After being announced in early June, Anandtech recently put the Western Digital WD TV Live Plus through its paces and discovered the Netflix enhancement works as advertised. Like many Netflix-enabled devices though, the TV Live comes up short compared to the full PC experience since access is limited to only the Instant Queue. Its presence also sacrifices firmware hackability -- a quality which previously made up for the WD TV Live's lack of versatility as an HTPC. The ability to move, copy, and manage locally stored media files via the interface, on the other hand, was praised as a unique advantage over competing models -- exciting, we know. Sadly, video quality was docked as being "significantly less than the HTPC counterparts they've seen so far." However, it's possible this could be improved in the future via firmware updates, since its Sigma Designs processor features noise reduction and deinterlacing algorithms that strangely aren't currently enabled. File format-wise, DVD ISOs worked flawlessly, while Blu-ray ISO and some WMV video formats experienced issues that users may want to read up on before buying. Gripes aside though, Anandtech was still willing to place it "around the top of the list" for media player devices, thanks to its wide file compatibility and robust features. For more details, hit the review source link.

Don't have the NFL Network but still want to catch every single pre-season NFL game in HD? Well you finally have an option with NFL Preseason Live. It'll cost you $40 for the over 50 live broadcasts, as well as on demand access, but what is particularly cool is access to either team's radio broadcast (we assume it is synced up to the video) as well as enhancements like Big Play Markers -- whatever that is. If you click through you can get a taste of what it's like by watching last year's Super Bowl, looks good up to 3Mbps. Now before you get all excited about the idea that this is a prelude to regular season games coming to the internet, just hold on there. The pre-season games are night and day when compared to regular season when you're talking licensing rights. While the regular season rights are part of some of the biggest TV deals ever, the pre-season rights are usually sold to local affiliates; which always makes it fun to see the quality of the broadcast with considerably smaller budgets.

What we're watching tonight:

• CBS (1080i) has Flashpoint at 10 p.m.
• NBC (1080i) has Friday Night Lights at 8 p.m.
• Discovery (1080i) has Man, Woman, Wild at 9 p.m. and Dual Survival at 10 p.m.
• MyNetworkTV (720p) has WWE Smackdown at 8 p.m.
• Syfy (1080i) has Eureka at 9 p.m. and Haven at 10 p.m.
• History (720p) has the season premiere of Modern Marvels at 9 & 9:30 p.m.
• TLC (1080i) has the season finale of Say Yes to the Dress at 9 p.m., series premiere of Say Yes to the Dress: Atlanta at 9:30 p.m. and the season finale of DC Cupcakes at 10 & 10:30 p.m.
• HBO (1080i) has the season finale of The Neistat Brothers at 11:59 p.m.
• ESPN (720p) has X Games 16 at 7 p.m.

Kick-Ass comes to Blu-ray next week, and it seems Lionsgate has been dropping clips of the special features all over the web in preparation for its release. Not surprisingly for a studio with a rep for pushing the technological limits, it has plenty of Blu-ray exclusives planned, including "Ass Kicking Bonus View Mode" to draw together commentary, background footage and graphics along with the movie, and the "A New Kind of Superhero: The Making of Kick-Ass" documentary. Check out the most recent clip from MovieWeb embedded after the break, along with a few others TheHDRoom has found floating around the net, and check out the movie when it's released August 3.

Remember Panasonic's DMP-B15? You know, that "world's first portable Blu-ray player" that was introduced at CES and just started shipping last month? With an $800 price tag, there's a good chance you never even let the thing enter your stream of consciousness, but we can only wish you the best of luck as you try to ignore this one. RCA has quietly started to ship its BRC3108 10-inch portable Blu-ray player, which is equipped with a rechargeable battery, integrated stereo speakers, a headphone jack, 1080p HDMI output and bundled car / AC adapters alongside a carrying bag with headrest attachment for in-car use. The mini player lists for $349.99 on Amazon, and it's already starting to appear in select Target locations. You'll notice that Amazon still shows the device as being available for pre-order, and even the Target model didn't have a shelf tag yet. That said, we're sure someone in the back can pull some strings if you wave your credit card around long enough.

