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HDTV News: With the long lasting LED light engine of the Samsung HL-T5687S DLP HDTV, its Full HD (1920 x 1080p) picture will last for a very long time. An ultra-thin, piano-black bezel around the 56″ (142cm) screen lets you enjoy more screen and less frame. Its slim depth, light weight and hidden speaker system allow the set to fit through tight spaces and ideal for any home entertainment systems.Samsung’s Cinema Smooth light engine delivers the widest range of brilliant colors, while a 10,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio renders every picture in perfect detail, from the darkest darks to brightest whites, and every tone in between. SRS TruSurround XT delivers sound that is clear and full.

This TV is equipped with three HDMI inputs in version 1.3 that will render your digital movies, photos and more with greater color depth, while a USB 1.1 port and other inputs allow full connectivity. Game Mode optimizes performance, so avid gamers will marvel at the lifelike action. And even with all these advanced features, the HLT5687S is remarkably energy-efficient.

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Gizmodo: LG’s BH200 Super Blu player, which is an upgrade to their original HD DVD/Blu-ray player, sounded like a great idea on paper. However, with the state of HD DVD being what it is (dying), it’s probably not a great decision to pay a premium on a player that does one good format and one useless one. Nevertheless, this BH200 is actually a decent piece of tech, with 1080p resolution at 60Hz or 24Hz (if it detects the right display support) and pretty good image quality.

The problems come when you get to the HD DVD support, where the “sluggish HD DVD menu navigation” get points docked off. There are some other quirks like not being able to manually select the 1080p/24Hz mode if you know your display can handle it, but all in all it’s a fairly decent player for the price. That said, with HD DVD all but deceased, you should probably just buy a Blu-ray player at this point and skip out on these dual-mode machines.

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CNN Money: Mio Technology Corporation, a leading maker of mobile GPS devices, and Qualcomm Incorporated , a leading developer and innovator of advanced wireless technologies and data solutions, yesterday announced a collaboration to develop connected personal navigation devices (PNDs). These new connected PNDs will leverage Qualcomm’s technology with the QST1100(TM) chipset to deliver industry-leading GPS performance and cellular connectivity for real-time traffic updates, voice call capabilities and more.”Qualcomm’s legacy of wireless communications brings new possibilities to consumer devices, and we are very excited about our relationship with Mio that will bring integrated cellular connectivity, GPS and application processing to PNDs,” said Luis Pineda, senior vice president of marketing and product management for Qualcomm CDMA Technologies. “Our technology, coupled with Mio’s extensive device design expertise, will usher in a new generation of connected consumer devices aimed at propelling the industry toward the next level of functionality.”

“Personal navigation devices have been growing dramatically in popularity, and Mio is proud to be one of the first companies to offer the connectivity of cellular networks to PND users, making information access seamless and reliable,” said Samuel Wang, president of Mio Technology Corporation. “We are happy to be working with Qualcomm to introduce a new family of PND devices that will allow people to explore more.”

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CFP: Prepare for your electronics to be assimilated.

No, it isn’t some Borg-like alien invasion you need to worry about. Rather, it’s the accelerating convergence of all your audio, video and computer stuff from separate technological niches into an organized whole in which all of your techno toys can talk – and work – with each other.

It’s a logical development. Everything is becoming computerized and computerization is driving convergence: TV’s can now interface with computers, computers can play movies and the Personal Video Recorder (PVR, a.k.a.  DVR – Digital Video Recorder) uses computer-type hard disk drives to bring incredible new flexibility to watching and recording TV (think of it as the VCR dragged into the 21st century).

And they’re all being tied together by computer networks, which means you can now store your audio and video libraries on a central server and play them back anywhere you want.

Why would you want to? Well, many people have multiple televisions throughout the house – from a big screen HDTV in the family room to a little LCD on the kitchen wall (for those emergency trips to the fridge while the Big Game is on) and maybe even a screen in the master bedroom. Many people have more than one computer, and more than one audio system. Tying them all together adds flexibility and convenience, allowing access to one’s A/V library, and even the Internet, from anywhere in the building.

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NaviGadget: HP iPAQ 310 also got a review recently. As we expected the iPAQ 310 has the best screen out there for a GPS navigation device which is super bright and has 800×480 pixel resolution. It is also very impressive in terms processor power – how about a 600MHz dual-core CPU?But the software… It seems to be lacking in every department. Here is a small excerpt:

“We also had an issue with not being able to cancel navigation. Typically when you are navigating to a destination, and you navigate away from the screen giving you directions it’ll ask you if you want to cancel the route planning, but that is not the case with the 310; it keeps navigating, no matter what. In fact, if you choose a route and then decided to just cancel, it won’t, even if you go back to the home page. From there, pressing the “map” button takes you back to the route you were previously navigating. One time we even turned it off because we were tired of hearing it tell us to turn here and go there, and it magically turned itself back on a few minutes later to tell us to make a turn. It’s literally like the Terminator as far as navigation goes.”

