Video

As an "investment" video sucks. Before you plunk down big bucks on today's cutting edge video just ponder for a second that what you buy today will be tomorrow's landfill.

Pick up a good set of speakers and they'll stick around for a long, long time. Anybody who dropped $15K on an early generation plasma display has surely replaced it years ago, and is probably on their second or third set by now. So their total investment may be approaching twenty Gs! Remember too that early plasmas were standard definition sets and their picture quality … Read more

The revamp of Democracy Player is here, newly rechristened Miro, now at version 0.9.8.1 and available for Mac, Windows, and several flavors of Linux. If you're expecting massive changes from the 0.9.6 version, you're going to be a bit disappointed unless new logos designed by the same guy who did the Firefox logo raise your heart rate.

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In a recent blog on CNET News.com it was learned that modders in 16 states were brought down for allegedly selling and distributing "circumvention devices."

While federal agents, including U.S. Customs officials, are heralding the capture of these "criminals" as a mark of significant progress in the fight against modding, I'm not so quick to agree.

At its very core, what is so wrong with modding, or modifying, one's gadgets? While I admittedly don't know as much about the techniques involved, because I don't own any modded devices, I still … Read more

In a recent blog entry posted here,, an African woman expressed anger and distaste for the alleged "depiction of Black people as inhuman savages, the killing of Black people by a white man in military clothing, and the fact that this video game is marketed to children and young adults. Start them young? fearing, hating, and destroying Black people." And while I understand where she is coming from (no one likes to see their own people being killed), it seems she is echoing an ever-increasing issue with video games: over-sensitivity.

Ever since graphics became the big thing in … Read more

Look out, modders: federal customs agents have just announced a new crackdown on the smuggling of "illegal" devices that enable gamers to play pirated wares on Nintendo's Wii, Microsoft's Xbox and Xbox 360, Sony's Playstation 2 and other consoles.

As part of an ongoing investigation into the sale and distribution of such "circumvention devices," U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents from 22 offices said they raided businesses, storefronts and residents in 16 states on Wednesday. They reported executing 32 search warrants, but there was no word on whether any arrests were … Read more

My, my, Lonelygirl15 sure has come a long way. Not so long ago, everyone thought the too-cute videoblogger was, well, a too-cute videoblogger. Then some online video fans with a shocking amount of time on their hands deduced that she was likely an actress in a staged series of video episodes. (They were right.) Now, leading lady "Bree" (played by Jessica Rose) has gone all professional on us--the new MySpaceTV video portal will be hosting Lonelygirl15's season finale.

Season finale?

On Friday, MySpaceTV--which launched in June and has been rolling out content deals ever since--will broadcast the … Read more

Yossi Vardi, the guy who helped bring instant messaging to the world, is now trying to speed up video downloads.

Vardi is an investor in Haifa-based SpeedBit, which sells an application for speeding up downloads of games, videos and music. He claimed that by using the application, the download of a movie decreases from more than an hour to 22 minutes.

Downloading movies, of course, will get worse as high definition spreads. Some of these download services have received their share of customer complaints.

"It's the fastest growing application ever," he said, during a hallway conversation at … Read more

Unlike a lot of my colleagues here at CNET Networks, I'm not a gamer. My tactics in hand-to-hand combat games entail less adroit maneuvering using precise button combinations and more random mashing of various buttons in the faint hope that if I mash fast enough, I'll accidentally stumble across some winning combination that I can never hope to recreate. And my skills in driving games may leave you concerned about my actual, real-life driving skills. (Don't worry, I know not to mow down unsuspecting pedestrians. Usually.) So it's a little odd that I'm here writing … Read more

You've heard of summer movie flops, but sometimes software can fall just as flat. With the thousands of software programs we see every month on CNET Download.com, there are bound to be a few duds. CNET's Tom Merritt runs through the five worst downloads of summer 2007.