If your 42-inch plasma isn't getting enough oohs and ahhs from your neighbors, maybe this will. The Zgiga TV 2 is a hyrbid TV/shelf unit that combines the latter with a multi-format Blu-ray/HD DVD player called the Zgiga Cube (in black). Designed by Ori Takemura, the Zgiga TV 2 just won this year's red dot design award in the design concept category. In other words, you can't buy this, which may be a good thing cause that extra wide bezel around the display kills it for me. – Louis Ramirez
Product Page [via Coolest Gadgets]

Filed under: Displays, Home Entertainment
It's one thing to be fashionably late, but to arrive at a party that essentially ended months ago (at least) and expect to shake things up is probably an ill-advised move. Nevertheless, Japan's ByD:sign (badged as EyeFi here in the States) is offering up a 42-inch plasma TV (PE-4202DFK) that sports a built-in digital terrestrial tuner and manages to include an HDMI input, but somehow touts a completely uninspiring 852 x 480 resolution. Just in case the rest of the specs even matter after that blow, it also features 1,500 cd/m2 brightness, a 10,000:1 contrast ratio, Genesis DCDi chip, S-Video / composite, VGA, analog / optical audio, and removable 10-watt stereo speakers as well. While the lowly resolution may suit your Wii playing needs just fine, you won't enjoy any crisp HD DVDs or Blu-rays in their full, unadulterated glory here, and at a whopping ¥170,000 ($1,430), you can do a whole lot better for your money anyway. 
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The average consumer. It's confusing enough for them to figure out that HD DVDs and Blu-rays don't work in standard DVD players, as seen in this picture taken at Wal-Mart. But how are they going to know that Blu-ray discs won't work in HD DVDs, and vice versa?
To both the HD DVD and Blu-ray camps, we just want to congratulate you all on a job well done. And you're wondering why sales of next-gen discs and players are so slow? – Jason Chen
Thanks tipster!

Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment
Toshiba has launched its first second generation HD DVD player, the HD-A2, but the more fully featured HD-XA2 will not see daylight until 2007. We had expected to see the player this year, but a dealer's post on AVS Forum indicates the first shipment isn't expected to hit until January 3rd due to production delays. AV Watch confirms the player has been pushed back to January in Japan as well, while the rest of the world should still see this hardware later on in the year. DTV Tivo Dealer on AVS Forum also noted that while 1080p/24 playback -- currently only an option in a couple of Blu-ray players -- won't make launch, he is "100% sure" a future firmware upgrade within a few months will add it as an option. That puts the $999 HD-XA2 on the long list of next gen players with future firmware updates on the way, but we'd settle for it actually being available in the first place.

Read - AVS Forum
Read - AV Watch 
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They told us it was bullet-proof, unbreakable. Yet in a mere eight days, a hacker by the name of Muslix64 has managed to single-handedly break the Advanced Access Content System (AACS), the standard that Disney, Intel, Microsoft, Sony, and others developed to protect HD DVD and Blu-ray discs. The BackupHDDVD software is posted online on a Doom 9 forum thread along with the volume and title keys needed to decrypt Full Metal Jacket, Van Helsing, and a few other popular HD DVD titles. Time to, er, back up those movies. – Louis Ramirez
Doom 9 Forum

Filed under: Home Entertainment
Can it be? Is Hollywood's new DRM posterchild AACS (Advanced Access Content System, see more here) actually quite breakable? According to a post on our favoritest of forums (Doom9) by DRM hacker du jour muslix64, his new BackupHDDVD tool decrypts and dismantles AACS on a Windows PC. Just feed the small utility a crypto key (it comes bundled with keys for a few popular HD DVD titles, with the promise of more on the way), and it'll dump the video right off the disc onto your hard drive, supposedly playable in any HD DVD compatible player. If true, this would instantly become the DeCSS of high def optical (where you at, Jon?), as AACS is the copy protection scheme used not only by HD DVD, but by Blu-ray as well. Code and source posted in read link, let us know what you find!

Note: We're working on testing this ourselves, we'll report back with our findings asap.

[Thanks, Max and Adam] 
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Blu-ray:
The Descent: Can they manage to make spelunking interesting?
Transporter 2: Surprisingly bereft of Chief Miles O'Brien.

HD DVD:
The Breakfast Club: Hey Hey Hey Hey! Ooooooooooohhhhhoooo.
The Deer Hunter: Where else can you see Christopher Walken and Robert De Niro in the same place?
– Jason Chen

When Sony had its big PS3 press day a few months ago, the world's elite gaming journalists stopped bashing the console long enough to write about how stunning the PS3's visuals were in person. But, I'd just seen it and I wasn't blown away. The difference between my experience and that the others had? I saw my demos on a good, but not great LCD. So I reasoned that the PS3's high praise was in part due to the monitors Sony paired the PS3 with.
This is the same monitor that Sony used on the press day.
And it looks exceedingly good in all its 1080p glory (I've included high res shots of the screens.) But not all is perfect with this series of TVs.

First, an introduction. The 40-inch Bravia KDL-40XBR3 LCD has a couple of interesting things going for it, 1080p res aside. It uses a cold cathode fluorescent backlight that has allows for a bright picture with an exceptional color range. It uses a set of visual processors for upscaling lower def pictures, as well as e...

Deep inhale. The Apple Keynote is 2 weeks away. And that means the Mac rumors are spinning up like a carnival vomitron reaching its apex. Here's a roundup of the super imaginary monitor the rumor site have dreamt up, sparked up by the expectation of the iTV set top box. Without further ado, or proof, please put on your fantasy hat and enjoy these rumors like the Geek-issue of US Weekly.
•Bigger than 30-inch cinema displays.
•With HDMI connections that are HDCP compliant, for full resolution playback of the alledged Blu-Ray support we talked about on Sunday.
•iSight cameras built in, fueled by the supposed discontinuation of standalone iSight cams.
I'd by that. Those rumors read like an All Giz Wants entry for monitors. –Brian Lam
Monitor Rumors [Mac OS X Rumors]

Filed under: Gaming, Wireless
Ok, so the PS3 certainly has its strengths (like the built in Blu-ray player, for instance), but there's definitely a few gripes following it around as well. A (very understandable) complaint from AV freaks has been how the home-theater-centric console strangely lacks an IR receiver, and instead, Sony opted to offer up its proprietary Bluetooth remote to control the BD movie action from afar. Those looking to dictate your PS3 with that (presumably costly) universal IR remote, take heart, as the clever folks at Remote Central have whipped up a way to add infrared functionality to your IR-less machine. Aside from a PlayStation 3 and a desire to further integrate it into your home theater setup, you'll need a PSX/PS2 Controller-to-USB adapter as well as an original Sony DVD remote for the PS2 (model SCPH-10172) with external IR receiver (model SCPH-10160). Of course, the aforementioned remote should prove trickiest to find, as the current models lack that...