mix along with their noise canceling technology.

Sony’s NWZ-A720 series has looks a specs very much like the A820 series but it loses the wireless Bluetooth. Sony also has a NWZ-A820K model that will not only come with the earbuds but also includes a set of wireless Bluetooth headphones to take advantage of the no-wires connectivity.

Sony Ericsson dropped a new Walkman mobile phone/media player to the market today with the W980, featuring 8GB of internal memory, included headphones and something the company is calling “Walkman On Top”.

The new Walkman On Top is a lot like it sounds. SE put the controls and the display of current playing tracks on the front of the device allowing complete navigation and viewing without having to open up the handset, hence the name “on top”. The new Walkman also comes with built-in stereo speakers and FM transmitter letting users share their tunes directly or through an FM radio on a home or car stereo. Sony Ericsson also wanted to make sure that listening to music alone was clear with quality sound and threw in Stereo Portable Handsfree HPM-77 headset. The headset allows listening to music and the ability to take calls hands free.