While Netflix caved and signed the agreement with Warner, Redbox has simply let its agreement that has been in place with Warner for a few years expire. That agreement allowed Redbox to buy new DVDs and Blu-rays in bulk at a discount directly from Warner.

By letting the agreement lapse, Redbox has done two things. The first thing is Redbox no longer has to delay the launch of new DVD and Blu-ray releases in its kiosks by the 28 days that the old Warner contract had stipulated, much less than the 56 day delay that Warner now wants. The second thing that not signing the contract has done is force Redbox to buy DVDs in bulk from retailers and wholesalers at higher prices. That could mean the rental prices at the kiosks will go up, but it should give them a competitive advantage over other outlets who have to wait if they want discounted discs for rentals. FWIW, Blockbuster made the same move with Warner recently, too.

Personally, I would gladly pay a little more money at the kiosk then have to wait two months to watch a new film that I want to see. What do you think of this move? Would you be willing to pay a little more to rent a movie if Redbox refuses to renew these contracts that force delays in getting the movies you want to see?

[via LA Times]

It was built by UK model-maker msmuse101 – with the help of her Dad – over the last few months, and it really looks great. When closed, it looks just like the iconic blue police box, but when the doors opened up, it conceals eight shelves for books – or in msmuse’s case – her DVD collection.

Unfortunately, she didn’t capture any photos during construction, nor any directions for making your own, but that’s okay. How many of you were really going to run out and start building one tonight anyhow? Check out more photos and discussion about the Tardis Bookcase over at The RPF. Great job, msmuse101 (and Dad!)

Netflix CEO Reed “Hasty decisions” Hastings said:

It is clear that for many of our members two websites would make things more difficult, so we are going to keep Netflix as one place to go for streaming and DVDs. This means no change: one website, one account, one password… in other words, no Qwikster… Consumers value the simplicity Netflix has always offered and we respect that… There is a difference between moving quickly… and moving too fast, which is what we did in this case.

What will this crazy company do next? Stay tuned.

[via Netflix]

The average CD weighs about .15 grams, so the weight adds up nicely and you can make the dumbbell weigh whatever weight you want. Sadly, it’s just a concept right now, but hopefully these become a reality. It would be nice to use those CDs for something besides drink coasters.

[via Yanko Design via Geeky-Gadgets]

Well, if you’ve got $3500 to spare, have I got something for you! This animatronic door is one of the best scares I’ve seen in a while, and there’s one for sale right now over on Etsy.

As you can see from the photo above, this door has a nasty surprise hidden inside of it. Here, watch the video and you’ll see what I mean:

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

Nice effect, eh? Especially that part when it looks like the axe is chopping through the door, right? The effect is achieved with a 22-inch LCD monitor, along with a special DVD from Hi-Rez Designs which has DTMF tracks which cue the pneumatics behind the door at just the right time. They even offer up build instructions for customers who want to build one for themselves.

While you could try and build your own door, it’s probably way easier to pick up this one that’s already built over on Etsy, from the appropriately named “999deadpatricia”. And if you don’t have $3500 to spare, you could always just pick up the DVD, and just play that on a monitor (without the pneumatics).

I so want to replace my front door with this for Halloween this year.

There are already programs that can create virtual drives for loading ISO files and other disk images, but the Isostick is a huge step up from these programs. First of all, you can boot from the Isostick. It even has its own bootloader so you can change the CD or DVD image before booting. It’s very user-friendly too. Just move or copy ISO files into the Isostick like you would a normal file. Since it’s also a flash drive you can add other files to it too, you don’t even have to configure or separate the ISO files from non-ISO files. Watch the video for more information:

The Isostick will be a very useful tool not just for computer technicians but for gamers and even ordinary computer users as well. Imagine being able to carry multiple discs’ worth of game installers, software installers and even operating systems – all those discs and an optical drive in just one small flash drive.

