Wired@Home.blog

10 Best Blu-ray Players

Just in time for Christmas and high on every movie lovers wish list, Blu-ray players will be hot sellers this holiday season. Thanks to Digital Trends for making our Blu-ray shopping a bit easier by assembling their 10 Best Blu-ray Players List.

According to Digital Trends, here's what they looked for in the Blu-ray players tested:

When considering the best Blu-ray Disc players available today, we looked at audio and video quality—high-end video processing with 12-bit or 14-bit Deep Color—aiming to reproduce the most realistic picture. But a few caveats to note when doing your own research as well:

• Most players now have Bonus View (a picture-in-picture capability for some discs) and BD-Live support for unlimited online special features.

• Quick start is a convenience feature on some Sony and Samsung players that eliminates that interminable wait for loading discs and menus on many players.

• New players from LG and Samsung offer not only Blu-ray Disc playback, but also add the ability to download Netflix movies. Samsung adds the online Pandora music player too.

More...

Good shopping!

10 Movies that Belong on Blu-ray

Electronic House has put together it's Top 10 list of movies that belong on Blu-Ray:

Glory - Announced for Blu-ray but no release date

Saving Private Ryan - A great movie but no Blu-ray release date

Finding Nemo - One of my grandson's favorite movies 

The X-Files TV Series

Braveheart - A True Epic

E.T. - A timeless classic

The Star Wars Series - Everyone loves Star Wars don't they?

The Indiana Jones Series - Ditto

Gladiator - Another great flick that should be high on the priority list for Blu-ray

Lord of the Rings Trilogy - Another epic series that every collector wants

The Wizard of Oz (Bonus Selection)

Toshiba to drop HD DVD?

Well it certainly seems that way according to an article in the Hollywood Reporter that quotes sources from Toshiba. Jodi Sally, VP of marketing for Toshiba America Consumer Products, was quoted as saying "Toshiba will continue to study the market impact and the value proposition for consumers, particularly in light of its recent price reductions on all HD DVD players." Another HD DVD source is quoted as saying “An announcement is coming soon, It could be a matter of weeks.”

It's unfortunate but not surprising given the hundreds of millions of dollars that Sony's Blu-ray camp has thrown at the movie studios. 

Earlier this week, Netflix and Best Buy announced their support for Blu-ray. You can also look to Amazon.com who is offering 50% off HD DVD's and other online retailers that have or will follow.

CES 2008: CES - It's a Wrap

Well, another CES has come and gone and I'm still recovering. The early numbers show the attendance was down from about 150,000 last year to about 140,000 this year. Really? I didn't notice, the show seemed more crowded and bigger than ever, covering over 8 football fields! There was so much to see and no matter how long you're there, it's still tough to see and touch everything. There really wasn't much this year that stood out and grabbed me. Yes, I laughed at Bill Gates final Keynote address, drooled over Panasonic's 150" Plasma TV that would require a crane to lift it into place, Kid Rock and the new Corvette ZR1, Comcast's new FREE VOD website Fancast, XStreamHD, Logitech's SqueezeBox Duet...actually, there was some cool stuff to see this year.

Here's some more great CES 2008 Wrap Ups:

About.com
Best of CES 2008

CNET CES 2008 Wrap Up
Home Audio Wrap Up
Home Video Wrap Up
HDTV Wrap Up
Computers Wrap Up
Emerging Technologies Wrap Up
Car Tech Wrap Up
Portable Wrap Up
Cell Phone & Smart Phone Wrap Up

DigitalCameraReview.com
CES 2008 Wrap-Up

Earth2Tech
CES Green Gadget Wrap Up

Engadget
CES 2008: Everything you must see
The Best of Crapgadget

Engadget HD
CES 2008: The Best and worst of HD
CES 2008: The Best of Set Top Boxes
CES 2008: The Best of LCD TV HDTVs
CES 2008: The Best of Plasma HDTVs
CES 2008: The Best of Blu-ray Players

GearLog
Best of CES 2008

Gizmodo
Best of CES 2008

Mahalo
Everything CES 2008
CES 2008 Videos

PC Magazine
Best of CES 2008

popgadget
CES - It's a wrap

Tech Digest
CES 2008: The 50 Hottest Products

CES 2008: Blu-ray Live Interactive Demo

Engadget live blogged the Blu-ray interactive demo at CES from the Sony booth and it's a very interesting read. Some of the features highlighted by Leonard Maltin, Dean Devlin and various studio execs were BD Live, BD-J, the ability to include a portable copy of a movie on Blu ray Disk for playback on a PSP and even the ability to chat live while watching a movie. And of course you will be able to watch movie trailers but one potentially cool feature is the ability to create custom trailers and post them to the web. Cool stuff! HD DVD better think fast...                   

[via engadget]

News: Samsung Officially Announces Blu-ray/HD DVD Duo HD Player

Just on the heels of LG shipping it's Super Multi Blue Player, Samsung has announced The Duo HD Player, a dual format HD DVD and Blue-ray DVD Player.

"Consumers are hungry for more HD content but are currently confused about competing formats. Samsung's Duo HD player will allow consumers access to every HD movie title available regardless of the authoring format," says Dongsoo Jun, executive vice president, Digital AV Division, Samsung Electronics in a press release. Not only are consumers confused, they also didn't want to take part in another format war reminiscent of the Beta-VHS war. Sony lost that war but so far they're doing pretty well selling Blu-ray players although I think a lot of it's success has come with the PS3.

One area where the Samsung shines is that the BD-UP5000 will feature both BD-Java and HDi, the formats' interactive technologies. LG's Super Multi Blue Player does not support HD DVD's HDi software engine. There's also rumors that the Samsung will feature HDMI 1.3. No pricing details as of yet.

How-To:Rip Blu-ray Movie Discs on your PlayStation 3

All you need is this simple command: dd if=/dev/cdrom of=/blu-raymovie.iso



Check out PS3News.com for full instructions.

[Picture via Gizmodo]

Coming Soon (We Hope): Pioneer BDR-103 HD DVD/Blu-ray Combo Drive

I really thought Samsung would follow through with a combo player, I mean, it was all over the blogs so it must be true right? Well yes an no...They won't for now, nor LG or anyone else...Wait, I read today that Pioneer is jumping into the combo arena and it couldn't come at a better time.

The only thing Pioneer is saying is it will be model BDR-103. They haven't even released any specs as of yet but you can bet, well I wouldn't bet on any electronic news these days but lets just say that this time it feels real!

[via engadget]

Technorati Tags: blu-ray disc, dvd, dvd burner, hd-dvd, hdtv, high definition, media center pc, pioneer

HD DVD and Blu-ray Release Schedules Via Google Calender

HDBeat has created an HD DVD and Blu-ray DVD release schedule using Google Calender. It's very Web 2.0!

Technorati Tags: blu-ray, dvd, google calender, hd dvd, high definition

Blu-ray vs. HD DVD: What You Need to Know

The High Def DVD war is still going...I think...

Blu-ray vs. HD DVD: What You Need to Know

Technorati Tags: dvd, hd-dvd, hdtv, blu-ray