UAV will be temporarily relocating its headquarters this week as Tom Norton, Fred Manteghian and I head to Denver to cover the 2007 CEDIA Expo. CEDIA, which is very focused on home theater, has in many ways supplanted CES as the big show in our corner of the industry in recent years. Coming as it does in the fall, ahead of the big holiday shopping season, many companies use CEDIA to launch significant new products.

With all the product announcements leaking all over the Web some of you might be wondering why in the heck we're even bothering to go!

I can tell you first hand, I've got some embargoed press releases of stuff that hasn't broken everywhere yet that you'll want to know about. And while press releases provide some details, it's often the case that being on site and asking the right questions of the right people yields far better information. Not to mention the opportunities to see some of the products demonstrated.

This year's show is shaping up to be the most exciting in years. We'll get our first looks at Toshiba's third-gen HD DVD players, and believe me, things are going to get far more interesting on the Blu-ray player front at this show as well. Leaks from Europe's IFA show have told us that we'll be seeing new Blu-ray players from Philips, Sony and Sharp this fall.

Leaks from elsehwere have revealed that we'll be seeing new 1080p front projection from Marantz and Sony. Pioneer tells us we'll be getting our first looks at production units of its Kuro line of 1080p plasmas. Joe Kane has invited us to take a look at Samsung's 1080p DLP front projector which will undoubtedly be among the hottest products at the show.

Our coverage will start first thing on Wednesday when we post some currently embargoed press info. We'll be posting our coverage on the home page so you can't miss it. The big press conferences start at 3pm Denver time, Wednesday afternoon with JVC, Toshiba, Sony and Sharp hosting major events one after the other. Look for coverage of those events to post Wednesday evening as soon as I can get back my hotel to upload.

Thursday isn't much slower, and one of the things I'm looking forward to that day is a one-on-one that I have scheduled with Paramount's CTO Alan Bell. Alan has intimate knowledge of the technical details of disc mastering, authoring and production decisions behind Paramount's bombshell switch to HD DVD and I'm looking forward to speaking with him and reporting on that conversation.

So, yeah it's my job to pimp our coverage, but make no mistake. This year's CEDIA is one I'm looking forward to, big-time. Stay tuned this week!