They’ve announced it back in June and executed the plan today: Toshiba is now officially a Blu-ray supporter. The company issued a short press release (in English) today, stating Toshiba has applied for membership of the Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA). The BDA is a voluntary membership group aimed at fostering the development of the Blu-ray format on a global scale.
I am seeing more and more TV/Blu-ray combos in Japanese electronics stores, and today Sharp announced [JP] a total of 13 new LCD TVs boasting a built-in Blu-ray recorder. The AQUOS DX2 series consists of screens measuring 26/32/40/46 and 52 inches.
You gotta love automatic updates the bring new features to Blu-ray players. Panasonic is pushing out new firmware for its ‘09 Blu-ray lineup that adds Amazon on Demand to the already impressive extras of YouTube, Picasa, Bloomberg, and weather info. Oh, and that little portable Blu-ray player (BD15) also gains this ability along with the DMP-BD60, BD70V, and BD80. So once these players are graced with the update sometime today, users will have access to 45,000 SD titles and 1,000 HD titles. What’s there not to love?
I have a secret to tell you. I’m a fan of the Fast & Furious franchise. Actually, the second one sucked really badly. But I’m not reviewing the fourth installment in the riveting saga here, just the Blu-ray iPhone app. Read More
The Onkyo DV-BD507 is headed to America, everyone. The AV company went all offical on the player last month with European launch info, but was mum about a US release. Well, it’s here and it looks great – including the price. Read More
While the format war is definitely settled here in the West, it appears that is not the case in China. The CBHD format is the dominant HD disc over there, and although it’s its own thing, it has more in common with HD-DVD than Blu-ray. Of course, the biggest market over there is probably still VCDs, but I think this little fact is pretty entertaining.
We knew that Sony was working on Blu-ray MegaChangers since CEDIA 2008, but we didn’t know that it would take almost a full year to get our hands on ‘em. Anyway, here they are: the $800 BDP-CX960 and the $1900 BDP-CX7000ES. What’s the difference you say? Well, actually, plenty – not $1,100 worth, but there is a difference. Read More
This is Samsung’s latest 5.1 home theater in a box, the HT-BD3252. It comes out next month for a cool $799.
Why am I so giddy over a movie that I wasn’t a big fan of? Because it comes bundled with Parts 1 and 2 of the Watchmen: The End is Nigh videogame. If you’re looking to pick up the movie, the videogame or both then WB has a few options laid out for you.
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Universal Studios announced today that they would be releasing the first iPhone app to control Blu-ray features in upcoming Blu-ray releases starting with the two-disc Special Edition release of “Fast & Furious” on July 28.
iPhone and iPod Touch owners will be able to control certain features over their local Wi-Fi network and in the instance of Fast & Furious, they’ll be able to control and navigate the Virtual Car Garage. Said feature will entail control of “360-degree views of the movie’s supercharged street-racers and instantly punch up exclusive technical specs for the film’s high-tech cars.” Universal has not stated whether or not this will be the only feature enabled on the iPhone app.
It had to happen at some point. With HD DVD long gone and Blu-ray sales rocketing up 91 percent (Q1 ‘09 over Q1 ‘08), Toshiba really had no choice, but to join the other team. Read More
It’s going to take a serious BSG fan to spend $219 on the complete Blu-ray set, but something tells me there are a bunch of you out there. That gets you the complete series, all the extra features, the web episodes and Capica spread over 20 Blu-ray discs. But is Battlestar Galactica worth $219? Serious. I’m asking.
Amazon is currently having a “Blu-ray Blowout” with movies as low as $9.99, categorized in $15.99 and Under, $16-25, and Over $25 groupings. Not to be confused with the Blu-ray Blowout you’d experience after a long night of drinking followed up by burnt coffee and blueberry mini-muffins for breakfast.
Seriously. Please spend the extra cash and get this Pioneer BDP-120 over the $98 Magnavox Blu-ray player. You will be oh so happy that you did. Why you ask? Let me explain.
Who wants a cheap Blu-ray player? That’s a dumb question. No one wants a cheap Blu-ray player, but rather a low-price, high quality player. This $99 Magnavox is unfortunately cheap. It’s only Profile 1.1, doesn’t haven’t have analog audio out, or anything that would get videophiles excited. But it’s only $99.
If money is no issue, and you’re looking to play 1080p content—alt.binaries.hdtv.h264 says hi—on your big screen TV, you really ought to look into getting a proper PC, one with one of those fancy nVidia GPU that you can use to hardware accelerate said Blu-ray rips. That being said, it looks like LaCie just came out with a stand-alone device that should play most of the HD content you “find” online. Oh, it’s called the LaCinema Rugged HD, and LaCie wants $350 for it.
When we first spent some time with the Oppo BDP-83 Blu-ray player way back last September at CEDIA, we walked away impressed and anxious to get our hands on the player. Well, 11 months later we’re pleased to report that it is finally available for purchase. Yay! Read More
JVC Japan announced the XV-BP1 today [JP], a new Blu-ray player that comes with two interesting features and a fair price. The player supports DivX/MPEG-4/MKV/AVCHD files and sports a USB port at the front so you can plug in a USB stick with your DivX-movies (you know, the ones you downloaded legally earlier) into the device and directly start watching.
Vizio just took the wraps off of its hot Internet-connected HDTVs the other day, but the company has a new Blu-ray player coming soon too. The $188 MSRP will probably get price cuts and sales to bring it down to a more “Walmart” level seeing as Blu-ray players have breached the $100 mark. But even around the starting price, this player might not disappoint.
