Blu-ray dvd disc media specialists

 

 
 

 

Playstation 3 is behind the success of Blu-ray

Blu-ray may have won the next-generation DVD format war over rival HD-DVD, but the format wouldn't have got very far were in not for the PlayStation 3 propping-up drive sales.

The new report reveals that Microsoft also managed to sell 316,000 HD-DVD drives for the 360, before Sony were victorious, while video game revenues continue to close in on home 'video' sales.

Almost all PS3 owners are using there device to watch Blu-ray movies

In a recent report from the Entertainment Merchant's Association, their 2008 Annual Report on Home Entertainment Industry has shown some interesting numbers regarding usage of Blu-ray on the Playstation 3.

As you might recall the Playstation 3 has been the cheapest Blu-ray player for quite some time. From day 1 it has been the proverbial Discount Blu-ray plus gaming device. This recent report shows that 87% of all Playstation 3 owners use their device for Movie viewing.

Which sort of backs up the whole "PS3 is more video player than game machine". This news from the report is probably music to Sony's ears considering it's a stark difference from the NPD survey last year that showed only 60% of owners knew that the PS3 even had a Blu-ray drive or what it was.

This all may in the end be a moot point because even Sony has admitted that most people will stay with DVD and Bluray will not see the adoption that DVD saw from VHS because most people are content with DVD quality even on their HighDef televisions as one recent survey showed that 22% of owners think their watching HD content even when it isn't.

With Toshiba offering to "surpass even Bluray's quality" with their upcoming Super-UpConverting DVD Technology they might make it a moot point for Blu-ray as a Movie platform.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pioneer to launch Blu-ray recorders by the end of 2008

Japanese consumer electronics maker Pioneer said it plans to launch Blu-ray DVD recorders by the end of the year, taking aim at a rapidly growing market after the end of a bitter format battle.

Pioneer is developing Blu-ray recorders with help from Sharp Corp Pioneer's top shareholder with a 14 percent stake. Sharp already offers Blu-ray recorders. Pioneer plans to start selling Blu-ray recorders in Japan before the year-end shopping season, followed by overseas launches.

Blu-ray recorder demand in Japan is likely to jump to 3.6 million units by 2012, according to Fuji Chimera Research Institute. Japan was at the heart of an optical-disc format war that pitted Blu-ray discs championed by Sony Corp against Toshiba Corp's HD-DVD discs.

16GB Flash Drive By Corsair Flash Voyager GT

When you're traveling, it is important to protect your bags, passport, and valuables. Corsair can do the same for your data. That's why the USB flash drives in its Flash Voyager line are encased in a rugged, rubberized enclosure that guards against moisture and shock.

It works, but the protection makes the drive a little too chubby to fit some of the more recessed USB ports. We tested the GT model, which the company says is designed for speed, with special integrated circuits for better performance. Our tests didn't show it outdistancing read/write speeds of other top-line USB thumb drives.

The Voyager isn't long, but the rubber housing bulges in the middle, so at its thickest the drive measures 52mm by 22mm by 15mm (HWD). It includes a 2-foot USB extender cable, so you can plug it into just about any USB port you may encounter. It also has a Corsair-branded black neck lanyard with a clip on the end. One outstandingly bad design aspect is the removable rubberized cap: When it's attached, it fits like a snug rubber shower cap and provides superior protection, but it's small enough to be almost sure to get lost—and without it, the drive is no safer than any other.

Blu-ray sales are starting to take off

When it comes to consumer electronics, Japan is generally an excellent weathervane for forecasting the picture in the West a few months ahead. With that in mind, the latest electronics sales figures suggest a balmy autumn lies ahead. Data from the Japan Electronics and Information Technology Industries Association (JEITA) show some staggering increases in sales of Blu-ray players and recorders during May.

Compared with one year previously, BD hardware sales have risen over 2,000 per cent to bring shipments of 82,000 machines in Japan. The tiny base of twelve months ago makes the percentage increase large, but the absolute figure compares well with DVD hardware sales of 336,000.

In other sectors, digital audio player sales are still growing, with flash-based machines taking over 90 per cent of that market. Also, car sat-nav systems – particularly those with hard drives – are selling faster than last year.

Back in the living room, LCD and plasma TVs are both on the up and showing increases of around 116 per cent on last year, however LCD outsold plasma by 573,000 to 78,000.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Toshiba to start fighting of competitor Blu-Ray

Toshiba's HD-DVD format may be dead and buried, but the wounded Japanese company is preparing to tackle Blu-ray via other means. Following its decision to discontinue HD-DVD, reports have suggested that Toshiba will be opting out of manufacturing Blu-ray players.

It's been reported to focus on improving DVD players with enhanced upscaling technology. These new-and-improved upscaling DVD players are said to bring near-HD quality to the DVD format, and could reach retail by the end of the year. The exact purpose of the format, known as DVD Download DL, remains unknown. However, that DVD Download DL will add online features similar to those available to Blu-ray Live discs.

