The Dell Studio 15z was designed, in part, by Best Buy's Blue Label Program, which is a focus group program for technology.

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New pocket-sized camera includes a huge 3.7" LCD with smart guestures, and a camera that records 720p video - less than an inch thick - and it competes with some of the best DSLRs out there!

Speaking of DSLR, Samsung also released one of the most amazing and fastest AFD camera, with an OLED screen on the back, and its own lens mount, along with Pentax lenses.

Samsung CL80 Homepage

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Why are commercials on TV so loud? Why does surround sound often make it harder to hear your TV programs and movies? The audio wizards at Dolby asked that same thing, and then invented Dolby Volume.

Why are commercials on TV so loud? Why does surround sound often make it harder to hear your TV programs and movies? The audio wizards at Dolby asked that same thing, and then invented Dolby Volume. This audio breakthrough makes surround-sound audio sound great on your TV and home theater receivers, but also levels out commercials, making the video viewing experience much, much better. This breakthrough is going to be everywhere! Great going Dolby.

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This amazing dock turns your iphone into a great audio player, but also a digital clock with a downloadable application and great bass kick.

iLuv Homepage

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New Samsung LED 9000 is easily the thinnest TV ever, at only slightly more than a quarter of an inch thick! It’s a 3D TV, has great online video processing, and it looks and sounds great! It also includes a pretty crazy remote control, with a built-in screen as well. WOW.

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Best phone at CES: Motorola's new Backflip phone offers a unique twist on the cellphone.

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Internet TV pioneer Boxee releases its first hardware, with partner D-Link at CES. This new box includes Hulu, finally, along with Revision3, Netflix and many, many more content choices. It looks great on a big screen TV, and includes an easy to use remote as well – with full keyboard and Apple-like buttons!

Boxee Homepage

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Syabas launches the new Popbox HD, a network-enabled streaming device that brings a wide range of online video into your home and your HDTV, including Revision3, Netflix, the BBC and more! It also includes what the company calls “PopApps”, which let you access twitter, Facebook, Weatherbug and other online services right on your HDTV.

Syabas Homepage

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Get the best OTA reception for DTV or HDTV, update all your social networking sites at once! Avoid disaster: backup your iTunes music, copy the tunes off your iPod and build a custom recovery CD! Plus, does Windows 7 Need 8GB of Memory?

Getting quality over the air (OTA) HD reception is heavily dependent on the antenna that you have and your location. A good resource to checkout is AntennaWeb. Put together by the CEA and NAB it locates the right antenna you need for you particular geographic location.

Apple released yet another new iPod Shuffle. This third generation iPod Shuffle sports and even slimmer profile and uses a very unique set of earbuds/headphones which makes using non 3rd gen specific earphones incompatible with the device. The reason? The controls for the pint sized music player are now located on the headphone cord.

Tim had a question about which antenna pick that would best receive over the air (OTA) HD reception for his HDTV. Now getting quality over the air (OTA) HD reception is heavily dependent on the antenna that you have and your location. A good resource to checkout is AntennaWeb. Put together by the CEA and NAB it locates the right antenna you need for you particular geographic location.

This week's Freebie File is Macrium Reflect FREE Edition. This handy little tool makes creating disk images a snap and if you need to burn out a system restore CD Macrium Reflect FREE Edition gives you the option of creating either a Linux based one or through the use of a BartPE plug-in and BartPE boot CD.

Orad was worried about losing his iTunes collection and wanted to know ho to backup his iTunes library. Veronica suggested getting an external hard drive that can hold the contents of your entire library. Unless youlike burning CD or DVD after CD or DVD. You'll also want to copy the entire contents of the iTunes folder, including the Album Art folder and iTunes Music Library.xml file. This is of course assuming that you have the "Keep iTunes folder organized" and "Copy files to iTunes music folder when adding to library" check in the iTunes preferences.

