You have an HDD/Blu-ray recorder connected to your TV but never enough space on it? Then Toshiba’s REGZA DBR-M190 might do the trick for you (if you live in Japan, at least). As with most devices at CEATEC 2011, the recorder was pre-announced [JP] by the company just ahead of the exhibition.

The DBR-M190 boasts no less than 5TB of storage: according to Toshiba, 4TB are reserved for the time-shift function, which allows users to simultaneously record up to six six terrestrial digital channels in SD for 15 days (the remaining terabyte can be used to store other programs).

I couldn’t check the quality of content compressed that radically at the Toshiba booth today, but buyers can opt for shorter recording times and better quality. All stored programs can be copied over to an external HDD.

The built-in REGZA Link Share function makes it possible to not only watch content on the TV but also to stream it to other devices, for example compatible Toshiba tablets or smartphones (which is why the DBR-M190 is actually being marketed as a “REGZA server”).

The device is compatible to 3D Blu-ray discs and will go on sale in Japan next month (price: US$2,600). A trimmed down version, the DBR-M180, with 2TB for time shift and 500GB regular storage space will set buyers back US$1,950.

Hold onto your phasers — the dream of many a Trekkie is about to come true. Star Trek: The Next Generation will be released on Blu-ray starting in 2012. Every one of the show’s 178 episodes will be released eventually, though not all at once. Why such a slow release? Well, it turns out that instead of upconverting and selling for a premium, the producers of this new version are doing it right. How right? They’re scanning the original 35mm footage, cutting together the shows from that, and re-creating the original effects in high definition.

Now that’s what I call a proper remastering. George Lucas, take note.

They’re leading the whole project with a sort of proof-of-concept disc comprising the pilot episode and two fan favorites, “Sins of the Father” and “The Inner Light,” from seasons three and five respectively. Perfect for fanboy screenings, and it alleviates the inevitable problem of the weak first two seasons of the show arriving as the vanguard of this new release.

While high definition occasionally reveals details mercifully obscured by videotape transfer and SD resolution (flaws in makeup, costume, and set design), it’s generally a positive thing and with a big-budget show like TNG (I learned today that its budget was over $1m per episode) chances are those aesthetic flaws will be minimal, and with luck it’ll look like this:

The release will be full 1080p with 7.1 DTS audio reconstructed from the show’s original tracks. I’m guessing it will be widescreen, since they weren’t shooting on a “flat” 1.85:1 Panavision setup. Whether they composed for that, I don’t know (i.e. you might be able to see the edge of the set on the full 35mm frame), but either way it should be a widescreen image.

Expect the first “sampler” Blu-ray, entitled The Next Level, to hit on January 31 of next year for $22, and the rest to follow.

Onkyo just announced its latest flagship Blu-ray player: the $599 BD-SP809. This bad boy comes complete with 3D capabilities and a fancy-pants THX Blu-ray certification. It packs a USB port for media playback and an Ethernet port for local DLNA 1.5 support and online streaming services such as Netflix, Blockbuster, Film Fresh, and VUDU. Got to love that.

Around back there are twin HDMI outputs for multiple display support, component output, TOSLINK & digital coax outputs, and, of course, an RS-232 port of home automation integration. Marvell’s Qdeo technology handles the 1080p upscaling, noise reducing and deinterlacing. Yeah, this boy is packed and stacked with the latest Onkyo tech.

The BD-SP809 should hit Onkyo retailers this coming August with an MSRP of $599, which is quite a good deal when compared to its nearly identical Integra cousin. The Onkyo features the same THX certification, but sports one more HDMI port and the online media streaming support. The Integra on the other hand has a more powerful power supply, analog 7.1 audio outputs, but also a $100 higher prices tag. I’d much rather drop that cash on some Blu-ray discs.

Plextor Announces PX-LB950UE External 12X Blu-Ray Writer

PX-LB950UE brings HD to PCs with both USB3.0 and eSATA connections

(Fremont, CA – April 27, 2011) – Plextor (www.plextor.com), a leading developer and manufacturer of high-performance digital media equipment, announces the newest addition to its Blu-ray lineup with the new PX-LB950UE external 12X Blu-ray Writer – the fastest Blu-ray writer available in the market today. This drive features the latest superspeed USB3.0 and eSATA connections, providing bandwidth for high data transfer rate.

