We reported a few days ago that Sharp was going to introduce a new Blu-ray player this fall called the BD-HP20S. Unfortunately, according to PC World, the new Blu-ray player is slated only for the Japanese market and not for the U.S. market. Folks here in the U.S. will have to wait for the BD-HP10U which was announced back at CES 2007 but has yet to see the light of day here. Ah well..so much for a new cheap player from Sharp.

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CrunchGear has published a review of the Sony VAIO FZ180 notebook here on their website. The FZ180 is a 15 inch multimedia machine featuring an Intel Core 2 Duo processor and an integrated Blu-ray drive inside. Yes - there’s a Blu-ray drive inside which means of course, you’ll be able to watch Blu-ray movies wherever you take this notebook. Unfortunately the display has a resolution of 1280 x 800 which also means you won’t be able to enjoy the full 1080p splendor of Blu-ray movies. I know - it’s a bummer. Anyhow, here’s the verdict from CrunchGear:

This is a media machine. If you’re the type of person who wants to start up a decent Blu-ray library, and also needs a Vista-powered notebook, this may be for you.

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Sharp Electronics will be introducing a new standalone Blu-ray player this fall called the BD-HP20S. According to this posting on EngadgetHD.com, the BD-HP20S will feature support for HDMI 1.3 and Dolby TrueHD audio. It will also come with a “Quick Start” feature which will play newly inserted Blu-ray discs in a matter of seconds.

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Rumors are circulating around the Internet that the retail price for the Sony PlayStation 3 will indeed be cut to $499 from $599. This all started when a Circuit City ad for July 15th was posted onto the net showing a price cut of $100 on the PS3. GameDaily BIZ then confirmed through their sources that the price cut was indeed retail wide and would begin on July 12th. Ads for the price cut should begin showing up on July 15th. No word from Sony as of yet but this is contradictory to what Sony President, Ryoji Chubachi, had stated on Friday - claiming that there would not be a PS3 price cut. It’ll be interesting to see Microsoft’s response should the price cut happen. Could we see a small next gen price war?

For those of you thinking about jumping on the Blu-ray bandwagon, this price drop would certainly be a welcome sight to see. I’d much rather purchase a PS3 with Blu-ray for $499 than a Sony standalone Blu-ray player for $499.

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Home Theater Blog has posted an excellent look into the newly released HD HQV Benchmarks. They take both the Blu-ray and HD DVD discs for a test drive across several players and got the following summaries.

The Sony PS3 (couple with a JVC DLA-HD1) got a 100 out of 100 score.

The Toshiba HD-A2 received a 65 out of 100 score.

The Sony BDP-S300 received a 75 out of 100 score.

You can read more about the tests and the player scores here at Home Theater Blog.

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Samsung officials in Hamburg, Germany have announced that their new dual format BD-UP5000 high definition disc player will be coming out in October of this year for a price of approximately €550. Similar to the LG Electronics dual format player, the BD-UP5000 will support both Blu-ray and HD DVD formats. However, Samsung claims that their player will fully support both formats including their interactive technologies - HDi, and BD-Java. The LG dual format player fully supports Blu-ray but will only play the movie portion of an HD DVD disc.

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Blu-ray is striking back at HD DVD with a new promotional campaign. Starting July 1st, customers who purchase a qualifying Blu-ray player (which includes the Sony PS3) will be eligible for five free Blu-ray titles. The movies come from five different categories and you can only get one movie per category (which is a bit limiting but hey - it’s free). The five categories of movies are as follows:

Category 1:

• The Guardian
• Pearl Harbor
• Invincible
• Chicken Little

Category 2:

• Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride
• The Phantom of the Opera
• Blazing Saddles

Category 3:

• Stealth
• Resident Evil 2
• Underworld - Evolution
• Stir of Echoes

Category 4:

• The Italian Job
• Black Rain
• Babel
• The Devil’s Rejects

Category 5:

• Kiss of the Dragon
• The Omen
• Transporter 2
• Species
• Hart’s War
• The Last Waltz

This offer is good until September 30th, 2007.

Note - you can also combine this offer with existing offers from other manufacturers - e.g. Panasonic is giving away five free Blu-ray titles with the purchase of a new Panasonic DMP-BD10A player. Yup - that means one could potentially get up to 10 free Blu-ray titles depending on the manufacturer.

One final note from the Blu-ray.com website. Sony has a promotional offer going on for the PS3 that works as follows. If you purchase a PS3, two games, and an extra controller from now until July 8th through select Sony Style stores, you can get yourself a $50 dollar gift card.

All told - not a bad deal although I wish the movie selections were a bit better.

