With the exception of Nintendo's Wii, it looks like video game consoles are increasingly becoming excellent devices on which to get movie and TV show downloads (especially for HDTV owners who are starved for fresh HD content). Yesterday, Microsoft announced the immediate availability of more movies and TV shows from partners such as Universal and NBC (essentially, this means that viewers can now get 'The Office' and 'Battlestar Galactica' on demand in HD for the first time ever). Well, now it looks like Sony has followed suit, as it just announced that starting tonight, its movie and TV download service for the PlayStation 3 will be up and running.

Though it doesn't have the nifty Netflix integration that Microsoft also announced for Xbox 360 yesterday, it does offer the ability to transfer downloaded movies and TV shows to the PlayStation Portable (PSP), so you can take your content on the road with you. Of course, being Sony, the company was able to line up a roster of content partners that include not only Sony, but also MGM, Turner, Lionsgate, and Fox. All shows will be offered in SD video, but plenty will also be available in HD, for rental or purchase (we still don't know if it'll be 720p HD or 1080p HD, but we're guessing 720p since nothing was mentioned). As with Vudu, Xbox 360, iTunes, and other downloadable movie services, the PS3 download service has progressive download, which means you can start watching the movie within a minute after purchasing (the rest of the movie downloads in the background).

We're looking forward to seeing how this service works when it launches later tonight. We're particularly curious to see what content, specifically, is available in HD. We're hoping plenty of TV shows are on that HD list, as on demand TV shows in high-def are sorely lacking. For a play-by-play account of today's Sony E3 press conference, make sure to read through Engadget/Joystiq's thorough live blog.

Sure, it might shoot 720p video, but you aren't gonna catch indie filmmakers capturing the next low-budget masterpiece on Kodak's new Zi6 HD pocket video camera. The camera is Kodak's response to Pure Digital's Flip and Creative's Vado, complete with upright form factor, YouTube friendliness, simple as could be interface, a flip-out USB plug (with some surprising spring action), and, of course, totally shoddy video quality.

The camera is powered by a pair of AA batteries, sports a 2.4-inch LCD, and can switch between VGA video, 30fps HD and 60fps HD. It'll sell for $180 in September, in black or pink, but there's only 128MB of memory on board -- you'll have to spring for an SD card if you want to do any substantial shooting.

Many have tried to be that other box that sits under your TV. You know, the DVD player, the cable box, the TiVo, the consoles are all well and good, but somebody somehow needs to solve they mystery of getting Web and PC content onto your TV and Kodak might be on the cusp of cracking it. Kodak's new Kodak Theatre HD Player is a simple, slick little box (about the size of a Wi-Fi router) with multiple flash card slots, a USB port, and all the requisite home theater outputs like HDMI, component and all that.

The unit can naturally shuffle through photos like there's no tomorrow, and includes wireless access to pull stuff off of Flickr feeds or your PC's hard drive, but there's also 720p (high definition) video playback, online radio and what have you.

The real clincher is that you won't be interacting with all this via a clunky d-pad remote, but instead there's an amazingly great Wii remote-like gyroscopic mouse that makes the whole thing a joy to use. The $300 price tag might turn some people off when this lands in September, especially with no built-in storage, but we still think Kodak might have a winner on its hands.

Here's a secret that high-end audio and video companies don't want you to know -- those $10 HDMI cables from a generic manufacturer are just as good as their $50 top of the line counterparts.

In fact, the tech site CNET has been using "high-end" $20 cables from Monoprice in its labs for testing top of the line TVs from companies such as Samsung and Sony. And trust us, CNET abuses those cables more than you ever could in your standard home theater set up.

The truth of the matter is that as far as digital signals are concerned, the quality of the cable matters very little. Used in HDTV and most satellite and cable systems these days, digital signals don't degrade as quickly and aren't subject to interference the same way that analog signals are.

So, unless you plan on running 20- and 30-foot cables around your house, or are building an audio or video production studio, you can stick to those cheaper $10 HDMI cables and will still get nothing but a top quality image.

