Tag: blu ray
Sony launches semi-portable entertinment Vaio NW series
Sony has launched a rather middle of the road Vaio range in the UK today known as the NW series. Now, that’s not supposed to be as damning as it sounds. I say middle of the road because you probably wouldn’t call it a portable at 2.7kg and you you might not rely on it as your main home PC with a 15.5″ screen. I think its best description is as your secondary home machine. What do you mean? It’s a Vaio. Of course you can afford three computers.
Like the little one from earlier, it’s got a 16:9 WXGA Sony X-Black LCD which should provide a lovely picture and an HDMI port on the back so you can watch all your HD downloads on your nice big Sony Bravia. You get 500GB of HDD for your storage or if you opt for the upgrade you get a Blu-ray combo drive to playback from plus a ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4570 graphics card for good measure too.
Naturally, it has all the lush Vaio stylings but they’ve also added some quick access options in the shape of a WEB launch button which’ll express boot a tailor made browser and a DISPLAY OFF switch, which along with raw materials and recycling standards, affords the NW series an ENERGY STAR 5.0 rating of eco-generosity.
It’s powered by a 2.1GHz T6500 Intel Core 2 Duo CPU and 4GB of 800MHz DDR2 RAM, so it’s not exactly a performance machine but it should certainly do you proud provided you’re not planning on doing any really serious gaming/video editing/defragging/DVD ripping multi-tasking.
Both versions (BD and non-BD) are out at the end of this month starting at £750 and you can pick them up in silver and gun metal brown which I never thought was a shade of brown but there you go.
Marantz announce the UD9004 – for a mammoth £5,500
If you’ve got a spare £5,500 lying about then you can think about buying the Marantz’s UD9004 Blu-ray and SACD player. If you haven’t, well, join the club.
So what exactly can you expect from your £5,500? Well, the UD9004 is a fusion of the flagship SA-7S1 Super Audio CD player and the very best of the company’s Blu-ray technology.
In other words, this is an absolute beast of a Blu-ray / SACD player. It has a Silicon Optix Realta chip that offers the very finest broadcast quality video processing, including pixel-by-pixel conversion, 1080p upscaling by a 10bit process for standard definition images, detail enhancement, digital noise reduction and high-end analogue video output. You can even run the audio and video via separate HDMI connections just for that extra bit of quality.
For audiophiles there is 32-bit floating point type Analog Devices DSP for the purist audio imaginable with four separate circuit boards and a pure direct mode that shuts down the video playing elements to deliver exceptional, focused audio output.
The machine is built like a tank which will reduce mechanical distortion. The
extensively braced, chassis has a thick bottom plate with machine milled copper feet, sustaining mechanical stability and therefore sound quality. It weighs an incredible 19.2kg.
So, if you’ve read this post to its conclusion you’re obviously still interested. Go get yourself one from Marantz. If you’re feeling particularly flush – and let’s face it, you should be if you’re about to shell out over five grand for a Blu-ray player – order me one too.
Denon announces the DBP-2010 Blu-ray player
Denon has announced the latest addition to their Blu-ray line-up: The DBP-2010.
I want to call it a high-end Blu-ray player but it isn’t really. Not compared to some of Denon’s other Blu-ray machines. Mind you, this one costs £599 and not £3,300 like the VD-A1UD.
That’s not to say that the DBP-2010 isn’t a good bit of kit because, a quick look at the spec, will show you that it is.
It has Profile 2.0 capability with built in BD-Live and Bonus View via the ethernet port. It can play multiple formats – pretty much any shiny circular disc you can imagine – and it has 10-bit video processing for both HD and SD viewing. It also offers upconversion and IP scaling up to 1080p.
Sound wise it features 7.1 analogue outputs with full decoding of Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio. For music via CD it has a dedicated two-channel analogue audio output. The DBP-2010 also supports DivxHD and AVCHD playback from HD camcorders.
It’s out this month and, as mentioned, it’s going to set you back £599. You can get it in either black or silver. Interested? If so, check availability via Denon.
Samsung's 16-inch, 16:9, multimedia based R620 laptop
Samsung has updated their R series laptop range. Well, I say updated but spec-wise the R620 isn’t all that different from the R610. Sure, the ATI Mobility Radeon HD4650 graphics card may be an improvement on the R610’s nVIDIA GeForce Go 9200M GS, but the HD4650 is only included in the premium models. The ATI Mobility Radeon HD4330 in the standard version isn’t all that different.
On board memory has gone up a gig to 4GB DDR2 and the maximum hard-drive is 500GB, although the standard size is only 160GB. It keeps the 16-inch, 16:9 HD ratio for movie watching via its built-in Blu-ray player. The premium version is full HD 1080p whilst the standard version has a resolution of 1366x 768. There’s also HDMI-out if you want to hook it up to your TV.
One new feature is the anti-bacterial keyboard. It’s coated with a special finish that makes it almost impossible for bacteria to live and breed. Presumably if you spill your Yakult on it, it will simply evaporate into thin-air.*
If you’re looking for a mid-range laptop and you’re also considering buying a Blu-ray player then this laptop could help you kill two birds with stone. As a laptop alone it is decent – not exactly a world-beater – but the added Blu-ray, plus fast transfer via the combo USB/eSATA, make it a pretty good media-centre laptop.
