blu-ray

CHIBA, Japan--The decisive battle between Blu-ray and HD DVD is at hand, says a prominent Panasonic exec.

Blu-ray manufacturers are going to start cutting prices and go out on a promotional binge this holiday season, Matsushita Electric Industrial's Kazuhiro Tsuga said during a briefing with reporters at Ceatec, a large tech trade show that started here Tuesday. At Matsushita, which is best known for its Panasonic brand name, Tsuga is an executive officer who oversees networking efforts, some home electronics technologies and overseas labs, and other areas.

By the end of the Christmas season or the end of the … Read more

Could the end of the next-gen optical format war be on the horizon? While you wait for the shakedown, why not tune in some ambient color for your TV? Plus, organizing meetups with your 700+ Facebook friends, 800 IM contacts and your five real friends isn't an easy task, and we found one service that aims to annoy everyone equally. Lastly, we send Mark the intern out into the streets to see if New Yorkers are scared their workplace computer habits could get them fired. That and more, on today's episode of The Queue.

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We have been hearing news about the upcoming HD recorders, and now it seems that Sharp has jumped the gun with not one but nine Blu-ray models, though only for Japan. The lineup includes a top-of-the-line 1TB hard drive model and an assortment of disc-only equivalents in contrasting hues.

Collectively branded under its Aquos family, the BD-HDW20, BD-HDW15, BD-AV1 and BD-AV10 all feature dual HD tuners, DVD/CD backward-compatibility and the new Aquos Fami-Link or HDMI-CEC.

The hard drive-enabled HDW-series also supports film-centric 1080p24 HDMI for judder-free movie playback. However, this lacks 50GB dual-layer Blu-ray support, relying on the onboard … Read more

There are a lot of products out there that seem awesome in theory but don't always deliver in reality. The Sony HES-V1000 Home Entertainment Server is one of them.

First, what it does, then what it doesn't.

It stores 200 Blu-ray discs, DVDs, and CDs in its built-in changer. There's also a 500GB hard drive for storing video, music, and pictures. You can easily import and store lots of home video, CDs, MP3s, and digital pictures on the system, which is easy to use. There are also built-in applications for making instant slide shows that are pretty … Read more

This story's been puttering around the blogs for the last few days, but I missed it until I saw an entry on our sister site Gamespot. It goes like this: Some U.K.-based analyst firm, Screen Digest, has issued a report saying that the HD DVD vs. Blu-ray war is destined not to have a winner--it's going to end in a stalemate. But that's not necessarily the end of the world, the report suggests.

Sure, there's been all this talk lately about studios switching sides for money, but what the report implies is that if … Read more

We can't help but be a little skeptical, but according to a Samsung representative, the new Samsung BD-UP5000 Blu-ray/HD DVD combo player will have onboard decoding for all high-resolution audio formats following a firmware update, including DTS-HD Master Audio. This is great news for high-def disc fans, as the BD-UP5000 would be the first player we're aware of that has onboard decoding for DTS-HD Master Audio, DTS's losslessly compressed soundtrack format. The same representative also confirmed that both Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio soundtracks can be output over the analog 7.1 outputs, which will … Read more

Our friends over at Gamespot posted a blog yesterday discussing the likelihood of a rumored $400 PS3 that would arrive in time for the holidays. The entry links to a story on Ars Technica about how the PlayStation 3's sales are slowing again after a brief burst of momentum following the price drop to $500 on the 60GB version of the console. Analysts are already predicting that Sony will soon drop the price of the 80GB PS3 to $500 and one of Ars Technica's "reliable" moles is saying that Sony will also bring out a $400 … Read more

First, Paramount and DreamWorks Animation get bought off to go HD DVD exclusive. Now word is Toshiba's trying to romance Warner into flipping. The only problem is Sony's doing its best to seduce the last dual-format studio into exclusively shacking up with Blu-ray.

This lurid next chapter in our favorite little tech soap opera comes to us by way of The Digital Bits, which links to an L.A. Times story (also printed in Newsday) that suggest serious bucks are being dangled by both Toshiba and Sony to win Warner's affections. Wal-Mart's in the mix, too, … Read more

If ever a technology was introduced prematurely, it was digital rights management (DRM). From the DVD Content Scramble System (CSS) to the Advanced Access Content System (AACS) in HD DVD and Blu-ray systems, millions of dollars have been invested in failed attempts to prevent piracy of digital content.

Security is difficult to do right. CSS failed because virtually every element of the system was poorly designed. It used weak 40-bit encryption and was vulnerable to break-once, break-everywhere attacks. CSS continues to be used because it's better than… Read more