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VMD gets Bollywood pack-in titles for January '07 launch
Everyone's favorite third high definition disc format got a boost today as it announced deals with six Indian film distributors. When the first HD VMD player launches in January of next year, it will be available with a bundle of 10 high definition Bollywood movies for $299 through various Indian retailers. New Medium Enterprises has already secured deals for content in Germany and China, now with the addition of the booming Indian film market VMD hopes to provide high definition content at prices HD DVD and Blu-ray won't be able to match.
HD VMD format gets support from German film distributor
That other high definition disc format, VMD has announced some of the content customers can expect at launch in 2007. German independent distributor VCL is launching with familiar titles like Sleepy Hollow, Paparazzi, Reefer Madness and Hostage in January. No word on price, specific dates or features are available yet. The company behind VMD, NME Inc. has previously indicated it plans to support the low cost format with Bollywood titles and Broadway shows. Using older red laser technology and a multilayered structure, VMD aims to provide HDTV content at a much lower price than Blu-ray or HD DVD. We'll likely find out more about the company's plans at CES 2007 and get a look at the first player.[Via Home Media Retailing]
Mission: Impossible III sets HD DVD / Blu-ray sales record
While Paramount's Mission: Impossible III didn't make it out on one of those forthcoming three-in-one mega discs, it did get the green light on all three major formats (and a forth, too), and set some records while it was at it. While Tom's personal life has been all but personal, the general public apparently still loves him, crazy antics and all, as studio sources have pegged first-week sales at 3.7 million units, more than either of the two previous releases in the franchise. More importantly, however, is the 20,000 units that were sold on HD DVD / Blu-ray formats, which made it the "the biggest-selling next-gen title since the formats launched. But with quite a few hits slated to hit shelves soon (and during the holiday shopping season, no less), we don't expect this record to stand for too terribly long.
Latest DivX release adds 1080i and 1080p support
We've given you the pros and cons of DivX-HD, but now we've got one more reason to love the highly-regarded format: 1080p (and 1080i, too). You heard right, the next time you feel the need to rip and encode, you can do so in beautiful 1,920 x 1,080 resolution. In the latest DivX newsletter, support was annouced for "full HD digital video encoding in both interlaced and progressive scan modes," and readers were forewarned that watching those ole 640 x 480 clips may prove painful after experiencing this newfangled nirvana. Version 6.4 also boasted a few other improvements, including "faster multipass encoding, better compression when using internal resize filters, and a new adaptive noise reduction feature" to improve overall quality. So, stop hangin' around and give the new tools a go, eh?
Microsoft's Xbox Live Video: HDTV and HD movie downloads for your 360
This may sound a bit familiar to those paying close attention, but on November 22nd -- the year anniversary for the Xbox 360 -- Microsoft is announcing something fairly momentus, not for the gaming community, but for the CE industry. The Xbox 360, along with Akimbo, will be among the first mass-market devices able to download high def television programs -- and the first we know of in the states able to download HD movies. The service is called Xbox Live Video, and the fall update enables customers to spend their Microsoft points on standard and HD television from CBS, MTV, Comedy Central, VH1, Turner, and UFC, as well as HD movies from Warner Bros., Paramount, and so on. We're still a little in shock, ourselves, that Microsoft was able to in one fell swoop hit TiVo, Apple, Netflix, and a handful of others, but looking at Live over the last year, the move isn't that massively surprising. Of course, not even the vision of on-demand HD movies and TV downloads in six million homes at the flick of a switch could be without its variety of niggling concerns; being that we all know the devil's in the details, click on to get the particulars of the service.
Third HD format VMD launching for $175 at CES
NME, the same company that recently claimed to solve the Blu-ray / HD DVD debate by creating a disc that holds both, has now specifics of, and hardware for, its alternative HD format. VMD is targeted as a low cost high definition DVD, using red lasers -- just like DVD and CD -- instead of the blue lasers in Blu-ray and HD DVD. Much delayed, the standalone player is now expected to launch at CES in January, with a price of just $175, compared to the $500+ price of competing formats. With all the major studios backing Blu-ray and/or HD DVD, we hope you like Bollywood's greatest hits and old Broadway performances, as NME is targeting Eastern markets first. Unlike the US, Video CDs and other delivery options have flourished alongside DVD internationally and VMD hopes to take the same route for HD. No word on if it has achieved the multilayer 100GB+ discs promised, but at this price, we'll keep an eye out for NME in Las Vegas.
