Details

• Print

Home Entertainment

10 October 2007

While HD DVD dominated the standalone player market early on, the introduction of lower cost players eventually swung the balance in Blu-ray's favor. According to an article at Video Business, HD DVD has regained its lead with 53% of the year's high-def player sales.

HD DVD set-tops have reclaimed their dominance over Blu-ray standalone players, according to weekly NPD Group unit sales figures cited by Toshiba.

HD DVD players began outselling Blu-ray models starting in mid-September and regained a year-to-date lead of a little over 50% through the rest of the month, said Jodi Sally, Toshiba VP of marketing of digital A/V products.

Year to date, according to NPD figures she cited, HD DVD players command 53% of sales; Blu-ray players, 44%; dual format players, 3%.

Video Business also reports that Toshiba expects to sell 5 million PC-based HD DVD drives in 2008. By putting the drives in desktop and notebook computers, Toshiba hopes to make the format competitive with the Playstation 3. If you'd like to read more, the entire article can be found here. Add a comment

Details

• Print

Home Entertainment

04 October 2007

After taking a six month break, Fox returned this week, releasing "Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer" and "Day After Tomorrow" on Blu-ray. While many have been looking forward to these titles, not everyone has been able to play them back. According to High-Def Digest and Engadget, there are playback issues with select players from Samsung and LG.

But while the discs have generally been well-received (our own Peter Bracke raved about the audio/video quality in his review of 'Silver Surfer'), what was initially a cause for celebration has become an exercise in frustration for some Blu-ray fans as incompatibility issues with some players have hindered playback of the discs.

The most severe problems have been reported on Samsung's BDP-1200 and LG's BH100, which are both said to be incapable of playing back the discs at all. Less catastophic issues (error messages and playback stutter) have been reported for Samsung's BDP-1000. The discs appear to play back fine on all other Blu-ray players (including the PlayStation 3), although users have reported lengthy load times of up to two minutes.

While many speculated that BD+ was the cause of these problems, they appear to be an issue with BD-J. Samsung and LG are reportedly aware of the problem and are working on a fix. However, it is unknown when firmware updates will be available. Add a comment

Details

• Print

Home Entertainment

08 October 2007

As most of you already know, a lower-priced version of the PS3 is coming to the European market later this month. While this stripped down version of the console sports a smaller hard drive and lacks many of the features found on higher priced models, it retains its Blu-ray Disc drive, making it the cheapest Blu-ray player on the market. According to Pocket-link.co.uk, the European HD DVD Promotions Group has already commented on Sony's price cutting measures, stating that it will have "minimal impact on the adoption of next generation HD formats" and that the winner will be determined by the sales of standalone players.

Quick to respond to the PS3's European price-cut, the HD DVD Promotional Group has issued a statement to say that they believe it will have "minimal impact" on the next-gen DVD market.

"The European PS3 price cut will have a minimal impact on the adoption of next generation HD formats. The real battleground is in sales of standalone players and HD DVD is out in front by a massive margin." said Ken Graffeo, co-chairman of the Group.

As well as giving Sony a much-needed sales boost in the gaming market in the run up to Christmas, the new 40GB PS3, that will be £299 when it's available later this month, will also be one of the cheapest Blu-ray players on the market.

In my opinion, the HD DVD Promotions Group should be concerned. While they once dominated the high-def standalone player market, they've started to fall behind in recent months due to the introduction of cheaper Blu-ray players. If you'd like to read more, the entire article can be found here. Add a comment

Details

• Print

Home Entertainment

04 October 2007

Blue Ray Technologies announced today that they have opened a new television division to help producers put their shows on Blu-ray Disc. With its greater capacity, Blu-Ray Technology claims that it can be cheaper to put a complete season of a TV show on Blu-ray disc rather than on multiple DVD's.

Blue Ray Technologies is launching a new television division to serve the burgeoning Hi-Def TV market with Blu-ray discs. With virtually all network and cable shows now shot in High Definition, a new market for Blu-ray DVDs is springing up for TV fans.

The home market for TV show on DVD is well-established: about 100 "Complete Season" sets, specials and TV movies are released every month - more than tripling new theatrical titles.

Complete Season releases can actually be cheaper to networks and consumers than regular DVDs as 13 episodes will fit into a single 25 gigabyte Blu-ray disc, rather than four DVDs. Boxed DVD sets retailing at $49 -$79 presently could be sold in the $29 -$39 range, with store prices being much less.

If you'd like to read more, Blue Ray Technologies' entire press release can be found here. Add a comment