Speaking of iTunes Nathan wanted to clear away the detritus that now fills his iPod Nano and start fresh. Thankfully the process is pretty painless. Literally plug your iPod into your computer, launch iTunes, then select your iPod under 'devices'. Now in the middle of the summary page you'll see a button labeled restore. Click that button and you'll have a iPod that's back to it's original factory settings. Be warned you will permanently delete all your music off the device!! Make sure you have a backup!

Movie Of The Week is  I Like Killing Flies... watch it for free if you take a no-risk two week free trial membership at www.netflix.com/tekzilla!

This week's Website We Can't Get Enough Of The Vintage Web. The Vintage Web is Veronica's latest web endeavor shamelessly promoted on today's show. This Tumblr blog points out those websites with outdated and garish designs that showcase why people should take a design class before the build a website. Subsisting on the submissions of readers, who can send in your picks to thevintageweb@gmail.com. And did I mention this is a shameless self-promotion effort by Veronica Belmont?

"Is there a single application or widget to be able to do one post and send it to Blogger, Facebook and Twitter ? That way you only have to post once, and it shows up on these multiple platforms ? Mac or Windows version." Great question, David! Veronica says Ping.FM is the natural choice, given that you need to work with Blogger. It will let you update about a million different ways, including IM, TXT and email, or just by visiting the ping.fm site and typing in your status update. Then you can choose which other social networks you want ping to relay the message to.

For the non-Blogger people, HelloTxt is another great microblogging syndication tool. It'll even let your schedule when you want your updates to go out!

Patrick's still wading thru the giant dogpile of responses to his question for the audience about organizing photo collections. A lot of folks love iPhoto and Picasa... but the strongest responses are from folks that want him to move to Aperture, or Lightroom.

In the words of viewer Paul, " Organizing by files is sooo old school and last century. It's time to move forward into the future by harnessing the power of the database! It's the difference between thinking about items individually vs. thinking about them as part of a collection. Let iPhoto worry about where files go and how they are organized on your hard drive. "

Thanks for all your responses!

4GB of CL4 DDR2-800 or 8GB of CL5 DDR2-800... Nick, you should go for the 8 GB of memory. It's almost the same price, and if you move to 64-bit Vista -or Windows 7- you should get a delightful boost in performance, especially if you use lots of memory hungry applications.

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PCMag's HDTV expert, Robert Heron, teaches us top notch HDTV calibration tricks using tools anybody can afford!

HDTV is supposed to be your window into the high fidelity video, but if you haven't calibrated your TV, chances are you're looking at a mess. It's just the way most HDTV's come out of the box: too bright, over saturated, overscan issues. Fortunately, with just a few minutes and the right disk, you can make major improvements in your HDTV's picture quality.

And if you already own a THX certified movie with THX Optimizer, you can do it for free!

Our favorite HDTV expert, PC Magazine's, Robert Heron holds certificates from the Imaging Science Foundation and THX, and personally calibrates every HDTV he reviews.

Before you run into the living room to start tweaking, you'll need a few things. Any DVD or Blu-ray disk with the THX Optimizer will give you the tools to make some major improvements on your set.

For under $20, you can take the next step in calibrating your HDTV by picking up a copy of Joe Kane's Digital Video Essentials: HD Basics, which includes special color filters you need to fine tune your HDTV. (You can also pick up a pair of THX Optimizer Glasses at their online store.)

Robert also talks about when you might want to call in a professional, and just what they do for the cash you're shelling out. If you want to have professional do an even more in-depth calibration make sure they're ISF certified.

Want to see how good a job your TV or Blu-ray or DVD player does with scaling video? Then check out HQV Benchmark discs!

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Robert Heron's fave HDTV picks, Jason Cross picks graphics cars from $50 to $500, Mini ITX motherboards, are there any 7.1 speaker systems for gaming?

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Best Budget Laptops, Upscaled DVD vs Blu-ray, Planet Earth Looks Amazing, What To Do with 40 Laptop Drives, Why Macbooks Can't Use Microphones, LetMeGoogleThatForYou.com

What's the best laptop for $800, Blake? We've got some great options -it's amazing how much notebook you get for $800 these days- at least as long as you don't want top play serious 3D PC games!

