Archive for the ‘blu-ray’ Category

Remainders – Stuff We Didn’t Post (and Why) [Remainders]

Trade in Your DVDs, Plus a Couple Bucks, and Get the Blu-ray Versions…Steve Ballmer Acknowledges Apple’s Gains, Remains Cocky…Sanyo to Build Houses Powered by Solar Energy and Li-Ion Batteries…Sony Announces Vague “iTunes-Like” Store on PlayStation Network for Books, Movies, Music…

Trade in Your DVDs, Plus a Couple Bucks, and Get the Blu-ray Versions

Warner set up a DVD to Blu-ray exchange program called, appropriately enough, DVD2Blu, as sort of a more-tempting version of its HD-DVD to Blu-ray version. The problem is, it’s not actually that great of a deal; you’re limited to Warner movies, obviously, but it also costs $8-10 per DVD, plus $5 shipping, for the exchange. You might actually be better off just hitting Best Buy or Walmart or whatever and looking for sales, since DVD2Blu could cost you 18 bucks plus the agony of waiting for your new HD copy of The Wedding Singer: Totally Awesome Edition to arrive. [Engadget]

Steve Ballmer Acknowledges Apple’s Gains, Remains Cocky

Microsoft held a shareholder’s meeting this morning, led by the always-dynamic Steve Ballmer, and an interesting question came up: Why does Microsoft have such a lousy reputation among certain demographics, like, say, upper-middle-class college kids? Ballmer admitted that Apple’s been seeing some gains that, while small, are a clear sign that Microsoft has room for improvement, either in marketing or product positioning. It’s a pretty clear-headed statement from Ballmer—after all, he notes, Microsoft still has an insane marketshare, even in the high-end consumer demo, so despite Apple’s visibility, Microsoft doesn’t exactly have cause for concern. That level-headedness is why this story’s in Remainders: Where’s the explosive, frothing-at-the-mouth, prone to Bidenesque gaffes Ballmer we all know and, um, know? [TechFlash]

Sanyo to Build Houses Powered by Solar Energy and Li-Ion Batteries

Sanyo, considered Japan’s “greenest” electronics manufacturer (sort of like being the best-dressed homeless person), is about to start building solar-powered, lithium-ion-based homes in its native country. The houses are all equipped with LED lighting, solar-powered water heater, all that stuff. They’ll be a little pricey, at around $355,000—an equivalent non-green house would cost $62,000 less, although the Sanyo houses come with a $30,000 government subsidy. It’s in Remainders because it’s Japan only, and because I don’t understand enough Japanese to learn any more about it. [Crunchgear]

Sony Announces Vague “iTunes-Like” Store on PlayStation Network for Books, Movies, Music

Sony announced the tentatively named Sony Online Service today—it’s described as an “iTunes-like” service on the PlayStation Network, offering movies, music, and books, all media for which Sony also sells accompanying hardware. It’ll also allow users to upload their own video, and will probably have support for independent app development later on down the road. We don’t really know much else, like, say, a launch date or pricing (or even a final name), so it winds up here, alone in the dark corner of Gizmodo we call Remainders. [AppleInsider via Engadget]

JVC joins the sub-$200 Blu-ray player game with ultrathin XV-BP11

Sub-$200 Blu-ray players certainly aren’t new — heck, some guys have been doing it since the year 2008 — but you’ll never catch us kvetching about a little more competition. JVC has today introduced (in the briefest way possible, might we add) its newest Blu-ray player just ten months after deciding to play the BD game here in the States. The ultrathin (and “now available”) XV-BP11 should slide into just about any AV rack, bringing Blu-ray / DVD playback, AVCHD support, HDMI 1.3, a USB socket and compatibility with a slew of audio formats. Curiously enough, the outfit doesn’t bother to mention if this thing is Profile 2.0, but we’re guessing (read: hoping) that it wouldn’t do something as ludicrous as charge two bills for a Profile 1.1 deck in late 2009. Then again, we’ve seen zanier things go down…

Continue reading JVC joins the sub-$200 Blu-ray player game with ultrathin XV-BP11

Filed under: Home Entertainment

JVC joins the sub-$200 Blu-ray player game with ultrathin XV-BP11 originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 28 Oct 2009 08:59:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Best Buy drops the price on the Netflix-streaming, Blu-ray playing Insignia Blu-ray player

Want a Blu-ray player? Want a Netflix streamer? How about both for $100? Best Buy has you covered with the Insignia NS-BRDVD3.

Yeah, this player isn’t you reference quality unit, but my goodness, for $100 who cares. The unit will playback Blu-ray discs just fine, display all the BD-Live goodies and stream Netflix. What more can you want for that price? [Best Buy via Electronic House]

Toshiba’s BDX2000 Blu-ray deck hits Best Buy for $199, sour grapes also on sale

Man, poor Toshiba. The company’s already sucked up its pride and started putting Blu-ray drives in its laptops, but here’s its first stab at a proper standalone player, the BDX2000, on Best Buy shelves a bit early for $199 — or $50 less than its announced price. Sure, that makes sense given the falling prices of Blu-ray decks as the holidays approach, but even at that price it’s not super competitive with the slew of other decks out there that can do Netflix streaming. We’ll see if Tosh’s next efforts are a little more interesting than this, or if this is just more heartbreak than its worth.

[Thanks, Alex]

Continue reading Toshiba’s BDX2000 Blu-ray deck hits Best Buy for $199, sour grapes also on sale

Filed under: Home Entertainment

Toshiba’s BDX2000 Blu-ray deck hits Best Buy for $199, sour grapes also on sale originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 26 Oct 2009 20:22:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Steve Ballmer: The Uncut Interview [Ballmer Interview]

Most of you may not have 16 minutes to spare on this, and probably don’t care anyway, but I promised to post the full video, if only so you can understand the context of our five highlighted segments.

Watch it, share it, do what you like. And if you just want the short and sweet, here again are our five featured bits (shot and edited by Mike Short):

Steve Ballmer Exclusive Interview Series:
Part 1: Ballmer Talks Natal, Says Blu-ray Add-On for Xbox Coming
Part 2: Ballmer on the Smartphone Race: “It Doesn’t Matter What the Critics Say”
Part 3: Ballmer on Zune: Sometimes You Get It Right The Third Time?
Part 4: Ballmer on Those Crazy Ballmer YouTube Videos
Part 5: Ballmer Optimistic About Win 7, But Says Vista Is “Very Popular”

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