It’s out in July and the standard version will cost you £699 from Samsung.
* This will not actually happen. The Yakult will kill your laptop – don’t try it.
Related post: Samsung R610: 16″ Blu-ray multimedia laptop
Sony goes Blu-Ray and budget conscious with latest Vaio
Sony has today announced the budget friendly Vaio NW series. For $880 (about £535) lucky American’s can grab themselves a Vaio laptop complete with Blu-ray player. There is an $800 version that comes without the Blu-ray but, quite frankly, we’re not that interested in that.
The laptop has an impressive spec line-up to go with the Blu-ray bonus and relatively low price-tag:
- 15.5-inch WXGA screen
- 2GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor
- Radeon HD4570, 512MB graphics
- 400GB hard-drive
- 4GB DDR2 RAM
Also the battery should last over five hours and there’s also HDMI output and multiple memory card slots – MemoryStick Pro, Express Card and SD Card. This looks like being a great option for the quoted price.
(via Engadget)
No details as of yet about a UK release I’m afraid but, as always, when we know – you’ll know.
GE creates 500GB holographic storage disc
It seems that every other month someone’s coming out with the prototype of a disc that can store X times more than a DVD/Blu-ray. I was actually thinking of making one myself with a stack of blank BDs and some blu-tac but then GE put together a method of storing 500GB using holographic disc storage which is much more interesting.
Instead of etching 2D patterns into the surface, holographic technology uses a three dimensional process with the disc acting like a maze of microscopic mirrors giving a depth to the optical layer where all the data is stored. GE expects them to be introduced by 2012 but the real key is, of course, how expense they will be.
Blu-rays began as $1 per GB when they first came out dropping to something closer to half that today. GE hopes these holographic discs will be 10 cents per GB, so a much more affordable $5 for the whole thing.
The thing I can’t help wondering, though, is whether there’s really a viable future in optical storage? Between SSDs and cloud computing, I was hoping to rid myself of discs by 2012.
(via NYT)
Warner offering to swap your HD-DVDs for Blu-rays
Aware that the Blu-ray market still hasn’t really taken off, Warner Bros are getting a little desperate, and they’re waving an olive branch of peace at people who bought HD-DVDs. They’re going to let people mail the original box art for any HD-DVDs that they bought and swap them for the same title on Blu-ray.
It’s not quite free, they’re charging $4.95 per disc for the service, plus $6.95 shipping, but it’s still much cheaper than buying all the new discs yourself. It might even be worth scanning the local bargain bins for the old HD-DVDs to send off, then flog the replacements you get sent. You won’t be able to make a mint, though. It’s limited to 25 swaps per household.
(via Den of Geek and @stuart_coles)
Pioneer introduces BDP-LX91 Blu-ray player
Pioneer is launching another Blu-Ray player, called the BDP-LX91. The company is referring to it as its ‘flagship’ player, and for good reason – it’s got a freshly-developed 16-bit video engine which will perform decoding, conversion, scaling and other adjustments at a rapid pace, as well as upscaling DVD content to 1080p.
As well as lovely video, the player delivers crisp audio with 7.1 channel Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio decoding and bit stream output. There’s dual HDMI outputs, too, and it’s been certified as sounding really rather good by none other than legendary Beatles producer George Martin’s AIR studios.
This player’s available now, but it’ll set you back £1,700. Ouch. Still, it’s a damn fine machine, and if you’re even considering it, then you won’t bat an eyelid at that price.
Pioneer BDP-LX91
Related posts: Panasonic launches three new Blu-ray players including one with VHS! | Pioneer unveils new Blu-ray and upconverting DVD players, new AV receivers
CES 2009: Panasonic launches three new Blu-ray players including one with VHS!
Panasonic announced its latest line of Blu-ray players. The DMP-BD60 and DMP-BD80 offer all the latest features you’d expect from a decent player, including full high definition audio format decoding, upconversion of standard definition DVDs, VIERA Link and 24p processing, as well as VIERA Cast which allows access to Amazon’s video-on-demand service.
There’s also P4HD (Pixel Precision Progressive Processing for HD) which gives a superior picture by processing over 15 billion pixels per second, PHL Reference Chroma Processor Plus, and 96kHz surround re-mastering of audio…
CES 2009: Pioneer unveils new Blu-ray and upconverting DVD players, new AV receivers
Pioneer has been showing off its latest range of Blu-ray players, upconverting DVD player, and AV receivers.
First up is a new collection of advanced Blu-ray players, all capable of handling BD Live for advanced disc features.
The BDP-120 and BDP-320 are aimed at consumers who want a simple high definition disc player right out of the box and come with 1GB of memory (either via a flash drive or internal memory), full BD-Live functionality, USB and Ethernet ports, True24FPS feature for realistic reproduction of discs recorded at 24fps, full support of all high resolution audio formats including Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD bitstream output, and up to 7.1-channel analogue output…
