PopHomeTech

Many have long suffered ever-increasing cable and satellite TV bills without much recourse, since competition has been weak, or nonexistent depending on your location. But the slow economic recovery and the growing availability of online video has apparently finally created an opportunity for consumers to scale down their pay-TV bills—or unplug their sets altogether—according to [...]

Panasonic has already sold out its first shipment of 3D plasmas, and the company is back again with four new models making up the Viera VT25 series, two of which will ship next month and the other pair in June. Like the Viera VT20 set that Best Buy is currently selling, the TC-P50VT25 is a 50-inch [...]

In anticipation of the roll-out of its first 3D HDTVs in the coming months, Sony is adding more accessories that make nice with the new sets. Today, the company announced a pair of soundbars and a new home theater system that are 3D compatible and reasonably price. What 3D support from each of these units means [...]

Read into it whatever you want, but I couldn’t help but notice that Best Buy was offering $260 in savings off the $2,599.99 list price for Samsung’s 46-inch UN46C7000 3D LED HDTV in its Sunday circular this week. A quick search on BestBuy.com showed that set’s 55-inch 3D sibling was on sale for $330 less [...]

Verizon is rolling out new Motorola DVR set-top boxes to select customers that promise to be “greener” than the competition. Motorola claims that the Motorola QIP7232 is 20-percent more energy efficient than current boxes, and are built with “environmentally preferred materials” that don’t contain lead or mercury. Eco-friendly doesn’t mean these are feature-poor set-top units. In [...]

Sharp is the latest TV manufacturer in a growing list that’s launching 3D HDTVs, and it hopes it has a notable technological wrinkle to help it stand out from the pack. The company claims its quad-pixel technology—which adds a fourth primary color, yellow, to the usual complement of red, green, and blue—results in the world’s [...]

Redbox has already wounded Blockbuster with its video kiosks, which rent DVDs for just $1 per night and are conveniently located in front of grocery stores, drug stores, and Walmarts. Now it could be taking on Netflix in the online movie-streaming business. A recent survey Redbox has sent to its customers asks them how interested they [...]

There was a time not too long ago when rear-projection HDTVs based on DLP technology were a viable alternative to (then) more expensive plasmas and (then) smaller LCDs. They weren’t as humongous as CRT-based projection sets of yore, but they were still bigger than the sexier flat screens that started getting bigger and cheaper and [...]

If you’re thinking there’s no way the world’s largest DVR would be available for the average consumer, you’re absolutely right. But that isn’t keeping SnapStream from dangling specs and images of it in front of us. The company has assembled a vending machine-sized monstrosity to display at the National Association of Broadcasters show next week. It [...]

The good news out of noted TV manufacturing powerhouse Sweden is that a company—with the supremely cool name of People of Lava, no less—has launched the first HDTV that runs a version of Google Android, which looks ready to invade the living room while it competes in the mobile sphere. Unfortunately, “launched” is a relative [...]