Westinghouse continues their habit of releasing well-spec'd but average-performing displays today with a slew of new LCD HDTVs. On the 1080p front, the TX Series comes in 42, 47, and 52-inch flavors along with the 40-inch VK-40F580D -- a 1080P DVD combo player that's (aside from the $1,099 price) ironically missing Blu-ray. The less-expensive 720p LCDs in the SK, PT, and W series come in anything from 16 to 32-inch screen sizes, the PT series being portable. So what's the big deal? The 1080p TX-52F480S 52-inch display retails at only $1,999 US, a tough number to beat in that spec range. Meanwhile, their respectably-sized 26-inch SK-26H730S is priced at just $599. So, hooray for affordable HDTV, and stuff.

Shortly after hearing TiVo's top dog speak of a "whole home model" to reduce the amount of STBs required for entertaining individuals in various rooms, along comes Time Warner Cable's chief executive talking up some innovation of its own. We'll be frank -- we're not entirely sure what Glenn Britt is getting at here, but through a broken series of quotes, we're led to believe that the carrier is prepping some "equipment" that will easily bring internet content to TVs. Not like there isn't a perfect solution for this quandary already, but we digress. Specifically, he mentions a " new wireless cable modem that will allow you to network everything in your house," which is about as broad / vague as you can get. Nevertheless, it's enough to keep us watchin', though we can't say our expectations are extraordinarily high. [Disclosure: Engadget is part of the Time Warner family]

[Via eHomeUpgrade]

Fans of high-def audio rejoice: The first Blu-ray recording has been released. Fans of anything other than Divertimento, hold your horses: The first release is from Thondheimsolistene, an orchestra from Norway. "Divertimeni", as it is called, will be released by the 2L label in full HD audio glory along with a SACD track for those not on the Blu-ray bandwagon just yet. Formats include 2.0 LPCM, 5.1 LPCM, 5.1 DTS HD Master Audio, 5.1 Dolby True HD, 5.1 Dolby Digital at 48KHz, and it has been confirmed to work just fine on the PS3.

[Via MiC]

What's this? Best Buy finally released the Insignia NS-BRDVD blu-ray player for an affordable $349.99. The design, like other in-house Insignia-branded products, is questionable, but if you were looking into the PS3 as a player, this could be a $50 cheaper option if games aren't your thing. The unit outputs at 1080P, decodes Dolby Digital Plus and DTS-HD, and decodes 2-channel Dolby TrueHD. Outputs include stereo audio, composite video, component video, optical Toslink, digital coax, and HDMI. No word on image quality just yet, but based on previous Insignia products, we're not holding our breath.

[Thanks, Jordan]

We fully expected that Ferrari logo and lacquered paint job to add a stuff premium to Meridian's F80, but this is undeniably insane. The "transportable home entertainment system," which has been hovering about since last March, is at long last ready to be purchased. Finding prospective buyers, however, will likely be challenging. The unit is now available in silver, yellow, white, black and the obligatory red, and each one will set you back a dumbfounding $2,995. We're thinking the unit itself would go for around three bills sans branding, but apparently Italian ponies aren't cheap.

Frank DeMartin, general manager of Mitsubishi Digital Electronics America, was nice enough to talk a little laser TV with us just before the unveiling of the new laser TV -- we're not exaggerating about the "little" part. While it all sounds fantastic, we were disappointed that he wasn't willing to even begin to satisfy our unlimited thirst for technical details. But he was confident that a laser TV could provide the ultimate in picture quality because "laser has the ability to hit color points that no other technology can." We understand his desire not to spill trade secrets, but any technical information beyond, "it's the best" would've been better than nothing. So while we don't know how the TV works, we do know that the principal makes sense; lasers offer the purest form of light, while at the same time use less power than other light sources. The problem of course is that the competition in the HDTV market is a fast moving target, and with the delays Mitsubishi has been dealing with, we wonder how competitively priced this new technology will be -- though Frank assured us that Mitsubishi's dominance in the red laser market will help . Frank says, "it'll be competitive with flat panel prices," and that's great and all, but price isn't the only factor needed to compete against flat panels, people like thin TVs and the laser TV isn't thin -- it's about as thin as a DLP. But regardless of being the same price, Mitsu thinks the superior picture quality will trump thin because "people want it flat, but they want it large too." Either way, we'll have to wait until some unknown time this year to see if the laser TV can live up to the hype, but with what we know right now, we're not sold just yet.

Santa Clara County police arrested a 27-year-old "entrepreneur" with roughly 50,000 pirated DVDs stashed. The estimated street value of the collection adds up to $250k, and the movies naturally included titles currently in theaters -- including the critically acclaimed "Alvin and the Chipmunks." Police found the stash thanks to a 911 hang up at the man's home, and currently have him sitting in jail while everybody waits for the MPAA to redouble its consumer education efforts on this menace to society -- we're going to run out of plastic, people.

[Thanks, Paul B]

Like most companies here at CES, HP is getting busy launching stuff left and right. In addition to its usual assortment of laptops, desktops and servers, HP decided that it now wants to get into the Blu-ray game. While HP was already doing a fair bit of HD DVD stuff before, this is the company's first major foray into Blu-ray. Here's what we do know: the new burner will be called the bd135, and the word on the show floor is that it'll ship within the first half of this year, but we're still waiting on a price. We'll keep you posted as info rolls in.