From CNET

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Just when you thought the format wars were over, along comes an upstart called New Medium Enterprises (NME) with its Versatile Multilayer Disc, or VMD. VMDs were originally set to debut in 2006, but for currently unknown reasons are only now making their debut.

The discs and players are much cheaper to produce than either Blu-ray or HD-DVD because it uses the same red lasers that standard DVD players use. Red lasers are cheaper and easier to produce than the blue lasers used in the other high-def disc formats.

According to an article in today's New York Times, VMD players are sold directly through the NME Web site and will be available on Amazon in about five weeks for about $200, though Michael Jay Solomon, the chairman of New Medium, seems to think prices could quickly drop to $90 a player.

Low prices, however, didn't save HD-DVD, and with the lackluster selection of VMD movies (only 17 titles available stateside), the upstart disc format is going to have a tough time even carving out a small niche for itself.

Whatever. All these next-gen disc formats are doomed, since HD-downloading on devices such as Apple TV and Vudu are only going to grow.

From the New York Times

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Canon this week introduced a lineup of new consumer camcorders with the moniker "VIXIA". This line includes a dual solid state (no hard drives or moving parts) unit that on the face of it is quite impressive.

The HF10 Dual Flash Memory camcorder uses both a 16 gigabyte internal flash drive and a removable SDHC memory card to store your captured video and still images. Flash memory is good because unlike a hard drive, optical disc, or video tape, there are no moving parts in that part of the camcorder mechanism, so it requires less energy and has less chance of failure (with normal use). The internal memory can capture up to six hours of high definition video.

The HF10 and another unit, the HF100 (which only has the SDHC card slot), both feature 24p cinema mode for capturing movie-like images and a 30p progressive mode, which is good for capturing fast-motion action like sports.

The HV30 HD camcorder introduced here seems almost quaint in that it uses MiniDV cassette tapes, although its predecessor, the HV20, did a nice job with high definition video capture.

The HF10 Dual Flash Memory will be available in April for $1,099. The HF100 is also coming in April and will carry an $899 price tag. Finally, the HV30 is coming out in February and will set you back $999.

We'll let you know what we think once we get our hands on the set for testing.

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Wondering whether to go with Blu-ray or HD-DVD? The decision is pretty clear, if the lightning fast drama and events over the past few days at CES are any indication.

First, last Friday, Warner Bros. announced it was switching its exclusive deal for next-gen disc availability of its movies (everything from 'The Matrix' to 'Lord of the RIngs') from HD-DVD to Blu-ray. This was enough to get the pundits, speculators, and naysayers foaming at the mouth with pronouncements that Blu-ray could well have won the war of next-gen, HD-quality disc formats.

Then, on Sunday, the HD-DVD group cancelled its CES press conference and event. Rather than spinning the Warner Bros. news with a smiling, confident face, the HD-DVD camp basically surrendered the public relations war, which leads us to believe that either it was totally caught off guard and suddenly had no press announcement at the 11th hour. It certainly was a tough position to be in, but at least Toshiba's VP of DVD marketing, Jody Sally kept a strong front by saying "HD-DVD is not dead," at a press conference on Sunday. (Toshiba was one of the major investors behind the HD-DVD format.) Not a bad strategy considering that company just released some hot new Qosmio laptops with the world's first rewriteable HD-DVD drive, among other features.

Still, the rumors have kept on flying, from naysayings by 'Transformers' director Michael Bay to word that Target may soon start selling only Blu-ray discs.

Now the Financial Times is saying that Paramount may be bowing out of its commitments to HD-DVD, which makes it the last major studio to move over to the other side. Until this latest news broke, early pronouncements of HD-DVD's demise may have seemed a bit premature, but now all those early naysayers seem to have been right on the money.

Yesterday, we took images of the adjoining booths on the show floor. As you can see, the Blu-ray booth was flooded with visitors, while the HD-DVD booth was relatively sleepy (giving its workers time to work on their resumes, no doubt).

