A report from Forrester Research paints a bleak picture for sales of next generation DVD players. They estimate that at least another eighteen months will roll by before many consumers make up their minds to buy one; and until then the two formats will fight it out in low-level trench warfare until one or the other is embraced by consumers....Read more...
A mistranslation or misinterpretation of a statement by Sony's vice president for consumer electronics, Katsumi Ihara, led many U.S. media outlets to believe that Sony was dropping all support for DVD. But in reality, that's not the case.The Japanese Agencies press service translated Ihara's statement as follows: "We plan to make all our...Read more...
It appears the approval was given on August 31st, but for some reason the news is just leaking out now. In any case, there hadn't been any official announcements by Toshiba or the DVD Forum prior to the leaked information.The 51 GB derivative enables three layers to be bonded together within the same 0.6 mm substrate limitations as standard...Read more...
Lucky and Flo (pictured) were the first dogs trained to sniff out optical discs by their chemical composition. They were loaned to the Malaysian government in March by the Motion Picture Association. They were so good at their job, in fact, that a bounty of $29,000 was put out on them. They've finished their 6-month assignment in Malaysia...Read more...
Rumors of the death of HD-DVD have been - well, you know the old saying. Recent moves by retailers like Blockbuster have led to speculation about the demise of HD-DVD. Today, however, Paramount gave HD-DVD a needed boost, by saying, rather than releasing titles on both Blu-ray and HD-DVD, as they had decided in 2005, they were switching...Read more...
Home Media Research, a division of Home Media Magazine, released sales results for the different high-definition movie disc camps today - and the results were not good for HD-DVD. Blu-ray high-definition movie discs outsold films on the rival HD-DVD format by 2-to-1 in the United States in the first half of 2007, Home Media Research said...Read more...
For anyone old enough to remember the VHS/Betamax wars, the new battle between Blu-ray and HD DVD might seem like history repeating itself. While VHS did eventually prevail, it certainly put a lot of consumers off. It also probably opened the door for wide adoption of the DVD as a single unified standard after both the VCD and laserdisc...Read more...
According to Ken Lowe of Sigma Designs, a company that develops performance integrated SoC semiconductors and markets them to the DVD industry (among many other industries), HD DVD has only a few months to live. Although the format wars commenced not too long ago, HD DVD is expected to rest in peace by fall of 2007. Just how reliable is this...Read more...
Remember those hidding images on the Windows Vista DVDs we talked about just the other day? If not, you can check them out right here. Well, it turns out the images are a mix of images from the public domain and pictures of the team that worked on the Windows Vista hologram. Nick White from the official Windows Vista Blog talks about the...Read more...
This blog post at inicia.es (bring your translator) showing a hidden image of three men standing side-by-side on a Windows Vista Business DVD is making the rounds today. I had the scanner and my Vista Ultimate DVDs sitting right next to me when I came across that post, so I decided to slap it down and see if I could verify the image......Read more...
The HD DVD Promotional Group made a proud announcement today that over half of all next-generation video players sold use HD DVD format, which means that they have a slight advantage over their BD contenders. “About 60 percent of all movie players use HD DVD, and are selling far more titles than before as well. Over 75,000 of the discs sold...Read more...
Toshiba is offering what they tout as the world's first slim form factor HD DVD-RW ( rewriteable) drive suitable for laptop PCs. It will read and write both single and dual layer HD DVD disks, as well as DVDs and CDs. It might help the HD DVD format a little in its battle with Blu-Ray to become the standard format for large media files....Read more...
Apparently, a new licensing agreement is being finalized that could make it legal for consumers who have already purchased a HD DVD or Blu-Ray disc to make a bakcup copy... "Under a licensing agreement in its final stages, consumers may get the right to make several legal copies of HD DVD and Blu-ray Disc movies they’ve purchased, a concession...Read more...
News outlets are always anxious to offer breaking news to their readers. But how fast is too fast? Our friends at Engadget reported that Wal*Mart had made a blockbuster purchase of HD-DVD players. Big enough to have an effect on the viability of the format. "Get ready to get your cheap HD on kids. Wal-Mart just threw down some serious...Read more...
Blu Ray has been doing well for itself in 2007 but a new feature from the HD DVD camp may make all the difference. 3X DVD, a DVD format only available on HD DVD players, can shrink HD DVD content by either using new encoders such as MPEG-4 and VC1 or, by lowering the resolution to something like 720p to make HD...Read more...
Since the release of Blu Ray and HD DVD, a media war has been fought between the two formats to see which will secure the throne of the standard in high definition playback. Well if sales are any marker in the war for dominance, Blu Ray is running laps around HD DVD, three to be exact. Since January 1 to January 14 of 2007,...Read more...
The battle between Blu-Ray and HD-DVD is still heating up, but so far Sony's Blu-Ray has the edge. Ending the week of January 14th, for every 100 Blu-Ray movies sold there were only 38.36 HD-DVDs sold. The numbers have slowly progressed in Sony's favor, thanks in part to their Playstation 3 sales. It's still early though, and we...Read more...
Toshiba announced at the CES that they've made a triple-stacked HD-DVD read-only disc that can hold more ones and zeros than a standard Blu-Ray disc --51 gigabytes. That's a lot of 1080p hi-def goodness: The new disc shares the same disc structure as standard DVD and previously announced HD DVD formats:...Read more...
While walking the show floor at this year's Consumer Electronics Show yesterday, we came across quite a few exciting pieces of technology. We thought this one in particular would be of interest to the videophiles among you, so we wanted to get some pics and info posted right away. Feast our eyes on LG's Blu-Ray / HD-DVD internal...Read more...
While the format wars rage on, many different solutions are being proposed. The latest is a disk that Time Warner will announce next week at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Total HD movies will carry movies that can be played on high-definition DVD players that use technology...Read more...
Technology shows great promise but still under long term research DailyTech reports -- "Researchers at the University of Central Florida announced this week that they have developed a way to store massive amounts of data onto a disc roughly the size of a typical DVD. This sounds like another competitive format to Blu-ray or HD-DVD, but in...Read more...
According to Sean Cooper over at Slate, the current footrace to see what format will become the industry standard for next generation Hi Definition entertainment is a moot point, before it really even begins. Hmm... I hope he realizes you can only watch Hudson Hawk on Betamax for so long before you get the urge to upgrade your hardware....Read more...