It's already been a hectic week for new product announcements, with Samsung and Denon unveiling a lot of new gear. But Sony was at this week too announcing three new AVRs with next-gen audio decoding and a host of other hot features related to streaming audio and networking.

CinemaNow on Wednesday released an upgrade to its Media Manager software enabling its movie downloads to play back over a networked Xbox 360 and its burn-to-DVD download service to operate with Windows Vista.

At the E3 gaming expo Microsoft announced a key strategic acquisition of content, landing a deal that brings Disney's feature films online for download through the Xbox Live service over the Xbox 360 game console. Included in the deal will be new and catalog movies from Disney, Touchstone, Hollywood Pictures, Miramax Films.

Expanding its already formidable lead in next-gen interactivity, Toshiba within the last month or so has released firmware updates for its HD DVD players that enable web-based interactivity features that are now starting to appear on HD DVDs. The first two titles on the market with web-enabled features are Warner's <I>Blood Diamond</I> and Bandai Visual's <I>Freedom</I> volume 1. Warner's intimate character drama <I>300</I>, set for release later this month, will also feature web-based interactivity.