By Jose Fermoso August 02, 2007 | 6:58:20

The next step in the battle between HD DVD and Blu-ray formats has now come to pass - Hitachi officially unveiled two versions of the world's first Blu-ray camcorder earlier in the day, prompting raised eyebrows and calendar-clearing by gadget hounds everywhere.  We first heard about Hitachi's new Blu-ray camcorders early last week, but today's presentation shows a legitimate reason for the excitement. The DZ-BD7H and DZ-BD70 models record High-Definition video at 1920x1080-pixel resolution onto a Blu-ray disk (BD-R/-RE discs of single side/single layer), and include a 10X zoom lens with a 2.7" LCD screen. The new camcorders will start selling in Japan by the end of this month and will come to the U.S. by mid-October. That's plenty of time before the busy Christmas season.

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Friday, July 6, 2007 - 10:32 (GMT+99)

Samsung to launch combo Blu-ray, HD DVD player
Filed under: DVD, Blu-Ray, HD-DVD | by :ryan |

TV Predictions: Samsung yesterday announced that it will launch a dual format High-Definition player in late fall.

The company hopes that the set-top, which will play both Blu-ray discs and HD DVDs, will appeal to consumers confused about which format to choose in the high-def war.

Samsung’s player (model: BDP-UP5000) will be the second on the market, following LG’s dual-format player which was introduced earlier this year.

But unlike LG’s player, which carries a whopping $1199 (around €881) price tag, Samsung said its player would cost less than $600 (around €441), according to several online reports.

Samsung said the dual-format player would support all the features available on both Blu-ray and HD DVD, including Net-based material accessed via an Ethernet connection.

US survey reveals that most HDTV owners don't watch HD programmes

A US survey taken by the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) has revealed that one of the main reasons for buying a HDTV is to improve movie watching and gaming – not for watching HD broadcasts.

The new study, 'HDTV: You have the set, but do you have the content?' revealed that only 44% of households owning a high-definition TV actually received HD programming. And that the majority of consumers who do receive HD programming still don't understand what programming they do and don't receive.

Some of the reasons given by consumers for not taking advantage of HD programming was that they were not interested in the content or that they thought it was too expensive.

The study, which was taken from a random sample of 2,508 US adults, also revealed that most HDTVs were used to watch films and play video games – while the most common device connected to HDTVs was still the traditional DVD player.

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Toshiba Permanently Drops HD DVD Player Prices
Fri Jun 29, 2007 at 07:15 AM ET
Tags: High-Def Retailing, Hardware, Toshiba (all tags)

Hot on the heels of a month-long promotional price cut, Toshiba announced on Thursday that it would permanently lower prices on two of its entry level HD DVD players.

Effective July 1, Toshiba says its HD-A2 player will be permanently offered at an MSRP $299, while its HD-A20 will be offered at $399.

This returns prices on both players to the same levels seen earlier this month as part of the company's month-long $100 rebate offer. As we've previously reported, Toshiba had reported stronger than expected results from the recent promo, with some retailers claiming a five- to ten-fold increase in sales.

This most recent announcement comes amidst a series of price drops on both sides of the format war over the last two months. Toshiba's $299 price for its HD-A2 player remains the lowest for a standalone high-def player (the least expensive stand-alone Blu-ray player is Sony's BDP-S300, which the company is currently offering at a MSRP $499).

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Microsoft Collaborates with Memory-Tech to Spread HD DVD Network Functions

Jun 27, 2007 21:04
Naoki Asakawa, Nikkei Electronics

Microsoft Co. Ltd., the Japanese arm of Microsoft Corp., announced that it will develop commercial servers required to achieve HD DVD network connectivity in collaboration with Memory-Tech Corp., who specializes in optical disc production and authoring. The two companies will establish a technology partnership for commercial sever development and operation.

One of the aims of this collaboration is to urge content developers to utilize HD DVD network connectivity. The use of "HDi," interactive operation functions for HD DVD allows users as to download premier videos via networks, chat or play network games with other viewers and other features.

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