Category: Blu-ray
PS3 firmware upgrade 2.3 will give DTS-HD Master Audio support, hurrah!
It’s official – the PS3 is now the best Blu-ray player you could throw your money at, and one of the cheapest too, at £299.99.
Sony has just announced the PS3 now has DTS-HD Master Audio support, which is one of the highest resolution audio formats for films, with Dolby TrueHD being the only other contender. Support for that format, and DTS-HD High Resolution, will become available in the latest firmware upgrade, version 2.3, due out on April the 15th.
Most new Blu-ray players can output DTS-HD MA, however only a small amount of AV receivers can actually decode it. The popular (amongst audiophiles) format gives the user a 7.1 audio channel, which is as close as you’ll get to the original studio master. The update will output all 7.1 channels via HDMI,…
Soon, iPhone and PS3 will be able to control one another
In a bizarre concoction, it turns out that the iPhone and the PlayStation 3 may soon be able to converse with and control one another, thanks to a new application from Netblender.
At its most basic level, the iPhone will be able to remote control Blu-ray disc playback on the PS3, but Denny Breitenfeld, Netblender’s CTO, says that it’s much more than that…
Sony to launch new Blu-ray PVRs: BDZ-A70 / BDZ-T90
As part of its commitment to increasing Blu-ray market share, Sony is to roll out a couple of Blu-ray equipped PVRs to the Japanese market at the end of this month…
Sony may create HDTV with integrated Blu-ray drive
Based on recent comments made by Sony’s president and Electronics CEO, Ryoji Chubachi, the company may soon create high definition LCD TVs with integrated Blu-ray players / burners.
It’s part of their 2008 strategy to increase global market share of all Blu-ray products from 20% (current) to 50%…
Xbox 360 Blu-ray rumour WILL NOT DIE – Taiwanese company making Blu-ray drives for MS, apparently
Taiwanese news source Digi Times is 100% sure Microsoft’s in the final stages of readying a Blu-ray version of Xbox 360, with local manufacturer Lite-On apparently ready to hit the big red button and start its machines pumping out Blu-ray drives for Microsoft.
Digi Times also went off on a wild speculation rampage, saying that MS would clearly have to sell any possible Blu-ray-packing Xbox 360 at a loss…
Survey: HD DVD is dead, but did anyone tell the online retailers?
With the HD DVD Promotional Group dissolving, Toshiba abandoning ship, and precious few studios releasing anything on the format any more, you’d have to be totally uninformed and just a little bit stupid to buy an HD DVD player thinking that it was the future.
Enter two fairly benign entities — online retailers and the Great British consumer — which when mixed can be deadly (or at least, good for making expensive mistakes)
Still, surely we can rely on our helpful, informative, reliable, up-to-date online retailers to ensure that visitors to their web site don’t make a stupid purchase they’ll regret as soon as it leaves its cardboard and polystyrene womb?
You’d think…
Here’s a roundup of some key (and not so key) Internet stores, and their current attitude towards HD DVD…
Dell to offer Inspiron 1525 notebook with Blu-ray drive
Susi has already reviewed the new Inspiron 1525, which currently is high definition-enabled in as much as it has an HDMI port, but no standard high definition drive.
However, US sites are reporting that Dell is offering a Blu-ray drive as part of the customisation process, so now you can get HD content onto the machine, for viewing on the 15.4-inch glossy screen or output via that HDMI port…
Buffalo intros first dual format high definition drive
It’s not just LG sticking with both high definition disc formats, with Buffalo announcing their first external optical drive able to read and write to Blu-ray Discs, and read HD DVDs…
BD-Live announced for PS3 this month
Let’s be honest, the Blu-ray Profile 1.1 didn’t exactly revolutionise the Blu-ray playing experience. Some might have argued that all it did was pull the technology in line with HD DVD, but they can all see where that got them and shut the hell up. Err, anyway, Blu-ray 1.1 is nothing, Blu-ray Profile 2.0, or BD-Live as it has been christened, is a fair bit more exciting and it’s due to arrive in the next PS3 firmware update, due some time later this month….
Microsoft condemns Blu-ray to the tech trash can
Along with Toshiba, Microsoft is one of those companies that helps tech writers to fill up column inches and maintain pixel word counts when looking at high definition.
Microsoft’s senior Xbox executive, Chris Lewis, has said that, “before very long we will look back wistfully at shiny discs as something that was somewhat a historic phenomenon in a way that we kind of think about vinyl [he’s obviously not a DJ] or VCRs today.”
Despite rumours — which may ultimately turn out to be true — that Microsoft is considering supporting Blu-ray in some way going forward, the company is still highly committed to digital downloads as the future. It won’t be long either, according to the almighty…
