Blu-ray, DVD, HD, Video info and more at WesleyTech.com

With all this ridiculous talk about Blu-ray prices rising, we’re pleased to see a new sale on Blu-ray movies at Amazon.com.

Most films are 50% off, and some are over 55% off. It’s a good selection of movies, so feel free to browse the selection. With movie tickets at $10 it’s now cheaper to buy a Blu-ray than take your wife out on a date.

Hulu open to the public

A while back you may have heard something about Fox, NBC and other companies getting together to create an online service to provide video content of popular TV shows and movies. Well, it was in beta for months and is now open to the public.

Hulu has a big selection of modern and classic television shows. Everything from The A-Team to Young Hercules. They even have episodes of new shows like Arrested Development, House and Heroes. It’s worth your time to investigate all the offerings.

They’ve also added movies to their list of properties. Boasting more than 50 content providers, including FOX, NBC, MGM, Sony Pictures Television, Warner Bros., and Lionsgate, they’re looking for a huge market share of online video (I wonder if this prospect helped spur on the writer’s strike). Providence Equity Partners even bought in to the the tune of $100-million. Some movies on the list include The Big Lebowski, Mulholland Drive and Live Free or Die Hard.

While the picture is not nearly as good as DVD, and definitely inferior to Blu-ray, the video quality is not too bad, and the interface is user-friendly. I can watch an episode full-screen on my MacBook and it looks acceptable. They are going to be offering high-def content at some point and have HD movie trailers currently so we can look forward to that.

You don’t get Obama Girl on Hulu, but you do get full episodes of your favorite shows. Give it a shot.

Blu-ray player prices not rising

For some reason, several blogs are writing stories about how Blu-ray player prices have risen since the demise of HD DVD. This is ridiculous. The information is gathered from PriceGrabber.com for the story.

Let’s look at this for a minute. It’s being reported that the average cost of the Sony BDP-S300 is $405. This is above MSRP, set by Sony at $399. One retailer lists it for $445 (above the list price), and the rest are at MSRP or below. This is throwing off the average.

We also have to consider that many retailers on PriceGrabber are not authorized retailers for the product they’re selling. Authorized retailers (Circuit City, Crutchfield, Best Buy, etc.) list the Sony player at MSRP of $399 - as is correct. No Blu-ray player manufacturer has increased the MSRP of their players.

If retailers were selling below retail previously (and authorized ones do not or they will lose their relationship with the company), it was not do to competition against HD DVD. These retailers weren’t on the Blu-ray side trying to compete against Toshiba, they were also selling Toshiba players. Competition between formats would have been championed by the manufacturers, and they did not just now raise their list price. The MSRP now is the same as the beginning of the year.

Consider this my civic duty, exposing the fraud put out on blogs to stir up controversy and gain hits for their advertisers.

Control4 Green Initiative

Earlier this year, Control4 launched the aptly named Control4 Green Initiative. The goal is to reduce the use of electricity through the use of user-managed lighting, HVAC and other functions. Control4 claims 20% of all electricity consumption in the USA comes from lighting, and 5% of that is wasted with insufficient light sources and unoccupied rooms.

Control4 offers wireless dimmers (at $99 each) to replace your existing light switches. These dimmers are controlled through touchpanels, right on your TV screen or remote on a secure website. Dimming the light by 10% yields a 10% savings and the light bulb lasts twice as long. Dimming by 25% offers 20% savings and the bulb lasts 4 times as long! The savings can build up over time. You can customize macros so you can turn on the lights in a room for different scenes, including party, movie, dinner, etc and give lighting loads different currents to help save energy as well. Or you can get a third-party motion detector to sense when someone leaves the room and shut off the lights automatically.

These dimmers simply replace your existing switch, no additional wiring needed. They operate on a Zigbee mesh network so the more devices in your home the stronger the network. There is even a dimmer that plugs into a regular AC outlet for lamps you might want to control.

Control4 also offers wireless thermostats to replace your existing HVAC controller which allows you much greater flexibility than a normal thermostat to save on air conditioning and heating costs.

The coalition is growing, already bringing Southern California Edison (energy provider) on board. They will be implementing digital meters allowing the users instant access to their energy consumption to cut their bills and help the environment in the process. As much as electronics are exciting, they’ve been historically bad for the environment (with all those mercuries and lead in them), so it is good to see technology being used to help clean up this planet.

