Redmond is facing all sorts of challenges, but its Xbox is a clear success, not only as a gaming console, but as an Internet-connected entertainment device, which gives users access to video services like Netflx and HBO Go, and, increasingly, cable programming from the likes of ESPN. Microsoft says Xbox users now spend more time consuming media than playing games.

Which is why we’re very excited to bring two key Xbox executives onstage next month at D: Dive into Media: Yusuf Mehdi, senior vice president of Microsoft’s Interactive Entertainment Business, and Nancy Tellem, the former CBS executive who is building a new production studio for the device.

Mehdi is the man running marketing, strategy and corporate development for Xbox, and he’s the guy who links the console up with all the studios, networks and publishers who are creating content for the device. Prior to this job, he oversaw Microsoft’s media presence on the Web.

Tellem, a veteran TV executive, is the former CBS president now tasked with creating new programming for the device. She’s building out a Hollywood presence for Steve Ballmer, and her hire last fall was Microsoft’s most aggressive move into the content business so far.

They’re joining a stellar lineup of speakers Feb. 11 and 12 at the Ritz-Carlton in Laguna Niguel, Calif. Here’s who we’ve told you about so far: Sony Entertainment CEO Michael Lynton, Hearst Magazines president David Carey, Google chief business officer Nikesh Arora, Facebook partnership vice president Dan Rose, HBO co-president Eric Kessler, Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino, CollegeHumor co-founder Ricky Van Veen, Vice Media co-founder Shane Smith, Intel media head Erik Huggers and Samsung media head David Eun, Netflix content chief Ted Sarandos (and guest), New Republic owner Chris Hughes, USA Today publisher Larry Kramer, and Dish Network founder Charlie Ergen.

And, yes, we’ll have yet more names to announce in the coming weeks. But if you want to see these folks in person, register now, and we’ll see you soon.

But while lots of pay-TV operators are happy to keep things the way they are, Ergen keeps trying to blow them up: The Dish Network co-founder and chairman is constantly fighting with the rest of the TV Industrial Complex, in disputes that often end up in court.

His most recent and prominent battle is also the most important one: Dish’s new “Auto Hop” technology lets satellite TV subscribers automatically skip commercials, and that has both advertisers and TV networks in fits, for obvious reasons.

But that’s just one of Ergen’s recent adventures. He has also bought Blockbuster out of bankruptcy in an attempt to take on Netflix, engaged in bruising battles with Cablevision and its AMC Networks spinoff, and rattled his saber against ESPN and its ever-increasing sports fees.

Oh. He’s also talking to Google, and everyone else, about getting into the wireless business.

All of which means the former blackjack and poker player is someone everyone in the media world watches very, very closely, even though he doesn’t say much in public. Which means we’re very excited to interview him at our D: Dive Into Media conference in February.

Ergen will be joining an all-star cast on Feb. 11 and 12 at the Ritz-Carlton in Laguna Niguel, Calif. Here’s who we’ve told you about so far: Sony Entertainment CEO Michael Lynton, Hearst Magazines president David Carey, Google chief business officer Nikesh Arora, Facebook partnership vice president Dan Rose, HBO co-president Eric Kessler, Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino, CollegeHumor co-founder Ricky Van Veen, Vice Media co-founder Shane Smith, Intel media head Erik Huggers and Samsung media head David Eun, Netflix content chief Ted Sarandos (and guest), New Republic owner Chris Hughes, and USA Today publisher Larry Kramer.

And there’s more to come! Stay tuned. Meanwhile, we’re getting close to showtime, so make your reservations now.

Ask Chris Hughes and Larry Kramer.

Hughes, one of the original Facebook friends, used a bit of his newfound wealth to buy the storied New Republic earlier this year. A few months after that, Gannett put Kramer, a longtime digital media pro, in charge of its iconic USA Today.

Those are two very disparate publications, but they share a similar challenge: It’s very easy to find the stuff they’re best at — political opinion and general news — for free, all over the Internet. So how do you get readers and advertisers to pay attention, and/or money?

