If you don't recall, RealDVD was a late, unusual addition to the DVD copying field. By late, I mean the latter half of 2008, and by strange, I mean not free. Surprise! The MPAA is outraged, and the product is pulled from shelves literally days after launch. Now the controversy is making its way to a federal court, where Real attorneys will square off against whatever reptilian law-creatures the movie industry is employing these days, and the fate of RealDVD will be decided.

But the NYT thinks they've uncovered RealNetworks', ehh, Real™ intentions: to build ripping capabilities into mainstream DVD players. It's all part of a project called Facet that actually predate RealDVD, at least internally, by some time. Real wants to license this software on the cheap to major DVD player manufacturers, who could then produce reasonably priced (sub-$300) DVD-saving players.

Fun, right? Well, the underlying technology is pretty much RealDVD on Linux, so it—and pretty much any other integrated DVD player backup solutions—is depending on courtroom victory this week. If this is really their strategy, then RealDVD was might have never even a serious product—just a sad, legal, sacrificial lamb. [NYT]

However, if you're looking at this from a pure monetary view, the amount of DVDs installed and the fact that the Blu-ray library is really tiny compared to the DVD library, Toshiba's decision might make them some decent cash. The end result is that consumers shouldn't expect a Toshiba Blu-ray player for a little while. [TGDaily]

Warner execs also noted that they will soon roll out an on-demand form of DVD burning that will help bridge the gap between in-store purchases and downloading. Again, CSS copy protection will most likely be part of the equation, but they claim that these releases would not be platform specific. It may not be perfect, but it should help movie fans who have been ripping video save a little time. Order of the Phoenix is due on store shelves December 11th.[Electronista]

We'd like to get two copies of the same DVD and compare the output of this cheapshit unit with the $19,950 Model 800 DVD player from Meridian Audio. You think there would be $19,932 worth of diff? – Charlie White

How Low Can They Go? [DVD Dossier]

But in this corner, we're enticed with the Arcam FMJ DV139, the highest of high-end DVD players that scales video up to 1080p, boasts state-of-the-art broadcast quality upscaling technology from Anchor Bay, also has HDMI output, but whose main difference is its price conceit, commanding $3486. No DivX playback, either. WTF?

In a world where few people can tell the difference between 1080p and 720p, this reaches our breaking point of patience. Even the highest-end broadcast quality upscaling devices still don't look like HDTV, even to untrained eyes.

The fact that somebody would buy a DVD player for $3486 is to us certain proof that there is indeed a sucker born every minute. Reminds ous of those people who said they could hear the difference when a different mat was placed under their records on their turntables. Discuss. – Charlie White

Specs for the Arcam FMJ DV139:
ARCAM FMJ DV139 - £1800
Arcam's best ever DVD / Universal Audio Player
High-Definition 1080p upscaling for HD home cinema
combined with audiophile sound for music lovers

- one of the world's most advanced DVD / Universal Audio
players, designed and built by Arcam in the UK

- A convincing reason to stay with DVD and
not be ripped-off as an HD-Disc beta-tester

Make the best of the many hundreds of thousands of DVDs
available and get stunning music quality from CD, SACD and
more.

- The DV139 delivers marked improvements in picture quality
from DVD and beats almost any competition at any price

- it is the first DVD player to really match a high-end
CD player, delivering stunning music performance.

- Even audiophiles no longer need to have two players.

The new DV139 is Arcam's latest and best ever DVD player / Universal
Audio Player. In addition to a superb 1080p upscaled 'Near HD' picture
from standard DVD, the new player delivers such an increase in CD sound
quality, that the DV139 is equivalent to a serious high-end CD player.

