Filed under: Desktops, Storage
Alienware, never afraid of spec'ing its machines just a little bit ahead of the curve, has just introduced 4x Blu-ray drives into its Area-51 7500, Aurora 7500, Area-51 ALX, and Aurora ALX desktops, making the systems the first in the industry (or so they claim) to carry the faster drives. The new additions to the PCs will offer a significant performance increase in reading and writing Blu-ray discs (a 100 percent increase, in case you're not doing the math), which should make burning those massive discs just slightly more tolerable. Of course, the whole shebang is backward-compatible with CD and DVD discs, per typical Blu-ray spec, and will set you back an additional $600. Available right now. 
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Oh boy, the format war sure is heating up! Isn't in so fun?! HD DVD bribed a couple of studios back to exclusivity! Blu-ray is touring malls with a giant kiosk! There's no end in sight! Both camps are spending a downright obscene amount of money to convince you, John Q. Consumer, that their format is the right choice. Well, is it working? Let us know in our incredibly scientific poll.
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Seen at Wal-Mart, the finest high-tech outlet in the US, this PlayStation 3 store display has not just PS3 games and Blu-ray movies, it even has HD DVDs as well! No wonder its console costs so much. Hidden HD DVD support that nobody knew about! Click in for a better view. [Thanks Tipster!]

Blu-ray has been turning the tide, selling almost twice as many discs this year as HD DVD. Their next weapon in the format war? A 40-foot-long promotional mega-kiosk, shaped like a Magic Kingdom Castle. The moving castle will target the fence early adopters are squatting on by touring 18 malls across the nation (by the food court, probably). The first showing happened on August 17th, in the Westfield Topanga Mall, Conoga Park, CA. God help us all. They're demoing Cars. Watch your wallets, mallwalkers. galleryPost('disneyblutour', 4, 'Disney Blu-ray Gun Kiosk of HD DVDeath');

The Walt Disney Studios Presents DISNEY'S MAGICAL BLU-RAY™ TOUR Consumers in Malls Across the Nation to Experience the Exciting
High-Def Blu-ray Disc® Format
Tour to Visit 18 Markets and Focus on Consumer Education
Featuring a First Look at Upcoming
Cars and Meet the Robinsons Blu-ray Disc Releases

BURBANK, CA, July 17, 2007 - The Wal...

Either someone from Paramount's threatened Michael Bay with something horrible, or someone from the HD DVD camp kidnapped his dog, because Bay's just gone back on his earlier stance at the recent decision to dump Blu-ray. Here's what his latest post on his forum says:
Last night at dinner I was having dinner with three blu-ray owners, they were pissed about no Transformers Blu-ray and I drank the kool aid hook line and sinker. So at 1:30 in the morning I posted - nothing good ever comes out of early am posts mind you - I over reacted. I heard where Paramount is coming from and the future of HD and players that will be close to the $200 mark which is the magic number. I like what I heard. As a director, I'm all about people seeing films in the best quality possible, and I saw and heard firsthand people upset about a corporate decision.
So today I saw 300 on HD, it rocks!
So I think I might be back on to do Transformers 2!
Did he really have a change of...

Transformers director Michael Bay briefly threatens to pull out of a sequel when Paramount drops the Blu-Ray DVD format.

Panasonic just announced a lineup of microdisplay LCD rear-projection TVs that answer two of the main problems with the category: Its light source won't burn out or lose brightness like some projection bulbs do, and it gets bright quicker, so the picture is visible in about 15 seconds, rather than 60 seconds on other projection sets. The new technology is not painfully overpriced either: The 61-inch 1080p set shown above lists for just $2,200.
There will be five TVs in all, two 720p LCX models at 56" and 61" sizes, and three 1080p LCZ models starting at 50". Price range will be tight, from around $1,700 for the two TVs at the low end, to the aforementioned $2,200 for the flagship. Looking at the spec sheets, the only downside I can see is the targeted 3,000:1 contrast ratio. Sure, we've already admitted that many contrast-ratio specs are nonsense, but that's still pretty low in today's world.
The mysterious technology is not LED, in case that's what you thought. LIFI, j...

Paramount and Dreamworks Animation's decision to go exclusively HD DVD and even up the Blu-ray vs. HD DVD war has pissed off Transformers director Michael Bay. There's seriously urine all over the place. This is what he said in a post on his own forum:
I want people to see my movies in the best formats possible. For them to deny people who have Blu-ray sucks! They were progressive by having two formats. And the kicker.
. No Transformers 2 for me! Ouch. That's rough. But he does have a point. Why lock out people who have Blu-ray? Oh, right, money. Because HD DVD paid quite a lot for the two studios' exclusivity. [Shoot For the Edit]

Adobe's introduced a powerful new component it'll be placing into its Flash Video Player 9, adding support for that red-hot H.264 codec, the video compression routine that's behind Blu-ray, HD DVD and lots of HD goodness all over the videoscape. Adobe's also heightened the efficiency of Flash audio, adding AAC audio compression. Perhaps the most important part of the announcement is the addition of hardware acceleration for playback of all different types of full-screen video.
What does that mean for us? Over the next few months, watching video over the web (think YouTube, Myspace video, streaming video everywhere) will be noticeably improved, finally taking advantage of those fancy graphics cards you have tucked into your PCs and Macs and H.264, too. Another big plus is that the AAC audio codec is so efficient that it frees up more processor power for handling video. Adobe also told us it's slipped in better support of multi-core processors as well.
Adobe's offering t...

Filed under: Home Entertainment

var digg_url = 'http://digg.com/tech_news/Michael_Bay_responds_to_Paramount_s_abandonment_of_Blu_ray_No_Transformer_2'; So by now you've heard that Paramount has dropped support for Blu-ray right? Good, so has a notable Hollywood director. Michael Bay -- the man behind "Transformers," "Bad Boys," "Pear Harbor," etc. -- just threw down with Paramount in his personal blog. In a forum post titled "Paramount pisses me off!", he states, "I want people to see my movies in the best formats possible. For them to deny people who have Blu-ray sucks! They were progressive by having two formats. No Transformers 2 for me!" That's right Mike, aim your PS3 right at their coffers!

[Thanks, Pilam69 and Carl G.] 
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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!