Among the other data gleaned from the survey, about a third of all American households report owning an HDTV, but that number might be as high as 43% considering some households might not know their televisions' HD capabilities.According to Magic, this gap between HD awareness could come from households that purchased HDTVs to prepare for the digital transmission change, and not with any consideration for actual high-def content.
— Will Greenwald
[Source: Engadget HD]
Black Friday is only a few days away and to keep you from having to sift through all those ads we've compiled some of the best deals worth getting up at the crack of dawn for like a Panasonic 54 Inch Viera S1 Series 1080p Plasma HDTV for $1099.99 (normally $1799.99). The list isn't as long as in previous years, but the certain deals we found can please anyone on your home theater or video game shopping list. Check after the jump for more noteworthy Black Friday deals*.
It's not Black Friday yet, so we wanted to find the best deals to hold you over until then. Today Amazon started a huge Xbox 360 game sale where they pump out a deal every hour. More HD and gadget deals* after the jump.
Our custom Installer John Sciacca reached out to subwoofer manufacturers and asked their tips for getting the most bass out of discreet installs, here's what they had to say about using multiple subs:
Contrary to what you might think, it’s not about getting louder bass. “Multiple subs help even out the bass response over a larger seating area,” explained THX’s John Dahl. “A secondary effect is to help reduce the excessively long decay times of the prominent modal frequencies.”
Eric Harper (Sunfire) noted, “Multiple subs provide better performance and yield flatter response.”
The BD-Live interactive online content feature of the Blu-ray Disc format hasn't gotten much attention since it debuted last year. That's because the content sucked at the start, and it didn't improve despite ridicule in the press and on Internet forums. But at the recent Blu-Con 2.0 conference, I was corralled by a couple of guys from exhibitor Giant Interactive, who swore up and down that their new technological twist would at long last permit BD-Live to stop sucking. (OK, that's not exactly the way they put it.)
Continue reading "Giant Interactive brings advanced BD-Live tech to U.S." »
Our custom Installer John Sciacca reached out to subwoofer manufacturers and asked their tips for getting the most bass out of discreet installs, here's what they had to say about the best place to put your sub:
Your room’s dimensions and unique acoustics play a major role in how the sub sounds, and all the manufacturers weighed in on the need to position your sub correctly. You may be surprised to learn that the corner probably isn’t the best place.
If you're looking for the perfect holiday gift for the Harry Potter fanatic we've found the perfect deal for you. Not one, but movies 1-5 are on sale in a set for only $54.99. More HD and gadget deals* after the jump.
If you need to fill some wish lists this holiday season and video games are on the top of the lists we have the perfect deal for you: Buy two games for $30 on a variety of platforms. More HD and gadget deals* after the jump you could grab right now.
2K Games has just unveiled the contents of its upcoming Bioshock 2 Special Edition release, and it has something for the audiophiles. Along with a soundtrack CD, 3 posters, and an art book, it comes with the orchestral score of the original Bioshock on a 180g vinyl LP.
Yes, a video game coming out in 2010 is shipping with a vinyl LP. It only comes with the $99 ($89 on PC) limited-run special edition of the game, but it's still vinyl where you would not expect vinyl to be. Considering the old-timey, art deco style of the Bioshock games, a vinyl record is an appropriate bonus for the long-awaited return to the underwater dystopia of Rapture. Both the regular and special editions of Bioshock 2 ship February 9, 2010.
— Will Greenwald
[Source: The Cult of Rapture via Kotaku]
According to Tech-On, NEC and Soundpower hope to have a commercial version of the remote ready by 2011.
It might not be Modern Warfare 2 or Halo ODST, but we thought this video game deal we found on Prototype for the PS3 was too good not to share with you: Get the game that lets you pretty much have any super power in the world and then go around using those said powers to destroy things. Definitely sounds worth the sub-$40 price tag. More HD and gadget deals* after the jump.
Warner's Red2Blue program, which let consumers trade their obsolete HD-DVDs and a couple bucks for brand new Blu-ray discs, must have been a success. Now the program works for DVDs, with upgrade prices starting around $8. If you want to participate, you'll be asked to mail your DVDs to Warner (there's a $4.95 shipping charge per order, which gets waved when you go over $25). Then, four to five weeks later, you'll get the same titles in the mail in Blu-ray format. There are currently only 55 titles available right now, but hopefully that will increase in the future. While it's definitely a cool program, the whole four to five week turnaround is kind of a turn-off. If I have to be without my copy of The Shining for that long, I'll be in serious danger of buying another copy in the meantime and blowing my whole profit margin.-Stan Horaczek
If you're a fan of the hit FX comedy "It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia" we have the perfect deal for you today: Get seasons 1-4 for the normaly price of one season on DVD. More HD and gadget deals* after the jump.
This deal we found today will give you three Bond movies on Blu-ray for nearly the price of one. This collection includes Mooraker, Goldfinger and The World Is Not Enough for $31.99. More HD and gadget deals* after the jump.
Continue reading "HD Deals: James Bond Blu-ray Collection" »
Stripped rental versions of movies aren't unheard-of, but there's a pretty big difference between cutting out commentary and featurettes, and cutting out subtitles. If you're hard of hearing, this is a pretty big problem. It's bad enough to not hear the fantastic voicework of Ed Asner and Bob Peterson as Carl and Dug, but to not be able to get any of the dialogue in any form? That's a low blow.
Of course, this only applies to rental versions of Up. If you buy the movie, it'll come fully-equipped.