Update: Looks like it's listed at $299.99 at Target -- image is after the break. Thanks, Thomas!

[Thanks, Scott]

It's really no surprise that Redbox is going nationwide with its $1.50 Blu-ray rentals, at every step along the way of its Hollwood dealmaking, the company has pointed out its aim towards procuring a supply of high definition movies, and now the day is finally here. The high definition disc packing kiosks currently number 13,300, and the plan is to have Blu-ray in all 26,000 locations by the fall. While we spotted plenty of Blu-ray enabled locations with a San Francisco zip code, other areas in the Midwest and East Coast weren't so lucky. The site points out a few of the movies on offer, including Green Zone, Book of Eli and Bounty Hunter, but there's no way to check which movies are in stock at each box. Of course, at this price, we might be willing to take our chances until Redbox gets things straightened out, or starts offering an online competitor to Netflix.

What we're watching tonight:

• USA (1080i) has Burn Notice at 9 p.m. and Royal Pains at 10 p.m.
• WGN (1080i) has WWE Superstars at 8 p.m.
• Syfy (1080i) has Mary Knows Best at 9 p.m. and Fact or Faked at 10 p.m.
• ABC (720p) has Rookie Blue at 9 p.m. and Boston Med at 10 p.m.
• Comedy Central (1080i) has Futurama at 10 p.m.
• TLC (1080i) has Police Women of Memphis at 9 p.m. and Cellblock 6: Female Lock Up at 10 p.m.
• Food Network (1080i) has Ace of Cakes at 10 p.m.
• MTV (1080i) has the season premiere of Jersey Shore at 10 p.m.
• ESPN, ESPN 3D (720p) has X Games 16 at 8 p.m.

The two way cable standard once incorrectly referred to as CableCARD 2.0 is officially dead as far as consumers are concerned. Tru2way was originally touted as a way to integrate 3rd party HDTVs and set-tops boxes with all the services cable providers have to offer, is now just yet another proprietary cable technology. At one point Sony and most of the big TV manufacturers had promised to released TVs that integrated the feature, but only Panasonic was actually selling them in a few select trial markets. We knew something was up when cable providers missed their July '09 deadline to support 3rd party devices across the country, and then when tru2way integrated TVs were missing in action at CES 2010, we had already declared the idea dead. Now even Panasonic is pulling its Panasonic tru2way sets and is instead focusing on a set-back box (pictured above) that will be, wait for it, supplied and supported by the service provider. We were as optimistic as anyone about tru2way, but honestly thought it was far from the ideal solution. It is hard to say what is going to happen at this point, but the next tech to step up and try to free people from big cable's set-top tyranny is AllVid, and sadly it probably has just as much of a chance as any to be successful.

Don't have a 3DTV setup yet, but still want to get a piece of ESPN 3D's X Games 16 production? Grab a map and find the nearest Sony Style -- and hope it's open past 8 tonight, past 7 Saturday -- since they will be displaying the broadcasts during store hours. Tonight's featured event is Moto X Freestyle, while Saturday the rally cars and their in-car 3D cameras take center stage. If you get a chance to check it out, let us know what you think, or if any other retailers are taking advantage of some new 3D content to try and get customers in the door.

Do you really have to check the calendar to know what time of year it is? That's right baby, it's Shark Week, and as usual, Discovery's taking a midsummer break to bring everything shark related to its prime time lineup. This year, Discovery follows up on one of the most-watched Shark Week specials of all time, Air Jaws, with Ultimate Air Jaws August 1 at 9 p.m., with 2,000 fps HD footage of great white sharks leaping out of the water to attack seals. Even if that's not enough details (and time, with one second of footage expanded to an entire minute) to count every tooth in the shark's mouth as the press release breathlessly claims, then check out Into the Shark Bite, where they inserted high speed HD cameras -- where else -- directly into a shark's jaws.