As of this writing, the Isostick only supports ISO files, but Elegant Invention is also working on supporting other formats like BIN, CUE and DMG. One other feature that would make a lot of people happy is support for other file systems. You can partition the Isostick like any other drive, but currently the Isostick’s virtual optical drive can only read from a partition that’s in FAT32. Mac users – imagine if they can make it mount DMG files and read from HFS+. Effortless booting and installing an OS from USB? Yes please! I wonder if it’s possible to install Windows on a Mac using the Isostick.

The Isostick will be available in 8GB, 16GB and 32GB formats. As of this writing Elegant Invention still has 21 days to raise more funds at Kickstarter, but they’ve already met their target amount so there’s a good chance that it will see the light of day. No word yet on how much the final products will cost, but if you pledge at least $125 (USD), you’ll be one of the first to get an Isostick. Visit Kickstarter to pledge or to find out more about this handy invention. You can also check out Elegant Invention’s blog for more info.

[via TechCrunch]

I say “most of” because Heck designed the main components of the system and left it purposefully unfinished to allow the viewer who wins the device in a contest to complete the works. If I won, I would never get the thing to work correctly. Heck gutted an old CD carousel and has the enclosure and software for the system written already. I’m not sure what that would leave the user to finish.

The completed project will hold multiple video games and automatically swap the titles for you using a remote. Apparently, the device has some sort of mechanism to slip the discs into the Xbox 360 as well. I’d really like to see the finished product work to get an idea what all this thing entails.

At this week’s CES, JVC unveiled a cool new double-DIN car stereo with some really neat features – the KW-AVX840. The thing has a 7-inch motorized LCD on the front that supports touch input and has a proximity sensor. The face of the radio is detachable and it has integrated Bluetooth. Other features include a USB port that allows control of the iPhone or iPod connected to it and it has an external mode for playing content from your iPhone on the screen.

The receiver supports all sorts of digital files, has a 7-band EQ, and MOS-FET 50W x 4 channel output along with three sets of 4V pre-outs, and is ready to work with your steering wheel controls. It also supports dual zone and dual play features. It will ship in March for $649.95 (USD).

Can you see that? A mile away? Yeah, I think that’s Nintendo’s lawyers. Before they get here, let’s rundown the specs and features of this device. It has a 7-inch LCD, A/V in and out connections, a USB port and even an SD card slot, so you’re pretty much covered there in terms of connections.

Yes, a couple of CDs containing hundreds of NES and SNES ROMs are also bundled. The Nintendo lawyers just put on their jetpacks, and are headed towards Chinavision’s headquarters. But hey, you’re on the Internet, so you can easily overtake them. You know that it’s dangerous to go alone, so take this device for $175 (USD). Warp to Chinavision’s website to order.

[via Coolest Gadgets]

I stopped watching The Simpsons a long time ago, but I have always enjoyed the craziness of Futurama. The show doesn’t have any pretenses to teach moral lessons, which is what I really disliked in The Simpsons after a while. It’s just always been a bit more edgy – and with more geek appeal.

It’s great to see this show on another network after Fox canceled it. Anyway, if you haven’t seen the show before this season, you should get this DVD package which will get you totally caught up to speed on the antics of Bender, Leela, Fry, Dr. Zoidberg and the whole Planet Express crew. The collection sells for $105 (USD) over at Amazon.

[via NotCot]

If you don’t like putting your CD or DVDs up either, but want something a bit more colorful than simply laying the discs on your desk, the Kisses Compact Disk Rest is for you. The things look like the little Hersey’s chocolates of the same name.

You take you CD or DVD and sit the hole onto the point of the Kisses holder and it holds your CD. The things aren’t cheap at $17.50 (USD). I think you could probably buy about 500 real chocolate kisses for that much, use them to hold your CDs, and eat them in a pinch.

At the front and center of Hyundai’s portable boombox is an oversized 12.1-inch LCD monitor. The spec sheet says the screen is 1280 x 800, but from the pictures I’ve seen, I’m not sure that’s really the case. It’s not like you’re going to be watching Hi-Def video on this thing anyhow. Unlike the classic ghetto blaster, these new compact stereos are all about the image, and not the sound. As a matter of fact, the speakers on this boombox have taken a serious backseat to the screen.