For $600 to $1000 it's tough to beat Dell's Studio 15.

Will there be a visible difference between an upscaled DVD of the (amazing) Planet Earth videos and the Blu-ray version?

James, as far as we're concerned, Planet Earth is the most amazing hi def disk we've ever seen... it's a great reason to go ahead and get a Blu-ray player.

This week's Freebie Download Pick is MetaX. If you run OS X, this is ultimate tool for tagging your collection of movie files MP4 and MOV files piles of info, right down to your pick of box covers or movie posters. Thanks to everyone that emailed in about this one!

What can you do with 40 hard drives you've got laying around, Bradd? We've got a laundry list of ideas, but we think you'll flip over RAIDZilla, even tho it 'only' uses 16 drives!

Thinking more like using 4 hard drives? Check out FreeNAS if you want to recycle an old PC, or our fave RAID 5-ish machine, the Drobo, which makes it easy to mix and match drives of different sizes.

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Supercharge Task Manger, Replace MS Money and Quicken, Router Request, Analog TV for HDTVs and your PC, PS3 Universal Remote.

You are correct: no matter what the credits say, Veronica is not Robert.

Lots of folks in the audience use WiFi for their Home Theater PCs and media extenders... it's only Patrick's crazy friends that have gone back to Ethernet.

No, we don't want to get into the whole "Why... why do the new Macbooks not have firewire" discussion.

SDHC (and CF) memory card performance? Thanks for the tip on Rob Galbraith amazing test page, Peter! Head over to http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/multi_page.asp?cid=6007

This week's Freebie download pick, MKN TaskExplorer 5, comes from our very own intern Daniel Fukuba... MKN TaskExplorer 5 turns the Windows Task Manger up a notch, providing detailed info about each process, including performance and memory graphs, DLLs loaded, threads, and access token... it provides intuitive graphs showing not only the CPU usage history, but it's Kernel time and DCP time as well. It's got widgets, and power users will love it!

Will an Eee Box have enough power to run a BitTorrent program, share files and play video? Yes, Donavan!

What's the best way to hook up a new computer to an Standard Def TV? Most newer products pretty much ignore SDTV...

Speaking of SDTV, getting NTSC TV, aka regular old analog cable into an HDTV with no S-video input is a pain!

You could spend $700 on something like an ATV-3900 video up-converter, which will take the input from your TV and output it to HDMI... if you don't mind leaving your PC on, you might want to try a TV tuner for the PC itself, like one of the Elgato devices, or a WinTV. And they'll run well under $200!

This week's "Website We Just Can't Get Enough Of" is OC remix dot com ... a website dedicated to showcasing custom arrangements and remixed versions of your favorite video game music. This non profit site was created by David Lloyd, AKA DJ Pretzels, as a place to the appreciate, preserve, and interpret the different styles of video game music.

Matt in Bayonne emails, "I'm a little stumped on universal remote controls. I would love to find one that will power all of my units, including my HD projector, HD DVR cable box, surround sound and a PS3 for Blu-ray"

Patrick's a big fan of Logitech's Harmony remotes... the new Harmony One gets the most attention, but the 720 comes in around 60 bucks cheaper... $130 at Amazon, and has most o' the features, including the nifty color LCD screen.

Adding a PS3 to a universal remote is a pain... it uses a Bluetooth based remote control. Tekzilla viewers have nothing but love for the IR2BT and Nyko PS3 adapters... OK, nothing but love and one gripe. You won't be able to power the PS3 on and off, or couldn't last I heard.

Ethan's looking for a new wireless router to replace the one that cam with his FiOS install... he could build a Windsurfer parabolic booster and slip it over the nubby antennas on the back of the router. (Amazing what they did for WiFi in Patrick's old house.)

