Home Theater Blog has a few minutes with the latest HD-DVD Player from Toshiba, and thankfully agree with the improvements made from the first version.

First off the new player loads much faster than the HD-A1 or HD-XA1, I’ve read reports that clocked load times at or under 30 seconds (roughly half the time of the A1) but my own findings; with three different discs no less, all came in at 20 seconds or under, on-par with some of the Denon DVD players we’re so fond of. It looks like sluggish load-times are a thing of the past at least with the A2 and XA2.

Read the rest here. 

Thank god, now you will never have to miss an episode of the Real World! Because, lord knows their programming is so diverse that they NEVER repeat episodes

The deal includes on-demand programming. Time Warner cable also will expand distribution of gay and lesbian network LOGO and launch music-centric high-definition television channel MHD.

Read the rest here. 

Just in time for the holidays. Not sure why you'd want 32 inches when they're soon to release the 100" LCD....or if you don't want to spend $50k, this isn't a bad alternative I GUESS.

Prices for 32-inch panels may fall below US$300 to US$290 in the third quarter of 2007, with quotes for 40-inch panels to also drop to nearly US$500 during the period, according to Displaybank. With the sharp drop in panel prices, second-tier panel makers may swing to a loss in 2007, Displaybank indicated.

Read the rest here. 

Speaking of HDHomeRun reviews, DVRplayground has posted one up as well :). You know our thoughts on the subject, its one kick ass tuner! You now have a couple of reviews on the product! So what are you waiting for? Get of your tush and start reading!

From the article:

The picture quality using the HDHomeRun with MythTV was quite impressive. Using the same PBS HD channel above, I noticed a few hiccups upon first launching MythTV, but those were most likely due to the fact that I was running both the Myth backend and frontend on my Dell laptop. After a few seconds, the hiccups went away, and the picture was smooth and clear; I noticed none of the "scan lines" that were noted above with VLC.

Note for QAM (digital cable) users: In order for QAM to work with the HDHomeRun and MythTV, you need to be using the "0.20 fixes" version of MythTV, not the "0.20 first release" version. More on that issue here.

Nice article from the folks at Ars. I think it's preposterous as they don't take into account that there's a lot of shows people wouldn't even watch if not for their DVRs--Damn you real world! :-)

There are myriad conveniences wrought by the DVR, but few are those who say that they don't love the ability to zip past annoying commercials or—more generally—control their viewing experience. The rift between the TV networks and advertisers is in some ways surprising, because the two are fighting over how to count the slice of DVR users who don't use DVRs in this manner. It basically boils down to an argument over whether or not DVR users who don't appear to skip commercials are eyeballs worth paying for, but the argument fails to consider the larger issue of why these usage patterns are arising in the first place.

Read the rest here. 

CEPro spent their time with the newest HD DVD Vidabox Media Center in a video blog. If you can't be looking at video during work, they've added a pretty thorough slideshow for your convenience as well.

While there have been talks about dual-format players from LG, Pioneer and Ricoh, none have materialized -- until the Lux and Max Media Centers from Vidabox hit the scenes.

Vidabox came into the offices of EH Publishing in Framingham, Mass. to demo the Lux version of their dual-format player.

Check it out over at CE Pro.

Pioneer must have one fantastic panel if they can charge $3500 for a 1024X768 panel. Judging by its feature set, you certainly get a lot for the price tag. At the heart of this panel is everything you would come to expect from the Elite line including two HDMI inputs, dual tuners, program guide, home networking support (many formats supported), and 1080p capable inputs (scales to its native resolution). The quality is no doubt superb, but I would feel jipped not getting at least a 720p resolution.

From the article:

For photos, the interface worked equally well. It was an easy process to locate and play back folders of photos. Folder names were displayed along with the image name and format. Thumbnails of all photos located within a folder are displayed when navigating the contents. It may take a few seconds for the thumbnails to refresh, but the screen always updated and I was able to select either individual images or begin a slideshow of an entire folder. The resolution of the images on screen was perfect. The PRO-940HD does an excellent job of scaling. These were 5 megapixel photos (2560x1920) – way more than the resolution offered by the plasma television - and yet they displayed as if they were made to perfectly match the native resolution of the Pioneer. If you want to show off a family photo album, this is a great solution. My suggestion for photos is to create a separate set of folders specifically for playback, allowing you to configure custom slideshows to show off your favorite memories.

I am surprised more TV manufacturers do not license MCE Media Extender technology.