DVD is the widely accepted format, and if Toshiba's upscaling technology provides a significant boost in quality, the combination of online functionality could dampen Blu-ray take-up and keep DVD going strong for many more years.

The best blu-ray players

A Blu-ray Disc player remains the single best way of getting a crisp 1080p image onto a large high-definition display. Before you shop for a Blu-ray player, you need a crash course in new Blu-ray terminology.

The Blu-ray Disc format has gone through some awkward growing pains, which has resulted in the messy situation we have now of different players supporting/not supporting different Blu-ray features. Under the Blu-ray Disc spec, all players should be equipped to handle movie titles packed with fancy complex menus.

 

 

 

 

Are you tangled up in blu-ray?

You may be wanting to buy a Blu-ray DVD player now that the format has won the high-definition disc standard war. By waiting a few months, you could save yourself some irritation. Blu-ray players are theoretically ideal complements to high-definition televisions because they can play movies formatted to take full advantage of an HD display.

But until recently, a battle raged between two competing formats: Blu-ray and HD DVD. The competition limited sales, in part because consumers worried about getting stuck with an obsolete machine. That fear went away in February after Toshiba, HD DVD's main backer, pulled the plug on the format, announcing it would no longer make new HD DVD players.

But Toshiba's decision only took away one of the reasons consumers might want to delay buying a Blu-ray player. Another reason is price. That's significantly cheaper than a comparable player would have cost a year ago, but industry figures and analysts predict prices will fall even more as the parts that make up the players become less expensive and more manufacturers make them.

Already, the number of different Blu-ray player models is expected to double to 26 in coming months, potentially offering consumers a better range of prices and features choices. Another reason not to rush to buy a player is that only about 500 movies are available on Blu-ray, compared with thousands on standard DVD. Unless you are looking for a recent hit or a popular classic, you probably aren't going to find it on Blu-ray.

Again, that's changing. Now that all the major studios are on board with Blu-ray, the number of film titles available should grow steadily. But the longer you wait, the more movies you'll have to choose from.

Waiting could also save you some operating headaches and ensure that your player is future-proof. Few DVD buyers in recent years have had to worry about updating their firmware - the embedded software program that controls how the device functions. Yet many owners of Blu-ray players have found that some movies won't play if they don't update their firmware.

Updating can be a complicated process of downloading files from the internet and potentially burning them to a CD. Amazon devotes an entire page to tips on how to do this. Many consumers may not want to bother - and probably won't need to as the technology matures.

 

Blu-ray recorders now avalible in mac's

Apple upgrade vendor MCE Technologies announced availability of a totally Mac-compatible Blu-ray recordable drive for Mac Pro and Power Mac.

The internal drive is compatible with Mac OS X 10.5.2 and later, requiring no special drivers for burning just install it in your Mac Pro or Power Mac bay, pop in blank Blu-ray media, and you're ready to roll. The drive does both single-layer (6X BD-R or 2X BD-RE) and dual-layer (4X BD-R, 2X BD-RE) burning for capacities of 25GB or 50GB respectively. That's up to 50,000 photos, 12,500 music tracks, or 4 hours of HD video.

To write professional Blu-ray discs that can play on set-top Blu-ray players or Sony PS3, you'll need Adobe Premiere Pro CS3 Encore along with Adobe Premiere Pro CS3 or Final Cut Pro. Basic Blu-ray movies can be burned with Roxio Toast 9 and the BD/HD Plugin.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Amazon Trying To Get Hit There Blu-ray Target Audience

Amazon is once again dangling a tempting incentive in front of it's target Blu-ray audience, this time offering your choice of players and a bundle of eight Blu-ray movies. The offer gives customer the choice of two qualifying Sony Blu-ray players, either the BDP-S300 or the Playstation 3 40GB.

After adding the preferred player to their carts, customers can then select the Blu-ray 8-pack Starter Set. If any of our readers have been holding out for a good time to jump into the realm of Blu-ray, this could be it.

No word on how long this Blu-ray player/starter pack offer will last, but the site says it's available for a "limited time."

 

 

 

 

Blu-Ray not to be featured in Toshiba's Laptops

An announcement by Toshiba Europe CEO said that the company isn't looking to add Blu-ray capabilities to its laptops.

The company behind the creation of HD DVD released information on a new range of laptops today that didn't contain a high-definition drive. Instead, it houses the capability to upscale standard definition to HD.

When asked about the lack of Blu-ray support, Alan Thompson, CEO for Toshiba Europe said: "At this present time we are not using Blu-ray. Blu-ray is just one of many ways that you can get HD content and is not required for accessing HD content."

When pressed further on whether Toshiba was just 'saving face' following the HD format war, Thompson commented: "This upscaling technology was developed before we discontinued HD DVD."

Isnt upconverting dvd just as good as Blu-Ray

An upconverting DVD player is a great way to extend the life of a standard-definition DVD collection, significantly improving the image quality of the old format. An upconverted DVD image should not be confused with true high-definition.

