Yes you can get the pre-release of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs Blu-Ray for only $14.95 by using the coupon code “snowwhite” during the checkout process at Amazon.com. To get the discount click on the link below and when you check out enter in snowwhite to get the $10.00 discount.

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Zune HD review: Excellent media player, slightly flawed After admiring the Zune HD’s slim good looks, now we’ve installed its software and taken it for a spin. We loaded the $290 32GB media player with music, videos, pictures and podcasts, tested out its user interface along with the Zune 4.0 software, and then we put it atop its dock and cranked out some 720p HDTV in our home theater. What did we think? Continue reading to experience it yourself. Fantastic screen The most arresting part of using the Zune HD is its brilliant OLED screen. We’re not accustomed to this kind of contrast, and when its demo video started playing, it elicited astonishment from all who saw it. The NVIDIA Tegra processor inside cranks out crisp video on its small display, even though the 3.3-inch 16:9 OLED touchscreen is only capable of 480×272 resolution. But because the screen is so small, the video looks like HD. Indeed, that touchscreen is a bit tiny for our taste, but then, that’s a sacrifice you’ll have to make for such a slim music player — it’s small enough to take with you anywhere. The capacitive touchscreen is as responsive as any we’ve ever tested, and the user interface is the best we’ve seen. It takes a little getting used to, but once you learn its trick, it’s easy: Instead of pushing the Back button of previous Zunes and other music players, you touch the stylish enlarged text top of the screen, and that takes you to the previous menu. The interface sprinkles niceties throughout, letting you smoothly slide through the history of media you’ve played recently, and control the audio by either touching or sliding your finger on the screen. We especially like the delightful screen saver that pops up when a song is playing, blending text and an album cover into spur-of-the-moment found art. The Zune HD quickly found our Wi-Fi networks, and then we could test its excellent web browsing capability. Even though it’s a variant of Internet Explorer, it’s first rate, but like the iPhone, it can’t play Flash video, including the Pandora website. Maybe someday. Media monster We’re also fond of that Zune 4.0 desktop software, which quickly finds your media, adding album cover art and generally making itself as helpful as possible. Too bad it’s only Windows-only for now. We’re also delighted to find a nascent app store in the making, new for Zune. So far, there’s only about a half a dozen apps in Marketplace, including an advertiser-supported Texas Hold ‘Em application, a calculator, and a couple of basic games. Still, it’s a start, and we can’t wait to see what happens when this tiny acorn grows into a mighty oak. There’s a catch if you want to play the Zune HD’s video in actual HD — you’ll need to spring for that $90 HD AV dock, an expensive accessory that lets you connect HDMI, optical audio and component media into a display or receiver. It comes with an excellent remote that’s quite powerful, not requiring you to point it directly at the dock for it to work. That dock can also function as a charging stand if you want to keep it next to your PC. However, when your Zune is plugged into this dock, you can’t go online and buy movies directly from there, a slight disappointment. Nor are Microsoft’s own Windows Media Center recordings supported in the Zune HD yet. Weird. Home theater player We downloaded a handful of HD videos from the Zune Marketplace, and took them into our home theater where we had installed our dock with its HDMI output. The videos showed up in all their 720p glory, playing smoothly and looking barely compressed. Nice. There were a couple of disappointments, though. One was the lack of any surround sound. Microsoft confirmed to us that it’s only stereo for now, no Dolby 5.1, no surround at all. And, we had an HDMI handshake issue when we connected the Zune’s dock to our Sony AV receiver. An HD movie we rented from the Zune Marketplace refused to play on our HDTV when we routed it through our home theater receiver. Plugging it directly into the HDTV, it played flawlessly. That’s a downside of digital rights management (DRM), because all the other HD videos we loaded played perfectly through our HDMI-equipped AV receiver. We were also disappointed in the lack of codec support, where only Windows Media Video (WMV), MPEG-4, and H.264 are supported. What happened to DivX and Matroska files? Come on, Microsoft. Audio support is slightly better, with Windows Media Audio-standard (WMA), Advanced Audio Coding (AAC), and good ol’ MP3 supported. Music box There’s also HD radio on board, and reception was good, but we just can’t get excited about radio these days when there are so many Internet stations and Pandora available. But then, none of those are possible on the Zune HD, yet. Bypassing the radio for the most part, we thoroughly enjoyed the centerpiece of the Zune HD, its audio playback. To us, it made our variety of music files sound as good as they’ve ever sounded on any Apple product. Of course, this is not lossless audiophile quality audio, but it’ll do. Summing up, the Zune HD represents a remarkable feat of technological prowess. Its user interface is the best we’ve seen on a portable media player, its sound is admirable, and its HD playback is jaw-dropping with that tiny NVIDIA Integra processor inside. This built-from-the-ground-up media player portends great things from Microsoft, perhaps hinting that this tiny form factor might someday grow into something more. Zune phone anyone?

