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Star Wars Box set in works. Due in the Fall of 2011?
In what would make the perfect way to commemorate the 35th anniversary of the release of A New Hope, a Blu-ray box set of all six Star Wars movies might just be on track for the Fall of 2011. That's the rumor anyways, with the only facts being that Lucas Film's Steve Sansweet said on a panel at C2E2 that the project was already in the works and would be released "in the not too distant future." We're not alone when we say we can't wait to enjoy the three classics for the first time all over again in HD, but we would like to get a request in before it's too late. Could you pretty please make sure all the versions of the first three are included? You know, so we can watch Han shoot first, or second, depending on how the mood strikes us.
Lord of the Rings on Blu-ray officially pushed back to 2010
Our friend Bill at the Digital Bits continues to deliver on some of the best and worst Blu-ray movie news -- although we really wish he'd make his site linkable already -- and this time it is the sad news that one of the most anticipated Blu-ray releases ever will be pushed to 2010. No word on exactly when The Lord of the Rings will make it to Blu-ray, but it seems pretty certain that it won't be in the next four months. If it were up to us, we'd have a hard time shying away from 10/10/10, but that's just us.
Blu-ray players grab 93 percent of market after Warner went Blu
According to the latest NPD group report, during the month of December Blu-ray players held 60 percent of the HD media player market -- despite the fact that HD DVD players were considerably cheaper. While that might've helped Warner in its decision to go Blu, the move has definitely had a dramatic effect on player sales since. According to the same study the week after the announcement, Blu-ray players were able to grab 93 percent of the market, which puts the year to date (short, we know) share for Blu-ray players at 70 percent. Granted, it's hard to put too much stock in just a week or two of data, but if this and the recent media sales numbers (85 percent) becomes a trend, maybe this won't be such a slow death for HD DVD after all.[Via Blu-ray.com]
Blu-ray and HD-DVD fight kicks up a notch amongst critics [Update]
With our PS3 Blu-ray library growing week by week, we try to stay abreast of the latest in fervent format war discussion. More recently, the ongoing battle between HD DVD and Blu-ray polarized opinions of two key industry critics. Last week, Harry Knowles over at Aint It Cool News, posted a write-up of his decision to "go HD DVD" with his purchase of the Toshiba HD-A2 player. In response, Bill Hunt, editor of The Digital Bits, interjected and laid down what we perceive to be one of the most well written responses on why HD DVD will not win the HD format war. Attacking all fronts, we most enjoyed the Digital Bits interpretation of the porn industry's influence on HD DVD (or lack there-of), and their critical stab at Toshiba and their price drop on HD DVD players, likening it as an act of desperation for a doomed format. Certainly a good read for our Blu-ray fans.[Update: After comparing the two, we felt compelled to change the "picks" to "kicks" in our post title, as suggested in our comments. Thanks, BlackBeltJones.]
Blu-ray camp can't get 50GB titles to work?
Most new technologies have some teething problems as the early kinks are worked out, but it seems like the Blu-ray camp is experiencing more than its fair share of growing pains -- first the delays, then news that the supposed format-savior PS3 might price itself right out of the market, and finally the revelation that first-gen BD-P1000's were shipping with a picture-degrading chip. Well now it appears that there's even more bad news for Sony's pride and joy, as The Digital Bits' Bill Hunt is confirming what many people already suspected after reading their P1000 manuals: the $1,000 player, as currently configured, will be unable to support movies on upcoming 50GB discs. Hunt cites multiple anonymous industry sources in reporting that Samsung is still having problems getting 50GB discs to work on its machines -- production titles weren't even available to test before the players launched -- and that both Sony and Pioneer are experiencing the same issues with their upcoming products. Luckily for current P1000 owners, it seems that this incompatibility is of the type that will eventually be solved by a firmware upgrade, but until that time, movie studios have been forced to delay longer titles like Lawrence of Arabia and Black Hawk Down -- no doubt frustrating some consumers. With so much on the line here, it's clear that this issue will be resolved sooner or later; however, with the HD DVD camp already offering cheaper (and more) hardware, a larger media selection, and garnering better initial reviews than Blu-ray, it's not clear how much time is left before the so-called format war begins leaning decidedly in HD DVD's favor.[Via HDBeat]
