Palsonic All-In-One TV-DVD Player Australia’s own Palsonic has released two new TVs, one of which has a built-in DVD player, HD tuner and speakers.
Budget DVD Player With Bells And Whistles Harman Kardon claims it has produced a DVD player that covers all a users needs including HDMI 1.2a output and 1080p upscaling.
New Bravia Sync Technology For Sony Bravia LCD TVs Sony’s latest range of LCD TVs come with the company’s Bravia Sync technology allowing connectivity between Sony’s other HDMI products, such as home entertainment systems and handycams, without having to utilise multiple remote controls.
Olympians Push Latest Panasonic Roll Out Aussie Olympians Matt Shirvington, Tamsyn Lewis, Bronte Barratt and Ky Hurst have signed up as the faces of Panasonic for the 2008 Beijing Olympics
Consumers Want Web DVD Features According to a report from TDG, consumers are warming to the idea of having web-enabled features on their next DVD player, a good sign for technology vendors looking to sell truly interactive, customised media experiences to buyers.
HD DVD Costs Toshiba $1 Billion Rethinking Future Toshiba may have lost roughly $1 billion on its failed HD DVD business over the last year. That's according to an article by The Nikkei, the daily business newspaper in Japan. As a result of the report Toshiba shares have fallen 2.3%.
Microsoft Exits HD DVD, Digital Downloads Tipped Microsoft has announced it will stop manufacturing HD DVD add-on players for the Xbox 360, but remains committed to offering consumers digital distribution of HD content at home.
Upscaled DVDs Equal To Blu-ray Claims Toshiba Senior Toshiba executives claim that a HD DVD player that upscales a normal DVD movie will deliver quality almost equal to a HD DVD movie or a Blu-ray movie. They also claim that a consumer will struggle to notice the difference if playing it on a new generation plasma or LCD TV. As a result the company will not be refunding consumers who will still be able to play up to a 1,000 released HD DVD movies and watch upscaled DVD movies on their Toshiba HD DVD players.
What Now For Toshiba Later today Toshiba Australia will hold a press briefing to outline the impact that the withdrawal from the HD DVD market will have on the company. Analysts are saying that the company that has spent hundreds of millions fighting Sony's Blu-ray now has a lot of work to do amid the demise of HD-DVD.
It's Official HD Format War Over, Blu-ray The Winner The champagne corks are popping at Sony after Toshiba officially announced that they are pulling the plugs on the HD DVD format. As tipped by SmartHouse on Saturday, Japan's Toshiba Corporation has admitted defeat and quit the HD DVD market after losing the support of key studios and retailers.
HD DVD Consumers Set To Be Left With Dead End Player Tens of thousands of consumers who purchased a HD DVD player, some costing over $1,500, could be asking for their money back after news leaked that Toshiba are set to pull the plug on the format.
Toshiba Quits HD Format War, Blu-ray The Winner Toshiba is set to announce that they are pulling out of the HD DVD business after Warner Bros and US retailers Wal-Mart, K Mart and Best Buy said that they are only going to support Blu-ray. Also contributing to the decision was a move by retailers globally to support Blu-ray over HD DVD.
Xbox 360 HD DVD Player Price Drops Following Toshiba’s announcement to cut prices of its HD DVD players, Microsoft has said it will be almost halving the price of its Xbox 360 HD DVD Player add-on.
HD DVD Cries Help From Hot Water Amidst market commentary that the HD DVD next-generation DVD format is ‘dead’, following a major film company, Warner Bros, cutting ties with the struggling technology, film company Universal Pictures Australasia has come out with news of 20 new HD DVD titles before the end of 2008.
HD DVD Won't Last The Year Out Claims Gartner Gartner, one of the world's leading technology research companies, has said that price cuts by Toshiba and its HD DVD players may prove to be "useless resistance" in the battle against the rival Blu-ray Disc optical disc format, according to Gartner.
Blu-ray Cranks Up Another Notch, Toshiba Fights Back The high def format battle has just been cranked up another notch with the latest US research suggesting that Blu-ray has increased its share of the market during the first few days of January.