The Hyundai HY-1210 is all about watching movies and TV – not listening to your jamz. The portable has a built-in DVD player, and can play content in VCD, DVD, CD, CD-R, JPEG, MP3, MPEG-4, AVI formats. There’s even a Karaoke feature built-in so you can sing along. And if you don’t have any DVDs lying around, there are USB and SD/MMC/MS slots for watching media stored on digital memory devices. And there’s a VGA connector on the back for some reason too. I can officially say this is the first boombox EVER with a VGA port.

Unfortunately, the TV tuner is analog, so you won’t be able to tune in stations in many parts of the world. At least you can listen to the FM radio when you’re not watching those Harajuku girls on screen. And with a 10-watt per channel stereo amp under the hood, audio actually isn’t that bad. One other technological advancement – this boombox only needs 8 “C”-Cell batteries – so we have made progress in the last 25 years or so. Maybe by 2035, we’ll have OLED boomboxes that run on 8 “AAA” batteries.

The Hyundai HY-1210 boombox can be yours over at ChinaGrabber for $219.99 (USD).

The CVGI-E28 projector is a low-cost LED based projector that’s got all sorts of stuff built in. Sure, you can hook up your standard video sources via VGA, HDMI, S-Video or composite inputs, but that would be boring. Under the hood of this projector is a complete multimedia system, including a built-in DVD player, and digital media player and video game system. It’s even got stereo speakers built in.

Of course, anything that’s this much of a jack-of-all-trades is bound to be a master of none. The projector cranks out an anemic 640×480 resolution, and the video game console only plays cheap knock-off version of Wii Sports called AllSports. It even comes with a pair of RF motion-sensing controller that looks like a Wii-mote that’s missing a chromosome. Given the likely DNA of the gaming system, there’s an outside shot that it’ll emulate games from classic 8-bit/16-bit systems too, but I wouldn’t bet on it.

In addition to DVDs and video games, the projector has a USB and an SD/MMC slot which let you play your digital audio, video files and view photos on screen. The region-free DVD player can also be used to play back AVI, MPEG, XVID, MP3, WMA and JPEG files too. There’s even a (very soon to be obsolete) analog TV tuner if you manage to get this thing in your hands before June 12th when those stations go dark in the U.S. Now that’s what I call “planned obsolecence”.

The all-in-one CVGI-E28 multimedia projector is available over at Chinavasion for about $350 (USD).

Featuring such greats as David Hasselhoff, Christopher Plummer and Marjoe Gortner, this 1979 low-budget schlock ripoff on Star Wars’ popularity was originally titled Starcrash, but later got renamed to Female Space Invaders, presumably because video games were starting to take off, or LucasFilm sued them. Either way, all I know is that the movie features boobs, lightsabers, horribly bad acting, terrible special effects, and nary a Space Invader among the bunch. Where do I sign up?

Here’s a quick synopsis from the seller of this obscure DVD: “Former model and Bond girl Caroline Monroe plays Stella Star, an intergalactic smuggler. Along with her partner Akton, she’s on the run from cosmic cops Thor and L (a robotic cowboy with a Texan accent) when they come across the sole survivor of a space battle instigated by the villainous Zarth Arn. Captured by their pursuers, but with the knowledge of Zarth Arn’s dastardly deed, they are brought before the Emperor of the Galaxy (Christopher Plummer), who asks of the four a special task: to find Zarth Arn and destroy him before he can use his super weapon to conquer the galaxy!”

But enough of my yakking. This preview clip from the movie pretty much sums it all up:

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

Ok, now if only they changed that opening title from “You are about to be HURLED” to “You are about to HURL”, it might be more accurate. I suppose if you’re looking to do your own little MST3K party and want a REALLY bad flick to throw out non-sequitirs at, this could be the one. You can find a copy of it over on eBay for the low, low starting bid of $4.99.

Featuring an substantive 14-inch LCD screen (1024×768 resolution), the compact DVD system has a built-in NES emulator, and comes with a pair of gamepads so you can satisfy that 8-bit Nintendo craving wherever you go.

The screen can swivel 180 degrees, and when you’re done playing DVDs and NES games, there’s a karaoke mode and a (soon-to-be-obsolete analog) TV tuner on board. The player also has a USB port and SD/MS/MMC card slots, so you can play back your digital media files too.