So, what does this mean for you? Well, if you recently bought (or received) one of those $199 HD-DVD players that were for sale everywhere, don't worry -- you have, in effect, a fine DVD player that will upscale regular DVDs to quasi-HDTV quality.

If you're in the market for one of these players to show off the HD capabilities of your new TV, then it's safe to say that Blu-ray is the way to go. Plenty of new Blu-ray players (and drives and PCs) are on display at the show, and it's even rumored that Apple will announce Blu-ray drives at next week's MacWorld Expo.

And for existing owners of Blu-ray players, there's even more good news: This year some of those much touted online elements, such as Blu-ray Live, which let you download information on a movie from the Web or even play games with others over the Internet, will finally make their way onto Blu-ray discs later this year (or so says the Blu-ray disc camp).

So it seems like the battle of next-gen discs has been won by Blu-ray, but the war between the different HD-content distribution camps is far from over. In fact, it didn't look like Bill Gates, whose Microsoft was also a big supporter of HD-DVD, was phased in the least bit the other night at his last CES keynote. In fact, Gates focused on digital distribution (over the Internet) of SD and HD content from even more content partners (Showtime, ABC). In other words, he's probably thanking his lucky stars that Microsoft hedged its bets and offered HD-DVD as a separate drive for the Xbox 360 rather than built-in.

Regardless, over the last few days, HD-DVD's star has fallen about as quickly as a certain Democrat's presidential campaign, making us want to call HD-DVD the Hillary Clinton of optical disc formats (or is Hillary Clinton the HD-DVD of presidential candidates?).

Let's just hope that nobody from the HD-DVD camp jumps out of a window, because what happened to that team over the past few days was extremely harsh and sudden, the stuff of a prime-time soap, if prime-time soaps actually bothered themselves with dorky topics like movie disc formats.

Now that Skype and Logitech have unveiled upgrades to their video calling software, it's time to start videocalling over the Internet in High-Definition. With the QuickCam Pro 9000 and its snazzy Carl Zeiss lens, travelers can finally make those 30--frames-per--second calls to their buddies (or significant others) and do lightning-fast karate moves with no frozen frames! It's small and compact, which makes it ideal for the traveler's laptop. And even though it shoots and displays in state-of-the-art HD, the QuickCamPro 9000 is virtually dummy-proof, since it has built-in face-tracking technoloogy to keep you focused in the center of the frame. It's a steal at $99.

From Logitech

The Apple TV, after garnering some initially positive press, has faded into obscurity. Apple won't even release sales numbers for the tiny device, and Steve Jobs recently dismissed it as a "hobby."

So what happened? Apple usually has unprecedented success with its consumer electronics, and has a knack for creating a market where one didn't previously exist. But the Apple TV did not find much of an audience beyond die-hard Apple fanatics and the hacker/tinkerer crowd.

The failure of the Apple TV can be attributed to a number of decisions by the boys in Cupertino:

Poor Marketing
It's not that Apple didn't push the product, but more that they didn't explain it properly. The Apple TV is not a proper set-top box or a smaller Mac Mini. Essentially, it's a stationary video iPod with a hefty set of restrictions.

Apple TV didn't come with cable to connect to your TV.
It may seem like an odd complaint, but Apple is known for shipping products that work right out of the box. If you have to buy a $30 HDMI cable to make the thing work, it's betraying Apple's "it just works" ethos.

Apple TV requires an HDTV.
While HD is invading American homes at an incredible rate, Hi-Def sets are far from ubiquitous, limiting the device's appeal from the outset.

Apple TV lacks media support.
Sure, you can load up just about any audio file (other than Ogg or WMA) or photos of your choice, but the Apple TV's main selling point was its video capabilities -- where it undeniably fell short. The Apple TV is limited to lower-resolution MPEG 4 and H.264 video files such as those available through the iTunes store. These formats are nowhere near a high enough resolution to look passable on the fancy HDTV required to use the box. No DivX, no Xvid, no WMV. In fact, the Apple TV isn't even capable of handling the HD trailers hosted on the Apple Movie Trailers web site. Basically if you didn't buy shows and movies on iTunes and don't want to watch YouTube videos blown up to 1280x720, you probably have no reason to purchase the Apple TV.

