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Tag: blu-ray

  • Bright Day For Dark Knight Blu-ray Sales


    Warner Brothers’ The Dark Knight has eclisped Iron Man to become the fastest selling Blu-ray Disc movie of all time.

    Approximately 600,000 Blu-ray copies of the movie sold on the first day in the US, Canada and UK.

    This represent 20 per cent of the total three million copies sold during the first 24 hours.

    An estimated one-sixth of the high-def discs were bought in the UK, with most of the remainder presumably being snapped up in the US.

    Warner Brothers is now predicting that it will sell one million BDs by the weekend.

    Iron Man’s day one record had stood at 250,000 BDs.

    Not surprisingly the studio has been quick to talk up what the figures mean for Blu-ray.

    Kevin Tsujihara, president of Warner Brothers Home Entertainment, said: "Numbers like these in this economic environment firmly establish Blu-ray as where consumers are headed."

  • HD Video Download Service Allows Blu-ray Recording


    Japan is to get the world’s first HDTV video download service that allows users to export high-def content from HDDs to Blu-ray Disc.

    Tsutaya online provides video content from a server to compatible digital home appliances and allows the content to be copied on Blu-ray Disc, iVDR-S and memory cards.

    Tsutaya obtained permission to use seven of the technologies that can export content based on MarlinDRM specifications.

    The service, which is to be launched on 19 December, will offer over 400 titles, including movies and TV programs created by US film companies.

    Tsutaya online has gained permission to dub HDTV content from them.

    HDTV video can be exported, without down conversion, to Blu-ray Disc, DVD-R DL (AVCREC) and iVDR-S media.

    AACS will be applied to recording on Blu-ray Disc and DVD-R DL media, while SAFIA will be applied to recording on iVDR-S media.

    Video can also be delivered in a form protected by DTCP-IP to DLNA-compatible devices.

    Tsutaya expects to be able to offer a down-convert service from HD to SD, with the content than able to be recorded on SD memory cards, Memory Stick PRO and EMPR (embedded memory with playback and recording function).

  • Netflix Beats Blu-ray Target – Hopes High For 2009


    Netflix has reached its target of 500,000 Blu-ray subscribers ahead of schedule.

    The retailer’s chief financial officer Barry McCarthy said subscribers had added the option of paying an extra USD $1 to receive Blu-ray Disc titles at a quicker rate than Netflix forecast in October.

    While prices of Blu-ray players have dropped sharply recently, the same has not been true of disc prices. This may have benefitted Netflix’s HD rental service as new Blu-ray player owners look to rent moviest rather than buy them.

    Netflix expects the Blu-ray service to help boost total subscribers to about 9 million by the end of the year.

    To continue its high-def push, Netflix will promote Blu-ray inside its mailing envelopes next year.

    As well as providing the Blu-ray option, the company has boosted subscribers by offering its listing of over 12,000 video-streaming titles available for TV viewing through TiVo digital video recorders.

    Last week, Netflix also began offering an HD download service on two Samsung Blu-ray players.

  • Japan Grasps Blu-ray – US Starts To Get Taste


    Blu-ray players bucked generally weak Black Friday sales in the US – helped considerably by average prices dropping to USD $200, according to DisplaySearch.

    Stripping out sales of Sony’s PlayStation 3, the researchers report that US Blu-ray Disc player revenue "more than tripled from a year earlier" during the week of Thanksgiving and Black Friday .

    Over USD $30 million was generated on sales of 147,000 Blu-ray decks.

    With Sony and Samsung leading the charge by dropping the price of their entry-level machines to below USD $200, overall costs averaged half the $400 price tag of a year ago.

    Coupled with the strong BD player sales, retailers have been reporting sales of HDTVs have been similarly buoyant despite the economic difficulties.

    If the US – finally – appears to be on the cusp of grasping Blu-ray, take a look at the Japanese market.

