In a show full of ultra high-end home theatre installations, Lifeware's LMS-810 Media Centre piece still manages to be a standout. Taking what they came with last year and doubling it, Lifeware has crammed eight CableCARD tuners (two on board and six more in the external Lifetuner box on top) into a dual Intel Quad Core, 12TB RAID 5 box that can stream out to ten Media Extenders (here, Xbox 360s driving Samsung LCDs). The box can record from all eight of its HD streams while streaming to all 10 Extenders at once, so if you've been wondering what to do with your home's 8 spare digital cable feeds, now you know. No price yet for a pre-Christmas release, but last year's model with half as many CableCARDs was US$15k.

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Last year at CEDIA, Sony made a splash with a refrigerator-sized Blu-ray home server with 200-disc changer. This year it's nowhere to be seen, but in its place, Sony is showing a 400-disc changer of a more sensible size. The company isn't saying much, except that it's coming in 2009, it's going to be BD-Live capable, and that it will have RS-232C controls for the home-theatre hardcores. Great! Now all you need are 400 Blu-ray discs worth owning. (It will hold DVDs and CDs, too, of course, but why waste it?)

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Most of us will be happy with consumer-priced stock DVRs or TiVos. But for those who are looking for something better for the ego, Niveus has just revealed their updated media centres, the Rainier, Pro Series and Denali Limited Edition. All three lines support 8 CableCards and 10 Media Centre Extenders. The Rainier is modest, storing 1TB of data with no fans. The rack-mountable Pro Series continues the fanless trend and packs 4TB of storage, 32GB SSD, Intel Core i7 processor and Nvidia Series 9 graphics card (for when 1080P video just isn't enough). The Denali Series (pictured) is similar to the Pro Series, but maxes at 2TB of storage to make room for a Blu-ray drive. These monster media centres will be available in Q4 2008.

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A new entrant to the Blu-ray player field, Cambridge Audio's first BD machine is pretty high-end. Apparently the white-painted gizmo is all about matching "the original studio masters" in audio quality with Dolby TrueHD and DTS HR surround, and in video quality with 24 fps progressive scan True Cinema, which "allows films to be watched as the director intended at their original frame rate" if you're into that sort of thing. It also upscales DVD-resolution video to 1080p, and the back of the machine is going to be pretty crowded with analogue video outputs, HDMI 1.3 outputs, ethernet, SPDIF, Toslink and separate 7.1 and stereo analogue outs. There's no word on pricing but it's expected Spring 2009. Press release below.

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The TiVo HD is a good, cheap alternative to the recently de-listed TiVo Series 3 for people who didn't need all that much storage and all that many fancy features. But what if someone wants even more built-in storage than the 20 hours of HD that the TiVo HD provides? They've now got the TiVo HD XL.

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Sony is trying to bargain with potential buyers of Pioneer's US$2,200 BDP-09FD: For US$200 less, you can get yourself the BDP-S5000ES. Meanwhile, it's equally intended to regain the love of all those home-theatre enthusiasts who bee-lined it for the PS3 (rather than a dedicated BD player) because of its networking and speed.

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Sony's DA6400ES and DA5400ES hi-def A/V receivers won't exactly get your nerd juices (it's a thing) flowing, but if you're in the market for a high-end unit for your home entertainment system, they might be worth considering. Merging a relatively predictable feature set with newer DLNA streaming technology and an array of connection and input options, the receivers are intended to help integrate your central home entertainment system with the rest of your household media hardware, streaming files from your DLNA-compliant PC as well as sending out a second HD signal via CAT5e (ethernet cabling) so that you can distribute the system's output over your home network.

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LG kicks off the press conferences here at CEDIA in Denver. After teasing the Netflix-streaming LG BD300 Blu-ray player, a double threat if I ever saw one, they finally told us the price today: US$400, well below the US$500 mark LG was aiming to stay under. (Keep in mind, the Netflix box by Roku is, by itself, US$100.) LG says the BD300 will be appearing in stores by end of this month or first week in October.