A small community of intrepid hackers managed to add support for more formats, add USB storage expansion (a must on the original 40 Gigabyte model), and force the diminutive box to run both OS X and Linux, but homebrew enthusiasts alone cannot float an entire market segment.

Is there hope for the Apple TV? Probably not. At least not in its current iteration. Dropping the HD requirements would be a start, but simply building a more open and capable streamer is the only way to reinvigorate interest in the device. The Apple TV might be significantly cheaper, but we'd strongly recommend you drop the extra couple hundred bucks on a Mac Mini and an adapter for your TV -- you'll be much happier with the results.

From DailyTech

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While next-gen disc format Blu-ray languishes in the overpriced gadget ghetto, competing format HD-DVD and the players that play it are breaking free by dropping in price to a popular holiday gift level. ar. Hot on the heels of the release of the Toshiba HD-A3 HD-DVD player, retailers across the country are dropping the price of the previous-generation HD-A2 below the all important $200 mark.

At $198 in Wal-Mart and $197.99 in Circuit City, the HD-A2 is the first high-definition video player to approach commodity pricing. The only down side of the HD-A2 is that it falls short of "full HD" resolution or 1080p, topping out at 1080i, but it's the kind of thing that no one notices when sitting more than a seven or eight feet away from a TV set, or on any screen 42-inches or smaller.

Your turn Sony/Blu-ray camp.

From Ars Technica

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DirecTV is breaking out the big guns in the war for TV superiority. The satellite TV provider has bumped up its HD lineup from just a handful of channels to over 70, with plans to offer 100 by the year's end. T

Overnight, this addition channels pushes DirecTV from dead last in the HD race to first, and by a huge margin. For example, satellite TV competitor Dish Network -- previously the HD channel leader -- offers between 30 and 40 HD channels depending on the market.

Many of the channels are, of course, of the premium (HBO, Showtime) variety, but the lineup also includes HD channels we haven't seen in too many places before, including Food Network, CNN HD, and Sci-Fi HD.

$9.99 a month gets you all the HD channels tied to your particular package. For $4.99 a month more, you get access to all non-premium HD programing that's not included in your package.

From BetaNews

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Plenty of companies have attempted to replicate the success of the all-in-one iMac design and failed ... often miserably. Sony has consistently come the closest to replicating Apple's success in the industrial design department, but has yet to really capture the hearts and minds of the PC buying public.

Sony's latest all-in-one box just got the hands-on treatment from PC World, which liked what it saw and gave the new VAIO VGC-LT19U a 4/5 rating. ' VGC-LT19U' sure doesn't have the easy name recognition of 'iMac,' and it certainly costs quite a bit more, starting at $1,899 and topping out at $2,899 for the high-end configuration.

What does this box have over the iMac? For one, the LT series VAIOs are not simply PCs, but they're also HDTVs with built-in Blu-ray burners, cable card tuners and up to 1 Terabyte of hard drive space (that's about 250 hours of HD programing). Plus, they're wall-mountable.

On the downside, like all other Sony PCs this box is loaded with an obscene amount of bloatware -- trials, demos, and loads of other questionable applications PC-makers pre-install on a system in a deal with software makers that helps lower the unit's retail price. Also, the cable card tuner is not actually built into the PC, but is an unsightly black box that sits outside of the PC, detracting from and defeating the purpose of the sleek all-in-one design.

Be sure to check out the rest of the PC World review for more.

From Engadget

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If you've been thinking about getting a fancy new HDTV, you might want to wait unitl after the holidays to make your purchase -- at least that's the advice several analysts have given to the New York Times. Over the past couple of years, flat-panel prices have plummeted (and subsequently) so have profits.

