Congratulations goes out to Tyler Burns. Out of the almost-12,000 entries Tyler's name was randomly selected and he will be receiving the LG BH100 Hybrid Blu-Ray/HD DVD player. Stay tuned for more contests coming up—we have some big prizes. Thanks to everyone who played. –Travis Hudson

Don't bother using the Xbox 360 as a DVD player (note: that's regular DVD, not HD DVD) since, according to Extreme Tech, it's absolutely terrible. ET went to extreme measures to test the performance of the 360's DVD player, comparing it with a Denon DVD-3910. Out of a possible 130 points, the Xbox 360 walked away with only 20. So what's up?


One of the Xbox 360's biggest failures was its handling of jaggies, if it handled them at all. Just look at 'em! As the pictures suggest, the Xbox 360's DVD output looks like a low-res Nintendo 64 game in comparison to the Denon picture.

The 360 also had some major problem with interlacing, with artifacts marring what should be much better picture. Though there's still no way to make Monty Python funny, no matter how high-res or sharp the picture is.
There is some good news, though. The Xbox 360's DVD playback can be saved with software updates. It's just up to Microsoft to fix it or not. ...

Filed under: HDTV, Media PCs
Looks like Okoro Media Systems isn't the only HTPC builder on the block cramming Microsoft's latest OS into its systems and upping the specs, as Velocity Micro has taken a break from its NoteMagix series to amp up a few media PCs. Both boxes come with Windows Vista Premium pre-installed, ATI's TV Wonder Digital Cable tuner, and options for HD DVD and Blu-ray playback. The CineMagix Pro Cinema rocks a fairly average black chassis, 500-watt power supply, AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ processor, 1GB of DDR2 RAM, HDCP-compliant ATI Radeon X1950 Pro, onboard 7.1 audio, 8-in-1 flash card reader, up to 1.5TB of hard drive space, dual gigabit Ethernet adapter, 802.11b/g, a pair of FireWire connectors, six USB 2.0 ports, and a wireless keyboard / mouse combo. The Intel-powered CineMagix Grand Theater swaps in your choice of CPU, including options for both the Core 2 Extreme X6800 or QX6700, up to 4GB of RAM, NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTS, up to 2.25TB of HDD space, but other...

Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment
Okay, so we're not waxing rhapsodic about a conspiracy theory just yet, but seriously, why can't the general public get a few hard numbers regarding the HD DVD / Blu-ray format war? Since both formats hit the market, we've all been wondering who would be the leader in terms of disc sales once the holiday season was behind us, and although Nielsen VideoScan has finally loosed the deets, we're still (relatively) in the dark. We've wondered exactly what was taking so long for these data to surface, but instead of VideoScan perfecting their report, it has apparently delayed the information only to release several inconclusive "charts" and "ratios" that, quite frankly, aren't what we all want. For whatever it's (not) worth, it looks like Blu-ray titles outsold HD DVD titles by a 2:1 margin during the admittedly slow first two weeks of 2007, but overall, we're still stuck analyzing Amazon's sales figures while trying to piece together the truth. Stil...

If you've been wondering what the scoreboard looks like in the Blu-ray vs HD DVD format war, Nielsen VideoScan has just released the official sales numbers for both sides of the camp. According to the Nielsen stats, Blu-ray is quickly catching up to HD DVD. Since the inception of both formats (April 2006) for every 92 Blu-ray discs sold there were 100 HD DVD units sold. (Score 1 HD DVD). But for the first two weeks of January 2007...

Blu-ray has outsold HD DVD by more than 2 to 1. (Score 1 Blu-ray). It's not sure whether the Blu-ray boost came via the PS3 or if it was simply a lack of new HD DVD titles—either way, it looks like Blu-ray fans have reason to celebrate cause at this rate it shouldn't be difficult to keep the lead. – Louis Ramirez
Nielsen/VideoScan Sales Ratios [AVS Forum]