You have to give it to Toshiba for making a well-rounded Blu-ray player on its first time. This thing is loaded:

• BD-Live™ (Profile 2.0) & BonusView
• 1080p Full HD Video Output
• DivX & AVCHD Playback
• Toshiba REGZA-LINK® (HDMI-CEC)
• Support for enhanced audio formats from Dolby® TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio | Essential ™
• SD Card Slot (SDHC Compatible)
• Deep Color
• 1080p upscaling

Expect the player sometime in Novermber for $250.

According to Yomiuri, Toshiba will be launching a Blu-ray player by the end of the year. Details are scant, but the model number is said to be BD 18.

Yomiuri via Xbit

You may want to pull your HD DVD player’s Craigslist ad if you’re a Harry Potter fan. For only $25, you can get the first five Harry Potter films in glorous high definition with free shipping. And did you see the spectacular gift box? Why wouldn’t you spend $25 on this? Really, tell me one good reason…

Deep Discount via dealnews

Remember HD DVD? The video format developed by Toshiba that lost the format war against Blu-ray? Today Toshiba held a pretty interesting annual shareholder meeting in Tokyo during which president Atsutoshi Nishida didn’t say they will revive HD DVD but that his company thinks about producing Blu-ray products.

Nishida said that Blu-ray recorders in particular appear to be a viable option, adding one reason is that the video disc format war is lost once and for all for Toshiba. Another reason might be that demand for Blu-ray recorders is on the rise (especially in Japan) and Toshiba wants to have a share of that market segment.

Another factor is surely pressure from the shareholders, as Toshiba is in a devastating financial state. For the current fiscal year, Nishida said his company is on track to save $3.5 billion after he apologized for the bad numbers in fiscal 2008.

Blu-ray was declared the winning format last year when HD DVD threw in the towel. This victory came after major studios left the HD DVD camp and joined up with Blu-ray. But just because a victory was celebrated, that doesn’t mean the format is successful. In fact, a recent Harris Interactive poll shows that many purchased an HD DVD player last year and most don’t plan on buying a Blu-ray player anytime soon.

This poll’s results might be shocking to some outside the tech community, but it clearly shows that consumers are ready to move past physical media and onto the digital downloads. In fact, secondary polls were conducted as well and found that an overwhelming number of people are “not at all likely” to purchase a Blu-ray device within the next year and many will buy fewer DVDs within six months.

This Harris Interactive poll (PDF) found that 11% of Americans own an HD DVD player despite the format being officially dead. Plus another 3% have the HD DVD add-on for the Xbox 360. This is up over 2008’s findings of 6% and 1%, respectively. Blu-ray’s penetration also rose, albeit not as much, from 4% in 2008 to 7% in 2009. The same goes for the PS3 with 7% of Americans now owning Sony’s gaming system.

But you thought HD DVD was dead? Well, it is. That doesn’t mean that consumers didn’t take advantage of the fire sales shortly after Blu-ray was declared the victor. Clearly consumers either aren’t aware of the benefits that Blu-ray provides, or they just aren’t interested in another physical media.

Think about it: 20 years ago, VHS was introduced. People rushed out to buy up all their favorite movies on that format. Then DVD was introduced. That format touted superior picture quality and discs loaded with extra features. So then consumers bought up their must-have movies a second time and continued to grow their collections with new releases.

But then another format was introduced: HD DVD. This time around, consumers heard the same marketing pitch: an even better picture and more extra features. Alright, some bought into that while Blu-ray slowly rolled out and crushed the first high-def optical media type. Many consumers sat on the sidelines as these two fought it out while a third player slowly crept onto the market: digital downloads.

Comcast doesn’t get much love around these parts. We’ve all had major problems with the provider, but Comcast has made one of the biggest pushes for the digital download movement. Its On Demand is built-into all of its cable boxes and has shown to the general consumer that they don’t need physical media. Why do they need to run down to Best Buy on Tuesday to buy the latest releases, when the same titles are available via On Demand on the same day for a fraction of the price? Or, why worry about returning a movie to Blockbuster when they can watch it at their convenience?

