DVD
by Dave Freeman on November 13, 2009

New kid on the block Cranberry claims that their new DVD will last 1,000 years. Of course no one will be around to dispute that claim, and by then we’ll be using some kind of organic memory light data cell, but hey! Who knows, maybe future generations will want to see those vacation photos you took of Grandma Rhoda and Aunt Suzy.

by Dave Freeman on October 29, 2009

This is just wrong. I’ll admit, I didn’t enjoy “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen”. I thought the plot was weak and contrived, and I was slightly offended by the dumbing down of the film (robot urination and racial stereotypes? give me a break). I realize that the original “Transformers” wasn’t exactly the height of cinematic art, but it was better then the sequel.

by Doug Aamoth on October 29, 2009

If you long for the ability to watch high definition TV on a seven-inch screen that’s resolution is a mere 480×234 but you also want to have the option to watch standard definition DVD’s as well, then here’s your next purchase.

According to Hammacher Schlemmer, this is “The First Portable HDTV And DVD Player.”

by Nicholas Deleon on September 23, 2009

Some Netflix news for you this morning. It looks like a 49-year-old post office worker is facing a maximum of five years in federal prison after having plead guilty to federal theft charges. What was he stealing? Oh, you know, some 3,000 Netflix DVDs over the years.

by Doug Aamoth on August 27, 2009

family guyAmazon’s lopped over $60 off the 22-disc “Total World Domination Collection” of Family Guy episodes, bringing the total price to just $75 (good today only).

by Serkan Toto on August 6, 2009

Toshiba, the company behind the now dead HD DVD format, first talked about joining the Blu-ray bandwagon back in June, but it seems there’s no hurry. The company announced a total of three new Vardia DVRs today [JP], and they all use DVDs and HDDs to store data.

by Nicholas Deleon on July 17, 2009

A Utah company claims to have developed a DVD that will last 1,000 years under normal, everyday conditions. (You don’t have to be a professional archivist, in other words.) And while that’s an impressive achievement, if it is indeed true, there’s one small problem: what are the odds that, 1,000 years from now, Future People will derive any value at all from said discs?

by Serkan Toto on July 3, 2009

After losing the format war against Sony, Toshiba is yet to produce Blu-ray hardware, but at least they keep on rolling out DVD hardware in their VARDIA series. The company yesterday announced two new HDD/DVD recorders for the Japanese market [JP].

by Doug Aamoth on April 29, 2009

facetRealNetworks is currently entangled in a legal case over a prototype hardware DVD ripper called “Facet.” Described as “TiVo for DVDs,” the $300 box aims to replace set-top DVD players by allowing owners to rip their movie collections directly to a 500GB hard drive for quick and easy access and playback.

CrunchDeals: Complete ‘Kids in the Hall’ series on DVD for $109
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by Doug Aamoth on April 13, 2009

c47c81b0c8a0a88682ad9110.L If you haven’t seen The Kids in the Hall, you haven’t LIVED! Put it on your bucket list! If you’ve seen and enjoy the wonderfully weird sketches, you may be interested to know that Amazon is selling the entire five-season Kids in the Hall series for $109. It spans 20 DVDs and contains all the episodes, plus a bunch of behind-the-scenes stuff, interviews, deleted scenes, and some of the original live theater performances.

The Kids in the Hall Megaset [Amazon.com via dealspl.us]

by Nicholas Deleon on March 27, 2009

This is tremendous. It’s an application for Android called BarTor that you use to automatically download movies using BitTorrent. You simply hold the G1’s camera to a movie’s barcode, presumably while at Best Buy or something, then the software sends the movie title to your computer, which you’ve already set up to run uTorrent or Vuze. And off it goes!

Warner Bros launches on-demand DVD service
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by Peter Ha on March 23, 2009

al-capone-1925

With the massive onslaught of downloadable and/or streaming content from service providers like Netflix, Vudu and Hulu; Hollywood studios are hurting for revenue from DVD sales, but Warner Bros may have an ace in the hole. They’re now offering the WB archive of over 6800 films for a new “made-to-order” service. To date, WB has only released 1200 of those films since entering the DVD business in 1997. You can order DVDs for $19.95 plus shipping or download titles directly to your computer.

Warner Archive via Reuters

by Scott Merrill on February 18, 2009

Redbox, the wonderful dollar-a-day DVD rental kiosk company, is currently owned by a number of parties, including Coinstar and GetAMovie, a subsidiary of McDonalds. Coinstar, Redbox’s majority owner, announced last week that they’ll be buying up the remaining shares. No price changes are planned for normal DVDs. Although we previously reported that Redbox would rent Blu-Ray discs for $1, indications now are that Blu-Ray rentals will cost a little more.

by Serkan Toto on January 30, 2009

Denon announced the DVD-A1UDCI, a universal player that supports Blu-ray discs, SACDs, CDs, DVD-Audio and DVD-Video, back in December for the Japanese market. The company today announced [JP] it will release the player, which was scheduled for release in Nippon this month, in March 2009.

by Matt Burns on January 19, 2009

Samsung dropped the swanky BD-P4600 Blu-ray player at CES and now it has some company – and competition – from LG. While the DV4S and DV4M are not Blu-ray players like the Samsung counterpart, the two models still hold their own with different functions and features.

by Matt Burns on January 13, 2009

DVD wasn’t a success until that first Christmas when players were available for less than $40 and Blu-ray’s success probably weighs on a similar price barrier. Chinese manufacturers are certainly here to help and prices are slowly dropping to the Wal-Mart-acceptable level with the AMEX Digital BD-P1 as the latest no-name player that might be headed to the retailer. On paper, it doesn’t look terrible.

by Nicholas Deleon on January 10, 2009

Remember RealDVD, Real Networks’ attempt to legitimize DVD copying, only the movie studios freaked out because they didn’t understand what the software was all about? Well, Real still thinks it has a good chance of winning the lawsuit it faces. Lawsuit out of the way, it’ll go on selling RealDVD like nothing ever happened.

by Serkan Toto on December 19, 2008

Tokyo-based Infinity Storage Media [JP] is the world’s first company that will roll out a Blu-ray / DVD hybrid disc (a boxed set, to be more precise) , which has a single-layer of Blu-ray (25GB) on one and a conventional dual-layer DVD (8.5GB) on the other side.

Mercedes first to implement SPLITVIEW COMMAND
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by Dave Freeman on December 11, 2008


We told you about it back in February, but Merc is the first company to have it in a production vehicle. The system will allow you to have two viewers using the same screen, while viewing different content.

Ideally, this would allow the driver to view travel information while the passenger watches a movie. Or vice versa if you know where you’re going and love getting in accidents. This will reportedly be available on all S-Class models starting summer of 2009.

[via Benz Insider]

Yay? Blu-ray recorders now more popular than DVD recorders in Japan
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by Nicholas Deleon on December 10, 2008

blurayr

Blu-ray is now officially more popular than plain ol’ DVD in Japan. Wait, let me rephrase that: there are now more Blu-ray disc recorders in Japan than there are DVD recorders. More than 50 percent of disc recorders in Japan are now of the Blu-ray variety.

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