I’m setting up my SageTV HD100 and a key component is the HDMI cable used to connect the HD media extender to the LCD television. One thing I learned long ago was to not buy theater cables from the big-box retailers, including Best Buy, Circuit City,Walmart , etc. Instead, I save myself a bundle by purchasing online. Why not cave to convenience and purchase at the store? Despite what the kid at the store tells you, those Monster Cable and lesser known “high quality” cables are being sold at huge margins and no noticeable differences in performance.

Best Buy sells the fancy packaged, 16′ Monster Cable - Ultra Series 800 HDMI A/V Cable (not rated for in-wall installation) for the low, low price of $149.99. While Monoprice.com, my favorite cable vendor, sells a HDMI Tin-Plated Copper CL2 Rated (For In-Wall Installation) Cable (22AWG) - 30ft (Gold Plated) for $36.87. Feel free to include shipping fees, and you’re still way below the big-box cost. Delivery is very quick and you’ll end up with a better cable for less. Another retailer with good, inexpensive cables is Newegg.com.

Next time you have a home theater project, do your homework and shop around to save in places you didn’t expect. Trust me, you’ll need that money later for something else in your theater.

Check out more of Brent’s reflections on tech, gadgets, software and media at Brent Evans Geek Tonic.

Let’s say I win the lottery. Not just a little jackpot, but a really big one. If that happens, this is the home theater I might want to put in my mansion. It costs about $6 million and includes a gigantic, Snowmatte laboratory-grade screen, Sony ultra-high-resolution (4,096-by-2,160) SRX-S110 digital projector, a 8.8-channel audio system with THREE center-channel speakers, SIXTEEN 18-inch Snell Subs, and the list goes on and on. In the end, the setup powers 11,315 high-quality watts in the room designed for the sole purpose of being the ultimate home theater. Is it overkill? Heck yes, but who’s going to judge you when it’s your cash?

Check out more of Brent’s reflections on tech, gadgets, software and media at Brent Evans Geek Tonic.

With the exception of ~1 million owners, the HD DVD story pretty much concluded today when Toshiba pulled the plug:

Toshiba Corporation today announced that it has undertaken a thorough review of its overall strategy for HD DVD and has decided it will no longer develop, manufacture and market HD DVD players and recorders. Toshiba will begin to reduce shipments of HD DVD players and recorders to retail channels, aiming for cessation of these businesses by the end of March 2008. Toshiba also plans to end volume production of HD DVD disk drives for such applications as PCs and games in the same timeframe

The tipping point came just prior to CES when Warner Brothers gave up on HD DVD. And it’s be all downhill for Toshiba ever since. However, we won’t see mass market adoption of Blu-ray until the hardware prices creep down. Not to mention that most folks are perfectly content with DVDs - they include surround sound, hold up well on HD sets, play on all modern computers and in minivans, plus they can be ripped. Having said that, industry will now focus on educating the consumer - moms don’t know what Blu-ray is. While digital downloads and expanded VOD/PPV offerings are gaining momentum, there’ll always be a retail market for optical video discs.

If you weren’t already convinced the next-gen optical disc battle was over, Wal-Mart has announced their intentions to dump HD DVD and exclusively stock Blu-ray. There’s also murmurs that Toshiba is about ready to throw in the towel… The quicker they do so, the better - a single format and less consumer confusion will lead to higher adoption rates and ultimately lower hardware prices.

Vudu has thrown down the gauntlet… They contacted me yesterday to emphasize their “quality of HD video is better” than what Apple TV provides. The claim is based on Vudu’s resolution of up to 1080p versus Apple’s 720p. Of course, the pixel count doesn’t tell the whole story… How well are these movies compressed and encoded, what bitrates are we talking here? Ben Drawbaugh of Engadget HD is on-board with a comparison - so he’s Fed-Exing his AppleTV to me for a side by side comparison. And then I’ll FedEx both boxes to him for his perspective.

The BBC received a demonstration of Sony’s upcoming PlayTV accessory which will offer PS3 owners over-the-air tuning (DVB-T, abroad), OTA EPG, DVR functionality, and PSP placeshifting. Looks pretty cool (other than the UI load time)… Though, I wonder if we’ll ever see this in the US - is the PS3 OTA ATSC market large enough to matter?

Wal-Mart has announced availability of what may be the first over-the-air (OTA) digital-to-analog converter boxes to hit the retail channel. Apparently 3,400 stores have stocked the $49.87 Magnavox STB and are ready for your $40 coupon (arriving as soon as next week). My concern is that the folks requesting the finite number of vouchers are all Engadget readers with ATSC-tuning HDTVs and/or satellite/cable service - making this a non-issue for them. Meanwhile, Grandma will be out of luck (or at least out some cash) next year when she realizes her rabbit-eared television no longer works and the coupons are long gone.

Reuters reports,

Netflix said that with such a clear signal from the industry, it will only buy Blu-ray discs going forward and will phase out stock of HD DVD by about the end of the year.