Like the Clix 2nd Generation, the Lplayer uses a D*click interface to navigate the menu. This basically means the edges of the screen double as buttons, giving the unit an extremely minimalist look with only two buttons running along the base and no other controls to speak of. In general this interface is fine, although it can be a little fiddly at times and takes some getting used to. To access the audio options menu, for example, you have to hold the pause button down for several seconds while you’re on the playback screen.

The buttons also stick from time to time and aren’t as responsive as we’d like, often requiring multiple presses. That said, the menu itself is well laid out and looks quite good. This can be somewhat attributed to the display, which we felt was of an extremely good quality. It’s only two inches in size and has a 320×240 resolution, but the videos we watched on it looked great. Contrast was impressive, with good gradation from light to dark; colours were well saturated without looking too vivid. As it’s a tiny display, we still wouldn’t recommend it for serious video watching. For video clips or short bursts it does the job nicely.

A wide variety of file formats is supported, including MPEG4, WMV9 and XVID. On the audio front users can listen to MP3, WMA, ASF, OGG and FLAC. This is an extremely hefty array of formats and should please most users.

Video files will sometimes work straight away, but other times will need to be run through the provided conversion software first. Even then results aren’t guaranteed, with some footage coming out with stretched aspect ratios and other anomalies. However, this is fairly standard for a portable media player, so no surprises there.

Audio quality wasn’t stellar but it was still satisfactory. We didn’t find the sound as detailed or fun as on some other players, but it was rich and clear when tested with some third-party headphones. As always, the stock ear buds were a disappointment.

All the standard features are available. You can make playlists, apply a variety of pre-set equalisers (or create your own) and use both shuffle and loop modes. There are also some extra features such as a text viewer, picture viewer, FM radio and voice recorder. The features all work well and provide some additional functionality not found on the nano.

All files can be transferred via drag and drop on a Windows PC. There are folders for each type of media (music, video etc.) and you can either put the files directly in the right place or in subfolders. We found the in-menu sorting was a little all over the place at times; for example albums weren’t always ordered by track number when we filtered by artist, which became frustrating.

Aesthetically the Lplayer is nice, with a slim, petite design that slides easily into a pocket. Thanks to the control scheme, it has no wasted space: just the display and a small bezel around it. It doesn’t look particularly stylish but it does the job just fine.

HP claims that its 30-bit panel can natively produce more than 1 billion colours, which is a heck of a lot more than what a typical desktop monitor can do with a 6-bit or 8-bit panel. Furthermore, the screen uses a tri-colour LED backlight, which is supposed to produce deeper colours than a fluorescent light; this is definitely noticeable. Another advantage of the LED light is that the monitor achieves its required brightness level as soon as it’s switched on, without needing any warm-up time.

Straight out of the box, it was impossible to fault the screen’s colours. All the colour ramps and gradients we threw at it using DisplayMate were handled impeccably. There wasn’t any colour stepping, hues weren’t off, and its colour intensity from one level to the next was perfect. There are different colour spaces that can be selected from the on-screen menu, which is controlled with easily accessible buttons. The modes include sRGB, Adobe RGB and SMPTE-C as well as others. From the menu, you can also separately change the level of the backlight and the black level. The on-screen menu’s firmware can be updated.

As it stands, the black level on this monitor is pretty much the best we’ve seen. Dark photos, and even dark movies, were displayed with rich colours and immaculate attention to detail. The screen’s uniformity was almost perfect, although there were slight dark patches noticeable at the bottom corners. (Nothing to be concerned about, however.)

At 24in with a 1920×1200 resolution and a dot-pitch of 0.270, the monitor’s sharpness is very good. We only noticed slight fringing on some lettering, and only when we were a few inches away from the screen. It also up-scaled DVDs beautifully: smoke from cigarettes, for example, was clearly defined in dark scenes, background artefacting wasn’t magnified and there was no jaggedness in any lines, and motion was smooth. Blu-ray movies played back smoothly, and they looked stunningly vivid!

We also didn’t notice any ghosting during video playback, nor when scrolling or moving images around the screen, but the screen does have an Overdrive feature, which affects the response rate. It can be adjusted if you do ever notice any ghosting. This model should indeed suit game designers as well as video producers and photographers.

