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Blu-ray Pricing Slowly Trending Downward

Paul Lilly — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 07:25:08 -0600

Blu-ray has had the high-definition market all to itself for quite some time now, yet here we are still talking about the format's adoption rate. That's because pricing, for the most part, has kept BD players out of the living room, but according to Taiwan-based BD player makers, that's about to change. Kind of.

Sources say the average retail price for Blu-ray players will drop from $193 to just $77. Such a significant price drop would surely boost consumer demand, but there's a catch. While prices are coming down, such a dramatic decrease won't occur until 2012, still more than a year away.

On the desktop front, blank media is expected to come down in price as well. By 2012, the average retail price is expected to drop from $5 to $1.50, the same sources say.

Image Credit: contrib.andrew.cmu.edu

Plextor PX-B320SA Combo Drive

Katherine Stevenson — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 20:00:46 -0600

Burn DVDs and watch Blu-ray movies

Blu-ray has yet to prove itself as a sensible storage medium—there are just too many less-costly solutions for backing up data. But just because you’re satisfied with a standard DVD drive for your burning chores, doesn’t mean you should be denied the enjoyment of watching Blu-ray movies on your PC—especially now that large 1920x1080 monitors are so affordable.

Enter Plextor’s PX-B320SA DVD burner/BD-ROM combo. We can’t say it offers the best of both worlds, but it strikes a nice balance. The drive’s DVD speeds aren’t up to the likes of, say, Samung’s SH-S223 performance DVD drive. For example, the Plextor is rated at 16x for DVD+R writes compared with the Samsung’s 22x. In our tests, that amounted to a 5:20 (min:sec) time to fill a single-layer disc vs. 4:46—not such a big deal. With double-layer media, the Plextor took 16:58 vs. the Samsung’s 13:16—yes, over time those minutes can add up.

Plextor adds a bit of splash to its PX-B320SA with a glossy front bezel.

Of course, Samsung’s drive won’t play your Blu-ray movies. In the realm of combo drives, Plextor’s PX-B320SA trumps LG’s GCC-H20L, the combo drive in our Lab test beds. Single-layer DVD+R write times for the two drives were virtually the same, but Plextor’s drive was more than 50 percent faster at writing to dual-layer discs, where the LG drive took 27:27. The Plextor drive also surpassed the LG drive in our DVD ripping test by nearly 50 percent, taking just 10:47 to copy a dual-layer movie disc to our hard drive, versus the LG’s 15:17.

Now, LG has since replaced the GCC-H20L with the GBC-H20L, which lacks the former’s support for also reading HD DVD discs (for obvious reasons) but otherwise boasts the same specs. We can’t say for certain that that drive performs the same as its GCC predecessor, but even so, we’re inclined to favor the Plextor PX-B320SA. After all, at $230, the LG GBC-H20L is a mere $20 less than our favorite full-fledged BD burner (Pioneer’s BDR-2203).

Even if you don’t have any interest in that functionality, it would be tough to turn down the added value for such a measly savings. At $180, Plextor’s drive at least saves you $70—money you could actually do something with.

Managed Copy Enabled Blu-Rays Coming Soon

Justin Kerr — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 18:39:20 -0600

The first Managed Copy enabled Blu-Ray disks will be hitting store shelves soon, unfortunately, it will be well ahead of any hardware that can make use of it. For those that haven’t heard of Managed Copy, it is a system that allows you to make legal copies of Blu-Ray disks, but spawned versions of the content are very heavily protected by DRM. Any user trying to play the copied version needs to contact the studios DRM servers which decide if you can watch it, and even how many times it can be copied.

Dedicated Blu-Ray hardware isn’t expected to implement this feature anytime soon, but PC jukebox software will likely be available within the next few months to take advantage of the fact that all disks sold after December 4th will need to be compliant. It remains to be seen if this is true of just new releases, or if the entire back catalog of Blu-Ray disks will eventually be updated. Either way, expect it to be a confusing mess until packaging updates roll along in the Spring.

Many wonder if Managed Copy will satisfy consumers ever increasing demands to “liberate” their digital content from the medium, but consumers historically haven’t embraced solutions that trade one DRM implementation for another. This is especially true when competing technologies such as those from Slysoft accomplishes the same thing, and without any additional usage restrictions.

Want to learn more about HD Video Encryption? Check out our White Paper for the low down.