- cutting-edge video technology using the latest generation
Zoran Vaddis 888S core processing engine
- broadcast quality state-of-the-art ABT1010 1080p
video upscaling technology from Anchor Bay
- broadcast quality ABT102 video deinterlacer
- the best bad edit detection and 'any format' cadence processing
- twin audiophile-grade toroidal transformers for stunning sound
- unique Arcam 'Mask of Silence' electro magnetic damping technology
- unique Arcam tri-laminate damped SDS (Sound Dead Steel) chassis

The DV139 uses the unique FMJ tri-laminate SDS chassis, to mechanically
separate the electronic circuits from internal or airborne vibration.
Arcam's 'Mask of Silence' damps EMC. Twin audiophile-grade toroidal
transformers, give delicate audio signals a completely separate power
supply from the digital and video parts. Optimized circuit board layout
and a wealth of subtle tweaks stem from Arcam's long history of cutting
edge DVD and Hi-fi design.

- ABT1010 10 bit video scaler to 720p, 768p, 1080i, 1080p
- some of the best scaling currently available
- new - ABT102 'Precision Deinterlacing' technology video deinterlacer
- Zoran Vaddis 888s core processor
- DVD-Video, DVD-Audio, CD audio, SACD audio, DiVX video playback
- HDMI digital video/audio output

- 'always-on' composite and SCART video plus stereo audio for 2nd zone
- audiophile sound quality from all disc formats for movies and music
- new - CD Direct mode for superior music playback
- IR and full duplex RS232 control
- new - CR100 backlit learning handset, a sleek new design
- new - improved OSD and new user interface
with full colour graphics and easy to use menus
- unique
- built-in video setup wizard for user video display calibration

Specs for the Toshiba Upconverting DVD Player:

Features:

* HDMI output - High-Definition Multimedia Interface (cable included)
* Digital video upconversion with 720p/1080i output via HDMI
* ColorStream Pro® Component Video Output
* Digital Cinema Progressive scan with 3:2 Pulldown
* Optical and coaxial digital outputs for Dolby Digital, DTS, PCM
* Divx certified for DivX 3.11, 4.12 and 5x as well as DivX PRO
* Audio support for MP3, AC-3 (2ch and 5.1), WMA, LCPM, ADPCM and Ogg Vorbis
* 24-Bit/192kHz Audio D/A Converter
* 3-D Virtual Surround
* Plays DVD-Video discs, and DVD-Rs & DVD-RWs
* Plays CDs, CD-Rs & CD-RWs, and MP3 & WMA CDs
* Plays digital picture CDs (JPEG)
* Includes remote control and 6' HDMI cable
* 27MHz/10-bit video DAC
* 192MHz/24-bit audio DAC
* Dimensions: 17"W x 1-11/16"H x 9-1/4"D

Outputs

* HDMI™: 1
* Y/Pr/Pb: 1 set
* S-Video: 1
* RCA-Video: 1
* L-R Audio: 1
* Coaxial Out: 1
* Optical Out: 1

Box Contents:

* SD-K860 DVD player
* 6' HDMI Cable
* Remote control
* Owners manual

Toppest-end DVD player [Randomly Accessed]

Lessons of the Pawn Shop

Believe it or not, I can pinpoint the exact day I realized that the VCR Era was over: August 27, 2000. I was on a magazine assignment up in Waterbury, Connecticut, interviewing the patrons of a dingy pawn shop about why they were swapping their precious rings, TVs, and fishing poles for high-interest loans. Early that morning, before a heroin addict pawning his uncle's pistol bilked me out of a fiver (long story), a rake-thin girl in a Pantera t-shirt strolled in holding a mint-condition VCR—can't remember the model and make, but trust me, this wasn't a Wal-Mart special. I guess she was expecting to score an easy $15 or $20, but before she could even get to the counter, one of the brothers who ran the place thundered, "We don't take VCRs anymore! You got a DVD player, come back."

At the time, I didn't even have a DVD player myself, and the advent of the $29 Apex—one of the Great Moments in Low End History—was still a few years off. But when a pawn shop in a post-industrial town declares a technology dead, it's dead. And that's not all our friends with the usurious interest rates, sketchy intake ledgers, and security gates have to teach us about the world of low-end electronics. After the jump, some more wisdom that can be gleaned from hanging out in the shops of last resort, where most of us have either a) purchased a nice electric guitar on the cheap, or b) exchanged grandma's antique brooch for a month's supply of chalupa money.