    BD recorders now account for half of all DVD recorders in the country – up from just 10 per cent last October.

    Even if this phenomenal rise is down to price drops it must still make for cheery year-end reading for the Blu-ray Disc Association.

    Now maybe it can turn its attention to the price of Blu-ray Disc prices.

    While the release of The Dark Knight is expected to boost the high-def format’s disc sales, the general perception is that the movie studios need to cut prices to ensure Blu-ray really does take off.

  • Blu-ray Storage Capacities To Keep Climbing


    Pioneer has announced plans for a one terabyte (1TB) Blu-ray disc that could be on the market by 2013.

    With a 400GB disc already ready for launch and a half-terabyte disc expected to follow shortly, there may be some questions about how such an abundance of storage can be used.

    One answer may be the advent of upgraded high definition standards that take up even greater amounts of disc space.

    The possibility for progressively increasing to higher densities was a major reason that Blu-ray won over its rivals.

  • Pioneer 400GB Blu-ray discs will play on PS3


    There are undoubtedly pros and cons to having a single disc that can pack in 400GB of data – movies, music…whatever you can throw at it.

    Pioneer is preparing for release a 16-layer Blu-ray disc that not only offers this colossal storage capacity but will play back on most current standalone Blu-ray players, including the Sony PlayStation 3.

    The manufacturer insists that the read-only disc will be backwards compatible with existing players because the specifications of the pick-up head (PUH) of the disc are the same as those for blank BD discs.

    Currently, Blu-ray discs are either single layer 25GB discs or 50GB dual-layer discs.

    The new multi-layer disc is based on current Blu-ray discs but made from a new material of reflective layers of Dielectric.

    It is read-only (ROM) but there are plans for rewritable discs by 2010-2012.

    What is still not clear is whether current players will be able to read all 16 layers of the 400GB disc, rather than just the first two.

    The company also added that it will begin manufacturing 40-layer 1TB discs in 2013.

  • Samsung Blu-ray Players First To Offer Netflix HD


    Blockbuster may be hinting at offering its download service on Blu-ray players – Netflix is actually doing it.

    From next week two Samsung Blu-ray players are to provide Netflix videos in high definition.

    With a firmware update, both the BD-P2500 and BD-P2550 models, which currently offer standard-def steaming, will be able to offer HD
    programs from Netflix’s online DVD rental service.

    The Netflix HD movies, of which there will initially be about 300 titles, will be in 720p video, a lower resolution than the 1080p resolution
    available on Blu-ray discs.

    That said, it will bethe first time that a Blu-ray player will be able to offer high def streaming from any service.

    Last week, Blockbuster launched a movie rental download service in the US via set-top boxes.

    Following the announcement, Blockbuster CEO Jim Keyes was reported as saying that its download services will be coming to undisclosed Blu-ray players "by the first quarter of next year".

  • Growth Towards 3D HDTV Gains Pace


    Panasonic has submitted a proposal for a 3D Blu-ray standard to the Blu-ray Disc Association.

    The standard would offer guidelines for creating "left/right-eye two-channel full HD images".

    Hiroshi Miyai, Panasonic’s director of AV developments, said that the changes should be quite simple, claiming that the discs would simply need some kind of flag to identify image data, equipment and other elements supporting 3D imagery.

    "We really don’t need any other major changes," he said.

    Panasonic’s submission comes as Korea’s LG announces its intentions to bring 3D TVs to some markets in 2009.

    Choon Lee, vice president director of LG’s Digital TV Research Lab, gave no specific information about the launch details other than that one or two unspecified markets will be getting the technology.

    He said the tech itself would undergo a slight change to existing Blu-ray technology and use the media to keep costs to buyers down.

    In Japan, viewers receive two hours of 3D programming daily over satellite broadcasts.

  • Blu-Ray Takes On Pirates And Old HD Rival In China


    Blu-Ray discs will go on sale in China for the first time today – officially that is.

