Hewlett Packard is showing off at CES this week several new consumer focused laptops as it reveals its 2008 product line up. One of these is the HP Pavilion HDX series Entertainment Notebook PC, priced at around $2,000 or so, depending upon configuration.

The HP Pavilion HDX series Entertainment Notebook PC offers 512 MB NVIDIA GeForce 8800M GTS video graphics and the latest Intel Core 2 Extreme and Intel Core 2 Duo processor technologies. You can outfit this laptop with Blu-ray and HD DVD playback and enjoy HD video on the notebook’s 20.1-inch diagonal WUXGA XHD Ultra Brightview display.

Panasonic and Comcast are tag teaming to bring Comcast customers a portable DVR so they can record programming at home and take it with them wherever they go. The Panasonic AnyPlay P-DVR Model TZ-LC100 will be available beginning in early 2009 and is being showcased at CES.

The Panasonic AnyPlay P-DVR Model TZ-LC100 is developed by Panasonic and co-branded with Comcast. It’s got 60GB of hard drive storage space, an 8.5″ folding LCD display screen and integrated stereo speakers. Also included are dual headphone jacks.

Sling Media, that cool company behind placeshifting technology for letting you watch your home video through the Internet, is back at CES this year with a new set top box. It’s called the Slingbox PRO-HD and it’s priced at around $400.

The Slingbox PRO-HD lets one stream “HD content from a home television source, including over the air HD digital signals, HDTV cable or satellite receivers, or HD DVR’s, to a laptop or desktop computer in and around the house.” You can of course also stream HD outside of the house to remote locations as well. It is the only product in Sling Media’s family capable of streaming HD content.

If you’re getting frustrated with the limited feature set of your current set-top box from your cable company, Motorola is showcasing the next generation of set top boxes for the cable industry this year at the CES 2008, bringing their first MPEG-4 box for interactive in-home television programming. The new DCX series set-top boxes support high-def video content, surround sound and can act as a hub to share media between it and other compatible devices in the home.

One of the biggest complaints we’ve heard about DVRs from cable providers is the inability to easily share recorded content to anywhere else other than the DVR itself. The new DCX series boxes allow users to not only share the content with other devices so you can watch it in another room, but it also lets the owners add their own media to the device and share it as well.

Motorola is bringing to CES its usual portfolio of intriguing devices. One of the most intriguing is its new Motorola Mobile TV DH01, a portable media player style device which acts like a DVR for letting you view and record live television on the go.

The Motorola Mobile TV DH01 is a lightweight, pocket sized PMP, according to Motorola. It works off of a non-proprietary system and supports the DVBH broadcasting standard. Sporting a 4.3-inch display, the DH01 lets you view live television where signal reception is possible. DVR functionality allows you to record television to an inserted SD/MMC memory card. Motorola says you can fit 90 minutes of television video on a 256MB card.

Firmware upgrades for the Sony PSP usually don’t have changes that are incredibly drastic but for some reason I still get pretty excited any time they come out. It’s almost like getting a slightly new gadget each time, even though I still have the older, fat PSP. Anytime I hear of any upgrade on the way I’ll check for it using the utility on the PSP daily, since most of the time I can get it there before it’s officially released.

Version 3.80 however does promise to bring something pretty cool – streaming internet radio. The update will allow the PSP to pick up streams of online radio broadcasts in the same format that it supports such as Shoutcast MP3 streams. The upgrade will also expand its feed-reading capabilities the ability to pick up “photocasts” from RSS feeds. It will also allow users to import OPML feed lists from other feed readers to import the same feeds on the handheld console.

As the screenwriters’ strike drags on and those without TiVos are forced to watch reruns, TiVo owners and those of other DVR style devices provided by the likes of cable companies can take stock in the fact they can stretch their original programming a little further than others. This of course does not include viewing commercials, according to a new survey from ABI Research.

The research firm found that DVR technology has reached a point in the market where anyone with this type of gear is getting used to blasting through on-screen ads. Numbers from this survey find four out of five TiVo and 82% of other DVR users skip all or most commercials. Both types are also both likely to record significant amounts of TV per day.

