Surround Records Announces Addition of Blu-ray Support

High Def Digest is reporting that Surround Records, who so far have been exclusively releasing HD DVD titles, will expand its high-def disc support to include Blu-ray in addition to HD DVD.
Apparently Surround Records specializes in multichannel audio releases with little significant video content, covering perhaps a niche in the ‘next gen’ disc marketplace.
No formal [...]

So Much For The 3 Week Delay, Invasion HD DVD On The Shelf At Best Buy

Even though Warner had planned a 3 week delay on the HD DVD version of ‘Invasion,’ it seems Best Buy and several other retailers didn’t get the memo. We didn’t pick it up since $34.99 is highway robbery for a title like this. We do wonder why on earth Warner would ship the HD DVD [...]

The Look and Sound of… Super Bowl XLII?

With Blu-ray victory-cries building to a deafening roar, consumer electronic stores dropping support for HD DVD hardware, and a relatively wan response from the remaining HD DVD supporting studios, everyone is looking to the HD DVD advertisement in the Super Bowl for an official word from Toshiba/HD DVD.  
Will they pull out the big guns [...]

Seagate CEO Attempts to Predict Your Digital Future

In a recent interview with Wired, Bill Watkins — of Seagate CEO fame — was quoted as saying that even if Blu-ray manages to win the format war, "it’s a meaningless victory." Naturally, Bill states that physical distribution is on the way out, and that digital distribution is the wave of the future. [...]

HD Media Player Sales Numbers for Jan Week 3

We read at DVD Town the 90% market share enjoyed by Blu-ray Disc players in the second week of January did not last into the third week.
New numbers from NPD apparently indicate that after Toshiba cut 50% from the retail price of HD DVD players, the market share for Blu-ray was reduced to ‘only’ 65.63%, [...]

Confirmed: Circuit City’s HD DVD Players On Clearance

We had heard Circuit City was clearancing their stock of HD DVD players, so we went to check for ourselves. We did indeed find all of the third gen HD DVD players on clearance. With the HD-A3 for $100 and the HD-A30 for $149, which are killer prices that even beat Amazon’s. We do [...]

Blu-ray Only for Next National Geographic Release

We read at News for Gamers that National Geographic has announced a new title to retailers for April, which will not have an HD DVD counterpart to the Blu-ray and DVD release. 
"Sharkwater" will release on April 8, which is before the June ‘cut off’ date for Warner HD DVD releases, indicating that National Geographic is [...]

High-Def Discs Grow at Faster Pace than Standard

We read at Video Business that HD Disc format growth is ahead of the standard DVD curve.
Price-driven promotions are the main reason for high-def’s steeper growth curve, according to Paul Erickson, DisplaySearch director of DVD and HD Market Research.
Standard DVD players were priced more steadily during their first months on shelves, he explained, as [...]

Best Buy: 20% off HD DVD/Blu-ray Players – Three Days Only!

While Amazon has been leading the pack on the price slashing front, Best Buy is ponying up — if only for a little bit — through an offer exclusive to Reward Zone members only.  The 20% discount they are offering excludes both the PS3 and the HD DVD add-on for the 360, but it seems [...]

Blu-ray Region Code Workaround for PS3 Discovered

We read on the AVForums that someone has discovered a workaround for region coding on Blu-ray titles.
He has found that it works on New Line titles and essentially uses controller commands to jump past the warning to the main menu.
It will be interesting to see if this workaround can be applied to titles from other [...]