Oh Toshiba, has it really come to this? After a humiliating loss to Blu-ray, Tosh just unveiled its new $150 XD-E500 DVD player. It's no run o' the mill DVD player mind you, this unit touts Toshiba's new eXtended Detail Enhancement (XDE) technology -- that super-duper resolution upconverting tech meant to fill the void between ubiquitous upconverting players and Blu-ray. Unfortunately, the player demonstrated offered just "subtle but noticeable sharpening of the image" when compared side-by-side (in a controlled demonstration) with an unnamed $70 upscaler -- to its credit, Tosh did not try to compare its new player with an HD-capable Blu-ray machine. Still, more than twice the price for "subtle" hardly sounds like a compelling purchase to us.

Update: Official press release is now out which, oddly enough, helped us upconvert our 480i/p cynicism to full-blown 1080p/24fps skepticism.

Er, you know that September 10th, €99 (about £78) PlayTV launch announced by David Reeves? Well, turns out that the Sony Europe president jumped the gun or the product's been dragged through a trough of delay. Whatever the case, Sony Europe told Eurogamer that the PS3 TV tuner / DVR add-on will launch on the 19th of September now and cost a bit less at just 70 Quid. It's also said to be HD ready should local DVB-T broadcasters decide to throw that switch.

[Via PS3 Fanboy, thanks Jimb]

Japan's Nihon Keizai Shimbun reports this morning that Sony plans to sell its 11-inch XEL-1 OLED TV in Europe in 2009. That dovetails nicely with a two-week old statement by a Sony representative who said, "I'd be very surprised if this hasn't arrived in the UK by 2009." Us too, after all, it's been on sale in Japan since December of 2007 and was recently caught slumming the big box outlets in the US. It only seems natural then, that Sony would ramp production to the point that by 2009 they could meet the minimal, European demand for a $2,500-ish TV measuring just 11-inches -- million:1 contrast or not. Still, it's all a bit late if you ask us (you did right?) seeing as how Sony plans to be producing medium to large OLED panels as early as April 2009.

[Via AVING]

Read -- Europe 2009
Read -- UK 2009

We've been following the rumor since January, today it's official: LG's BD300 Network Blu-ray Disc Player will begin streaming Netflix movies in the US this September. The player will cost "well under $500" and allow Netflix members to stream more than 12,000 standard definition TV and films through the device at no additional increase to their monthly paid subscriptions. Members will use the Netflix website to add movies or TV to their individual instant queues. Movies will begin playing in as little as 30 seconds when selected from the TV where users can browse, make selections, read synopses, rate movies, and fast-forward / rewind video streams using the BD300's remote control. While specs on the player itself are scarce, we do know that it supports BD Live and LG's SimpLink technology to integrate easily with LG TVs and AV products. One thing's for sure, with this deal announced and those with Roku and the Xbox 360 in the bag, it looks like Netflix is grown-up and ready for the digital age.

Step aside HD700, Sanyo just replaced you with its DMX-HD800 720p camcorder. According to Akihabara News who is attending the launch event, the HD800 features a "HUGE step forward in video quality" coupled with reduced noise thanks to Sanyo's 3DDNR filter. Spec-wize, we're looking at an 8.0 megapixel 1/2.5-inch CMOS sensor, SD/SDHC support, 5x optical zoom, 2.7-inch LCD, face tracking, and easier to use drag-and-drop to pull AVC/H.264 video from the camera to your PC. We'll have to wait for the reviews to know for sure but it looks like Sanyo just made one of the best 720p camcorders even better. On sale in Japan on August 22nd for ¥50,000 (about $463).

[Via Impress]

For what it's worth, Buffalo just announced the world's fastest Blu-ray recorder capable of burning through your data at an 8x clip. The only problem is that BDA-approved media maxes out at 6x, assuming you can even find it. Available in Japan starting next month, the external USB 2.0 and eSATA BR-816SU2 and internal SATA BR-816FBS models hit that 8x recording speed on single-layer BD-R media only -- 2x for dual-layer BD-R, BD-RE, and LTH BD-R. CDs and DVDs are supported too naturally, with a max 16x burn to DVD±R or 48x/24x for CD-R/RW. Each drive comes bundled with Cyberlink's PowerDVD 7 suite and are priced at ¥46,700 (about $435) for the external drive or ¥41,000 (about $380) for the internal optical spinner.

[Via BIOS and CDRinf]

So much for early 2008 or even July for that matter. Sony's David Reeves now confirms that PlayTV -- the €99 PS3 TV tuner / DVR add-on -- will hit the UK on September 10th. The service will then march onto the continent before completing the European rollout in December -- Australia and New Zealand get theirs in January or February. Notably, the service will in fact record television in the background without interrupting your regularly scheduled gaming regimen thanks to the recent 2.41 firmware PS3 update. Phew, for a moment we felt threatened by a lack of manufactured distractions.

