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Warner Bros. Offers $4.95 Blu-ray Upgrades from HD-DVD

Warner Bros. Offers $4.95 Blu-ray Upgrades from HD-DVD

It’s been over a year since Warner Bros. effectively rammed a stake through the heart of Toshiba’s HD-DVD format by switching to the Blu-ray camp…but that doesn’t mean that the HD-DVD discs Warner Bros. produced suddenly went away. As home theater fans who embraced HD-DVD face the prospect of retiring their HD-DVD hardware, they also must consider whether to re-purchase their HD-DVD titles on Blu-ray media. To ease the transition, Warner Bros. has announced a new Red2Blu upgrade program, whereby owners of Warner Bros. HD-DVD discs can get Blu-ray versions of their titles for just $4.95 (plus a whopping $6.95 in shipping and handling in the continental United States). All it takes is sending in the original cover art from the HD-DVD title, then waiting four to five weeks for the Blu-ray editions to arrive.

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Highlights from CEDIA 2007

With the CEDIA (Custom Electronic Design & Installation Association) EXPO Show finished for another year, one can’t help but sit back and wonder what the event was all about. (Personally,I’m still wondering.) Unlike previous installments, many products were debuted prior to the show. And while there were certainly new products introduced this year, they were trotted out in muchsmaller numbers than in recent memory.  Read more...

Target Will Only Stock Blu-Ray Players?

In addition to Blockbuster placing its substantial weight behind Blu-Ray in the ongoing high-def format wars, the nation’s second-largest retailer will now assume the same position. Target announced on Thursday that its stores will only stock Blu-Ray players in the future, preferring not to pick up any stand-alone HD-DVD players.

Target would not cite the reason for its shift in policy, but its shelves are already devoid of HD-DVD players, meaning there won’t be any drastic product-pulling or fire sales. Company representatives deny that Target is taking a stance one way or the other on high-def content and trying to predict a winner. "We are not proclaiming one format vs. the other as the preferred consumer technology, and software will continue to be available to our guests in both the Blu-ray and HD-DVD format," Target spokeswoman Brie Heath told the Associated Press.  Read more...

Universal Announces Price Drop In HD-DVDs

If the cost of new movies coming out in HD-DVD format were just too expensive for your tastes, then be prepared to rejoice. Universal Studios Home Entertainment today announced that they would belowering the price of HD-DVD titles from $34.95 to $29.95 in time. Though it’s no excuse to rush out and buy the first wave of HD-DVD players, it’s certainly a relief on your wallet. The price dropwon’t be taking effect until later in the year during August, but this could mean cheaper Blu-Ray Discs as well if Sony’s side starts to feel the heat in sales.  Read more...

Microsoft Confirms Xbox 360 HD-DVD Drive

Although it’s a surprise to no one at this point, Microsoft has publicly confirmed it’s preparing an external USB 2.0-based HD-DVD drive for its Xbox 360 gaming console. It’s also no surprise Microsoft is taking the opportunity to promote the virtues of HD-DVD over Sony’s competing Blu-ray format, saying that HD-DVD is a better standard and offers a greater value to consumers.

According to Microsoft, the external HD-DVD drive will enable users to watch high-definition movies with digital surround sound via USB, but be priced substantially lower than Blu-ray offerings because costs at every step of the HD-DVD production chain (from players, drives, discs, licensing fees, and manufacturing) are lower than Blu-ray.  Read more...

Toshiba Brings HD-DVD to Masses

Toshiba today began the official roll out of its long awaited HD-DVD format via the introduction of new players as well as HD-DVD titles from several studios. This launch effectively kicks off the next generation optical disc wars between the Toshiba/HD-DVD and Sony/Blu-ray Disc camps.

As reported in these stories on News.com and PC Magazine, sales of Toshiba’s HD-DVD players have been rather brisk. While it is too early to say how well received the HD-DVD format will be, especially in lights of delays on the Blu-ray Disc side, movie studios are hedging their bets nonetheless. As News.com pointed out, some major movie studios are backing just one format or the other, while others are backing both as they wait to see which format ultimately triumphs.  Read more...

Stores Listing HD-DVD Players Early

Though HD-DVD is almost here, it’s still not 100% finalized and has yet to drop onto US shores. Apparently that still isn’t enough to stop some retailers from listing HD-DVD players on their sites.Amazon has listed the Toshiba HDA1 and HDXA1 HD-DVD players and pitches them as “not yet available”. Toshiba was the first to announce HD-DVD players at CES 2006. Their HDA1 is the cheaper of the twoand packs 720p/1080i, HDMI output, and other features. Its older brother the HDXA1 has all the features and then some like a luxury motion-sensitive remote.  Read more...

High-Def Formats Delayed Further?

Already into 2006, we need not wait much longer until our new high-definition formats like Blu-Ray and HD-DVD are delivered to us. However we may have to wait longer as there’s currently a problemconcerning the final method of copy protection for these new formats. The final specification of the Advanced Access Content System (AACS) has been delayed for now. So what does this mean? It meanswe wait. There is nothing that can really be done to speed along a process concerning copy-protection methods. Surely studios and directors will want this done properly so that no one can break it asquickly as DVD.  Read more...

DVD Forum Backs HD-DVD Over Blu-ray

The working group WG-11, under the Technical Coordination Group (TCG) of the DVD Forum recently visited leading manufacturers of DVD drives and discs in Taiwan, with the goal of winning their support for HD-DVD, a next-generation DVD format promoted by Toshiba and NEC, according to the Taiwanese makers.

There are currently two next-generation DVD formats vying to set the industry standard – HD-DVD and Blu-ray Disc, which is supported by Sony, Pioneer, Samsung, Matsushita Electric, Philips and Microsoft.  Read more...

DVD Forum Approves Next-Gen DVD Format

The rewritable HD-DVD (High Definition and High Density-DVD) format was approved as the DVD Forum kicked off its general meeting in Tokyo this week, according to an official at one of the group’s founding members. It specifies a 12-centimeter optical disc that can store up to 20G bytes of data on a single-sided disc compared to 4.7G bytes on existing DVDs. The format has been largely developed by Toshiba Corp. and NEC Corp. and a read-only version of HD-DVD, which can hold 15G bytes of data, was approved late last year.

Read the whole story at ITWorld.

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