Supplied with advanced Blu-ray and DVD playback software and recording applications, the PX-LB950UE offers a full Blu-ray HD experience. The drive is designed to provide smooth and quiet HD Blu-ray movie playback with excellent sound reproduction and a crystal clear picture quality. This drive also supports 3D playback and is able to convert 2D contents to simulate 3D effects.

“We are excited to offer a transportable all-in-one blu-ray device to consumers,” said Christine Hsing, Marketing Manager at Plextor. “The PX-LB950UE lets you connect to any computer with USB or eSATA connection making access to Blu-ray technology a breeze.”

In addition, the PX-LB950UE is developed with a low vibration system, eliminating most vibrations. It has a large 8MB buffer ensuring an enhanced writing accuracy at high speed. The PX-LB950UE also features a special chassis, which channels the airflow, cools the motors, improves performance and extends the lifetime of the drive.

The PX-LB950UE comes with Plextor’s very own PlexUTILITIES, a comprehensive disc and drive analysis tool. This drive is also LightScribe enabled.

The 12X External Blu-ray Writer, PX-LB950UE, is available now with the suggested MSRP of $239.99.

Sharp Japan announced [JP] the BD-HDW series today, which consists of three 3D-enabled AQUOS Blu-ray recorders: the BD-HDW80 (with a 1TB HDD on board/$1,290), the BD-HDW75 (500GB/$1,060) and the BD-HDW73 (320GB/$940).

Apart from supporting 3D Blu-ray discs, the recorders are compatible to the BD-RE XL rewritable Blu-rays Panasonic announced for the Japanese market last week. The devices also feature IEEE 802.11b/g/n Wi-Fi, DLNA support, an HDMI interface, Ethernet, and a USB port.

The picture below shows the flagship BD-HDW80:

Sharp plans to roll out the new recorders in Japan on April 27 (no word yet on a possible international release).

In July last year, Sharp showed the world’s first triple-layer BDXL discs with 100GB capacity. While the discs were great (and enough to store about 720 minutes of terrestrial digital broadcasting), they weren’t rewritable. But the LM-BE100J BDXL Blu-rays, announced [JP] by Panasonic today, are.

Panasonic says their made-in-Japan discs come with a “hard coat” to protect your recordings from scratches and dirt (needless to say, you will need a BDXL-compatible Blu-ray recorder to be able to use them).

The LM-BE100J will hit Japaneses stores on April 15 (price for one disc: around $120).

The Blu-ray edition of Star Wars: The Complete Saga now has a release date: September 16 of this year. Amazon lists the collection for $90, so start saving your pennies.

The 16th falls on a Friday, so Blu-ray.com surmises that this gives retailers the chance to host all sorts of Star Wars-related launch events. Those should be… interesting.

The question on everyone’s mind, of course, is: will I actually sit down and watch the original trilogy for the first time now? (I’ve only seen Episode 1 and 3.)

Buffalo just outed their new portable BDXL Blu-ray writer, the BRXL-PC6U2-BK. BDXL is the new Blu-ray spec that can store up to 100 GB on three layers and 128 GB on four. The burner can operate at speeds of up to 4x using dual USB 2.0 ports and 2x speed using only one.

The device is claimed to be the first portable BDXL Blu-ray burner on the market and will release later this month in Japan for about $286 — no word yet on a US release.

While this is certainly good news for the Blu-ray standard, 3-layer BDXL discs can cost about $57 apiece. I’m not so sure I’d want a portable drive writing on $60, write-once, discs.

In other news, Newegg is selling a 1 TB drive for $60.

Sony has won their case against LG. The more than 300,000 PS3′s that were seized will be returned to Sony. Also, all future shipments into Europe will continue without any issues.

LG will have to pay Sony 130,000 Euros for the cost of the hearing and Sony will collect 200,000 euros per day from LG for everyday that the PS3 shipments are delayed going back to Sony.

Get streaming online video from online services like Blockbuster® and Netflix®
Listen to your favorite music on Pandora™ Internet radio
Connect to your home network with or without wires; the player has both Ethernet and Wi-Fi options built in
Watch Blu-ray movies in full high definition (HD) quality up to 1080p
Play standard DVDs and up convert them to near-HD quality
Get the most from your speakers, with 2.0 channel analog audio output or up to 7.1 channels of Dolby™ Digital Plus surround sound
Integrated Wi-Fi for wireless streaming with your home network
HDMI 1.3 Digital Interface – Supports up to 1920 x 1080 Output

Product Page

The feud between Korea’s LG and Japan’s Sony has just hotted up. LG has won a preliminary injunction against Sony in Europe, the result of which is the temporary banning of the importation of PS3s into the continent. LG says Sony infringed on a number of its patents, specifically with regard to Blu-ray playback. Hence, the preliminary injunction.

