The Deal: LG's new Super Multi Blue drives include lightscribe for etching on discs, and HD disc compatibility on both HD DVD and Blu-ray, along with read/write for DVD, CD, and read only for HD-DVD-ROM. The GGW drive is ~$500 and can also do 6x recording on Blu-ray discs, which is about 32 minutes for a 50GB double layer BD-R. DVD+/-RW is at 16x. The non blu-burning GGC is ~$400.
Second-Generation Super Multi Blue Drives: LG offers consumers unparalleled flexibility in next-generation optical disc drives with the introduction of two new dual-format "Super Multi Blue" Blu-ray and HD DVD compatible internal drives. Reflecting manufacturing efficiencies and marketplace realities, LG announced the units will retail at the new price of $499 for the GGW-H20LI and $399 for the GGC-H20LI. Both units feature LightScribe, enabling consumers to easily create direct-to-disc labels right from their drive. The optical drives are compatible with Blu-ray Disc, DVD, CD read/write and HD-DVD-ROM...

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets
According to the always exploitive New York Post Page Six, an Anderson Cooper-hosted panel with Jeff Bezos, Sergey Brin, and Barry Diller (amongst others) had been discussing how technology was changing the way people got their entertainment and news, when Sony honcho Howard Stringer apparently accused Steve Jobs of being "greedy." The report claims that Mr. Stringer went on to say that the Steve-man "Wants a world where only he makes money." The knighted gentleman then stormed out of the room and called his assistant on a Sony Ericsson, who proceeded to take him to his hotel where he watched the Sony-produced Spiderman 2 in Blu-ray format on his new Vaio while petting an AIBO with his metallic claw. 
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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

I rarely use exclamation points in my headlines, but this deal seems too sweet not to. I'm talking about a LG Super Blu hybrid disc player that can play back HD DVDs and Blu-ray discs for $1200, plus any combination of Ten in stock HD DVD or Blu ray discs, for free. Good job, Best Buy. This is a smart move in light of the cheaper single-format players that have come to market, like the Toshiba HD-A2 going for $300 on Amazon. Before you dive in, read our review of the player, as it's not perfect. [Best Buy]

From America's Finest News Source. Onion people, the Giz loves you. [The Onion]

Sony's DV Direct DVD recorder lets you transfer HD video from a Sony hard drive camcorder onto DVDs that can be played back on a Blu-ray player. It looks like Sony got a little pissed when it saw JVC doing something like this with its $400 Everio HD Share Station DVD recorder, but that one can only play back the resulting discs from itself. This Sony VRD-MC5 plays them back from one of the increasingly ubiquitous Blu-ray players.

And, one DVD can hold 95 minutes of that AVCHD video that's becoming steadily more popular these days, or 2000 still pics. Hey, this could be useful. Imagine you're on a vacation and you've filled up the disk on your hard disk- or memory stick-based HD camcorder. Instead of transferring all that data onto a PC (and you don't want to take your laptop with you on vacation, do you? Huh?), you can play it right out onto DVDs that are Blu-ray friendly.

It's not just for HD, either, it can handle standard definition video and has just...

Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment
Besides moving low-priced HD DVD players, the HD DVD Promotional Group is taking advantage of Home Media Expo 2007 to announce its most recent sales data, with HD DVD going up, and Blu-ray going down. Specifically, the Nielsen Netratings mentioned show HD DVD hardware sales up 37 percent, and software sales up 20 percent from the first to the second quarter of this year. Over the same period, overall Blu-ray hardware sales (no word on if this includes the PlayStation 3 or not) were down 27 percent and software sales down 5 percent. Shockingly, this trend is attributed to aggressive marketing campaigns and cheaper standalone HD DVD players hitting the market, causing a 183 percent drop increase in dedicated player sales for the quarter, and over 180,000 players (up from 100k back in April) sold altogether. Whether HD DVD focus on standalones over consoles gives them an edge is unknown, but it seems like Blu-ray may be catching on to the strate...

Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment
The HD DVD Promotional Group recently claimed that 74% of the market share for European high-definition DVD players is held by HD DVD, but the Blu-ray Disc Association points out that they conveniently "forgot" to include PS3s and PC drives in their count. Including those puts Blu-ray in the lead instead, with almost 95% of hardware sales. HD DVD lobbyists contend that most who buy game consoles don't even use them for watching high-def movies, while everyone who bought an HD DVD player will do exactly that. The fact that the PS3 is still basically cheaper than many of the standalone high-def players (Blu-ray or HD DVD) means it's not exactly honest to discount them completely either. All we know is that the format war continues, but as long as prices continue to fall, it's tough for the average consumer to complain about that. 
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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System...

Some Denon and iTunes fanboy set up this fantastic rendering of a concept box that Denon should put to production. AVSForum's wizards understand it is fake because receiver is spelled wrong, but that doesn't detract from its desirability. The gadget equivalent of a unicorn fantasy includes a Blu-ray player, 2TB of storage and iTunes compatibility of some sort. Only in our dreams, only in our dreams. Source image:
I'm still not sure this isn't some gadget I'm forgetting about, doctored up a bit. Anyone remember? [AVSForums via Engadget]

Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment

Denon isn't typically known for throwing out any futuristic pieces of AV luxury, rather, it tends to side with the more traditional, classy look. Of course, there's always a first time for everything, and while we're highly doubtful that this supposed Denon rendering will actually come to fruition, it certainly is a sight to behold. The two-piece kit consists of a rumored DVD-HD8910 Blu-ray player up top, with a 2TB AVR-HD8910 media center / receiver below. The 7.1-channel box also claims to handle iTunes music files and offer a direct connection to the iTMS, and while it's understandably simple to brush this all off as a fanboy's fantasy, Denon's no stranger to stuffing unusual extras in uncommon places.

[Via AVSForum] 
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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Hey, you the Giz-steady crew. Don't worry, you don't have to show what you do, or make a break, make a move - instead let us show you what you might have missed earlier. From Wii Party Stations to broken glass and flatpack fighterplanes, it's all here.

• Avatar machine further distances you from reality
• Build your own Spitfire fighter from (almost) scratch
• Snazzy customized gaming PCs from Commodore coming here later this year
• Wii Party Station thingy to put your chips and dips in
• World's largest telescope opens for business in the Canary Islands
• Gizmodo sommelier Wilson gets to the bottom of the Sony VAIO bottle mystery
• Motorola turns its PEBL into a ROKR
• A cellphone which thinks it's Megatron and transforms into a robot
• Smash some glasses and take some pictures of it, why don't you?
&bull Keep your beady eyes on AT&T thanks to a field test mode on t...