Quad-Interface Blu-Ray Burner Surfaces at 12x Speed

Pulkit Chandna — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 08:35:55 -0600

OWC has introduced a quad-interface Blu-ray burner that uses a Pioneer BDR-205. You will never be short of options with the Mercury Pro 12x Blu-ray burner as it supports four different interfaces: FireWire 800, FireWire 400, USB 2.0 and eSATA. It ships with a cable each four all the interfaces that it supports. It is capable of writing to BD-R media ( single or double layer) at 12x speed, BD-RE media at 2x speed, DVD±R at 16X, DVD±R DL at 8X, and CD-R at 40X. The Mercury Pro 12x Blu-ray burner can be yours for $350. The burner is also available along with Roxio's Toast 10 Titanium Pro for $450, though the bundle is only meant for Mac users.

Image Credit: OCW

ASRock Unveils Three Ion Nettops, One with Blu-ray

Paul Lilly — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 12:00:28 -0500

More Ion-powered nettops are on the way, including three new models from Asus subsidiary ASRock. All three up the ante over the company's previous nettops with RAID support, eSATA, MCE remote (not on the lower end model), and a few other odds and ends. Blu-ray even makes a cameo in the higher-end unit.

The three new machines consist of the Ion 330Pro, 330HT, and 330HT-BD. Each one comes spec'd with an Intel Atom 330 dual-core processor clocked at 1.6GHz, up to 4GB of DDR2-800 memory, Nvidia's Ion graphics, up to 1.5TB of total hard drive space, DVD or Blu-ray drive, 7.1 channel audio, Gigabit LAN, 802.11b/g/n WiFi (330Pro excluded), and the usual assortment of ports (HDMI, USB).

No word yet on price or a release date, nor is there any mention of what OS the machines will use (we're guessing Windows 7).

Image Credit: ASRock via xbmcfreak.nl

Sony Admits It’s Being Investigated by U.S. Antitrust Regulators

Jason Barry — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 18:21:51 -0500

There aren’t tons of details about what Sony is alluding too, but they have outwardly admitted to U.S. antitrust investigations. Antitrust regulators are taking a closer look at Sony's optical disk drive operations.

Sony Optiarc America, in particular, produces the Sony line of optical disk drives for DVD, CD, and Blu-ray media formats and is the focus of the investigation. Sony didn’t hint to which products are of interest, but if you like to follow the gossip circles (or have a bit of common-sense) it is likely something to do with Blu-ray.

Blu-ray’s prices have yet to see the traditional price declination expected from a hot technology that has been released over three years ago. In fact, prices have remained steady over that time despite HD-DVD disappearing from the picture.

Further, the technology hasn’t skyrocketed in popularity the way Sony expected and antitrust investigations are not likely to help that process along.

Netflix to Expand its Reach to the PS3

Pulkit Chandna — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 09:14:46 -0500

Netflix announced today that it will be bringing its streaming service to the PS3. Netflix's streaming service will be available to around 9 million PS3 users residing in the US beginning next month. PS3 users will need a Netflix account and an absolutely free BD-Live disc - Blu-ray disc with internet functionality - to access Netflix's extensive content catalog.

PS3 users will have to insert the disc into their console each time they wish to enjoy streaming content from Netflix's library. But this disc-popping ritual should only last until the two companies enable direct access to the service. "As a leading game console and Blu-ray disc player, bringing Netflix to the PS3 system is a real win for both Netflix members and PS3 system owners,"said Netflix CEO and co-founder Reed Hastings.

Ballmer Hints at Blu-ray Add-On for Xbox 360 Console

Paul Lilly — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 09:26:12 -0500

We've stopped counting the number of rumors suggesting Blu-ray hardware would somehow integrate with the Xbox 360 gaming console, whether as a built-in drive in a revised edition, or as an add-on accessory. The details would vary, but all the rumors shared one thing in common: They were all bogus. So why are we paying it any attention now? Because this time, the rumor's coming straight from Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer.

During a video interview with Gizmodo, Ballmer spent a couple minutes talking candidly about the Xbox 360 and project Natal, but he appeared to be caught off guard when asked if Microsoft would adopt Blu-ray in a bid to take over the home theater.

"Well I don't know if we need to put Blu-ray in there," Ballmer began as he wiped his eye. "You'll be able to get Blu-ray drives, and Blu-ray drives as accessories."

Does this mean a Blu-ray add-on is in the works, or did Ballmer simply not word his answer carefully enough? We don't know, but when Gizmodo pinged Xbox spokespeople about Ballmer's answer, more fuel to the speculative fire was added.

"Our immediate solution for Blu-ray quality video on the Xbox 360 is coming this fall with Zune Video and 1080p instant-on HD streaming. As far as our future plans are concerned, we're not ready to comment."

In the past, Microsoft made it a point to quickly squash Blu-ray rumors, but that isn't the case this time around. Draw your own conclusion on what that could mean.

Image Credit: ripten.com