The second poll that Harris Interactive conducted found that 93% of consumers in 2009 are “somewhat/not at all likely” to buy a Blu-ray player. Last year, 91% of people said that. Plus, a third poll conducted found that consumers are only planning on buying 3.4 DVDs over the next six months versus the 6.2 that they purchased over the last six months.

The economy cannot be blamed for this. Blu-ray players are now at the $100 mark, and DVD discs are cheap. Consumers are likely finding that physical media isn’t the future; digital downloads are.

Even the video game industry is moving this way. 2009’s E3 featured two major players announcing their support for downloading games. The Xbox 360 is gaining this ability shortly via Xbox Live and the new PSP Go! doesn’t support physical media at all. All of its titles can be downloaded directly onto the device.

Currently there isn’t a standard way of downloading or streaming movies. There are too many providers spanning too many devices. But things are slowly starting to change. Netflix made its way onto many devices last year and Vudu, one of our favorites, is starting to embed its software into set-top boxes.

The music industry suffered a long, agonizing death because of its inability to change. Hopefully Hollywood took notes.

Well isn’t this a sweet promo from Warner Bros to promote Blu-ray and attempt to eliminate the remaining HD DVD inventory. The trade-in program is a bit weird, though. You don’t actually have to send in the HD DVD disc to get a copy of the same movie on Blu-ray. All WB wants is the original cover sleeve and nothing else. Prices on Blu-ray discs start at $4.95 and go up to $14.95 for the likes of Blade Runner.

You’ll have to pay for shipping as well, which is $6.95 within the continental US and goes up to $8.95 for orders within Hawai’i, Alaska and Puerto Rico. But it’s a pretty smart move to force folks to make the switch. Now go and find that $5 bin of HD DVDs!

Thanks for the tip, ChristoboL

Red2Blu

Go grab that Xbox 360 HD DVD drive and give it new life with this mod. What you’re going to do is rip it apart and make a sweet-ass laser pointer/gun sight/cat teaser. It’s not like you’re ever going to use it again. Look at it. It’s just sitting there, mocking your early-adapting ass. Oh, and didja know that this laser will be strong enough to burn paper or light a match? Go get it.

The Format War is done; it has been for a while. Netflix officially stopped buying new HD DVDs back in February ‘08 and starting on December 15th, the company will no longer be shipping ‘em out either marking Blu-ray’s exclusive reign. Any HD DVDs remaining in subscriber’s queues will simply be replaced with standard DVDs. No word on what Netflix is doing with the soon to be defunct high-def discs, but hopefully they will be up for sale sometime down the road. I’m sure a bunch of early adopters would appreciate the gesture and discount on the discs.

The format war may be done and even though Blu-ray won, that doesn’t mean Toshiba is going to leave its early adopters stranded with unsupported devices and so, just released firmware 4.0 for its HD DVD players. It seems the update affects every Toshiba HD DVD player and owners will want to download this update via the built-in Ethernet port for improved disc playback, along with resuming play after being paused for a long time. 

Isn’t it refreshing to see a CE company support products even though they aren’t produced or even needed anymore?

Toshiba via About

Sony BDP-350 owners, I’ve got great news for you this Friday. Your Sony Blu-ray player can now play all the fancy-pants BD Live extras once you update your player’s firmware. The 56 MB firmware update can be downloaded directly via the players Ethernet port or you can download it on your computer and make an update disc. Either way you go, I’m happy for you. The BD Live functionality finally adds the same features HD DVD had years ago. 

Sony via DigitalHome

Once upon a time, there was a high definition format called HD DVD. Now, HD DVD was developed by a company called Toshiba, and that company put its heart and soul into this format. Evenutally though, the format died off by the big blu-ray monster. Toshiba was very sad and didn’t want anything to do with the winning format. So do you know what they did? They developed the XDE-E500 upconverting DVD and I spent some time with it today.

