Onkyo's minimalist Blu-ray player shipping to Asia year-end

Onkyo is best known for its home theater systems and A/V receivers, but the company also produces both Blu-ray and DVD players. Recently, Onkyo announced the latest Blu-ray player in its line, the DV-BD507.

The DV-BD507 is the company's first Profile 2.0 player, which means it can play back BD-Live features available on some discs, although you'll need to have an SD card in the slot to download the content. (There's no onboard memory.) Like virtually all the Blu-ray players this year, it has onboard decoding for Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio Essential, so you only need an HDMI-compatible receiver to take advantage of those formats. There's also for support Deep Color and x.v. Color, but since we haven't seen any Blu-ray content that supports either format, you're unlikely to get any benefit out of this.
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A 98-inch giant screen for a bedroom TV

Question: Where do you put a 98-inch TV screen in your bedroom? Answer: On the ceiling, silly. That's what the parent of one teenaged boy in the US did for her son. The ceiling-mounted screen from Stewart Filmscreen offers a wide viewing angle so one can enjoy games and videos anywhere in the room, while a custom mirror allows the projection to be deflected from an NEC projector hooked up to his laptop and game consoles.

At least for mom Patti Deni’s pains, and likely a good chunk of her shopping allowance, this one-of-a-kind elaborate gift made it as a finalist in the US Electronic House magazine's 2009 Home of the Year award, up against other fancy home projects such as a 24TB movie farm home theater and a multifunctional kitchen with "stealth" home cinema. The winning entry ultimately went to a posh two-storey bungalow furnished with pop-up TVs and multiple surround sound zones.

D-Link unveils its pilot network media streamer

The D-Link DSM-350 is a handsome network media streamer dressed in brushed-metal and piano black finish. It utilizes a 2.5-inch notebook hard drive and is notably smaller than its rivals in the market at just 263 x 169 x 38mm. Out-of-the-box, the DSM-350 supports most of the popular audio, video and image formats and can also play off USB devices and networked PCs. These range from regular MP3s to MKVs for playing back ripped Blu-rays via its HDMI port. It also shines with the BitTorrent downloading function and can be managed easily through the Internet.
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Is motion sensing the future of gaming?

There's a blitz of news surrounding Nintendo's latest Wii MotionPlus. And Microsoft is not far behind with its ambitious Project Natal in the pipeline. But are motion sensing and hand gesturing technologies really the future of gaming? Well, they're certainly not designed for game genres such as real-time strategy and car racing--think 720-degree steering and force feedback.

That said, I'm not completely dismissing the advantages of motion sensing, particularly when it comes to gameplay realism and added interactivity. But I personally feel this should be a "side dish" to complement brilliant graphics and engaging soundtracks. There're times when I just want to unwind and have fun without needing to work up a sweat and endure muscle aches, too.

So what's your take on this whole motion-sensing frenzy? Share with the CNET Asia community below.

Hands-on review: Yahoo Video on your TV

Yahoo may not have the same stranglehold on online video as YouTube does, but it sure has tried. Yahoo does, however, boast a simple channel system and a large library of content from outlets like the Associated Press and cable news stations. In its video widget for Yahoo TV Widgets, Yahoo tried to focus on easy access to these channels instead of competing with a YouTube-type of service. Unfortunately, the result of this is an application that's often light on featured content and devoid of a search function.
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