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June 2006

Prove Us Wrong - Please
Is a marriage looming for HD DVD and Blu-ray? Listen to Toshiba president Atsutoshi Nishida: "We have not given up on a unified format. We would like to seek ways for unifying the standards if opportunities arise."

Engadget is cynical:

Oh sure, we could take that at face value and all, but it sure does go a long way to assuage stockholders' fears that a format war might yet render Toshiba's technically inferior HD DVD format obsolete useless, telling them that a unified high definition video format might still be in the cards. Call us pessimists, but we'd love nothing more than for these guys to prove us wrong.
June 29th, 2006

News Keeps Coming
Panasonic plans to "remodel the entertainment center around Blu-ray," with a series of hardware releases in September.

Delays from Sony in getting its Blu-ray player to market are reportedly caused by a "product software issue."

Toshiba plans to launch, next month in Japan, the world's first HD DVD recorder.

The New York Times headline says it all: "Which New DVD Format? Neither Just Yet."
June 23rd, 2006

First High-Def Video Players - Limited Appeal.
PC World senior associate editor Melissa J. Perenson asks: "Blu-ray vs. HD DVD: Which Has the Early Edge?"

For now, both Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD are hampered by the fact that AACS has yet to finalize its managed copy component, the most critical aspect of the spec that remains unfinished. Without a final AACS spec, living-room high-def recorders can't proceed to market, and neither can devices that are designed to take advantage of legally copying and moving content from one disc to another--or to another device, for that matter. Original estimates put AACS's final spec as coming out in May; we're already well into June, and still there are no updates.

Until players can be manufactured to take advantage of everything from media servers to copying content, the first high-def video players from either camp should have limited appeal. I have no doubt that these players, be they Blu-ray or HD DVD, will deliver enticing high-def images. If all they do is play back content, however, they're missing a core part of the innovation that Blu-ray and HD DVD have the potential to deliver.
June 21st, 2006

Round One to HD DVD?
The Man Room gets its hands on Samsung's blu-ray high-def DVD player, though cannot obtain any discs. Conclusion:

In an unfortunate twist, the BD-P1000 apparently – though not verbally confirmed by Samsung - is not capable of playing 50GB dual layer discs. Page 8 of the instruction manual contains a chart that states only single layer discs will play. Further down on the same page is a compatibility disclaimer noting the format is evolving and all disc types will not work. While no specific mention is made of a future firmware update to support 50GB dual layer discs, mention is made of updating the BD-ROM version via firmware. Samsung would have to be foolish not to offer a firmware update to support 50GB, if it’s even possible through a simple firmware update. That’s a question best suited for the technophiles.

For costing twice as much as the HD-A1, Samsung’s BD-P1000 isn’t anywhere near twice the machine. Outside of the dual layer issue the problem more resides with Sony and the Blu-ray disc single layer format. The sooner dual layer discs are introduced with improved video quality and a studio puts out a title on both formats concurrently, the sooner we’ll be able to properly compare and draw more informed conclusions. Right now it’s just too early to declare one format rules them all.

So was I really fortunate enough to stumble upon what will surely be a sold out Blu-ray player by this time next week? Only time can answer that question. What’s clear now is the high-def fight is officially underway and round one goes to HD-DVD.

And Samsung says that pre-sales of the unit have been "incredible."
June 20th, 2006

Blu-Ray Has Arrived!
Over at the AV Science Forum, someone has managed to find Samsung's BD-P1000 high-definition DVD player already on sale. Just one problem - no discs.

First time I booted up the player it did lock up. I hope this isn't a sign of things to come. Had to unplug player and start again. Second time worked great.

So far boot up was about half the time of my HD-DVD. 20-30 seconds on a SD.

1080p is on the menu as an option but you cannot highlight it. I don't know if this is because it is not active or because it is not hooked up to a 1080p projector. I wonder if it needs some kind of handshake.

First impressions of up conversion. I put in "layer cake" just because I watched it last night and thought I might be able to compare them (watched it last night on my HD DVD player). Up conversion looked a little soft to me. Seemed to have quite a bit of mosquito noise around titles. Could be the disc. I might have to check it out with the HD DVD again.

I really wish I had some blu ray discs to get this thing going.
June 16th, 2006

Samsung Latest - "On Their Way"
Gearlog says the launch of the Samsung BD-P1000 high-definition DVD player is on target for June 25.

Despite numerous reports today on Gizmodo, Pocket-lint, and i4u.com Samsung will most definitely not be delaying the release of its upcoming Blu-ray drive, the BD-P1000. I just talked to Jim Sanduski, senior vice president of marketing for the Digital Video & Audio group at Samsung and he says the plan was always to release the player in the U.S. in June, in Korea in July, and in Europe in September. European bloggers may not like it, but that was always the plan. The rest of the buzz was just rampant (and errant) blog propagation.

Anyway, the BD-P1000 players are already in the U.S. In fact, Sanduski says thousands of units are on their way to retailers in the U.S. for floor demonstrations right now. The player will be on sale on June 25 for about $1,000.
June 14th, 2006

Sony's Discs on the Way - But Will Samsung Join the Party?
Sony, in a press release, has confirmed the June 20 release date for its first Blu-ray discs - to coincide with the expected launch of Samsung's Blu-ray player - and it has issued a list of initial titles. But at least one website is now reporting that Samsung will postpone its launch until September.

Meanwhile, the HD DVD format continues to steam ahead. Universal Studios has announced it is cutting the price of its HD DVD discs, from $34.95 to $29.95.
June 14th, 2006

Blu-Ray Still Due This Month, Despite Sony
The gadget websites are full of reports that the launch of Sony's high-def DVD player will be delayed until August, although this has been known for some time. The more interesting "news" is that Samsung apparently expects to release its player on schedule on June 25th.

Meanwhile, Toshiba expects to launch its players in Europe in time for Christmas.
June 13th, 2006

Toshiba Updates, Pioneer Delays
Gizmodo reports that Toshiba has announced a "firmware update" in an attempt to remedy problems - notably a slow boot-up time and crashing - with what the website describes as the company's "ultra-lame HD-A1 and HD-XA1 HD DVD players."

Meanwhile, Reuters reports that Pioneer has announced a delay in the release of its Blu-ray player, from June until autumn, "citing a delay in the development process."
June 7th, 2006

RCA HDV5000 Arrives
RCA has announced the release of its HDV5000 HD DVD player. The unit is made by Toshiba and appears to have a similar price ($499) and specifications to the Toshiba HD-A1 player.

An early report from cdfreaks.com says:

When compared with the Toshiba HD-A1, this player seems to offer pretty much the same specifications, however like the Toshiba, it also lacks 1080p and it is unclear which DVD+R/RW media it does not support due to the specifications mentioning about some DVD+R/RW exceptions. Hopefully this player overcomes at least some of the flaws of the Toshiba, such as long power up and long disc loading time, however the physical size and style of the DVD player looks very like that of the Toshiba HD DVD player model.
June 3rd, 2006