CeBIT 2008: the big wrapup

by William Maher on May 22, 2008

Tags: CeBIT | 2008

We rolled up our sleeves, put on our boots, and trawled the halls of IT's massive trade expo in Sydney looking for tasty tech delights.

CeBIT 08 attracts more than 35,000 registered visitors and 750 exhibitors, and it's also a place for business to discuss VOIP, broadband, and other businessy things. But you're really here to find out what tech was on show. Here are the highlights.

Look what we found...
Over at the Westwell stand, we spotted this very utilitarian-looking Blu-Ray player (see pic below)- no great surprises there, but the specs grabbed our attention. It's a Version 1.1 player, which means it's theoretically capable of picture in picture. The unit we saw was a handbuilt demo model, but Westwell say the real deal will be on sale by end of August. Oh, and the price will be around $499.

"But wait!" we hear you say, "what about Blu-Ray version 2.0?". It's true, the Blu-Ray version issue camp has had tech watchers in conniptions over compatibility. The general consensus at this stage is that buying a 1.1 player is a safe bet. Version 2.0 promises Internet connectivity, and has increased hardware requirements, so it's true you will probably be locked out of those features if you go with a 1.1 player now. But you'll still be able to play the discs. Version 2.0 Blu-Ray players have begun to appear overseas, including the Panasonic's DMP-BD50.

Westwell's Blu-Ray 1.1 player: should be a safe bet, though version 2.0 is on the way

We're also reliably informed (thanks to our resident Blu-Ray guru Nathan Taylor), that early compatibility problems were mostly a result of bad Java implementations anyway in first gen players. So be careful of 1.0 players.

Sony's BDUX10S - Blu-Ray playback you can afford at $299

Of course, if you're happy to use an existing PC to watch your movies there's a slightly cheaper option. Over at the Sony stand we found internal desktop Blu-Ray drives (players, not burners) going for $299 (though the discs will still set you back more than $20). Pictured above is the Sony BDUX10S Blu-Ray player, with Serial ATA and AVCHD playback. Still no internal notebook burners, but Sony tells us to stay tuned.

Mmmm, Blu-Ray burning. Sony's BWU200S does dual layer 50GB discs, but it'll take nearly an hour

If you're considering Blu-Ray as a storage option, it's still very much an exercise in thumb-twiddling. Sony's rep tells us their 4x burner takes approximately 50 minutes to burn a 50GB disc. Pictured here is the BWU200S Blu-Ray burner, which burns to both single and dual layer discs and costs $899.

Altech Maestro Pro: High-Def movies on your TV, no thanks to Windows Media Centre

Speaking of Blu-Ray, the absurd lack of native Blu-Ray support in Windows Media Centre continues. We visited the Altech stand, who were showing off their latest Maestro Media Centres (including a touchscreen version) - if you buy a Maestro, you'll get PowerDVD in order to play the discs, which gets the job done, but does detract from the whole promise of using Windows Media Centre for all your entertainment (Media Centre does support third party players, but that's not the same thing). Yep, and Vista Home Basic also doesn't include native DVD playback out of the box either. The future is . . . here, sort of.

The pitch-black and aluminium-finish Maestro boxes on show at CeBit certainly are getting closer to lounge-room friendly styling, though they're still big and chunky. The touchscreen version is the Maestro Pro, and is equipped with Core 2 Quad Q9300, 2GB RAM, ATI HD3850, and Sony Blu-Ray (reader only).