movies

Apple fell far short of its goal of rolling out 1,000 movies for rent through the iTunes Store by the end of February.

Macworld's Christopher Breen checked in Friday on Apple's promise, and found that just 351 titles are available to rent through the latest version of Apple TV. If you check the iTunes Store from a Mac or PC, there are 399 movies available to rent. Breen notes that even if you include all the movies available through the iTunes Store, for both purchase and rentals, there are only 770 available.

At Macworld, when Apple CEO … Read more

Regular Cheapskate readers know that I'm a big fan of media-center PCs, which is why I frequently spotlight TV tuners. Now let's round out the movie side of the equation: Newegg has the Lite-On DH-401S-11 internal Blu-ray drive for $129.99--way, way less than the price of a standalone Blu-ray player.

This is a serial drive, meaning you'll need a system with a SATA interface. You'll also need a video card that supports HDCP, otherwise Blu-ray's copy protection will prevent movies from playing. Finally, Blu-ray requires a fair amount of horsepower; if you're … Read more

If you ever feel your comments in online forums are nothing but a droplet in the vast Sea of the Web, take heart. They may change the course of the next Hollywood blockbuster.

Actor, writer, and director Jon Favreau gave a shout-out to our friend the Internet Saturday, saying fans had a direct impact on his upcoming movie with their posts online. Favreau held a panel discussion to support Iron Man, a live-action movie based on the Marvel superhero, at the WonderCon comic book convention held in San Francisco over the weekend. When he wanted to cast Robert Downey Jr. … Read more

I suppose this was inevitable: Best Buy has the Xbox 360 HD DVD drive $49.99, down from $129.99 (the price still listed on Microsoft's site). You get one free movie in the box (King Kong--blech) and five by mail.

I've got one of these babies, and it's pretty good. It serves up 1080p and provides a pair of USB ports. However, it employs component video outputs, not HDMI, so it can't upconvert standard-def DVDs (unless you have an Xbox 360 Elite, which does, of course, offer HDMI connectivity). That's a pretty big downside, … Read more

With the fall of HD DVD, Blu-ray has assumed the throne as the next format of choice, but its reign will be short-lived.

Blu-ray won't enjoy the same decade-long dominance DVD did after it succeeded VHS. But that's not because there will be other challenger physical disc formats. Rather, instead of buying discs from Amazon, Best Buy or Wal-Mart, people will begin getting their entertainment in the form of digital downloads in larger volumes.

The studios backing Blu-ray already know this. At an HDTV confab last fall, Warner Bros.' vice president of high-definition media development likened HD packaged … Read more

Good deals come to those who wait. The Archos 404 portable media player sold for $299 when it debuted in late summer '06, but now you can scoop one up for just $109.99 shipped. It's a reconditioned unit, but it includes a six-month warranty (according to the product page).

The Archos 404 measures 3x4x0.6 inches, meaning it's easily compact enough to slip into a pocket. It sports a 30GB hard drive and 3.5-inch screen, and it can record line-in audio and video (with optional adapters). It supports a wide range of video, photo, and audio … Read more

Knight Rider returned last weekend in a made-for-TV movie/pilot with a new car, the Knight Industries Three Thousand (still K.I.T.T.), and a new, young driver. Of course we watched it, and would like to say we learned a lot about the world and ourselves. But the lessons we took away from the new Knight Rider were more specific to driving a high-tech car while fighting crime, something we do at CNET Car Tech almost every day (except for the fighting crime part).

Looks like Jeff Bakalar is out again, HD DVD is finally dead so we're a little sad on this show, but on the bright side Justin Yu, CNET's newest editor, joins us, and MTI fills in for Jeff...which makes the show 2/3rds better. Also, Listen in for Jumper hitting it big and Knight Rider the TV movie. The HOFF makes a guest appearance!

UPDATED: Show fixed. Thanks for the listener feed back!

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So you just bought an iPod touch or iPhone and want to stock it with movies from your DVD library. There are countless commercial utilities that promise to rip DVDs, but I recommend trying HandBrake. This open-source (read: free) utility for Windows (download), Mac (download), and Linux converts your DVDs for viewing on iPods, iPhones, Sony PSPs, and other portable media players. It's by no means new, but I just had to share my newfound appreciation for it.

I recently picked up the hilarious Flight of the Conchords on DVD. I also just acquired an iPod touch (quite simply … Read more