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Pioneer BDP-320 Blu-ray Disc Player – Product Review Tuesday September 15, 2009 The Pioneer BDP-320 is a Blu-ray Disc player that combines practical features with good performance. Blu-ray discs are played at full 1080p via its HDMI output. This player is also compatible with standard DVDs and most recordable DVD formats, and standard music CDs. Standard DVDs are upscaled up to 1080p via the HDMI output. Onboard decoding or undecoded bitstream output of Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD is provided via HDMI. The BDP-320 aheres to Blu-ray Profile 2.0 (BD-Live) specifications, and also BDP320 incoporates Precision Quartz Lock System (PQLS) for jitterless audio transmission between the BDP320 and compatible Pioneer home theater receivers for better audio CD playback performance using the HDMI connection. To find out if the Pioneer BDP-320 is right for you, check out my Short and Full Reviews, as well as a supplmentary Photo Profile and Video Performance Tests . Photos (c) Robert Silva – Licensed to About.com (click on photos for larger view)

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Pioneer VSX-1019AH-K 7.1 Channel Home Theater Receiver – Product Review Monday September 7, 2009 The Pioneer VSX-1019AH-K 7.1 Channel Home Theater Receiver provides practical features and good audio performance in an affordable package. Some of the features include on-board Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD audio processing, Four HDMI inputs inputs, analog to HDMI video conversion, and up to 1080p video upscaling

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Boston Acoustics SoundWare XS 5.1 Surround Speaker System – Review Monday August 31, 2009 Balancing style, price, and sound quality can be tough when choosing loudspeakers. If you are looking a compact loudspeaker system to complement your HDTV, DVD and/or Blu-ray Disc player, check out the stylish, compact, great sounding, and affordable, Boston Acoustics SoundWare XS 5.1 Surround Speaker System

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The delivery guy just picked up the XBR8—Sony’s tri-color LED Backlit HDTV. I’m a bit sad because I’d never seen an LCD shine like that before. I only had it set up in my living room for a short while. A little HBO, some movies, not much gaming at all. But it would have been long enough to pick apart a TV by just watching it. And during that time Sony’s picture defied any major complaints. Standard definition TV looked colorful, clear and without too many artifacts, reminiscent of how good it did on ye old standard def CRTs, before flat panels started hamfisting the upscaling. On the high end, High definition content from a Blu-ray disc felt like pricks from hypodermic needles, 1920 x 1080 of them, filled with a solution of video joy suspended in photons, as well as some unknown meds that made my chest tighten and my eyes unable to blink. It was by far the best LCD I’d ever seen, and as David Katzmeier from CNet said when he reviewed it , one of the best sets ever, although not as fine of a picture as the now extinct Pioneer Kuro plasma sets. Sony’s engineers went to remarkable lengths to create it, almost as if the ghost of Sony’s founding fathers came down and rekindled the engineering pride of the company, telling them to spare no measure to create the TV. “Use LEDs! Use three or four of them for every one those bastards in Korea do!” What resulted was a unique set of discrete red, green and blue LEDs—two of the dimmer greens in every triad— repeating the set up into a backlighting array. Each of the different color LEDs would be calibrated in real time , adjusting for color and brightness output. And that’s after they were matched for similar qualities. Apply localized dimming, for a set only an LED fanatic could dream of. And the result was fantastic but without implying anything about its reliability, it is curiously prototype-like in many ways. The set’s large number of discreet color LEDs makes it heavier, more power hungry and thicker than most LED LCD sets, fitting somewhere in physical profile between other LED LCD sets and plasmas. A year and change after its revolutionary release, the set finds itself in murkier waters that make it impossible to justify its extravagance—another hallmark of cutting edge prototype-like technology. And there’s competition. Kind of! Having said how wonderful it looks, this set is a strange creature, born right before the economic crash wiped out the chance that high end sets, like Mitsu’s laser TV or Pioneer’s Kuros, would sell well. Yet it exists at the same time as its cheaper and poorer performing successors like the Non-LED XBR9. Markets equalize all. Right now, the XBR8 still has a wildly expensive, with an MSRP of almost $4000 for a 46-incher. Thankfully, because of the set’s age, they’re going for $2600 on Amazon, which is better, but still over the MSRP of some competing sets that look almost—almost—as good. The XBR9 is $2600 MSRP and can be had for under 2 grand. For about the same price as the XBR9, you can get the LG LH90 in a 47 inch size, backlit by white LEDs with localized dimming. David K. over at CNet says its almost as good , visually. Somehow, I’m still drawn to the only shipping LCD that uses separate red, green, and blue LEDs. Maybe once the retailers forget how special it is, and the final units are put on clearance as last year’s model, I’ll pick one up at a steal. More than likely, that sub $2k price point will fill up with better and better sets using simpler and more production friendly technology that’ll make me wonder what I was lusting about in the first place. Until then, I still love the XBR8. And without any benchmarks, you’ll just have to take my word for it that this set is something special, if not also an unrealistic set to own.