Physically, the screen rests on a base than can swivel, tilt, rise and rotate, as well as pivot. We found the screen’s viewing angles to be wide from all sides, and using it in portrait mode didn’t cause any viewing problems from the sides. The rear of the screen has a gang of ports: two DVI, one HDMI, one DisplayPort, as well as Component, S-Video and composite ports. You also get USB connectivity. The monitor supports Display Data Channel/Command Interface (DDC/CI), so that its brightness and colour can be controlled by a graphics card, and it also supports Extended Display Identification Data (EDID), to let the card know exactly what kind of screen is connected. Furthermore, it ships with calibration and pivot software.

A couple of other settings that come in handy in the screen’s menu are the sleep timer and the control for the bezel’s lights. This is handy for when you want to work or view video in the dark and you don’t want to be disturbed by the power light.

Overall, the excellent performance and colour of this monitor were to be expected considering its price, and it’s up there with similarly professional monitors we’ve seen (such as Eizo’s ColorEdge CG301W). If you only want a monitor to surf the Web and edit the odd Flickr photo with, then look for a standard sub-$500 monitor; this one is purely for those of you who need excellent colour reproduction for professional video production and photography.

That might sound good on paper, but using the device is a whole different story. First off, most of the free content is lackluster–the video quality is poor, many of the clips are short, and most of the content just isn’t compelling. Secondly, finding the content is difficult as the interface is sluggish and much of the content is haphazardly categorized and out-of-date. If the BIVL still sounds enticing, you may be disappointed to find that it only works with recent Sony Bravia LCDs–you can’t just add it to any old HDTV. That leaves a pretty small audience of people who would still be interested in BIVL. Granted, the addition of Amazon’s Video On Demand has made the product more compelling, but with superior alternatives such as the Apple TV, Netflix player, TiVo HD, and the SlingCatcher, it’s hard to recommend. If you really want to watch YouTube videos, Web video clips, and rent movies from Amazon on your new Bravia HDTV with minimal effort–and don’t mind a sluggish interface–the Bravia Internet Video Link gets the job done. But regardless of whether you have a compatible Bravia, almost any of those alternatives will be a better choice.

Design

Measuring 6.5 inches long by 1.46 inches wide and 4.13 inches high, the module is about the length and width of paperback book. It weighs less than 4 pounds and can be screwed on the back of Sony’s compliant TVs with the included mounting bracket, allowing the device to be hidden behind the TV set. The BIVL can also be fitted with the included stand if you choose to vertically stand up the device beside your other AV gear. The device is outfitted with curved, slim edges on the top and bottom and coated in Sony’s traditional, neutral color–dark gray. It has a subtle appearance, similar to a cable modem–a good thing if the device is sitting next your black, chunky AV receiver.

Sony includes an HDMI cable, a USB cable, AC adaptor, stand, cover, and TV mounting bracket. That’s a solid accessory pack, but curiously, the company did not include an Ethernet cable, even though the BIVL requires one–there’s no built-in Wi-Fi. You’ll need to make two connections from the BIVL to your TV: USB and HDMI. That means the BIVL will use one of the HDMI inputs on your TV, but there’s an additional HDMI input on the BIVL to replace the lost connectivity on your TV. Unfortunately for those who loathe adding more to the spaghetti of wires behind their AV system, the BIVL requires another wall outlet for its external AC adapter. This might be even more problematic for users who go the wall-mounting route.

Interface

Sony seamlessly integrates the BIVL’s content into the PS3-style XMB (Xross Media Bar) interface that is already used on Sony HDTVs. Navigating to the Web video content is logical compared with other devices we used; for example, Samsung’s interface divided its content between two menus (and two remote buttons) and had a noticeable amount of latency when browsing through the built-in Shockwave videos. Connecting the BIVL to your Sony HDTV adds two new features to the default interface: My Page by Yahoo and a list of channels under the Videos tab.

Browsing for videos also follows the familiar XMB layout; content is set up by channel, followed by a gridlike interface, with (but not always) categories on the left side of the screen to further distinguish videos. There is no search function, which we immediately desired after scrolling through thousands of CBS episodes. The playback interface bar for videos is also laid out logically. The up-and-down directional pad buttons zoom in and out on the picture, while right and left fast-forward and rewind the video, and holding down right enables a “super” fast-forward.

The current batch of extenders comes from the usual list of networking and PC luminaries, including D-Link, Hewlett-Packard, and Linksys. But the 800-pound gorilla in the space is Microsoft itself: its Xbox 360 game consoles all double as a Media Center Extender, too.

