Think you have missed the whole Psystar-Apple trial? Well think again, the game is on and there’s no winner yet. But it looks like Psystar isn’t that interested in the whole Apple trial thing as they have just launched new Mac clones. The computers come equipped with Blu-rays and NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GT graphic cards. The Blu-ray upgrade will cost you $310 more while the 512MB GeForce 9800GT will cost you $200 more than the usual Open Computer price. Probably you’ll get your money back when you will have to return the product! Oh yeah, that’s what I think about the Psystar-Apple predicament so far!

via MacUser

Tags: Apple, Blu-ray, Desktop PCs, Mac clone, Mobile News, nvidia, Psystar, trial

I know, I know, a lot of you guys have been waiting for Xbox to have a Blu-ray drive. When rumors came up saying MS will add a Blu-Ray drive to the 360, I’m sure most of you were dancing all over the place. But I’m sorry, I have to pour cold water over your heads. Microsoft has once again denied the latest rumor that it’ll launch a Blu-ray Disc drive add-on for the Xbox 360.

Yes, that’s right! An article from The Register stated that a blogger going by the name of “Major Nelson” has posted an audio interview online with Aaron Greenberg, Microsoft’s Group Product Manager for the Xbox 360. In the interview, which took place at the Tokyo Game Show this week, Greenberg said: “We have no plans to integrate Blu-ray into the Xbox experience.”

However, Greenberg went on to say: “We also believe that the future’s digital, and that’s why we’ve invested in a massive library of entertainment content.” His statements seem to confirm the statements released by Microsoft back in May in which it stated that is has “no plans to introduce a Blu-ray drive for Xbox 360” because “games are what drive consumers to purchase game consoles”.

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Tags: Blu-ray, Drive, microsoft, microsoft, Mobile News, Mobile Software, Portable Devices, Xbox 360

Yes, we already know that Microsoft is planning on releasing Xbox 360’s with a Blu-ray drive, however, X-bit labs reported that its even more sweeter than that as the company already has the device ready to go.

According to the report, Toshiba and Samsung have been asked to come up with the external Blu-ray solution for the Xbox 360. Rumors are also floating around claiming a $100-to-$150 price point. We all know the impact of this move by Microsoft. It will eliminate one PS3’s major advantage and could bolster the Xbox 360 to even greater heights.

If this is true, then those who are “patiently” anticipating could have this either during the holidays or via a show like CES.

Tags: Blu-ray, microsoft, Mobile News, Portable Devices, Xbox 360

Blu-ray players are finally reaching the level of affordability that will allow most consumers to upgrade to the technology.

Making it the first Blu-ray player from Sony to be cheaper than the PS3, the mainstream BDP-S350 Blu-ray player can be yours for a cool $299.99. Adding icing to the cake is the fact that it is one of the few players out there that supports BD-LIVE that allows content downloads from the web.

You’ll, however, have to manually update the firmware on the player, but that will take only a couple of minutes at most.

Note that the price is from Sony’s own Style site, so the player can be had for cheaper from competing webstores.

Tags: bd-live, Blu-ray, Sony, Uncategorized

Yes, Sony today announced the VAIO TT laptops – the lightest, smallest laptops that feature Blu-ray drives.

The TT comes in a sub 1-inch thick, 2.87 pound chassis made from carbon-fiber; it features a 11.1 inch wide-screen monitor. Sony claims that it is the lightest notebook in the world right now that features Blu-ray capabilities.

The VAIO TT is powered by Intel’s Centrino 2 processors, features HDMI output, dual channel 256GB SSD setup with RAID, Sprint WWAN and Windows Vista.

Set for release this Fall, the laptops will arrive in carbon black, silk black, champagne gold and crimson red skins. The Blu-ray version will go for $2,700 and the SSD going for just $50 more.

Tags: Blu-ray, Laptops, Sony, vaio tt

Sony unveiled two new Vaio laptops in the NS and CS series, both equipped with Blu-ray Disc technology. Pushing HD entertainment to the mid-range laptops, the NS notebook features the BD-ROM drive as an optional accessory but comes with DVD/CD read-write functions.

