Whether you're making home Blu-ray movies to distribute to your friends or just backing up all your data with 50GB chunks, Blu-ray seems to be the way to go if you've got a Mac. FastMac's latest Blu-ray drives are the first sub-$500 BD burners that we've seen, and work fine with Mac Pro, PowerMac G3-G5, eMacs and iMac G4s.
Check out their full spec list after the jump for the types of Blu-ray discs it works with. But still, five hundred bones is a lot to fork out if you don't really need it for work or to make money. There's a reason why Blu-ray and HD DVD porn movies cost $49.99 each.
Specifications:
* Up to 8x DVD±RW, 2x BD-RW
* Up to 50 GB of Storage on 1 Dual-Layer Disc
* Compatible with all CD and DVD media
* Bootable, OS X Native, Plug and Play Drive
* 100% PC & Mac compatible*
Works With:
* Mac Pro
* PowerMac G3
* PowerMac G4
* PowerMac G5
* eMac...

Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment
One of the reasons why we still love component video is because of the availability of component video matrix switches. Matrix switches are like a Ethernet switch for HDTVs, they allow any source to connect to any HDTV throughout your house. That way you can stack up all your equipment in your closet, and enjoy any one of your sources on any one of your HDTVs. Finally regular consumers can get the same matrix action out of their HDMI gear, with Gefen's new 4x4 HDMI Matrix switch, which routes your video and sound, and can be controlled via IR or a RS-232 connection for your home automation system. As cool as this product is, it isn't for everyone. The switch costs $1,999, and who knows how much those long HDMI cables from the closet will cost you, but if you have four HDTVs, a Series3 TiVo, an Xbox360, an HD DVD and a Blu-ray player, you can probably afford it. 
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Office Depot Featured Gadge...

Does anyone out there really have enough devices to warrant an 8-port HDMI switcher? I mean, you could have a PS3, an Xbox 360 Elite, a HD DVD player and a Blu-ray player, and despite the redundancies and pointlessness in having all of those things you'd still have four empty ports.
But then, I guess this thing isn't really for regular consumer use, seeing it's meant to be mounted in a rack and not sit on top of a receiver. And $900 isn't a very consumer-friendly price for a boring old switcher. But hey, if you're one of the half dozen or so people out there who really need to be able to switch between eight HDMI devices, go nuts. –Adam Frucci
Product Page [Akihabara News]

Remember those rumors that Wal-Mart was going big in HD DVD and ordering 2 million cheapo Chinese HD DVD players? Yeah, that's not so true. Fuh Yuan, the company supposedly taking the orders, just posted a correction regarding the orders, saying they "had not received yet." Wal-Mart just asked them for a cost analysis and timing appraisal, and may choose them to provide the players if everything looks dandy. Did you know Fuh yuan is supposedly, according to a translation in AVS forums, going to IPO soon? Convenient.
Wal-Mart itself said they can't comment on whether there was a deal brewing, but did say they plan to sell both Blu-ray and HD DVD until one of them sucks slightly less than the other.
In more non-news, we called it that Blu-ray would only be winning for another 5 minutes before HD DVD threw a statistic in their favor across the wires. To the Blu-ray's millions of discs sold, HD DVD is actually at 998,059, just 2,000 units of Blu-ray's million disc march. ...

Good news for Blu-ray fans. Sony's just announced that they're ramping up blue laser diode production yet again, which will lower the price to just around $8 each by June. What will this mean to you? Well, seeing as the diodes were the reason for the PS3 shortages this fall (and contributed to both the PlayStation's and Blu-ray players' high prices), this huge windfall of diodes could mean lowered prices for all Blu-ray related items.
Some analyst from Wedbush Morgan Securities agrees, saying "Sony is definitely in a position to cut price," and that prices will be lowered once costs hit around $499. So those of you who are on the fence about dumping $599 may want to wait it out just a little longer.
Also, since HD DVD also uses blue laser diodes (a different type, and they just don't call theirs blue), this news could also mean they will ramp up production of theirs as well. – Jason Chen
Blue Laser Costs Coming Down; Could PS3 Price Cut Be Far Behind? [G...

Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment

It just wouldn't be a proper format war without a rebuttal from the opposing side about this week's announcement that Blu-ray has sold over a million discs. The HD DVD PR machine scrambled to life to point out that they, too, are so close to that magic million, with their own sales numbers showing 998,000 units sold, up from the 937,500 reported by Home Media Research. The HD camp also points out that -- not including the PS3 or Xbox add-ons -- standalone next-gen DVD hardware is selling 4-to-1 in favor of HD DVD this month, and content sales numbers are very close week-to-week between the two formats. Meanwhile, the average consumer sits on the sidelines waiting for a winner to emerge from the fight -- that is, if they can even spell it. 
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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Now that ATI's CableCARD problems are fixed and CableLab's five-week certification process is almost done, more companies are jumping in on offering CableCARD-compatible media centers. The latest is S1Digital, which just announced that they will offer Media Centers and Servers with HD DVD and Blu-ray playback, 1080p HDMI output, 7.1 channel surround, multi-terabyte storage, quad-processor computing and Vista Ultimate.
If you're curious to see how Vista handles CableCARD recording and playback, check out our first hands on with Niveus's units early this month. – Jason Chen
Product Site [S1Digital via Press Release]

Filed under: Media PCs
Those disappointed by the lack of CableCARD support in S1Digital's line-up of Media Centers released earlier this year may want to give the boxes a second look, as the company's now finally decided to join the likes of Niveus and Velocity Micro in the CableCARD game. Both the company's ProLine and Home Series Media Centers will be getting the upgrade early next month, with each able to be equipped with up to two CableCARDs apiece. The systems appear to be otherwise unchanged, however, running on Core 2 Duo or Quad processors, and configurable with up to 1TB of storage, Blu-ray or HD DVD drives, and up to two ATSC and NTSC tuners, among other goodies. 
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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Have a butchers at Lenovo's newest ThinkPads, the T61 and the R61. While there's nothing particularly scrummy about the design, the laptops do have Intel's Santa Rosa platform under the hood. Both models will be available from next month, with updated versions following on in June (a WWAN model of the T61) and July (a Blu-Ray DVD burner on the R61). There's even fingerprint technology on some of the T61s to keep your private stuff just that.
Both models have 14.1-inch displays, Intel Turbo memory card for some KITT-like Vista performance turbo-boost, hard disk encryption, SmartCard support and NVIDIA graphics. And if you were looking for the IBM badge, you can forget it: Lenovo has finally scratched it off - the first time they have done that since they bought the company's PC division in 2005. All the new technology specs of both models after the jump, but no prices as yet.
T61
Intel Centrino® Duo mobile technology on selected models:
Intel Core 2 D...

So you've heard the rumor about Walmart getting a wave of cheap Chinese HD-DVD players? Here's an article by Digital Trends riding the 1000-Digg wave declaring the format war is done. Finshed. Decided. All by the giant retailer's might, HD-DVD will win. It makes some sense, and gives some insight to how the retailer decides what to stock.
One thing the article ignores: Current facts.
Right now, Walmart carries not only an HD-DVD player for a marginally more expensive $349, by Toshiba, but a $900 dollar Blu-ray player, too. So the $300 dollar rumored price of the Chinese players are a factor, but not more than it already has been with Walmart's existing stock. So there's no reason to write this article now. Unless you factor in the quantity of the rumored players: 2 million. That's more than the combined title sales of both Blu-ray and HD DVD together, which says more about the pathetic states of both parties. (Anyone know DVD's adoption rates by year one offhand?) But I'm...