Always Bet on Gray Product color connotes more than you might think. Used to be that VCRs and the like were uniformly black, on the assumption that the color of night can blend into any interior-design scheme. But low-end products like portable DVD players now tend toward gray, which supposedly suggests more advanced technology. You can definitely see the preference for gray electronics at the local pawn shop—they stand out better along the behind-the-counter shelves, and something about the modern human psyche places a higher innate value on such lighter-colored goods. Didn't have a chance to research this in-depth up in Waterbury, but gray products tended to bring an extra $5 or so from the brothers; I guess they figured it was easier to move a gray DVD player than a black one, and so kicked in that little bonus to the pawner.

Hands Off Even though pawn-shop consumers know that they're dealing with pre-owned products as well as semi-shady merchants, they tend not to test the merchandise beyond a simple turn it on, turn it off. This goes even for complicated devices such as laptops, which can obviously suffer from a variety of ailments. This is in part due to the high-pressure tactics of your typical pawn-shop owner—they're trained to get you out of there as quickly as possible, before you discover their no-refunds policy or some other horrible secret (like the backroom where they buy hot Rolexes from the neighborhood crackhead). But I think there's also a certain willful blindness that descends upon cheap consumers who think they've discovered a real bargain. Once they see the price tag and realize, "Oh my gosh, this is 75 percent less than Circuit City!", they—okay, we—tend to forget about asking the right questions and conducting the right tests. Be forewarned—that $200 Fujitsu LifeBook T4210 won't seem like such an awesome deal when you get it home and realize that it's infected with malware just a few shades less nasty than hantavirus.

Artists Keep Technologies Alive You can still pawn your Nikon 35 mm should you so choose, and for pretty good coin, too. In fact, I'd dare say that a real top-of-the-line vintage camera will be priced higher than a mid-range SLR in a lot of pawn shops. That's because of the Artist Effect—a lot of photographers, filmmakers, musicians, etc. do their gadgets shopping in pawn shops, though not only for economic reasons. Let's face it, there's a certain romantic mystique about finding a deal at the pawn shop; I don't recall Gilby Clarke ever recording an album called Guitar Center Guitars, do you? Now, there's certainly a lot of truth to this line of thinking, but don't think for a second that pawn-shop owners don't love taking advantage of skinny college students wearing ironic t-shirts. They assume such customers are bankrolled by mom and dad, and can thus be hoodwinked for an extra $100 or so on that Nikon SP 2005 Rangefinder they're dying to buy in order to take artsy shots of their girlfriend tied up with Red Vines.

Scaling Up Many pawn-shop owners aren't electronics whizzes, and can't be bothered to look up a product's current market value upon getting it in stock. What they'll often do instead is simple multiplication; if they've been selling a 19-inch TV for, say, $100, they'll make a 27-inch TV $150. No, that's not a great bargain, but once you get into the realm of the real big screens, their sensible scaling-up approach starts to really work in your favor. If you're lucky, you can find a pawn shop that doesn't realize the exponential growth of TV prices above the 27-inch barrier, and furthermore doesn't want to clutter their limited inventory with really big units. Alas, this doesn't really work with LCDs or plasma sets, though primarily because anyone able to drop four figures on a TV probably doesn't frequent pawn shops too much. When such folks have financial troubles, they either take out a second mortgage, or start embezzling.

(Credit where credit is due—many thanks to Water Winter Wonderland for the pawn-shop pic.)

NEXT WEEK: Dongles, dongles everywhere!

Brendan I. Koerner is a contributing editor at Wired and a columnist for both The New York Times and Slate. His Low End Theory column appears every Thursday on Gizmodo.