The Toshiba XDE isn’t high-def. It isn’t even close and anyone that says it looks like HD is a moron. CEDIA ‘08 is full of true 1080p pictures, being shown on the latest display technology, so the scaled 480p image looked a little out of place. It’s just another upconverting DVD player boys and girls. The ‘improved’ picture looked over-compressed and blotchy, hardly the best picture of the show.

LaserDisc – Back in the day of Smurfs and hairy rock, I played Dragons Lair on LaserDisc but still watch Jaws on good ‘ol VHS. I think a garage sale ate my Pioneer deck. 

CDs – Oh, how I love thee. You held my GnR albums all through high school and when I started to try to run with you I learned you skip like a Boy Scout.

Minidisc – I once knew a guy that had a MiniDisc headunit installed in his Buick Riviera. He was a douche. 

SACD – Thanks to a smooth-sounding Eagles album, I could sell you like a corner whore but wouldn’t let you on my equipment rack.

DVD Audio – “SACD is doing so well, there must be a market for a second high-quality media format,” said a now unemployed suit.

DVD – The Matrix was amazing, LOTR was great, but yeah, who buys DVDs anymore?

UMD – ROFL

CBHD – Just a cheap Chinese HD knock-off. It will break in a few months and will probably poison your kid if he licks it.

HD DVD – Oh how I worked for you. I preached your gospel upon high, but now you’re lying on the ground next to me and all I’m left with is this Dixie cup of Kool-aid.

Blu-ray – What do you want from me? You won; I know. I still loathe Sony and your incomplete format.

Happen to be a HD DVD earlier adopter? Sorry to hear that. Paramount and Dreamworks wants to help switch your library to the winning side and is offering up a $10 rebate. All the studios ask is that when you buy a Blu-ray title of a disk you currently own, mail in a promo certificate along with the proof of purchase from the original disc’s packaging. 

That’s not all good reader, this offer applies to standard DVDs too. The promo will began with Transformers on September 2nd and will run through December 31, 2009.

The format war is done. HD DVD lost, Blu-ray own, I was wrong and the world continued on. So where is Blu-ray now? ABI Research sayz not so good, but that was just one groups opinion and you know what they say about opinions…something about everyone’s got ‘em and they are kind of like something else…digressing. 

Future Source analyzes this type of stuff, and according to their research, Blu-ray is right where the tech is suppose to be. The consulting firm estimates that us consumers are going to buy close to 45 million Blu-ray disks in the US alone. That works out to be a whopping 400% over last year’s figures. The report goes on to state that right now, Blu-ray claims 5-6% of total sales per title and some big releases might even see double digit numbers come Christmas. 

Future Source praises U.S. retailers for their shelve space, something that European retailers have not committed too. This is something that most shoppers can attest to as it’s hard to walk through Best Buy or Circuit City and not notice the Blu-ray display — at least for us. 

Then there is the price issue. 

““Much of the drive behind this increase is coming from growing consumer awareness and falling hardware prices, coupled with PS3 owners increasingly using their consoles for video playback,” adds Jack Wetherill, who focuses on the hardware business at Futuresource. “I would be amazed if we don’t see a Blu-ray player in the US at or below $250USD by the end of this year, and in order to stimulate consumer traffic in the holiday season who’s to say there won’t be a product at closer to $200USD? In the UK, player prices will fall to around £149GBP and there may be one or two companies trying to better that.”

$200-$250 Blu-ray player for Christmas? We saw that low price last year but that was with a competing format fighting for it’s life. Hopefully we’ll get an encore performance again this year. 45 million discs still seems like a lot to us, but maybe if the prices keep on dropping the U.S. could hit it. We sure do know how to buy things over here. 