And if you can’t figure out a way to get your old favorites loaded onto the system, that’s okay, because the player includes a disc with 300 retro games (I’m guessing that the guys at Nintendo had nothing to do with that).

Want one? You better hurry on over to Chinavasion and plunk down your $246.25 before Nintendo’s lawyers find out about this thing.

Even though Maxx doesn’t win any awards for originality, the PDV-8500BLK does look like a pretty capable portable DVD player. The player features a nice 8.5-inch LCD widescreen, and can play videos in DVD, DVD+/-R, DVD+/-RW, CD, CD-R/RW, VCD and SVCD formats. There’s also support for JPEG, MP3 and MPEG4 files via a built-in SD, MMS/MS card reader slot. About the only thing it won’t play is video games or UMD discs — but you’ve got a PSP for that already, right?

So if you think the PSP’s screen is just too small to watch movies on, you can supersize with one of these players for about $120 over on Amazon.

[via ChipChick]

Not only can the visor play DVDs, audio and video files, it can play retro video games on its 7-inch LCD 16×9 widescreen display. Just hook up one or two (included) gamepads and you can play a number of emulated 8-bit games (many of which come on an included disc).

The jack-of-all-trades plays DVD, SVCD, VCD, DVCD, CD, CDG, CD-R and CD-RW discs, as well as digital media files stored in MP4, MP3, WMA or JPEG formats. It can even send game or movie audio to your car’s stereo thanks to a built-in FM transmitter.

Thankfully, it looks like this is only available as a passenger (right hand) visor, so you shouldn’t be able to play while you drive (unless you happen to live in England or another right-hand drive part of the world, of course). If you’re ready to turn your car into an accident waiting to happen, you can pick up the system from Chinavasion for just over $100.

[BTW: I don't remember James Bond shooting hoops in Tomorrow Never Dies either].

Perfect for a kitchen countertop or any other place where you don’t need a big screen, Philips DCP951/37 Docking Entertainment System moves away from the clamshell case design to a flat, one-piece design that can stand up on its own. The player features a 9-inch diagonal LCD screen and built-in stereo speakers.

A handy iPod dock/charger pops out of the side of the player, keeping it out of harm’s way until you need it. In addition to playback from DVD or iPod, there’s a built-in SD/MMC card slot if you prefer to keep your media on memory cards. It supports a wide variety of playback formats including DVD, DVD+/-R and DVD+/-RW, (S)VCD, DivX & MPEG4 videos.

Since the player’s DNA comes from Philips portable DVD line, it’s also got a rechargeable battery, so you can take it on the road. You should get enough time to watch about 2.5 hours of video on a single charge.

The only real downside that I can see to this player is the displays less-than-stellar 640×220 resolution. For a 9-inch screen that’s pretty darned weak. As long as you can deal with the low display resolution, the DCP951 looks like a good fit for tight spaces and can perform double-duty as a portable.

You can find it over on Amazon for $199.99.

[via Chip Chick]

Created by Japan’s Kyouei Design, this minimal DVD contains a rainbow of soothing colors that you can display on your TV screen. It’s perfect for all those times you’re not engrossed in the latest episode of America’s Next Great Biggest 5th Grade Loser, or when you’re completely fed up with the writers’ strike.

The Color Light DVD offers a truly mellow light show, gradually dissolving through its spectrum of colors in about 20 minutes. I’m already chilling out just looking at the pictures, so I can only imagine how sleep-inducing this would be in my darkened living room.

The disc is available from the designboom shop for $19 (plus $7 shipping). [FYI, the disc isn't region-encoded, so it should play anywhere in the world.]

The player includes CyberLink’s PowerDVD BD Edition, providing playback of Blu-ray discs on your computer screen. In addition to store-bought Blu-ray movies, the player supports discs burned in MPEG-2 or H.264 format, and standard DVD discs or recorded DVDs encoded with MPEG-2 or AVCHD formats.

The $199.95 BDU-X10S is available for pre-order now and should start shipping later this month.