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LG unveils Blu-ray player with Netflix Watch Now

LG Electronics has unveiled a Blu-ray player with the ability to stream video from Netflix. This is the second set-top device with this feature. Roku released a Netflix Watch Now player in May.

Previous LG Blu-ray players were dual-format playing the now defunct HD DVD. This new player, the BD300, follows that tradition, but this time it plays Blu-ray Discs and streams online content.

The player will ship this Autumn at a price “well below $500″ to be competitive with other Blu-ray players on the market. It will be BD2.0 with BonusView and BD-Live ability.

Netflix subscriptions with the unlimited Watch Now feature begin at $8.99 per month - just a little more than a 24-hour rental of a single title through some other services. You also receive DVDs and/or Blu-rays delivered through the mail.

The Xbox 360 and Windows Media Center platforms can also access Netflix Watch Now material.

Burn Blu-ray’s: A How To Guide For Burning BD-R discs

Burning a BD-R (Blu-ray Disc Recordable) requires a few prerequisites. You’ll need a Blu-ray burner, a BD-R or BD-RE (Rewritable) disc, IMGBurn software and some content to burn. In this guide, we’ll assume that you are burning files extracted from a BD-ROM (Blu-ray Disc Read Only Memory) movie disc. To extract (rip) files from a BD-ROM movie disc, we recommend AnyDVD HD.

For this guide, we ripped the Blu-ray movie “Queen Rock Montreal & Live Aid”. This title is housed on a 25GB Blu-ray Disc. After ripping a disc or obtaining the Blu-ray video files through other means, you can burn the content onto a BD-R or BD-RE disc using ImgBurn using the following steps.

Step 1) Open ImgBurn in Build Mode
Open ImgBurn, click on the Mode drop down menu and select Build mode. On the Device tab, you can see useful Disc Information such as: Disc ID: VERBAT-IMO-000, which means that the disc we are using is manufactured by Verbatim. Disc Type: BD-RE, which means the disc is a Blu-ray Disc Rewritable. Size: 24,220,008,448 bytes or about 25GB.

Step 2) Add your BDMV folder into the IMGBurn project
From Windows Explorer, you can drag and drop the BDMV folder of the movie you want to burn into ImgBurn. The latest ImgBurn will automatically create a CERTIFICATE folder so that you will only need to add a BDMV folder to the burning project. As our screenshot shows, our movie will fit a 25GB BD-RE with 86,310,912 bytes of remaining free space on the disc.

Step 3) Click the Burn icon
Shown below, where the mouse hand cursor is placed on the screenshot.

Step 4) Select UDF
If you didn’t set the options to use the UDF file system, a warning window will appear, asking to correct the file system settings. Click Yes. Thanks IMGBurn!

Step 5) Confirm the Volume Label.
IMGBurn will help with that too! Click Yes - duh.

Step 6) Verify your settings
Next up, IMGBurn will display an informational window, allowing you to confirm all of your selections before the actual burning process starts. Click OK and the burn will start!

Step 7) Burn baby burn!
IMGBurn will display a burning progress window as the burn process progresses. In our example shown below, we are burning the blu-ray movie files on to a Verbatim BD-RE disc at 2x. The total writing time was approximately 45 minutes.

Step 8 ) Verify the files on the disc
Once the IMGBurn burning process is completed, you can verify that your BD-R or BD-RE disc has the correct files on it by browsing with Windows Explorer. Our example screenshot below displays the content of the STREAM folder, which is where the movie is located. Note that the CERTIFICATE folder is created by ImgBurn. This certificate folder is necessary for the disc to play back correctly on some devices.

Step 9) Play the movie from the disc!
Once you have verified that your Blu-ray movie files are now on your BD-R or BD-RE disc, you can test the disc by playing back the movie using your Blu-ray burner, a standalone Blu-ray player or a PS3. Enjoy your movie and happy Blu-ray burning!

Thanks to zevia from CDFreaks for providing screenshots and instructions.

Samsung offers third HTiB

Samsung is now offering a new home theater in a box (HTiB) with Blu-ray at $799 (SRP). The HT-BD2E features a 800W 5.1 speaker package and an integrated receiver with Blu-ray player, this is the lowest priced Blu-ray HTiB system yet.