As a result, retailers are focusing less on the affordable brands (Vizio, Norcent, Olevia) and more on pricier name-brand models (Pioneer, Sony, Sharp). Best Buy, Circuit City and even Costco are not only pushing higher-end models with the latest features like 1080p and HDMI 1.3, but also high-profit additions like extended warranties and professional installation

The relentless push for higher profits will likely let up after the holidays. Many retailers also have large post holiday sales events. So if you're in the market for an HDTV, wait until Dec. 26th. In the meantime, you can always check sites such as dealnews.com to find the latest promotions that may in fact exist before or after the holidays.

From The New York Times

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If you're trying to decide between Blu-ray or HD-DVD as your high-definition disc format of choice, you'll have to table that decision a big longer. Just when it seemed as if Blu-ray had HD DVD cornered, along comes this news: Paramount plans to support the HD-DVD format exclusively. This means blockbusters such as 'Transformers' and 'Shrek the Third,' as well as anything from Nikelodeon and MTV (The Hills, for example). will only be playable by those who own HD-DVD players or PCs and Xbox 360s with HD-DVD drives.

Speaking to movie site Ainitcoolnews.com, Paramount gave a host of explanations, including the common cost factor. Not only are HD-DVD players less expensive to consumers, but the format's discs also cost less to make. Converting a standard DVD manufacturing line to produce HD-DVDs is a much simpler undertaking than converting the same line to Blu-ray because HD-DVDs and regular DVDs share the same basic technology (whereas Blu-ray discs are slightly different).

The only exception to the Paramount/HD-DVD exclusivity deal is Steven Spielberg. The man is, and always has been, a huge fan of Blu-ray, so his movies will continue to be released on both formats (because when you're Steven Spielberg you can do anything you want).

Meanwhile, 'Transformers'-director Michael Bay has been vocal about his opposition to the decision and seems to be hoping to score a deal similar to Spielberg's. Bay, who also directed 'Bad Boys,' 'Armageddon,' and 'Pearl Harbor,' among other action-packed movies, posted on his personal blog some not so friendly words for his employer. In the post, titled 'Paramount Pisses Me Off,' Bay lashes out and threatens the studio's pocket books -- "No Transformers 2 for me!"

Every time you think one camp has this thing locked up, everything gets even more interesting.

If you want to know more about these competing formats, check out the brief Switched guide to the pros and cons of HD-DVD and Blu-ray.

From AOL News

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Video game polls and their results are rarely surprising or, indeed, all that interesting. They usually do things like rate Bowser vs. Dracula to see who's the coolest villain (Bowser) or ask whether you'd rather marry Samus or Princess Peach (toooootally Samus). But, stats wizards NPD Group has run a surprisingly interesting series of polls that indicate gamers are largely clueless about the non-gaming capabilities of their shiny new consoles. This goes for both Sony and Microsoft fans.

According to the poll, 40% of PlayStation 3 (PS3) owners, for example, said they had no idea their systems could play high-definition Blu-ray movie discs, and fewer than half of those actually had played one. This is surprising, considering most gamers receive one or more high-definition disc titles when they buy their consoles. But there's more: 50% of PS3 owners didn't even know their consoles were optimized for HD televisions, compared with an even more staggering 70% of Xbox 360 owners.

So, to ensure that you don't become part of the shamed majority of these polls, here's a quick run-down of what these two can do out of the box:

PlayStation 3

• Can:
• Support HD resolutions up to 1080p
• Play Blu-ray movies
• Play SACDs
• Up-convert DVD movies
• Stream media from networked computers
• Play most PlayStation and PS2 games
• Cause brownouts in your neighborhood
• Can't:
• Play most Windows Media files
• Download videos for rent
  
• Rumble controllers
• Knock out the fat
  

Xbox 360

• Can:
• Support HD resolutions up to 1080p
• Up-convert DVD movies
• Stream media from networked computers
• Download movies and TV shows for rent or purchase
  
• Keep your game room nice and warm
  
• Can't:
• Play many non-Windows Media files
• Play many original Xbox games
• Make long-term commitments to HDD-based storage devices

From Slashdot and Evil Avatar

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