You could also build a IPCop box from an old PC. If Verizon gave you a router compatible w/ the Tomato firmware, we'd install that... yo ucan learn more about installing the Tomtato firmware on episode 71 of Systm.

We'd love to hear what everybody in the Tekzilla crew is using/wish they were upgrading to on the wireless router front... please email your faves to tekzilla@revision3.com... and put 'router recco' in the subject line!

Any suggestions for an open source replace for Microsoft Money or Quicken? Veronica sure does, Stephen!

Check out "GnuCash", "jGnash" and "KMyMoney". If you've already been working with Quicken or MS Money, and want to import files to one of these programs, you have to make sure that they support QIF and OFX formats.

Alternately, you can get "on the cloud" with online money managers, like Mint.com or the newly free Quicken Online.

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Robert Heron picks the Best HDTV Ever, Blu-ray players. Protect Your Data from Fire, Flooding and Old Age. DIY HDTV Calibration. Fix a Broken LCD Screen. Vista Start Menu Mods. HDFury HDCP Bypass.

Where's Veronica? She's in Japan at the Tokyo Game Show

Pioneer's KURO PDP-5020FD is Robert's pick for the finest HDTV you can buy, at least without spending more $$$ on a Pioneer Elite or Signature panel!)

Feeling the credit crunch? The Vizio SV420XVT is a low cost 120Hz LCD that looks good after calibration, but Robert says its 120Hz tech isn't quite as effective as the best he's seen. That would be in Samsung's latest HDTVs, including the LN52A750.

Someone at BestBuy said calibrating my HDTV will extend its life and save me money on my power bill? Is that true? Is it worth $300? We've got answers, Mike!

Yes, you can calibrate my HDTV for less. Sort of. For under $20 online, Joe Kane's Digital Video Essentials: HD Basics offer an excellent reference and setup disc.

Robert adds, "I forgot to mention video processing in the video calibration question - I find myself spending just as much time verifying proper video processing in a HDTV as I do adjusting the other picture characteristics. What's the point of having optimal color and contrast if the TV's video processor is dumping half the video information before it hits the screen! Every major TV manufacturer has shipped a model (or 2 or 3) that had buggy (or simply unfinished) firmware that resulted in up to a 50% loss of detail with high quality HD video material - sometimes there is a setting to compensate/fix the issue; othertimes you have to request and apply an updated firmware file. For anyone interested in learning more about why effective video processing is important, I suggest checking out HQV.com.

Frustrated with the Vista Start Menu? Then you'll love this week's Freebie download pick, Vista Start Menu! This simple program makes Vista's Start Menu more intuitive, convenient, and easy to understand.

Best Blu-ray player that's not the PS3? Good question, Winston!

Stan wants to know about GPS units with external antenna connections: his current rig is blocked by the overhang on his RV.

Website We Can't Get Enough Of? AVSForum.com is one of Robert's favorite places online to get great info, honest opinions and ideas to solve problems with home theater equipment, HDTVs, and just about anything else that falls under 'audio and video.'

Anger management issues + remote control + 42 inch LCD HDTV = a broken 42 inch LCD HDTV. Jonathan wants to know if he can replace that busted LCD panel.

What's the best storage medium for long term storage of data, tape, DVD or thumb drive? Which would stand up best to heat or water that may occur even inside a fire safe in case of a house fire? Maybe it's just that we live in Earthquake and Fire and Flood country (or have family that do) but we love this question, Chris!

Those 'my stuff survived the house burning down in a SentrySafe' stories.

Could u do a review of the HDFury and see if it'll work on my laptop? We'll do our best, Ryan.. we take it you want to use the VGA on your notebook for an HDTV with no analog inputs, maybe? Basically, the HDFury brings HDCP compliance to any RGB monitor.

