Think you've seen everything SportsCenter has to offer? Already a go to channel for most HDTV owners by default, the next big change to ESPN's daily news show is the debut of a West Coast produced edition, coming 5 days a week at 1 a.m. EST / 10 p.m. PST. The Sony-outfitted digs in the L.A. Live entertainment complex are the world's first capable of 1080p production (what, no 3D?), but until someone starts broadcasting live that way, it'll be the same 720p as usual when Neil Everett and Stan Verett bring it to your house featuring a Magic Johnson / Larry Bird interview on the 30th anniversary of their championship game tonight.


Read - ESPN's studio in L.A. debuts
Read - Bird and Magic Interview on Debut of SportsCenter from Los Angeles Monday, April 6

Think your "high-def" camcorder is hot stuff? Think again, vaquero. Sony's swerving around the low-end and waving jovially as it laps the mid-range with the HDR-TG5V Handycam, a decidedly upscale pocket camcorder that's capable of logging full 1080p clips and holding 16GB of data. Moreover, the HD camcorder includes an embedded GPS module, minimal buttons and a new intuitive user interface for the touch-panel LCD -- something we harshed on in our review of the TG3E last year. The built-in GPS antenna and NAVTEQ maps enable photos and videos to be geotagged, and you should be able to scope things out pretty good on the 2.7-inch LCD. If holding six hours of footage isn't enough, you can pop in a Memory Stick PRO Duo card for even more capacity, and there's also a 10x optical zoom for getting all up close and personal. Look for it to ship this May for a solid grand, and if you're up for spending another $100, a wide angle conversion lens (Sony VCL-HGE07TB) can definitely help you there.

Of course you want to watch the Super Bowl in HDTV. Who doesn't? It seems the lead up to the big game is the second biggest driver of high-definition LCD TV sales for Amazon.com, according to the e-tailer's latest numbers. (The biggest driver is, of course, holiday season gift giving.)

So which TV leads the pack? The mantle this time goes to Samsung and its $2,199 52-inch 1080p LNT5265F set.

Samsung also dominates this top 10 list, with four of the spots. Sharp has three, Sony two and Toshiba just one. All but one of these TV sets is 1080p and all but two are larger than 40-inches. (Do we see the continued trend here? Go big and get the highest resolution you can.)

We're going to watch the game on a 42-inch Toshiba, but maybe we'll listen to one quarter of it on the radio -- and imagine what the game action looks like, just as in the olden days.

From Gearlog.

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In the consumer electronics world, all eyes are focused on the upcoming broadcast switch to a digital signal coming early next year. Why, then, is Japan's NHK Science and Technical Research Laboratory working so hard to develop the next video format, a "super" high definition format called Super Hi-Vision? Isn't it enough that we're all going to be viewing programming of startling video quality and clarity on HDTVs soon?

Apparently there's still room for improvement, although don't expect to see Super Hi-Vision TV sets in living rooms anytime soon. The first commercial applications likely won't come about until 2025 -- and even then the first likely use will be in art museums for showing works of art.

According to a report today from the BBC News, the new format has a screen resolution of 7680x4320 pixels, which is 16 times greater than current HD. The smallest diagonal TV size on which Super Hi-Vision can be employed is 50 inches.

This begs the question, then: Can the human eye even tell the difference between resolution of 1080p (the best available within the current high definition format) and this next leap in video technology? That's debatable. The human eye has limitations. After a certain point we're unable to see the difference in ever-increasing image resolutions. So perhaps this latest advance in TV tech is just an exercise in technical achievement. In the meantime we're still trying to decide if we want a new HDTV with 1080i or 1080p resolution.

Still, if we could see an oversized work like Monet's 'Waterlilies' replicated at real size and with almost perfect resolution somewhere besides the Museum of Modern Art, maybe the new standard will be considered worthwhile.

From BBC News.

