The Wall Street Journal has a quick little summary of some of the new ways you’ll be watching movies. Many, if not all of them, are already familiar to us here: BD-Live, watching movies on your iPhone then moving them to your TV, kiosks at Blockbuster that burn burn movies to discs, etc. Laughably, there’s also a mention of movie theaters’ attempts to draw people to their theaters. Apparently they’re trying to get people back to the theaters by classing them up a bit: fancy drinks (instead of soda) and upscale entertainment (“tinkling pianos in the lobby”). Never mind that the people who would appreciate such luxury already have tremendous home theaters. Nothing too crazy, though. Y’all are already up to speed for the most part. Besides, we all know the best way to watch movies is to grab ‘em off Usenet then use a long HDMI cable to connect your computer to your TV. → Read More
Nobody takes the fun out of life more than lawyers and Disney’s 57-page EULA on its Sleeping Beauty Blu-ray release. The agreement must be accepted before disc access is allowed and then there is another 63-page Privacy Policy agreement screen before access to BD Live material can be accessed. The whole ordeal is a tad annoying. It’s understandable that Disney wants to protect its assets, but this is a little much. → Read More
Hot on the heels of Sony’s BD Live firmware updates comes Samsung’s BD-P1500 BD Live-capable firmware. All owners need to do is update the firmware via the players GUI or by downloading the update on Samsung’s website and then burning it onto a CD to enable BD Live. This update might signal a turning point in Blu-ray’s sales battle as it joins Sony’s BDP-350 as another sub-$300 BD Live-equipped Blu-ray player. Samsung via EngHD → Read More
Having problems accessing the BD-Live content of Iron Man? Turns out you’re not alone, and Paramount thinks it knows what’s going on: the movie is just too gosh darn popular! The movie, which was released on Blu-ray last Tuesday, is so popular, Paramount says, that the record number of people trying to access the BD-Live content have overloaded the servers. And when the servers are under so much strain is when you see the connectivity issues. That being said, Paramount says the issues should be gone by now, as it has shored up the relevant servers. Also, is the movie any good? I don’t want to waste precious BitTorrent ratio on a cruddy movie. → Read More
Well look at that. Circuit City is offering up the LD BD300 for $50 under the launch MSRP of $399. Better yet, the shipping date is only a few days away on October 10, 2008. Amazon however, still lists the unit at $399 so no word if this is the price is from LG or if it’s a Circuit City promotion. Either way, this is one hell of a deal. You get not only a Blu-ray Profile 2.0 BD Live capable player, but also a Netflix streamer. So what are you waiting for? Santa? → Read More
The BDP-09FD is the first Pioneer unit to support Profile 2.0 and BD-Live, 4GB of internal storage, along with some amazing audio and video tech. Each one of the units 7.1 analog outputs are equipped with their own digital to analog converters. Video comes by the way of one of the industries leading image processors and is fed over two HDMI 1.3a jacks. This AV wunderkind even allows for HDMI breakup, allowing one HDMI single to feed the video and the other the audio. Obvously, this Pioneer Elite isn’t going to come cheap. But then again, AV elitists have been paying top dollar for equipment as long as it’s been made. Ready? $2,200 and available soon. Hands on treatment to come at CEDIA. via Gizmodo → Read More
I’m sure most of the fanbois are already aware that 2.2 was let loose earlier tonight, but in case you’re working the late shift or you’re not at home then this is for you. BD-Live is now in full effect. → Read More
[photopress:brdhd.jpg,full,center] Flickr’d Now with HD DVD out of the picture, the Blu-ray camp is free to promote the format’s cutting edge technology, no matter how dull that edge may be. USA Today has a puff piece today on Blu-ray’s upcoming Profile 2.0, known colloquially as BD-Live. The new standard, which is scheduled to debut this fall, requires that Blu-ray players have built-in Internet connectivity capability, something all HD DVD players had at launch in 2006. → Read More
Blu-ray 2.0 gets demoed and looks kind of cool. I feel like a lot of the stuff going on in the video has been available on HD DVD, but I could be wrong. Video can be found here. → Read More
During IFA, Daewoo, maker of all things cheap and imported, announced it would be dipping its feet into the waters of the Blu-ray market with its first player, the DBP-1000. Sleek blue looks aside, the player is slim and supports full BD-R specifications. It can access live content, output in 1080p via HDMI, upscale DVDs and photos to full-rez, and can playback DivX files. The DBP-1000 can also playback any burned CD or DVD, as well as burned BD-R and BD-RE discs in case you have friends with a lot of data (or burned movies). All inputs you’d expect are available, including digital sound, and a USB port is included on the front for flash drives. Sounds like an awesome player. As much as I’d love to get my hands on it, Daewoo failed to mention anything about price or availability. Daewoo demos ‘Blu-ray Disc 2.0′ player [Reg Hardware] → Read More
