LG To Offer Network Blu-ray Disc Players

I guess Blu-ray hasn’t really taken off according to Sony’s liking (as well as the other partners in the Blu-ray conglomerate), as it sure is taking its time compared to DVDs back in the day where the latter was released. Well, at least it is making inroads after a short but bitter battle with HD DVD, but it has been more than a year now since HD DVD was declared to have given up the fight, and yet not that many people are adopting Blu-ray players in their living rooms. This time round, LG Electronics aim to offer something different for their new range of Blu-ray players featuring NetCast Entertainment Access and Wi-Fi capabilities in the US.

Consumers will be spoilt for choice when it comes to extensive content-on-demand options for instant access to Roxio CinemaNow, Netflix and YouTube content. It does raise an interesting question though - back in the day where there were just a couple of TV channels, we were extremely hooked and would watch anything and everything. Fast forward to today and you have hundreds of channels, where you will still find someone sitting down on a couch, flipping channels and remarking, “There isn’t anything good to watch.” Ironic, isn’t it? Well, the LG BD370 and BD390 Network Blu-ray players were first unveiled at CES 2009, with the latter being the first-ever Blu-ray player to offer an interactive Download-to-Own and Pay-Per-View options, giving consumers the freedom to purchase content from Roxio CinemaNow at the click of the remote. It also boasts 1GB of internal memory to cater for BD Live functionality.

Both models will feature the following :-

• 1080p up-scaling for standard DVDs
• Dolby TrueHD surround sound
• DTS-HD Master Audio Essential
• USB 2.0 Media Host
• 1GB built-in memory (BD390)
• Wireless capability (BD390)

The BD370 and BD390 will retail for $299.95 and $399.95 respectively. Image from ibdcegypt.

Press Release

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LG HB954TBW Blu-Ray Player Includes iPod Dock

Sometimes the most ingenious technological advances are really the most obvious. Case in point, the LG HB954TBW Blu-ray 5.1 Home Theater Combo.

I am assuming that it is called a Combo because this Blu-Ray player has a unique feature of a slide-out iPod dock. This feature really is obvious, really. Does anyone know if this is the first Blu-Ray player to offer such a painfully obvious feature? I would have thought that an iPod dock would have been a standard in all DVD players by now.

Unfortunately, my sources don’t have much information about the HB954TBW other than that. Most of them have said that it accepts all iPod models, but it is sketchy about whether or not it will accept the iPhone.

However, the real question is whether or not this will play video content from the iPod on the player. The next question would be what quality the video would be?

According to my source, the LG HB954TBW was on display at CES. However, I remember visiting the LG booth, and I don’t remember seeing it there at all. Well, it did take up a lot of conference space.

We do know one thing: the price. It should be about $1,000, and it will only be sold in Korea.

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‘Twilight’ the Top Selling DVD of 2009

The vampires in Twilight might be chaste, but fans of the movie are making sweet love to the DVD, making it the biggest home video release of 2009. That might not be saying much - it is, after all, just the end of the first quarter - but 5.6 million units sold in eight days is a big number.

Twilight is already a 300,000 DVDs ahead of Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa, which was released in early February. And this is really just the first phase. Apparently, only 3% of the business comes from Blu-ray sales, and that’s because Target and Best Buy have a deal to sell the Blu-ray exclusively until May 5th. Still, do the math: That’s 168,000 Blu-ray sales in eight days. Not too shabby.

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Price Increase For Blu-ray Movies On Netflix

This appeared on the Netflix Blog this morning…

Hi, Jessie Becker here, VP of Marketing, with a message for our members who have added Blu-ray access to their accounts. This message does not apply to you if you have not added Blu-ray access to your account.

The number of titles available for us to purchase on Blu-ray has increased significantly. Our Blu-ray selection has grown more than 60% in just 6 months to over 1,300 titles, and is continuing to expand quickly. Blu-ray adoption among our members has also grown – it’s now close to 10%. As we buy more, you are able to choose from a rapidly expanding selection of Blu-ray titles. And as you’ve probably heard, Blu-ray discs are substantially more expensive than standard definition DVDs – often as much as 30% more.

We’re committed to providing a high quality Blu-ray experience for our members who choose to add Blu-ray access, and in order to do that we need to adjust Blu-ray pricing. As a result, the monthly charge for Blu-ray access is increasing for most plans and will now vary by plan.

If you have added Blu-ray access to your account, this change will take effect on your next billing date on or after April 27, 2009. You will also receive an email from us letting you know the monthly charge for your plan. (Members who do not have Blu-ray access today and add it to their account in the future will see the new prices as of today.)

To avoid any confusion, here are the charges for each of the plans.

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Blu-ray Prices Dropping Soon

The price of Blu-ray discs will be coming down. Electronista reported earlier today that Panasonic, Philips, and Sony have agreed to form a single licensing firm for the discs. By combining all the required licenses for Blu-ray, DVD, and CD in one place, the new project, once operational, will allow companies to visit one place to acquire rights to Blu-ray burners, discs, and players, which should result in a drop of license prices.

This is a result of a few market conditions. To begin with, you have the economy: Toilet. And then you have the numbers relating to DVD sales versus Blu-ray sales, and while the new technology is slowly gaining ground, that’s just it. It’s slowly gaining ground.

The licensing, believe it or not, is a huge financial concern for manufactures and patent holders. Not too many years ago, a company wanting to make a standard DVD player would have to pay a $15 license for each unit. That’s before anything actually gets made.