The Blu-ray player features BonusView, which is a mandatory function now. It outputs 1080p at 60fps or 24fps, depending on the source material. The HDMI output works with other HDMI-CEC compliant devices from Samsung, such as a TV. This allows for one remote to control multiple devices.

Samsung has two other Blu-ray HTiB systems, one for $999 and another at $1,499.

Source: CEPro

Microsoft adds original video content to Xbox Live

If anyone wasn’t convinced Microsoft is seeking to command the home entertainment center with the Xbox 360 should be convinced now. Two weeks ago they announced an exclusive deal to bring Netflix Watch Now video streaming to the console, and now they’ve announced original video content for Xbox Live.

The first foray is a series of comedy shorts directed by contemporary horror film directors such as James Wan (Saw, Death Sentence), David Slade (30 Days of Night), Andrew Douglas (Amityville Horror), and Marcus Nispel (Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Friday the 13th). Xbox Live group product manager Scott Nocas points to the popularity of horror video games and Xbox Live horror movie downloads to suggest the Xbox owners are a key demographic.

The initial shorts will be high-def, approximately 10-minutes in length, and will be within an guidelines for an “R-rating” (they are not officially rated by the MPAA). They will be released on Xbox Live as exclusive content for a set period of time (specific to each video) and then will be free to distribute by the producers through other avenues, including iTunes, DVD or otherwise. The producers own the content and Microsoft holds an exclusive release window.

Depending on the popularity of each video, they could also be used as television pilots or remade into feature length films.

Over the next few months, Microsoft will also start announcing other content in different genres, including drama and romantic comedy.

Maybe the Xbox will finally become profitable through video-on-demand.

Source: Home Media Magazine

Kaleidescape’s digital media plans

The market for hard drive based home media libraries is growing, and is increasingly competitive. Microsoft is pushing their Windows Vista Home Media Center products through brands such as Niveus, LifeWare, and Inteset. These products offer not only hard drive storage for video and audio, they also access online media through Netflix, Rhapsody, Amazon, YouTube and other providers. Even non-Windows based servers are adding these features. Escient, for example, has a new line named Vision which can access online radio stations and Rhapsody.

As the leader in home media storage, I contacted Michael Malcolm, founder, president and CEO of Kaleidescape, and asked him about their future plans to include digital delivery services. The original intention of Kaleidescape was to deliver content over the Internet, and they even obtained patents on this technology. They used this knowledge to distribute multiple streams of high-quality video to multiple rooms simultaneously. But seven years ago things were different, and the studios did not want to allow their content to be distributed digitally. Things have changed and all major studios are providing digital delivery. (Bold text is my question; Italics are Michael Malcolm.)


Now that the studios are willing to deliver their movies in a rights-managed format over the Internet are you looking to add digital delivery to your product? If so, would this be offered directly through you or would you use a service like Music Giants?

We have been watching this drama unfold for the past eight years. With regard to digital distribution of movies via the Internet, the studios have progressed from a state of denial to one of cautious experimentation. Some studios are now willing to make some content available for Internet distribution, but usually only in sub-DVD quality formats. While this represents great progress for the studios, the vast majority of movies people actually want to watch in their homes are not available for Internet delivery, and those that are available are more suitable for watching on a laptop, not on a home theater screen. In fact, most of the movies people would like to watch in their homes are only available on DVD. We believe that electronic delivery of high definition movies is inevitable, but we also believe that it will be years before we will see the selection of movies available online approach anything like the selection available today on DVD. Kaleidescape plans to support Internet delivery of video entertainment. We plan to support third-party Internet delivery services as they become viable sources of significant numbers of high-quality motion pictures.

On a similar discussion, are you considering adding Internet radio streaming or Internet music downloads through Rhapsody, Pandora or a similar service?

Yes. Internet radio and streaming Internet music are on our road map. Eventually the Kaleidescape System will provide the user interface to all types of entertainment sources and distribute them throughout the home.