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Now here’s an interesting thought. Even if the HD DVD format should falter in the U.S., there’s a good possibility that it will succeed in other parts of the world - in particular in the U.K. and Europe. How could this happen? It again boils down to movie studios - this time the big ones vs. small ones. While large Hollywood studios are the primary source for movies in the U.S. (and also for the most part the primary backers of Blu-ray), the same can’t be said of Europe where approximately 50 percent of movies are actually produced by smaller studios independent of Hollywood. These same independent studios actually prefer HD DVD since the format has lower production costs which will result in higher profit margins. Yes it comes down to dollars and cents.  Obviously the folks behind HD DVD realize this and as such are keeping Europe in their crosshairs. Meanwhile, Blu-ray has largely ignored Europe and continues to work on the U.S. audience.

Another piece of interesting news comes from Microsoft. The Xbox 360 HD DVD player is apparently the most successful Xbox 360 accessory ever - selling more than 155,000 units in the U.S. alone. Good job Microsoft! You can read my original review of the Xbox 360 HD DVD player over at Krunker.com.

One final interesting if not somewhat flawed statistic. The very same article from CNET claims that consumers who purchased HD DVD players are buying more content than folks who purchased Blu-ray players. The ratio is something on the order of 4 to 1 - HD DVD to Blu-ray. 

The basic problem I have with this statistic is not knowing whether the numbers counted the HD DVD player promotions that are normally found with each new player sold. If you’ve been following the HD DVD player market, you’ll know that Toshiba often allows you to get up to five free HD DVD titles for every HD DVD player purchased. Does the study count these five titles per HD DVD player purchase? If so, then the study would be flawed - especially since the Blu-ray camp doesn’t offer the same type of promotions. It’s still relatively good news to HD DVD but let’s not celebrate the format too much shall we?

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Those of you interested in the Blu-ray vs. HD DVD format wars will be interested in reading this article over at BusinessWeek.com. It’s entitled “In DVD War, Body Blows for Toshiba” and it’s a good analysis into the current state affairs for Toshiba and the HD DVD format. The article claims that while HD DVD and Toshiba has suffered some blows in recent months, the company and the format is certainly not down for the count - at least not yet. There are still several factors that can help the HD DVD format rise from its current condition to effectively battle against Blu-ray. Since BusinessWeek articles sometimes disappear after some time, I’ll try and summarize the basic points in the article here.

• While Blu-ray appears to be winning, don’t count Toshiba and HD DVD out yet
• In response to Blu-ray’s initial dominance, Toshiba lowered prices for HD DVD players
• However, Blockbuster recently decided to stock Blu-ray discs over HD DVD discs although they have not officially declared a winner as of yet
• HD DVD is still a strong player in the online rental market with both Netflix and Blockbuster Online carrying the format
• While Blu-ray titles have outsold HD DVD titles 2 to 1 since January, there is still no clear winner since sales are overall very sluggish
• Sales of Toshiba HD DVD players have risen since the price cuts in May while Blu-ray player sales are still sluggish
• Toshiba is encouraging the Chinese government to adopt HD DVD for internal use with two large Chinese DVD manufacturers committing to do so.
• If the Chinese enter on the side of HD DVD, component prices could fall rapidly which could result in cheaper prices - but this could also hurt Toshiba should Chinese HD DVD players make it to the US
• Hollywood backing of HD DVD is still critical since the majority of the studios still back Blu-ray. However high definition content has not been very compelling thus far
• The computer market for HD DVD and Blu-ray is still a non-factor - at least until prices come down for drives and media.

The final paragraph to the article is probably the most important advice that HD DVD and Blu-ray could heed. “The solution [to the war], is for each side to call a truce and revive talks that failed two years ago to marry the two formats”. Let’s hope they do so soon before both formats become irrelevant as some have predicted.

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Dan Costa over at GearLog.com published an interesting editorial on Thursday entitled “No One’s Winning the High-Def Format War”. His arguments are straightforward actually. While the high definition format wars continue, the consumers ultimately will not care in the end because they will have chosen the format of choice - and that’s to download HD content over some pipeline (probably the Internet).

Costa bolsters his argument by using the music industry as an example. Until MP3 files and digital music players became popular, people were stuck to CDs. Yet when given the choice of quality CDs vs. downloadable digital tracks, the consumers chose to download content instead. Look at the results now - CD sales are down and digital music stores are on the rise.

He applies the same notion to movies. Optical discs are a thing of the past Costa argues. The way to distribute going forward is via the Internet with many companies and products already trying out various services to see if this is viable. Now granted - there are many more obstacles in the way when it comes to movies. You need more storage and download times take a good deal longer than say downloading music. However as download speeds improve and as storage costs plummet, the optical disc - whether Blu-ray or HD DVD - will become obsolete in favor of a new video distribution method over the Internet.

It’s definitely an interesting argument although I do think there’s a place for either Blu-ray or HD DVD in the high definition arena. There will be consumers who will want downloadable high definition content, and there’ll be folks who want to own something on a disc format. Ultimately the key to all of this IMHO will be cost. If Blu-ray or HD DVD players lower in cost dramatically - say to something like DVD players, then I think you’ll see rapid adoption for either format. If products come out that make downloadable HD content affordable and easy to use, then I’m sure you’ll see that market expand rapidly also.

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