Ryan Seacrest, host of American Idol, New Year's Rockin' Eve and a myriad of other television and radio project, has left the agency WMA and signed a contract with CAA. The same agency represents two of Seacrest's American Idol co-conspirators, Simon Fuller and Simon Cowell.

Among well-known stars, agency switching happens all the time. It is a telling sign that WMA wasn't even involved with his contract renegotiations with the American Idol producers and Seacrest still came out ahead on that one.

The latest trend in media center PCs has been support for high definition video. But what about audio? Most of the music you can download from iTunes and other online music stores is at 128kbps or 256kbps. That might be good enough for a portable player you can stick in your pocket, but some people sink thousands of dollars into home stereo equipment and they'd rather have some high quality audio, thank you very much.

High-end media center maker Niveus has taken pity on this underserved population, and is partnering with MusicGiants to create a Niveus HD Media store. The store will be integrated into all of Niveus's Vista media center PCs.

Audio is available in WMA lossless formats, with bitrates up to 11,000kbps. The HD Media Store includes music from EMI, Sony BMG, Universal, and Warner.

[via Electronic House]