After Steve Jobs called the Blu-Ray format a “bag of hurt”, it’s sort of surprising to find a company which is already producing Blu-Ray players for MacBook and MacBook Pro owners. The unit is external, so if you’re fine with hauling around an extra piece of hardware, not to mention the discs, you’ll have portable Blu-Ray access where ever you go. The drives come in a glossy black or white finish and they’ll burn BD-RE and -R discs at 2x. The cost isn’t too painful at $289, but we’re still hoping to see internal Blu-Ray support. So c’mon Steve! Open up that bag of hurt!

Tags: Amex Digital, blu-ray, macbook, MacBook Pro, steve jobs

There has been a lot of talk about merging a Blu Ray player into an HDTV, similar to what some have done with standard DVD players. Mitsubishi and Funai were the first to announce the intention, but in the end, it’s Sharp’s Aquos DX LCD TV which reigns supreme in the battle for Blu Ray. The TVs are scheduled to appear in several sizes ranging from 26″ all the way up to 52″. The tv comes equipped with an integrated HDTV tuner and the ability to play BluRay movies. Perhaps the only other item worth mentioning is only the 37″ and the 52″ models will be offer 1080p resolution. The Aquos is scheduled to ship in late November for a whopping $1,963, depending on the size, of course.

Tags: Aquos, blu-ray, HDTV, Sharp

More information on the stylish Dell Vostro 2510 laptop has just been leaked! I would seem that this shiny new piece of kit will be ready for configuration on the Dell website with a 3 to 5 day shipping period.

The base unit costs $899 and comes equipped with a 1.8GHz Core 2 Duo T5670 CPU, 2GB RAM, 160GB hard drive, an a 256MB NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GS video card. You can easily customize the system to break the $2,000 mark by increasing the processor, doubling the ram, and a Blu-ray drive, and plenty more.

Head on over to Dell’s website to customize your own.

Tags: blu-ray, core 2 duo, Dell Vostro 2510, GeForce, Intel, Nvidia

Research into the different layers of DVD’s and CD’s have brought about a lot of new information and advancements in just these past few months. The biggest news of it all? 400GB Blu-ray discs.

By taking one Blu-ray disc and dividing it into 16 layers, all curved and angled differently, the disc can be read in numerous ways, allowing for that maximum storage space to be attained. The only issue with all of this new technology is that there is going to be a big need for a new type of laser.

To demonstrate the glory of this increased capacity, Pioneer, the leaders behind this technology, have created the disc and the appropriate player to show exactly how it works.

Now just image burning 400GB of anything. Let’s hope we skip the x1 burn phase.

Tags: 400gb, blu-ray, cd, dvd, pioneer

Looking for that special something to sway your decision towards buying a Blu-ray player? Well how’s about $100 to Wal-Mart?

Everyones favorite "now why didn’t I go to Target?" store is trying to sweeten the deal of buying a Blu-ray player while convincing you to then come back to their store and spend the additional $100. Don’t act all surprised. There has never really been a store that allowed you to use your new giftcard on the purchase that earned you it.

The promotion is running from June 8th to the 14th and even includes the PS3. That’s enough extra to buy the HDMI cable and Metal Gear Solid 4 for absolutely free. Then again, you do have to step into Wal-Mart.

Tags: blu-ray, ps3, wal-mart

Interestingly, after losing big in the format war Microsoft is now predicting that the future of digital media distribution is in downloads not disc storage. Remember Microsoft was one of the major backers of the HD DVD format that was designed to replace DVDs but last month lost to Sony’s Blu-ray. Microsoft had already released an HD DVD drive for their XBox 360 platform which is as good as an AOL diskette at the moment. Instead of embracing the winning format, Microsoft will instead focus on distributing content over the XBox Live Video Marketplace because as Microsoft’s European boss, Chris Lewis said about the timeline for digital media distribution dominance, “I think that’s going to be the case in the next 12-18 months.” Sure, if you say so!

Tags: blu-ray, digital downloads, microsoft

After the death declaration of the HD DVD format (after everyone, including Toshiba gave up on it) showing preference for Sony-backed Blu-ray, Microsoft seemed determined to continue support for HD DVD especially considering that a $130 drive was available for their XBox 360 game console. Last weekend, even Microsoft announced that they will stop selling the HD DVD drive for the XBox. The company said that they will continue to provide technical support for the units already sold. They have said nothing about supporting Blu-ray while they announced their confidence that the sales of their game console will not be impacted by this turn of events. All I have to say is the Playstation 3 owners will certainly be out on the Internet in force celebrating their victory over hated Microsoft.

Tags: blu-ray, format war, hd dvd, microsoft

Toshiba announced today that they will stop production of HD DVD essentially ending the format war with rival Blu-ray. Wall-Mart’s decision to focus only on selling Blu-ray devices following other large retailers such as Best Buy and online video rental service NetFlix put the last nail on the HD DVD coffin. Toshiba will be taking a huge loss having to stop production of all HD DVD players and recorders. Microsoft is also likely to get hurt by this move since HD DVD is their format of choice for the Xbox 360; those who purchased a Sony PS3 and a Blu-ray peripheral made the better choice. Toshiba’s move will likely spell good news for consumers who can now buy the next generation players without fear of them becoming obsolete overnight since the format war has ended. Higher demand will also lead to a reduction of prices for the players which until now have remained high because of the two formats.

Tags: blu-ray, format war, hd dvd, toshiba

ZIOVA’s has given us information on their newest product – the ClearStream CS615. If it is anything like the previous ClearStream CS505 HD Network DVD Media Player than we can only assume that this will be just as good.

Ziova built the CS615 with the newest chipset technology – Sigma Designs 8634. This chipset allows the device to play anything that can be downloaded onto it. The only thing that it doesn’t have is a built in DVD drive. However, it can still support Blu-ray and HD-DVD.

The new player will be available next year in March and will be sold for $329.

Tags: blu-ray, clearstream, cs505, cs615, dvd media player, hd, media player, ziova, ziova clearstream, ziova cs505, ziova cs615

Those of you who have an HD television know that the best way to experience the latest movie releases is to purchase an HD DVD or should you purchase a Blu-ray DVD? This decision is all based on what type of DVD player you buy. Again you have to ask yourself which is more important to you. Hard question? LG is making it easy for you to choose by creating the ultimate DVD machine – BH200 Super Blu Blu-ray HD DVD Combination player. Read the rest of this entry…

Tags: blu-ray, blu-ray dvd, dvd, dvd player, hd, hd blu-ray combo player, hd dvd, lg, lg bg200, lg combo player, super blu-ray