Shane Buettner

When Academy Award winner Michael Douglas was announced to be part of XStreamHD's CES press conference, a number of us in the press corps thought, wow now that's a heavy hitter for a spokesperson! Well, in introducing XStreamHD to the assembled press Douglas revealed that his involvement is far deeper- he's one of the company's group of private investors. So, what is XStreamHD?

I spent a good part of my day Tuesday at the Venetian which is home to the high-end audio portion of CES, and often has home theater products from cutting edge crossover companies. Companies like Canada's Simaudio. I've experienced Simaudio's home theater components in the past, and they've been superlative. So, it's with high hope that I anticipate the release of the top of the line Evolution series CP-8 surround pre/pro, to be introduced later this year (the front panel says Moon, but I've been assured it will be an Evolution series component on release).

The future of Blu-ray Disc interactivity is now. At a BD interactivity showcase hosted by Sony and led by film critic Leonard Maltin, Lion's Gate demonstrated what I believe is an industry first BD Live enhanced Blu-ray title, Saw IV. The content was as grisly as one would expect, but we saw the film's director add blogger style comments on screen courtesy of Lion's Gate's MoLog Movie Log feature.

I'm tempted to leave this Blog with only that one word: wow. Words are hard to come by. I've been doing this for some time now, and I can't recall the last time I was entranced in a demo, sitting forward in my seat, jaw agape. Pioneer's Extreme Contrast "Concept" plasma display demo was this and more. This might be the biggest potential sea change I've seen in any product category in my years in this industry.