Filed under: Desktops, HDTV, Storage

We're sure China hasn't given up on its efforts to skip over the major format war players and go with its home grown EVD format, but that doesn't mean Blu-ray manufacturers can't give it the old college try over there. To that end, Pioneer is busting out a $300 combo Blu-ray burner / player drive for PCs, the BDC-S02, and is launching it exclusively in China, with other markets to follow later. As far as we know, this is significantly cheaper than any other such drive on the market, and while $300 definitely isn't cheap by Chinese standards, it's a valiant effort on the part of Pioneer -- though we wouldn't mind a bit of that effort Stateside, we've never been bonkers for these $500-$1000 pricetags ourselves.

[Via TG Daily] 
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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
Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbo...

Filed under: Laptops

The Luvaglio folks still seem a bit press shy -- either due to the info "leaked" last month, or a willful attempt to drum up interest -- but now they're back for more, and this time they've got a much better pic of this outlandishly priced laptop of theirs. Of course, it's pretty dang difficult to cram enough technology and precious materials into something this size to ever begin to justify that million dollar price tag, but the supposed Blu-ray, SSD and "full" upgradability specs have all piqued our interest in a theoretical sense -- much more fun than slapping some shiny stuff on the case and calling it good. The built-in USB memory stick / MP3 player, and "integrated screen cleaning" seem a bit odd, but hopefully all will be revealed in time. The extra fancy part is that the notebook can be built with the "owner's choice of precious metals, leathers and real woods," which sounds fun. If this news is to be believed, Luvaglio will be launching the lap...

Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment
Sure, moving 100,000 units doesn't seem all that extraordinary when you consider that Microsoft managed to foist off 92,000 of its own add-ons last Christmas, but the number does manage to garner a bit more respect when you realize that the Xbox 360 addition nor HD DVD PC drives are included in it. The North American HD-DVD Promotional Group is now claiming that sales of set-top HD DVD players have finally hit the 100k mark, presumably ready to smack down that Blu-ray supremacy talk and prove that the recent surge in disc sales was more than a well-planned fluke. Of course, claiming the feat really says nothing in the grand scheme of the ongoing format war, but we can officially start the countdown until the Blu-ray camp proudly trounces these figures and yet again claims momentary dominance.

[Via TGDaily] 
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BOLD MOVES: THE FUTURE OF FORD A new documentary series. Be part of the tr...

Hi there. You know what I did instead of writing? I fact checked. Here are some stories we wrote that were updated to better reflect the truth. Take note:
Red Camera: We said it wasn't certain to ship with 4k resolution support, but we actually melded two back to back statements from Ted S. into one. The camera does have 4k support, and will right out of the gate. Forgive us, Ted, the apology is post jump.
HD-DVD Sales: Another site we'd linked to reported that EU HD-DVD sales have trumped Blu-ray. Except he quoted the US figures. I've corrected the post, but also have investigated the source of the US spike, which turned out to be a band of loyal HD-DVD fanboys that did a massive synchronized buy on Amazon.
Apple's Keynote isn't 3 hours, its 1.5. That's good, but what are they going to talk about for 1.5 hours if its not Leopard and its not the iPhone launch?–Brian Lam


Yesterday we reported in our coverage of the Red One camera that th...

This morning, we wrote about a stat that Europe's HD-DVD title sales had spiked and surpassed Blu-ray sales. That's wrong. That writer actually used US data, so we updated our post. But what about that US spike? It didn't have anything to do, actually, with the fact that HD-DVD has over 100k non-Xbox players in the field. That would have revealed a more gradual climb in the charts.
Apparently, the spike occurs the same day that HD-DVD fanboys at AVSForum, the AV enthusiast site, had organized an mass buy of HD-DVD titles. For an immature format, even a few individuals can make a difference, if only on a day.
This post lays down their gameplan for the buy on April 15th, the one year anniversary of HD-DVD's launch:

The idea is to show support for HD DVD by buying movies on a specific day. There is no better way to show support for HD DVD than by backing it financially. If there is a strong demand for HD DVD software, then hopefully Blu-ray only studios will at...