Read more Low End Theory

Product Page [Via MobileTracker]

Product Page [Via Red Ferret]

This all sounds good, but it's impossible to create pixels out of thin air, although they can be approximated. And then, well, you end up with approximate HDTV—not the real thing but better than nothing. Maybe. The HVD2085 retails for $200. – Travis Hudson

Product Page [Via Red Ferret]

The affected models affected by the recall are The Princess DP3500-PRN, Fairy Flowers DP3500-FLR, Mickey Classic DP3500-MC, Mickey Mouse DP3500-MKY and Power Rangers DP3500-POW. I always knew those Power Rangers were no-good battery-overheating meanies. If you happen to own one of the affect models contact Memcorp immediately to get your replacement battery pack.

102,000 battery packs for Disney DVD players recalled [TG Daily]

Insignia: Mark of the Least

I trust I'm not alone in dreading my semi-regular trips to Best Buy. The haphazard selection of products can be truly maddening, and many of the blue-shirted sales clerks need to get with the program. Don't get me started on the nightmare that was Christmas 2003, when I ordered my girlfriend's digicam online then tried to pick it up at a Best Buy outlet. In the time it took three different "sales associates" to locate my Sony DSC-P32, I could've built my own. Out of toothpicks and bubblegum, MacGyver-style.

Best Buy's been suffering the consequences of its skeeviness as of late, however, as it scrambles to keep pace with Target, Wal-Mart, and Costco. Let's face it, America's a pretty lazy nation, and if we can pick up a progressive scan DVD player while simultaneously purchasing a five-pound bag of Doritos, heck, we'll do it. So Best Buy has to compete on price, and that means pushing its low-end, in-house Insignia brand ever harder. Just last week, the chain announced a whole slew of new Insignia dreck that'll be ready for the holidays.

The upshot? If you've got a cheapskate uncle who knows you're into gadgets, expect some of the following goodies come December. Should you curse your fate, or is "Insignia" synonymous with "low-end quality"? An answer (of sorts) after the jump. PLUS: More surplus goodness!

Before I sat down to tap out this column, I did the requisite check of what the Gizmodo-ers have previously written about Insignia. Turns out that it hasn't exactly been a favorite topic of discussion; there was a matter-of-fact news item when the brand debuted last October, then nothing really since (except for a brief shout-out in a previous Low End Theory). Makes sense, as the brand isn't designed to excite us gadget nerds. As Best Buy vice chairman Brad Anderson quipped when introducing the brand, "We're trying to go wherever there is a value proposition." In non-execspeak, that means, "Yeah, it's cheap-ass stuff made by contract factories. You wanna fight about it?"

Some of the most touted Insignia products are flat-panel TVs, which obviously fall beyond Low End Theory's purview. (Note to first-time readers of this space: If it costs more than two bills, it ain't low-end enough for Low End Theory.) But there are also some cheaper units to be peeped, starting with the Sports Armband AM/FM Radio (pictured above). Not a bad looking product, but I don't get the $26.99 price tag. It's a shade too expensive to be an impulse buy, and there's not much of a price difference when compared to last-gen Samsung YEPPs (now Froggleable for around $30). True, the YEPPs don't offer the AM band on their tuners, but I refuse to believe there's that many folks who jog along to bad talk radio.

Slightly more impressive are Insignia's 10-mile, 22-channel radios. True, you'll need an FCC license to operate on GMRS channels, and I sorta doubt the typical Insignia customer possesses that level of radio nerdiness. But at $69.99 for a two-handset pack, this is a much tastier deal than the armband radio. And that stated 10-mile range is a lot better than what a comparable amount of scratch will buy you at Radio Shack.

The latest additions to the Insignia lineup are a range of portable DVD players, including a basic model with an impressively large seven-inch screen. It's currently on sale for just $119.99, which sounds like a nice deal until you check out the specs. Progressive scan? Nope. Playback time? A piddling three hours, if you're lucky. S-Video output? You're kidding me, right?