Watch the press conference at CustomRetailer

Pioneer Plasma Business Clarification

A representative from Pioneer USA contacted WesleyTech to clarify on the recent plasma business announcements. Below is a letter from Russ Johnston of Pioneer USA, who is the Executive Vice President of Marketing and Product Planning, Home Entertainment Business Solutions Group.
I am sure by now you have seen the announcement that was sent from Pioneer. I hope it addresses the misinformation and speculation that surfaced this week.

Pioneer remains passionate about delivering the ultimate home theater experience based on the brand strategy the company set nearly a year ago, to bring to market the best home theater technology, including high-definition plasma televisions like KURO.

To do this, Pioneer will continue to focus on what it does best which includes engineering game-changing plasma technology and producing proprietary components that differentiate Pioneer plasma televisions from the rest of the market. The next generation KURO flat panel televisions will be coming this summer as planned with no disruption in Pioneer production.

As you are aware, outsourcing is common practice among successful consumer electronics companies all over the world. Many of the most notable and respected brands of televisions, cell phones and video game consoles do not manufacture their own products. Pioneer plans to outsource production of plasma panel modules in 2009 in an effort to right-size the business.

Pioneer is developing plans with a production partner that offers the best quality and reliability in line with its own strategy and high standards, but at this point no partnership arrangements or decisions have been made.

This announcement will not affect Pioneer’s technology leadership in home entertainment but provides Pioneer the opportunity to further invest in bringing high-definition display innovations to life.

The Mobile Business Group within Pioneer has been a consistently profitable business and has always been run as a separate division. This announcement will have no effect on this group.

We will leverage the engineering capabilities to compensate for any cutbacks in the plasma display business by shifting related personnel and other business resources to the Car Electronics business; the professional sound & visual (Pro SV) business, which involves DJ equipment; and the audio/video product business, including Blu-ray Disc
related products.

Please see the announcement (attached).

Russ Johnston

Executive Vice President of Marketing and Product Planning, Home Entertainment Business Solutions Group Pioneer Electronics (USA) Inc.

The official press release can be found here.

Pioneer stops plasma production

With news that Pioneer is reporting a $93-million loss in their plasma division, they are now stopping production of their highly praised plasma televisions. They are not exiting the plasma market, however, as they’re joining forces with Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. (parent of Panasonic) to co-develop plasma technologies.

This is pretty big news. For the past year Pioneer has had a successful marketing campaign to promote the new Kuro plasmas with the greatest black levels and contrast levels of any commercial display ever. In January at CES they showed Extreme Contrast Kuro panels with such great contrast and black levels they challenged the OLED displays, and even blew the current Kuro panels out of the water. They also showed an incredibly thin plasma at 12mm thick.

Being on the vanguard of plasma technology, this is certainly a big change. Pioneer was projecting over $97-million profit this year and is actually posting a $77-million loss, so it seems like the company is really trying to save the ship by dumping extra weight. In December Fujitsu closed up shop on plasma for good, leaving Pioneer as the only remaining high-end plasma manufacturer. Pioneer was the fifth largest plasma manufacturer this past year.

The obvious questions for the future are: What will come of Project Kuro? Will Panasonic have Kuro technology in their panels now? Will plasma survive or will LCD have killed off this glorious technology?

Samsung cancels HD DVD/Blu-ray combo player

At CES in January of this year, Samsung showed a new HD DVD/Blu-ray combo player to replace the current model later this year. When asked if they would keep it in the line up after Warner announced plans to drop HD DVD, Samsung said the combo player was still a “practical solution.”

Well, things change. Toshiba, the main backer and creator of HD DVD, dropped all plans to develop, manufacture and support the next-generation format last month. Samsung has now announced they “will not introduce the BD-UP-5500 Duo HD Player.”

“Now that Blu-ray has been chosen as the next-generation format, the consumer can move forward with confidence and enjoy the incredible experience that Blu-ray offers.”

It doesn’t appear like any new HD DVD players will be made available from anyone. Of course there is the strange announcement from LG that they’re still behind both formats. Makes you wonder what they’re thinking.