Adam in Oklahoma has a new HDTV, an Xbox 360 and a pile of standard definition equipment. He asks: "Is there a component or composite to HDMI converter that actually works, or should I just use the component and composite ports for my DVR, DVD player and my Xbox 360?" Robert's got the info for Adam... and we've gotta add that a good upscaling DVD player with an HDMI output might be a good addition. Check out Oppo Digital, along with upscaling offerings at your local big box store!

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Engadget's Ryan Block shows off the $1800 Optimus Maximus. Fix HDTV Overscan. Make Windows Prettier (and more functional) with Object Dock. Subscribe to video RSS feeds without iTunes. Can you cut your phone bill using VoIP over a cellphone?

Check out the Interactive Episode at VideoClix.tv

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Veronica wants to giveaway a Zune, details in the show! Patrick reviews Gateway's One all-in-one PC. ReadyNAS vs Drobo: Which is more futureproof? Does 1080p matter on a small HDTV?

Dear Microsoft: Veronica might buy a Zune if you had Mac software for it... her take on the Zune 2.5 featues are in the show.

Omar's looking for an all-in-one PC and he wants our take on the Gateway One. Patrick put it to the test for a week, check the show for his take on the Core2Duo machine... the expansion options are pretty slick!

Which is more future proof: Netgear's new ReadyNAS Pro, with it's 6 drive bays, or the Data Robotics Drobo which can easily use drives of different sizes. Good question, Rob!

Does 1080p matter on 32" or smaller HDTV? Adam's off to college next year and wants an HDTV between 22 and 30 inches he can rock with his Xbox 360 (and, later on, the PS3). He says, "the optimal HD experience would be ideal. Also being able to hook up my Macbook would also be super rad!"

Why the 70's really ended, hint: it's not because of high oil prices. See Plaid Stallions for the truth... it's this week's Website We Just Can't Get Enough Of!

The Maker Faire is an epic festival of DIY... we've got video of some of our favorites from the gathering of Makers... anybody up for a rideable Mechanical Giraffe?

Care to avoid death on the highway? The National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration's "Click It or Ticket" campaign runs from May 19 thru June 1st this year, and they'd like you to buckle up: Fifty-nine percent of those killed in an auto accident were NOT wearing seat belts at the time of the crash.

Windows XP Service Pack 3 is out... our producer Roger installed it this morning. Late breaking update: some folks are having problems with Continuous Reboots after installing Windwos XP SP3.

Poll question of the week: Do you think SP3 release means that XP is finally make the voyage to scrapyard or is it just proof that XP's popularity is just as strong as it ever was?

JavaOne + Neil Young = Java/Blu-ray high res archive of his work, that's updatable... that he reccomends be experience via the PS3!

Speaking of Blu-ray, sales have hardly taken off since The Death of HD DVD.

The Tekzilla Gadget of the Week comes from Veronica: she loves Sound Isolating Headphones! She's not talking earbuds, she's talking in ear devices that do serious noise blocking along with audio playback.

Albin's wondering about Windows utilities that are starting to add anti-malware, adware, phishing, etc. to their former functions. Can you run too many of these things at once?" We think so... and we've got some advice so Albin can avoid conflicts between AVG 8, Comodo 3 and a few other bits of security software floasting around his PC.

Thanks to everybody that participated in our GoToMeeting meeting early this week. It was very helpful and eye opening experience! We hope to hold another very soon.

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DIY Stencils, Cell Phone Boosters That Work, Pownce on the Desktop, 5 Things That Suck About the iPhone, Oppo's Low Cost HDMI Switch, Kevin Rose cohosts.... and did somebody say "Ass cancer?"

Aaron (and a few other folks) are miffed about us reviewing the DroboShare while DataRobotics was a running Drobo ads in the show.

Have we (or, more specifically, Patrick) no integrity? Trust us, Patrick might read ads in the show, but he'll quit before anybody dictates the content of a product review. You think the Drobo folks appreciated us pointing you towards a less expensive networked RAID device? (Like we said last week, If you don't mind dealing with managing a RAID, you can pick up Buffalo TeraStation Live with 1TB of hard drives onboard for the same price as the Drobo and DroboShare without any hard drives!)

