After months of legal wrangling and no-shows at trade shows, Toshiba and Canon ended the suspense late last week and announced that the introduction of the SED (Surface-conducting electron-Emitter Display) flat panel TV is postponed indefinitely.

By chance last night I downloaded firmware version 1.8 for the Sony PlayStation3 and took some time to see if any new significant video features were added (a gamer I'm not). Lo and behold, two very significant updates were indeed found in the menus: the PS3 can now upconvert DVDs, and it offers 24p output.

This past week it was announced that Warner Home Video has extended its distribution agreement with Oscar-winning producer Saul Zaentz for another five years. Two of the crown jewels in the Zaentz portfolio, <I>Amadeus</I> and <I>One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest</I>, both best picture winners, will be hitting Blu-ray and HD DVD in February of 2008, just in time for the 80th anniversary of the Academy Awards.

A "statement" component is usually a top of the line, no holds barred, expensive flagship. Onkyo has just unveiled a different kind of statement product. While it didn't surprise me at all that Onkyo would release an AVR equipped with HDMI 1.3 and onboard decoding for Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio, I am taken aback that the first AVR to boast these new features is the $599 TX-SR605. <I>That's</I> a statement!