Entries from April 2007 ↓

Panasonic’s new 1080p set is the best plasma ever.

That’s what Gizmodo friend Gary Merson of HD Guru says. The colors were the most accurate, the 1080p signals were processed at full bandwidth with no loss of data, the black levels so deep as to be untestable, and the contrast ratio amazing.

In conclusion, the Panasonic TH-50PZ750 is simply the best high definition display I have ever reviewed.

Doesn’t hurt that the Panny’s SD card slot can play back H.264 at high def. For Gary, this is the set to beat, and I’m not one to argue with a guy who’s been testing TVs longer than I’ve been out of junior high school.

The price? A MSRP of $3999, which is maybe why the just trounced Pioneer PRO-FHD1’s MSRP was dropped from $8000 to $5000 (without speakers BTW.) (Pioneer’s new sets, based on all new tech will debut this Summer, so look for a good fight then.) – Brian Lam

Exclusive- First Review of the Amazing Panasonic TH-50PZ750U Plasma [HD Guru, thanks Gary]
[Photo is of the 700 series Panasonic, but they should look similar.]

These are the first pictures of the box, remote control and UI of Vudu, a video store in a box that is going to engage in a battle royale with Apple TV later this summer. The service will launch with thousands of movies from seven major studios as well as indie distributors, connects directly to your TV and does not require a PC or a cable box. The company, Vudu, Inc., has been quietly engineering the technology and striking deals with content owners for the past two years (under the codename Marquee). It’s run by some of the biggest names in Silicon Valley. Find out more about the box, its load-sharing network, and the Apple connection after the jump.

The box is about the size of a hardcover book and delivers video streamed in MPEG-4, which is upscaled to HD. It has HDMI, composite, and S-Video ports. Vudu goes online via an ethernet cable, and the media stream is managed through a load-sharing distributed network, which should guarantee instant access to the movies without stutters. The remote control has a scroll wheel (nice touch) and appears to have just five buttons. There are plenty of open questions about Vudu—like the size of the hard drive—which won't get answered until closer to the launch this summer. The price is going to be competitive with Apple TV, but probably a bit more expensive.

The chairman of the Vudu, Inc. board is Alain Rossman, the guy who made it possible for you to browse the Web on a mobile device (WAP). He got his start at Apple, then founded Phone.com (now Openwave Systems), EO Corporation, and C-Cube Microsystems among others. The founder of Vudu, Tony Miranz, comes from Tahoe Networks and AT&T Bell Labs. The COO and VP of Engineering both come from TiVo. Vudu is funded by Greylock Partners and Benchmark Capital.

How will it stand up against Xbox 360, TiVo Series 3 and Apple TV? I can’t wait to find out.
–Noah Robischon

Vudu [Teaser Page]

We’ve been known to download DivX files using BitTorrent on occasion, and there’s nothing better than using an upscaling DVD player like the Helios H4000, the LG DN191H or the Oppo DV-981HD to watch these shows and movies on our TVs in high def. But the Ziova CS505, much like the Helios X3000, can stream the files directly from your computer without having to burn them to a disc beforehand—the ultimate in convenience.

Although both this and the Apple TV stream video, they’re in totally different classes. Apple TV is made for playing back movies and music purchased from the Apple store, and unless you re-encode your downloaded BitTorrent movies from DivX, it’s not going to play on Apple’s offering. This and the Helios X3000 are for every other non-Apple format.

In many ways, the Ziova CS505 is even better than the Helios X3000 we tested before—which technically makes it the best streaming, upscaling and DivX player we’ve used yet. Make the jump to find out why.

First off, the format support is pretty complete, playing back just about everything we threw at it. There’s DivX, of course, plus “Windows Media Video 9, XviD, Nero Digital™, MPEG-4, QuickTime MPEG-4, MPEG-2, MPEG-1, DVD and other formats.” Audio support isn’t taking a nap either, with FLAC, OGG, AAC, MP3, WM9, CD and various others. You’ll be hard-pressed to find something this sucker doesn’t play, unless you’re talking about Real Media formats.

The video quality is fantastic—noticeably better than the Helios and on par with the Oppo DV-981HD. Both DVDs and DivX files are played back at 1080i, which loses out to the Helios's 1080p, but isn't a huge deal unless you've got a very new set. It's the first player to support HDMI output with HDCP, but to most people that doesn't matter all that much.

What does matter is the player’s ass-kicking ability to read files from pretty much anywhere. The CS505 can support SMB (Server Message Block) shares, which is just basic Windows shares, but can grab data off of Macs and Linux machines as well (since they support SMB). Not only that, there’s UPnP support, which works with the Orb software we tested a while back, and USB (FAT and NTFS) disk drive support. That means you can dump a bunch of files onto an external hard drive, walk to your living room, and have days’ worth of stuff to watch.

There’s also standard photo streaming/playback as well as music streaming/playback, which both support SMB and UPnP as well. Both these worked well for us, and it was nice that the audio kept streaming when we got out of the audio menus and into the photo menus.

Oh, and there’s a weather app on there, too. So you can get weather. Kinda superfluous, but neat nonetheless. The 802.11g wireless was a nice touch, but we prefer its 10/100 Ethernet since we’ve got so many wireless devices and don’t want any skipping.

Now for the things we didn't like. First, it took about 50 seconds for the thing to boot up to where we could do something. Then there's the fast forwarding through DivX movies—not very responsive, but better than fast forwarding on our Motorola Comcast DVR. You'll often go past where you wanted to stop, and then have to rewind again.

