Mac users in Japan to get Blu-ray burner

August 3, 2006

Japanese storage specialist Logitec are reported to be ready to ship what may be the world’s first Mac-compatible Blu-ray Disc burner later this month.
The 2x BD drive can write to BD-R and BD-RE media offering 25GB and 50GB storage capacities.
Reg Hardware

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4Q to decide HD future

August 2, 2006

The major film studios are gearing up for the end of the HD phoney war.
A recent poll of studio exec’s shows a strong belief that the year end holiday season will have a major impact on which HD format will survive.
“This is just the start up year, and it’s really about early adopters,” said Craig [...]

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LG Electronics rejoins Blu-ray camp

August 1, 2006

LG Electronics seems to have second or even third thoughts about its BD199 high-definition optical disc player.
The BD199 started out as a Blu-ray player then moved to being a hybrid Blu-ray/HD-DVD solution and now it has returned to it’s roots as a Blu-ray player.
Is this the end or is there more to come?
CEPro

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EU looking at Bluray

July 31, 2006

Apparently both the groups backing Bluray and HD-DVD are being put under the European Commission spot light.
The EU seems to have a problem with terms the groups are demanding from licensees.
Will the EU decide to force one of the players out of the game?
engadget

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Blu-ray Disc Patents Updated to Include Hybrid Disc and DVB-GEM

July 31, 2006

LLC expanded its call for patents essential to the implementation of the Blu-ray Disc standard to include the Hybrid Blu-ray Disc format and portions of the DVB-GEM specifications.
Blu-ray’s hybrid disc could hold both high and standard definition versions of a movie on a single disc.
Hybrid discs could give the chance to Hollywood to release HD [...]

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Sky HD - no archiving on Blu Ray

July 13, 2006

Sky have stated that the Sky HD box willNOT allow for external HD archiving on Blu Ray or HD-DVD recorders. Bummer.
More over at HD-DVD News..

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Ricoh announce dual format player and burner

July 12, 2006

Following on from the news that Ricoh had a component that would allow a player to read Blu Ray and HD-DVD, they have announced the first product to use it. Don’t hold your breath though - it’s not due until the end of 2007, followed soon after by a multi-format burner.
Akihabara News has pictures of [...]

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Next gen optical to hit $28 billion in sales in 2010

July 12, 2006

Santa Clara Consulting Group is predicting that the size of the market of both the next gen formats, Blu Ray and HD DVD will balloon to over $28billion in 2010.
The break down they give for 2010 is:
blue laser technology players: $4 billion of salesblue laser technology movies: $3 billion of salesblue laser technology game consoles: [...]

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Sony ramps up BluRay Disc production

July 12, 2006

Sony are starting to ramp up production of BD discs, and claim that they will be making 10 million discs a month by the end of the year! That would break down to 5 milliona month in the USA, and 2.5 million each in Europe and Japan.
More from The Inquirer.

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First Blu Ray software products

July 11, 2006

If you have an early Blu Ray drive for your PC, then you might not be able to play any movies, but you can now look at a huge load of comic covers: 150,000 to be precise, taking a not insignificant 26GB.
ComicBase will cost $399 when it ships later this week, but that does include [...]

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