Not to be left behind by the download revolution, video rental company Blockbuster is reportedly working on a set-top box to pipe movies directly to your TV. The move isn’t entirely unexpected — what else was it going to do with Movielink, the movie download service Blockbuster acquired for $6.6 million last year? But maybe the company should hit pause before going forward with it.

Blockbuster needs to do something to juice up its business because Netflix is eating its lunch. But getting into the hardware game will be an expensive endeavor, especially in an increasingly crowded field already packed with big names like Apple, TiVo, Xbox 360, Vudu and soon the Netflix LG box.

There is concern that forging ahead online could cannibalize Blockbuster’s existing real-world retail locations. But there’s a way for the two to co-exist — it should buy Redbox.

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The Safran Digital Group will produce scripted short-form content for the Xbox, according to reports. We’ll have more tomorrow, but for now the basics:

• Safran represents clients like the actor and producer Sean Combs, Nia Vardalos, Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer, but major movie stars are not expected to participate.
• The six shows are likely to be comedy, horror or science fiction.
• Reports differ on whether the shows are debuting in the summer or fall.
• Microsoft says this is the first of many Xbox content deals; it’s also talking to MySpace.
• The shows will have an unspecified window of exclusivity on Xbox before they are available elsewhere.

If researchers are correct, 2012 promises to be a banner year for HD, DVRs and IPTV. That is, if the apocalypse doesn’t get in the way. With 2007 over, research firms can safely predict five years out. Unfortunately those just may be our last five years on Earth. According to Wikipedia:

2012 is sometimes claimed to be a great year of spiritual transformation (or apocalypse). Many esoteric sources interpret the completion of the thirteenth B’ak’tun cycle in the Long Count of the Maya calendar (which occurs on December 21 by the most widely held correlation) to mean there will be a major change in world order.

Thankfully, you’ll have a crystal-clear picture of all that death and destruction, as SNL Kagan projects that there will be more than 71 million (65.7 percent of U.S. multichannel households) HD subscribers by 2012. High definition means you’ll actually be able to count the number of teeth gnashing, and the rich, deep reds of all that fire and brimstone will make you feel like you’re right there.

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The story of Comcast’s desire to know who’s in your living room has certainly touched off a web-wide frenzy, starting in our comments section and finding its way into The New York Times.

Gerard Kunkel, Comcast senior vice president of user experience, and the man interviewed for the original story, responded in our post comments section. In the interest of fairness, we wanted to give Mr. Kunkel’s response more prominence.

Chris,

Your article on “Comcast Cameras to Start Watching You” portrayed some assumptions that require correction and clarification. I want to be clear that in no way are we exploring any camera devices that would monitor customer behavior.

To gather information for your article on Comcast’s exploration of cameras you picked up on my conversation with another conference attendee. The other attendee and I were deep in a conversation discussing a variety of input devices offered by a variety of vendors that Comcast is reviewing.

The camera-based gesture recognition device is in no way designed to – or capable of – monitoring your living room. These technologies are designed to allow simple navigation on a television set just as the Wii remote uses a camera to manage its much heralded gesture-based interactivity.

We are constantly exploring new technologies that better serve our customers. The goal is simple – a better user experience that allows the consumer to get ever increasing value out of their Comcast products.

As with any new technology, we carefully consider the consumer benefits. In fact, we do an enormous amount of consumer testing in advance of making a product decision such as this. I’m confident that a new technology like gesture-based navigation will be fully explored with consumers to understand the product’s feature benefits – and of course, the value to the consumer.

Sincerely, Gerard Kunkel

I responded to Mr. Kunkel in our comment with the following:

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The tiny, bare bones Flip Video recorder now has 13 percent of the camcorder market, according to its creator, Pure Digital, indicating that the low-end video recorder buyers are booming even as video-sharing sites are rushing to support high-definition.

Despite the fact that the 13 percent figure comes from the company, it’s not hard to believe. With a sub-$150 price point, straightforward design, and YouTube accessibility, the handy camera has been a hit with consumers. As of this writing, Flip cameras held six of the top ten spots on Amazon’s camcorders bestseller list (including spots 1 and 2). Even Oprah blessed the devices, giving them away to audience members at one of her shows last November.

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Sony won’t have much time to celebrate winning the format war against HD DVD: Notorious Antigua-based software maker Slysoft says it’s cracked Blu-Ray’s copy protection. Slysoft’s AnyDVD HD application is now offering unencrypted access to Blu-Ray content, making it possible to back up Blu-Ray discs onto your own hard drive, copy or transcode HD movies and watch them without DRM-compliant hardware, according to a company press release.

HD-DVD’s copy protection got cracked a good year ago; Blu-Ray promised Hollywood stronger protection with it’s own BD+ protection scheme. This promise was at least one factor in the industry’s backing of Blu-Ray and thus a nail in HD’s coffin. “Film studios that have switched to Blu-Ray may have crowed a little too early,” comments Slysoft in its press release announcing AnyDVD HD. Companies in the online HD space, on the other hand, couldn’t be happier.

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If you have some tinfoil handy, now might be a good time to fashion a hat. At the Digital Living Room conference today, Gerard Kunkel, Comcast’s senior VP of user experience, told me the cable company is experimenting with different camera technologies built into devices so it can know who’s in your living room.

The idea being that if you turn on your cable box, it recognizes you and pulls up shows already in your profile or makes recommendations. If parents are watching TV with their children, for example, parental controls could appear to block certain content from appearing on the screen. Kunkel also said this type of monitoring is the “holy grail” because it could help serve up specifically tailored ads. Yikes.

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This morning LED maker Luminus said it has raised a whopping $72 million for its PhlatLight LED products, which are primarily used for flat-panel displays, while Dutch display maker Liquavista said it has raised €8 million (or $12.6 million) in a Series B round. The company claims its bright displays, found in portable electronics, use a fraction of the energy that LCDs use.

Screens, whether in our living rooms, our back pockets or our office cubicles, are becoming an increasingly large part of our daily lives. But at the same time, consumers and companies are becoming more concerned over power consumption and the energy efficiency of our electronics. Not just to reduce carbon emissions and fight global warming, but also to cut our energy bills and increase the battery life of our mobile gadgets.

Continue reading at our sister site Earth2Tech.