Check out Coolness Roundup on Sirius Stars 102 tonight at 12:30 Pacific, where Gizmodo's Charlie White, along with Stephen Schleicher of Sci Fi Tech present a heated discussion about HD DVD vs. Blu-ray, spouting statistics and opinions that might just sway you one way or the other.
The Gurus of Cool also lead you through another groundbreaking Rapid Fire Roundup of Cool Products they've seen during the week, sprinting through the top 10 best examples of coolness in the fastest three minutes on Sirius Satellite Radio.
If you're not a Sirius listener, catch the Coolness Roundup podcast here, or find out about the hottest and most up-to-date gadgetry on Coolness Roundup Daily.
Show Notes [Coolness Roundup]

Pardon my anti-Blu-ray whoredom, but could this be a sign of the future? Amazon is clearing out a lot of their Blu-ray titles with discounts up to 50-percent off. Surprisingly, the movies aren't crappy either. There are some good flicks in the list. –Travis Hudson
Product Page [Via Bargainist]

Filed under: Home Entertainment
Bad news MPAA, good news fair use folk: this weekend not only marks the date of extraction for PowerDVD's AACS key (which, as you may recall, is one of the two HD disc-playing apps in Windows right now along with the already cracked WinDVD), but also signals the release of AnyDVD 6.1.2.9, which officially adds Blu-ray support. Go forth and enjoy easily ripping those heavily armored Hollywood titles, dear readers, and let no motivated power-user take the weekend off from sticking it to the man by consuming their media on the devices and whichever manner they wish.

[Thanks, Ren and everyone else who sent this in]

Read - PowerDVD
Read - AnyDVD 
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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time
Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Just last week Sony bigwig Stan Glasgow dropped word that their BDP-S300 Blu-ray player pricing would be getting cut to $600. But TV Week reports that during this announcement, Glasgow also mentioned that he saw Blu-ray dropping as low as $299 this year.
I don't see the merit of purchasing a $600 BDP-S300 since the PS3 is a fantastic Blu-ray player that will (one day) play games. But at $299, my guess is that a lot more consumers will start looking at these next-gen players, especially if these price drops are properly timed with Black Friday. – Mark Wilson

Blu-ray Gains Sales Edge [via blurayfreak]

Filed under: HDTV, Peripherals, Storage

We've seen a couple of these "Blu-ray factory-in-a-box" setups already, but thought we'd run another set by you just in case you missed the first wave. The ReflexBlu2 and ReflexBlu4 go for $3000 and $5000, respectively, and can burn Blu-ray, DVD-R and CD-R discs. ReflexBlu2 does up two Blu-ray discs per hour, while the Blu4 manages double that. Both systems hook up to your computer via USB, and sport 250GB HDDs for holding on to nine Blu-ray disc images at once. Sure, the price might sound steep, but your extended family will be thanking you later for those 1080p editions of "Family highlights '07" you'll be able to mass produce this next holiday season. 
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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time
Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Seeing as we've already established that the PS3 is the best bargain Blu-ray player out there now and a better DVD player than the Xbox 360, it's pretty fitting that Sony's dream machine is going to have DVD upscaling.
In a recent interview, Phil Harrison said "...we're going to have DVD upscaling on Playstation 3." What'd you think he said? That Batman's going to use a PS3 to save Gotham in next year's movie? – Jason Chen
Loot: The Phil Harrison Interview, Part IV [Newsweek via Kotaku]
Image via Gamesblog
Update: Apparently 360 already does upscaling via VGA. Looks like we need to trade in our component cables for some VGA action. Wonder if they've fixed all the Gears VGA problems yet?

Just when we thought Samsung was firmly in the Blu-ray camp, they come out with a version of their M55 laptop that supports HD DVD. The machine has a Core Duo T2500, 2GB of RAM, 120GB SATA disk, 17-inch 1920x1200 screen, and it's available for around $3200 if you speak Korean.
Is it a matter of time before Samsung releases a HD DVD standalone player? Or maybe it'll follow LG and release a dual player? – Jason Chen
After the Samsung M55 Blu-Ray, here's the M55 with an HD-DVD burner [Akihabara via Mobile Mag]

Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment, Media PCs
No, it's not surprising in the least that Ferrari has found yet another firm willing to cater to their every demand in order to form a distinct partnership, but regardless, the automotive firm is looking to sweep the rug out from under your current home entertainment setup with the F80. Teamed up with Meridian Audio, the same folks who channeled HD content from your iPod to your TV, Ferrari is delving into yet another consumer electronics realm by coordinating an oddly-shaped and still mysterious "home entertainment center." Aside from looking more like a semi-circle and less like an AV component, the device purportedly packs DAB / FM / AM tuning, a CD / DVD player (no word on HD DVD / Blu-ray just yet), and 80-watts of power dispersed through the two front-firing speakers and rear-mounted subwoofer. In typical Ferrari fashion, the unit should be available in a variety of colors, including white, yellow, silver, and red, and while we...

Filed under: Gaming
As you can probably imagine, the reaction to Sony's newly-spec'ed European PS3 hasn't been all that warm, so Three Speech decided to hit up big Phil Harrison himself to get responses to the criticism straight from the horse's mouth. Perhaps the biggest relief to nervous Eurogamers will be Harrison's claim that over 1,000 PS2 titles will be available on the PlayStation Network at launch, a list of which will be made available online on the 23rd or perhaps even sooner. However, it's clear from the way Harrison dodged a question about the importance of backwards compatibility that Sony does not place a lot of weight on the feature, instead hoping that people will go out and spend loot on games and Blu-ray flicks. One possible positive revealed by Harrison was the fact that the PS2 Emotion Engine chips being omitted from European (and possibly all future) models are not the same ones mass-produced for the PS2 itself, but rather, are manufactured specifically for th...

Filed under: HDTV, Storage
In a strange turn of events, Blu-ray discs are outselling HD DVDs, and now the HD DVD format has taken the lead in capacity -- who would've think it? Toshiba just announced that it has successfully created a triple-layer disc with 17GB per layer, which amounts to 51GB, a full GB more than those dual-layer Blu-ray discs can muster. We heard about the size gains at CES this year, but Toshiba is already in the process of submitting the new extension of the format to regulatory approval, however, the word on the street still amounts to a potential Q4 release, and it's still unclear at this time what kind of manufacturing costs or complications these new discs will incur. We'll say it again: the format war is far from over. 
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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time
Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the po...