There’s a very good chance Hughes and Kramer won’t solve that one by February, when they appear at our D: Dive into Media conference in Laguna Niguel, California. But we’ll get a very interesting progress report. And since they’ll be onstage at the same time, we should get a very entertaining conversation, too.

Kramer is a former reporter and editor who ended up building and running big Web businesses — most notably MarketWatch, which he sold to CBS in 2005. He then stuck around long enough to help the TV giant embrace digital, via deals like the ones that put March Madness on the Web and CBS TV shows on iTunes. For a smart overview of his challenges at USA Today, see Ken Doctor’s take from earlier this year.

Hughes, quite famously, was one of Mark Zuckerberg’s roommates at Harvard, and became Facebook’s first marketing and PR head. Then he joined Barack Obama’s first presidential run, where he played a key role in the campaign’s pioneering use of social media. Now he’s trying to revamp a 98-year-old magazine that used to play a key role in Washington politics; for more on that see this excellent New York magazine profile.

They’ll join a pretty great cast at the stunning Ritz Carlton in Laguna Niguel, Calif., on February 11 and 12. Here’s who we’ve told you about so far: Sony Entertainment CEO Michael Lynton, Hearst Magazines president David Carey, Google chief business officer Nikesh Arora, Facebook partnership vice president Dan Rose, HBO co-president Eric Kessler, Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino, CollegeHumor co-founder Ricky Van Veen, Vice Media co-founder Shane Smith, Intel media head Erik Huggers and Samsung media head David Eun, Netflix content chief Ted Sarandos and The Person From “Arrested Development” We’d Like to Name But Can’t (Yet).

More to come! In the meantime, head here to find registration information for the conference. See you soon …

Now it’s a bit of everything: Old and not-so-old TV shows, movies you haven’t heard of, movies you have heard of, and starting next year, TV shows that Netflix is making for itself.

The man in charge of all that is Ted Sarandos, who negotiates all of the Silicon Valley company’s deals with Hollywood. So he’s a perfect guy to bring onstage for our upcoming D: Dive Into Media conference, which is all about the confluence of tech and media.

And appearing onstage alongside Sarandos will be … well, we can’t come out and say who, exactly. (Believe us. We’d like to. And we will! But not today. Hollywood is an odd place.)

But we can tell you that it’s someone intimately involved in Arrested Development, the much-loved Fox comedy series that Netflix is reviving next year.

So that should be fun! And informative, too: Sarandos can explain what it’s like to haggle with partners who can’t figure out if they want to cash your checks, or kill you off, or both. And … person to be named later can explain what it’s like to create a big TV show for a digital-only audience. Among other things!

They’ll join a pretty great cast at the stunning Ritz Carlton in Laguna Niguel, Calif., on February 11 and 12. Here’s who we’ve told you about so far: Sony Entertainment CEO Michael Lynton, Hearst Magazines president David Carey, Google chief business officer Nikesh Arora, Facebook partnership vice president Dan Rose, HBO co-president Eric Kessler, Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino, CollegeHumor co-founder Ricky Van Veen, Vice Media co-founder Shane Smith, Intel media head Erik Huggers and Samsung media head David Eun.

More to come! In the meantime, head here to find registration information for the conference. See you soon …

At our D: Dive into Media conference in February, we’ll be talking to people who make amazing content, the people who make a living selling amazing content and the people who help distribute all of that stuff.

But if you want to figure out the future of media, you also have to talk to the people who make the boxes and gadgets you’ll use to consume all of that content.

That’s why we’re very happy to hear at Dive into Media from two heavyweights with important new roles: Intel’s Erik Huggers, corporate vice president at Intel Media, and Samsung’s David Eun, executive vice president for global media.

Intel’s chips have been powering entertainment boxes for a long time. Now the company is reportedly getting ready to plunge directly into the pay-TV business itself by trying to cut deals with cable programmers and rolling out a next-generation set-top box of its own.