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Now that everyone has declared BluRay the winner in the high-def war, what with Warner's announcement and Sony finally allowing adult films to be published on the format, I think it's important to take a look at HD-DVD's long walk back to the locker room after a game well-played.

It would be a mistake to say that HD-DVD will cease to exist tomorrow. In fact, expect to see just the opposite of that. HD-DVD continue on as an underground favorite format, much like Betamax did in the 70s and laser discs did in the 90s. Remember laser discs, the giant optical discs that came before DVD, the stuff of early home theater buffs who could tell you a thing or two about digital mastering way before half of Hollywood was even Bar Mitzvah'd? No? How about beta, the superior tape format that Sony wanted you to buy instead of VHS?

I originally thought HD-DVD was completely done for before the Consumer Electronics Show. Warner's Blu-Ray-exclusive announcement and the HD-DVD group's decision to back out of their keynote made it sound like they would go away with a whimper. On the final day of the conference, however, I took one last walk by the HD-DVD booth just to see what was up. After all, I'm a sucker for a good heartbreak story.

"So I looked on bestbuy.com this morning," began the booth attendant, speaking to three half-asleep attendees who, by my estimation, were there more for the chair rest than the presentation. "You can now buy an HD-DVD drive for $179. That also comes with ten free discs. Ten free discs! That easily makes HD-DVD the best deal in high definition."

The guy had a point. Think about it -- for $179, you can get a high-end HD-DVD player that will also upscale your regular DVDs to high-definition resolution. It will also play your Super-Audio CDs. You also get ten free HD-DVD discs. Go try to buy ten new regular-definition DVDs for $179 -- I dare you. That evening I was ordering an HD-DVD drive from bestbuy.com. Call me a vulture if you will, but I'll be enjoying this winter in high-def heaven. Heck - I might even cancel my Netflix account for a few months and save another $50 or so.

That closing value on the HD-DVD format really is hard to beat. Even if another HD-DVD title never comes out, the closing cost of the format -- along with its hardware -- is easily worth the cost to anyone with a high-definition television. Is it an investment for the far future? Not so much, but most of us who already have home theaters and high-definition televisions aren't exactly known for our electronics long-term investment acumen -- we'll all have new TVs, receivers, and speakers in a few years anyway.

Anyway, with Apple's new iTunes Movie Rentals and NetFlix opening up the "View It Now" service to unlimited views, disc-based movies' days are numbered.

Enjoy the fire sale. I know I will.

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While our space agency is off roving around Mars, collecting soil samples, filming twisters, and studying blueberries, Japanese astro-scientists are engaging in more techno-centric pursuits. The Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) recently launched a spacecraft called Selene (or, confusingly, also known as KAGUYA) to orbit the moon and saw fit to grace it with a high-definition camera. With it, the agency has captured some impressive high-resolution footage of Earth rising and setting over the moon.

Unfortunately for us mere Earth-dwellers, JAXA isn't making those high-resolution videos publicly available, at least not yet. The videos the agency has released are instead captured at a resolution of 480x270 (480 pixels high by 270 pixels wide), which is actually a lower resolution than your old standard definition TV. The videos show the Earth gliding upward ahead of the probe and setting behind it.

So, color us disappointed on the HDTV front, but the low-res versions of the videos are still quite spectacular to watch, and the JAXA site does have two images -- Earth-rise and Earth-set -- available in a resolution that equates to HD-quality 1080p, or 1920x1080 pixels. To get the full effect, you'll need a large, high-resolution monitor, like Apple's 30'-inch Cinema Display, or the ability to output your computer to a 1080p-capable high-definition television.

The photos recreate the most famous image taken by the Apollo missions, "Earthrise," which shows a tiny blue earth rising above the lunar surface. Quite a sight, but we can't help but want those vids in 1080p, too ...

UPDATE: It appears Discovery HD will be broadcasting these videos tonight (11/14) at 7:00 PM ET, 8:00 PM PT. Thanks to tok for the heads up!

From SPACE.com

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