Okay, granted, cruddy specs are the norm for low-end merchandise. And I'll give Insignia some mild props for their PCs, which at least have the decency to feature Pentium 4 chips instead of eMachines' lousy Celerons. But if Best Buy thinks that Insignia's gonna help it compete with Wal-Mart and Costco, they could have another thing coming. They don't seem to get that the future of bargain hunting isn't in specialty stores; consumers see Cobys and jWins everyday at the local CVS or Rite-Aid, after all, and I'd bet the farm that neither of those budget brands is any worse (or better) than Insignia. Heck, I bet some of their products are even made in the same factories.

I get what Best Buy is doing here: they're trying to snag those customers who walk into the store, realize that they can't afford the name-brand product, and then are relived to discover that, hey, there's an equivalent Insignia product available for 40 percent less. But will that be enough to save Best Buy over the long haul? Already, the company seems to be making some dicey, possibly desperate moves to shake itself out of its funk, like partnering with Geek Squad and AuctionDrop.com. Here's a better idea: how about dealing with your customer-service woes instead? (Even better ideas to fix Best Buy? Lemme know, champ.)

Obviously, I'm all for low-end merchandise. But I'd much rather buy my $15 radios from the Gem Gem Gem Value Store on 125th Street than descend into the chaotic bowels of the nearest Best Buy. Unless, of course, Insignia starts a Willy Wonka-inspired "golden ticket" promotion. I'm sure the factory that makes those cheap-ass portable DVD players is a magic place, indeed.

A SURPLUS OF COMMENTS: Gigantic reaction to last week's column on Army surplus stores. Most folks wrote in to chastise me for not understanding that "Japanese watch movement" simply means "Japanese gears are inside the watch." A few kinder, gentler souls, however, sent along recommendations on other surplus options. The most popular suggestion, by a country mile, was American Science & Surplus—not military stuff, by and large, but how can you not love a site that sels 3,200 RPM motors for $15 each?

Also, one vote was cast for Col. Bubbie's, based in Galveston, Texas. Couldn't locate any good electronics on the site, but "the Colonel" apparently accepts faxed wish lists. Oh, and if you've been looking for a World War One practice sword, he's got you covered.

Brendan I. Koerner is a contributing editor at Wired and a columnist for both The New York Times and Slate. His Low End Theory column appears every Thursday on Gizmodo.

Vexed by Vextra

I usually blow off the guys who hand out drugstore circulars on the corner, but I made an exception last week—what can I say, I was feeling the whole brotherhood-of-man vibe that day. Good thing I shifted my policy, however, as this particular Rite Aid pamphlet advertised an amazing low-end treat: a Vextra portable DVD player, with 5.4-inch LCD and "FREE Bonus Travel Case," for a measly $99.99.

Vextra, by the way, is Rite Aid's in-house brand, slapped on a variety of low-end gadgets like flashlight radios. (At my local Rite-Aid, in fact, you get a free Vextra pocket radio with every purchase of the new Cinderella DVD.) So I'm not claiming that the brand's portable DVD player is any great shakes. But a hundred bucks for a 5.4-inch screen? And it seems like just yesterday that you couldn't get a to-go DVD unit for under $1,200.

Okay, maybe not quite yesterday—more like 2001. But, still, in business-cycle terms, that's a mere bat of the eye. And it got me thinking: has any recent gadget experienced a quicker journey from early-adopter plaything to drugstore-chain dreck than the portable DVD player? After the jump, a brief-and-enjoyable history of the gizmo that made airport waits much more tolerable. PLUS: More clock radio goodness!

I had to dig pretty deep to pinpoint the first-ever portable DVD player, the Panasonic DVD-L10. You remember the DVD-L10, don't you? The darling of 1998's CES, and a plaything of the rich and famous while us common folk were still quibbling over the merits of VHS modes. (I'll admit it, I once nearly came to blows with a dear friend while defending the honor of EP over SP. Yes, Jagermonsters were involved.)