Apple's Time Capsule definitely has potential (we haven't had a chance to review one yet, and we're curious about how well it works with XP and Vista) but, remember, if that single drive inside it goes down, you loose all your data... back it up to an online service or another USB hard drive!

Top Five Things Wrong With The iPhone: No Flash, No Exchange, that stupid headphone jack... Kevin and Patrick rant on a bit on the show.

Yes, Patrick did drill out that narrow iPhone jack with a drill press so he could plug in his beloved headphones without using a stupid iphone adapter. He'd use a Dremel rotary tool next time to make the cuts more manageable... the drill bit dug in pretty deep.

Your HDTV only has one HDMI HDMI input and you want to connect more than one HDMI device? That's the situation Tommy is facing, and he's hardly alone. And, like most of us, Tommy doesn't want to 'break the bank.'

Our fave HDTV reviewer, Robert Heron, is in the 'go to MonoPrice and buy whatever's cheap camp (they're a great source for cheap HDMI cables), but you might want to check out Oppo's new HM-31 3x1 HDMI switch. It's $99, and they've done a great job with their upscaling DVD players... we haven't had a problem with the HM-31 in our testing so far.

Joeseph downloaded the GOM Player, and noticed it's a bit sluggish with high quality Quicktime files... that's cause GOM uses DirectShow to play QT files... but some of the newer QT formats aren't optimized for DirectShow, and that makes for the slide show you're seeing. Best to stick with QT for those files... tho, just for kicks, download a fresh copy and try re-installing QuickTime to see if that fixes the problem.

Free software? Kevin shows off the Pownce Desktop software for his fave way to share files, pics and the news that he's off to lunch.

Daniel's dorm is a black hole where cell phone service dies. Is there a cheap cellular repeater he can pick up? We're not sure if $300 - $500 is cheap, but Wilson Electronics makes some monster 3 Watt amplifiers for cars and home/small office applications. We've used the mobile version to boost our signal from 1 or 2 bars to 4-5 bars. Talk to the folks at Wilson before you buy one; you'll want to make sure you've got the right cell phone frequencies (it's basically Sprint vs. Everybody Else), the best adapters for your phone, and that you can safely mount the antenna somewhere!

Is there a cell phone engineer in the audience? Kevin wants to know if he's like to get the 'ass cancer' if he leaves his cell phone in his back pocket...

While we're talking about protection, you should protect the screen on your new phone, smart phone, iPhone, Zune, media player, well, whatever it is with a shiny scratch free screen. Check out invisibleSHIELD, they've got some pretty good custom fitted covers that are pretty easy to apply and don't feel too bad under your fingers. They do absorb ink, tho!

Stencil's have been showing up on the sidewalks of San Francisco near Digg's offices, and Kevin's been documenting 'em on his Flickr account, so we take a look at how to generate your own stencils on the show. (Tho what Banksy and the folks on Stencil Revolution do with stencils and paint is way beyond us!)

Most of the tutorials on StencilRevolution are down during a redesign, but there's a good tutorial on making a single layer stencil from a color image in the forums there. Instructibles has more some good DIY help for stenciling, too. Search around: there are sources of eps stencil files on line, such as Guerilla Parenting.

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It's the biggest Consumer Electronics Event on planet Earth. CES. From oversized HDTVs to tiny Bluetooth headsets we look at all the gear that'll make it into stores. Plus some insight on the up and coming tech that'll make your electronics greener.

Why? It's the show where manufacturers show off their goods to the world!

Patrick Norton and Jim Louderback spent three days at the show (along with our new producer, Roger Chang) and we've got a ton of products for you, from XstreamHD's satellite HD video distribution to some nifty new case fans from Enermax and a whole lot in between.

We also cornered some of our favourite product mavens:

What's new on the HDTV front? PCMag's HDTV reviewer (and our buddy) Robert Heron talks about improved quality, thinner monitors , that 150 inch HDTV, and Pioneers amazing new take on black.

