Sony and Panasonic are both hellbent on convincing us their forthcoming super-duper 3D television sets are the future, but before we all start selling off the children and re-mortgaging our homes, how about a little taster of what it might be like? Channel 4, the British answer to a question nobody ever asked, is about to offer up a selection of 3D programming this month, which it dubs as a return to "good old fashioned fun." The menu includes a documentary about the Queen's coronation (in other words, ancient history), a magic show, and even a couple of goodies like Flesh for Frankenstein and Friday the 13th, Part III. If we find can remember to get down to the local Sainsbury's and grab ourselves a free pair of those rad-looking three-dee glasses, you might even be treated to our eyes-on impressions. Watch this three-dimensional space!

[Thanks, Mitch T]

Move over opera, the theater is coming home via HD streaming as Digital Theatre has launched, offering downloads of theatrical productions for a mere £8.99 ($14.72.) There's no mention of any region lock, and since it uses Adobe Air the DT Player promises to work across platforms and browsers, with productions from The Almeida Theatre, Royal Court, Young Vic, Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) and English Touring Theatre lined up first, all filmed from several angles over multiple performances, rather than a single static camera position. Now that the Concorde is offline, really, how else were you planning on getting the British theatre experience this afternoon?

[Via The Hollywood Reporter]

Just as it did earlier this year, Microsoft has opened the preview program to let the most hardcore of Xbox 360 owners poke around the updated dashboard -- presumably with access to all the 1080p instant-on streaming, Twitter, Facebook and Last.fm add-ons we've been expecting -- ahead of its official release in order to shake out any remaining bugs. While worldwide console owners should scrape together console IDs, make & model of your TV, router and more in hopes of receiving an invite next week, a little more concrete news is in order for the UK, with the console launch of Sky TV nailed down for October 27. You'll have to wait until then to find out exact pricing and channel line up availability, 'til then it's a matter of finding out who on your friends list is most suited for the inevitable football viewing party.

[Via Joystiq & NeoGAF]

Read - Xbox Live update Preview Program
Read - Xbox.com - Set a date for Sky Player!

We've given HD DVD's bastard child China Blue HD its due for a good start in its native land, but now that U.K. Importer GBAX has made a few units available it's time for English language buyers to at least consider this Blu-ray alternative. Of course, with a £259.99 ($413.22 U.S.) pricetag for this plain TCL player, AV and HD cables, plus 14 CBHD movies (The Aviator, Blood Diamond, The Invasion, The Island, Flood, Poseidon & 8 Chinese-only flicks) to get you started the barrier to entry is high, but as shown in the unboxing / preview video -- embedded after the break, watch for ninjas -- the experience is very familiar. As Format War Central points out, the 220/240Hz power cord makes things complicated for the U.S. and other places outside Europe, but hardcore HD DVD holdouts are used to a world filled with only Warner and Universal movies already, so why not give the other blue laser flavor a try?

[Via Format War Central]

Live Sky TV viewing via Xbox 360 didn't make it into the most recent dashboard update, readers report page 17 of the network's most recent SkyMag indicates it will arrive around mid-October. Additional details flesh out what's available, while all Xbox Live Gold members (in the appropriate areas) will get access to the Sky Player similar to the PC implementation, you will need a Sky subscription with the appropriate channels to view sports and movie content. Look out for more updates at the skyplayer.com/xbox360 site, while those of us beyond the network's reach wonder whether we can expect other features like Twitter (you're following us, right?) Facebook and 1080p instant-on movie streaming to arrive at roughly the same time.

[Thanks, David]

We've been wondering for some time when the regular edition of Top Gear (the Polar Special was a glorious, yet singular, event) would make its debut in high definition, and today the BBC Internet Blog confirmed this is the year. Set to debut November 15th, we'll finally be able to see the Stig -- whoever he is -- put some of the world's most exclusive cars through their paces in great quality. Whether that news has you checking the channel lineup for BBC America HD or bookmarking a torrent site we can all agree this is a fine day indeed.

[Via Digital Spy]

Starting this autumn -- which is sort of like now -- Tesco stores in the UK will be offering "virtual DVDs" to customers who purchase certain home video titles. Promising no less than a "DVD-equivalent" experience, the new service will be replete with all the menus, copyright warnings and extra bits you'd find on the disc itself, plus additional exclusive content and movie viewing parties with online chat. We're not entirely sure films need all the added interactivity Microsoft has cooked up, but ambitions are to expand the bonus content and to offer the service in other markets "eventually." And hey, seeing as it's based on Silverlight, all that good stuff will be available on Mac too.

Looks like the British Video Association is looking to push those impressive percentage gains it keeps touting even higher. It's joining forces with the major Hollywood studios on a million pound (only a million (($1.6 million)? well, we are in a recession) ad campaign pushing the "benefits of Blu-ray" on flicks like Terminator Salvation, Inglorious Basterds, Snow White and other high profile titles due this holiday season. The Hollywood Reporter says the plan to broadcast TV spots across all major channels throughout November and December should bring the message that Blu-ray is the best way to enjoy films at home, we just hope someone sits down Peter Bradshaw and indoctrinates him.