97% Of Blu-ray Sales Due To PS3 The Blu-ray Sony PS3 and the HD DVD Xbox 360 attachment have done more to grow the high definition DVD market than any other devices claims a leading research company. Alone the PS3 is accounting for 97% of all Blu-ray device sales.
Big Price Cuts For HD DVD Toshiba (Australia) Pty Ltd Information Systems Division (ISD) today announced it would slash the price of its HD DVD players dramatically and also add free HD DVD movies for customers who purchase one of the players in an attempt to ramp up HD DVD uptake in a market dominated by the rival Blu-ray standard.
American Gangster Holds Up HD DVD Uviversal Studio's have taken it right up to WarnerBro by announcing that they will release the hot movie American Gangster featuring Russell Crowe on HD DVD.
HD DVD To Die Out: Transformers Director After flipping between supporting Blu-ray and HD DVD, Transformers director Michael Bay has now predicted a “slow death” for HD DVD on the back of the Warner Bros announcement to ditch support for the format, and hopes Transformers will come out on Blu-ray in the future.
Toshiba Hits Back Over HD DVD Toshiba may have been wounded with the recent announcement that movie house Warner Bros is set to only support Blu-ray, however it has taken the knock on the chin and is now fighting back by increasing its marketing, and lowering the cost of players.
HD DVD Takes A Battering At CES 2008 HD DVD hit the wall at the 2008 CES Expo in Las Vegas following a decision by movie house Warner to go with Blu-ray. Toshiba executives had a tough moment at their CES press conference, when they had to face reporters just two days after the Warner Bros announcement. However Toshiba says that all is not lost.
Toshiba Gives Away HD DVD Players Toshiba who earlier this year took over distribution of their own branded LCD TV and HD DVD players from Mebourne based distributor Castel have had a record year with JB Hi Fi set to take on the panels in 2008. In their latest announcement the Japanese company announced that they will give away free HD DVD players to consumers who buy a Toshiba LCD TV.
Blu-ray, HD DVD Camps Get Restless Last week Sony Australia, the backers of Blu-ray, put out a press statement claiming that according to GfK Blu-ray outsold HD DVD by over 90% in October. But to coin a phrase of a senior JB Hi-Fi executive “Who gives a rat’s arse”.
Microsoft Pisses Off Transformers Director Over HD DVD Microsoft has been accused by a leading movie director of deliberately trying to confuse consumers over HD DVD, and that the company has no interest in seeing either Blu-ray or HD DVD succeed.
HD DVD Says Sony Blu-ray Figures Biased The local HD DVD Consortium has responded to dubious claims made by Sony Australia today which stated that Blu-ray players and media own a massive 95 per cent of the next generation DVD market, leaving HD DVD for dead.
Draft Standards Document Excludes Full HD UPDATED: Amid speculation that the consumer electronics industry urgently requires a generally-accepted definition of which flatscreen TV technology constitutes ‘full HD’, it has been revealed that Standards Australia has in fact already prepared a draft document outlining a standard of this kind with the help of Panasonic, Sony, LG and BenQ – but the document doesn’t include any reference to ‘full HD’, only HD.
US Format War Turns Nasty A format battle taking place in US retailers over the next week could determine the winner in this all-out battle for HD disc supremacy with the result being felt in Australia by early next year.
10 Free HD DVDs With Toshiba Players Toshiba is determined to get consumers into HD DVD this Christmas, with a new promotion offering 10 free HD DVDs with the purchase of Toshiba’s top-end HD DVD player.
Will Dual Format HD DVD Blu-ray Players Take Off? Since the HD DVD and Blu-ray format wars seems to be far from over, a few companies have decided to take the ‘middle’ ground by creating players that can play both HD DVD and Blu-ray discs. Most recently, Samsung announced such a player and then confirmed a delay in launching the device – leading to questions over whether hybrid players have a place in the market.
Sony Execs Hit Like Stunned Mullets After HD DVD Decision Senior Sony executives are according to one senior insider acting like “Stunned Mullets” today following the decision by key Blu-ray partner JB HiFi to drop its exclusive support for Blu-ray and start selling the Toshiba backed HD DVD format.
