Australians have another way to hire movies from the couch with the launch of TiVo's Blockbuster movie download service

Sony has raised the bar for action and sports fans with the first 200Hz television promising silky smooth motion. So how noticeable are the results?

When everything from your movie collection to your photo album is digital, why would you want to watch it all on a tiny monitor with tinny speakers while your big television and surround sound sits idle in the lounge room?

DVD is said to be to movies what CD was to music. Well-filmed DVD movies are better in all respects than those recorded on VHS, so the idea of a digital video camera recording direct to DVD disc would appear sound.

Now that Blu-ray has won the format war and recorders are hitting the shelves, Panasonic's DMR-BW500 HDD/Blu-ray recorder with twin HD TV tuners is looking mighty nice indeed. For high-def buffs this is one with the lot.

2003 is going to be remembered as the year of the Matrix glut, with two movies, A multi-platform computer game and DVD releases across the year. Rumours are that there is even another game coming out, although this one may not hit until 2004. For now, in between Matrix Reloaded and Matrix Revolutions theatrical releases is the release of the companion DVD, Animatrix.

Sony’s new laptop sports a Blu-ray writer and one of Intel’s latest Penryn processors, but it’s overpriced.

A great still camera with a decent movie mode. The restrictions on movie length mean it’s only any good for short video ‘snapshots’, though, and not ideal for that holiday of a lifetime

This unit plays more than just your rental movies and existing DVD discs, it's also capable of VBR MP3, WMA, JPEG, PhotoCD, HDCD Xvid, AVI, MPEG layers 1, 2, and 4 play, the latter of which is more commonly referred to as DivX, named after the compression codec.

Video editing can make or break those home movies of your latest adventure or that important business presentation. Until recently you only had the choice of some expensive professional, or some fairly crude software packages, but over recent years Ulead has put video editing within the reach of most video camera users, and at a reasonable price.

Acer brings 3D to the masses with a 3D screen on a mainstream laptop

Add high-definition reading and writing capabilities to your PC with a Blu-ray drive, or save money with a plain DVD writer

The difference between 'plus' and 'minus' DVD writers comes down to features. Despite some headway being made by the companies pushing DVD-RW, DVD+RW is still a more flexible format for those interested in creating movies and storing data.

The TViX is a fairly small box, roughly about the same size as a good DVD box-set, but inside it's got some amazing smarts. This also technically isn't a media streamer as such - it's more a media cacher thanks to the 80GB hard drive inside.

According to analysts at IDC (International Data Group),DVD is now the fastestgrowing consumer electronic technology ever.

Small screen, but it's packed with features, including DivX playback, slot loading DVD, HDMI, and a digital TV tuner.

Another big name brand PC gets a cutting-edge, all-format, high-def optical drive capable of playing Blu-ray and HD DVD.

It turns out that Microsoft [I]is[/I] bringing out Windows XP Media Center Edition in Australia, but until such time as it materialises -- and Microsoft Australia is being very sketchy on the dates -- those of us looking to integrate our PC media files with our televisions and hi-fi systems have to turn to bridging solutions.

Watching DivX movies in bed on your 17inch laptop is ok, but stick this wireless speaker nearby and the experience will be as close to home cinema as you'll get with a laptop.

While it might seem like a good idea, the Seagate FreeAgent Theater is more novelty than useful. And the price point is not as competitive as others in this range.