Huggers, who used to run the BBC’s digital efforts, is heading up that push, but hasn’t talked about it publicly yet. For now, the company says his efforts are “focused on exploring new ways to access, interact with and share the latest in digital entertainment.” We’ll get a chance to figure out what that really means when he gets on our stage.

And Samsung is already a huge deal in the media world, given its position of power in both the TV and mobile markets. Eun, a tech and media veteran (Google, Time Warner, NBC, AOL), is supposed to leverage that clout to bring software and services to his company’s devices.

Now he’s trying to expand the company’s presence in Silicon Valley, where he’s opening up a new outpost in an effort to build out digital content and services. His Dive appearance will be his first public opportunity to make his case to tech and media hotshots.

Huggers and Eun are joining an all-star lineup in February. Here’s who we’ve told you about so far: Sony Entertainment CEO Michael Lynton, Hearst Magazines president David Carey, Google chief business officer Nikesh Arora, Facebook partnership vice president Dan Rose, HBO co-president Eric Kessler, Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino, CollegeHumor co-founder Ricky Van Veen and Vice Media co-founder Shane Smith.

And we’ve got more great names to announce very soon: Watch this space. In the meantime, head here to find registration information for the conference, which will be held Feb. 11 and 12 at the stunning Ritz-Carlton in Laguna Niguel, California.

Now add Japan to that list.

Google’s video guys aren’t talking about it openly yet, but they’ll be replicating the same idea — YouTube advances programmers production money in exchange for exclusive content — with a handful of partners in Asia. Among that initial group will be Vice Media, the controversial/successful video maker/ad agency which already has three funded YouTube channels in the U.S.

Here’s a teaser trailer, which doesn’t look to be very Japan-specific, but more of a greatest-hits compilation:

Vice, a Brooklyn-based company that specializes in an edgy-but-not-too-edgy mix of youth- and sponsor-friendly content, is generating lots of attention these days — some of it glowing, some of it not. They also seem to be generating lots of money, and are reportedly on track to generate $200 million this year.

We’ll talk to co-founder Shane Smith — who makes several appearances in the clip above — about his plans, in February, at our D: Dive Into Media conference in Dana Point, Calif.

Or you can save yourself a lot of hassle and ask two guys who are already making pretty good progress.

That would be CollegeHumor’s Ricky Van Veen and Vice Media’s Shane Smith. And you can find them both at our Dive into Media conference next year.

To refresh your memory: Dive Into Media is our one-night-plus-one-day tour of the media landscape, and the way technology is changing that world day by day. That means unscripted, unrehearsed conversations with an all-star cast of moguls who hold very different perspectives. They’re all joining us Feb. 11 and 12 at the Ritz-Carlton in Laguna Niguel, just south of Los Angeles.

Here’s who we’ve told you about so far: Sony Entertainment CEO Michael Lynton, Hearst Magazines President David Carey, Google chief business officer Nikesh Arora, Facebook partnership vice president Dan Rose, HBO co-president Eric Kessler and Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino.

And here are two more — both of whom have done very well on the Web and are now trying to figure out how to apply those lessons to more traditional outlets:

Ricky Van Veen co-founded CollegeHumor in 1999, when he and his buddies were actually in college. Seven years later, the site had evolved from a frat-tastic side project into an ambitious, successful content creation machine, and Barry Diller bought it for his IAC conglomerate. Now Van Veen is still working for Diller, but he’s moved from the Web to older media: He’s making TV shows like “Chopped” via IAC’s Notional production company, and next year he’ll release “Coffee Town,” a full-length feature film.

Shane Smith and his Vice Media co-founders started out publishing a raucous, no-holds-barred magazine back in the ’90s, and fumbled their way into the Internet during the first Web boom. Now they seem to have it figured out: They’re on track to generate $200 million this year, while making eye-popping videos — here’s a tour guide for Kabul — backed by blue-chip advertisers like Intel. Next up: An HBO series, and lots of attention from guys who run really big media empires.

Just like our flagship D: All Things Digital conference, D: Dive into Media will give you rare access to deep, smart talks with the people who matter. And we’ll be announcing more of them in the weeks to come. For now, you can find registration information here.