Hot news in the Battle of Who Could Care Less: HD DVD is back on top in Europe! Yes, while Sony valiantly tried to convince people that their Blu-ray format was totally kicking HD DVD's ass with it's hundreds upon hundreds of sales and figures inflated by discs given away with PS3s, it looks like HD DVD isn't going down without a fight.
What's amazing about this "war" is how few HD discs of either format are selling. It's tough to say one is winning over the other when they're both losing so, so badly. Hell, as of March 18, the cumulative number of Blu-ray titles sold was 844,000 units versus HD DVD at 708,600. Seriously, those are the numbers.
Imagine if they had put their differences behind them before coming to market with near-identical competing formats. All the movie studios would be making bank as people upgraded their DVDs to the new format and consumer electronics companies would all be selling their various models of the new player. But instead here we are, si...

Seeing as the 20GB PS3 is all but killed off, Sony's plan of confusing customers with multiple price points (see Microsoft's 360) is quickly coming to an end. That's probably why Sony's just announced that they're considering re-launching the PS3 with bigger hard disks.
Other than swapping out storage, Sony says they don't plan on swapping out any of the important components such as the Cell processor, RSX, or the Blu-ray drive. Stuff that developers count on to make games that run correctly on all PS3s, instead of the PC-model where everything's built piecemeal. – Jason Chen
Sony may launch PS3 with larger hard disk capacity [Reuters]

Filed under: Laptops

Sorry NEC, but we're just totally not feeling this look. You weren't exactly winning design awards when we saw some of these last year, but now we just feel sorry for you. Granted, this new lineup of LaVie laptops from NEC falls squarely in the budget sphere, with a good many weakling Intel and AMD processors between them, but the top-of-the-line LaVie C (pictured) is no slouch. It sports up to a 2GHz Core 2 Duo T7200 processor, Blu-ray drive, Radeon X1600 graphics with 512MB of VRAM and HDMI out. The 15.4-inch screen comes in WXGA (1280 x 800 and WXGA+ (1440 x 900) flavors. Other members of the new lineup include the 12.1-inch LaVie J, with a 1.06GHz Core 2 Duo U7500 processor and XGA screen, the LaVie L "Advanced Type," which does the LaVie C form factor with lesser specs, and the LaVie L "Basic Type," which brings its own form factor and takes things about as basic as they get. No word on price or release date for any of these, but we're not so sure ...

Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment
Samsung's 2nd generation Blu-ray is hitting retail shelves this week, and HDGuru has the first review up. As you might expect, the next gen is both better and cheaper than the last, and Samsung's latest Blu-ray player lives up to expectations of quality using the Silicon Optix HQV Reon signal processor (that'd be the same video chip used in HD DVD's top player the AX2). The player features HDMI 1.3, as well as 24fps output, but still no Dolby TrueHD or DTS HD playback. Also new on this model is an Ethernet jack, but don't expect any additional downloadable content, this jack is only for firmware updates. The reviewer was hard pressed to see any difference in quality between this and some of the other Blu-ray players, but it did outshine the rest in the HD HQV Benchmark tests and overall speed. While Blu-ray fans are happy to have a new player at the new price point, those who know will hold off till October when the proper next generation playe...

If you're in the market for a slick new HDTV and want a Blu-ray player/potentially-fun-gaming-system-if-they-ever-release-good-games-for-it, here's a pretty hot deal for you. For $3,100 you can get a 52-inch Sharp Aquos 1080p LCD HDTV with a 2,000:1 native contrast ratio, 10,000:1 dynamic contrast ratio, 2 HDMI ports, and a 176-degree viewing angle, and the dudes at Newegg will toss in a PS3 for freezles.
It's a 60 GB PS3 too, so no worries about getting stuck with a newly-discontinued 20 GB model. Not too shabby. Pretty funny that it took less than a month for the situation to go from free TVs with your PS3s to vice versa, eh? –Adam Frucci
Product Page [Newegg]