Blu-ray Facts And News

An internet user posted the right question: “When will you guys make up your minds?”. The consumer is becoming more confused by the hour with different companies backing different HD formats, and then some companies changing their mind. Paramount has dropped it’s support for Blu-Ray and is now backing a different horse, HD DVD. Why? According to this site it’s cold hard cash. Consumers will most likely be forced to follow whatever format the big corporate world decides to go with. It’s time for some inexpensive hybrid-format players to appear on the market.

LOS ANGELES, Aug. 20 — Paramount Pictures, a unit of Viacom Inc. (NYSE: VIA and VIA.B) and DreamWorks Animation SKG (NYSE: DWA), each announced today that they will exclusively support the next-generation HD DVD format on a worldwide basis. The exclusive HD DVD commitment will include all movies distributed by Paramount Pictures, DreamWorks Pictures, Paramount Vantage, Nickelodeon Movies and MTV Films, as well as movies from DreamWorks Animation, which are distributed exclusively by Paramount Home Entertainment.

The companies each said that the decision to distribute exclusively in the HD DVD format resulted from an extensive evaluation of current market offerings, which confirmed the clear benefits of HD DVD, particularly its market-ready technology and lower manufacturing costs. Paramount Home Entertainment will launch its exclusive HD DVD program with the release of the blockbuster comedy hit “Blades of Glory” on August 28th and follow with two of the biggest grossing movies of the year “Transformers” and “Shrek the Third”. These three titles alone represent more than $1.5 billion in box office ticket sales worldwide.

Click here for the full press release.

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Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment will be releasing it’s first interactive Blu-ray releases next year. The movies will add advanced interactivity, such as Web-ready content and picture-in-picture bonus features. There is one issue though, and that is that none of the currently available Blu-ray players can actually PLAY the interactive parts - and only the Playstation 3 can make use of the Web-enabled content. Good news for the people who haven’t bought a Blu-ray player yet, or who want to upgrade, as after October 31 of this year new players will be required to play interactive content. Critics are wary of added features since quite a few features of the conventional DVD system have never been fully utilized. The movies Disney will be releasing in 2008 are: “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe in spring 2008, National Treasure in summer of 2008 and culminating with Disney/Pixar’s Finding Nemo and Sleeping Beauty in fall 2008.”

Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment next year will bow its first Blu-ray Disc titles with advanced interactivity, including Web-enabled and picture-in-picture bonus features.

National Treasure will be configured as a BD-Live disc, the format’s term for software that features interactivity accessed through the Web.

Picture-in-picture, with which a separate video streams plays concurrently with the feature film, will be included on Finding Nemo and The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

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It is being presented as the world’s first BluRay camcorder, the DZ-BD70 Hitachi camera. With high definition recording capabilities and it’s ability to record directly onto BluRay discs makes this an interesting piece of hardware to watch! It comes in two versions, and is set to be released world wide in October this year. The DZ-BD7H model includes a 30 gigabyte hard disk for even more BluRay storage space.

Some tasty technical specifications:

5.3 Megapixel CMOS Sensor
High Definition Lens
HDMI and USB Connectivity
2.7” Wide TTF
Full 1080 HD support

Hitachi’s BluRay cammy official
First BluRay camcorder set to reach these shores in October.

Hitachi’s world-first BluRay camcorder will be here in October. Get saving people.

Hitachi has already shown off the world’s first BluRay cammy, but now we’ve got a launch date and raft of new details on this hi-def superstar.

Read the whole article HERE.

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