Panasonic launched the world’s first portable Blu-Ray player enables HD video viewing on the go, the Panasonic DMP-B15. At a time when more consumers are taking to HD – largely because of falling prices of Blu-Ray players and the disappearance of the competing Toshiba HD format – this somewhat expensive portable Blu-Ray player could well be the first in a trend that is similar to the current proliferation of portable DVD players. The latter were also very expensive (costing more than $2,000) when they were first launched. Now, they can be purchased for $100 plus. The B15 can be connected to a HDTV via HDMI cable and comes equipped with an SD card slot (for viewing pictures, camcorder movies in AVCHD and MPEG2 format and downloaded DivX content) and a LAN port. With the Viera Cast function, users can access YouTube, Picasa and other websites from the Viera Cast screen. The B15 is also backward-compatible and plays CDs and DVDs.
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The war of High Definition format between Blu-ray and HD DVD has come to the end. Toshiba just announced that they will no longer develop, make or market HD DVD players and recorders, handing a victory to rival Blu-ray disc technology in the format battle for next-generation video. “We concluded that a swift decision would be best,” Toshiba President Atsutoshi Nishida told reporters at his company’s Tokyo offices. The move would make Blu-ray ? backed by Sony Corp., Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., which makes Panasonic brand products, and five major Hollywood movie studios ? the winner in the battle over high-definition DVD formatting that began several years ago. Nishida said last month’s decision by Warner Bros. Entertainment to release movie discs only in the Blu-ray format made the move inevitable. Warner joined Sony Pictures, Walt Disney Co. and News Corp.’s Twentieth Century Fox in that move.

“That had tremendous impact,” he said. “If we had continued, that would have created problems for consumers, and we simply had no chance to win.”

Both HD DVD and Blu-ray deliver crisp, clear high-definition pictures and sound, which are more detailed and vivid than existing video technology. They are incompatible with each other, and neither plays on older DVD players. But both formats play on high-definition TVs. HD DVD was touted as being cheaper because it was more similar to previous video technology, while Blu-ray boasted bigger recording capacity. Nishida said his company had confidence in HD DVD as a technology and tried to assure the estimated 1 million people, including some 600,000 people in North America, who already bought HD DVD machines by promising that Toshiba will continue to provide product support for the technology.
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Gateway has released two new high-end desktop PCs under GM series with decent configuration, the Gateway GM5664 and Gateway GM5662. The GM5662 is a bit low end, while in GM5664, the built-in Blu-ray + HD DVD dual format hybrid drive, give you enjoy titles from both camps. Besides that, the GM5662 comes with 500GB HDD storage, while the GM5664 comes with 1TB HDD storage. The rest of system specs:

• AMD Phenom 9600 Processor (AMD Live!) (2.30GHz, 2MB L3 cache, 3600MHz system bus)
• Genuine Windows Vista Home Premium (32-bit)
• 3GB Memory
• 1000GB 7200rpm hard drive (GM5664), 500GB 7200rpm hard drive (GM5662)
• Hybrid Blu-ray/HD DVD player and SuperMulti DVD-RW DL drive
• ATI Radeon HD 2400XT 256MB discrete video memory with Dual-DVI, S-Video and HDMI supported
• Gateway 15-in-1 media card reader with copy button and IR receiver
• Gateway USB 2.0 speakers
• Analog/digital TV tuner

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Denon has unveiled the coming 2 new High-end Blu-Ray players. The first one, Denon DVD-3800BD, comes with alot of nice features. It supports 1080p24, a DAC of 12bit/297MHz, the D.D.S.C-HD (Dynamic Discrete Surround Circuit-HD), D.P.I.C. (DENON Pixel Image Correction), as well as the AL24 Processing Plus from Denon, HDMI 1.3a, RCA/BNC, RS-232C. While for the second, the Denon DVD-2500BT, comes with only HDMI 1.3a and RS-232C, but with DivX supports.
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While the format fighting between Blu-ray and HD-DVD is still going on, ASUS has taken the direction to launch its new Blu-ray drive, ASUS BC-1205PT. The drive is capable of reading Blu-ray media, and also to write to all DVD formats. This ASUS drive promises to be a compromise for those who don’t require the additional Blu-ray writing capabilities, yet hanker for HD content. It comes with SATA interface and 4MB buffer.
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Sharp has unveiled an ultimate video recording machine, a Blu-Ray dual Layer video recorder with 1TB of HDD, the Sharp BD-HDW20. Together with this is the Digital W TV Tuner (2 Digital tuners) with is best compatible with the DTS-HD, Dolby NR TrueHD, DTS-HD HRA. In addition to this model, Sharp also proposed a lighter version of the HDW20 with a 500GB HDD, the Sharp BD-HDW15, as well as the Sharp BD-AV10, which does not have an HDD. It also only has 1 Digital tuner. Finally, the cheapest Blu-ray recorder on the Japanese market, the Sharp BD-AV1, with a single Digital TV Tuner, only able to record 1 layer Blu-Ray discs.
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LG has introduced a new desktop PC that support HD (high definition) format disc compatible drives in Korea market, LG LX97WH. Dubbed “Black Picasso Super Multi Blue Edition“, this machine comes with dual-format disc drive, supporting both Blu-Ray and HD-DVD media. At just 8.9cm thick, it also features an Intel Bearlake platform, Intel Core 2 Duo processor, nVidia GeForce 8 Series graphics engine, 3D pattern case design, and a slide-type panel.
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Mitsubishi and Pioneer has announced that they have been working on the development of a new Blu-Ray disc (cheaper to produce) using a new technique similar to the one used for DVD-R and CD-R. Well, we can expect to have more affordable Blu-ray disc in the near future.

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