During the forthcoming festive period, many City folk are likely to receive very large bonuses, which they will need to spend on something to impress their snooty mates. Sony has cleverly targeted the super-rich pillock market — its Bravia KDL-70X3500 will certainly soak up a good chunk of that extra cash, and will definitely impress …

Here’s the main problem with the high-definition formats: the discs are very costly to produce, while DVD is dirt-cheap. Sure, it won’t be many years before HD DVD and Blu-ray are as inexpensive as DVD is now, but until then, what do the smaller, independent producers do? There is a solution of sorts — namely, burning high-definition video to a …

A correction was made to this story. Read below for details. Trent Reznor of the band Nine Inch Nails walked into the Santa Monica, Calif., headquarters of Musicane last month and stunned the start-up’s employees with his tech knowledge and fierce attention to detail. Typically, when artists sign on with Musicane, a company that helps musicians distribute their music online, …

It’s that time of year again: time to pop the champers, plonk a silly hat on your head and crowd around the communal telly. This week we crash the office Melbourne Cup party for views on hats, horses and online betting. From fronting up to Flemington to crowding around the wireless to kicking back in front of a plasma screen, …

We don’t have a degree in business, but it stands to reason that reducing the cost of a formerly expensive item down to a rock-bottom price might possibly produce a sales boost. In the US last weekend a number of stores reduced the price of the Toshiba HD-E1 (they call it the HD-A2) down to just $99 (£47). Unsurprisingly, they …

Ambilight is one of those ideas that sounds like it was cooked up by a mad scientist who had a quiet week and a couple of coloured LEDs lying around. The reality of it is quite different, because once you’ve seen Ambilight working, the scientist doesn’t seem quite so mad anymore. The Philips Cineos 42PFL9632D makes him seem worthy of …

We’re into November now, and that means that all new Blu-ray players must conform to the BD Full Standard Profile — profile 1.1 — specification. This doesn’t mean that all the players on the market now are compliant — far from it — but the new ones should be, aside from the Sony PlayStation 3. Of course, if you’re waiting …

It’s hard to criticise Korean companies these days. There was a time when LG and Samsung were famous only for their low-end products, but these days, nothing could be further from the truth. Indeed, it seems to be the Korean companies who are innovating and adding new features, and in LG’s case, it’s only gone and stuffed a Freeview PVR …

Apologies for the headline, but we couldn’t help ourselves. What else are we supposed to write when the press announcement heralds a new TV mount that “swings to the left and swings to the right”? Sniggering aside, if you’re looking for a way to wall mount your new flat panel TV, the Atdec Telehook TH-37-63-AWM is specially designed for mounting …

Once upon a time, when TVs were made from gigantic lumps of glass and other large and heavy materials, it was only really possible to put them in larger rooms. Sure, manufacturers tried to miniaturise TVs to put them in clock radios and handheld screens but they were generally black and white, or utterly awful. These days, you can get …

LCD televisions are small, there’s no doubt about it. Especially when you compare them to those gargantuan CRT monsters we all know and love. But one thing isn’t cool about LCDs, and that’s the fatty lardarse bezel round the screen. Happily, those clever chaps at Toshiba have been working hard to make the outside edge of the new Regza 40XF355D …

The Blu-ray camp has long been claiming victory over HD DVD in the next-generation disc format war. Sony has been particularly noisy about how it has trounced the other format. The problem is, Sony hasn’t launched a Blu-ray player for us Europeans — with the exception of the PS3, and we’ve only just got that. Until now, that is: Sony …

The Onkyo TX-SR875 is a fully featured AV receiver, which means you plug a bunch of your AV gear into it, like your DVD player and games consoles, and it makes them sound amazing. You’re unlikely to have enough stuff to plug into it, frankly, because the back of this thing has more holes than the plot of Transformers. The …

There are pros and cons to video projectors. On the one hand, films can look stunning when blown up to the size of a wall. On the other hand, Deal or No Deal is unlikely to benefit from being expanded to such epic proportions. With high-definition content becoming more common though, there is an increasing amount of stuff just begging …

Viewers watching Channel Seven’s HD channel 10.30pm on Monday night would have witnessed Australia’s first tentative steps into the world of commercial multi-channelling. Channel Seven is claiming that its two-hour block of unique programming, late at night on weekdays, is Australia’s first commercial digital multi-channel. Indeed it even goes so far as to claim that it’s “Australia’s first new commercial …