PDF via DigitalTrends

Those crazy kids over at Engadget got their grubby hands on Toshiba’s new XD-E500 upconverting DVD player. Their take? 

Most consumers will see a visible quality improvement when playing their DVDs, particularly in the realm of sharpness. Toshiba’s new filters are “intelligent” enough to spice up the grass while leaving the sky and clouds free of noise, and while the contrast and color filters are less necessary, many consumers will enjoy their effect — even if video purists would scoff at such alterations

Toshiba seems to know that this isn’t a Blu-ray killer. It certainly isn’t HD DVD but whose to say that this $179 DVD player isn’t going to be a hit with the ‘ma and pa’ crowd. They’re too old to upgrade their video collection again anyways. 

Oh and yeah, Amazon has these bad boys sitting in their gigantic warehouse right now, just waiting for you to buy one.

Even after HD DVD’s demise, Blu-ray still isn’t catching on, the PS3 excepted. Maybe the real format war was between DVD and Blu-ray all along?

A recent survey, carried out by ABI Research, found that more than half the respondents have no intention of buying a Blu-ray player. About a quarter said they had plans to buy one, but not till next year.

And why are consumers so reluctant to make the Blu-ray jump? Surprise, for many people, plain ol’ DVD is good enough.

Again, DVD is good enough. 1080p and BD Live be damned, apparently.

As it stands, the PS3 is one of the only bright spots in the Blu-ray arena right now, insofar as it’ll help drive down manufacturing costs of Blu-ray players.

Maybe Blu-ray is too beautiful for this world?

Despite Blu-ray’s victory over HD, Toshiba does not seem to be accepting defeat and quietly adopting Blu-ray. The folks over at TG Daily speculate that instead Toshiba is working to enhance the image scaling capabilities of its DVD players and possibly launching an Internet-enabled players. Though no specifics have been nailed down, TG Daily based its report on the Toshiba-chaired DVD Steering Committee meeting, which approved the above DVD Download logo at its June 11 meeting.

An Internet-enabled DVD player could easily transfer videos from the Web and then burn them to a DVD and DRM restrictions could still apply. MaximumPC reported that Internet-enabled DVD players would enable easy transmissions of HD-quality video from the Web.

Due for release on September 2, Transformers on Blu-ray will no doubt entertain those of you who think giant robots fighting other just-as-big robots is “cool.” Paramount has said that the Blu-ray version will feature, in some capacity, BD Live content.

Better still, this version will have Dolby TrueHD 5.1 sounds; the HD DVD version only had Dolby Digital Plus.

And that’s the box art, identical to the HD DVD one.

Blu-ray isn’t dead yet. Sales of Blu-ray players in Japan topped sales of regular DVD players for the first time last month, an indication that consumers are finally warming up to the high-def format. Spun a different way, sales of Blu-ray alone in April were three times the amount of both Blu-ray and HD DVD combined in January.

Reasons for the sudden uptick in sales include people finally coming to terms with the end of the high-def format war to HDTVs no longer being seen as a luxury, but merely the type of TV that one buys now.

Sales are expected to rise even further as manufacturers slash prices in the run-up to the Beijing Olympics.

I’ll get by with rips, thanks.

My brother told me that HD DVD died a few months ago because I hadn’t heard or read anything about the format war, but Blu-ray still ain’t doing so hot. And by “doing so hot,” I mean selling any better than it did when it was still entrenched in the utterly pointless war.

From January to February, Blu-ray sales plummeted some 40 percent, only to get a slight bump from February to March to the tune of 2 percent. Hardly the type of news Sony wanted to hear, especially if those rumors that it paid Warner $500 million were true.

The Blu-ray folks blame their inability to meet demand following the spectacular, dare I say “epic,” failure of Toshiba to convince anyone that HD DVD was worth buying. Cynics, myself included, think that, generally, consumers still aren’t too keen on Blu-ray when, you know, regular DVD (which is cheaper; the economy’s not so hot right now) looks “good enough.”