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Sony has had a little splurge of Blu-ray action, and come up with six new models of BDR-recorders/players that also sport hard drives which can record HD video. The T-series, BDZ-T55 and BDZ-T75 are the basic models, with 320GB hard drives, BD Live and memory-card ports and DLNA (on the T75). The L-series models BDZ-L55 and BDZ-L95 have 320GB and 500GB drives respectively, and a HDV 1080i/DV input, and 2 USB sockets for connecting digital cams to. The top-end X-series BDZ-X95 and BDZ-X100 models have 500GB and 1TB of drive room, Sony's Cross Media bar GUI and the new Digital Reality Creation - Multi Function version 3 chip. Full specs below.

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Home theatre junkies are now one step closer to a fully THX-certified home thanks to Serious Materials' QuietHome soundproof doors, which joins the company's QuietRock THX-certified drywall. The Serious folks claim an 85% improvement in sound blockage over a standard solid-core door with the 2 1/4-inch thick THX-certified edition, which will set you back US$2,500 when it clears the certification board (and once the first shipment clears to George Lucas's Presidio compount). If you're in the target market for a THX-certified door, US$2,500 probably won't sting too badly. Now, where is my THX-certified easy chair and acoustically neutral Pringles can? Read on for full details.

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We covered the Gorenje Made for iPod fridge and the iGorenje home appliance program at IFA last Sunday. I've spent some time with both and I like what I see, although I have some doubts about how practical this can be.

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I don't know if these fridges are the norm in the US, but it seems to me like Miele's latest giganormous fridge from their Master Cool line--shown here at IFA 2008--has to be the biggest fridge ever available to megalomaniac consumers and potential serial killers. They should christen it The Walk-In Fridge, because this thing is so big that you can fit a cow inside. So huge in fact that I won't be able to put it in my apartment's living room. Actually, I think can put my entire living room and bedroom inside during the summer months. [More IFA 2008 Coverage]

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The Home Appliances halls at IFA 2008 have some of the best stuff in the fair, like this Gorenje fridge table, which seems to be a brand obsessed about doing really Star Trekish stuff for the kitchen. The table--with a central fridge that smoothly raises to give access to food and beverages, and a security system to avoid having your arm trapped in it--is not a concept but a real product made to order. The price: US$15,000 to US$20,000, depending on the material you choose. I'll keep using my picnic fridge and raising it to the table while making a hmmmmm noise with my mouth, thank you very much. [More IFA 2008 Coverage]

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The Siemens HB 78P570 oven looks like any other oven until you notice that it has no door, which is precisely when it starts to open automatically from its bottom: The glossy black food platform slides down mechanically until it is at the same level as your kitchen top. Sounds a bit crazy, but it's extremely convenient to put your suckling pig stuffed with chicken wings, then easily paint it with BBQ honey sauce until it's done. [More IFA 2008 Coverage]

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This is the Gorenje Foldable Qube prototype, a hob and hood system that can be hung on the wall of a small kitchen to save some serious space. It's also a kitchen-to-go: "You can take it with you anywhere--just like a laptop", told me the IFA booth laeedee. You know, for those very special times in which you need to cook anywhere else in the house but the kitchen:

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Believe it or not, this beautiful Gorenje fridge is an official Apple-licensed Made for iPod refrigerator. And believe it or not, it's not just a speaker and a dock glued to a glossy black fridge: You can actually control the fridge itself using your iPod touch or iPhone using an application called iGorenje. The coolness doesn't stop there, because iGorenje can control all kinds of Gorenje appliances--from the washing machine to the oven.

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It's becoming all about Blu-ray nowadays, but LG hasn't forgotten the DVD player: its DVS450H is doubly interesting for its design and DivX playing. Check out those sleek lines—pretty sci-fi, especially with that concealed display and sliding-door disc tray lid. LG call its shape "floating", and it can be desk or wall mounted. And its the first "DivX Certified(R) DVD player from a major manufacturer capable of playing HD video" according to LG, with playback capabilities from DVD or hard drives attached to its USB port. It's due in October for around US$240. Press release below.

