DVDs HD - DVD in High Definition

Toshiba released firmware upgrades for its 3rd Generation HD DVD players. The firmware version is now 1.3 and this upgrade applies to the following models: HD-A30, HD-A3, HD-D3, and HD-A35

Toshiba gave these details on their website:

“As part of our commitment to provide world-class service to our customers, Toshiba is supplying this firmware update for use by purchasers of Toshiba HD DVD Player models HD-A30, HD-A3, HD-D3, and HD-A35. This firmware update improves network connectivity for supporting the download of web-enabled network content associated with certain HD DVD discs, improves certain video and audio processing capabilities, and also addresses certain disc playback and HDMI/DVI related issues identified by Toshiba.”

The price has been dropped for Samsung’s BD-P1400 Blu-ray Player on Amazon. The price is a record low for a Blu-ray player and is currently being sold in the US for $339.00. This bodes well for the Blu-ray camp as many people feel the players are too expensive.

• Plays Blu-ray high-definition discs (selectable output resolution: 1080p signals available through HDMI output only; 720p/1080i signals available through HDMI or component video)
• Selectable 720p/1080i/1080p video upconversion for DVD (upconverted video available through HDMI output only.

Samsung BD-P1400/XEU BluRay DVD Player

Acer claims to be offering the first laptop to feature a DVD drive that can play both Blu-ray and HD DVD discs. The laptop is the Acer Aspire M5630 and comes equipped with a GGC-H20N from Hitachi-LG, it has the ability to play 1920 x 1080 resolution HD DVD content. The laptop also comes equipped with an Intel Q6600 Core 2 Quad processor with 500GB HDD.

The new feature packed Panasonic DMP-BD30K has had its November 12th release date delayed. The new release date set has been confirmed as 1 December 2007, so we will not have too long to wait.

The DMP-BD30 features Final Standard Profile which adds a number of new and enhanced features. Amongst other things Final Standard Profile gives the ability to play Picture-in-Picture (PIP) and allows for Audio Mixing. The BD30 also comes with an SD slot which can play a slide show complete with music, very similar to iPhoto. The SD Memory Card slot also allows for playback of High Definition content recorded in the AVCHD format, and viewing of digital still images from cameras.

This new player is far more advanced than any other player currently on the market, the first to offer many of its features.

SlySoft has just released updated their AnyDVD software which now alows anyone to copy Blu-ray DVDs using the AnyDVD Ripper. In the release information it is confirmed that they removed the ‘BD+ not supported’ warning. This is because all available BD+ titles can be copied with AnyDVD ripper, or can be watched on HTPC without HDCP using PowerDVD 3104 and AnyDVD. Reports also indicate, that burned BD+ titles work on PS3 and standalone players as well.

Some info: BD+ is a seperate component of the Blu-ray Disc Digital Rights Management system. It has been developed by Cryptography Research Inc. and is based on their SPDC concept. BD+ is basicaly a small virtual machine embedded in authorised players and allows content providers to include executable programs on Blu-ray discs.

Spider-Man III sales are just in and show that 130,000 copies of the film were sold in the Blu-ray format in the first six days. This makes it the biggest selling Blu-ray title to date, but falls short of the record held by the Transformers movie in the HD DVD format which sold 190,000 discs. in the same amount of time

Toshiba reportedly sold approximately 90,000 HD-A2 players last weekend, fueled by the drop in price to under $100.00. This shows that there is a thriving market for the High Definition formats and the only thing holding consumers back is the high cost involved with the TVs and players.

Personally I cant wait for the cuts seen in the US markets to be replicated here in the UK, the market is there, it just needs to be made available to the average person.

Speculation arose last week that Warner Home Video would be choosing sides in the Dual Format war, however, this has today been dismissed by Jim Noonan, SVP of Strategic Promotion and Communication. He said that they are still on board with both formats, and will continue in 2008 with a strong line-up of new releases and catalog titles in both HD DVD and Blu-ray formats.

The statement made last week were probably not what Warner would have wanted to be released and speculated about, no matter what the truth is regarding the future for Blu-ray and HD DVD with Warner.

Toshiba’s entry-level HD-A2 HD DVD was the first to be under the $200.00 mark in the US, but ‘Best Buy’ & Wal-Mart have just announced that they will now be selling the unit for under $100.00. Unfortunately there is not yet any sign of consumers in the UK being able to pick up players at these prices, but its a good sign that prices are dropping making HD technology more available to the paying public.

Warner Home Video is considering the change from being one of the leading dual format studios to featuring Blu-ray exclusively. VP Dan Silverberg at the Blu-ray Festival press event in Los Angeles was quoted as saying:

“One thing that may be changing is our strategy, when both formats launched and hardware prices were high, we made a decision to support both formats and let the consumer decide. But now that hardware pricing is affordable for both Blu-ray and HD DVD, it appears consumers no longer want to decide — so the notion of staying in two formats for the duration is something we are re-evaluating now that we are in the fourth quarter.”

The decision to favour Blu-ray rather than HD DVD is down to sales and it was noted by Silverberg that the firms Blu-ray sales of ‘300′ was its top seller.