The only gaming company actually listed as such in the CEDIA catalog was Game Cabinets Inc. which sells MAME-loaded gaming cabinets.

While I found the cabinets surprisingly pricey and their disco-fied CrystalCade immensely gaudy, I was very impressed with the guts of their machines and their incredible take on pinball.

All of their machines come with computers and DVD drives built into them, including their table-top StingerPlus, which probably explains some of the high cost. They also use Cherry Microswitches and Happ parts, which probably accounts for the rest of the high cost. The end result? A beautiful feeling set of controllers that not only give you precise, arcade-like gameplay but will, in my experience, last you quite awhile. I tested out their StingerPlus playing MAME versions of Joust (for the buttons) and Street Fighter II (for the sticks) and the play was fluid and amazing.

While I was impressed with the parts used in the controllers, GCI isn't the only company that uses them for controllers. They are, however, the only company that has GCI Pinball. The company obtained the rights to a slew of actual pinball tables and used a blend of computer graphics and actual photographs to replicate the tables in digital form. While the ball graphics weren't the best I have seen and the plunger control, which uses one of the joysticks, was a little wonky, this was still by far the best digital Pinball I've ever played. It was amazing to play games like Hook or The Simpsons on a big screen and have it look and feel just like the real thing.

GCI's uprights sell for $5,000 to $10,000 and come with built in LCD monitors and speakers. The Cocktail system sell for $5,000 and the Stinger controllers sell for $3,100.

I still can't justify the price, but if you have the money it's likely worth it, especially with that proprietary pinball.

I know Sony announced that the Playstation 3's Xross Media Bar was going to be invading televisions awhile back now, but this is the first time I've seen it in action. While I think the Playstation 3 has a lot going for it, the user interface tops my list as one of the neater things packed into the console.

These pictures showing a Sony receiver with a Xross Media Bar are kinda cool, but what I really liked was the Home Media Service with the XMB. Check out all of those movies.

Panasonic had their PT-AX200U high-def projector set-up off in a corner of their CEDIA booth. The projector has a 1280 by 720 resolution, 2,000 lumens brightness and 6000:1 contrast. More importantly the projector has a gaming mode which optimizes frame response to improve signal processing by a third. The setting also tweaks the contrast settings bringing out darker scenes and images that are typically over saturated.

To promote the projector, Panasonic flew in Major League Gamings Tom Taylor, aka Tsquared, to beat up on people in matches of Halo 2. I sat down with him and talked about the television and pro-gaming, peppering him with questions as he peppered me with pwnage. Seriously, it was embarassing.

Taylor said that he loves Halo 3, he seemed generally excited about the flexibility of map set-ups and the ability to capture replays in game. He plans on using it to help teach at his school for pro-gaming. He said there hasn't been any real talk yet about replacing Halo 2 with Halo 3 on the pro circuits, but that it's sort of a no-brainer because the two games online are so very similar.

The screen we were playing split-screen on seemed pretty crisp, but since it was Halo 2 it was hard to judge what a high-def game would look like.

Walking through the Panasonic booth at CEDIA, I saw plenty of Playstation 3's being used to demonstrate the high-def screens. Panasonic is all about the Blu-ray so they nixed the Xbox 360 I was told... yes, I know that make no sense. As I rounded a corner I saw this, two guys playing Wii tennis on a 103-inch high-def television. My perspective is all screwed in this shot, but trust me it was impressive. Nearby a Panasonic rep fidgeted.

"I thought you were just using PS3s in here because of the whole Blu-ray thing?"
"Yeah, we have a PS3 hooked-up to it too, but everyone wants to play with the Wii on this television."
"Are you worried about people accidentally throwing their remotes into that screen?"
"Yes, but that's why they're wearing the straps."
"That would really suck."
Sickly smile.

I may very well be one of the only people with this problem, but HDMI-enabled devices are a total pain in the ass for me. That's because when I bought my television there weren't many out there with multiple HDMI in ports, so mine only has one. And I have a cable box, PS3 and Xbox 360 Elite that all use HDMI. So I bought the only switcher I could find at the time, a 2-1 splitter, and just manually swap cables, which is a pain in the ass.

Walking around CEDIA today I stumbled upon RT Com, a company that specializes in HDMI switchers and splitters. What caught my attention was this nifty set-up: One Playstation 3 playing on six high-def televisions at once. Once there they I spotted an 3-1 remote controlled HDMI switcher for $130, not bad, not bad at all.

Saw this Full Swing Golf set up while cruising the booths looking for game-related technology. Full Swing Golf is a room-sized golf simulator that uses two 360-degree curtains of infrared beams, each emitting 60,000 pulses per a second, to track real-world fall flight data. In other words, sensors track what happens when you smack the shit out of a ball at the screen and then convert it into graphics that play out in front of you. Kinda neat, I assume super expensive.

There were some funny exceptions, like the 103-inch high-def television being used to play Wii Golf, a sales rep standing by cringing with every wild swing of those involved. The endless supply of PS3s being used to show off high-def video. The HDMI splitter being used to feed video from one PS3 to six high-def televisions. I'll be writing all of that stuff in a bit, including my being pwned by a pro-gamer on Halo 2, but for now check out the gallery and revel in the non-gaminess of it.

I'm on the train heading there now. You'd think a show dedicated to "residential electronic systems" would have something worth posting about on Kotaku. We'll see.