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Samsung and Blockbuster Ink On-Demand Deal Wednesday July 15, 2009 TWICE news has an interesting story about a deal between Samsung and Blockbuster that gives Samsung owners the ability to stream movies from Blockbuster on their HDTV. Basically, this is an on-demand relationship where you connect the HDTV to the internet and then choose from a variety of Blockbuster movies that stream directly to your Samsung HDTV. The Blockbuster feature is new so only 2009 products rated at or above the 650 and 7000 series for HDTVs are eligible for the firmware upgrade according to TWICE.

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Sony BRAVIA LCD TV Refresh Rates – 240Hz, 120Hz or 60Hz? Sunday June 28, 2009 Did you know that one of the biggest decisions you’ll make when buying a Sony BRAVIA television is choosing the refresh rate? What is a refresh rate?

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California to Ban Energy-Hogging TVs? Wednesday November 4, 2009 BusinessWeek just ran an interesting article about California’s push to ban energy-hungry big-screen televisions. State regulators have been talking about a ban for some time, but the issue is apparently coming to a head, as BusinessWeek reported that the state could put new guidelines in place as early as today. If this happens, retailers and television manufacturers would have until 2011 to respond. The California standards, as proposed, would not apply to televisions larger than 58 inches, meaning manufacturers could sell really big sets with no worries. California is not proposing the elimination of existing televisions. The state’s argument is that many sets already meet the power consumption guidelines that it plans to implement and that consumers would not pay more for energy-efficient televisions. The state estimates the new guidelines will save $912.1 million per year in avoided electrical bills. The Consumer Electronics Association, predictably, has a differing viewpoint . It argues that the proposed guidelines will result in the loss of 4,600 retail jobs in California because consumers will go out of state or online to buy models that are not available in California. The CEA also argues that those who buy energy-efficient televisions pay an average of $167 more than those who don’t. While I’m a proponent of green technology and preserving the environment, I’m torn on this issue. It is true that guidelines like these will encourage manufacturers to produce an abundance of energy-efficient sets in short order, but the decision to ignore televisions larger than 58 inches seems arbitrary and counterproductive. Also, considering the energy worries that our nation has, televisions seem like relatively minor offenders. BusinessWeek reports that a 42-inch plasma running an average of four and a half hours per day uses only $54 in energy every year. If those numbers are correct, one wonders what the television industry did to invite California’s wrath, as the state is still loaded with people driving gas-guzzling SUVs to and from work. This seems like one of those topics that could generate a great discussion, so be sure to post your thoughts below.

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Netflix to Stream to PlayStation 3 Tuesday October 27, 2009 Sony and Netflix announced Monday that they are teaming to provide free streaming of movies and television shows to all Netflix subscribers who own a PlayStation 3 . Technically, the content isn’t free because a Netflix subscription of $8.99 per month or more is required but, if you have a subscription, you won’t pay more to stream content through your PS3. Press releases from Sony and Netflix did not give a firm start date for the service, but they said it will kick off next month. To watch movies or TV shows on demand, PS3 owners will have to slip a Blu-ray disc (provided by Netflix) into their players. The disc will then allow users to stream content using BD-Live technology. Consumers who want to prepare, can reserve one of the streaming discs online at www.netflix.com/ps3 . The discs will be shipped free of charge on a first-come, first-served basis. I was already a big PS3 fan, and this development adds one more notch to the entertainment system’s belt. When the base price for the system dropped to $300, I wrote that it was once again a fine choice for anyone looking to buy a Blu-ray player . This ups its value. I’d love to hear any thoughts you have. Photo

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