    While it’s been possible to buy dubious pirated version of the high-def format for some time, today marks the start of what is expected to be a major push by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment into the vast Chinese market.

    Discs will be priced in the region of RMB200 (USD $30) and will be available online and in-store.

    The initial movie offering isn’t extensive – just 30 titles will be available – including Hancock, the recent Spiderman movies and classics including Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

    To coincide with the introduction of the discs, Sony is also launching its BDP-S350 Blu-ray player into the Chinese market.

    It’s an environment where rampant piracy of high-definition discs, among other things, is already an issue.

    Authorities in China recently seized over 800 illegally pirated Blu-ray titles. The discs contained movies ripped from Blu-ray to DVD using AVCHD compression.

    The fakes, seized in Shenzhen, were packaged in realistic-looking Blu-ray boxes, complete with authenticating holograms.

    The bust has highlighted flaws in the robust copy-protection that Blu-ray is supposed to have, although the Motion Picture Association International said this was the first ever seizure of this type of disc.

    Sony Pictures is the first Hollywood studios to release films on the high definition format in China but both Warner Brothers and Disney are in talks with local replicators and distributors in order to release their Blu-ray titles in the country as well.

    But pirates aren’t the only opposition Blu-ray is likely to face.

    Production of China’s self-developed high-definition optical disc format – China Blue High-definition Disc (CBHD) – is expected to begin production before the end of the year.

    Shanghai United Optical Disc has completed its first production line for the modified version of the Toshiba-supported HD DVD format that lost out to Blu-ray.

    But with no Hollywood studios on board, it faces an uphill battle with (at least) three studios now preparing Blu-ray releases in China.

  • How will Xbox's streaming HD Fare Against PS3's Blu-ray?


    For a while now, Sony’s PS3 has done very well out of being the best Blu-ray player in its price range – oh, and you can play games with it too.

    So it will be interesting to see how it fares now that Microsoft’s Xbox is offering US users streaming HD content from Netflix.

    That, and the fact that Blu-ray player prices generally are falling drastically, may have some impact on the Sony console.

    PS3 sales figures for the third quarter showed a very respectable 56 per cent increase year-over-year, even if total numbers were lagging behind Nintendo’s Wii and the Xbox 360.

    There are also now 14 million active PlayStation Network (PSN) accounts worldwide – equalling the number of Xbox Live (XBL) subscribers, according to Sony.

    Registered PSN users have leapt by four million since July, with the total amount of content downloaded shooting up from 170 million pieces to 273 million pieces.

    That said, the Xbox 360 isn’t doing badly. Microsoft forecasts that by the end of this month, 25 million Xbox 360 consoles will have been sold worldwide.

    The NPD Group reported in September that the Xbox 360 was ahead of the PlayStation 3 in sales for the first time in months – even if only by a slim margin.

    So Microsoft will be hoping that today’s Xbox update will add further appeal to its console and keep those totals climbing higher.

    It will be offering HD content from Netflix, the latest entrant to the rapidly growing streaming digital market that has seen a series of set-top boxes begin offering the service.

    Movies from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment subsidiary, Columbia Pictures, will not be available to Xbox 360 users streaming via Netflix, though.

    Shortly before Xbox 360’s update went live, the list of movies available for Netflix Watch Instantly streaming suddenly dropped all Columbia’s offerings.

    All the blocked content can still be viewed online and through all other Netflix enabled TV devices except for the 360.

    Rivalry issues aside, as well as the lure of high-def programming, the Xbox changes offer a new interface with a simpler panel and new customizable avatars to display users in the friends list and certain games.

    A LIVE Party function can be used to virtually host up to seven friends for voice chat, game play, and photo sharing.

    There is also a community games channel which allows users to play games that have been created by private individuals.

    Among the new games to be launched are "You’re in the Movies" and "Lips".

    So, plenty of entertaiment for Xbox users to get their teeth into – but will it be enough to halt the march of the PS3?