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HDTV News: JVC has launched the LH905-series of HDTVs, featuring the Genessa Premium 36-bit video engine.The LH905 TVs feature a full HD 1,920 x 1,080 resolution LCD panel in all three of the 37in (94cm), 42in (107cm) and 47in (119cm) models, Deep Colour support, and an Ethernet port with DLNA support which allows the TVs to play media from a compatible network device.

Other features include dual ten-watt speakers, a built-in analog / digital terrestrial tuner, three HDMI 1.3 ports and an integrated SD slot.

JVC’s LH905-series TVs are scheduled for release in February.

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Mobile Magazine: Although we don’t normally see these kinds of phones around these parts, the concept of high-end mobile television watching is nothing foreign to the people of Japan. Sony has a BRAVIA line of phones, Sharp does its AQUOS thing, and now Panasonic is bringing their VIERA technology to the new 920P mobile phone.

To be available through Softbank Japan, the Panasonic VIERA 920p features a substantial 3-inch color display with a wide VGA resolution. As appears to be the norm with Japan-only releases, the 920P also features a simple rectangular design, but the hinge can flip the display either horizontally or vertically, depending on your needs.

But it’s not all about mobile video. The Panasonic VIERA 920p — available in gold, white, black, blue, and pink — also comes equipped with Bluetooth 2.0+EDR and a 5.1 megapixel camera.

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Electronista: People are still paying too much for roaming data use in other countries, says Ofcom, the official regulator of media and telecommunications in the UK. The group is pressuring cellular carriers to reduce their charges within the European Union, which can sometimes be prohibitively expensive. “It could cost tens of pounds to download a single PowerPoint presentation,” Ofcom chief Ed Richards has told the Financial Times.

Richards is also opposed to high fees on roaming text messages, along with a common practice of charging for a full minute of voice when a person has only been talking for 20 seconds. Combined, these levies are said to increase cellular bills by 20 percent.

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Camera Core: Skyfire has announced a web browser for mobiles which delivers desk-top style web pages in seven seconds, rather than pages optimised for a mobile phone. The browser works on Windows Mobile 5 and 6.The application allows smartphone users to browse and interact with any sites, including those featuring dynamic Flash, advanced Ajax and Java. Its functions include bookmarking, multiple tabs, fullscreen navigation, thumbnail views, and dynamic zooming.

The web pages are converted on Skyfire’s server into a proprietary, highly compressed format which is then sent down to the mobile client.

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Audio Junkies: High end German audio manufacturer, Heco has introduced its new flagship floor-standing loudspeaker dubbed the Statement. The Statement includes a carbon coated 1” tweeter, a 6.5” paper cone midrange, a pair of 8” paper cone woofers and a trio of rear firing port tubes.

The drivers are also housed in a hexagonal MDF enclosure that isolates the midrange and bass drivers to reduce interference. With this driver setup, the Statement is capable of handling 500 watts of power at 4 or 8 ohms while delivering a frequency range of 18-50,000 Hz.

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Electronista: British store chain Woolworths yesterday revealed that it will switch exclusively to selling Blu-ray for its movie discs, becoming the first large-scale retailer to drop HD DVD entirely from its shelves. The decision comes after holiday sales where Blu-ray titles outsold HD DVD by a factor of ten to one at the UK chain and is credited largely to the Sony PlayStation 3, which Woolworths says gives Blu-ray a major advantage in terms of a viewer base. As many as 750,000 homes in the country own at least one device that can play the discs, far eclipsing the statistics for HD DVD, according to the retailer’s estimates.

The change takes effect in March and will see all of Woolworth’s 820 stores offer at least the top-ranked Blu-ray titles in their stores. Larger outlets are also expected to carry a significant number of extra titles. No American retailers already carrying HD DVD have said they would drop the format themselves, though some chains have said they would shift towards Blu-ray or start offering HD movies solely in that standard after Warner Bros. announced that it would switch to offering movies solely in Blu-ray versions by June.

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Slashgear: It’s an HD network multimedia play that is also a PVR and HDTV Tuner. It can playback HD content from its hard drive, USB ports, or from any computer connected to it via the local area network.

You can also record HDTV from OTA sources with this thing. Also, the advanced DVD play back allows you to rip the DVDs into .ISO or .IFO disc images and play them back just like the original DVD with menus and everything.

It has 3xUSB, HDMI, Optical, S-Video, 2xCoax, Ethernet, Component, Stereo RCA, Multi I/O, and AC in ports, some of those are outputs though. Sadly the HDTV tuner is a separate attachment, but it just clips onto the bottom maintaining the trash can form factor if you buy one.

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