Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment, Laptops
While Panasonic, Acer, and Sony all beat 'em to the punch, Dell is finally ready to get tangled up in Blu. The Texan computer giant has just announced the XPS M1710, its first laptop decked out with Blu-ray, which will read and write CDs, DVDs, and Blu-ray discs, and will do 1080p at 48 Mbps. It also includes an Intel Core 2 Duo T7600 or T7600G processor, an NVIDIA GeForce Go 7950 FTX 512MB video card, up to 4GB of RAM, and up to 160GB of storage. But that tall order won't come cheap, no sir -- we're talking starting prices at $3,700. However, Dell says it'll have 'em ready worldwide just in time for the holidays. Just hope your loved one doesn't already have a library of HD DVD movies sitting around if you choose to give one as a gift.

[Via Laptoping] 
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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the transformation as it happens in real-time...

Just when you thought they couldn't get any better, Dell has given its XPS M1710 a big shot of botox. As of this morning, the Media Center laptops have been fitted with Blu-ray drives giving the 17-inch gaming machines a high-def kick in the ass. Alongside their newfound HD capabilities (they pack a gorgeous 1,920x1,200 widescreen display), the notebooks also flaunt Intel's top of the line mobile processor and Nvidia's hypersonic GeForce Go 7950 GTX video card. We were lucky enough to score some play time with the new laptop....

Our $4,249 came with 2GB of RAM, a 100GB hard drive, and an overclockable T7600 CPU, making it the most powerful HD notebook out there. Pound for pound, the M1710 is one giant that won't be taken down easily. The laptop is identical to previous XPS M1710s. It has Dell's LightFX technology (ambient lights that glow from the side and front of your notebook), a full-size keyboard, and Dell's MediaDirect software, which mixes work with play by letting...

Filed under: Storage
Sure, we've seen 1TB discs before, but instead of complicating things with holograms and the like, a research team at the University of Central Florida has taken a different tact and developed some advances in laser technology that could actually make disc drives cheaper and more portable -- along with the obvious benefits of 1TB of storage and speedier read/write times. Unfortunately, we left our PhDs at home today, so we really haven't the foggiest idea how this all works, but the gist of the idea seems to be the fancy dual laser wavelengths being used, allowing for sharper imaging and recording. These lasers can interact with 3D materials -- such as the multiple layers on a disc, or even a storage "cube" -- without interference from the solid material, providing for more durable and more dense storage. To switch between reading and writing is only a matter of applying more power, and the simplicity of the method means that cheaper lasers could possibly b...

Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment
While some folks just can't make up their mind, and other have already leaned one way or the other, a recent independent survey points to Sony's format being the one losing ground and interest, but we can't say we're surprised. Betamax, ATRAC, MiniDisc, and UMDs were all crafted by Sony, and all fell (basically) flat before ever really catching on, and it seems the costly Blu-ray format may be headed for the same fate. Cymfony, a market influence analytics company, found that "positive discussions" about HD DVD were "46-percent higher" than talks about Blu-ray, with over twice as many post authors being "impressed with HD DVD" rather than "impressed with Blu-ray." A good deal of the negativity shown towards Blu-ray was attributed to Sony's "heavy handed" approach of forcing Blu-ray upon PlayStation 3 owners, not to mention the notoriously delayed (and pricey) standalone players. Although it's still far too early to tell which format will rise v...

You heard about it this morning, but here's some more detailed info on the PS3 firmware update, version 1.3.
-Support for a Bluetooth remote control for media playback
-Bluray and DVD res selection over HDMI (wait, it didn't do that from the start? WTF.)
-Backup utility for saving media to "storage media" (Does this mean backups? A way to introduce hacks?)
-USB support for PS2 peripherals like wheels, joysticks, etc. (Is there a PS2 joystick to USB connector I don't know about?)
The entire release, minus ignorant and snide commentary, here:
In addition to offering developers the ability to create more immersive games, the Blu-ray format delivers the ultimate in high-definition video through the highest resolution available today (1080p). Now PS3 owners can register a remote control for easier playback of movies on BD discs. The Bluetooth®-enabled remote control will be available at retail later this month for $24.99. Also, to suit your TV's spe...

Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment
Chinese engineers have been working on homegrown disc format EVD since 2003 with little to show for it, but today 20 firms -- representing 97 percent of the DVD manufacturers in the country -- displayed 80 players and announced plans to switch from DVD to the new format exclusively by 2008. EVD joins VMD as a low cost alternative to Blu-ray and HD DVD, using conventional red lasers combined with advanced compression technology to put high definition movies on discs. This "Red-ray" HD approach promises to support resolutions up to 1080p without a need to increase disc capacity significantly, and will allow them to launch with players at the same price as current DVD -only models. EVD is just one of several recent Chinese initiatives to decrease reliance on outside standards and licenses, but is doubtful to catch on elsewhere. That's really too bad, because with players priced at only $87, we're interested in the group's ideas and would like to...

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Comment of the Day: Gun Hidden in a Knife"Gee... for some reason, both Crocodile Dundee ("that's not a knife... this is a knife!") and Indiana Jones come to mind."--Lenroc

American Express has their own version of a Woot-off every year around the Holidays: a bunch of people scrambling to bid on something that's less than half its MSRP. Today they've got the Sony BDP-S1 Blu-ray player for $475. Regular price, $999.
All you have to do is get there at 7PM EST (4PM PST) and purchase one with your Amex card. Sounds simple, but good luck beating thousands of other desk monkeys to it. Better warm up your clicking finger. – Jason Chen
My Wishlist [American Express]

So the Sony BDP-S1 Blu-ray standalone player was finally released. But how does it perform? Well, if all you care about is image quality, then it's pretty great. HDGuru says:
All images appeared razor sharp and artifact free. Particularly appreciated was the absence of edge enhancement within Enemy Of The State disc. It has been seen on some earlier BD disc releases, and appears as a faint white outline around people and objects. Colors were completely free of noise and fine detail was superb. So what's the downside?
Although the BDP-S1 can play just about all Blu-ray discs, regular DVDs and DVD-RW/Rs, anything other than that meets with a mechanical grunt as it spits out your disc at you.
What the player will not accept are "all types of CDs (CD-ROMSs/CD-R/CD-RW, or the CD layer of hybrid discs etc.; VCDs/Super VCDs; DVD audio discs; Super Audio CDs; DVD-RAMs; HD DVDs" (duh!) "BDs with cartridge; BD-REs/BD-Rs" (rats); "DVD-RWs/DVD-Rs; and DVD-Rs of VR mode" It...

Last week brought word on how to copy Blu-ray movies using your PS3 and some Linux trickery. This week we learn how to copy HD DVD movies using your Xbox 360 and some side equipment. It's actually not all that hard by the looks of it and just requires following a simple how-to.
The premise is this: you need to hook up your Xbox 360's component cables to a fast enough, non-Vista Windows PC that's got a RAID 0 set up. Generally, capturing HD content takes up about 6GB of space per minute, so you'll need plenty of space and fast enough hard drives to capture all that data. (Hence, the RAID 0 configuration.)
That's pretty much all there is to it. Since this is going over component cable, an analog connection, there's no pesky DRM to get in your way. This is pretty great and makes renting HD DVDs all the more rational. Laws, shmaws. – Nicholas Deleon
How to Copy HD-DVDs [Jake Ludington's MediaBlab via Xbox-Scene]