TiVo has had to rethink its online photo access strategy in the wake of Yahoo earlier this year shutting down its photo service to focus instead on Flickr. To that end the DVR company announced today TiVo owners who use Photobucket and Picasa Web Albums will now be able to view photos through their TiVo boxes.

TiVo is shooting for letting its broadband connected DVRs access increasing amounts of Web based content and this updated feature certainly reflects that trend. TiVo says users also “will be able to customize their photo viewing capabilities by searching community photos of interest by keyword” so they can create custom slideshows of favorite categories of photos.

TiVo and Nero, a technology developer which produces ways for the “creation and distribution of content between people, devices and locations,” are teaming up to further integrate the DVR experience into your PC. The agreement between the two was announced today.

TiVo and Nero said the latter will eventually offer software which brings non-mentioned TiVo features to your computer. The two companies see this as a way to capitalize on those who want a better PC-based-DVR like experience. A report published earlier this year suggests an estimated 50.8 million PC TV tuners will be sold worldwide by 2011. No word was given on when this would be made available.

Oh Canada…how we stand on guard for thee! TiVo is now part of that guard rotation as well, announcing today its DVR product will be available for the holidays for shoppers. The priced will be set at $199 CAD plus your standard TiVo subscription fees.

The 80-hour TiVo Series2 DT DVR will bring many of your standard TiVo functions to our northern neighbor. TiVo says these include “SeasonPass recordings, WishList searches, Online Scheduling, TiVoToGo transfers, Multi-Room viewing, and TrickPlay functionality, which enables users to pause, rewind, instant replay and slow-motion live TV.” The DVR will be able to record two shows at once. TiVo lovers in Quebec are unfortunately out of luck for the moment as the service will not be available there.

Sonos, a developer of wireless multi-room music systems, unveiled today a new device to help simplify setting up one of the company’s music networks in a home. The Sonos ZoneBridge is priced at $99.

The Sonos ZoneBridge is designed to be hooked to a router. One presses a button on the bridge device and it reportedly will “instantly” connect the SonosNet, Sonos’ wireless mesh network. Sonos says the ZoneBridge can also be used as a wireless extender by placing one between the remote music zone and the rest of the Sonos system.

TiVo kicked out today a service update for TiVo Series 3 and TiVo HD users which offers, among other new features, external storage support. The first verified external hard drive product to support this update is Western Digital’s $120 500GB My DVR Expander.

The new TiVo update is designed to work with E-SATA drives, specifically at the moment the Western Digital My DVR Expander. This 500GB hard drive can store up to 600 hours of standard-definition (SD) or up to 65 hours of high-definition (HD) television programming. It can also store broadband content that TiVo makes available through TiVoCast partners, including movie and TV downloads via Amazon Unbox on TiVo. The drive itself is available now.

Sling Media today formally took the wraps off its latest device for streaming home video to remote locations. The Slingbox SOLO is priced at around $180 and should be available now.

The Slingbox SOLO is a newly designed Slingbox which connects to a standard definition or high definition set top box such as a cable box or TiVo. It takes the home cable, satellite or digital video recorder (DVR) programming from these devices and streams it over the Internet to authorized PCs, laptops, Macs and a variety of smartphones. Streaming is reported to be in full VGA resolution at up to 8Mbps around the home.

Today at the Leipzig Game Convention in Europe Sony announced that they will be launching PlayTV sometime in early 2008. PlayTV brings not one but two high definition (1080p) TV tuners to the Playstation 3 game console along with DVR capabilities allowing you to record one show and save another, both in high def.

This is pretty cool in itself (especially if you’re in Europe since this uses European Digital Video Broadcasting – Terrestrial only), but there’s more. You can also transfer these …

Reports have surfaced that popular DVR company Tivo is getting ready to release a major update to its Tivo Desktop software. This release, which perhaps might occur today, is version 2.5.

A posting on a Tivo user forum by a person known to be a Tivo employee reveals the software will offer “new features & improvements you’ve asked for.” The listed features include support for Windows Vista, support for DixV (DivX?) and Xvid formats for web video conversion and conversion of individual shows from the software’s new playing list to any profile.