Pansonic has itself its first new home theater in a box (HTiB) system with an integrated Blu-Ray Disc player set to go on sale. It is called the SC-BT100 and you’ll find it for around $1,000.

The Panasonic SC-BT100 includes speakers and a subwoofer for a 5.1 channel experience. It can be upgraded to wireless full 7.1 channel sound with the optional purchase of two side speakers and a transceiver. The included Blu-ray Disc player has “the Final Standard Profile for advanced functions such as Bonus View and audio mixing, which allows the consumer to switch the sound between the main and sub windows.”

Gefen wants to help you push HDMI over a distance as well as offering control from a remote source. It is introducing its HDMI RS-232 CAT-5 Extender for around $600.

The Gefen HDMI RS-232 CAT-5 Extender lets one adjust their displays, change settings and access audio/video sources from up to 50 meters (150-feet) in distance. Sender and receiver units connect the A/V source to the remote display using category-5 cables that transmit 1080p full HD resolutions as well as RS-232.

Onkyo has released an upgrade to its TX-SR605, HDMI 1.3a home theater receiver with the announcement of the TX-SR606, while still keeping the price under $600. This new model comes similar to the original but with two more HDMI inputs added in which bring the total to four. They’ve also added in 1080i video upscaling, Audyssey’s new Dynamic EQ loudness compensation technology and the companies new Music Optimizer.

This is an impressive set up for the price, allowing four high-definition video inputs each with high-def 7.1-channel surround sound, and will also convert non-high-def signals up to 1080i. Aside from the new add-ons, the TX-SR606 receiver comes equipped with a 90 watt-per-channel amp, Remote Interactive HDMI control, has a number of surround sound codecs and is equipped to handle Sirius Satellite Radio.

Onkyo wants you to feel the home theater in a box (HTiB) love as it unleashed today three new entry level systems which only require a HDTV to get them going. The Onkyo HT-S5100, HT-S4100 and HT-S3100 will be available in April with suggested retail prices of around $580, $480 and $380, respectively.

Key highlights of these systems include a HDTV-capable audio-video receiver, five or seven surround-sound loudspeakers, powerful subwoofer and an included iPod docking station. These of course vary depending upon the specific system. For more details, read the full release after the jump.

This HTPC has some really nice specs, which include a quad-core Intel processor at 3GHz, 3GB of RAM and NVIDIA’s GeForce 8600GT with HDMI out and PureVideo HD support. Plus, you can get the unit in the color of any automotive paint you want from a basic glossy black to $10k gold-flaked. Nice!

It’s also got a 32GB SSD drive for the OS and a 1TB drive for media storage, although you’ll probably want to upgrade that to 2TB if your media collection is huge. It can also play both HD-DVD and Blu-Ray discs. Windows Vista Ultimate comes pre-installed and of course card readers and everything else you might expect. Which is good because the base price is just under $6k.

How many well known consumer electronics brands can be shoved under one stable? We may soon find out as word has come from the Land of the Rising Sun that Harman International has bid for D&M Holdings in a sale which could run the former around $700 million.

This bid, according to Bloomberg, first surfaced on Friday. This potential acquisition bumped up D&M stock in Tokyo. If this purchase were to go through, a news article from the Japan Corporate News Network suggests Harman would ending up taking “a dominant share in the global audio …

Polk Audio has apparently begun shipments of a Sirius tuner component product it first announced late last year. The Polk Audio SR-H1000 is now available for around $350.

Sony has got to be the proprietary technology king. It seems like a new CE season hardly goes by where it isn’t unveiling something. This year’s offering is its wireless S-Air technology, appearing in a variety of new home theater systems and accessories.

$6 million is a lot of money, no doubt. What would you do with that much cash if you had it? One possible option is to hit up audiophile Jeremy Kipnis to set up for you his self described Kipnis Studio Standard. Think of it as the ultimate home theater experience.

The Kipnis Studio Standard is described by writer Steve Guttenberg as being “all about aggressively advancing the state of the art of picture and sound presentation.” Kipnis has installed in this uber-amazing screen room a massive screen which showcases video projected from “a Sony ultra-high-resolution (4,096-by-2,160) SRX-S110 digital projector.” Damm.

If you have the money, they will build it for you. That’s the motto to run through your head if you have enough cash to layout for a custom home theater from the likes of Elite Home Theater Seating. The company showed off today its themed Batman “Bat Cave” theater.

Elite HTS, as the company calls itself, has its setups in many high profile locations, including Harrods department store in London, Technicolor Studios and American High Definition in Los Angeles. The latter location is reportedly used for “many private Hollywood screenings of upcoming feature films.”

Home theater buffs take note: United Plastics may have developed a new technology which could enhance your audio experience: acoustic panels you mount on your walls. These new My Theater Acoustic Panels are currently on display at CES.

The My Theater Acoustic Panels, according to United Plastics, improve “speaker sound quality by reducing reflective sound waves that bounce off hard surfaces like walls, floors, and tables.” Installation of these is reportedly a simple process of hanging them on the wall might like you would hang a piece of art.

Home theater stands are normally a pretty boring item to read about. Sony has put a flair though to a new one it is displaying at CES. It’s called the Sony Sound Wall RHT-S10.

The Sony Sound Wall RHT-S10 is a home theater stand with an included surround sound system. It specifically offers “Sony’s first 5.1 channel surround sound system to offer built-in speakers, an amplifier and a subwoofer in one slim speaker package.” It is attached to “a free-standing wall facade that also serves as a mount for a television. Wires are hidden behind the wall and connected to an integrated A/V rack anchored at the base of the media stand.”

Bowers & Wilkins is showcasing some rather interesting new pieces of audio gear during CES. One of these is the Bowers & Wilkins Liberty, a new integrated wireless entertainment system which will launch this fall.

The Bowers & Wilkins Liberty is a 5.1 system which sports wireless, cable-free speakers. The range of products in this system can include four speaker models and one combined digital radio and disc player with a wireless transmitter. The four speakers are the three-way, floor standing XTW 8, the two-way XTW 2 and XTW Centre bookshelf/stand speakers, and the PVW 1 subwoofer.

Little by little technology continues to work towards integrating your digital life with the not-yet digital portions of your world, and Logitech is bringing it a step closer this year by unveiling the Lotitech Squeezebox Duet music system. This new system being launched at CES 2008 consists of a receiver box and a handheld controller that brings digital music from your computer to your living room, entertainment center, kitchen or just about anywhere you like to listen to music around your house.

The receiver is connected via WiFi (802.11g) to your computer (PC, Mac, Linux) and can be configured to find and play your personal music collection wirelessly. The receiver is then connected to your home entertainment center through standard audio cables to bring your digital music out of your office and into the rest of your home.

So now that there are becoming more and more high quality movies, games and music available to download from the intertubes onto your computer, the next thing a person finds themselves needing (aside from getting that content over to their living room) is a higher quality display and sound system to take advantage of all this advanced media technology. This year at CES, Logitech is coming through with the sound portion of this equation by launching the Logitech Z Cinema surround sound system.

This new speaker system consists of just two satellite speakers (no rears) and a subwoofer along with what Logitech calls “SRS TruSurround HD” to put your desk chair in the middle of the surround sound action. The speakers have a 180W hybrid Class D + Class AB tri-amp, two-way satellite speakers and an 8″ subwoofer along with 24-bit audio via a USB connection. If for some reason you are unable to play your digital audio through the PC that the speakers are connected to, you can also just connect the player to an input jack to play directly through the speakers. Also, in the event that you don’t already have a media center remote control with your system, Logitech is throwing one is as well.