Popcorn Hour's claim to fame is that it has the widest format and source support we've seen in any media streamer, and it includes popular video and photo sites like YouTube, MetaCafe, Veoh, Flickr and Picasa. Audio services and RSS feeds are equally well represented, with Live365, Shoutcast, Bloglines, CNN, and MSNBC, among others. (A complete list can be found on the Popcorn Hour home page.) We found video quality to be excellent with high-def sources, although standard-definition playback was often pixelated on our HDTV. Some HDTVs handle SD better than others, and your mileage may vary.

Popcorn Hour is a 5-by-10-inch metal box that unscrews easily to reveal a connector for an internal 3.5-inch IDE hard drive, onto which you can copy media files. (No drive, though, comes with the base unit.) Two USB ports on the front let you plug in external drives or thumb drives, and the box hooks up to your TV via HDMI, component, or S-video connectors. It has a 100-megabytes-per-second ethernet port, but no wireless networking. You could attach an ethernet-to-Wi-Fi bridge, but performance will likely not be satisfactory unless you have a strong 802.11n network--HD video is too demanding for regular Wi-Fi.

Like with any major purchase, you simply can't walk in to the nearest electronics store, point at a HDTV saying "gimmie" and expect to get a great price. If you want that great deal, you will have to do a little research on the subject. Fortunately, the guys at HD Guru have provided some CliffsNotes to help out the novice consumer on a budget.

Obviously, one of the most important decisions you can make when searching for an HDTV is where you go and shop. HD Guru suggests finding a store in your area where the employees are paid on commission. If you know what you want and how much you are willing to spend, you stand a reasonably good chance of negotiating for great prices. This is especially true when you are armed with prices from competitors. At this point, it becomes a little like haggling for a car, but HD Guru offers some tips on how to negotiate effectively.

You should also be wary of overpriced warranty, accessory, delivery and installation charges that salespeople try and tack on to the end of a sale to recoup lost profits. So, if you are interested in any of these services, try and get the information before negotiating on the price of the set. In the end, these tips will be most effective for those who are inexperienced or are a bit on the timid side when it comes to haggling. For the full list, hit the HD Guru link.

The JVC LT-32E478 is a 32-inch, liquid crystal display television.Compared to other liquid crystal display TVs on the market, it is relatively inexpensive at around $690.This flat-TV is an LCD display, which is generally the best kind of flat-panel screen for viewing in brightly-lit rooms.

Pros: This TV can display images that are sharper and more realistic than regular television when hooked up to a high definition signal.The 3:2 pulldown feature of this unit reduces artifacts that can occur when motion pictures are transferred to a digital format such as DVD.

Scott Benson, 27, is pictured in front of his 42-inch high-definition television (which is showing an IMAX movie, "Fighter Pilots: Operation Red Flag") in his Los Feliz apartment. Benson is frustrated because his cable TV company, Time Warner, offers only 16 HD channels to basic-cable subscribers in the Los Angeles area. His apartment building forbids satellite dishes, so Benson can't switch to DirectTV or Dish Network, which offer far more HD channels. “It makes you feel trapped,” he says.

Sony has gone LCD in a big way. The company dropped its rear-projection sets last fall, and it’s been years since a plasma display sported a Sony badge. At its 2008 line show in February, the company announced 17 new sets. When they’re all in stores this fall, the Sony LCD model count will be 50-strong.

The BRAVIA KDL-52XBR4 is currently one step down from the top of Sony’s pecking order in sets 40 inches or larger, topped only by the XBR5 designs, which appear to be technically identical, and a limited-availability, 70-inch monster. But at $3,600, the KDL-52XBR4 is very much a high-end design, falling into a price range that gives most of us sticker shock. Is it worth it? As we’ll see, some competing sets can outscore it in one or two areas, but Sony’s current, near-flagship model can hold its own in an increasingly dog-eat-dog, flat-panel market.

Westinghouse's new VK-40F580D offers a 40-inch LCD HDTV with a built-in slot-loading DVD player, and two auto-sensing HDMI inputs.

Westinghouse may not be the most-recognized name in the flat-panel television game, but they're doggedly trying to appeal to consumers who want straightforward, multi-functional entertainment. The new VK-40F580D tries to appeal to folks who want things simple, combining a 40-inch 1080p LCD flat-panel television with an integrated slot-loading DVD player and two HDMI inputs that can automatically detect when an external video source is activated.

CableTEL became the second Bulgarian cable operator to launch digital high-definition television (HDTV), announcing on May 22 that the service will be available by the end of the month.

The company’s main competitor, Eurocom, has already announced the launching of the same service with three channels, Dnevnik daily said.

CableTEL’s starting package includes four channels in the new format - Discovery, National Geographic, Eurosport and Premium Digital. By the end of 2008, the package would contain a total of 10 channels.

Memorial Day weekend has almost begun, and as with most holidays, a lot of the big retail outlets will be offering some nice sales to get some consumerism happening and those nice stimulus checks spent. Deals are deals, so we did a bit of hunting to see what we could discover in the various leaked ads that are in circulation.

Best Buy
Best Buy doesn't seem to be offering much, but with some close inspection, this ad scan looks to identify a 50-inch Samsung plasma (the PN50A550, presumably) that'll be selling for $1969 after a $330 instant rebate. That's pretty much as cheap as you'll find the display, even from suspect online retailers, so it might be worth investigating.

Outdoor TV screens are hard enough to see as it is, and the last thing you need is to be squinting at a 32-inch LCD. Suntronic understands that problem, which is why it offers all-weather HDTVs in sizes up to 102 inches.

Not only are they large, but these tough-guy TVs can function in temperatures ranging from -40 to more than 120 degrees, have built-in heaters and air conditioners, and of course are waterproof. They also have ultra-bright LCDs that improve "sunlight readability," I4U News says.

Sure, these are generally designed for commercial uses, but there's no reason they can't be used for a private party either. Then again, you could probably go even bigger for less money with a backyard drive-in theater.

So I just got back from a small meeting with Panasonic in depressingly rainy New York a few minutes ago. Rather than make DVICE’s Peter—our Peter, Peter Ha, is horribly ill—and I sit through something like, “We have 85 new TVs coming out this year, let’s look at all of them,” Panasonic only discussed its flagship plasma, the PZ850. The 46- and 50-inch models ($3099 and $3499) are available now, while the 58- and 65-inch ones ($4299 and $7999) should hits stores by the end of August.

Things you’ll like: SD card compatibility (photos look great, really), AVCHD playback (you can hook up a compatible HD camcorder), studio reference mode (a picture setting that mimics how movies are shown in Hollywood—closer to how the director intended, in other words), digital cinema color (expands the color gamut of the picture past mere HDTV standard and brining it closer to, yes, real life all-digital cinemas), and something called Vieracast. (”Viera” here stands for “visual era;” I was like, “What does the verb “ver” have to do with anything?)