Some of the items that slipped by while we were all taking a nice afternoon nap Sunday:

Sherbourn has added an external HDMI switcher to their PT-7010A pre/pro. It disappoints me that separates makers like Sherbourn and Parasound, who make desirable equipment, are not getting with the program and offering features that a $300 av receiver provides. Nobody needs external HDMI switching. People need av receivers and pre/pros that handle HDMI switching internally and process both video and audio. I understand that HDMI has been a moving target in the past, however HDMI 1.3 has been with us for a while now, and it's time for the separates manufacturers to catch up to the mass market receiver producers.

Loudspeaker producer Martin Logan introduced two new fairly affordable hybrid electrostatic loudspeakers. The $2000/pair Source is a 2 way design that uses an 8 inch conventional woofer coupled with one of Martin Logan's electrostatic panels, and has a wedge shaped base that allows the user to tilt the entire speaker to facilitate dialing in the sweet spot. The $3000/pair Purity utilizes two 6.5 inch conventional woofers and has an onboard 200 watt digital amp, allowing it to be driven by a preamp, audio component or even an iPod.

Lastly, German loudspeaker manufacturer Canton showed a new line of speakers designated Chrono. The Chrono line utilizes the same drivers as Canton's Ergo loudspeakers, but has specially designed enclosures will bring the price of the Chronos down as much as 30% from the price points the Ergo line occupies. Canton also refreshed their flagship Vento line. Ports are now downward firing instead of forward. Drivers and crossover have also seen revisions meant to further refine the excellent Vento series.

Screen Digest has reported that the DVD Forum approved TL51 HD DVD on August 31.

TL51 increases the capacity of HD DVD from 30 gigabytes on current dual layer discs to 51 gigabytes on the newly approved triple layer discs. No announcement has yet been made, but the word is that second and third generation Toshiba HD DVD players will be able to play the new triple layer discs with a firmware upgrade. Sony has used the disc capacity of Blu Ray as one of the rallying points in their marketing of the Blu Ray format, and now Toshiba can do the same as the new HD DVD discs top Blu Ray's maximum disc capacity by one gigabyte.

The new triple layer discs will also be used in hybrid discs, which allow for standard dvd and HD DVD on the same side of the disc. The hybrid disc will use one layer at 5 gigabytes for the standard DVD content, and two layers at 34 gigabytes for the HD DVD content.

Not as much to report from CEDIA 2007 day 3 as there was the first couple of days, but a couple items did slip through the cracks.

Texas Instruments announced their new DLP chip, the Dark Chip 4. The Dark Chip 4 touts a native contrast ratio of 15000:1 and is 1080p. No word on whether or not it is a true 1080p or whether DLP will still have to resort to wobulation to achieve the resolution.

Denon showed two Blu Ray players. The DVD-3800BDCI and the DVD-2500BTCI are profile 1.1 players that support decoding of Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio. No ethernet on either, and the DVD-2500BTCI is limited to HDMI audio, having no analog outputs. The DVD-3800BDCI has a Silicon Optix REALTA HQV for superior deinterlacing and upscaling abilities. Both are slated to hit stores in December, the DVD-3800BDCI at $1999 and the DVD-2500BTCI for $1199.

Cary adds a video processor to their Cinema line. The Cary Cinema 11V sports six HDMI 1.3 inputs that can pass 1080p video sources at 120 Hz. The nifty feature here is that the 11V will strip the video information from incoming HDMI sources and pass just the audio portion of the signal to a pre/pro. No word on video chip, other features or pricing.

Lots of music servers from many manufacturers. Blah. That's it for day 3.

B&K just showed it's first new component in some time.

The 7.1 channel Reference 70 preamp/processor has an onboard Silicon Optix Reon HQV chip in it, ensuring excellent upscaling and deinterlacing of standard definition video feeds. The unit will accept multichannel PCM over HDMI, but unfortunately decoding of Dolby Digital+, Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio is not supported. B&K components offer great performance for audiophiles and home theater buffs alike, at a price point that isn't entry level but won't require a second mortgage.

It's good to see them finally update their aging pre/pro, but the inclusion of lossless codec decoding would have been nice. Perhaps it will be possible for B&K to offer this functionality in a future firmware update. No other details or pricing available at this time.

Day two is in the bag at CEDIA 2007. Some of the items not posted due to lack of interest or information:

NAD has some relatively inexpensive new gear on the way. Look for an HDMI 1.3 compliant receiver and pre/pro in the $2k ballpark.

Sherwood also has an HDMI 1.3 receiver in the works.

Integra announced a forthcoming high end HD DVD player, the DHS-8.8. Not much of an announcement, as it's a rebadged version of the announced Onkyo HD DVD player, which is a rebadged Toshiba HD-XA2. The Integra does add Wolfson and Burr Brown DACs and RS-232. The unit will sell for $1099.

Marantz showed a mock-up of a Blu Ray player, but as to whether or not it was a design slated for production is anyone's guess since no details are available.

The computer component manufacturers see how much fun the Format War is and are picking sides. Acer is throwing it's weight behind HD DVD, and ASUS is picking Blu Ray.

Lastly, the Blu Ray camp claimed they have surpassed HD DVD in stand alone player sales. Toshiba fired back stating that 3 weeks don't paint the whole picture, and that Sony can stick it because since inception, HD DVD is mopping the floor with Blu Ray in stand alone player sales. (I'm paraphrasing here)

And that's about it for days 1 and 2.

Audio component maker Rotel has announced a new home theater preamp/processor this week at CEDIA.

The RSP-1069 sports four 1080p compliant HDMI inputs, in addition to three component inputs for managing all of your video sources. On the audio side, Burr Brown DACs handle all the digital to analog conversion. Curiously absent from the details released are any mention of onboard Dolby Digital+, Dolby TrueHD or DTS-HD decoding.

At $2199 the RSP-1069 is a little expensive for a pre/pro with a 2006 feature set. The RSP-1069 will be available this fall.