With HD DVD and Blu-ray players costing upwards of $1000 a pop – assuming you can even find one – what’s a home theater aficionado in search of the highest quality video to do?

In a move so un-Microsoft-like that it may trigger identity verification tests throughout the company’s executive ranks, the Redmond, Wash.-based company has delivered a quick, easy and cost-effective way to add HD DVD playback to any home entertainment setup. (more…)

In this final installment of The Geek Beat’s series on Everything HD, we learn that while size matters when picking the best HD display, more often than not, he who lives with the most pixels wins.

So, you’ve got your HD disc player, your high definition cable or satellite service or your ATSC antenna ready to go. Now comes the fun part: picking a screen to see it all on. (more…)

Updated November 30th, 2006

The BlackBerry 8100, better known as the Pearl, truly is a thing of beauty. Sleek, black and compact, it’s one powerful mobile communications device that weighs just 3.16 ounces and will fit comfortably in a shirt pocket.

But while the Pearl is an amazing feat of miniaturization – perhaps too much so for users with large hands – Research in Motion’s Blackberry operating system is just now playing catch-up with the smartphone marketplace it helped define. And while the Pearl’s long-overdue feature face-lift is welcome, it still falls a bit short of competitors when it comes to multimedia capabilities. (more…)

This has been a big year for HD. The first generation of HD DVD players have arrived (with Blu-ray fast on its heels), more channels are offering HD content than ever before and televisions capable of displaying all that content at its eye-searing maximum resolution are finally available.

While HDTV displays have typically only supported images up to 1366 x 768 pixels (sometimes referred to as 720p or 1080i), new sets, like Sony’s recently-released 40-inch KDL-40V2500 Bravia LCD, can go up to 1920 x 1080 pixels (also known as 1080p), the HDTV standard’s maximum resolution. At The Geek Beat we refer to this resolution as “True HD,” because this is how the HDTV standard was meant to be viewed. (more…)