When Mitsubishi admitted that it was holding hands with NVIDIA and Aspen Media for no other reason than to prove that they all three hearted 3D, we must say, we were miffed. Now, however, it seems that plans are finally coming to light, and everything is starting to make a whole lot more sense. Reportedly, the three firms are gearing up to showcase how well they can work together to produce eye-pleasing 3D PC gaming results in select retail outlets this July. At first, none of the components will be sold together per se, but bundle deals are definitely in the works. Whether or not budding PC gamers are ready to switch to a DLP-based HDTV as their primary monitor, however, remains to be seen.

Generally speaking, the weekly Ask Engadget HD pops up on Wednesday, while our brethren over at Classic take their turn on Thursday. This week, however, the Ask Engadget question dabbles dives headfirst into the HD space, with one reader looking for the best 40- to 50-inch LCD HDTV with PC compatibility. We're confident you folks have a good answer lined up, so save your comments for the Classic side and help this bloke out.

Pioneer's latest internal Blu-ray player / DVD writer certainly lacks a few amenities, but for those not interested in forking out for BD-Rs or messing with HD DVD, the BDC-S02J is catered specifically for you. Arriving in both black and beige color schemes, this SATA drive plays back content on single- and dual-layer Blu-ray discs, BD-REs, and all flavors of DVDs and CDs including writables. Additionally, it will come bundled with a host of software, and while pricing information is strangely absent, those in Japan can expect it to land sometime next month.

[Via AkihabaraNews]

Whether playing HD DVD and Blu-ray discs from a drive, or files obtained or stored via other means, you'll need plenty of horsepower to keep the HD flowing smoothly. Hardware Zone took a look at NVIDIA and ATI's competing platforms for hardware acceleration of h.264 and VC-1 decoding on PCs. They tested a few 1080i h.264-encoded movies from Japan and found neither solution was able reduce CPU load by more than 20-30% on their Core 2 Duo equipped test machine, with similar reductions on less CPU-intensive VC-1 discs. Overall they like the NVIDIA's PureVideo GeForce 7600 GT over the comparably priced ATI Radeon X1650 XT with Avivo, but check out the head to head for all the numbers before deciding which videocard goes in your next Media PC.

[Via MPEG4.net]

HTPC enclosures with front-mounted LCD screens certainly aren't new, with firms such as VoodooPC and Okoro Media Systems (just to name a couple) have been pumpin' them out for quite some time, but OrigenAE's take on the LCD-equipped chassis involves quite a bit more distinction than the other ho hum attempts. The S21T is practically one-piece aluminum (black or silver) case that just oozes sleekness, and would probably become the instant standout in any AV rack. Gracing the front is a recessed 12.1-inch motorized LCD that touts an (admittedly tough on the eyes) 1,920 x 1,080 resolution, and just might beat out the actual TV sets this beast will end up connected to. Regardless, the enclosure also features a host of internal fans, matching optical drive bezel, removable motherboard tray, support for 10 internal hard drives, and a bevy of ports including USB 2.0, FireWire, audio in / out, and multi-card flash reader. Of course, it doesn't really matter how sensational the innards of this thing are, just click on through for a few more snapshots and see how great it looks completely empty.

[Via MissingRemote]

DL.TV has a clip up showing a preview of the HD Upgrade pack for the Intervideo WinDVD 8 player. Although the software was slated to be available already, it's still not up on Intervideo's website. The Blu-ray / HD DVD playing add on is priced at $26 and the DL.TV guys hooked up the cheapest HD DVD drive they could find to test it out. They confirmed you'll need a pretty powerful PC to play back movies smoothly, and they weren't able to get it working over non-HDCP connections (no word on if they tried VGA) at all. While Sony BWU-100A owners got their Cyberlink upgrade recently, other HD drive owners will have to find a player by other means until the HD Upgrade is available.

Klegg seems to be kicking it up a notch from the wee LCDs it's accustomed to producing, as the 40-inch KLM-4010 is more suited for your living room than your front pocket. While it's certainly not the first LCD TV to stuff MCE functionality into its confines, this brushed aluminum beast packs quite a laundry list of impressive specs. It boasts a 1000:1 contrast ratio, 500cd/m2 of brightness, 1,366 x 768 resolution, HDMI, a pair of DVI ports, component, S-Video, composite, digital audio output, and a built-in Hauppauage PVR-150 MCE tuner. Additionally, it rocks an Intel Pentium 4 3GHz 630 processor, 1GB of RAM, a 250GB hard drive, NVIDIA GeForce 6200 graphics card, dual-layer, slot-loading DVD burner, FireWire / USB 2.0 connectors, flash card reader, and dual seven-watt integrated speakers. This PC / TV hybrid touts the ability to download video directly from the internet and store it without the need for a separate HTPC, but unfortunately there's no (presumably high) pricetag or release details to ponder over.

