HD-DVD | Procrastinating in the Heat

CES 2008

Over in Las Vegas, the Consumer Electronics Show is filled with news about the latest HD entertainment hardware for the masses. Let’s take a look at the major news so far.

Warner Brothers goes Blu-ray
In the current muddled world of highdef entertainment, HD-DVD and Blu-Ray have been waging a format war similar to Beta and VHS. The WB has remained on the fence until this week announcing they will stop producing their films on HD-DVD this May and focus solely on Blu-Ray. This makes the Blu discs of Sony the only carriers of Disney, WB, Sony Pictures and Fox. The only holdouts left are NBC Universal, Paramount and Dreamworks. Shortly after the announcement, the HD-DVD group canceled their press conference and rumors came out that a clause in the HD-DVD deal with Paramount suggests that they too will switch to Blu Ray.

Well this format war seems shorter than expected which is good for consumers and a pain for early adopters (like me). We’ll see in the coming months the impact on hardware sales for both formats.

JVC shows off world’s thinnest LCD screen

At just 9mm thick, it is the world thinnest LCD display. Currently just for show and no signs yet of it being commercially available. Looks like it may work it’s way to outdoor advertising.

Next week will be a very exciting week in San Francisco where the mac faithful will converge at the Moscone Center for Macworld. Apple just announced upgrades for their Xserve and Mac Pro product line which may suggest that Steve Jobs’ keynote is really packed with stuff. Will the iPhone make it to Asia as he announced last year? Or will the much rumored “ultra-portable” make it’s debut? We’ll all know on January 15.

2008: 01/09
POSTED BY: mdelamerced
CATEGORY: gadgets
TAGS: apple
Blu-ray
CES
HD-DVD
iphone
JVC
macworld
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Something that should have been with the elite

Xbox 360 to get built-in HD DVD drive in late 2008? – Engadget

This is just so late. This should have been with the Elite that came out nine months ago. It’s like an unwanted child that was aborted at the last minute before they made the delivery. It might have made a difference where HD-DVD is at the moment. Yes, I know that the HD wars is far from over but the amount of money that I’ve spent on my Xbox 360 to get it into HD is probably the same amount that I would have spent to get a PS3.

And what does this do to all of us early adopters? Well we just got screwed over by Microsoft. At least I haven’t bought anything non-game related at the Xbox Marketplace only to discover that I can’t transfer any of it to a Zune (if I ever owned one). Let’s see how this pans out this Holiday. Maybe at the same time they would finally fix all those overheating 3RL errors.