Linksys offers two versions–the DMA2100 and the DMA2200 reviewed here. With the exception that the DMA2200 includes a built-in DVD player, they’re effectively identical. In our testing, we had varied success while using the DMA2200. But we’re beginning to think that’s more a reflection of the increasingly bloated Media Center experience (as dictated by Microsoft). Unfortunately, the Linksys boxes offer no network streaming capabilities outside of its MCE functions. By comparison, the Xbox, D-Link DSM-750, and HP MediaSmart Connect x280n can all stream media outside of the Media Center “ecosystem,” so they offer a degree of flexibility not found on the Linksys.

At 5 inches tall by 9 inches wide by 13 inches long, the Linksys DMA2200 is longer than it is wide–sort of a stretched-out DVD player. The front includes the disc tray, LCD readout, and some basic controls. The rear is bristling with three Wi-Fi antennas, an Ethernet jack, plus all of the AV connections. In that regard, you’ll find everything you’d expect on a new DVD or Blu-ray player: composite, S-Video, component and HDMI video connections, along with analog stereo and digital coaxial and optical connections for audio.

The DMA2200’s disc player plays CDs and DVDs, and upscales the DVDs to HD-friendly 720p, 1080i, and 1080p resolutions. The advantage here is that you can get rid of the DVD player that’s already underneath your TV, saving on space, cable clutter, and TV inputs.

Setting up the DMA2200 was relatively easy. After navigating through the device’s setup screens, we were able to connect to our 802.11n wireless network. The 2200 prefers N-networks in order to stream HD content more easily. The setup screen will display an eight-digit number that you’ll need for your computer setup, so we moved to our Vista PC where we added an extender in Media Center. Once we launched the program, Media Center instantly detected the 2200 on the network and then automatically began handshaking with the device. After entering our eight-digit code, our extender was officially connected. You may need to reconnect the 2200 with your Vista PC in between sessions, as ours became unrecognizable to Media Center various times.

Even though both devices are connected to an N-network, we immediately noticed a definitive lag in navigating through the Media Center on the 2200. A hard-wired connection seemed to slightly improve the stutter, but nowhere to the point that we’d recommend switching over. Overall, we had a really frustrating time trying to search through our digital media and selecting files to play. If something was playing in the background, with the Media Center menu on overlay, the experience drew close to a crawl.

When it comes to screens, no one does it better than Stewart Filmscreen. Stewart screens are used in more professional theaters and post-production houses than those of any other screen manufacturer in the game today. Stewart has been at the bleeding edge of screen technology for decades and, unwilling to rest on their laurels, the company has come up with a truly unique and rather inspired surface with their latest offering, Starglas. Starglas is, in fact, a glass surface that allows for a rear-projection set-up that utilizes either a mirror-type configuration or full rear-projection throw.

What makes Starglas unique is the fact that, when used properly, you can view your source material in ambient/full lighting conditions, making a Starglas installation more like a plasma or an LCD then a front-projection system. Going one step further, you can even use Starglas outdoors for a truly unique home theater experience by your pool, deck or barbeque. Don’t worry about damaging or marring your Starglas surface, for its tempered glass is rated for commercial applications and can be cleaned via hose or, perhaps a little more prudently, with Windex.

Moving things back indoors for a second, Starglas can be ordered in a variety of shapes and sizes, from 126 to 204 inches (though I’ve been told smaller sizes are possible), in any aspect ratio from 4:3 to 2:35 and everything in between. You can even get Starglas installed on a table or floor, provided you can mount a projector properly to shine an image on it, for a James Bond-like projection system.

Starglas runs about $200 a foot in most markets, which isn’t cheap, but when you consider the alternative, it is assuredly less than 100-inch or larger plasmas, which retail for easily six figures. By this standard, Starglas is an absolute bargain. Starglas boasts a peak gain of .60 percent, with a viewing angle around 47 degrees. 47 degrees isn’t quite as good as the viewing angle provided by most plasmas or LCDs, but many manufacturers’ claims of 170 degrees are clearly exaggerations. I consider Stewart’s claims of a 47-degree viewing angle to be more honest and also adequate for everyone in the family to enjoy the film. Starglas is ambient light-resistant due to its proprietary coating and blocks 100 percent of all UV lighting. Starglas is abrasion- and stain-resistant, making it a versatile solution for those with young children or pets.

