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Have $17,000 to blow? Need an HD media player? Goldmund, a high-end home theater company, has just announced one of the world’s most expensive Blu-ray players. The Eidos 20 BD is a luxury media player in every sense of the word, and sports a number of distinct features including the "AC-Curator" power supply unit that ensures a clean source of power that, according to Goldmun "dramatically improves picture and sound stability and dynamics". Sure, but is it worth the $17,000 investment? Probably not, but we’re certain that won’t be much of a deterrent to the prospective audience. We’ve got a quick suggestion, though. Maybe it would be nice in the future to actually include hard specs on the $17,000 component you’re trying to sell. Just a thought.

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If there’s one thing HD DVD players are good for these days, it’s promoting creativity. Finding something to do with your now-a-big-hunk-of-doorstop is great for exercising your cerebrum, but not so great for watching new HD movies. If you’d like to try the latter, watch some new HD movies that is, then Circuit City may be your friend. You won’t find this program advertised anywhere, but there is a bit of solace for Circuit City customers who have purchased an HD DVD player within the past three months. Take your box-O-useless back over to your local Circuit City store and you will be given a credit for the entire purchase price of the unit. The credit can then be applied towards the purchase of a new Blu-ray player. You can also opt for a Circuit City gift card if Blu-ray isn’t your thing. What does Circuit City plan to do with all of those HD DVD players? Hold open a hell of a lot of doors we would imagine…

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Looking to get a little portable HD content into your life? Acer seems to making some decent steps in that direction. The company is reportedly working on two separate Blu-ray capable portable machines, one with a 16.4" screen and one with a massive 18" screen. The displays on these computers will display HD content in its natural aspect ratio of 1920×1080, trumping most currently available laptops. These computers won’t be cheap, ranging in price from $1,900 to $2,240 depending on screen size and options, but for an easy to transport HD-capable machine, we think is is a pretty reasonable price point. No word on specific release dates, but we should have these in our grubby little hands by Spring of this year. Just don’t go thinking you can fit that 18"-incher in a manilla evelope, okay?

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It has been less than a week since Toshiba put the final nail in HD DVD’s coffin and people are already predicting the death of Blu-ray. For real? Sure it’s highly unlikely that Blu-ray will ever see the popularity enjoyed by DVD, but physical HD media will have its time to shine before downloadable content renders it obsolete. The technology will grow, hardware prices will drop and Blu-ray will likely see a good amount of global success. The major studios are on board, and gaming console support will also play a role in Blu-ray’s growth and success. To think that mass-adoption of movie downloads and affordable global availability of the bandwidth to support them is going to happen quickly is obtuse. Slooooow down there killer. People will be connecting dedicated physical media players to TVs for a long time to come. And what about Blu-ray as storage? You can already pick up a 5x Blu-ray burner for less than $200 and with a disc capacity of 25 GB single layer / 50 GB dual layer, you can expect its eventual mass-adoption by PC manufacturers as prices drop. It’s easy to say that any piece of technology present these days will become obsolete. That, of course, is the nature of technology and progress. The popularity of physical high definition media however, is an inevitable step in terms of the evolution of multimedia content delivery. What do you think; should Blu-ray just pack its bags and quit or stay the course?

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It looks like the rumors were true and the 80GB PlayStation 3 is in fact going the way of the dinosaur. As retailers try to dump their remaining inventory, news that the more spacious PlayStation 3 model is on its way out was only heartbreaking for a few days. The move is now making a lot more sense of course, when considering the latest rumor to emerge from the gaming world. It appears that Sony has ditched the 80GB model because there will soon be a new sheriff in town. A meatier model is reported to be just over the horizon, boasting 120GB - 160GB of storage. Further details are still trickling in, but it’s said that the newcomer will ship with the highly-coveted Dual Shock 3 controller, which isn’t widely available outside of Japan at this point. The best news, which of course is the worst news for those who have already shelled out the cash for the 80GB model, is that the new model will come in at the same price point that its predecessor sold for. Nice! Word on the street is that the 40GB model should receive a 20% price slash around the same time. That brings the 40GB down to a svelte $299 and twice the price will bring you three to four times the storage with the upcoming model ringing in at $499.

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