So you finally broke down bought that fancy 60" HDTV. Now, you need a fancy HDMI cable for the finest quality picture. BestBuy (et al) promote Monster almost exclusively. But they can cost up to $250. Meanwhile, Monoprice (and others) can be had for about 1/10th the price.

Gizmodo just finished their detailed three part breakdown (including using test machines at Monster's own HQ) and comes to the conclusion that "The only people who should buy Monster cable are people who light cigars with Benjamins."
posted by revmitcz on Jul 27, 2007 - 29 comments

HDTV broadcasts contain an extra couple of inches of screen real estate on either side of the picture that are cropped out of the standard defintion broadcast of the same show. Most shows don't do anything special with that space, since the vast majority of viewers don't receive it, but NBC's My Name Is Earl did last night.
posted by jonson on Oct 5, 2005 - 39 comments

Not Ready for Their Close-Up. Quote: "On the brighter side, TV will lose a certain amount of its power over us - I can promise you that. HD won't do advertisements quite the same way. Ask any Catholic priest, or Jung, or Scott McLoud about the power of icons, and they'll explain it the same way. Too much detail, and they lose their ability to induce our identification."
posted by gsb on Jun 14, 2005 - 41 comments

Endangered Gizmos via the EFF (warning, they do want your money to continue fighting "to defend our rights to think, speak, and share our ideas, thoughts, and needs using new technologies, such as the Internet and the World Wide Web.")
Lawsuits have driven some excellent consumer products into extinction, like the ReplayTV 4000, DVD X Copy and the lamented wild and crazy Napster 1.0 including what drove them into extinction. They also list endangered gizmos like the HD TV PCI Card, Morpheus and Generic FireWire, open Wifi hot spots and CD burners.
Among the "saved" gizmos is the Skylink garage door opener which had been attacked under the DMCA.
posted by fenriq on Feb 8, 2005 - 5 comments

New DVD formats are just around the corner so let the buyer beware. I wonder just how many dvd collectors actually believe they own the final version of their favorite movies?
posted by Beholder on Aug 24, 2002 - 23 comments

Ahhh...From the rediculous (my last post) to the sublime.
posted by fpatrick on Dec 13, 2000 - 7 comments