Apparently LG waxes nostalgic for the old times when a TV weighed 200 pounds. Either that, or some product manager with a wood fetish got his way since they're releasing 1,000 units of a 60-inch plasma with a wood frame. It's only going to be available starting March in South Korea, but may come to other regions as well.
So when you watch the HD DVD of Fast and the Furious on this baby, Paul Walker and Vin Diesel's performances won't be the only thing that's wooden. – Jason Chen
LGE to unveil 60-inch wooden PDP TV [Digitimes via Akihabara News via uber gizmo]

Not for the faint of heart, Niveus' new Media Centers are the Rolls Royce of HTPCs. The Vista-based machines bring HDMI output to your PC along with the a next gen HD DVD drive that allows the system to deliver 1080p playback. PVR-wise, the machine will be one of the first PCs to support CableCARDs from your cable company, letting you record TV without the need for a set-top box. All very tempting, but make sure to bring your plastic to the store, as the machines will start at $3,499 (Rainier Edition) as of today. – Louis Ramirez
Press Release [Niveus]

It's day two of our Next-Gen Media Giveaway where we are giving away a LG BH100 Hybrid Blu-Ray/HD DVD Player. Each day this week we will present a piece of trivia about the player. A correct answer will reward you with one entry to the contest—so you can be entered up to five times. Here is yesterday's trivia question for those who missed it. (Hint: Reading always helps.) –Travis Hudson
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Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment
It sounds like we may have another name to add to the pantheon of anti-DRM digital freedom fighters: Alex Ionescu, who's claiming his driver signing bypass method allows end users to bypass Vista's Protected Media Path DRM (the junky stuff that prevents you from watching "premium" content and HD material on non-HDCP outputs, like component, VGA, older HDMI TVs, etc.) Using Alex's technique (which has yet to be released to the general public, for fear of going the way of our man Viodentia), no unsigned drivers are loaded in the process, thereby convincing the media applications that are scanning for anti-DRM "badware" that everything's peachy, go ahead and output that signal even though it may be through the analog hole. We'll all be waiting, Alex, for you to move to Sealand so you can release the hack, we've got a lot of HD DVD and Blu-ray movies to watch, and not a lot of patience for HDCP-carrying gear.

[Via Slashdot, thanks gamebi...

While the rest of the world is gawking at 108-inch LCDs and quad-resolution pixel counts, I'll let you in on a little secret: 120Hz HDTVs are going to help movies look better than ever on the little screen in your living room.
Here's how.

Film is 24 frames per second. That standard was the approximation of what was defined in the early 20th century by hand crank cameras. And just about every movie disc you can buy is encoded in this format. We're not just talking DVD. We're talking about HD DVD and Blu-ray, too.
The problem is, most TVs run at 30 frames per second. Fitting that 24-frame content onto a 30-frame screen isn't that easy; the math just doesn't compute cleanly. You can't divide 24 by 30 without filling in the gaps with some junk. That junk causes stuttering in the video. This is a jerky-looking phenomenon that's particularly noticeable when the camera pans across a scene. The conversion is better known by film and TV wonks as 2:3 pulldown. It s...

We gave you the first review of the LG BH100 Hybrid Blu-Ray/HD DVD Player and now we are giving away the actual player. Each day this week we will present a piece of trivia about the BH100 player. Answer the question correctly and be entered in the contest with a chance to win the player. So if my math is correct: five days in the week means there are five opportunities to enter to win this player. All of the standard Gawker Contest Rules apply. (Hint: This may help.)
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–Travis Hudson

March of the Penguins is coming back to disc. The documentary will arrive on Blu-ray disc and HD-DVD later this year. All the bonus materials of the standard DVD will be on new releases as well. On ...

Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment
Just about everyone and their respective grandmothers have now gotten a whiff of this whole "BackupHDDVD" thing that's been floating around, as muslix64 was able to break down the HD DVD content protection and allow folks to sidestep the AACS boundaries. The folks over at Slyck sat down to chat with the infamous hacker about his motives, his work, and the obligatory "hopes and dreams," and as we expected, he's simply yet another (albeit intelligent and determined) individual that's frustrated with the limitations that DRM presents. He refers to himself as simply an "upset customer" looking to "enforce fair use," further explaining that he wasn't able to appropriately play back an HD DVD film that he purchased "on a non-HDCP HD monitor." He also said that his success with HD DVD led to his shared efforts while taking down Blu-ray's content protection, and noted that any stronger protection to limit the abilities of purchased media would likely b...

Twentieth Century Fox has determined that up to 50 percent of pirated movies that hit the intertubes come from Canada—particularly Montreal. If those dirty Canucks don't clean up their act, well, they'll just have to wait longer to see movies. Ha! While we're at it, let's pin cracking Blu-Ray and HD-DVD DRM on Canada too.
Apparently they need laws more like ours, where recording a movie in a theater nets you eight years of jail time on top of a $250k fine, making movie tickets in New York actually seem cheap. – Matt Buchanan
50% movie piracy from Canada: Hollywood [Canada.com via Slashdot]