Panasonic

Before Blu-ray has even been completely accepted into American households, the hacks have begun. Bluraymods.com is selling two new products: a completely region-free Panasonic Blu-ray player that they've modified, or a do-it-yourself kit that lets you alter the internal coding to allow the same Panasonic player (DMP-BD30) to play Blu-ray discs from any region. But it ain't cheap.

Panasonic is taking on the large venue world with two new three-chip DLP projectors with 12,000 lumen. These aren't designed for home use, though if you can foot the bill, why not? They're perfect for high-definition content for conventions, digital cinema, and staging or education consumers.

You know that keen DVD-powered Home Theater in a Box you got for Christmas? It is my solemn duty to tell you that it has been superseded. HTiBs have been a hot category for years, mainly equipped with DVD head units, but more and more companies are pulling the DVD drives and replacing them with Blu-ray.

Now that it's a Blu-ray world in high-definition video discs, expect to see a lot more product available on both the hardware and content sides. That gives you a wide range of options when it comes to allocating your bucks.

I hate to admit this, but despite the appeal and all the hard work that go into the extras supplied with DVD movies, I rarely have taken the trouble to access that content. Part of it is that I don't like to be interrupted when I'm engrossed in a movie. The other part is that once a movie is over, I'm not that into dissecting it into parts.