June 20 - 6:05pm EDT   InFocus on Wednesday introduced the X10 Full HD 1080p projector in the UK. Part of the company's Home Theater range of offerings, the X10 features a 16:9 native aspect ratio, and a contrast ratio of 2500:1, which can be boosted to 7500:1 via the active iris built into its lens. The DarkChip1 DLP chipset was sourced from Texas Instruments. [full story]

June 19 - 5:25pm EDT   InFocus on Thursday introduced the X10 Full HD 1080p projector in the UK. Part of the company's Home Theater range of offerings, the X10 features a 16:9 native aspect ratio, and a contrast ratio of 2500:1, which can be boosted with a button push to 7500:1 via the company's Active Iris in the lens. [full story]

June 9 - 11:10am EDT   Japan's Victor-JVC has developed a dual-codec video camera LSI (Large-Scale Integration) chip, the company announced on Monday. The HD Gigabrid chip allows recording of HD videos in the H.264/MPEG-4 AVC format as well as the Internet- and YouTube-friendly MPEG-2 codec, both at the same time. The chip allows for Full HD (1920x1080p) recording, and is capable of extended HD recording with a 5MBps setting. MPEG-2 format video can be written at 27MBps. [full story]

June 5 - 4:35pm EDT   Tsutaya, Japan's biggest rental chain, today announced it will launch an HD video on demand service, allowing users to download titles from home. The service will be made possible via the acTVila portal, and give customers a 48-hour window to view the content. The acTVila service works directly with dozens of plasma and LCD HDTVs, and Japan will stop analog signal broadcasting by 2011. [full story]

June 5 - 3:00am EDT   Sanyo has launched its compact, lightweight Xacti HD1010, a full 1080i high-definition digital camcorder featuring "Face Chaser" face detection technology for both video and stills as well as a new slow-motion video mode at 60 fps and seven frames-per-second sequential shooting for action photography. The HD1010 features a 10x all-glass optical zoom, image stabilization, and a large 2.7-inch LCD; it takes 1920x1080 video at up to a slow-motion 300fps and 4-megapixel digital still images and records both to SD memory cards or SDHC cards up to 32GB. [full story]

June 4 - 4:50pm EDT   ASUS on Monday revealed its Mini PC Nova Lite PX24, a computer it claims is the world's smallest to offer 1080p, or full HD, playback capability thanks to a dedicated graphics card. Combined with its compact 9.5 by 7.2 by 2 inch size, low 26dB sound levels and touch-button interface, ASUS hopes the PX24 will find its way into living rooms as a high-performance home entertainment center in a small package. [full story]

May 22 - 3:05pm EDT   Five years from now, Apple will have made significant strides in its consumer product strategy, expanding its digital home offerings to include products and services to connect PCs and digital content to the HDTV-stereo audio-visual infrastructure in consumers' homes, according to Forrestor Research. CNET reports that the research note predicts a bridging of the "AV/IT divide [...] for video, music, and photos in most homes." The report also speculates that Mac OS X will likely be sprinkled throughout the home, and predicts the introduction of a home server product that would act as the digital hub to push video streams, music, and photos throughout the home. Other ... [full story]

May 19 - 1:45pm EDT   Sharp on Monday announced it will debut 22 new models in all for its AQUOS RX5-, GX5- and DS5-series HD LCD TVs. The flagship RX5 series will be available in 65-, 52- and 46-inch sizes and will allow users to surf the Internet. Either model features Sharp's backlight control technology which endows the sets with a high 20,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio. Without it, the panels feature a 3,300:1 static contrast ratio. [full story]

May 1 - 9:55pm EDT   Mvix on Thursday launched an ultra-compact HDD-based, portable media player: the new high-definition Mvix MV-2500U media decoder supports the small 2.5-inch hard drive, while including key features of its predecessors like MX-780HD or MX-760. The black device, which can support HDDs as large as 250GB, measures under 5x3x0.5 inches; it uses a 2.5-inch PATA / IDE HDD and when connected to the PC, it works like a standard external USB 2.0 hard drive; however, it ships with an IR remote control to allow playback of standard or high definition digital video (480p, 720p, 1080i) in over a dozen file formats, including MPEG-1, MPEG-2, and MPEG-4, DVD (VOB, IFO), DivX (3/4/5/6), ... [full story]

April 14 - 8:00pm EDT   Apple has reached one of its goals announced at the Macworld Expo in January while missing another, with 100 high-definition Dolby Digital-enabled movies available in the iTunes store of a total library of 604 movie rental titles. iLounge writes that Apple had set a goal of 1000 rental titles by the end of February, but has since fallen short. Apple's main competition in the digital rental marketplace comes from Amazon's Unbox service, and Netflix, who offer thousands of titles. [full story]

April 9 - 3:15pm EDT   CalDigit has announced HDElement, a new compact 4 bay storage device that works in conjunction with the CalDigit RAID card offering full hardware RAID capabilities. Users can connect up to 3 HDElements to the CalDigit RAID card. The HDElement is also bootable. CalDigit's RAID Shield GUI allows users to manage drives, run performance checks and monitor system settings are a snap. In the event of any errors, alerts or changes to the RAID array can send an email notification. The CalDigit RAID card offers dedicated Intel processor, and 256MB of built-in cache memory. This gives true hardware RAID capabilities via PCI-e expansion slot. [full story]

April 9 - 3:10pm EDT   Toshiba on Wednesday announced the launch of four lines of high-end LCD TVs; the ZH500, ZV500, RH500 and CV500, all under the company's REGZA line. The ZH500 and RH500 series come with a built-in 300GB hard drive for recording videos or TV programs, while all four offer a recording option to a Toshiba Qosmio media-oriented notebook via USB. Furthermore, the ZH500 and ZV500 TVs feature built-in LAN and DLNA network support, as well as Bluetooth connectivity to sync photos with cell phones. [full story]

April 7 - 1:55pm EDT   Clear Channel Radio says it is now offering more than 340 of its primary HD stations with the iTunes "tagging" function, capable of transferring a song heard on the radio to an Apple iPod (after purchase). "Radio continues to be the number one way that people discover new music, and the HD Radio iTunes tagging capability lets listeners add songs to their iPod playlists with just a push of the button," said John Hogan, president and CEO of Clear Channel Radio. "With the vast majority of our HD primary stations now offering this exciting feature, we're demonstrating how radio's collaboration with the iPod benefits consumers." [full story]

January 25 - 12:00pm EST   The Super Bowl is expected to spur sales of approximately 2.4 million HDTVs, according to the third annual Sports and Technology survey performed by the Consumer Electronics Association and the Sports Video Group. The finale for seasonal NFL activity has so far been the cause of $2.2 billion in HDTV sales this year, making it the largest driving factor in the industry for three years running. The Super Bowl is followed by college bowl games, the World Series, NBA Finals, and NCAA March Madness, in terms of events that notably spike sales of HDTVs. [full story]

January 24 - 8:40pm EST   A series of new RAID and related storage solutions debuted at last week's Macworld Expo in San Francisco. First up, the CalDigit card is 100% hardware RAID that frees up your computer's processor. The card has a dedicated Intel processor, and 256MB of built-in cache memory. Utilizing the PCI-e expansion slots in the latest MacPro or PC machines has level 5 speeds of 330MB/s externally (with the New HDElement - 4 bay external drive enclosure, with RAID 0.1.5,6 and JBOD connected through external mini-sas) and internally 4 drive speeds of 247MB/S, internal and external drives scale up to 16TB capacity. The CalDigit RAID card is priced at $550. [full story]