The DVD-L10 was priced at $1,299 out of the gate. Stunningly, that ended up being a bargain compared to the competition that soon emerged. For example, it took Toshiba until 2000 to debut its similarly sized (5.8-inch screen) answer to the DVD-L10. It cost a whopping $1,499; for that kind of coin, you'd be better off buying a refurbed Satellite with a DVD drive, for heaven's sake.

The real turning point didn't come until 2002, when our very good friends at Apex—home of the $79 13-inch TV—finally got some serious budget models rolling off its Chinese assembly lines. So, too, did Wal-Mart's Initial brand, the first to break the $300 barrier for a 5-inch screen. This was why on your trip back home from Christmas break that year, the 14-year-old sitting next to you in coach was watching the Queen of the Damned DVD instead of reading Sports Illustrated.

But $300? That's still not in Low End Theory's territory. The rule around here is that, if and when a Benjamin Franklin leaves my pocket, he leaves alone—though I guess I'll permit Messrs. Washington and Lincoln to accompany him for sales-tax purposes. So the first truly low-end portable DVD player I saw was the atrocious (and I mean atrocious) TeenTech model from K-Group Industries. (Warning: Company's website plays a terrible, ultra-repetitive guitar riff.) True, it could be scooped up for $99 starting last fall, but the 3-inch screen is for the dogs. Oh, and check out the hilarious comments from Amazon customers, who awarded the TeenTech 1.5 stars. Not only does it need to charge a full hour for every hour of play time, but it also tends to melt your wall socket. Nice.

So that brings us to the Vextra at Rite-Aid. Again, I can't vouch for whether or not it's stellar, but at $99.99 for a 5.4-inch screen, it sure is cheap. By my math, the cost of purchasing a portable DVD player with a screen in the five-to-six inch range has declined over 92 percent since 2000. I guess you could say something comparable will happen with the (supposed) 2007 debut of the $100 laptop, but not really; those cheapies will have 500-megahertz processors, plus loads less features than more expensive notebooks from 2000. But the Vextra DVD player? It plays DVDs, just like the Panasonic DVD-L10.

My LazyWeb query to y'all, then, is this: can you think of another gadget that has gone low-end as quickly and precipitously as the portable DVD player? And by "low-end," I mean "available at a store that also sells toothpaste and tighty-whiteys." Candidates, please.

CLOCKERS, REDUX: Huge response to last week's column on clock radios for under $20. My favorite tip came from a Walmart.com fan singing the praises of the HoMedics Sound Spa Clock Radio. It's got the chic projection function, as well as "6 soothing sounds from nature to either lull you to sleep or gently wake you." Is it just me, or do soothing sounds seem none-too-promising in terms of wakeup potential? Better to put a growling tiger on there—that'll bolt you into the day. (Thanks, Brian!)

Also, a reader from Burkina Faso objected to my intimation that even cheap motels in his nation's capital feature clock radios:

I'm affraid(sic) I would have to disagree. It would be fairly easy to find a flea invested(sic) hotel without a clock radio in Ouagadougou...

So noted, my friend. So noted.

Brendan I. Koerner is a contributing editor at Wired and a columnist for both The New York Times and Slate. His Low End Theory column appear every Thursday on Gizmodo.

Read more Low End Theory

One of the granddaddies of added-value tricks, of course, is slapping a cartoon character on the frame. It goes without saying that, circa 1982, you could have seized my Spiderman walkie-talkie only by prying it out of my cold, dead hand. Never mind that it had a range of about seven meters, and picked up interference from the neighbors' cordless phones. (Hearing about Mrs. Larson's hysterectomy caused me some serious angst, I'm afraid.)

The contemporary melange of kid-oriented licensed merchandise is much more sophisticated. Join us, won't you, as Low End Theory takes a stroll down the toy aisle for a peek at this school year's assortment of cartoon gadgetry. PLUS: Low End Theory's first-ever contest!

