The self-proclaimed HDTV expert, Peter Putman, took a look at Toshiba’s second-gen HD DVD player. First off, the player is a lot slimmer than it predecessors. That’s a good thing! The remote has been revamped, with lots of small buttons and no more backlighting. That’s a bad thing.

But what about picture quality and loading times? The latter is much better, but still slow in the big scheme of things - turning on took 30 seconds and getting a movie playing took 11.

As to picture quality, that should be fine as long as you set the output to 1080i. The 720p and 480p setting degraded the quality considerably. Not so good. But at 1080i, this $500 player works quite well. So if you don’t mind using the 1080i output, this is one of the cheapest ways to get into HD discs right now. (The other being the 20GB PS3, if you can find it.)

Product Review: Toshiba HD-A2 HD DVD Player

Engadget HD recently took a good long look at the Panasonic PT-AX100U LCD projector. Remember that this projector is the successor to the successful PT-AE900U, and has a resolution of 1280 x 720, horizontal and vertical lens shift, and a 2x zoom lens.

Those Engadget HD folks don’t beat around the bush, either. They say right up front that they like this projector, and think that it’s one of the best bargains to be had at the $3k (MSRP) price point. The projector has an amazing picture, no screen door effect, and of course an HDMI input. What more could you want?

Check out the full review below.

Engadget HD Review: Panasonic PT-AX100U

Smallville is a title from Warner Brothers that has only been released on HD DVD so far. That title and other HD DVD only holdouts will be making their way to Blu-ray in 2007. That’s from the 12/8/06 “My Two Cents” posting at The Digital Bits.

And the 12/11/06 column talks about the fact that both Fox and Disney aren’t going to be releasing HD DVD anytime soon. They are both firmly committed to the BD format. Disney will announce some major title news at CES in 2007.

Warner to catch up with BD titles in 07

Several computer manufacturers have voiced support for the Blu-ray format, and Dell is one of them. To prove it, they’re releasing a laptop with an included BD drive. The XPS M1710 is a Media Center laptop with a 1920 x 1200 resolution.

It doesn’t come without a cost, however. The 2GB RAM laptop with 100GB HDD costs $4,249.

The big thing, though, is that there’s no HDMI output. That’s a shame - how are you supposed to hook up the laptop to a high-def display?

First Look: Dell XPS M1710 with Blu-ray

So HDMI is starting to be seen everywhere. The funny thing is that 99% of the stuff out there with HDMI does not have version 1.3 and most likely will not be upgradeable to 1.3. The biggest thing in 1.3 I think would be important to people is the lip syncing whereby the audio and video are synced up so it doesn’t look like a Japanese film with English voice over.

So is HDMI better? Maybe, maybe not. Why? As a display medium DVI can do most anything that HDMI can do. The one big advantage HDMI has is that it can carry audio also which can be important if you are connecting from a source to a receiver to preprocessor.

The problems I’ve seen with HDMI have had to do with the plug. I’ve bent my share of HDMI plugs, but have had no problems with the DVI plug.

What I haven’t heard is since HDMI and DVI cables can be interchanged is: will DVI support HDMI 1.3? I think it should as long as the electronics can decode the signal.

HDMI heading for sustained growth as DVI begins decline in 2007, In-Stat says

So China has tried to steal the lime lite of HD DVD and Blu-Ray by reintroducing the previously failed EVD specification. So what do we know from the press release and rumors?

- Some 20 manufacturers will be making 54 players by 2008
- Uses a red laser (like HD DVD)
- Uses a new codec that is supposedly as or more efficient than MPEG4 (haven’t heard a comparison to VC-1)

What we don’t know.

- How many U.S. will sign on (so far zero)
- How much capacity (assuming if similar to HD DVD ~25-30Gig)?
- What audio codecs will it support?
- Will these devices use HDMI/HDCP?
- Will EVD support new audio formats (DTS-HD, DD+)? I don’t think so.

This is a scam. These players are for China only. There is no US content on board. No codec support. This is a chinese player to play chinese content. This may work well in China and maybe around asia. That may not be a bad thing with 3 billion of the worlds 5 billion people concentrated right in the asian area.

So what does this mean to you and me?

Nothing. Now go watch a Blu-ray movie.

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Sony finally made their BD player available for sale here in North America (for $999), and now here’s word that they’re starting to sell a Blu-ray recorder in Japan. Their BDZ-V9 BD recorder sells for the equivalent of about $2600. It can record on single-layer BD-R/RE discs only, which is a disappointment. If the recorder made full use of the BD format, it could record 50GB of data per disc, not just 25GB. The machine does include a 500GB hard disc for PVR use, however, so all is not lost.

The recorder can simultaneously record two programs, which is a must in my view for any PVR.

The player also has a lot of other features including iLink support. But I can’t get past the pricetag. Who would want to pay $2600 for a machine like this? I know I definitely wouldn’t. Start talking at the $1000 price point, and then maybe I’ll listen. (I also think most BD players are overpriced.)

Sony Blu-ray Recorder Hit Shops in Japan

Those white-trenchcoated folks over at CNET labs put Microsoft’s HD DVD peripheral for the Xbox 360 under the microscope, and they had to adjust the focus a little bit. Once in focus, though, they liked what they saw.

But right off the bat, I have to say I can’t agree with one of their pluses for the peripheral. They say “The Xbox 360 HD-DVD player is less than half of the price of today’s stand-alone HD-DVD players and includes the Xbox 360 Universal remote.” Less than half, sure, but only if you already own an Xbox 360. Add that to the cost, and you’re paying $500 for the system.

That doesn’t mean, however, that the peripheral isn’t any good. Quite the contrary. It makes out well in labratory tests. So if you’re an Xbox 360 owner, you might want to take a look at this peripheral. However, if you’re worried that studios might one day start enabling the ICT flag, then you might want to look elsewhere because the Xbox 360 + HD DVD solution does not contain an HDMI or DVI/HDCP output. Right now, though, that’s not a problem. It might never be. So you can enjoy movies now, and for the forseeable future, in HD on your Xbox 360 with this $200 peripheral.

Microsoft Xbox 360 HD-DVD