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.

Read More »

Projectors can be tricky. You read their stats and everything looks good. But the better things look, the more likely the price is ridiculously high, or at least too much to justify for the average WASP home theatre. The Sony Bravia VPL-HW10, however, actually looks pretty fantastic if Sony Insider is right about their projected US$3,000 pricetag. Just check out these specs:

Read More »

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.

Read More »

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.

Read More »

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.

Read More »

Toshiba's new Regza ZF HDTVs don't upscale your DVDs to HD resolution with any old chipset or engine: they do it with a Cell-processor based system. Bonkers! It's the first TV to upscale with a Cell, and according to its European executive vice president, Toshiba's future "does not involve Blu-ray disc" but will use this sort of tech to deliver high-res imagery. The upscaling system uses the Cell for some advanced image-processing techniques, creating interpolated pixels to give the final image "near-HD" quality. The sets will also have Active Vision M100 100Hz HD picture processing, 178-degree viewing angle, 30,000:1 contrast ratio and 10-bit processing. The ZF TVs will be in 40- and 46-inch sizes, the 40-inch out now with pricing of around US$2,390, the 46-pricing and availability is not announced yet. [Toshiba.co.uk and Toshiba.de-via Google translate.]

Read More »

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.

Read More »

The good news: Panasonic announced their newest 103-inch plasma, which will have updated features such as 10000:1 contrast ratio, 4 HDMI ports, Deep Colour and x.v.Color support, not to mention a US$20,000 price drop. The bad news: it'll still cost you around US$50,000. In addition to the aforementioned features, the most incredible use of the gigantor display might be viewing photos and AVCHD home videos through the built-in SD port. Available now only in Japan, we're pretty sure that if you have the money to buy the television, you have the money to get Japan's friendly locals to load the 340kg set onto a boat or something. [Panasonic via Impress]

Read More »

Not so long ago, we published the 10 things that we still wanted in the PlayStation 3 firmware. Now according to gaming site CVG, at least one of those requests will be checked off the list with Sony's upcoming firmware 2.5. (Sony really loves us!!) Specifically, screengrabbing is said to be on the way. And as minor as that may sound, it's a useful update that could allow (high rez?) captures of not just any gaming moment but movies as well. So sales of the Blu-ray versions of Wild Things and Gia should go through the roof. Wait, do people actually still watch Wild Things? Are girls kissing still cool? [CVG via Kotaku]

We were pretty easy on those early gen Blu-ray players, but now that the format has had some time to blossom, there's no excuse for a unit like the Yamaha BD-S2900 or its US$1,200 asking price. Lacking BD-Live or an Ethernet port to upgrade the firmware should be enough to keep you away from this already outdated machine, but you may want to note that it's also lacking a way to decode TrueHD and Master Audio (you'll need a fancy Yamaha receiver for that, surely) along with standard luxuries like gold-plated connectors. If you go with this new, pricier Pioneer (or heck, even this older, cheaper Pioneer) you're getting more features, and the PS3 is still a pretty solid choice, too. Read on for the back shot and the full press release.

Read More »