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Blu-ray Disc Association Booth CES 2008



The Future is Blu

The future is certainly looking Blu. The Blu-ray Disc Association booth was jam packed full of displays, new products and new demos. The place was teaming with folks and was definitely much more lively than the HD DVD booth.

Blu-ray Disc players

There were a few Panasonic DMP-BD50’s on display around the booth, which are the very first BD Profile 2.0 players to see the light of day (Denon had previously announced a player, but it never made it into anyones hands). This player will be shipping in Spring, but there is no estimated pricing at this point in time.

Most of the Blu-ray Disc association companies were displaying new BD Profile 1.1 players. One of the most interesting out of this lot was the new Funai Blu-ray 1.1 player, shipping under the brand Sylvania. A Funai representative informed me that this player will be shipping in the 2nd quarter of this year and it will cost LESS than $300.



Blu-ray BD-Live demos

There were a few very cool BD-Live demonstrations occurring at various stations within the BDA booth. One of these was a game from Fox Home Entertainment called “Aliens vs Predator vs You”. I will post more on this later.

Technicolor was also demonstrating a BD-Live trivia game. One of the most interesting things about this BD-Live demo was that they were using a PS3 as the player! That’s right, a PS3 with BD Profile 2.0 firmware loaded! The Technicolor representatives informed me that the firmware was just loaded up this morning and that it is still in a highly beta phase. Either way, this is good news for PS3 owners, as we can expect to see a BD Profile 2.0 firmware released for the PS3 at some point in the future.

I now need to head over to the Blu-ray Disc Association press event. I’ll be reporting back on that in the future, so stay tuned for more!

HD DVD Booth CES 2008

Today, I visited the HD DVD Promotions Group booth. I took a quick tour around the displays and found the obvious items being showcased; HD DVD movies, HD DVD players, the Microsoft Xbox 360, HD DVD laptops, etc.

HD DVD players

Taking a look at the HD DVD player area, I could not find much of anything new. There was the usual Toshiba line of players, the HD-A3, HD-A30 and HD-A35. Then there was the Venturer SHD7000 and the Onkyo DV-HD805. Nothing new! Both the Venturer and the Onkyo use Toshiba internals, with their own customized casing.



HD DVD Demo

A stage was located on the inside of the booth area and HD DVD demonstrations were occurring every so often. The presenter was demonstrating HD DVD interactive features with the Bourne Supremacy. All the usual stuff was shown, U-control navigation, scene bookmarks, Picture in Picture video and a few other features.

HD DVD burners



Toshiba had their HD DVD burners on display as usual. The pictures above show their slim laptop HD DVD-R drive and their desktop PC HD DVD-R drive.

The only really ‘new’ HD DVD hardware I could find was an HD DVD burner from NU. The model shown was the DH-4HM1P, which is a half-height desktop HD DVD-R internal drive. According to the spec card, the drive supports 2.4x HD DVD-R writing, 2x HD DVD-RW writing and all DVDR formats, including DVD-RAM. The drive is powered by a Mediatek chipset. I could not find any NU representatives hanging around the HD DVD booth to find out anything further.

Overall impressions

Overall, I was pretty disappointed by the HD DVD booth and displays. There really was nothing new. Nothing exciting. It’s the same ol’, same ol’ for the HD DVD group. The live demonstration didn’t feature anything new either.

On the bright side, I did walk away with a free copy of Freedom Volume 2, which is an anime HD DVD twin format disc.

I also missed the Toshiba press conference that occurred yesterday. Talking to other press folks who attended the event, I was told that Toshiba still “remains optimistic” about the HD DVD format. They are going to have to do much more than just remain optimistic if they want HD DVD to survive. With Warner dropping HD DVD, the talk of the town here is that HD DVD will soon die. I don’t expect that we’ll hear any major announcements from the HD DVD group or Toshiba, especially with the press event being canceled. Bye bye HD DVD, it was nice knowing you…

Bill Gates keynote CES 2008

Yesterday, I attended the Bill Gates pre-show keynote address. This was Bill’s 11th and final CES keynote address, as he will be stepping down from Microsoft mid-year to pursue philanthropic activities.

HD DVD not mentioned

Many products and services were mentioned during the keynote presentation, but HD DVD was not mentioned at all. Nothing, nada, zip. It appears that HD DVD is not part of Microsoft’s future or at the least, it is not an important part.



Xbox Live

The big Xbox Live announcement was that ABC and Disney have signed on to provide TV show content on the Xbox Live service. MGM’s film library will also be available. All of this is starting this month.

Microsoft was also proud to announce that Xbox Live has more than twice as much on-demand HD content compared to any cable provider.

Microsoft Mediaroom

Microsoft also announced Mediaroom: DVR anywhere, which is a software suite that allows you to send content to other TV’s and PC’s in the home.

Xbox 360: now a cable box

British Telecom will soon be offering the Xbox 360 as a set-top cable box. No need to buy separate systems for gaming and cable viewing, the Xbox 360 will do it all.

NBC partners with Microsoft for Beijing 2008 Olympics coverage

NBC has chosen Microsoft as their technology partner for covering the 2008 Beijing Olympic games. Microsoft Silverlight technology will be used on NBC.com to bring the most interactive and most comprehensive web broadcast ever. Silverlight is a Microsoft web technology that allows developers to create rich, interactive content online with animations, video and applications. Viewers will be able to interact with the content and customize it to their liking.