Turns out it's not only us HD geeks that were irked by Samsung's ad-speak pitching LED-backlit LCDs as 'LED TVs' -- and in the UK, at least, there's been some corrective action. The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has found that the terminology doesn't comply with marketing regulations and is misleading because unless you've got a set like Jerry Jones', the display isn't made of LEDs. Spot on, ASA! To be sure, Sammy's new sets do have plenty of redeeming qualities, but whatever marketing genius came up with the 'LED TV' phrase is going to have to go back to the drawing board. Now, if only we could get some of this reasoning applied to US marketing and/or rein in wacky contrast ratio figures, we'd really be onto something.

[Via HDTV Almanac]

Quick, HD eagle-eyed reader, what's wrong with the pics above? You're looking at Hannspree's two new LCD TVs for the UK, the 25-inch ST251 (left, £269/$449) and the 28-inch ST-281 (right, £329/$549). You probably noticed that the ST251 is a 16:9 set, but the ST281 packs 1920x1200 pixels into its 16:10 aspect ratio -- while strangely limiting PC mode to 1280x1024 pixels. Depending on your aspect ratio allergies, 16:10 may only be a slight difference, but filling the screen with 16:9 content will involve some stretching, cropping, and/or dreaded black bars, so look at those features before getting too comfy with the 10,000:1 X-Contrast dynamic contrast ratio or the other marketing fluff (3D comb-filtering is not about 3D rendering, and we don't know what 3.2:2.2 pulldown is). Still not a big enough TV for you? The company is promising bigger sets later in the year, but we'll have to see which aspect ratio wins out.

If you're into an all-Pioneer system, we'd suggest jumping into one of its Blu-ray HTIB offerings, but we'll just hope that these new DVD-centric offerings strike a lower price point that allows more people get started right away and attach a Blu-ray player to the HDMI inputs when their budget allows. Coming to the lineup -- at least in the UK -- are the 2.1-channel DCS-FS30 and 5.1-channel DCS-585 and DCS-590 systems. All kits are based (see that?) on a powered sub, but the configurations vary from there. The DCS-FS30 adds two height-adjustable desktop-sized speakers, and the DCS-590 is comprised of four tall speakers and a center channel, but things get interesting with the DCS-585 that comes with six small cube speakers -- two for center, the remaining four to be sprinkled around the room or stacked and put up front. Correct placement is so staid -- it's all about choices, see? More pics after the break.

Despite inexplicably choosing to broadcast this year's British Open in standard definition, the BBC pinky swore at a news conference Wednesday that next year, all would be in high definition, it just hadn't been ready yet to invest in HD cameras. As it is, even with thorough widescreen coverage from ABC & TNT, and DirecTV dropping in one of their snazzy HD Mix channels for the event, we'll still know deep down that we're not watching it in the best quality available. So, F1, you're on deck, no excuses.

Another day, another ignorant article about high definition. This time it's Peter Bradshaw, film critic for Guardian.co.uk, claiming Humphrey Bogart would have any cameraman approximating a "high definition" effect thrown off the set. Blatantly ignoring the fact that movies of that era were made on 35mm film with more resolution than even 1080p Blu-ray can display, Bradshaw claims that instead of a HDTV, viewers would be better off with a standard definition projector and DVDs. This is all in response to a recent Sky ad campaign (check out the video with Sir Anthony Hopkins dropping in Rutger Hauer's Blade Runner monologue after the break, plus the original) promoting the broadcaster's new HD transfers, allowing home viewing of many older films in quality that would be impossible unless you'd seen it the first week in theaters, and with sound that likely surpasses anything available at the time. What someone should explain to Mr. Bradshaw and so many others with this misconception is that HDTV allows us to see the movie closer to the way it was meant to be seen when it was originally mastered, with all the detail that was present. Provided a high quality transfer, there's plenty of reasons to catch old flicks in a new format, so spread the word.

It's not that ASUS hasn't dipped its toes in HDTV waters before (by the way, whatever happened to that altogether enticing Eee TV?), but we dare say that the TV Monitor T1 is a fresh, if not unsurprising new direction for the company. Arriving in 22- (22T1E), 24- (24T1E) and 27-inch (27T1E) sizes, this trio of sets features a Full HD (1,920 x 1,080) panel, a 20,000:1 contrast ratio, 300 nits of brightness, five millisecond response time, built-in TV tuners (for the UK market) and a pair of seven-watt speakers. As for sockets, you'll find VGA, HDMI (x2), component, composite, S-Video and even a 3.5 millimeter headphone jack. Per usual, ASUS is refusing to dole out pricing and release date information, but hopefully it won't be long before Britons can indulge (and North Americans are notified of an NTSC-capable version).