I want to get back to the various available applications and sizes of Starglas. For starters, you can equip Starglas with any of Stewart’s masking options, including the touted ElectriScope, which gives you perfect masking to adapt a 6:9 screen for 4:3 and 2:35 images. You can even get Stewart’s Cinecurve screen in Starglas for the ultimate home theater experience.

Starglas can be mated to any of Stewart’s award-winning auto-masking systems, ensuring the absolute best image quality, regardless of your source’s aspect ratio. This, of course, drives the cost upwards a bit, but still keeps it well below the price tag asked by large-scale LCD and plasma manufacturers. I’ve been spending a lot of time in postproduction houses lately and the new thing in cinema (besides 4K resolution) is 3D. Starglas is 3D image-ready and actually preferred by most of those who are developing the format for home use.

What makes Starglas a real value, though, isn’t its versatility or wow factor, (more on that later) it’s the fact that, while you can get 100-plus-inch plasmas, the day 1080p becomes the equivalent of SD you’re out a second mortgage on your investment, whereas with Starglas, all you have to do is replace your projector and you’re back in business. Unlike what’s required for huge plasmas, you won’t have to structurally engineer your wall to allow for Starglas’ girth or run hospital-grade 220 power to light it up, making it a more environmentally conscious solution in a world where going green is an ever-more desirable option.

Set-up
Without question, Starglas is best installed by your dealer or custom installer. My dedicated theater is not equipped to handle Starglas, though I tried to figure out a way to make it work. I had to venture down to my local dealer for this particular review. I spoke with one of the installers at my dealer and he informed me that Starglas is one of their most asked-about screen surfaces and the number of installations is growing as more and more people see the benefits over costlier flat-panel displays.

My dealer had recently done an installation where the homeowner built out a faux wall that allowed him to bounce his projector’s image off a large mirror, then onto the back of the Starglas surface itself. The entire installation was completed in a weekend. Since the faux wall was built out about two feet from the actual wall, he flanked the sides of the screen with custom bookshelves for a cozy study-like vibe. The leather club chairs, rich earth tones and subdued artwork made it one of the more inviting home theaters I’d seen in a long time, as you were never really aware you were sitting in a screening room, since the projector was mounted on the floor behind the drywall.

Another installation found the homeowner putting Starglas in his master bedroom. That’s right, in the master bedroom. He placed the projector in the guest bedroom, which shared a common wall with the master bedroom. My installer had not yet installed Starglas in a front-projection configuration, nor had he heard of anyone else doing this – his reaction was, “It kind of defeats the purpose.”

Regardless of the client’s needs, minus any finishing or specialty trim, etc., the process of installing Starglas in a rear-projection type configuration is fairly straightforward and easily completed in a short amount of time, provided you plan right, scout the location and use a qualified custom installer. According to my dealer, once Starglas is installed, the only maintenance needed is done at the projector level – oh, and the occasional wipe-down.

My dealer’s Starglas installation had it in a medium-sized theater, featuring a Runco 1080p projector being fed a signal via a Sony Blu-ray player, with the rest of the electronics coming by way of McIntosh. The speaker configuration, which consisted of the beloved Definitive Technology Mythos ST towers for front, left and right channels, mated to a matching Definitive Technology center and in-walls for the sides and rear, was about as perfect as one could ask for, at least to this reviewer. Not wanting to waste any time, I cued up the first disc.

Features and Set-up
TeleDock is the name JVC has given to its integrated iPod dock, and the TeleDock line of LCDs includes four models ranging in size from 32 to 52 inches. The LT-47P789 is a 47-inch, 1080p model with an MSRP of $2,199.99. Remove the TeleDock feature, and these TVs would probably qualify as JVC’s entry-level models, since they lack advanced features like 120Hz technology or the company’s new Super Slim cabinet design.

The LT-47P789’s aesthetic is decent but nothing to get overly excited about; the TV sports a glossy black cabinet, a matching rectangular base, and two speakers that run along the bottom. Take a closer look at the large JVC logo that sits in between the two speakers, and you’ll realize that’s the TeleDock in its folded-up position. Manually lower the dock into place, add your iPod, and you’re set to go.

The TV’s left side panel includes controls for input, menu, channel, volume, and power, as well as a USB port for JPEG playback only. The back panel features three HDMI, two component video, one S-video, two composite video, and one RF input to access the internal ATSC, NTSC, and Clear-QAM tuners. There’s no PC input, nor does the LT-47P789 offer picture-in-picture functionality.

