CEDIA 2008 Round-up, Day 1: Universal, Panasonic, Dolby, Sony, Blu-ray, Niveus, Tivo, much, much more!

It was a hot topic in the inbox last week, and we promised to check it out. So keeping to our word, we spent some quality time with the PlayOn Beta from MediaMall Technologies. MediaMall is all about allowing set top boxes to access Internet video. PlayOn is the consumer software version of that technology. In short, it's really cool; well worth installing if you have a windows computer and a PS3, Xbox 360 or HP MediaSmart TV.

Each year since we've been doing this show we tale a look at the Fall TV season and try to pick shows that we'd like to watch. Back in 2006 when we first starting doing this, a good number of shows were in SD. Today pretty much all of them are in HD with the exception of a few reality shows.

On a recent family vacation to Sequoia National Park, Braden's trusty digital camera finally died. Sure losing an old gadget is great because you know you get to replace it with the latest and greatest, but it certainly isn't ideal when you're in one of the most scenic places on the planet and happen to be the only tourist with a circa 1990 disposable camera. Since the newest digital cameras also allow for HD video capture, we thought the quest for a new camera would make nice content for the show.

Anyone who owns a home theater system knows that a Subwoofer is essential to the experience. Watching a movie in HD with surround sound is great, but some scenes require that you feel the bass. A subwoofer does just that. An issue some have is Subwoofer placement. Its not always convenient to place the subwoofer next to the receiver. This requires that you run cable to a spot that is more conducive for the placement of the speaker. The ULS-15 has a nice feature that makes this no longer necessary. The subwoofer has a wireless connection that in most cases works great. More on that later.