After unveiling the standard college football schedule, ESPN has seen fit to reveal the first three of the 13 games it plans to broadcast in 3D this season. Boise State will face Virginia Tech on September 6, a Monday night, while Ohio State and Miami will do battle September 11, before Clemson and Auburn have their ACC grudge match September 18. The plan is to have a college football game on ESPN 3D "almost" every week of the season, with the last being the BCS National Championship game January 10. Announcements regarding NBA, college basketball and Winter X Games 15 scheduling are on deck, but this weekend it's all about the Summer X Games 16.

After a few years of teasing and smoke blowing, the HomePlug Powerline Alliance has finally released the skinny on major enhancements we can expect to see integrated into the HomePlug AV2 powerline networking specification that's scheduled for finalization in Q1 of 2011. Chief among them is MIMO (Multiple-Inputs Multiple-Outputs), which will expand home coverage by increasing the throughput speeds, and transmission ranges, without additional signal power or requiring more spectrum -- but you knew already that didn't you, MacGyver? Compounding this efficiency gain will be the expansion of the operating spectrum by an order of magnitude. Tallied together with other upgrades, the end result for consumers will be a "reported" 5x increase in performance, not to mention support for bigger, more reliable networks. Oh, and it'll also play nicely with original HomePlug AV technology, too. Frankly, that's jolly good news for our dreams of pushing 1080p HD video streams to every room in our house with an outlet -- including the pantry. Doing the same thing for 3D and 4K HD content... well, that's just brilliant! For more details peep the PR below the break.

Every HDTV purchase comes with its own set of considerations, and for our friend Philip, the main one is playing videogames. You can keep your THX certifications and internet connected widgets, we need to know what will contribute to the greatest kill/death ratio, period:

"I just graduated and moved to a new city so I'm finally ready to buy my first HDTV. I watch TV and some football every now and then, but my main obsession is gaming, specifically Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 and Super Street Fighter IV. I've been scraping by playing with my Xbox 360 connected to a computer monitor for now, but when it comes to a nice 50- or 55-inch display, which one has the least amount of input lag so I can keep my k/d ratio up and count frames properly for combos and counters?"

Everyone has their something, and we're sure more than a few of you are just as focused on your television's gaming performance as anything else, so why not help him out. Let us know what TVs you're using, and if necessary, what settings or gaming modes work the best so you're not a frame or two behind at crucial moments.

Got a burning question that you'd love to toss out for Engadget HD (or its readers) to take a look at? Tired of Google's blank stares when you ask for real-world experiences? Hit us up at ask at engadgethd dawt com and keep an eye on this space -- your inquiry could be next.

The good news is now there's a dedicated page on the Redbox website for finding kiosks stocked with $1.50/night rental Blu-ray discs, but the bad news is... we can't find one anywhere near our zip code. Apparently if we did live on such hallowed ground, it would even point out recent Blu-ray movies added to the kiosks making the decision to watch Matt Damon in The Green Zone tonight as easy as possible. Hit the source link to begin your own search for high definition movies, hopefully it turns out better than ours so far.

The Sky 3D channel has so far been officially available only in 1,500 or so UK pubs, but now its residential launch for all Sky+HD customers is slated for October 1. The 2010 Ryder Cup will serve as a launch event with three days of live coverage from Celtic Manor as the US and European teams do battle; the first ever in 3D, but the third such event it's covered in high definition. Golf fans won't be the only ones catered to, Premier League football will be returning once the season starts and today's announcement coincided with a SkyArts 3D filming arranged by the English National Ballet. Hollywood's major studios have already agreed to provide 3D movies including Bolt, Monsters vs. Aliens, Harry Potter & The Half Blood Prince and more, while Sky has commissioned its own original 3D flick, Flying Monsters presented by Sir David Attenborough. Not quite ready for the 3D revolution? Feel free to put that on the backburner -- at least until the 2012 London Olympics -- as the network is also adding content from HBO, a large slate of new comedies, Anytime+ VOD, and a Sky Mobile TV iPad app. With an HD channel count of 43 and plans to reach 50 by year-end, there should be a little something there for everyone to enjoy.

