In an early alert to retailers, Lionsgate has announced it is planning to bring the Oscar-winning 'Monster's Ball' to Blu-ray in early November. Earning a Best Actress Oscar for Halle Berry, as well as... ...

Universal has announced a mid-October release for the Martin Scorsese crime classic 'Casino' on Blu-ray, as well as a bundle featuring three of the studio's top gangster favorites. Due for release on October... ...

Filed under: Gaming, HDTV, Home Entertainment Time flies when you're having fun, but not when you're waiting anxiously for a new piece of kit -- particularly one that has been delayed numerous times. For Europeans waiting on pins and needles for the release of the PlayTV DVR for PlayStation 3, your time has arrived. Before rushing out to get one, however, might we interest you a short unboxing a ...

Sony announced today at the Games Convention in Germany a new 160GB PS3. The new PS3 will launch in PAL markets on October 31 for ?449 and will include additional PlayStation network content bundled with the console. All features of the console are the... ...

Today Sony announced a new accessory for the PS3 called the Wireless Keypad. The wireless keypad mounts over the top of the Sony PS3 controller and adds a full QWERTY keyboard that is operated with the thumbs. The keypad is paired to the PS3 by connecting ... ...

Amazon.com on Wed. began offering a new 50 percent off Blu-ray sale in the latest high-definition promotion. ...

Walt Disney has announced it is bringing two versions of 'The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian' to Blu-ray in early December, including a "DisneyFile" edition with Digital Copy. Following... ...

The manufacturer shipment data reported for the second quarter of 2008 by DisplaySearch shows plasma units “surged” by 35%, largely on the strength of Vizio’s introduction of a 32″ plasma TV. This reprieve for plasma will be short-lived, however, as LCD models are available with better features at lower prices.

The conventional wisdom has been that LCD wins for anything under 50″ these days, and plasma faces a struggle to remain competitive. But earlier this year, there appeared to be a shortage of 32″ LCD panels developing. And Vizio saw an opportunity to steal some market share by creating a 32″ plasma set. (This size plasma, by the way, is selling like hotcakes in the Chinese domestic market.) So they cme out with the Vizio VP322 that has a list price of $650.

But the fact is that flat panel sales slowed a bit, and the LCD panel makers caught up with demand, and the 32″ LCD TVs appear to be doing just fine now, thank you. Even Vizio offers three LCD models priced the same or lower than their plasma model. So which is the better deal?

The LCDs win on resolution alone. The 32″ plasma has the requisite 720 lines for high-definition images, but it falls down on the horizontal resolution. Like many smaller plasma panels, it only has 1,024 horizontal pixels. This means that it cannot display the full detail of a 720p image; I call it “almost HD”. The LCD panels, on the other hand, have no difficulty in making small pixels. They have Wide XGA resolution, which is 1,366 by 768 pixel native resolution, which is more than enough to display the 1,280 by 720 required for 720p images.

Now, I’ll grant you that both of these pixel arrangements will have to scale a 720p image in order to fit it on the screen, but the plasma will have to throw away information where the LCD will be interpolating to fill in the gaps of an expanded image. Assuming equal quality scaling circuitry, I’ll take the solution that expands existing information over one that throws it away. For 1080p images, both the LCD and plasma will have to throw away information from the image, but the LCD will have throw away less.

I expect to see prices for 32″ LCD HDTVs continue to fall, especially if sales are slow in September, and I doubt that plasma will be able to keep up competitively. The small plasma models enjoyed a nice bump in the first half of this year, but I don’t expect them to remain as a significant part of the flat panel landscape going forward.

We just got word from Microsoft that the Xbox 360 is totally sold out in Japan, and that's just how they like it. Microsoft's console has been outselling Sony's Playstation 3 lately at a rate of... ...