The HD DVD troopers are surely fighting the losing battle, as new research from Japan details a surge in Blu-Ray recorder ownership. The study surveyed buying trends from 2,300 electronic stores across Japan, and the statistics showed that next-generation DVD unit sales rocketed from 6.1% in October to 20% in November and December. As the next-generation recorders have a higher price point, they managed to account for some 35% of the total DVD player market value. However, Blu-ray walked home with the largest market share of the two.
The Pitch: Samsung’s 5.8GHz wireless Soundbar HT-X810, an all-in-one single wall-mountable speaker unit that contains a DVD player and looks like something Batman would use in his Batcave Bat-hroom. It also has a subwoofer, DVD player and Bluetooth connectivity for streaming audio. The Catch: The DVD player upscales to 1080p, has HDMI out and can handle DivX as well as DVD Audio—this isn’t a low end unit for lousy home theaters.
If you’ve been around long enough, you’ll remember All Giz Wants—our series of fanciful and unlikely wishlist items that would totally make this the Best Holidays Ever if we got them. Here’s one I’ve been wishing for for the better part of a decade: an all-in-one set top box that does everything.
HD DVD takes another blow on the chin today as Australian movie rental chains Video Ezy and Blockbuster have both decided to offer Blu-ray exclusively. Actually owned by the same parent company, Franchise Entertainment Group, the combined franchises have 870 stores in all. And while that number isn’t massive, remember that if each store were to buy but one hi-def disc, that amount of volume would double sales. We kid! But their reasons for siding with Blu-ray may be a little wonky.
While Blu-ray players have outsold HD DVD players nearly 4:1 in Australia, a major reason cited for this decision was the dispersion between regular DVD releases and their HD DVD counterparts. Unfortunately, I don’t think that the Blu-ray camp has their release schedule ironed out either. Who else is still waiting for Pan’s Labyrinth? [smh via theregister][image]
I’m usually turned off by video transfer/burner devices like this Canon DW-100 because of how unrefined DVD burning still is. The DW-100 takes high-def AVCHD video from your camcorder and burns it to DVD without a computer. It’s hard to argue with that.
It can also function as an external burner for any PC or Mac computer. If this works like it should, and Canon markets it properly, a device like this could do well in the current home movie market. It is expected to release in March 2008, but no price has been set. [Akihabara News via Geek Sugar via Crunch Gear]
We first told you about HD VMD over two years ago, then we told you again about one year ago. But the “next gen” HD optical disc aiming to take down… giants… Blu-ray and HD DVD is finally coming to fruition. New Medium Enterprises will launch its new ML622S HD VMD player next month, a 1080p, single-slotted HDMI 1.3, ethernet-upgradable device that is expected to cost only $150 at many wholesalers (though MSRP is $200).
HD VMD keeps costs low by using the same red lasers we see in DVD products, with the drives described by New Medium as DVD with newer firmware. For now the technology is still MPEG2 based, encoded at somewhere between 40-45MB/s (reports differ), putting it smack between Blu-ray and HD DVD data rates. 7.1 surround sound is supported, but the technology will not support Dolby TrueHD or DTS Master Audio formats.
Today in Jersey City, Denon unveiled its flagship DVD player, the DVD-3800BDCI, coming out this fall. It will be among the first to sport the BD-ROM version 1.1, which means it will have dual audio/video decoders to take advantage of picture-in-picture content, and has an SD card slot, so that you can download web content. It does not have an Ethernet jack, however, so you will have to use a PC to download content to SD. It’s also, according to Denon, the world’s first high-def disc player to use the Realta HQV video processor for super-badass video cleanup. The processor will clean up Blu-ray discs, if that tells you anything.
Sony’s DV Direct DVD recorder lets you transfer HD video from a Sony hard drive camcorder onto DVDs that can be played back on a Blu-ray player. It looks like Sony got a little pissed when it saw JVC doing something like this with its $400 Everio HD Share Station DVD recorder, but that one can only play back the resulting discs from itself. This Sony VRD-MC5 records on a DVD that can hold 95 minutes of that AVCHD video that’s becoming steadily more popular these days, or 2,000 still pics. Hey, this could be useful.
The TViX HD M-4000SA is a case for 3.5″ SATA hard drives that can output 1080i video through component and DVI outputs. It’s going to be available in Korea from May 30 but, like all DViCO stuff, it won’t be late before is available elsewhere for around $230.
What I like best about the TViX HD M-4000SA is its DVD Jukebox ability: It allows you to store ISO and IFO format DVD images, which you can browse and playback, keeping access to the DVD menus. Being the movie junkie that I am (with more than a thousand original DVDs here), that means all my Russ Meyer Kubrick, Wilder and Coppola can be easily available from one place, with no painful ripping necessary. And even when that can make you run out of space quickly, you can always expand the space using either bigger drives or external USB 2.0 units. Full specs and a picture of the back with the optional terrestrial TV receiver after the jump.
We’ve got a few more stories that we just haven’t had time to write up. These cool concept designs for Hitachi camcorders is just one of these…
So yes, Hitachi had some funky styles on show for possible future video cameras. All sticking around their idea of disc-based recording, though these HD concepts are more likely to have Blu-ray inside — with more capacity than a full DVD on its 8cm discs.
Reps told us the camera above has received a great reaction, and if anything goes from raw concept to reality down the line, this could be it. Could. Not will…
Another concept design after the jump.