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In case you missed it today, there's a big conference happening in Europe called IFA at the moment. And while we haven't yet seen the Panasonic presentation, the guys from Trusted Reviews did, and they scored a photo of the presentation slide for Panny's new Blu-ray recorder. Although when we say new, we mean new to Europe, not new to Australia - the DMR-BW500 has been out in Australia for a couple of months.

But is it the same device? Eagle-eyed reader Anthony pointed out that the slide Panasonic showcased at IFA explicitly says that it features BD-Live technology, which we know for a fact that the Australian version doesn't. Considering you need an Ethernet port (or inbuilt Wi-Fi, I guess) plus some dedicated storage on board to be able to use BD-Live, it would mean that the DMR-BW500 for Europe would have different hardware to the Australian model.

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We are in the midst of a sink design Renaissance folks—crazy new designs seem to pop up all the time. The latest comes to us via Graff in a form that bears more than a passing resemblance to a samurai sword. Plus, the faucet itself is about a metre tall, so I wouldn't be surprised if visitors to your bathroom linger a bit admiring this masterpiece of plumbing. You even have the option of wall mounting the handles depending on which style you prefer. [Graff via HDF]

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It was only a matter of time before Sony squeezed out an all-in-one Blu-ray home theatre system, and their new Bravia BDV-IT1000 seems to fit that void quite nicely. Some of the highlight features include: 700W of total power, slim speakers thanks to finger-sized full-range drive units, wireless rear speakers, two HDMI inputs and support for Dolby Digital Plus, TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio. No word on a price or a release date, but I wouldn't doubt that this beauty will be stateside in the near future.

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With Samsung's BD-P2500, we see that Blu-ray players are finally shedding that first-gen baby weight. Sized to fit in a normal dress, Samsung's latest supports all current Blu-ray spec right out of the box and is prepared for expansion through its ethernet, 1GB of onboard memory and USB. In terms of audio, the system can handle Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital Plus™, Dolby TrueHD, and dts-HD HR all without an external decoder. And for US$500, the BD-P2500 is offering far more features than the recently announced Yamaha player at less than half the price.

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As mentioned in the liveblog, Philips has stumped up a new home theatre system that's as small, and almost as round as, a soccer ball—for those of us bored of boring, standard rectangular entertainment gadgets. Though it's tiny, it fits in an iPod dock, a five-channel amp, six speakers and a subwoofer built into the base. It must be pretty cramped inside, since it's just 27cm across, and only 17cm high. The DVD player can cope with DivX, MPEG-4 and WMV, and upscales to 1080p over HDMI and the CD player can read MP3 discs, and it's got USB-in. If that's whetted your appetite, you'll have to wait as there's no info yet on timing or price. But the press release is below.

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We just saw the DMP-BD50 a few months back, but now at IFA Panasonic has made official two new BD-Live 2.0-compatible players, the BD35 and BD55. The only discernible difference between the two, at the moment, is the BD55 supports analogue 7.1 channel audio output. On top of that, they both share a slimmed-down chassis (just 4.9 cm high for the BD35, 5.5 cm for the 55), Uniphier image processor just like in the BD50, SD-slots, all the audio formats you would expect, and of course Blu-ray profile 2.0. No pricing or availability for the US yet. Check out a full spec chart comparison after the jump.

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Like a regular Squeezebox, the Squeezebox Boom streams music from a PC or internet radio station over 802.11g. Unlike the classic, it has a pair of 3/4-inch soft dome tweeters and 30inch woofers biamped with 30 watts of juice.

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The Axolute sink takes minimalism to such extremes that it completely does away with the drainpipe. If you are hoping that magic is somehow involved in removing the water, I hate to disappoint but the truth is actually very simple. The secret is patented "Horizontal Integrated Siphon" technology, which is just a fancy way of saying a horizontal drain. It's not quite as interesting as my beloved fossil washbasin, but I certainly wouldn't mind having one in my bathroom (although I'm sure I could not afford it). The Axolute comes in the stainless steel version pictured above, as well as a white version with several coloured trim options. [Axolute Design via Trendir via DVICE]

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