The supplied remote is a bit bulky for my small hands, but its buttons are laid out in a logical manner. It lacks backlighting and puts mostly black buttons on a black background, but at least the button names are white. Near the top of the remote, you’ll find five input buttons: The first three are dedicated to the HDMI inputs, while the other two scroll you through the remaining input options.

The LT-47P789’s video-setup options also reveal its step-down nature. The menu lacks many of the advanced controls you’ll find in a higher-end LCD, such as precise white balance, gamma, and color management. The basics are here, though: four picture modes (standard, dynamic, game, and theater), three color-temperature options (cool, natural, and warm), digital and MPEG noise reduction, and a 100-step adjustable backlight, to name a few.

You also get a few specialized settings, like dynamic gamma, general color management, and “smart picture” to automatically adjust image brightness – all of which I turned off. For each input, you can set different parameters for each picture mode. I tried following my normal video-setup procedure with the LT-47P789, using test patterns from Video Essentials and Digital Video Essentials (DVD International) to set color, tint, brightness, contrast, and sharpness, and I got some troublesome results. I chose the Theater picture mode and the Warm color temperature, which with test patterns was still cooler than the reference 6,500 Kelvin. I had to set the color abnormally high to make the color-bar test pattern look right, and I had to turn the contrast (called picture) way down to prevent the TV from crushing whites.

Also, the TV’s black level floats and is dramatically affected by overall picture brightness, which makes it very difficult to set the brightness control properly. Edge enhancement is a concern if you set the sharpness (called detail) control too high, but it was not a problem at the minimum setting through the HDMI inputs (through the component inputs, some edge enhancement still exists at the minimum detail setting). At the minimum backlight setting, the LT-47P789 still produces a nice amount of light output but only an average black level. With black and gray test patterns, the screen had some uniformity issues, with the sides being brighter than the center.

The TV has a solid number of aspect ratios, including four options for SD sources (panorama, cinema, regular, and full) and five for HD sources (full, panorama zoom, cinema zoom, slim, and full native). The full native mode shows 1080i and 1080p sources with zero overscan.

Over in the audio realm, the LT-47P789 includes four preset sound modes (speech, jazz, classic, and rock), plus a user mode with a five-band equalizer to tailor the audio output to your liking. There’s also a generic surround mode, with options for movie, music, news, and mono. The TV does sport an optical digital audio output, and you can dictate whether you want to send PCM or Dolby Digital to an external sound system.

Olympus is looking to differentiate its new camera from other prosumer models such as Canon’s EOS-50D and Nikon’s D90 with the inclusion of some interesting in-body features that will appeal to artistic types. Perhaps the most unusual is a selection of “art filters” which are performed in-camera and considered when calculating exposure variables, with each of the filters bringing a different effect to the final image. There’s also a nifty multi-exposure function, and a “digital leveler” which helps ensure the camera body is properly oriented, keeping horizons level and perspective true.

The Panasonic DMC-FZ28 has a multi-area autofocus system which also includes a single-point “high speed” focusing mode. As with many digital cameras these days, there’s also a face-detection function, with Panasonic’s implementation capable of detecting up to 15 faces in a scene. Once detected, the camera can then use the information to adjust both focus and exposure to properly capture your subjects’ faces. The Panasonic Lumix FZ28 also has an implementation of autofocus tracking, which can monitor a subject as it moves around the frame, continuing to update autofocus as required. Panasonic’s AF tracking is linked to the face detection system, allowing the camera to continue tracking a face even if it briefly turns to a side profile — although it should be noted that the face detection system does require the subject be looking toward the camera to achieve its initial detection.

ISO sensitivity ordinarily ranges from 100 to 1,600, with the ability to extend this as far as ISO 6,400 equivalent in High Sensitivity Auto mode. Shutter speeds from 1/2,000 to 60 seconds are possible, controlled automatically. The Panasonic DMC-FZ28 uses Intelligent Multiple metering, with Center-Weighted and Spot metering modes also on offer. There are nine white balance settings including Auto, two Manual modes, five fixed presets, and a color temperature option.

A whopping selection of thirty seven scene modes let users tailor the look of their images — including a selection of “Advanced” scene modes that fit into five categories. Altogether, these Advanced scene mode groupings are Portrait (Normal, Soft Skin, Outdoor, Indoor, and Creative), Scenery (Normal, Nature, Architecture, and Creative), Sports (Normal, Outdoor, Indoor, and Creative), Night Portrait (Night Portrait, Night Scenery, Illuminations, and Creative), and finally the Close-Up (Flower, Food, Objects, and Creative). For the creative types there are both manual and aperture- / shutter-priority modes on the Panasonic FZ28.

