Welcome to another episode of format wars – this time Sony makes its first Blu-ray film, and Panasonic announces tech for a drive that can read the format and normal CDs and DVDs

The format war machine is well and truly rumbling – Sony and Panasonic have both announced important milestones in getting Blu-ray into homes.Sony, the Commander-in-chief of the format, has completed its first full-length Blu-ray (BD) disc, Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle.It’s a slightly curious choice, but takes advantage of Blu-ray’s stonking capacity by stuffing the disc with fully-animated menus and, of course, high-definition picture quality and surround sound. We can’t say we’re averse to seeing Cameron Diaz et al jumping around in high-def glory either.The film has been compressed in …

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Microsoft says it has ‘no plans’ to add hi def HD DVD playback to the Xbox 360’s capabilities

Xbox 360 fans agog at the console’s hi def graphics might reasonably have expected to be able to play HD DVDs at some point in the future - just read this month’s mag for our prediction. Microsoft, however, has just come out and said it has ‘no plans’ to add the technology to forthcoming versions of the 360.Given the fact that there’s no HD DVD optical drive in the existing machine, such an upgrade was always going to be a long shot. Still, that didn’t stop the likes of Bill Gates and Yoshihiro Maruyama – head of Xbox in Japan – hinting that they were looking at the technology.So we hoped,…

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Currently, there’s just not a whole lot of options when you’re scouting a pre-fabricated rig that does both HD DVD and Blu-ray on a single optical drive, but adding one more to mix certainly helps. Enter Inteset, which has just announced that an HD DVD / Blu-ray combo drive will be an option in the firm’s Maximus and Denzel media server systems. The machines will reportedly come loaded with CyberLink’s PowerDVD Ultra software, support 7.1-channel surround sound, and sport an array of ports including audio in / out, DVI / VGA / component / S-Video, USB, FireWire, and antenna inputs for the TV t…

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Blu-Ray, the next-generation movie disc format that rivals High-Definition DVD, has another powerful new backer. But does the world need a DVD replacement?

The war over the format for next-generation DVDs has taken another interesting turn, with Warner Brothers defecting from the HD-DVD camp. Well, not quite defecting. More a case of hedging its bets by announcing it’ll support both Sony’s Blu-Ray format and its previous disc of choice, Toshiba’s HD-DVD. Warner’s decision follows a similar move by Paramount last month.You see, there’s currently a big spat over the future of video discs. Why? Because you can’t fit a full movie’s worth of high-definition video onto a normal DVD – and the increasing popularity of high-def TVs means that a new disc…

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So you’ve pondered the benefits of the two high-definition formats, HD DVD and Blu-ray, and you just can’t make up your mind. AACS or AACS? 1080p or 1080p? Well forget building your own homebrew “combination” player or waiting for some manufacturer to build a combo laser or all-in-one disc, and head on over to your local specialty shop to pick up a VidaBox LUX or MAX, as the company has just announced a pair of upgraded combination HD DVD / Blu-ray systems with both formats inside! Having your cake and eating it too will cost you, though: $1629 over the regular $3499 price of the LUX and a gra…

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Panasonic takes the next step and produces a Blu-Ray player that’ll record hi-def footage, too – albeit in a slightly complicated way

Believe it or not, the first VHS machines had only play, fast forward, rewind and stop. The vital record button didn’t come till later.And so it’s been with Blu-Ray. The only way to burn one of Sony’s hi-def discs was to buy a BD-R burner for your PC; dedicated TV boxes have been play only. Now, finally, Panasonic has made the next natural step with its two new DIGA boxes.The DMR-BW200 and DMR-BR100 both offer playback of BD movies but they’ll also record hi-def video to their internal hard drives (500GB and 200GB respectively). 500GB equates to roughly 60 hours of comp…

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US retailers are to shift $100 (£50) HD DVD players from tomorrow. We want them too!

Earlier this week, we brought you news of a sub $200 (£100) Toshiba HD DVD player, about to go on sale in the US. Well, now it seems it’s going on sale for $100. That’s just £50.The HD-A2 is a basic HD DVD player, churning out a maximum resolution of 1080i, missing out the highest setting 1080p. It also supports Dolby TrueHD 5.1 surround sound, HDMI and has an Ethernet port. But for $100, its cheap at twice the price.The new price point, putting even Tesco’s penny-pinching DVD players to shame, is being backed by American retail super-giant Wal-Mart – the US o…

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It seems that every week we hear about a price drop from either HD DVD or Blu-ray, and this week it’s both. First Panasonic announced their DMP-BD10A for $600 and now Toshiba is announcing a $100 in-store instant rebate — our favorite kind — on any HD DVD player purchased between May 20th and June 16th. Assuming no other discounts, you can now get a stand-alone HD DVD player for that magic price of $299. This combined with the free movies promotion, removes any (price-related) excuses for not picking up an HD DVD player, and enjoying the Ultimate Matrix Collection on HD DVD….

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It’s made by Sony, plays Blu-ray discs, is out in the US and not available here yet. No, not the PS3, but the dedicated BDP-S1 movie spinner

Take one PS3, remove all the gaming abilities and what have you got? That’s right, a Blu-ray player. So is there anything to commend Sony’s first stand alone machine?Well first impressions in the States are that the picture quality is superb. It’s also one of the first players to support the enhanced Blu-ray Disc Java extras (BD-J to its friends) found on titles such as The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen - but then so do our PS3s.So will it be worth shelling out for instead of the equally elusive gamer? We’ll put them side by side as soon as we get our hands on one.EssentialsSony BDP-…

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We’ve seen a couple of these “Blu-ray factory-in-a-box” setups already, but thought we’d run another set by you just in case you missed the first wave. The ReflexBlu2 and ReflexBlu4 go for $3000 and $5000, respectively, and can burn Blu-ray, DVD-R and CD-R discs. ReflexBlu2 does up two Blu-ray discs per hour, while the Blu4 manages double that. Both systems hook up to your computer via USB, and sport 250GB HDDs for holding on to nine Blu-ray disc images at once. Sure, the price might sound steep, but your extended family will be thanking you later for those 1080p editions of “Family highlights…

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