Now I've heard that in this day and age, some folks are inclined to do silly things and even shoot video of them. Most corporations tend to look the other way, a few might frown on it, but we didn't think any actually encouraged it.

Nevertheless Gateway is planning to give away a $3,000 FX540XT machine and one of the coolest monitors in the world, the 30-inch 1600p XHD3000 with Silicon Optix Realta HQV upscaling to the best video submitter. The contest's only main rules are that a) the video must be under 3 minutes and b) it must feature "a genuine or fake Holstein cow." Yep, you are completely bananas, Gateway.

While this contest is in no way affiliated with Gizmodo, any of you ballsy submitters out there can feel free to CC your craziest works to our tips line as well. [Gateway Contest]

Every new phase of technology has its first few tentative steps. Not only is Blu-ray in its earliest stage, but that stage seems to be subdivided into a few mini-stages. As we talked about in The State of Blu-ray, most Blu-ray players today are Profile 1.0, which means they play Blu-ray movies (usually).

The two above are currently available with Profile 1.1, with several more, such as Samsung's BD-UP5000 and Denon's DVD 3800BDCI, on the way. This profile is characterized by dual-decoder picture-in-picture—and at the moment nothing else.

The final profile is often referred to as 2.0, though the requirement is simply BD Live, that is, an Ethernet port that allows internet connectivity for downloading bonus content. There are currently no players that fit this description on the market.

This week, we decided to take a pre-CES look at Blu-ray 1.1. The movies are cool enough—who doesn't like a sci-fi thriller by the guy who made 28 Days Later? And can you even be on Gizmodo if you don't think Milla Jovovich is some kind of supreme being? But the movies' status as the next phase in Blu-ray evolution seems to be an embarrassment for the studios. Rather than champion the 1.1 players and the discs' new capabilities, they celebrate them in the finest of print sizes: For first attempts, the "enhanced viewing" is not bad: In the 1980s, picture-in-picture was a lame concept created to convince wives that the football games could go on in the corner while the soap opera took up 85% of the screen, but that never actually happened. Now picture-in-picture has been reborn as something far more useful, where you can watch a movie while seeing the shots the director saw before special effects came into play, or the sketches that became the sets, or the faces of the commenters as they goof on their faulty stunts.

The Sunshine disc handles PIP with a shiny golden console screen that pops up to contain the standard-def bonus commentary. There aren't many segments, but what is shown, such as walkthroughs of the sets and shooting in zero-gravity, is cool to see juxtaposed with the final film.

Sweet Resident Evil home screen:
Resident Evil shows PIP videos sans fancy frames, but tips the viewer off in a different way. If the shot is on the bottom right, it's actor or director commentary; if the shot appears on the top right, it's a storyboard sketch; and if it's on the bottom left, it's a behind the scenes making-of view.
I will admit, I am not so in love with either title as to spend several more hours combing through each, but functionally it's great, and there are probably many Boyle-heads or fans of "the other" Paul Anderson who would gladly set aside a Saturday for this. I can see how a simulcast of Star Wars with Lucas' ugly mug would make a ton of sense, and all of those bonus Lord of the Rings DVDs might get watched if the making-of footage was embedded into the original high-def films.

The players themselves behaved well. I have recently been on record angry that too many CE products act like PCs, but in both cases the players performed admirably. The PS3's update was easy, and it took the BD Profile 1.1 discs without a hitch. The Panasonic shipped with all the right firmware, and never once rejected a disc. We ran some tests using the HD HQV Benchmark from Silicon Optix as well as the FPD Benchmark Software, and both came out in good shape, though when it came to processing motion, we agreed that the PS3 edged out the Panasonic by a nose.

Everybody knows that precision video testing requires footage of hot Asian women swinging on things: Of course, the Panasonic beat the PS3 in the role of traditional disc player. Sometimes when you hit a button on the PS3 remote, you jump back to the main menu and have to boot up the Blu-ray disc all over again; not so with the Panny. Speaking of remotes, the Panasonic's had a very handy pair of buttons to turn PIP on and off, and to toggle the audio between the two.In the end, we were glad that Blu-ray could now do what we've already seen in Warner HD DVDs such as 300 and the latest Harry Potter. PIP may yet be a wondrous tool. But we're a little puzzled by two things:

1) It's hard to believe that $1,000+ players from Pioneer and Sony Electronics can't do what these were able to do so easily.

2) If this is all possible, why does it take so long to just complete the damn profile and make all players capable of both picture-in-picture interactivity and online connectivity?

If I had to lay money down on one Blu-ray-only player at this minute, I'd have to choose the PS3. The jury is still out on the dual-format players we want to love best, but the early rumblings suggest they may need some work. And any standalone Blu-ray player without an Ethernet jack may be in danger of obsolescence in a few years, if not a matter of months.

We'll personally be looking into all of that... right after CES. In the meantime, stay tuned for big Blu-ray and HD DVD announcements at the show!

This feature would not have been possible without the excellent assistance and admirable photography of Mr. Benny Goldman. Thanks BG!

Lucidium Mirror Series Deep Black 32- and 22-inch 1080p-capable LCD HDTVs incorporating NiDO II image processing, deep black LCD panel, DSDB and 2x HDMI 1.3 inputs, with a behind the mirror in-wall mounting frame system. Pricing for the NMU22L Lucidium is $1299 and the NMU32L Lucidium is $1599. Both ship Sept. 30.

The 52-inch monitor is also 1080p, natively, but loses the HQV processor for a "NiDO III" scaler. Deep, x.v. 10-bit color. The jargon at this point becomes indecipherable, but it has a combination of DSDV "Digital Switching Deep Black", 4HDMI 1.3 inputs and will be a much more reasonable $4400.

The 47 and 42-inch 1080p LCD has the same NiDO III processor, 4 HDMI 1.3 ports, misses the 10-bit color and goes for $2900 and $2300.

The 37-inch LCD is suprisingly 1080p native, has the Nido II processor, DSDB of the 52-incher (whatever that is) and 3 HDMI 1.3 inputs (one side mounted). $1900.

The rest of the sets aren't full 1080p res, but can accept the signal.

32, 26 and 22 inchers that have NiDO II image processors, "deep black" LCD panels, HDMI 1.3 inputs (3 or 2 on the 22-incher) for $1300, $900, and $699. [NuVision via Twice]

They're good for testing how a video processor handles jaggies, noise, and other factors.

The discs aren't complete testing suites, though. They don't give you any way of quantifying brightness, shadow detail, contrast and other things you can watch by seeing sets side by side, or by watching movies you know like the back of your hand cough*ChenAndHowardTheDuck*cough. And the standard-def version of this disc not only has more tests, but is useful for checking out the standard DVD video performance of a piece of HD gear.

And like I said earlier, these test discs can be used for HDTVs or HD disc players. By switching your disc player to output in a 1080i pattern, you can test your TV; putting it into 1080p tests the video processor in your player. Here's the full scorecard and instruction manual for using the disc: Download file

The discs go for $20 bucks, or $15 with the code below.

Enter the special promotion code HQV4GIZ1BR (Blu-ray) or HQV4GIZ1HD (HD DVD) to receive $5 off the HD HQV Benchmark DVD. In addition, a portion of the proceeds will be sent to the ELF Foundation, a nonprofit charity bringing music and movies through "Rooms of Magic" to children's hospitals across the country. For more information, visit www.elfsystems.org

HD HQV Benchmark [HQV]