[Via gamesindustry.biz]

The New York Times is reporting that Amazon is scrapping its Unbox service in favor of a new online TV and movie store called Amazon Video on Demand. Unlike iTunes and Unbox, Amazon's new digital store-front will stream any of 40,000 movies and television programs to customers. According to Bill Carr, Amazon's VP for digital media, "Our goal is to create an immersive experience where people can't help but get caught up in how exciting it is to simply watch a movie right from Amazon.com with a click of the button." In this regard, the first 2 minutes of every video will begin to play when customers visit the video's product page. Movies can be purchased and downloaded to your hard drive or stored in an Amazon video library allowing you to stream the content to other (any?) Internet connected devices. Films and TV shows from "almost all the major studios and television networks" will be available for sale or rental in the US at undisclosed prices -- only Disney and its ABC subsidiary are holding out for uh, obvious reasons (Steve Jobs is Disney's largest individual shareholder).

Amazon also plans to bring the service directly to the living room through a deal with Sony (and others) which will ultimately embed store access into future Bravia TVs. For now, Amazon's VoD store will be available through Sony's $300 Bravia Internet Video Link device. The store goes beta-hot today for a limited number of "invited" US Amazon.com customers before going a live later this summer.

Several Japanese tech giants are teaming together today in a quest to make 40-inch and larger OLED panels for televisions. Sony, Toshiba, Panasonic, Sharp and others will participate under a joint development project initiated by the Japanese government. All of this is of course meant to help the Japanese companies compete with South Korea's chaebols, particularly Samsung and LG, as the industry giants maneuver for an advantage over the next, next-generation flat panel technology to dominate the living room.

[Via OLED-info]

The term "widescreen" is one of the most notoriously confusing monikers this side of Full HD used to describe a display's specifications. Widescreen generally translates to a 16:10 aspect ratio when discussing computer LCDs (monitors or laptop displays) or 16:9 if your talking about the living room TV. Of course, it can also refer to the 2.35:1 ratio often used for films or something entirely different if you're Apple touting the wonders of your new widescreen iPhone. Fortunately, we're trending towards at least some convergence around the 16:9 aspect. DisplaySearch predicts that by 2010, 16:9 panels will make up 90% of new laptop displays and 67% of new monitors. Acer has been at the forefront of this transition with products like its Gemstone Blue laptops and the Acer P224W monitor pictured above. The move is being driven by panel manufacturers' desire to maximize production efficiency -- something they should have realized before the glass sizes diverged in the first place. Regardless, the end result should be more pennies saved by you, Joe Consumer, and that's a good thing.

Sony just released a rambling update to it corporate strategy through fiscal year 2010. An interesting read for fans and competitors alike as Sony lays bare initiatives intent on moving Sony from recovery to the "leading global provider of networked consumer electronics and entertainment." Most notable in the near-term however, is word from Kazuo Hirai, chieftain of Sony Computer Entertainment, that Sony will make a movie download service available to US PlayStation 3 owners this summer -- Japan and Europe at later dates with details coming "next month," presumably at E3. Moreover, Sony expects its gaming business to achieve profitability by March 2009, the end of the current fiscal year. Of course, we already knew that Sony was prepped to deliver full-length TV shows and movies sometime in 2008 via its North American PLAYSTATION Network. But summer, eh? Judging by the increased molecular agitation of sidewalk effluence, we'd say that Sony's season of movie downloads is already upon us.

Read -- 2010 plan
Read -- US summer launch

No, really... more rumors of Panasonic shifting R&D yen into OLED televisions? Oh you betcha, albeit this time with the specifics of a 37-inch OLED targeted for a retail launch in the next three years. Japanese newspaper, Sankei Shimbu, is reporting that the OLED panels will be produced on a parallel assembly line at Panasonic's new IPS Alpha factory. Without offering any specifics, Panny did have the decency to confirm that it's working on OLED technology -- something we already knew about. With consumers and editors alike awestruck by OLED display technology and Sony and Samsung already official committed to delivering medium to large panels in 2009/2010, only the chatter of Panasonic not pursuing OLED as a future panel technology would surprise us.

Looks like NHK brought a prototype 33 megapixel, 8K Super Hi-Vision projection system to the auditoriums of CommunicASIA. Using a pair of LCoS projectors, NHK threw 7,680 x 4,320 pixels illuminated at 8,000 lumens onto a screen measuring 6.6 x 3.7 meters. The images were recorded from a prototype 8K studio camera -- as good as it gets until the first live SHV television broadcasts are demonstrated in September.

Sony just outed its newest HD camcorder dubbed the HDR-CX12. We're looking at 1,920 x 1,080 AVCHD video from a 10 megapixel ClearVid 1/3.13-inch CMOS sensor, BIONZ image processing, image stabilized Carl Zeiss Vario-Sonnar T 12 optical zoon lens, a 2.7-inch LCD, 5.1 surround sound mic, and Memory Stick PRO Duo (4GB Memory Stick PRO Duo (Mark2) in the box) storage. It's not the world's smallest, but it's only the size of a soda can, AKA, pop can for you mid-westerners. This camcorder also packs Sony's Smile Shutter tech which automatically throws the shutter (even when in standby) when your subject smiles... or grimaces at having to stand around taking yet another family photo. Smiles can even be prioritized by children or adults. $900 starting tomorrow or early August for brick-n-mortarers.

Update: Another glamor shot and now video of Smile Shutter working on the Japanese CX12 posted after the break.

[Via Akihabara News]