As it stands, the ban will be in effect for 10 days, as European customs officials are ordered to confiscate any and all PS3s as they arrive.

About 100,000 PS3s per week are typically imported into Europe. Retailers are estimated to have about two to three weeks’ of PS3s in stock, meaning the ban won’t really hurt plain ol’ folks unless it’s extended beyond the initial 10-day period.

Sony says it’s “looking into [the] matter.” The matter? LG’s claims that Sony trampled all over its Blu-ray playback patents.

What’s the worst case scenario here? Probably that Sony would have to write LG a giant cheque alongside the sale of each PS3.

Android has been unstoppable this week — they’re railing the competition. That momentum isn’t expected to slow, especially since the Blu-ray release of Unstoppable comes with a digital version for Android. Who knows what took so long, but we’re glad it’s here.

The release marks an industry first where a digital version for Android in released with Blu-ray. Though, there are a few things not to our liking. First, you have to have a WiFi-connected Blu-ray player to send the video over to Android. Secondly, you have to watch it on the free app PocketBlu.

Press Release

via [engadget]

What exciting times we live in, what with word that Sony has plans to subpoena a boatload of Web sites and individuals in an attempt to track down the members of fail0verflow and other PS3 hackers. Good luck with that. But wait, what’s this? Now LG wants to ban the sale of PS3s here in the US of A because of a patent dispute? In the words of Scott Hall, two sweet!

LG alleges that the PS3 infringes on as many as four patents related to the playback of Blu-ray discs, and has subsequently asked the United States International Trade Commission to disallow the further importation of the video game console until their lawyers figure out what’s going on. (A separate lawsuit has also been filed with the U.S. District Court in the Southern District of California, and it covers other, non-PS3 devices, including PCs and digital cameras.)

The FOSS Patents blog says this could all me a matter of revenge. Sony filed a complaint with the International Trade Commission last December over some of LG’s mobile phone patents. So what better way to fight a patent complaint than by filing a completely unrelated patent claim?

That’s pretty much where we are now, complaints lodged and awaiting rulings. I suggest you pass the time by listening to the Tropico 3 soundtrack.

I mean, I’ve seen all the movies, but the process of keeping a movie alive for 30, 40, 50, or more years is a complicated one, especially for one that pushed the technical boundaries of filmmaking at the time. In contemplating this, I ran across this somewhat old but absolutely fascinating article about the preservation and restoration of the series.

Not everyone is sensitive about the poorly-tweaked colors and added special effects we saw in the re-releases and DVDs (I am). We all know that Han shot first, and that the Sarlacc isn’t supposed to look like Audrey II, but the restoration was more than that. The actual film was cleaned, awkward optical effects were smoothed and aligned, minor errors were corrected, and the film was re-scanned. It was an expensive and labor-intensive endeavor, not just an ego trip by Lucas.

The re-releases for other major films, like the Godfather, have been more painstaking and preservative, scanning the original film at a seemingly excessive 8K resolution, while the last major scan of Star Wars, for HDTV, was scanned at 1080p. Observe the following chart:

For preservation purposes, it makes sense now to scan at high resolutions, since storage is done digitally and it is costly and damaging to the original film to re-scan. It’s not clear whether Lucasfilm has actually done this, because, as the article I link above notes, the source is not just a few reels sitting somewhere, but the work of several decades and many mediums.

What Star Wars fans want, and almost certainly will not get, is a sort of HD chimaera of the theatrical original trilogy with the minor changes and tweaks that didn’t bother them, minus the major and incongruous updates Lucas shoehorned in.

The ability in digital media to seamlessly change the language, cut, and so on of movies should not be disregarded, though I suspect it will be for this release. What if you could switch on the fly between the “absolute theatrical,” with dirt and old effects intact, the “restored theatrical,” with all the clarification, rebalancing, and effects fixes in, and the “enhanced” version, with new effects, scenes, and so on? Not only would people buy that, they would buy it for quite a large sum, and beyond that, it would show that Lucasfilm is not the soulless media machine people take it for these days.

