Samsung Player to Play Blu-Ray and HD DVD

By Geoff Duncan September 6, 2005

Samsung’s head of consumer electronics Choi Gee-sung told the Financial Times Deutschland that the company plans to develop next-generation DVD players which support both the Blu-Ray and HD DVD formats. "It won’t be simple," he said in the interview, "but you’ll see our solution in the coming year. Consumers will be too confused otherwise."

Samsung backs Sony’s Blu-Ray format, which offers a larger capacity and other features not present in Toshiba’s HD DVD format, but has higher manufacturing costs and is incompatible with existing CD and DVD players. Talks to unify the two formats into a single standard recently broke down, with both companies announcing they plan to bring products to market using the incompatible formats. Choi Gee-Sun said: “We would welcome a unified standard but if this doesn’t come, which looks likely, we’ll bring a unified solution to market.”

Samsung has previously embraced multiple standards in its mobile phone and mobile video products. A dual-standard next-generation DVD player would undoubtedly carry a premium price tag to account for the licensing costs and engineering effort involved in supporting both formats, but could catch consumer interest if the looming battle over future DVD formats turns into a shooting war.

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Geoff Duncan writes, programs, edits, plays music, and delights in making software misbehave. He's probably the only member…

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Black Friday deal: RayNeo Air 2 AR Glasses are a 201-inch screen for anywhere

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What if you could carry a massive 201-inch screen with you everywhere you go and stow it in your pocket, handbag, or backpack? It sounds like a techie's fever dream, right? Except, it's totally possible with the RayNeo Air 2 AR glasses. Using Micro OLED technology, these augmented reality glasses allow you to view content in 1080p full HD on a 201-inch display, and all you have to do is wear a pair of eyeglasses. You can connect them to PCs, Android, iOS, game consoles, and the cloud, all to watch or play content. For Black Friday, RayNeo has shaved $30 off the full price, so you'll pay just $349. That's a fraction of the cost of an equivalent-sized TV. But when you use coupon code RAYNEOSAVE50, you'll save an additional $50, bringing the price down to $299. Wowzers.
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Even the cost of an 80-inch OLED would be three to four times the cost of these AR glasses at their regular price. That's without factoring in the sheer portability of these AR glasses, which you can take anywhere and everywhere. It's like carrying a 201-inch OLED TV in your pocket or bag, which you can set up instantly indoors and out. While having a picnic, you can throw on a movie. At a local coffee shop, you can play some games. At your family's house for the holidays, you can play or watch whatever you want, on a massive screen, without bothering anyone else.

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Redbox DVD rentals.

After a formidable 25-year run, Netflix has announced that it will shutter its DVD-to-mail rental service, DVD Netflix, aka DVD.com. Citing the shrinking DVD business, Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos told shareholders on April 18 that the rental service would be shipping its last DVD on September 29, 2023.
And while most of the 230 million Netflix subscribers won’t miss the service -- or perhaps even knew it still existed in the first place -- DVDs and Blu-rays are still a preferred method for watching movies and TV series if you really care about quality or just don't have broadband internet.
But now that DVD Netflix is out of the game, where can people turn to rent DVDs and Blu-rays?
Well, as the news hit Twitter, two of the best alternatives chimed in, reminding their followers that they, too, still existed. GameFly -- which primarily rents video games, but also has a selection of movies for rent -- tweeted at popular kiosk-rental company Redbox with a Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid gif and the text “Out here with @redbox like … .” The two services exchanged clever gifs and tweets (Redbox and Blockbuster even exchanged jabs) about being the last ones standing, but it still might be unclear to many DVD Netflix renters where they can go to fill the void.
That’s where we come in with this rundown of where you can rent DVDs and Blu-rays now that Netflix is shutting down its DVD rental service. Oh, and if you need a Blu-ray player, check out our roundup of the best ones to buy.

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