— Will Greenwald
Sezmi sources content from digital TV broadcasts and the Internet. It’s not just tuning in local digital broadcasts, though. The company says it has struck deals with local TV stations across the nation to use their multicasting capabilities to transmit a variety of programming normally available through cable or satellite, such as CNN, Comedy Central, and Bravo. These broadcasts will be scrambled so they can be received only through Sezmi.
Continue reading "Sezmi launches innovative TV service: L.A. first, U.S. to follow" »
Don't expect a sudden jump in quality for all YouTube videos, though. Video quality is constrained by the original footage and the display used to view the end result. If the video was shot on an SD camcorder, or an HD camcorder that can only record 720p (like the popular Flip UltraHD), it won't take advantage of 1080p streaming. Even if the footage was recorded in 1080p, if you watch YouTube on your computer, on an ordinary monitor, you probably won't see a difference. If you watch YouTube on an HDTV and the video you select was shot on a decent 1080p video camera, you'll probably see a nice bump in quality.
If you are one of the lucky ones to own an American Express card then this deal will get you to save some serious cash while you are shopping. The catch ... you have to do it quick: Be one of the first 50 AMEX users to purchase $500 or more at Best Buy between November 18th and December 31st and you will receive a $200 rebate. And for those not lucky enough to get that mega discount, the credit card company is also giving $40 back when you spend $100 or more to 125 registered users. But even if you aren't quick enough to get in on those deals we have more HD and gadget deals* after the jump.
Continue reading "HD Deals: $200 Rebate On Best Buy Purchases" »
For obvious reasons, Microsoft has never been a big fan of people alter their Xbox 360 consoles to play copied games. Their standard punishment usually comes in the form of a quick swing of the Xbox Live banhammer, which disallows modders to play online or access any of the other Xbox Live amenities, like Netflix streaming. This week it's being reported that up to a million users suffered that exact fate as part of a mass-banning, which was timed to coincide with the release of Modern Warfare 2. In the past, the bans have been permanent, making the only way to access online content to buy an entirely new console. It's not clear if MS will hold to that for this wave of executions, but if they do, gamers with no interest in going online will probably be able to get a very good deal on an a used, modded Xbox 360 over the next couple of weeks. Now that we got that blog post out of the way, it's back to playing MW2 on my unmodded Xbox 360.
If you haven't at least given Boxee's open-source media center utility a chance, you have seriously been missing out. The ambitious little project took a hit earlier this year when they were told to stop serving up Hulu content [You'll find some interesting commentary regarding that decision in this article from Fast Company], but it doesn't appear to be slowing them down one bit. This morning it was announced on the Boxee blog that the platform will be making its way into a set-top box to be revealed on December 7th. Until now, you had to be running a dedicated HTPC in order to use it. The announcement is very light on specs (none, in fact) but the prospect is an exciting one. I hope to see Boxee making its way into all kinds of devices the way Netflix has.
Source: Boxee
You're probably not going to use a locking HDMI cable as a leash for your pug, but it's nice to know the option is there. PerfectPath, one of the cable companies that isn't Monster, showed off its new PerfectLock HDMI cables at the CES Unleashed preview event in New York on Tuesday. According to the company, the cables' locks can handle up to 25 pounds of stress.
On one hand, if you're exerting 25 pounds on your cables, something is probably wrong with your home theater. On the other hand, a couple of those cables and I could become the nerdiest mountain climber ever.
— Will Greenwald
The Holiday season is just around the corner and today's deal is a perfect gift for anyone looking to upgrade their small HDTV. We found this LG 50-inch plasma for close to half-off at $969.99 (normally $1,699.95). More HD and gadget deals* after the jump.
If you were searching for that perfect gift for the movie fan that has everything, today's deal from Barnes & Noble might give you the chance to find a rare classic they might not have. Not only is the store offering a variety of deals on DVDs and Blu-ray discs, but it is taking 50% off of any Criterion Collection movie in its library. More HD and gadget deals* after the jump.
The CEA is looking at the 3D@Home Consortium's developing 3D standard as a possible one-size-fits-all 3D tech template for most HDTVs. 3D@Home is a group consisting of several movie studios and electronics manufacturers, who are all working together to eventually produce a single standard for 3D technology in HDTVs. The consortium has already released several documents describing possible universal standards for 3D video, active shutter glasses, and passive lens glasses, and the CEA is considering them for integration into its own set of technical standards.
The original Zen X-Fi player is an excellent little portable media player. Loads of supported video codecs and expandable storage made it a definite contender, even if its button layout could be a little challenging for those of us with fat fingers. It seems almost a given that the next step would bring Creative into the touchscreen game and that is exactly where the X-Fi 2 comes in. Having spent ample time with its main competitors, it's fair to say that the X-Fi 2 is a different experience.
The tour started today at a Torrance Best Buy, and tomorrow the truck will be in Los Angeles at a Weyburn Avenue Best Buy and later at the Lakers-Memphis game. For a full schedule of the truck's various stops, check Dolby's web site. The truck will be zig-zagging all over Los Angeles until January, when it will head to Los Vegas for CES 2010.
— Will Greenwald
[Source: Engadget HD]
Yesterday’s annual Blu-Con 2.0 conference in Los Angeles delivered a progress update on Blu-ray Disc and many of the advanced technologies associated with it. The conference took place at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, and was organized by the Digital Entertainment Group, a trade association whose members include movie studios and consumer electronics manufacturers.
Some of the sessions were enlightening, although a few focused rather heavily on marketing data. Rather than give a blow-by-blow of each session, I’ll just cite the most interesting comments.
Continue reading "Blu-ray's future glimpsed at Blu-Con 2.0" »
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