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You can call it "Mission: Impossible 4" or Tom Cruise's comeback flick after a career that suddenly hit the skids. But whatever it's called, Paramount's done another stellar job with the video transfer and the Blu-ray version offers impressive fine detail along with an equally dynamic soundtrack to back up the picture quality.

As for the movie, well, it's also pretty good, so this one might very well be worth a purchase rather than a rental.

I know, I know, a lot of you don't buy discs anymore, you just stream everything or … Read more

Sometimes we need to see to believe. I remember understanding on an intellectual level, from a young age, that smoking was bad, but I didn't really get it on a visceral level until I saw a smoker's blackened lungs. The effect was so profound that, to this day, I go so far as to hold my breath when walking past people smoking.

Unfortunately, it's not easy to peer inside our own bodies and check out the health of our lungs. It's also difficult to see the effects sun exposure is having on our skin, especially when … Read more

The BP620 is LG's "flagship" Blu-ray player for 2012, but you couldn't tell by its $130 street price or ordinary feature set. It includes all the important features that manufacturers are charging for this year, such as 3D compatibility, built-in Wi-Fi, and a suite of streaming-media services.

The big catch, especially if you were familiar with LG's platform last year, is that Amazon Instant will not be included on 2012 players, which could be a deal breaker for cord cutters. However, LG continues to have one of the best-designed streaming-content portals, with a dead-simple user … Read more

Despite being plagued with high prices, low sales, and difficulty with program distribution in the U.S., Google TV is expanding to Europe. Come September, Sony will sell Google TV-based products in Europe, according to GigaOM via a translation of a Les Echos article.

Slated to go on sale in France, Spain, Germany, and the U.K. are two devices: a set-top box costing 200 Euros ($266) and an integrated Blu-ray player for 300 euros ($399), according to GigaOM.

Google Chairman Eric Schmidt announced Google TV's rollout to Europe last August and Sony confirmed that two Google TV-compatible set-top … Read more

Not long ago I asked if DVDs still had a place in the world. The response was incredible, with plenty of readers professing their love for the convenience and quality afforded by disc media.

And let's not forget 3D (which I did in that initial post). If you like your movies up-close and personal, you'll need a 3D-savvy Blu-ray player. Like, say, this one: TigerDirect has the Toshiba BDX4150 3D Blu-ray player for $62.99 shipped. That's after applying coupon code OMH57403 at checkout.

The BDX4150 is new, not refurbished. That's a rarity for a name-brand … Read more

A few weeks ago Paramount released the Blu-ray for "Hugo," which has a nearly flawless video transfer and offers incredibly sharp video and great sound. The studio returns today with the Blu-ray release of Steven Spielberg's "The Adventures of Tintin," which famously combines performance capture with digital computer animation to create a unique hybrid look.

Whether you love that look or not (some people find it funky), the Blu-ray delivers stunning video that's both vivid and impressively detailed. The DTS-HD MA 7.1 lossless soundtrack is also highly detailed and will give your home … Read more

SEATTLE--Microsoft fights the notion that the world has entered the "post-PC era," opting instead for the more Windows-friendly "PC-plus" phrasing.

But Ray Ozzie, Microsoft's former chief software architect, has little doubt that the world has moved on.

"Why are we arguing? Of course we're in a post-PC world," Ozzie said during a question-and-answer session at the GeekWire Summit here.

To Ozzie, though, the discussion is somewhat about semantics. Because, in the end, the market for devices that do general computation is going to continue to expand. And there's plenty of opportunity … Read more

Not to be outdone by Samsung, Panasonic has also announced full pricing and availability for its 2012 line of Blu-ray players. Panasonic's quoted prices are "suggested retail pricing," so expect these players to be a little cheaper when they hit the streets.

Panasonic's 2012 Blu-ray line Panasonic DMP-BD77: $90 Panasonic DMP-BD87: $120 Panasonic DMP-BDT220: $150 Panasonic DMP-BDT320: $200 Panasonic DMP-BBT01: $270 Panasonic DMP-BDT500: $350

All of Panasonic Blu-ray players are available now, except the higher-end DMP-BDT500 and DMP-BBT01, which will be released in May.

Panasonic released most of the information about these players back at CES … Read more

More than 20,000 people will roll into Austin, Texas, this week for the annual South by Southwest Interactive festival. The question is, besides copious amounts of free beer and barbecue, why are all those people--a broad mix of marketers, entrepreneurs, journalists, and social media junkies--showing up?

Over the years, SXSW has gotten bigger and has morphed from being an insular technology conference with a tight community of regular attendees to a mainstream event that appeals to everyone from those SXSW veterans to thousands of first-timers who want to get in on the action.

With that many people on hand … Read more