Much more coming from Microsoft

As you’d expect, there will be much, much more new technology coming from Microsoft in the near future and beyond. Some of the other topics covered in the keynote included a Microsoft surface demo: where the user interfaces with the surface of a table to perform tasks, Zune social, Zune online ‘cards’, Microsoft Sync: interactive car components with audio device synchronization (MP3 players, Ipods), voice commands and auto-911 dialing after air bag deployment. Tellme: a voice command service where mobile phone users can search, request information and order goods utilizing voice commands and a yet-to-be-named video recognition technology will help people navigate to places and find more information. There was much more covered in the keynote and I’m sure you’ll be able to find a video online if you’re interested in seeing and hearing more.

CES: Slew of full-profile Blu-ray players announced

Following up on a few more predictions, Blu-ray manufacturers are en-masse announcing BD1.1 and BD 2.0 players. Panasonic has so far shown a new BD2.0 “BD-Live enabled” player, the DMP-BD50 (no MSRP stated).

Sharp announced the BD1.1 player named BD-HP50U. Samsung showed the BDP-1500, the fourth-generation player featuring BD1.1 ready for June. And Funai (who has yet to release a player) announced the NB500 series BD1.1 player.

Interestingly, Philips (who I forgot all about during my predictions) also announced a BD1.1 player for $349. The BDP7200 will retail in April. At this press conference it was mentioned that Target was going Blu-ray exclusive. I think this might have been reference to Target’s previous announcement about the past holiday season.

I’m eagerly waiting for Wesley’s new CES reporting.

CES 2008: CES Unveiled

I kicked off CES today by attending the “CES Unveiled” event. This is a press only event, which showcases a limited number of companies as a preview to the overall Consumer Electronics Show.

One of the best things about the CES unveiled event is the free food and open bar. I had some dinner, grabbed some drinks and then headed around the show floor in an attempt to find some optical storage related displays.

Unfortunately, there were no HD DVD or Blu-ray products on display at the Unveiled event, but I did find a few home theater and home video products that were interesting.

SE2 Labs ITC One



SE2 Labs ITC One received a Design & Engineering Showcase award. This pre-assembled ultimate home theater monster starts at $25,000, includes a Microsoft Xbox 360, a Nintendo Wii, an Apple Ipod, integrated surround sound and much, much more. We have previously covered the ITC One in detail here. So feel free to check out our previous article for a more thorough rundown.

Pinnacle “Video Transfer”



Pinnacle was showing off their new “Video Transfer” product, among other things. This Video Transfer hardware allows you to capture analog video without a computer. Supported inputs include standard RCA cables as well as S-Video. The product captures video and stores it to almost any external storage device, such as the Sony PSP, an Ipod, USB flash drives, an external hard drive and more. The resulting video files can be stored in 480p resolution utilizing H.264 as an MPEG 4 file.

This bad boy retails for $129.99 and should be hitting the market within the next 30 days. We also learned that the prelaunch code name for this product was “Stimpy”. Hey, I like that codename and anything sounds better than the generic product name of “video transfer”.

Much more CES news coming up!

CES officially starts on Monday and we will be sure to bring you more high definition, Blu-ray, HD DVD and optical storage news once the show is in progress. Tomorrow, I’ll be attending some more company parties and “side-show” events, so stay tuned for more 2008 tech updates.

CES HD DVD Event canceled due to Warner announcement

I just received an email from the HD DVD Promotion Group stating that the CES 2008 HD DVD press event has been canceled. The recent Blu-ray exclusive announcement from Warner is cited as the reason for the cancellation. You can find the full text of the notice below.

Notice of CES Press Conference Cancellation by North American HD DVD Promotion Group

“Based on the timing of the Warner Home Video announcement today, we have decided to postpone our CES 2008 press conference scheduled for Sunday, January 6th at 8:30 p.m. in the Wynn Hotel. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

We are currently discussing the potential impact of this announcement with the other HD DVD partner companies and evaluating next steps. We believe the consumer continues to benefit from HD DVD’s commitment to quality and affordability – a bar that is critical for the mainstream success of any format.

We’ll continue to keep you updated on new developments around HD DVD.”

HD DVD is in trouble

If there is one thing that everyone is agreeing on, it is that the HD DVD is in trouble due to the Warner announcement. This decision to cancel the HD DVD press event further proves that the defection of Warner Brothers studios from the HD DVD camp is a major blow.

I am very disappointed that they have canceled the event. I would have liked to see them try to explain this move or attempt to put some type of positive spin on it. I guess I will only be attending the Blu-ray CES event this year! Stay tuned to this site for CES 2008 coverage!

Warner drops HD DVD

This came as quite a surprise, but it is official. Warner Home Video has announced they are dropping support of HD DVD to focus exclusively on Blu-ray. High Def Digest broke the news today.

Although rumors abounded for months, I didn’t really expect it to happen. It’s not as surprising as Paramount’s move because that didn’t have rumors around it before hand.

“Warner Bros.’ move to exclusively release in the Blu-ray disc format is a strategic decision focused on the long term and the most direct way to give consumers what they want,” said Barry Meyer, Chairman & CEO of Warner Bros.. As the second prediction of mine to come true in two days, Warner’s reasoning is similar to mine, “The window of opportunity for high-definition DVD could be missed if format confusion continues to linger. We believe that exclusively distributing in Blu-ray will further the potential for mass market success and ultimately benefit retailers, producers, and most importantly, consumers.”

Sounding a lot like one of the Iowa caucus winners, Jeff Bewkes, President and Chief Executive Officer of Time Warner Inc., the parent company of Warner Brothers is claiming to be the hero of the format war, claiming it was they who brought down hardware prices. “Warner Bros. has produced in both high-definition formats in an effort to provide consumer choice, foster mainstream adoption and drive down hardware prices,” he said.

Does this mean the format war is over? With Dreamworks, Paramount and Universal still in the HD DVD camp it’s not quite over, but it certainly seems inevitable. So what is Toshiba’s next move?

Read the press release