Cell phones: PCMag's Sascha Segan reviews 100 cell phones a year. He's got three picks on new phones from the CES show floor (it's all about better interfaces, something that the iPhone has inspired) along with his fave new Bluetooth headsets.

Robots? Lance Ulanoff lives for new robots at CES. (He's also the Editor in Chief at PCMag!) He's impressed with WoWWee's latest.

BTW, there's tons of CES product coverage at PCMag, and we'll be adding more in the coming weeks from the hours of video we shot at CES!

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HDMI is the standard, but can VGA be better for your HDTV? Portable music players that support lossless codecs. Three Ways to Save YouTube Video.

Our first question came from Luke who had a question about lossless MP3s and which digital music players support them. The short answer is that MP3's are inherently lossy even at higher bit rates. You'll need to migrate over to Apple's AAC lossless, WMA lossless, FLAC, or APE to reproduce music in a lossless format. To that the the players would be Apple's iPod for AAC, MS's Zune for WMA and Cowon's iAUDIOX5 for FLAC.

We received more than a few emails regarding software that would synch folders between 2 different machines. Although Windows XP still includes Briefcase it's long in the tooth and bit old fashioned. If you want something more recent check out Microsoft's SyncToy and online beta Folder Share. And if you're looking for something non-Microsoft based chcek out Allway Sync

We also received a plethora of emails regarding saving flash videos from websites. Two places to check out are Keepvid and Vixy.net. Keepvid will only save the files as *.flv while Vixy.net will allow you convert the files first and then save, but at a cost of taking more time. Both will not work on certain new flash embedding schemes but will work on YouTube, for the most part.

Blaz had a question on cheap videocards.

“What is the best graphics card for reasonable price like ATi Radeon HD3870 or nVidia Geforce 9600GT?"

Both the HD3870 and GeForce 9600GT are cheap, relatively but on the gaming side a bit lacking. If you don't mind spending a bit more cash checkout an 8800GT based card. They're pretty much the price/performance sweet spot for the moment.

Scott wrote in with a question about HDMI vs VGA for connecting his gear up to his 32" HD monitor. But he also had a question about the MadCatz HDMI conversion kit. Robert's answer on the matter:

“Garnett mentioned that the original Xbox 360 had analog output only, and it appears that the MadCatz HDMI conversion kit converts a VGA signal to HDMI (analog to digital conversion). Considering that an HDTV's component video input performs a similar task (analog video input that's converted to digital prior to display), chances are that you would see no improvement in video quality. For home theater devices that offer HDMI output, we do suggest using that port when possible (with a TV that offers HDMI input) as it will provide the best image quality. Otherwise, don't waste your cash on (usually) expensive analog-to-digital video converter products - component video (and VGA) remains the best analog video connection. “

Anthony had a question about a TV tunder box for his Widescreen PC LCD. Robert recommended:

The Elgato HDHomeRun HDTV Tuner. For a full review go to PCMag.com. ATI TV Wonder™ HD 650 Combo PCI Express® - Overview, also check out Home Theater Computers section of AVS Forum - a great resource and something I dug up online somewhere ;) Best Tuner for multi-path and/or for weak over the air broadcast signals - a tie, either the OnAir HDTV GT or the Fusion RT Gold

JR had a question about getting a 37" flat panel TV in the $1000 range for his dad. He also wanted to know about over the differences betwee over the air and cable/satellite HD. Robert suggested:

Lots of options at that price point! Vizio are Westinghouse are known for providing good image quality at low prices... Toshiba, Samsung, Sharp, and even Sony squeezes under the $1K mark (if you shop online). I think highly of Sony and Sharp models...go Sharp if more savings is needed. You may be able to go to 42" with that budget! (search Amazon.com for "37 inch LCD HDTV")

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Backup software for Windows. Jeff Gerstmann on garbage gaming gadgets. Fables. Ford's Sync Works. Free Defrag. Rent Movies Online. $500 HDTV Recco

Jeff Gerstmann, joins our very own Neha to talk about gaming gadgets everyone should avoid... and his recent departure from GameSpot.