The debut of X Games 16 and its 8 hours of live 3D broadcast is nearly upon us, and for the first time in ESPN 3D's short history, viewers outside the US will be able to get a look at the action. The lucky country is Australia (already known for being ahead of the curve on 3D) and it appears that AUSTAR won't be content letting Foxtel take the lead like it did with HD, since both will have the network on channel 206 on Friday, July 30 from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. AEST and Sunday, August 1 from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. AEST. All iQ2 and MyStar HD subs (with 3DTVs of course) should have access to the channel -- check the press release after the break for any other details and prepare for some morning extreme sports with your toast & baked beans.

Sure we knew the PlayStation 3 had added search to its Watch Instantly repertoire (some of you have known longer than others) but just in case, there's a post on the official Netflix blog from VP of product development Greg Peters saying so. The truly interesting element is that this may be just the tip of the iceberg for any Netflix watcher, as he explains this upgrade is a result of the company's "continuous improvement architecture" that will allow it to add more features. No word on specifically what "cool features" (closed captions? 1080p? surround sound? offline viewing?) could be in store, but we certainly can't wait to find out. Seriously -- we can't wait, we want to know right now. Tell us.

What we're watching tonight:

• NBC (1080i) airs Minute to Win It at 8 p.m. and America's Got Talent at 9 p.m.
• CW (1080i) has the series premiere of Plain Jane at 9 p.m.
• TLC (1080i) has Toddlers & Tiaras at 10 p.m.
• USA (1080i) has Psych at 10 p.m
• Travel (1080i) has Man v. Food at 9 p.m. and Bert the Conqueror at 10 p.m.
• History (720p) has Chasing Mummies at 10 p.m.
• Spike TV (1080i) has Pros vs. Joes at 10 p.m. and Players at 11 p.m.
• Discovery (1080i) has Mythbusters at 9 p.m.
• Showtime (1080i) has Inside NASCAR at 10 p.m.
• Food (1080i) has 24 Hour Restaurant Battle at 10 p.m.
• MTV (1080i) has The Real World at 10 p.m.
• A&E (720p) has Billy the Exterminator at 10 p.m.
• TBS (1080i) has Meet the Browns at 10 & 10:30 p.m.
• ESPN (720p) has Cardinals/ Mets baseball at 7 p.m.
• ESPN2 (720p) has Manchester United/MLS All-Stars Soccer at 8:30 p.m.

Sony talked up its cylindrical no-glasses 3D 360-degree prototype display last fall, and now it's showing off the tech, dubbed RayModeler 3D, on US soil at SIGGRAPH 2010 through tomorrow. A major bonus of that showcase is an English language video -- embedded after the break, plus a hands on including a game of Pong Breakout from Core77 and our videos from the Japanese exhibition -- showing how it all works, including the eight-camera rig and turntable that capture objects in 45-degree separations before they are interpolated to create a continuous 360-degree motion image. Sony claims this is the first of its type capable of high quality images, full color and interactive live motion -- check it out and imagine keeping a tiny 3D pet or floating, disembodied head on your bedside table, where it can respond and react to your every gesture. We wouldn't want our blip-verts any other way.

In keeping with plans to re-release two of its 14 classics each year, trailers on the Blu-ray edition of James & the Giant Peach reveal The Lion King (Diamond Edition) and Alice in Wonderland (Special 60th Anniversary Edition) will arrive in high definition next year. No real word on specs yet, but we'd expect to see the same care taken in remastering and restoring the audio and video to its highest quality that's been seen on previous releases. HighDefDiscNews has plenty of screengrabs and the two trailers (embedded after the break) so now with plenty of advance warning you can get the kids ready (or have them, if necessary) in preparation for 2011's obligatory combo pack purchase.

Update: The videos are gone, forced down by Disney's legal hounds no doubt, but trust us -- they were real and they were spectacular.