The undisputed champion of licensing for the juice-box set is Nickelodeon, which has an entire corporate division dedicated to the pursuit. Smart lads over there, as they've actually made sure that the channel's properties festoon some halfway decent gadgets, beginning with the eye-catching SpongeBob SquarePants DVD Player. It comes from the budgetmeisters at Emerson Radio Corporation, which totally turns out some top-notch clock radios (if such a thing can be said). The spec sheet on this one is mighty short, amounting to little more than "comes with remote control" and "compatible with any TV possessing RCA inputs." On the plus side, there's a feature where each movie played on the unit is given a "4 starfish" rating by SpongeBob. Yes, even Battlefield Earth, which saddens Low End Theory; I guess SpongeBob got caught up in all the fame and money in Hollywood, and now he's trying to excise his body thetans with John Travolta.

I also dig on the (deep breath) Batman Long Range Night Vision Headband Walkie Talkies (exhale), which Amazon has on sale for $29.99. Haven't tested these out, but the spec sheet almost sounds too good to be true: a range of 2,000 feet, as well as simultaneous talk and listen. The manufacturer terms the latter feature "Duplex Technology"; kudos to the PhD candidate in literature who came up with that euphemism.

There's a pretty steep quality drop-off from there. The Dora the Explorer optical mouse? Color Low End Theory unimpressed at the $34 price tag; for that kind of cheddar, you could pick up a cordless iConcepts mouse at CVS. Equally risible is the $20 premium that Emerson charges for its line of Nick-licensed, 13-inch CRT TVs. Does it really cost that much to color the rim of a $79 unit red, and add stickers of Dora and her monkey Boots looking all happy? Low End Theory thinks not.

The cake-taker in terms of added-value ripoffs, though, is the Barbie Think Pink Learning Notebook from Oregon Scientific. Don't be looking for any Pentium chips in this hunk of junk; it's really just an old-fashioned Speak-and-Spell gussied up to look like a Dell Inspiron, with a screen three shades darker than charcoal grey. You might as well use your $50 bill to teach your daughter origami.

Now, I'm all for getting kids involved in technology from as young an age as possible—obviously, these are the Gizmodo readers of tomorrow, and I look forward to getting paid to write for them. But the premium you're paying for the added value of brand-name cartoon characters seems mighty steep, and Junior is too-often ending up with an inferior product.

I was going to wrap up with a suggestion that, instead of committing to onerous licensing agreements that lead to high retail prices, discount gadgeteers would be better off creating in-house cartoon characters—or perhaps licensing cheaper mascots. (Low End Theory pines for a Go-Bots revival.) But then I realized that, hey, I don't have any kids (yet), so I've no clue as to how much the juice boxers pine after Nickelodeon properties. If you've got a young'un running around, drop us a line at brendan@gizmodo.com and answer this: Do your precious little ones insist on gadgets bearing brand-name cartoon properties? Or do you resist their plaintive wails in favor of buying them more effective electronics? Bonus points, and a possible hat tip in next week's space, if you can steer us toward a kiddie added-value product worth owning.

LIL' HELP?: Low End Theory's pops used to have one of those Sharper Image white-noise machines, which is supposed to lull you into sleep with the gentle sounds of "rainfall" and "ocean waves." I think he used the thing once before rightly concluding that the cure was worse than the disease, and he'd rather deal with four hours of snoozetime than an entirely sleepless night of "whoooooooossssshhhhhhh! whoooooooooooosssshhhhhhhh!"

Which brings us to this edition's contest: I'm on the lookout for the most out-and-out hilarious Sharper Image gadget you can find. There will be a preference for older gizmos, so dig deep into your closets and into eBay. The winner will be publicly saluted as an amazing, stupendous individual, and will receive a copy of "Roller Coaster Tycoon 3" to boot. E-mail entries to your Low End Theory headquarters, brendan@gizmodo.com. Good luck, mein freund, good luck.

Read More Low End Theory

Casio's DVD Player with LCD for your bathroom [NewLaunches via I4U]

KEF unveils killer home cinema system [T3]

Product Page [Via OhGizmo!]