A five-mode flash strobe includes both red-eye reduction and slow-sync capabilities, and has a rated range of up to 8.5 meters at wide angle, or 5.4 meters at telephoto. An interesting feature of the Panasonic DMC-FZ28 is an image-leveling function that detects if the camera was slightly tilted at the time of capture, and then corrects for the tilt, automatically cropping as necessary to achieve a straight horizon. There’s also digital red-eye correction, and Panasonic’s Intelligent Auto, Intelligent Exposure, Intelligent ISO, and Intelligent Scene Selector functions as seen on past models. As well as Raw and JPEG still images, the Panasonic FZ28 can capture 30 frames-per-second movies with sound at up to high definition 1280 x 720 pixel resolution, although the compression used is the older QuickTime Motion JPEG type, so file sizes are likely to be fairly high.

The Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ28 stores its images and movies on Secure Digital or MultiMediaCards, including the newer SDHC types. There’s also a generous 50MB of built-in memory. Connectivity options include USB 2.0 High-Speed, standard definition NTSC video output, and high-def component video output (although the cable for this is an optional extra). Power comes from a 7.2V, 710mAh proprietary lithium-ion battery, rated as good for 460 shots on a charge to CIPA testing standards. The software bundle includes PHOTOfunSTUDIO Viewer 2.1E, ArcSoft MediaImpression, ArcSoft Panorama Maker, and SilkyPix Developer Studio 3.0SE.

The Canon SD880’s zoom lens is just slightly expanded to a 4x zoom from the 3.8x optical zoom in the SD870. The added magnification power is all found at the telephoto end, with the overall range varying from a useful 28mm wide-angle to a moderate 112mm telephoto. As with its predecessor, the Canon SD880 IS includes true optical image stabilization to help combat image blurring due to camera shake. Maximum aperture is f/2.8 to a rather dim f/5.8 across the zoom range.

As well as the previously mentioned AF tracking, the Canon SD880 IS’s autofocus system now has improved face detection capability. Canon says the camera will now recognize faces at most angles, and has included a Face Detection self timer which automatically takes a photo two seconds after an additional face enters the scene. The Canon PowerShot SD880 IS’s LCD display has identical size and resolution to that in the previous camera: it’s a 3.0-inch design with 230,000 dots, but Canon also claims higher contrast.

The standard ISO sensitivity range offered by the Canon SD880 IS is unchanged from the SD870, with a minimum of ISO 100 through to a maximum of ISO 1,600. A new high sensitivity scene mode allows this to be boosted to a maximum of ISO 3,200, however. Available PowerShot SD880 shutter speeds are unchanged, ranging from 1/1,600 to 15 seconds. Metering modes are unchanged — evaluative, center-weighted and spot all being offered.

Likewise, the Canon SD880 is much like the SD870 in that it offers only a program mode, with no options for aperture- or shutter-priority shooting, let alone a fully manual mode. Flash range when set to Auto ISO is rated at 1 - 13.8 feet (30cm - 4.2m) at wide angle, and 1 - 6.6 feet (30cm - 2m) at telephoto. There are sixteen scene modes, and the Canon SD880 also offers a new Intelligent Contrast Correction function.

Where the SD870 offered Motion JPEG AVI movies, the Canon SD880 opts for H.264 MOV instead — a newer format which generally offers significantly improved compression (and hence smaller file sizes) for equivalent video quality. As with the previous camera, sound is recorded along with movie clips. The Canon PowerShot SD880 is unchanged from its predecessor in storing its images and movies on Secure Digital cards, and includes a not-very-generous 32MB card in the product bundle. The Canon SD880 also offers both NTSC / PAL video and USB 2.0 High Speed computer connectivity, like its predecessor. Power is likewise unchanged, coming from a proprietary NB-5L lithium-ion rechargeable battery.

This is cool stuff, and we had Panasonic send us a sample of the new 12.1-megapixel Lumix DMC-G1 as soon as possible. For the record, Panasonic and Olympus are the prime movers behind the new format. In fact, they also are the key proponents of the original Four Thirds System found in current D-SLRs from the two companies; unlike the Micro Four Thirds, these cameras have mirror assemblies. We seriously doubt Canon, Nikon, Pentax and Sony will adopt either one.