The VAIO NS is equipped with a 15.4 inch widescreen display and XBRITE-ECO LCD technology. An integrated AV mode with dedicated menu lets you conveniently access up to nine programs from a single location. Under the hood is an Intel Core 2 Duo processor. Available in nightfall blue, silk white and granite silver, the VAIO NS will start at US $650 for the non-Blu-ray Disc model and the one with it will start at around $1,000.

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Tags: Blu-ray, Centrino, core2duo, Laptops, Vaio, xbrite

Looking for a Blu-ray camcorder? Hitachi has a hybrid now, the DZ-BD10HA which will do the trick for you. Its 7 megapixel CMOS image sensor will get you both photos and videos in FullHD quality. (more…)

Tags: Blu-ray, camcorder, Camcorders, HDTV, hitachi, Portable Devices

Rumored before, the cooperation between Netflix and LG is going to be official in September. LG’s Blu-Ray disc player, the BD300 will be streaming Netflix movies in the US. More than 12,000 TV shows and movies will be available through it at no additional costs on monthly Netflix subscription.

You will be able to select movies and add them in queue from your TV. They will start playing in about 30 seconds. What else do you need? Where’s the popcorn? Oh, and the LG Blu-Ray will retail for up to $500 and it will also support BD Live, LG SimpLink for LG TV and AV products.

Tags: Blu-ray, LG, media player, Mobile Software, Netflix, Portable Devices

Sony’s new Blu-ray player is the BDP-S350. It was announced back in February but it hasn’t been available in the mean time. The BDP-S350 features BonusView and BD-Live. Sony’s Precision Camera HD Upscale feature converts standard-definition signals to full HD signals to any connected TV through the HDMI port. The player is compatible with various disk formats: BD-R/RE, DVD+R/+RW, DVD-R/-RW, CD, CD-R/RW and JPEG or DVD/CD.
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Tags: Blu-ray, media player, Portable Devices, Sony

Here’s a first in the Laptop business. Asus UK have launched the first 1 Terabyte laptop ever. That’s a lot of storage right there. The Asus M70SA is the model we are talking about. The M70SA will pack two 500GB drives for a total of 1TB storage space. You will never delete another file. Well actually you will but you won’t have to.

Let’s see what they’ve managed to pack besides those two hard drives:

• a 2.5GHz Intel Core 2 Duo T9300,
• Windows Vista Ultimate
• ATI HD3650 with 1Gb VRAM,
• up to 4Gb of DDRII system RAM,
• Altec Lansing speakers,
• Dolby Digital sound,
• 17″ high definition screen,
• dual mode multimedia touchpad,
• integrated TV-tuner,
• 802.11a/b/g/n WiFi,
• 1.3 megapixels webcam,
• Bluetooth connectivity,
• fingerprint scanner
• Blu-ray combo drive.

Whew! I got tired just writing all that down. No need to say I’d like one of those babies. And since it’s the season for Batman related products, this Asus will come with a free copy of the Batman Begins Blu-ray DVD.

And here’s where I tell you we don’t have a price yet. Big surprise there. But with all of that hardware put together we should get a few thousand dollars ready. At least you’ll save some money on external drives. If you aren’t going to backup any data that is…

via iTwire

Tags: ASUS, Blu-ray, hard disk drive, Laptops, Laptops, Notebooks

After the Sony Blu-ray player won the format war, a lot of manufacturers have scrambled to include Blu-ray drives/players in their hardware lineup. The latest of these is Dell which incorporated a Blu-ray drive into one of their sub-$1000 laptop - the Inspiron 1525.

Consumers can still purchase an Inspiron 1525 with the basic specs, but now, they have an option to include a Blu-ray disc playback starting at $879.

The award-winning Inspiron 1525 laptop still features the same specs, particularly a 15.4-inch high definition wide aspect display, a 720p resolution, an HDMI port for easy connectivity to high resolution displays. Basically, the only upgrade at this time is the Blu-ray player disc drive which is fully backwards compatible.

The Blu-ray drive still functions like your old CD/DVD drive but with the capability to play Blu-ray format media. But that’s not all, consumers can also chose a Blu-ray burner drive, which is great for backing up and storing important files like digital photos, videos, financial records, etc. A Blu-ray disc will hold up to 50 GB of data, which is bigger than the 8.5 GB available on the typical DVD disc.

