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In case you hadn’t noticed, there was some trouble brewing in the NVIDIA camp. After ages of reigning atop the land of stereoscopic 3D playback on the PC, NVIDIA is finally being confronted with a real, bona fide standard for 3D, with zero GPUs capable of meeting it. The current NVIDIA 3D Vision-compatible cards pump out the necessary pixels over DisplayPort or dual DVI plugs, while the official spec for 3D TVs is an HDMI 1.4 plug that accepts data from both frames at once. We were in doubt there for a moment, but it turns out NVIDIA’s cards upgrade to 1.4 just fine, and all 3D Vision customers will be getting this as a free upgrade later this spring. NVIDIA will also be offering this 3DTV Play software in a standalone version for $40 to folks who don’t want to bother with NVIDIA’s 3D Vision stuff at all (with HDMI 1.4 you can just use the stereoscopic glasses that come with your fancy new 3D TV, no need for NVIDIA’s setup). NVIDIA is naturally hitting all the high points of the 1.4 spec, with 1080p24, 720p60 (the official gaming spec), and 720p50. The cards will also support 3D Blu-ray. So, just about time to splurge big on that home theater PC? We don’t know… is it just us, or does that guy and his couch look a little lonely?

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While it might have been a pipe dream back in ‘09, Taiwanese display manufacturer AU Optronics is firmly committed to blasting our eyeballs in 2010, with a monstrous 65-inch HD LCD panel ready for all the 3D and pseudo-3D content (we’re looking at you, G-Force) you have on offer. AUO isn’t hedging its bets on this one, either; at FPD China 2010, the company announced that they’re using a polarized solution with cheap, $2 to 3 glasses to generate the 3D effect. Sure, polarized is the preferred method for most theatres, but it’s often more expensive than active shutter tech for an in-home user — and can come with some serious visual tradeoffs like permanent ghosting or halved vertical resolution. We won’t know for sure until we get hands-on, but either way, expect to see AUO’s panels in a branded 3D HDTV near you early next year, or just a few months before HDI drops a 103-inch monster of its own.

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After years of negotiation, ITV strikes deals with BSkyB and Virgin Media, meaning almost all World Cup games in HD

Football fans will be able to watch almost every World Cup match in high definition this summer after ITV announced plans to launch ITV1 HD on 2 April.

ITV has struck deals with BSkyB, bringing an end to almost two years of negotiations, and Virgin Media to carry the new channel, and it is also launching on Freeview for the first time.

On Freesat, the ITV1 HD service will launch as a full channel, replacing a red button service.

The deal means that almost all of the 64 World Cup games, which are being split for broadcast by the BBC and ITV, will now be available to watch in high definition. The BBC already has a HD channel.

Nearly all of the matches will be shown on BBC1, BBC2 or ITV1 except for eight in the earlier stages of the tournament which clash with other matches. These will be shown on either BBC3, the interactive streams of BBC1, or ITV2, ITV3 or ITV4.

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No, we’re not talking about a ridiculously priced movie box set, but a Sony Blu-ray changer with a whopping 400-disc capacity. This tallies up to a jaw-dropping 20 terabytes of storage space, which puts the upcoming BDP-CX7000ES in a different league from your typical network-attached storage (NAS) device and home theater PC. Bear in mind that most consumer hard drives max out at 2 terabytes.

If you could fill this towering behemoth to the brim, chances are that its rumored $2,250 launch price will be the least of your concerns. We can’t imagine the nightmarish prospect of a breakdown. Who is going to be accountable for your entire library of expensive Blu-ray discs if this ends up back at Sony’s service center?

Well, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. In the meantime, Sony hasn’t given a firm rollout date for the BDP-CX7000ES just yet.

Wouldn’t it be nice if you could browse and play back your entire Blu-ray movie collection with the click of a button? For $1,499, the S1Digital 100-disc Blu-ray changer delivers this level of convenience and the flexibility to download metadata and cover art automatically over the Web. All you need is to hook up the jukebox to a Windows Media Center-compatible PC and install its bundled My Movies software to access up to 1,000 Blu-ray, DVD, and CD titles through the intuitive WMC graphics user interface.

By connecting this S1Digital box to a Windows Home server, users can also archive their media (without copy protection) onto a hard drive to free up disc slots with all the value-added features mentioned above. The S1Digital 100-disc Blu-ray changer can be purchased directly from the company’s Web store.

