Still, it's worth noting that LG has partnered with Sega to show off their 1080p displays with pre-rendered movies from Sonic the Hedgehog and Virtua Fighter 5. And, strangely enough, cinematics from Q Entertainment and Phantagram's Ninety-Nine Nights also were on rotation.

Okay, okay, they actually look pretty damn good. Seeing Sarah's leather-clad butt in 1080p does give one a little bit of gadget lust. Michael McWhertor

I'm not quite sure what this is all about, but the Korea Times is reporting that Korean company LG Electronics has teamed up with Sega to show off three new HDTV models at the upcoming Consumer Electronics Show.

LG plans to introduce three new full HD TV models up to 60 inches in a joint-promotion with Japanese video game giant Sega. The company will display popular Sega games such as ``Virtua Fighter 5'' and ``Sonic'' on its full HD TVs at the expo.

``This joint promotion will give LG a great opportunity to highlight our advanced displays by showing Sega's full HD content on our full HD TVs," Kim Young-chan, executive vice president of digital display global marketing at LG, said in a release. ``Our customers demand the highest standards in technology, and we will continue to expand our offerings to meet everyone's needs from movie buffs to gamers to companies in need of digital displays.''

The article goes on to say that a general lack of HD content in Korea makes the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 the only viable options right now for true HD content.

I get that, but why wouldn't LG just team up with Microsoft instead of going with a third-party manufacturer? Brian Crecente

Samsung, LG Set Up Duel in Las Vegas [Korea Times, via Rocky Mountain News]

By: Brian Crecente

Back in December I wrote up a guide for picking out an HDTV for your gaming needs. I decided to write the story at the time because I was in the process of choosing one for my basement, which was getting a major overhaul and being turned into an entertainment room.

After much procrastination, and harassing the executive of a multinational corporation, I decided to completely ignore my own advice and buy a 50-inch plasma from LG.

The TV was delivered a few weeks back to a half completed basement. Over the following weeks I worked on getting cables, choosing my surround sound system and hooking everything up while the contractors finished up their work.

Yesterday, the crew came in and installed the last set of cabinet doors in the entertainment center and The Lounge is now officially completed.

The unfinished basement was converted into an office/bedroom, bathroom, two storage rooms, library and wet bar, but the biggest chunk of the 1,000-square-feet of space is devoted to the television room

Here's how we designed it.

We opted to have one wall of the room turned into an in-built entertainment center. The entertainment center is mostly taken up by the 50-inch television. On either sides of the TV is a cabinet with shelves for holding electronics. The right side holds an Xbox, Gamecube, PS2, PS2 debug unit, Xbox 360 and Xbox 360 debug unit and there's still an empty shelf. The left side has my audio system and cable box.

These two glassed in cabinets do get a little warm, but most of that seems to dissipate through the cut-outs in the back of the cabinet.

Along the bottom of the entertainment center are four more cabinets, two of which are for storage. The center two cabinets each have three pull out drawers which hold my games and our videos.

Along the top of the entertainment center are three built in speakers, a left, right and center channel.

There are two other speakers mounted in the ceiling above the couch and a plug behind the couch for a subwoofer.

The contractor, a really clever guy, knew I was putting a crap load of electronics in the entertainment center, so he did a couple of cool little things for me.

First, when the electrician installed the new sub-panel, he made sure to give the entertainment center outlet its own breaker.

The coolest thing, however, is in the closet in the bedroom, which shares a wall with the entertainment center. The contractor built a 2-foot crawl space behind the entertainment center and you can access it by a little trap door built into this closet.

The space gives me access to cut-outs for the cabinets and the back of the TV as well as the plugs for all of the speakers in the room.

I was able to install a huge APC back there, and I can't actually slither into the space and tinker with wires when I need to. It's fantastic.

Two weeks into using the television on a daily basis and I'm still quite happy with it. There are only two things I don't like about the LG. First, you have to cycle through all of the inputs, no matter how many are in use, to get to the one you want. Second, while there are a ton of inputs, I wish there were more.

I'm fairly happy with the rest of the entertainment room's set-up, though I've been having some strange surround sound issues.

I purchased a Yamaha HTR-5860 for my sound and a Yamaha'sYST-FSW100 subwoofer. The surround sound seems a little muddled to me, it's not nearly as surround as I would like it to be, but worse still, I can't get the subwoofer to make any sound whatsoever.

The 5860 comes with a microphone and a mode that automatically goes through the speakers to set up the levels and such. When that runs the subwoofer makes noise, but I've never heard it in a game or when watching a movie.

I've tried cranking up the balance both on the unit and in the settings and still nothing.

Any suggestions?

Well, I did it. I bit the bullet and bought an HDTV yesterday. I settled on the 50-inch Plasma from LG, mostly because we liked the colors a little better than what we saw on the Panasonic. That and I never could nail down the whole Zenith rumor.

I got it for about $3,200 after some sales and discounts, so I'm feeling OK with the decision. It's not showing up 'til late February when our basement is done, so I have plenty of time for regrets and teeth gnashing.

Now that I have that figured out, I have to start figuring what cables to buy to hook up all of my consoles to the thing, and planning the sound system for the entertainment room. We're going to have built-in ceiling speakers, so all I need is a bass speaker and some sort of audio component, I suppose. Any suggestions? I want to have kick-ass surround for gaming, but would rather not have to sell my non-existent spleen to get it.

As I mentioned earlier, I almost bought an HDTV over the weekend. Despite having completely ruled out Plasma for my gaming TV needs in my buying guide, I somehow got convinced that Plasma is now the only way to go.

Best Buy personal shopping assistant Lesley was pushing for us to buy a 50-inch LG, but I quickly dismissed that when I realized it was the built-in DVR model. Who wants to pay an extra $1,000 for a DVR you can't replace?

The LG model one step down seemed nice, but I told Lesley I needed to get to my computer and do some research first. After running through the options I narrowed my selection down to the LG 50PX1D, a Zenith (Z50PX2D) or a Panasonic (TH-50PX50U).

In my research I discovered a handful of people claiming that the LG and Zenith models were in-fact identical. LG, it turns out, bought out Zenith last year.

I went back to Best Buy late Sunday thinking I'd buy the Zenith, but the new PSA had such an adverse reaction to my decision (I don't even want to help sell you that.) that I decided to come back and hit John B, from our very own Gizmodo for help. I ran the rumor past him and he hooked my up with LG's veep of marketing.

Yes, that's right, I'm talking to the vice president of a multinational company about which of his TV's I should buy for my basement. In my defense, I am blogging about it, so I think it's fair.
No word yet, but if it turns out that the Zenith is really just an LG in disguise I'm going to pick it up because it's $800 cheaper. If not, I'll probably buy the LG or spend an extra $200 and get the Panasonic, which offers 1080i support. I know, I know. I'm going to regret not having 1080p when the PS3 hits, but I just don't make 1080p money.

Flat Panel HDTVs [Best Buy]