John Higgins

The one HTPC to rule them all.

A couple of years ago, home theater personal computers were on the cusp of being the next big thing. Everyone wanted to make them to get in on the market, and why not? The ability to put all of your home theater media in one box is incredible. No more getting up to sift through CDs or DVDs only to find that the one movie you want to watch is missing. Instead, you can store movies on a hard drive and access them by remote.

Video: 5
Audio: 5
Extras: 4
When the ad campaign for the theatrical release of Happy Feet started, I was amazed and perplexed. The animation looked fantastic, but, for the life of me, I had no idea what the movie was about. The most amazing part was that not a single person I knew had any idea what the movie was about, but it had dancing penguins and an all-star cast, leaving us all mesmerized. Not only was everyone mesmerized, they all planned on seeing it without any clue what it was about.

Behold the power of LEDs.

For the past year or two, the new high-definition disc formats have been dominating the headlines, but, believe it or not, there have been other developments in the realm of video—or at least in the way video is displayed. One of the newest is the use of LEDs as a light source instead of UHP (ultrahigh-pressure) lamps. Essentially, three tiny LEDs (one red, one green, and one blue) emit the light. Since there's one LED for each of the three primary colors, this eliminates the need for a color wheel. Video editor Geoffrey Morrison covered this technology in depth in his July 2006 GearWorks column (also available online). The benefit is that LEDs are far sturdier than a UHP lamp and should easily last until your next display upgrade, saving you money on replacement lamps. While the theory is that LEDs can run cooler than UHP lamps, at the moment, they can often be rather hot, which can lead to excessive fan noise coming from the back of the television. According to NuVision, the LEDs in the 52LEDLP run cool enough that you could touch them without hurting your hand.

Video: 3
Audio: 4
Extras: 5
Since back in 1989, when the first Alien Vs. Predator comic was released, sci-fi and horror fans have been asking the same question. Who would win between the Alien and the Predator? The question was addressed for the following 15 years in comics and video games. Finally, in 2004, the movie AVP: Alien Vs. Predator promised to give us all the answers we were craving. The two species fight it out in an ancient pyramid in Antarctica, and any of us foolish humans that get in the way may never make it back to a temperate climate.