Redbox, the wonderful dollar-a-day DVD rental kiosk company, is currently owned by a number of parties, including Coinstar and GetAMovie, a subsidiary of McDonalds. Coinstar, Redbox’s majority owner, announced last week that they’ll be buying up the remaining shares. No price changes are planned for normal DVDs. Although we previously reported that Redbox would rent Blu-Ray discs for $1, indications now are that Blu-Ray rentals will cost a little more. → Read More
Denon announced the DVD-A1UDCI, a universal player that supports Blu-ray discs, SACDs, CDs, DVD-Audio and DVD-Video, back in December for the Japanese market. The company today announced [JP] it will release the player, which was scheduled for release in Nippon this month, in March 2009. → Read More
Samsung dropped the swanky BD-P4600 Blu-ray player at CES and now it has some company – and competition – from LG. While the DV4S and DV4M are not Blu-ray players like the Samsung counterpart, the two models still hold their own with different functions and features. → Read More
DVD wasn’t a success until that first Christmas when players were available for less than $40 and Blu-ray’s success probably weighs on a similar price barrier. Chinese manufacturers are certainly here to help and prices are slowly dropping to the Wal-Mart-acceptable level with the AMEX Digital BD-P1 as the latest no-name player that might be headed to the retailer. On paper, it doesn’t look terrible. → Read More
Remember RealDVD, Real Networks’ attempt to legitimize DVD copying, only the movie studios freaked out because they didn’t understand what the software was all about? Well, Real still thinks it has a good chance of winning the lawsuit it faces. Lawsuit out of the way, it’ll go on selling RealDVD like nothing ever happened. → Read More
Tokyo-based Infinity Storage Media [JP] is the world’s first company that will roll out a Blu-ray / DVD hybrid disc (a boxed set, to be more precise) , which has a single-layer of Blu-ray (25GB) on one and a conventional dual-layer DVD (8.5GB) on the other side. → Read More
We told you about it back in February, but Merc is the first company to have it in a production vehicle. The system will allow you to have two viewers using the same screen, while viewing different content. Ideally, this would allow the driver to view travel information while the passenger watches a movie. Or vice versa if you know where you’re going and love getting in accidents. This will reportedly be available on all S-Class models starting summer of 2009. [via Benz Insider] → Read More
Blu-ray is now officially more popular than plain ol’ DVD in Japan. Wait, let me rephrase that: there are now more Blu-ray disc recorders in Japan than there are DVD recorders. More than 50 percent of disc recorders in Japan are now of the Blu-ray variety. → Read More
A little personal information about me: I’ve never seen a single episode of Lost. I understand it’s quite popular, though. A co-worker of mine at a previous place of employment was so adamant that I join the Lost-watchers club that she leant me the first season and then asked me every day what I thought of the show. After a month of not even taking the first disc out of the sleeve, I returned it to her. If you’d like to try to force someone to hop on the Lost bandwagon or if you, yourself, would like to churn through the first three seasons in rapid succession, Amazon has Seasons 1, 2, and 3 for $58.99, which is less than half what they normally cost. That deal’s good today only, though, so hop to it if you’re interested. Lost – The Complete Seasons 1-3 [Amazon] → Read More
Who else thinks Blu-ray is doomed? I mean, other than Steve Jobs? ZDNet’s Robin Harris does, and he makes a decent argument. Consider the following: only 4 percent of movie discs sold in the U.S. are Blu-ray discs; these discs often don’t play reliably on your more-than-likely expensive player (as I found out this week); it costs a tremendous amount of money to author Blu-ray discs, ensuring that only Hollywood studio-backed movies can be released on the format; upsampling DVD players are dirt cheap now—why spend $300+ on a Blu-ray player (in this economy!) when your “good enough” DVDs now look even better? → Read More
RealDVD hasn’t even been available for more than an hour and already Hollywood studios are upset about the ramifications it could have on the industry.
According to a statement released by RealNetworks, it has filed suit against Hollywood studios asking the court to rule that RealDVD “fully complies with the DVD Copy Control Association’s license agreement.” The suit was filed against DVD Copy Control Association, Inc., Disney, Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures, and Twentieth Century Fox to name a few.
In its defense, RealNetworks claims RealDVD “allows consumers to securely store, manage and play their DVDs on their computers” and “does not enable users to distribute copies of their DVDs.” It was also quick to point out that RealDVD adds another layer of DRM that locks the user to their own computer to make the program even more stringent. → Read More
As anyone with a lick of tech knowledge knows, ripping a DVD onto your hard drive is, well, frowned upon by the “Powers that be” in the motion picture industry. Realizing that, RealNetworks has launched a new solution called RealDVD, which lets users copy DVDs onto their hard drives without facing legal troubles. Even better, it only takes about 20 minutes to do so. Sounds great, right? There’s only one catch: it keeps the DRM.
After copying the DVD onto your hard drive, you can’t transfer the movie to a friend’s computer, so you’ll be stuck using your own. Much like iTunes, though, RealDVD lets you authorize five computers to play the movies on the hard drive. → Read More
In the sheer hopes that The Dude does, in fact, abide, Universal Studios will be releasing a 10th anniversary edition of The Big Lebowski. You can pre-order it from Amazon.com for a measly $24 if you want to get a head start. The two-disc set comes packed inside a bowling ball — a bowling ball! – and is “loaded with all-new bonus features that will take you beyond the movie!” The Big Lebowski – 10th Anniversary Limited Edition [Amazon.com] → Read More