Dell Inspiron 1525 laptops with Blu-ray disc drives incorporate Broadcom Media PC technology that allows PCs with integrated graphics to play high definition video. The high-definition video playback is enabled through a built-in dedicated accelerator located in a mini-card slot.

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Tags: Blu-ray, Dell, inspiron, laptop, Laptops

HD-DVD lost the high-def disc format in battle which many seems to think it never had a chance to win from the start. After Toshiba’s retreat from the forefront of the high-def disc formats, it’s only normal to expect various Blu-ray-centric devices to crop up. PLDS or Philips & Lite-On Digital Solutions, understands the demand for the format and hence, has come up with the world’s first USB-connected external BD-ROM drive. Called the Lite-On DX-4O1S, it can read the following formats:

Blu-ray Disc media at 4X
single-layer DVD at 12X
dual-layer DVD at 8X
CD media at 32X maximum

“Due to recent market developments we can expect an increasing volume of movies to be released in high definition on Blu-ray Discs,” said Jelmer Veldman, European Marketing Manager at PLDS. “The market adoption of Blu-ray as the optical disc standard for High Definition content results in a growing demand for Blu-ray playback solutions. The portable external Lite-On BD-ROM drive allows users to playback their Blu-ray discs on any PC via a USB 2.0 cable.”

The Lite-On DX-4O1S USB external Blu-ray Drive will start shipping on the second quarter of 2008.

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Tags: Blu-ray, external optical drive, Portable Devices

Seems like everyone’s going full speed ahead for the CES convention on January 7. Whereas at this time, a few years ago, we were discussing the impending release of blu-ray disc drives in the future, this time, Panasonic will release its thinnest blu-ray disc drive yet on CES 2007. The new disc drive is specially designed for lightweight notebooks and can even be used for ultra-mobile PCs. It is 0.37 of an inch thick (as compared to the previous half-inch thick model) with 2x burning speed and can burn Blu-ray format high-definition DVDs.

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Tags: Blu-ray, Laptops, Panasonic

Hitachi unveiled two new HD video camcorders that can record video onto Blu-ray media. Touted as the world’s first Blu-ray Disc camcorder, Hitachi unveiled the new DZ-BD70A and DZ-BD7HA camcorders.

DZ-BD70A
The DZ-BD70A is a single drive camcorder capable of recording 1 hour of Full HD (1920×1080) high definition video on a standard 8cm single-sided Blu-ray disk (BD-R and BD-RE). For natural colors, the Hitachi camcorder uses a 5.3 megapixel CMOS image sensor and HD quality 12-element lens system. For additional media storage, the camcorder is equipped with an SD card slot - great for storing digital still images taken with the camcorder. The still image resolution is 4.32 megapixels, which is pretty decent. As is common to many other camcorders, the DZ-BD70A features a Photo Capture feature to grab a still frame from any video and save it as a photo onto the SD card (at 2.1 megapixel resolution). As an added bonus, the DZ-BD70A can also record videos onto DVD discs.

DZ-BD7HA
The DZ-BD7HA is a hybrid model offering both an internal 30 GB hard drive and Blu-ray recording capability. The 30GB is good for up to 4 hours of Full HD 1920×1080 HX mode video or almost 8 hours in HS mode (1440×1080). With the touch of a single button, videos on the internal HDD can be burnt onto a Blu-ray disc or DVD (thanks to the Transcoding feature). So you won’t have to wait until you get access to a computer when you want to share your videos.

Both camcorders feature 10x zoom (non-spherical lens), and come in a sleek, round body. HDMI and component video output are available for video playback. A built-in Interactive Guide available on the camcorders help those that are new to them.

The DZ-BD70A Hitachi Blu-ray camcorder is priced at US $1,299, while the DZ-BD7HA Hybrid HDD/Blu-ray camcorder comes at US $1,499. Both camcorders will hit North America in October 2007.

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Tags: Blu-ray, camcorder, Camcorders, dvd, hd, HDD camcorder, hitachi, hs, hx, sd