Oh, and the unit’s not exactly pretty. The silver design reminds us of a late ’90s VCR or DVD player, but if you’ve got it stashed away in your entertainment cabinet, it’s not a huge deal. Other than these, we didn’t really find anything else to complain about, which is great news.

We can confidently say this is our favorite upscaling DivX and DVD player we’ve played with so far. It’s responsive, has lots of playback options, and can handle just about every file we have. And the best part is that the price is only $299, which is only a little bit more than the Neodigit’s Helios X3000 at $269. If you’re into watching streamed DivX files without all the hassle of burning discs, this is the one for you. – Jason Chen

Product Page [Ziova]

If you’re looking for a great deal on HD DVD drives for the Xbox 360, now’s the perfect time to hit up Sam’s Club. Reader Chris tipped us off to this $72 deal, which is coming as a result of “Wal-Mart” not stocking these HD DVD drives anymore. Chris isn’t sure whether they meant only Sam’s Club or Sam’s Club and Wal-Mart, but you’re probably set on getting one at Sam’s. Incidentally, can anyone see if Wal-Mart is doing this as well?

In light of recent announcements from Wal-Mart that they’re going to stock tons of cheap HD DVD drives, having an even cheaper drive for the Xbox 360 may not make sense. They don’t want to confuse and conflict with what they’re trying to do there. – Jason Chen

Thanks Chris!

In another shocking freezing over of hell, we have discovered an iPod case that is actually *gasp* innovative! This case for fifth generation iPods looks normal on the front, but the backside has a pretty nifty cable-management system. It has an extension that the cord can be wrapped around and the 3.5mm audio jack and earphones have their own little cutouts that they can reside in securely when not in use. It is available for $20 in clear or black. Too bad it only works with iPod headphones. –Travis Hudson

Product Page [Via iLounge]

Looking for a cheap way to get your hands on a new Xbox 360 Elite system? The guys at Gamestop are giving out some pretty good discounts if you’re willing to part with your old Xbox (and I don’t see why you wouldn’t).

They’ll give you $50 for an old-school Xbox, $200 for a Core Xbox (sans hard drive), and $250 for a Premium Xbox (with hard drive). Not a bad deal at all. – Louis Ramirez

UPDATE: We spoke too soon. Turns out that if you eBay your used Xbox 360 you might fetch a few extra bucks. GameStop has the better deal on the other systems, but you can sell your Premium 360 for $300-$400 on eBay (if you throw in some games). It’s not as easy as bringing it to the store, but you’ll get an extra Benjamin for going the extra mile.

GameStop Offering 360 Elite Trade-Ups [Kotaku]

It’s a strange pehnomenon, we talked about the HTC X7500 for so long that it felt like the real product could never actually exist. But Boy Genius Report got their well-manicured fingers on a real model and stripped it down slow tease style for us all to enjoy.

Hit the jump for our favorite shots. And if that’s still not enough, you could visit their site since they went through all the trouble. We’re not the jealous types.

Slut.

– Mark Wilson

HTC X7500 Unboxing [boygeniusreport]

Long term, a pen that requires proprietary 2″x2′ paper technology could never support your daily inundation of soon-to-be-forgotten-unless-written-down-immediately genius. But for one glorious, “I do have a pen AND paper!” week, you could dominate.

And $29.95 for one week of self-satisfaction is a bargain in my book. – Mark Wilson

Product Page [via geekologie]

Microsoft’s official blog, On 10, just pumped out some more info on the Xbox 360 Spring Update, including a 25 minute video going through the ins and outs of the “hundreds” of new features and enhancements. There’s the messenger/ninja DL stuff we already know about, but here’s some of the other updates you can expect come May:

• A richer Achievement notification pop-up will showcase the name of the unlocked Achievement and the gamerscore value without needing to leave the game to check the Achievements list.
• Enhanced family settings features for Xbox Live communications enable different defaults for video chat and voice chat.
• A new Xbox Live Marketplace blade lets Xbox Live members access the content they seek–whether it is game content or TV shows and movies (available in the United States)–from one place on Xbox Live.

• Updates to Xbox Live Arcade allow owners to quickly see which Xbox Live Arcade games their friends are playing and join in the fun. Xbox Live members can also compare progress of leaderboard scores and Achievements directly with all friends on their friends list. Expanded “Tell a Friend” capabilities make it easier than ever to boast about Achievements and high scores.
• Expanded “Tell a Friend” capabilities make it easier than ever to boast about Achievements and high scores.
• A new option in Auto Downloads provides faster access to the entire collection of free, trial-version Xbox Live Arcade games.
• New progressive download controls provide easy access to optimal viewing options by letting people fast-forward, rewind, pause and resume as their video is downloaded from Xbox Live Marketplace.
• Extension of the background download functionality will allow owners to set their Xbox 360 console to turn off automatically after downloads are complete.

Whee! Check the link below to watch the long, long video on the upcoming update. –Adam Frucci

Sprung: First (official) look at the Xbox 360 Spring Dashboard Update! [On 10]

The old race to put a computer in the living room seems to have been replaced by a stealth operation. With the PlayStation 3 running Folding@Home and packing BlueRay, and the XBox 360 working as a Media Center extender, it seems that a whole bunch of people have some pretty PC-like action going on.

A new Dashboard Update takes this one step further: The XBox will be adding Windows Live Messenger in May, and this is the hardware to go with it.

The QWERTY keyboard clips into the gamepad and lets you go at it Blackberry style. There’s a microphone port on the bottom to replace the one it covers up, and those keys are backlit for secret all night sessions.

No prices yet, but expect it in time for the summer.

Instant Messaging Comes to Xbox 360 [XBox.com]