Just in case a space aged home theater with rotating seats wasn't enough to get your mental wheels a-spinnin', this Pirates of the Caribbean-themed venue is sure to rejuvenate the flow of creative juices. Assembled, painted and pieced together over the course of 12 months, the Konolds' hand-built theater is truly a masterpiece sir Walt would be proud of. With painting, souvenirs and even a few whiskey barrels ripped straight from the hit trilogy (and fancied up with a bit of personal style), the 16- x 27-foot area is a sight to behold. Head on down to the read link to find out exactly how far $30,000 and a little imagination can go.

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]

Own a copy of Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl on Blu-ray? Annoyed silly by those pesky framing issues? If so, you're certainly not alone, and it seems that frustrated owners can now phone up Disney in order to request a replacement. Granted, we've known such a program was in the works for some time now, but we're finally seeing widespread reports of current owners being treated to new (and hopefully problem-free) discs gratis. If you're anxious to get a replacement, you can phone up a CSR at 1-800-723-4763 (US) or 1-800-877-2843 (Canada) to get the ball rolling.

[Via Blu-ray]

Blu-ray is starting to look like the Bad News Bears: analysts predicting death, deserting studios and now, one of Blu-ray's biggest releases, Pirates of the Caribbean , exhibiting terrible framing issues. It's important to note that the picture quality is intact but heads are being cut off -- and not by swashbuckling pirates. From the provided pics, the film is focused 5% lower than the standard DVD release. This shift therefore causes a loss of the top 5% of the screen and Orlando Bloom's head. There isn't any official response from Disney (we're working on that) just yet, but wow, Disney is going to have some mad Blu-ray owners on its white-gloved hands. In addition, we all know how fanatical first adopters get.

More pics after the jump

Following up on the expected arrival of Cars on Blu-ray, VideoBusiness reports Disney has officially announced that Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End will hit DVD and Blu-ray simultaneously December 4th. The two disc Blu-ray (one dual-layer, one single-layer) set has an SRP of $35.99 -- only a dollar over the comparable DVD package -- and feature the numerous extras all re-mastered in HD, as well as a BD-J special interactive feature, Enter the Maelstrom. The company expects this set to follow up on the highly successful DVD releases of the first two movies in the series which also debuted in the first week of December.

In this latest chapter of the format war the BDA is once again patting themselves on the back because according to estimates by Home Media Magazine, the two Pirates movies outsold The Matrix box sets by a margin of over 3 to 1. While both of these titles got a lot of people excited and motivated people to buy, we're not impressed. For starters the box set includes 3 feature films, so 3-1 should be expected. The other important factor is cost, while the Pirates movies sold for $25 each, the box set was closer to $70 (depending on the version). Considering the differences here, we'd say they were pretty even, -- with the slightest edge to Pirates -- but when you consider that one of the Pirates titles was a day-and-date release, this really isn't news at all. What will be interesting is when The Matrix finally gets released on Blu-ray and we get compare title for title after all those new HD DVD players hit the market.

Not too long after Pioneer went and introduced its second generation Blu-ray player, along comes Panasonic to follow suit, but unlike the BDP-LX70, we've got a pricetag as well as a few tempting reasons to pick this one up over the competition. The DMP-BD10A packs an audio upgrade that brings 7.1, Dolby True HD, and DTS-HD on board, and it incorporates Panasonic's EZ-Sync system for "one-touch operation" of your home theater. The overall design doesn't deviate too far from that seen in the first iteration, but you will find 1080p upconversion via HDMI, a 14-bit DA converter with 4x oversampling, support for BD-J, and compatibility between select HD camcorders via the AVCHD (H.264) codec. Notably, Panasonic is giving users two reasons to seriously considering its new offering, as the fairly reasonable $599.95 pricetag looks even better when you consider the five BD films (Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, Transporter, Fantastic Four, and Crash) you'll be getting right in the box.

[Via Impress]

It is well accepted that whatever technology the porn industry adopts becomes widely accepted, and there is little doubt that it helped VHS and the Internet. However is the next generation pre-packaged media really that new? Certainly not as much of a breakthrough as the Internet or pre-packaged media like VHS. When VHS first hit the street it was the first time someone could enjoy movies in the comfort of their own home whenever they wanted. With the Internet people could download what they wanted when they wanted and they didn't even have to go to the store and risk being spotted to buy it. When DVD came out it added special features and instant access to scenes, but other than the great picture quality, what do the next gen formats offer in regards to porn? Sure PIP might be nice, as well as better sound, but no doubt it isn't as big of an increase so will the porn industry have the same impact. This pretty much sums up why you don't see much next gen porn news on Engadget HD, we simply don't think that one studio announcing titles on one format or another is big news, although it might be if it were the biggest name in porn, but Vivid still says they will produce on both formats and the BDA has even issued a statement saying they don't have a problem with porn.
Read: Blu-ray: We Like Porn, Too
Read: HD DVD or Blu-ray? Even the Porn Industry Won't Touch It

Finally, there is some word about when Buena Vista's blockbuster hits Pirates of the Caribbean and Cars is coming to Blu-ray and we are please to tell you that it's not to far off. Every time the studio has announcements, we hold our breaths only to let out a sigh of disappointment when nether of the flicks are mentioned but come May of '07, Captain Jack will be on our HDTVs via both the Curse of the Black Pearl and Dead Man's Chest. Cars is [hopefully] coming later this year but the title isn't yet slotted into this released time table. There are more former hit titles coming from the studio such as, Chicken Little and Finding Neverland coming out on March 20; King Arthur Director's Cut and G.I. Jane on April 3; Con Air, Crimson Tide, and The Rock coming out on June 8, and The Recruit, Open range and the fore mentioned Cars slotted for sometime within the year. Hopefully, once the studio releases their first Pixar movie, Cars, on the format, we will see more coming.

Click on for the rest of the studios '07 worldwide releases. These plans include a huge European push with 21 schedule titles verses North Americans paltry 13 and Asia lackluster 12.

Like we said before, all new tech is driven by one thing, and at least one of those companies has chosen Blu-ray as their sole format of the future. Digital Playgrounds has been at the forefront of adopting their adult content for high definition, with their recent release "Pirates" available both on DVD and WMV-HD format. They cited the Playstation 3 and tighter DRM as their reasons for opting to release only on the Blu-ray format.

It certainly seems like good logic, the PS3 launch should provide Sony with an incredibly installed base pretty quickly, and tighter DRM despite our views as consumers is generally a favorite for content providers.

[Via bit-tech.net]