[Via CrunchGear]

In you haven't had enough Xbox 360 (let alone Wii and PlayStation 3) news lately, we've got one more tidbit for you. While we knew the device would sport USB connectivity, the recently released (and unboxed) HD DVD add-on drive has reportedly already been hacked to function on plain ole PCs, no Xbox 360 necessary. Utilizing Toshiba drivers, users have apparently been able to not only view the file contents of their HD DVD flicks directly within a Windows XP environment, but have been able to play back the film on PCs well-spec'd enough to handle the load. By enabling the computer to read the UDF (Universal Disc File system) v2.5 -- which is currently used by Toshiba's first generation HD DVD drives -- you can avoid throwing down the coin required for an Xbox 360 if you so choose. But as these roundabouts always go, we wouldn't count on things working out so smoothly for too much longer, especially with HDCP always lurking and waiting to pounce.

We just reported that ATI's TV Wonder 650 would be reaching store shelves near you, but it may be retreating just as quickly. According to reports received by DailyTech, ATI has yanked the cards due to a possible problem with the OTA tuner limiting it to less than half of the promised channels. The TV Wonder 200 that launched at the same time apparently is unaffected and can still be found on Best Buy and CompUSA's websites, while the TV Wonder 650 has disappeared. Those looking for a good OTA HDTV tuner with the hardware encoding capabilities of ATI's Theater 650 chip will apparently have to keep waiting.

ATI is trying to make catching OTA HDTV broadcasts on your PC a bit more mainstream with the TV Wonder 650. This add-in card not only picks up high definition broadcasts, but includes Avivo technology for image enhancement on analog broadcasts, motion-adaptive 3D comb filter, noise-reduction and hardware-assisted MPEG-2 encoding. The included high-def PVR software will record content in DivX, H.264, MPEG-2, MPEG-4 and WMV9 formats. This card seems Vista-ready, as they also mention combining it with ATI videocards to enable 3D menus, in addition to the MulTView picture-in-picture technology (requires two tuner cards) and the ability to have a translucent video window over other applications. While it isn't the OCUR CableCard device you may be waiting for, if broadcast HDTV is all you need this could be a great pickup for $129, shipping today.

Sony's first Blu-ray drive was officially unveiled a few days ago and to the surprise of many, it will not allow Blu-ray movie playback. But this isn't new. We have known this for a while as there are two things standing in the way. One, there has to be a software to allow for playback and two, your graphics card must decrypted the HDCP signal. Cyberlink is working hard on the first part and their software has been certified to playback both Blu-ray and HD DVDs but it hasn't been released yet. The only AACS-supported playback application is the OEM version of Intervideo WinDVD that's bundled with Sony's Blu-ray equipped VAIO notebook. ATI and NVIDIA both have graphics cards in the works that allow for HDCP processing but again, they are not released yet. Once both of these prereq's are met, then this drive will allow for playback, but till then, it is only going to record.

NVIDIA is jumping on the HDTV bandwagon with PureVideo HD. They have prepared a great one-stop-shop for high definition playback on a PC with their next-gen graphics cards. Their new technology combines high-def movie decode acceleration, HDCP support and an integrated HD movie player. All you need to do is add a HDCP compliant display with a HD DVD/Blu-ray optical drive and you are off to the races. NVIDIA's chip would do the majority of the high-def processing which will in turn relieve the main CPU of the task. Sony, Toshiba and Acer have adopted these GeForce GPUs in their first PCs to playback Blu-ray and HD DVD movies. MSI and ASUS will have video cards this summer with PureVideo HD support. No word on price yet though.

HDCP may be necessary to play your high definition DVDs at their full resolution, and even though ATI listed it as a feature on their website, the cards did not actually support it. No surprise that a lawsuit has now been filed by some disgruntled consumers.

We're no legal experts, but having a feature on the box and not actually being able to use it in any circumstance is leading us to believe ATI may just have to take an L on this one. As it stands only a few PC videocards actually do support HDCP, and they are NVIDIAs packaged in Sony Vaios. Although ATI has an HDCP-compatible card in development, none have hit shelves yet.

[Via Engadget]

Because HD just wasn't HD enough, now it's extreme. As I was sitting back eating my HD cereal, listening to my HD radio, preparing for an HD videoconference with a doctor looking at my HD MRI  and I was thinking man, how can I get more HD in my life? Luckily NVIDIA has answered my unspoken call for more.

Their GeForce Go 7900 series enables gaming at not-quite exactly-1080p resolutions of 1920x1200, along with their PureVideo hardware acceleration. I began to question how worthwhile all that is given the size of a typical laptop screen, although the fact you're generally sitting so close may cause the need for higher resolutions.

That's well and great, however (I can't believe I'm saying this) can we get a little less HD? At least according to Ben's definition, NVIDIA is using the term appropriately, but still, everything that is newer and better does not need to be HD (except for HD Beat and HDTVs of course). Find your own term marketers.