The chances of this happening are not good. Lucas has taken every chance for re-re-re-releasing the films, and a “complete” edition might simply be a precursor to a more complete “definitive” edition with the aspects I’ve suggested. This new release may be worthwhile either way, since the capabilities of Blu-ray more closely match ideal theatrical conditions, but I wouldn’t expect Lucasfilm to put a cap on this money geyser just yet.

Hey, at least they’re not converting it to 3D. Oh, right.

Grab ringside seats to the death of optical media with one of three new Blu-ray players complete with 1 year of free Redbox rentals. The folks at Redbox, who are running some other kind of concurrent Blu-Ray promotion, want their business model to remain vaguely viable for at least the next few years so they want to ensure that you and yours are enjoying fine Blu-ray entertainment as streaming moves in to eat their lunch. To that end, we must insist that you read on to find out how to win.

All you need to do is leave a comment below describing your favorite holiday movie. For example:

Mulholland Dr. always reminds me of that Christmas I spend alone in LA with my twisted thoughts

Three winners will be chosen randomly and awarded the following prize:

• One comment per person and yes, we can check these things
• Entries must be in by December 24th, 11:59pm PST
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• Use a valid email address as that’s how we’ll notify the winner
• US shipping addresses only

Be sure to use your real e-mail address! It will not be shared with anyone, period. It’s just for this contest. Keep your eyes out for more giveaways over the next week and don’t forget about our big Santa item: a gaming rig valued at nearly $2,300. This contest runs through Christmas Eve!

UPDATE – Congrats to Lance, Jennifer, and MethodicJon

Those Android 3D handsets aren’t the only 3D devices Sharp announced today. The company also showed [JP] the BD-HP90 today, a 3D Blu-ray player that’s just 35mm thick. Needless to say, this makes the device the thinnest of its kind.

The player is not only thin, but it can also be used both in a horizontal and vertical position (as you can see above). It comes with a USB port, an HDMI interface, Ethernet, and AQUOS Link. It can play 3D Blu-ray discs but doesn’t support BDXL.

Sharp plans to start selling the BD-HP90 in Japan on November 20 for $495 (no word yet on availability).

But the biggest bullet point is the price: at $780, the device is (relatively) inexpensive, which is why Panasonic plans to manufacture 48,000 units monthly (that’s a relatively high number for a Blu-ray recorder). The DMR-BR585 allows you to copy content from the hard disc to Blu-ray and vice versa (next to recording TV programs and video-on-demand content). It also comes with an HDMI interface, a USB port, and Ethernet.

The DMR-BR585 will go on sale in Japan on November 25. Panasonic hasn’t revealed any international sales plans yet.

The 3D boom knows no end. Pioneer Japan today announced [JP] two Blu-ray players supporting 3D content, the BDP-LX54 (pictured above) as the high-end model, and the BDP-430. Apart from Blu-ray discs, the players are also compatible to the following formats: DivX HD, MKV, WMV, MP3, WMA, and JPEG.

Both devices also feature an HDMI interface, two USB ports, Ethernet, YouTube connectivity, and iControlAV support (iControlAV is an iPhone app that can basically replace the remote control). Spec-wise, the players are identical, but the high-end BDP-LX54 has better vibration control and some high-quality parts (for example the condenser) the BDP-430 (pictured below) doesn’t have.

Pioneer plans to roll out both players in Japan next month (prices: $1,000 for the high-end model, $366 for the other one).

BDXL is now entering the computer market, too. Pioneer Japan today announced [JP] the BDR-206MBK, the world’s first Blu-ray burner for PCs supporting the new format. The internal device is compatible to BD-R XL discs with three (100GB) or four layers (128GB) and BD-RE XL discs with 3 layers (100GB).

To make things complete, the BDR-206MBK also supports 3D Blu-ray discs. The burner will hit Japanese stores next month with a $372 price tag.

Buffalo announced [JP] a very similar model, the BRXL-6FBS-BK, today, (pictured below). The Buffalo model supports exactly the same BDXL discs as the Pioneer burner and plays 3D Blu-rays, too. Buffalo plans to ship the device in Japan next month with an open price model, also claiming the bragging rights for the world’s first PC BDXL disc burner.

At the same time, the company will start selling an external version, the BRXL-6U2 (pictured below), which features the same specs as the internal model and connects to your PC via USB 2.0.

Neither Pioneer nor Buffalo have announced international sales plans for these devices yet.