Joe wants to know the best places to rent downloadable movies online, and not "buy any hardware or pay a monthly fee." There are quite a few options, right now, we like CinemaNow and Amazon's Unbox the best. Just make sure you've got a smokin' fast Internet connection... or you'll need to order your movies a day in advance.

Clicking thru YouTube take too much time? Check out Chann3lz.com a site that delivers an endless parade of videos. Props to Kiernan, one of your fellow Tekzilla viewers for putting it together!

"Could you suggest some good backup software for Windows?" Absolutely, Joe... check out EMC's Retrospect 7.5 if you want to get your backup geek on. (The Express HD version is mucho simpler and more affordable.) or, if you're into the free products, Cobian Backup 8 We show off the basic setup on air.

Heather's producer pick of the week is a rockin' comic book called Fables that brings timeless characters into today's New York City. Amongst other places. (Like Fables? Then you'll definitely want to check out iFanboy's interview of Fable's writer, Bill Willingham.

Free defrag tools? We regularly use Diskeeper, but if you're on the mad budget, or just want to use the Open Source check out UltraDefrag which works on most every form of Windows since NT 4.0. (You'll need to to some command line tweaking to run it under Vista!)

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DVR, HD Tuner, Blu-ray and more... Our fave HDTV expert, PCMag.com's Robert Heron, joins us with a host of tricks for turning Vista's Windows Media Center into a great Home Theater PC

You're gonna love this episode! Our fave HDTV expert, Robert Heron, from PCMag.com and DL.TV, joins Patrick with a host of expert ideas tips and tricks for turning your Windows Media Center into the ultimate media PC.

BTW, our new fave tool for playing Blu-ray movies in Windows Media Center is AcrSoft's TotalMedia Theater or TotalMedia Extreme...

Vista centric? Sure! It comes standard with Windows Vista Home Premium and Ultimate does a solid job playing DVDs, recording TV and handling your favorite audio and video files.

Looking to integrate Blu-ray playback into your WMC machine? Check out TotalMedia Theatre, $90, which not only plays well with the WMC interface, but still plays HD-DVD disks. It's definitely a more convenient than our former fave, CyberLink's PowerDVD 8 Ultra, $99.95, which bumps you out of the WMC GUI.

Vista... not so much? We also give you a list of WMC alternatives on the show... so you can turn just about any XP or Vista PC into an amazing Home Theater PC.

On the commercial front:

• SageTV
• SnapStream BeyondTV

Free and Open Source:

• tversity
• MediaPortal

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Patrick takes you through the steps of adding Blu-Ray playback to your Home Theatre PC, and highlights the issues you need to be aware of before you take the plunge.

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Tired of shelling out hard earned cash to download the program listings of your DVR? Want to backup your videos but don't want to deal with the hassle of DRMed files? Kevin Rose & Dan Huard show you everything you need to know about the free and open source PVR alternative, MythTV. Build yours today!

For under $500 you can build a computer that will record HDTV, schedule your favorite shows anywhere in the world, allow you to back up and archive your standard or high def content, display your favorite RSS news feeds, and play all your old-school MAME roms. All this without any monthly subscription fee, made possible with MythTV.

In this episode we start with the basics of selecting your capture card. Then, we present what many consider to be the easiest way to install and configure MythTV, knoppMyth. Finally, we end the episode with the configuration and setup of knoppMyth.

Episode Links:

• MythTV - http://www.mythtv.org/
• pcHDTV HD-3000 Capture Card - http://www.pchdtv.com/
• AVerMedia Capture Cards - http://www.aver.com
• Hauppauge PVR-250/350 - http://www.hauppauge.com
• KnoppMyth - http://www.mysettopbox.tv/knoppmyth.html
• Zap2it - http://www.zap2it.com

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