It seems that Toshiba is stopping production on their HD-DVD format. It doesn’t mean the format is dead, but it is pretty much dead if the biggest supporter pulls out. It seems Sony have won this war, and Blu-Ray is the new king. If you have a HD-DVD player and a boat, you have got yourself a very fancy anchor.
For more info, click over to Crave.
You gotta love technology, otherwise you probably wouldn’t be reading this. I love how things tend to get cheaper and smaller. This time it is Sony’s Blu-Ray laser, which is now only 3mm thick. At this size it should fit inside of your ultra portable notebook.
It will also make Blu-Ray players cheaper. This is because of simplifying the manufacturing process (no word on how, but maybe they hired oompa’s). It also means that the new generation could make the older players a little cheaper.
If you had bought a HD-DVD player, I feel sorry for you (I don’t really you rich bastards). On a final note, wouldn’t it be nice to see a new slimline PS3?
For more info, visit Tech.
Blu-Ray has now got the power of the studio’s behind them, so what do Toshiba and the power of the HD have left to fight back with? They have the power of price drop, with HD-DVD players now available for a neat $US129. Two players will see be affected by the price drop, which are the HD-A3 for $129.99 and the HD-A30 for $179.99.
The value is phenomenal for a nextgen player, and still keeps the free HD-DVD movies you get with it (7 movies all up). It is so cheap that Toshiba would almost be losing money on the player, just to get more market share from the fast growing BR format. It seems that the nextgen movie market, may go the same way as the nextgen console market, with companies losing money per player, to then gain the money back on disk sales.
Lets hope Sony follow suit and drop the price on the PS3. With the cost of making the PS3 down, it would be nice to see the consoles price drop.
For more info, click over to DailyTech.
Firstly, for the people who don’t know what DiVX is, it is a codec which is used by most piraters to released movies onto the internet. It is also a very good codec for making very big DVD’s, into smaller more manageable movie files. It seems that Sony will be giving the PlayStation 3 the ability to play them back soon, which means a few things.
It means that, when compared to the X360 (though it may come soon), it will be a more capable media centre machine. It means that people can take their whole DVD collections and put them on the PS3 hard drive, and never need to put another DVD in there very valuable Blu-Ray drive. It means that game developers can add 10+ hours of video to a Blu-Ray disk and still have space for ridiculously large games.
Currently developers can now use the DiVX decoder, but there is no news when the rest of the PS3 owners will have the ability to use it. Expect an update people.
For more info, click over to the Joystiq Blog.
Sick of waiting 90min for your 50 GB Blu-Ray disk to fill up? Stop your whining, at least you have a Blu-Ray burner. Sony have announced their new BWU-200S, which will spit out Blu-Ray disks in half the time of old (around 45mins). It will also use a SATA interface instead of PATA. These 4x drives are available for preorder now, and will be officially released in November for $US600.
For more info, dance over to the Daily Tech Website.
It is all real my friends, and about bloody time as well. The PlayStation 3, the console we lust for (if it had good games that is) and we would love to own, just to wake up in the morning next to it (maybe not that far). The price has dropped in Japan, but only by around 10% (on the 20GB model). That isn’t all either. You can now get the 40GB model over there for 11% cheaper then the now price dropped 20GB (you lose a few things but it is still quite a bit cheaper). The price are now 44,980 yen ($US384) for the 20GB and for around 40,000 yen ($US340) you can get the 40GB model. Maybe all these PS3 changes will have the same affect as the PSP Slim?
For a lot more info, fly over to the PCMag Website.
We had a little view of the M1730 before its recent release and now we have gotten wind of another new notebook for the ever growing XPS range of Dell’s. This will be a little smaller and a hell of a lot lighter then the 1730, with a 15-4-inch screen and slot loading DVD/Blu-Ray Drive.
Unfortunately this model won’t support dual video processors, but it will come with a choice of 2 decent nVidia’s as long as you don’t expect to play to many new games on them. The choices will be either a GeForce 8400M or 8600M GS with up to 256MB of video ram.
Otherwise it is standard affair with a 15.4-inch screen with either a CCFL up to 1680 x 1050 or LED up to 1440 x 900, Intel Core 2 Duo 1.5 - 2.6 GHz (T5250 to T7800), options for 802.11a/b/g/n, WWAN, Bluetooth, finger print reader, built-in webcam and a HDMI port (I will report this until it is standard). It will apparently weigh 4 pounds, but will wait for final word before seeing that as feasible in such a feature rich notebook. No price yet, but should be announced on November 7th.
For more info, travel over to the Engadget Blog.
Again there is more speculation, but this time a little closer to home (for me at least). While you lucky Americans get the 80GB PS3 for $US600, it seems we will get the new cut down 40GB for around the same price! Does Sony not know about the US Dollars dropped at the moment or something? The Australian price for the possibly cut down, possible cheaper, possibly real PS3 is $699. Wait a second, isn’t there a deal currently that gives you the 60GB PS3 with 2 games and a extra controller for $AU999 (or a little less)? Isn’t that like over 200$ worth of value anyway? Barrr Sony, give us the cut down for the $US399 ($AU452) like you are giving the freaking Americans! Apparent release date is October 11th.
For more info, and less rambling, click over to the Kotaku Blog.
Only a few days ago I did a little short on a possible 40GB PS3 coming. Seems the rumor is growing fast, with a few sites giving a date when an announcement could be made, which might possibly be tomorrow (or today in Australia, I’m not sure). Of course Sony denies it all, but wouldn’t you on a top secret project? I am still very skeptical on the reasoning behind a tiny 20GB drop, but apparently there are more things the cheaper model will lose, which are 2 USB ports, memory card reader and the chips for backwards compatibility (still possible via software). The price you wonder? Seems to be aiming at a $US399 mark.
For more info, sneak over to the Engadget Website.
We all knew it was going to happen soon enough, but what exactly is going to change? Well rumor has it that it is simply a smaller drive size of 40GB instead of the better 80GB. Another rumor says that this could be the model to compete with Xbox 360 and the Wii, aimed at the lower price and may even do away with the Blu-ray. I don’t see this as a reality. Consider the price drops of HDDs that constantly happen, and consider the fact that Sony loves their Blu-ray. There is definitely a new model coming and I will give you an update when I get a rumor that makes sense.
For more rumors, criss cross over to the The Register Website.