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Product [Sony] Via [Gizmodo]

Westinghouse (originally famous for light bulbs and other glass products but Gadgetell-wise known for 1080p LCD TVs) is planning on showing off their line of 2007 HDTVs, computer monitors and digital photo frames at CES next week.

Westinghouse will continue their 1080p trend with a full lineup of LCD TVs in sizes ranging from 42” - 52”. They will also show the world’s first LCD monitor with 3840 x 2160 (greater than 8 megapixel) resolution, a 56” LCD Quad Full HD monitor that we expect to deliver stunning picture reproduction. An integrated LCD TV/DVD player will replace CRT all-in-one units (thought I think it should have been a HD-DVD or Blu-ray drive and a matching 1080p monitor). Finally, for the entry-level consumers, there will be a family of LCD HDTVs in an array of sizes from 19” to 42”.

On the monitor and digital picture frame front Westinghouse will show off a 24” multifunction LCD monitor with beyond 1080p quality (1920 x 1200 resolution) and digital frames with MosaicView technology in 14.1”, 10.2”, 8”, 7” and 5.6”.

Read [Westinghouse]

Wow if this doesn’t create excitement what does? Apple has changed their homepage image to the one seen above.

The first 30 years were just the beginning. Welcome to 2007.

As if there was not enough buzz around the company, they have certainly succeeded in reinvigorating the rumors and longing for shiny new gadgets and software in 2007. We already know that Apple will be upgrading their OS, from Tiger to Leopard around Q3 2007 as well as entering the living room space via the “iTV.” Other expectations are a HD Apple Cinema display with HDMI, Blu-ray support for the Mac Pro, the long awaited Apple phone, as well as the forever rumored video iPod.

Can we expect other new products/services from Apple? Be sure of it. How about some thinner, faster, sleeker MacBook Pros, maybe a MacBook tablet, doubling the memory of the nano and shuffle, HD iTunes downloads, more movie studios on iTunes, as well as other gadgets here and there.

Gadgetell Contest: We want to know what your Apple wishes are for 2007. Post them as a comment below and we’ll pick five winners at random. If you win, we will send one of the following items:

• Altec Lansing’s M602 iPod speaker dock ($199)


• Altec Lansing im500 iPod speaker dock ($129)


• Myvu personal media view for the iPod ($299)


• DLO Homedock ($99)

The rules…

The Rules:

• You may only enter this contest one time


• The winners will be sent a notice via email and has 72 hours to reply with their mailing address to claim their prize — make sure you use a valid email address


• You will be shipped your prize as soon as we get it into the mail, but don’t worry it’s coming


• Contest only valid in the continental 48 states


• Contest is open until 11:59pm PST on Friday, January 5, 2007


• Gadgetell has the right to use any and all submissions in any way, shape or form; but will never sell your submission nor your contact information.

Good luck!

Buena Vista Worldwide Home Entertainment announced their second wave of Blu-ray Disc releases for 2007. Titles will include Ladder 49 (50GB) and Reign of Fire on February 13, and The Prestige (50GB) which will be available day-and-date with DVD on February 20.

Ladder 49 (Joaquin Phoenix, John Travolta) will feature original DVD bonus features including The Making Of Ladder 49, Everyday Heroes, Deleted Scenes, commentary from Director Jay Russell, the “Shine Your Light” Music Video by Robbie Robertson and Blu-ray exclusive Movie Showcase.

Reign of Fire (Christian Bale, Matthew McConaughey) will feature original DVD bonus materials including Breathing Life into The Terror: The Making of The Dragons, “Below The Line: If You Can’t Stand The Heat” pyrotechnics featurette, a conversation with Director Rob Bowman, the original theatrical trailer and Blu-ray exclusive Movie Showcase.

The Prestige (Hugh Jackman, Christian Bale, Scarlett Johansson) will include DVD bonus features The Director’s Notebook: The Cinematic Sleight of Hand Of Christopher Nolan, “The Art of The Prestige” featuring costumes, scenery and set design, along with Blu-ray exclusive Movie Showcase. 

Samsung’s pricey but as you know, 1080p Blu-ray player (model# BD-P1000)now has a firmware update to fix some flaws. The funny thing is that Samsung has not announced what the updated actually fixes, as if it is some big secret that the picture quality was not up to par. Some problems that existed were the noise-reduction circuit (causes softness in the picture) or the DTS stuttering (resulting in a stuttering or breakup in the image with the DTS track selected).

The BD-P1000 firmware update, version 1.0, can be found here.

Update: The update fixes the stuttering problem.