Over the course of several CES shows and major press announcements, we have been eagerly following the PlayStation 3’s future evolution into a console capable not only of 3D games, but 3D Blu-ray content. We know that the PS3 is in the official 3D Blu-ray spec, but what has been unclear to this point is when, and how, we’ll get that 3D content at home.

In a recent interview, SCEA’s Director of Hardware Marketing John Koller gave a few more concrete details. To nobody’s surprise, 3D capability is being timed to the release of new 3D Sony Bravia televisions. That target date is summer 2010, and Koller says that a firmware update will be released then to turn all existing PS3s into 3D-capable consoles.

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At CES 2010, Sony announced its first 3D Blu-ray player, the BDP-S770, but that won’t be the only 3D-capable standalone Blu-ray player from Sony this year. Wednesday, Sony announced the BDP-S470, a midrange Blu-ray player that’s slated to get a firmware update in the summer to make it 3D capable. In addition, the company announced that three previously announced products–the BDV-E770W, BDV-E570, and BDP-S570–will be getting the same 3D upgrade.

Aside from the 3D upgrade, the BDP-S470 looks to be very close to its predecessor, the BDP-N460, offering a full suite of streaming media services (Netflix, Amazon Video On Demand, Slacker, YouTube), along with standard Blu-ray playback functionality. The press release also states that Pandora will be added to the Sony Bravia Internet video platform in the spring; we’re still trying to confirm if that update will be available to existing products like the BDP-N460.

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Introducing Intel Core i3 and i5 processors in a laptop is hardly surprising news anymore, but affordable notebook computing–well, that’s another story. MSI tends to be on the bleeding edge of the cheap notebook spectrum, and the company’s recent announcement of updated Classic laptops offers a few eye-openers. The entire line of C-Series 15.6-inch Core i3 and i5 laptops starts at $649, and there’s even a config that includes Blu-ray and a Core i3 for $699; MSI claims the CR620-033US is $729, but Newegg does that price $30 better.

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The 3D TV hubub at CES roughly coincided with "Avatar," the highest-grossing theatrical release of all time, hitting theaters in 3D. It seems natural to assume that the inevitable home video release of the 3D HD version of the "Avatar" Blu-ray would coincide with the introduction of new 3D HDTVs, which are slated to appear as early as May. But according to director James Cameron, that Blu-ray won’t appear until November.

"It’s all right on schedule," said Cameron during a Wall Street Journal interview. "We’ll do the Blu-ray and the standard-def DVD April 22nd, that’s our plan as of right now, and that’ll be pretty much bare bones. And then we’ll do a value-added DVD and a 3D Blu-ray in I think November sometime."

Apparently Cameron spoke out of turn. A subsequent update from Fox Home Entertainment denied his release date statement, saying "3D is in the conceptual stage and ‘Avatar’ will not be out on 3D Blu-ray in November." The studio would not confirm any home video release dates to the Journal, which is owned by News Corp, of which 20th Century Fox, purveyors of "Avatar," is also a division.

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Samsung says its new line of consumer laptops, including a couple of reasonably priced Blu-ray models, is launching on March 7, exclusively at Best Buy. The line is highlighted by the $829 Samsung R580, a 15-inch with both discrete graphics and a Blu-ray drive.

Even though these are new systems, we’ve had one, the R580, on our list of our spring 2010 retail review roundup for a while, and a quick check of Best Buy’s Web site earlier in the week indicated that it was already in stock and available in New York-area stores. As if to confirm this, a Samsung R580 turned up in-person on our doorstep Thursday morning.

While there are certainly less expensive Blu-ray laptops out there, we liked the R580’s combination of an Intel Core i5 processor, Nvidia M310 graphics, and Blu-ray, all for under $900. In that price range, it may rival our current favorite retail mainstream laptop, the Toshiba E205 (which includes Intel’s Wireless Display technology).

The Samsung R580 has an interesting look, which the company calls a "crystal wave design." In this case, the back of the lid had black edges fading into a deep burgundy toward the center of the lid. With the subtle lined pattern underneath, it made the system look a bit like a sunburst finish on a guitar.

The Samsung R580, along with the 14-inch R480 (Blu-ray but no discrete graphics) and 17-inch R780 (discrete graphics but no Blu-ray) are all launching on March 7, but as noted earlier, some Best Buy stores may have them in stock already.