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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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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On Sept. 9, Universal will release an amazing 10th Anniversary Limited Edition of The Big Lebowski that's packed inside of a mini-bowling ball. A goddamn bowling ball. And it'll have all-new bonus features, which I hope/suspect is filled with John Goodman screaming various permutations "fuck" a lot. For only US$24. Why so cheap? Because it's only on DVD. WTF, Universal?

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Don't get me wrong, Toshiba's XD-E500 is a decent 1080p/24fps upscaling DVD player--it toasted one of their own upconverting players in the demo, and they've gotten pretty good at doing it. It's got three different intelligent processing modes, two of which are really solid--sharp (which only sharpens where it's needed, not the whole picture), colour (dials up blues and greens plus sharp mode), and contrast (deepens blacks, probably the worst mode because you lose some dark detail).

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Look, John Connor, I get that we at Skynet are considered your enemies. I also understand that with the whole trying to "terminate" you thing, you'd probably get a little "drag Hector around the walls of Troy" once you've claimed victory over one of us. But this, sir, is ridiculous. Even genocidal robots have certain rules of engagement, and frankly, turning our reclaimed skulls into a harmless consumer electronic ought to be violating some code of conduct. Are you even listening to me? Wait, what is that you're approaching with? The second season of Scrubs? Are you serious?! What kind of monster are you? Amnesty! AMNESTY!!! [Toxel via Geekalerts]

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The longest service disruption in Netflix history has apparently been resolved, with normal service resuming today. The company will compensate affected customers by adding a 15% credit automatically to their next bill. [Physorg]

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Netflix's bonered shipping system hasn't magically fixed itself yet, but Reuters reports that they're resuming shipments to the affected customers. The company, which shipped nothing early Thursday morning, wants to get back to normal sometime on Friday, which may or may not be the case. The good news is that they've fixed most of the problems (or so they claim), but if you really need something to watch, their Watch Now streaming is still up. [Reuters via CrunchGear - Image Credit]

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The second Futurama DVD hasn't even stopped spinning in our drives and we're already looking forward to the third one. It's a much geekier affair than even Futurama fans are used to, as they're delving into the world of Dungeons and Dragons. Will this Ender's Game Futurama movie be any good? We're pretty sure it will, seeing as the Kirk and Spock heads are back, and that was probably one of the best episodes ever.

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CDs and DVDs tend not to last long in my house... but since I just fling them in a pile in the cupboard, that's entirely my fault. The Sanwa CD-RE1AT might be just the ticket, though: it works on 8cm or 12cm CDs, DVDs and BDs. With a push of a button it removes dust, fingerprints and "oily spots" from discs, and with the "repair" button it solves skipping problems and coats the discs with a protective layer, without grinding. Available now for US$79. If only it found missing CD case inserts too, it'd be perfect. [Akihabaranews]

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Either Toshiba is still stinging from the HD DVD loss to Blu-ray, or they're really in need of some fast cash from the really low barrier of entry DVD market. Either way, it seems like the Japanese company is going to introduce an internet-connected DVD line called "DVD Download DL", using the nets to bring next-gen connectivity features to old-gen. This way Tosh can get easy money now from the huge DVD install base, then get into Blu-ray when that's cheaper and more widely adopted. [TGDaily]