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Sony’s Bravia Internet Video Link (or “BIVL,” as we call it around here) is getting two more content partners: Slacker and Howcast. Slacker is the online streaming music service (similar to Pandora and Last.FM), while Howcast is a help and how-to website. Both will be …

In case you haven’t gotten enough of amazing TVs you can’t possibly afford in this awesome economy today, Cnet has reviewed the 55-inch, plasma-killin’ tri-color LED-backlit Bravia XBR8 we saw a couple months ago. Spoiler: Sony’s setup didn’t lie—it’s the best LCD TV ever, falling just short of the best HDTV ever, nearly matching Pioneer’s PDP-111FD (Cnet’s best flat-panel period) in blacks, color accuracy and bright-room picture quality.

Here’s what great: The black levels are near-Kuro deep. In dimly-lit scenes, blacks had “an inky depth in dark areas that lent superb punch and realism to the image, and easily outclassed the rest of the non-Pioneer sets.” The only taint is that when bright areas are next to dark ones, it lightens up the bars a bit, so Pioneer wins here. The color accuracy “is nothing short of superb” and after calibration they’re as “excellently balanced and still as saturated as on the Pioneer.” Its de-juddering mode is also the best they’ve ever seen.

Its few weak points: Image quality fades when you look at it from an off angle, the previously mentioned blooming with high contrast images, and the dejuddering can produce some artifacts, especially with a standard-def picture. Oh, and it’s $7000, the most expensive TV they’ve ever tested. On the upside, if you’re willing to spend more than $6500 on a TV, you apparently can’t wrong. [Cnet via Sony Insider]

The DMX-WL1, DMX-DVD and DMX-SW1 link modules from Sony hook up to their BRAVIA TVs to provide wireless streaming of HD video from anywhere up to 65 feet away. The DMX-WL1 is a two-piece system that has five HD sources (four HDMI and one component) that’s $800 in October. The DMX-DVD is an upscaling 1080p DVD player for $200, and the DMX-SW1 adds four additional HDMI inputs for $150, both of which are available now. These “follow” the BRAVIA Internet Video Link Module which latches onto compatible BRAVIA TVs, which costs $300. [Sony Style]

Sony became the latest to jump on the app trend bandwagon, but not with a product you’d automatically equate with downloading itty bitty widgets. The company has released an App development kit for its line of Bravia television sets. It expects people to create things like small multiplayer online games, weather and news data aggregators and anything else you can program onto 1.3MB of memory.

To inspire developers, Sony’s holding a competition for the best application. For your troubles, you could win either a Bravia 40-inch LCD TV, a Vaio TypeC laptop, or a Blue-Ray player, a Cybershot DSC-T77 or one of their new Walkman music players. Just get your app in before January 8th, 2009. [ Sony Insider]

Filed under: Displays, HDTV, Home Entertainment

While we were just able to take a look at Sony’s BRAVIA VPL-VW70 SXRD at CEDIA, it appears that the company is showing Europe a little love with the awfully similar VPL-VW80. The Full HD beamer includes High Frame Rate SXRD panels, a 100Hz Motionflow Dark Frame Insertion system, the BRAVIA ENGINE 2 processing tech and a 2.5-millisecond response time. You’ll also find a 60,000:1 contrast ratio, Advanced Iris 2, electronic panel alignment, two HDMI connectors and a 1.6x motorized zoom lens. Unfortunately, there’s no mention of a price and / or release date, but we’ll go way out on a limb here and suggest you start saving up immediately.

[Via AboutProjectors]

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