Early this year, Kaleidescape also announced plans for Blu-ray Disc support. In the mean time they’ve released an upconverting 1080p media player that has been compared to Blu-ray quality.

I was still curious about their Movie Collections. Would these be converted to high-def where possible?

Finally, now that a lot of movies are in high-def on Blu-ray and HD DVD, considering most studios are now archiving their movies in high-def, will you be changing your movie collections to high-def where available? Criterion Collection is now releasing Blu-ray movies, that would be a great collection to have in high-def available in one of your Kaleidescape Collections.

We will consider this in the future. However, today the number of movies in one of our larger DVD collections is approximately the same as the total number of movies available on Blu-ray. So, the studios will need to dramatically increase the number of titles available on Blu-ray before it will be possible to design interesting collections of Blu-ray movies.

While I have seen a lot of smarmy, anonymous comments about the price of the Kaleidescape systems, I haven’t seen any product that has the same build quality, back end support and engineering know-how as this one. Their products simply work, they work well and they work solid. They’re also the only DVD storage system with a DVD-CCA license.

The sales representative I spoke with wanted to reassure me that Kaleidescape intends to remain the market leader, not allowing any company to pass them up in innovation. He mentioned plans for growth which have me excited to see what the next few years will bring.

My thanks to Michael Malcolm for spending his valuable time answering my questions.

Correction: Originally I had reported the Blu-ray player was confirmed for first quarter 2009. I have been informed this is wrong information. There is no date given for a release on this product. I imagine this will be pushed back until there is a much larger library of Blu-ray releases. I apologize for this false report.

Correction part two: For clarification purposes, the Blu-ray product will not be “pushed back” because it was never announced for the first quarter. Michael Malcolm wanted to comment on this matter personally:

Earlier this year we announced to dealers that we planned to release a Blu-ray player in 2009. We never mentioned any quarter, and many dealers have assumed this means 4th quarter. We have been working diligently do produce a Blu-ray player in spite of the fact that there is not a large library of Blu-ray releases. We have not pushed back the delivery of this product, but it is still too early to even schedule a release date. Also, Kaleidescape does not make a practice of pre-announcing release dates of future products. It is unusual for us to announce anything about what we are working on for the future, as we did for Blu-ray.

Kaleidescape and the Kaleidescape logo are trademarks of Kaleidescape, Inc.; they are registered in the United States and certain other jurisdictions. Other trademarks and trade names are owned by third parties and may be registered in some jurisdictions.

Sony ships new Blu-ray player

Although announced in February, Sony’s latest Blu-ray set-top player has just begun shipping last week.

The BDP-S350 is a BD1.1 player, meaning it has all the BonusView features available. It is also “BD-Live ready” pending a scheduled firmware update. This requires a 1GB flash drive (not provided by Sony) placed in the rear of the player.

Another notable change is its physical size. It’s now 55% smaller than the previous BDP-S300, and uses 43% less power in standby mode. Sony is proclaiming this player “green.”

I have used this new player, and I gave it a tryout in the form of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Mans Chest. This disc is loaded with BD-Java menus and operates sluggishly on the previous BDP-S300. First I opened the tray while the movie was playing and noticed that it opened much faster, in a few seconds. The S300 player took over twenty-seconds to open. When the tray was closed again the first preview played in approximately twenty-seconds. A loading screen played in the form of the key used to open Davy’s chest. With the S300, that loading screen took over fifteen-seconds to begin displaying, and almost double before the preview played. The BD-Java menu has a 3D skull on the top of the screen speaking while a storm rages through the surround speakers. On the S300 the menu lagged a portion of a second between buttons, but the S350 had immediate response.

This is very promising. So far this is the fastest player I have seen. I’m hoping to try out the new Pioneer Elite BDP-01 player soon.

For $399, the BDP-S350 is also reasonably priced in the mid-fi category. Otherwise, Sylvania and Maganavox have players in electronic retailers at $299.

Source: CEPro

Take a survey, enter a PS3 drawing

Home Media Magazine is sponsoring a contest to give away a free PS3. To enter the contest, simply jump over to homemediamagazine.com, scroll down a bit, click on the PS3 contest image in the right-hand column and then fill out a quick survey.