Blu-ray Prices to Come Down

Yet Another Terminator 2 Edition Coming Out On Disc

Terminator 2: Judgment Day will be headed to Blu-Ray on May 19th in a special Skynet Edition. True, there is a one-disc version of the Blu-Ray already available, but this is much, much more than that.

To begin with, Lionsgate Home Entertainment has packed over eight hours of interactive features into the Skynet Edition, which includes over two hours of behind-the-scenes videos and multimedia galleries. There is, of course, no coincidence that Terminator Salvation will arrive in theaters three days later.

The fun doesn’t stop with just the Skynet Edition, however. There’s also a Limited Edition T2 Complete Collector’s Set, which includes six discs and comes with a 14" T-800 Endoskull, perfect for any occasion. Well, almost. The Complete Collector’s Set has everything ever released on DVD for T2 and you’ll also get a digital copy so you can take it with you wherever your iPod goes. Click to enlarge the sweet new Blu-Ray cover art:

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Zack Snyder Talks Watchmen DVD Details

The film is still a few weeks away from hitting theaters but that is not stopping Watchmen director Zach Snyder from spilling details on the DVD release, saying that the film will be released in two other versions.

“We’re hoping that we do, at the time of relase of the DVD in July, they release a director’s cut, which is three hours long,” Snyder said at the Watchmen press junket on Wednesday. “In the fall, they’re going to do the Black Freighter cut, which is all the ins and outs of the Black Freighter, which is the comic book within the comic book. We shot all of those. The final result of that is like a 3-hour, 30-minute/25-minute version of the movie which is everything. It’s the kitchen sink version.

“It’s really three different movies in a lot of ways. I think the theatrical versions, which is radically strange in its own way, fits IMAX. I think the director’s cut, which is almost three hours, is pretty much most of the stuff that we shot, 99 percent of the stuff that we shot, which I like by the way.”

What can we expect from the directors cut.
“It’s more violent, if you can imagine,” he said. “It’s slightly more sexy. It’s more Manhattan nudity. It’s just more of everything.”

Source: ComicNews.info

Lots Of Star Trek Goodness Coming to Blu Ray

To help promote the the release of the latest “Star Trek” film in May, CBS & Paramount Home Video are bringing a lot of classic “Star Trek” to Blu-ray in the coming months.

Kicking things off on April 28th will be the Blu-Ray release of the first season of the original series. This new release will include two versions of each episode, the original episode as it aired in 1966 and the remastered episodes, including new digitally created effects.

On May 12, fans will have their options when it comes to buying the feature films featuring the original cast. Fans can purchase all six original films in a box set or they can purchase the popular film trilogy of II, III and IV on Blu-Ray. These new releases will be the original theatrical cuts of the films according to TrekMovie. This will be the first time that “Star Trek: The Motion Picture” has been released in its original theatrical cut in several years. It was released on DVD several years ago as a special director’s cut and the original version has only been previously available on VHS.

The “Genesis trilogy” set of films will also be released on DVD on May 12.

Details Emerge on High Definition Akira Blu-ray Restoration

I love my 2001 tin-case DVD release of Akira, but since word hit the street that the film was getting a high-definition Bluray restoration I’ve been aching to learn how it was going to be improved. A recent post over at Blu-ray.com sheds some light on this highly anticipated release, and thankfully, it sounds like we’re getting more than just a higher-resolution version of the 2001 Akira release.

From the site:

Even though AKIRA had major restoration work done for the 2001 DVD release, including a 1080p theatrical quality master, advances in digital restoration and film transfer technologies have increased to the point where a brand new transfer was warranted. As with the audio, a new inter-positive was struck from the original film negative for a new scan into a digital intermediate (DI); the master computer file upon which all of the remastering work was performed.

Apparently, the Blu-ray release is also getting an uncompressed PCM 192Khz/24bit 5.1 audio track as well (which in layman’s terms means it’s totally sick), which was developed by the film’s composer, Shoji Yamashiro. While high-definition audio formats like DVD-Audio and Sony’s SACD are pretty much dead in the water at this point, I’d kill for this higher resolution version of the score to get released on one of those formats.

And for those of you worried that all of the digital remastering may erase some of the film’s original magic, Blu-ray producer Jun Takei seems to be keeping tabs on that:

Mr. Takei feels it is very important to maintain the character of the original film and the warmth of hand-painted animation. Even though modern audiences have grown used to computer painted animation it is very easy to go overboard during the cleaning process in an attempt to come closer to that look and feel, as has been the case with some Hollywood films where processing and noise reduction has been used to excess. Subsequently, AKIRA was given a thorough color correction and Mr. Takei believes the restoration team has gotten very close to the luster of the original animation cels, restoring the picture to a condition that allows AKIRA to be experienced as its creators had intended.

I’m sure this isn’t going to be the last anime film or series to get a Blu-ray restoration, but it definitely sounds like Bandai Visual and Pioneer has set the bar for high-definition anime remasters.

Akira hits Blu-ray on February 24, 2009.

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Watchmen: Tales of the Black Freighter Teaser Trailer

Warner Premiere has released a movie trailer for the animated direct-to-DVD adaptation of the comic book within the story of Watchmen - Tales of the Black Freighter. You can watch it embedded after the jump or in High Definition on MTV.com. Looks pretty good for a home video production.

Tales of the Black Freighter will hit store shelves on March 10th 2009.

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