Read [Home Theater Blog]

A Japanese game magazine publisher is predicting that the Sony PlayStation 3 will trail the upcoming Nintendo Wii half way through 2007 but will finish the year as the leader. The Nihon Keizai Shimbun believes that Sony’s unexpected prerelease domestic (Japan) price cut is expected to help the console spur initial and maintain strong sales from its launch in November until December of 2007 even with the postponement of the European release. The hard numbers they predict are 4.13 million units for the PS3 and 5.47 million for the Wii by March of 2007. The magazine then goes on to predict that as 2007 finishes up there will be more games for the PS3 as well as a worldwide price cut (as Blu-ray becomes more popular and cheaper to produce) pushing Sony into the #1 spot between these two late manufacturers.

Remember Microsoft’s Xbox 360 will have had about a year head start on both Sony and Nintendo and is expected to have total global sales of 17.46 million by the end of 2007—with no thanks to the Japanese market which has not taken to Redmond’s gaming system.

Read [eCommerce Times]

Samsung along with LG and Acer were all strong-hold Blu-Ray players. We has recently seen Acer and LG try to develop dual Blu-Ray/HD-DVD drives and now Samsung has seemed to lessen their devotion.

The Korean company has added an HD-DVD player (and possibly recorder) on their M55 notebook computers—the world’s thinnest and lightest 17-inch widescreen notebook. Other notebook specs include a 256MB Nvidia GeForce 7600 Go graphics card, 120GB hard drive, 802.11 a/b/g wireless connectivity, Bluetooth 2.0, inputs and outputs galore, including HDMI, and powered by an Intel T2500 Core Duo processor.

Is the format battle already dieing down?

Read [Pocket Lint] Via [EngadgetHD]

What The Future Holds, a column written by Adam Berger, that introduces tomorrow’s technology and trends today, is published on Thursdays.

All you hear about the second you turn on your TV is why you should either switch to cable and your local cable provider’s video on demand (VOD) content offering. These PSA commercials also tend to mention 3-in-1 services - phone, internet, and TV - as well as HD channels, and digital DVR set-top boxes. What they neglect to talk about is the one thing that most providers don’t...provide HD content on demand.

Holding things back are the usual problems: capacity and content. Everyone has the ability to receive HD channels but the total number of channels is still very limited. Until MPEG-4 and switched-digital roll out most providers simply don’t have the bandwidth to deliver all their regular programming and more than a few HD VOD offerings (and on Cablevision those are all nature programs). Just image how much less you would go to the movies if you could watch top rated movies in HD from the comfort of your own home. Oh wait, you can? It’s called Blu-ray and HD-DVD? Right I forgot…

The studio’s don’t want to offer their content for VOD HD options because they are investing a ton of money into the next generation disc formats. Once you have the ability to just stream down the HD content from your provider whenever and wherever you want there will be no reason to purchase the HD capable discs or their players (especially because who wants to drop over $1000 on a format that may become obsolete.

However as the bandwidth issues get sorted out, media research company Diffusion Group sees progress made the same way it has for regular HDTV, sports & broadcast networks first just like primetime television and ESPN-HD have led the charge so far. So alas this column is titled What The Future Hold’s so I should finish up with a future oriented statement. I expect that over the next 12 months we will see more and more HD VOD offerings but nowhere near the point of current standard-def on-demand offerings.

Read [HD Beat]

The 599 euro (£400) HD-E1 will be released two days before rival Blu-ray players in Europe, only a slight lead as compared to the two month head-start the format had here in the states. BD will of course also be available in Sony’s upcoming PlayStation 3 which will be out in the not so distant future. A second Toshiba HD-DVD player will be released in December.

Prices for Toshiba’s first wave of HD-DVD machines have been set considerably higher than in the US, where the first HD-DVD machines were released in April, and some retail for a little as $499 (£260, 390 euros). By contrast, Samsung’s first Blu-ray player was priced at $999 (£524, 760 euros) in the US.

Read [Electronics Weekly]

On Monday, Microsoft showed its HD DVD drive built for the Xbox 360 to members of the press.  According to News.com’s Greg Sandoval, the device is about the size of a hardcover book, and is set to hit stores in time for the holiday season.  Due to the limited selection of HD DVD titles, the Microsoft representative pulled up The Phantom of the Opera on the screen and demonstrated the playback and interactive menu features that can be displayed while a movie is still playing.

“All the audio and video processing is done inside the Xbox,” said Collins, who noted that research has shown that a majority of Xbox owners already own high-definition displays. An Xbox drive provides them with all the other equipment they need to watch HD DVD movies, he said.

Although pricing has not yet been released for the HD DVD drive, it is sure to be the cheapest on the market.  The Sony PlayStation 3 is expected to ship with a built-in Blu-ray drive.  Ready… Set… Let the gaming format war begin.

Check out News.com’s gallery from the event.

Read [News.com]