Sony & Blu-ray Lose Exclusive JB Hi-Fi Deal Sony and Blu-ray have lost their exclusivity in JB Hi-Fi stores with the announcement that effective from November, the major retailer will start selling HD DVD players and content. The big winner is Toshiba, with JB Hi-Fi Marketing Director Scott Browning conceding that it was the exclusive Paramount content deal with HD DVD that swung him over to the HD DVD format.
Massive Price Cut For Toshiba HD DVD Players EXCLUSIVE: Toshiba has thrown a hand grenade into the Blu-ray, HD DVD battle by slashing the price of HD DVD players to sub $500. The move comes as the market for high definition HD players enters a new content era with Sony claiming that it and Blu-ray will be the only survivors when the war is over.
Microsoft Flexes Its HD DVD Muscle Microsoft is flexing its muscle in the HD DVD market with the announcement that all Toshiba HD DVD players and all HD DVD movie packaging from Universal and Paramount will soon carry the trademarked “HDi” logo, representing the software giant’s contribution in developing the interactive software layer for the platform.
HD DVD Camp Claims It Is Outselling Blu-Ray A few weeks ago, SmartHouse reported that Blu-ray is outselling HD DVD by a 2:1 ratio. Now, the HD DVD Promotion group is fighting this claim with the release of statistics showing that it holds 70 percent of the IT and standalone high definition market in Europe.
Hollywood Directors Slag Off In Blu-Ray HD DVD War The battle between the HD DVD and Blu-ray players has moved to be the battle over content and each party's relationship with Hollywood movie producers. Even Hollywood producers have taken sides. Steven Spielberg is plugging Blu-ray while Transformers director Michael Bay, has thrown a "wobbly"because the studio that bankrolls the movie has backed HD DVD. He prefers the Blu-ray format.
Blu-Ray Outsells HD DVD It appears that the inclusion of a Blu-ray player in the highly popular Sony Playstation 3 console is contributing significantly to the sale of Blu-ray discs after reports in the US market said that it is outselling HD DVDs.
Toshiba Kicks Off New HD DVD Range Toshiba has spearheaded its aggressive push into the domestic AV market with its entry level HD-E1 model
HD DVD Outselling Blu Ray as War Intensifies Only days after Toshiba Australia said they had achieved sales in the tens of thousands for HD DVD players, including those installed in notebooks, comes news that in the USA which is one of the biggest CE markets in the world, Blu Ray hardware sales have declined 27% from Q1 to Q2 and Blu Ray software sales had declined 2%.
Amazon & Microsoft Partner To Push HD DVD The next move in the Blu-ray Vs HD DVD format war has come from Amazon.com and Microsoft, which have teamed up to provide a free service to Indie filmmakers to get their films on HD DVD in an effort to push the format along.
Blu Ray And HD DVD Players Set To Crash In Price A HD price war could break out in Australia with both Toshiba and Sony tipped to launch low cost HD players during the next few weeks. Toshiba are tipped to launch a low cost HD DVD player and Sony a Blu-ray player. It is also tipped that both camps could have a sub $500 player by Xmas.
$300 HD DVD Player Takes On Blu Ray Blu-ray is under pressure following a slam dunk move by US retailing giant Wal Mart which plans to launch a sub $300 HD DVD player. And if that is not enough to derail Blu-ray, the company has ordered 2 million units just for starters.
Xbox HD DVD To Arrive March 29 The long-awaited HD DVD add-on to the Xbox 360 console will finally arrive in Australia on March 29.
HD DVD Code Broken Free HD Downloads The HDTV Blogger web site has reported that the first pirated HD-DVD movies have surfaced on file-sharing websites.
Toshiba HD DVD A Fizzer Castel are staring down the barrel of reduced revenues this Xmas after news leaked out that the much heralded Toshiba HD DVD players will not go on sale this year.
Toshiba HD DVD Player Arrives Australia’s first commercially available HD DVD player from Toshiba will arrive in Australia in mid-December, the company says.
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