Posted 09/18/08 at 02:00:00 PM by The Maximum PC Staff

I purchased a 37-inch Westinghouse LVM-37W3SE LCD 1080p HDTV monitor in June 2007. A few months later, I found out that this particular model has faulty firmware that prevents it from working properly with many devices. For example, the Nvidia driver recognizes it as a different model Westinghouse 1080i monitor and refuses to set it in 1080p mode. I contacted customer support and received permission to return it. The monitor was returned in November, and it was received by Westinghouse two days later. I hadn’t heard anything from them until about a month ago, when I finally made a call to find out about the RMA status. (I’ve been out of the country on a business trip.)

I was promised a follow-up by several people, but no one would commit to when the monitor would be sent. They basically asked me to wait until I received my product. It has now been more than seven months, and I believe I have waited long enough! Thank God my trusty 15-inch LCD is still working fine.

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lcd, nvidia, Watchdog, HDTV, 1080p, westinghouse, firmware, 37-inch, video drivers

Posted 08/04/08 at 07:08:42 AM by Chris Moody

DISH network became the first satellite provider to offer video in a full 1080p or 1920x 1080 progressive resolution on August 1st.  The first movie they are offering in 1080p is I Am Legend on their Video On Demand service.  DISH will use 1080p in place of 1080i or 720p whenever the content is available. The upgrade in resolution won’t be available for everyone. It will however, be available at no additional cost for any subscriber who has an HD DVR.

DISH will also greatly expand the number of HD channels that it can carry to 150 by this fall.

With cable and satellite companies to begin offering content in the higher resolution 1080p format closes the distance between TV and physical media such as Blu-ray and leaves the competition from download services like Apple TV and Xbox 360 movie rentals out in the cold.

It remains to be seen just how high a resolution do we need to be able to enjoy our movies or TV in.  Is 720p really so bad? Many people just cannot see any reason to throw out their old DVD player and movie collection in favor of the slightly sharper picture available on Blu-Ray. The slow adoption of Blu-ray reflects this trend. For truly wide spread adoption to take place rapidly, we will need to see Blu-ray undercut DVD prices across the board. VOD and download services moving to 1080p may only hinder Blu-ray’s already sluggish adoption rate.

Have you already jumped over to 1080p or plan to soon? Sound off and tell us what convinced you to make the switch.

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tv, movies, Blu-ray, consumer electronics, 1080p, Dish

Posted 06/27/08 at 12:29:05 PM by Paul Lilly

Chances are you own at least one high tech, handheld gadget, whether it be an iPod, iPhone, PSP, or other device capable of playing back movies. It's also a safe bet to say you probably don't look forward to transcoding your favorite flicks into a compatible format, particularly when dealing with HD content. That's what makes CyberLink's achievement so noteworthy.

Get all the gritty details after the jump.

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gaming, Software, videocard, ati, video, gpu, radeon, hardware, cyberlink, 1080p, HD 4850, transcode

Posted 05/01/08 at 04:49:22 PM by Katherine Stevenson

It’s easy to be seduced by Alienware’s m15x notebook. From its handsome silver-gray case to its cool-yet-tasteful LED accents to its comfortable lap weight of less than eight pounds, this 15.4-inch machine had us at hello. Of course, only excellent performance would keep us interested.

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gaming, notebook, dell, laptop, alienware, Review, 8800, hardware, quad-core, 1080p, from the magazine, overpriced

Posted 10/03/07 at 01:44:32 PM by Michael Brown

We like Netgear’s EVA8000—a lot. Its industrial design fits in with the rest of our AV gear, its user interface is as elegant and polished as it is easy to use, it supports resolutions up to 1080p with an HDMI port, and that’s just the beginning. But if you buy one, make sure it has the latest firmware update before you do anything else. We couldn’t configure our review unit at all until we updated the software. With that housekeeping accomplished, we were on our way to streaming bliss. Although the EVA8000 has dual antennas, it’s still limited to 802.11g speeds and cannot reliably stream high-definition video content without a wire, but it delivered excellent image and audio quality.

Click Read More for more. 

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netgear, Media Streamer, HDMI, hardware, tv tuner, 1080p, reviews