DVDs HD - DVD in High Definition

There was a fair bit of controversy after a Reuters article claimed that Microsoft would be supporting Blu-ray in future versions of the Xbox, however, Microsoft has now quashed these claims.

A Microsoft spokesperson has made a statement confirming “There was a critical element of our comments missing from the story — Microsoft currently has no plans at this time to consider Blu-ray as an option. We continue to believe that HD DVD is the best optical solution for consumers, since it’s the only format today that delivers quality experiences at affordable prices.”

The spokesman also stated “While the article states that Microsoft might possibly look into Blu-ray, we just want to emphasize that there are no current plans to consider Blu-ray as an option. Microsoft continues to be dedicated to the HD DVD format and we don’t want the Reuters article to mislead or suggest otherwise.”

Blu-ray did well at the High-Def 2.0 conference. The conference was a one day event sponsored by Home Media Magazine in cooperation with The Hollywood Reporter and the Entertainment Merchants Association.

Awards were given out for the best High Definition discs, the Blu-ray title Casino Royale got the Live Action Title of the Year, while ‘300′ was awarded the best overall HD Disc. In all Blu-ray picked up 7 or the 11 awards on offer.

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

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.

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.

There is a cut price PS3 due to be released in the UK and Europe bringing the game station and Blu-ray technology to a wider group of consumers. In the UK the console will be offered with a smaller 40GB hard drive than the normal 60GB unit.

In a statement made by Ray Maguire, head of PlayStation UK, he confirmed:

“the release of the 40GB PS3 was a “strategic decision” and not the result of lower-than-expected sales of the PlayStation 3. We have done market research, looked at fans’ forums and the feedback from consumers is that they are anxious to get into PlayStation 3 but it is too expensive”

The new low cost units should be available by early November 2007.