The process of upconverting a DVD involves employing sophisticated video processing to expand the format's native resolution up to the resolution of the best modern HDTVs. Better upconverting players smooth out the rough edges and fill in the gaps created by expanding the picture to this degree, resulting in an image that's a marked improvement over unenhanced DVD.

But upconversion cannot create detail out of whole cloth. When film is transferred to standard-definition DVD, any details too fine to be captured in 345,600 pixels are lost forever. Even the most advanced video processors in the world can't bring those lost details back from their digital afterlife.

Blu-ray, on the other hand, boasts six times as many pixels as DVD, and as such comes much closer to the resolution of film and modern digital cinema sources. What's more, many viewers feel that the superior colors and contrast afforded by Blu-ray's more advanced video codecs are just as significant, if not more so, than the increase in real picture detail.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

New Blu-Ray drive from laCie

LaCie has launched a revised version of its external d2 Blu-ray drive, doubling burn speeds to 4x and offering an updated software suite to help people get started archiving their video, media, and data.

"Burning up to 50GB of data can take a reasonable amount of time, so doubling burn speeds not only increases work performance, but provides a cost-effective, long-term archival process for storing data to sturdy scratch-resistant media."

The d2 Blu-ray drive features both USB 2.0 and FireWire 400 ports, and can burn either single - or dual-layer BD-R discs at 4x, and single- or dual-layer BD-RE discs at 2x-at 4x speeds, the burner can crank through a 50 GB dual layer disc in about 45 minutes. The drive can also handle DV+R at 16x and both DVD+RW and double-layer DVD+R at 8x, along with standard CDs at 40x and CD-RW at 32x.

Microsoft still saying no to addopting Blu-Ray for Xbox360

Microsoft has said it before and now that rumors have again resurfaced, Microsoft's president of entertainment and devices said first of all that the company does not have any plans to start producing a Zune phone device anytime soon though the Zune is a platform, and it is promising to see pieces of it turn up in other devices.

Denied again that there are any plans to add any Blu-ray device to the Xbox 360. Rumors keep resurfacing that the Blu-ray will be added to the Xbox 360 since the loss of the HD DVD to the Blu-ray in the high definition format wars.

Microsoft has stood firmly that there was no way that it would ever incorporate the Sony technology into the Microsoft console game device. Nevertheless, it seems that Microsoft has had to repeatedly reiterate its position each time the rumor resurfaces. As a result, do you strongly think there might be some truth to the rumor?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blu-Ray Xbox rumours shot down yet again

"I’m told MS will upstage Apple with a Monday 9am PDT announcement via press release that the Xbox 360 will get Blu-Ray before Christmas. Price was 'under the current Elite', but I could'nt get any more details."

Microsoft's Robbie Bach denied the company is preparing a Blu-equipped XBox. Bach, the president of Microsoft's entertainment and devices division, added that Blu-ray high-def disc has yet to perform well at retail.

"If you look at the Blu-ray player market, you haven't seen the acceleration everybody expected," said Bach. "You have to look at how fundamentally compelling the difference is between a progressive scan DVD player and the picture that it can produce and what you get on a High-Definition player. The reality is there is some difference, but most people look at it and say, 'I am not going to pay extra for that.' "

Despite Bach's discouraging words regarding Blu-ray, Microsoft has been known in the past to quickly change its public stance on new products. In fact, since Toshiba pulled the plug on HD DVD in March, Microsoft has offered conflicting views on whether it will eventually support Blu-ray.

 

Blu-Ray sales doing better than standard DVD in the first quarter

Singulus Technologies, a major purveyor of new optical disc players, has recently announced that customers are flocking to Blu-ray at a rate faster than they adopted DVDs over a decade ago. The company has reported that it received 21 orders to create Blu-ray dual-layer machines in the first quarter, much greater than the 17 orders placed eleven years ago when DVD players emerged as the eventual replacement for VHS tapes.

Singulus CEO Stefan Baustert states that the level of orders has "already by far exceeded the volume at the start of the DVD," and shows consumers are perhaps more interested in buying a "next-gen" video player than Microsoft's Robbie Bach would like to believe.

It is not a surprise, considering the prevalence of high-def TVs, that Blu-ray would catch on a bit more quickly than DVDs. For starters, consumers are already familiar with the disc format, unlike before, when the idea of a DVD was new and strange, and some were still smarting from the failure of LaserDisc. Furthermore, given the fact that more and more TV stations are broadcasting in HD and that people are beginning to want to see this same level of quality in their video purchases.

This is obviously all good news to Sony, standard-bearer of Blu-ray, as it means the company will continue seeing PS3 sales rise as many flock to the cheapest Blu-ray player on the market. Also, given Microsoft and Toshiba's decision to abandon HD DVD, Blu-ray is now the only kid on the block for next-gen video playback.

 

 

 

 

 

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