Kim Wilson Blog

If you love world music, you need to head on over to <A HREF="http://www.mp3.mondomix.com/">MondoMix</A> for a touch of Cuban rhythms, Jamaican reggae, Indian Vedic chants, or beats from the Balkins. Explore the world of music in Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas. Delve into the different genres that include Pop/Rock, Jazz, Sacred, and Hip-Hop along with the traditional sounds of the region.

HDGiants unveiled their new HD MediaStore application during CES. While HD Giants has an online presence accessible to anyone (with Microsoft IE only), this new application was specifically designed for easy integration with top media servers running the Vista Media Center. It allows Media Center customers to purchase and download music in the WMA lossless format directly from their MCE Vista entertainment centers.

As usual, there are plenty of celebrity Christmas albums you can purchase as a CD or through the various music services. However, I was curious what holiday musical tidbits might be residing on the web that there were outside the mainstream.

It may be awhile before feature length films in HD are downloadable from the Internet, however at <A HREF = http://www.vuze.com>Vuze.com</A>, you can download or stream high definition movie trailers, hot new music videos, and Showtime episodes like Dexter, Weeds, the Tudors, and more.

<A HREF=http://www.fearnet.com>FEARnet.com</A> is the perfect online destination for you hardcore horror fans, offering free movies of Halloween classics, and original web shows such as the 30 Days of Night series produced by Sam Raimi. Every Thursday the website swaps out 10 new movies that you can view for free. Of course, its on the small screen and only available as a stream, not a download. For Halloween, FEARNet is premiering Clive Barker's Midnight Meat Train.

I'm currently in Brazil and had the opportunity to attend a HiFi show in So Paulo. It was incredibly small, at least by comparison to the shows I attend in the US. However, it did provide some insight as to what products are being introduced into the Brazilian market and how they compare to the North American equivalents.

What really stood out at this year's CEDIA in Denver was the number of companies showing media servers. They have certainly grown in popularity, especially within the custom-installation world. Not that many years ago, media servers were the exception, and now they are the norm for those ultra-high-end, multi-zone, music/video systems. As high-resolution downloadable media (audio and video) become more available, then media servers are likely to be our main, if not our only, source device.