Wayde Robson may not know whether Blu-ray or HD DVD is better, but he does think that Blu-ray wasn't made with the consumer in mind. Wayde goes on a rant, claiming Sony lured in more support from the studios because they made their format more studio-friendly in terms of DRM and content protection.
Then he says Sony really doesn't have the consumer in mind, being that they're both a media and a content company. He makes no claims that HD DVD is better, just that if Sony wins the format war, things may get ugly for the rest of us not wearing thousand dollar suits. – Jason Chen
Blu-ray and Sony - Does the Consumer Win? [Gizmo Cafe via Crunchgear]

Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment
Cyberlink's recently released PowerDVD Ultra software seemed to be a cure-all solution for enjoying high-definition movies on a PC, offering support for both Blu-ray and HD DVD, including Microsoft's low-cost Xbox 360 HD DVD drive. As Cyberlink's support forums show, however, not everybody's been rewarded for their patience (and hundred bucks), with a number of reports cropping up of playback problems with both high-def formats on systems that Cyberlink's own system adviser says meet the necessary requirements. The main problem appears to occur with those using an HDMI or DVI-to-HDMI connection between their video card and display device, with the video reportedly only playing for a few seconds before throwing up an "Error 0103" message stating that the player couldn't be initialized. While there's reports of the problem dating back to shortly after the software's release in late December, there's so far been no fix for the issue and no word fr...

Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment
HD Guru has a review up of Toshiba's second-generation HD DVD player, the HD-XA2, which they gave top ratings. This is the higher-end of the two new HD DVD Toshiba models, and gets high marks for its improvements on the previous model, with faster loading times, 1080p support, a smaller form factor, and a much-improved chipset for upscaling standard-definition DVDs (the HD-A2 lacks 1080p and the improved upscaling chip). It includes the Silicon Optix Reon chip for converting your old library of DVDs into 1080p -- or any other resolution supported with the HDMI 1.3a connector -- and also supports the Deep Color space offered by the new HDMI specification, for improved color reproduction with compatible source material. According to HD Guru's tests, the Toshiba did better than Pioneer's competing first-generation BDP-HD1 Blu-ray player on upconverting SD DVDs, while matching it on quality for high-definition content. Unfortunately, while the pric...

Toshiba's second generation HD DVD player, the HD-XA2, doesn't suck, something you couldn't say about its first generation player. HD Guru just scored the player's first review and walks us through why Toshiba actually did a good job with the HD-XA2. Faster load times, top notch upconversion and 1080p output are the biggest draws here. The XA2 lost some five pounds compared to the A1 and is nearly half as tall. That means no more having to reinforce your home entertainment center just to get the player to safely sit atop. Disc loading is also faster, taking around 22 seconds to load once the unit is turned on.
It can't all be smooth sailing, can it?
Well, if the review is to be trusted (not having any pictures of the player strikes me as suspicious), then the only real complaint is that the XA2 shut off when switching around inputs on the TV. Going from source to source (Video 1, Video 2, etc.) freaked out the player, which then turned off. Toshiba says that a fix is in th...

Congratulations goes out to Tyler Burns. Out of the almost-12,000 entries Tyler's name was randomly selected and he will be receiving the LG BH100 Hybrid Blu-Ray/HD DVD player. Stay tuned for more contests coming up—we have some big prizes. Thanks to everyone who played. –Travis Hudson

Japan's Kurouto Shikou insists that the 60GB hard drive found in the PS3 is too small. (It's from Japan, of course it's small.) To that end they've designed a SATA and eSATA slot for the system that lets you install third-party hard drives. You have to remove the built-in hard drive before installing the slot, but afterward your options are limited to however much you can spend on hard drives. (They're fairly cheap, by the way.)
Will the PS3 recognize all that extra storage space (unlike the Xbox 360, which can only access 20GB per hard drive, despite the latest hacks), and does it make sense to go to all that trouble to install a larger hard drive in the first place? Maybe if you're dumping Blu-ray movies left and right, otherwise, right now, this looks to be more trouble than it's worth. – Nicholas Deleon
Product Page (in Japanese) [Kurouto Shikou via Akihabara News]

Filed under: HDTV, Media PCs
Looks like Okoro Media Systems isn't the only HTPC builder on the block cramming Microsoft's latest OS into its systems and upping the specs, as Velocity Micro has taken a break from its NoteMagix series to amp up a few media PCs. Both boxes come with Windows Vista Premium pre-installed, ATI's TV Wonder Digital Cable tuner, and options for HD DVD and Blu-ray playback. The CineMagix Pro Cinema rocks a fairly average black chassis, 500-watt power supply, AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ processor, 1GB of DDR2 RAM, HDCP-compliant ATI Radeon X1950 Pro, onboard 7.1 audio, 8-in-1 flash card reader, up to 1.5TB of hard drive space, dual gigabit Ethernet adapter, 802.11b/g, a pair of FireWire connectors, six USB 2.0 ports, and a wireless keyboard / mouse combo. The Intel-powered CineMagix Grand Theater swaps in your choice of CPU, including options for both the Core 2 Extreme X6800 or QX6700, up to 4GB of RAM, NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTS, up to 2.25TB of HDD space, but other...

Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment
Okay, so we're not waxing rhapsodic about a conspiracy theory just yet, but seriously, why can't the general public get a few hard numbers regarding the HD DVD / Blu-ray format war? Since both formats hit the market, we've all been wondering who would be the leader in terms of disc sales once the holiday season was behind us, and although Nielsen VideoScan has finally loosed the deets, we're still (relatively) in the dark. We've wondered exactly what was taking so long for these data to surface, but instead of VideoScan perfecting their report, it has apparently delayed the information only to release several inconclusive "charts" and "ratios" that, quite frankly, aren't what we all want. For whatever it's (not) worth, it looks like Blu-ray titles outsold HD DVD titles by a 2:1 margin during the admittedly slow first two weeks of 2007, but overall, we're still stuck analyzing Amazon's sales figures while trying to piece together the truth. Stil...

If you've been wondering what the scoreboard looks like in the Blu-ray vs HD DVD format war, Nielsen VideoScan has just released the official sales numbers for both sides of the camp. According to the Nielsen stats, Blu-ray is quickly catching up to HD DVD. Since the inception of both formats (April 2006) for every 92 Blu-ray discs sold there were 100 HD DVD units sold. (Score 1 HD DVD). But for the first two weeks of January 2007...

Blu-ray has outsold HD DVD by more than 2 to 1. (Score 1 Blu-ray). It's not sure whether the Blu-ray boost came via the PS3 or if it was simply a lack of new HD DVD titles—either way, it looks like Blu-ray fans have reason to celebrate cause at this rate it shouldn't be difficult to keep the lead. – Louis Ramirez
Nielsen/VideoScan Sales Ratios [AVS Forum]