Hello everyone. After almost two years on the net blogging all about things related to HD television and movies, etc, I think it’s finally time I close this site. It’s just taking too much of my time, so I will no longer be updating HDBlog.net with any news. I will, however, leave this site up as a reference. (For a while at least.)

So barring any purchase offers, you won’t be seeing any news here anymore.

Thanks for reading.

It may come as no surprise that the other format war (VHS/Beta) was supposedly decided by the porn industry and the availability of porn on VHS.

Today, with the new format war, everyone is looking at this as the new litmus test and if it will decide which side wins.

I beg to differ. Porn is a $10 billion industry. $10 Bil is not something to be sneezed at, but today people can get their porn in many ways. Internet, DVD, cell phones, you name it. Back in the VHS days there were only peep shows, XXX theaters, and HBO. VHS revolutionized the privacy of watching porn. Now that revolution is over. People can now get porn anytime, and with services like TOR, anywhere (even work).

So my prediction is that the porn industry this time around will be just another player like Time/Warner. They’ll produce for both formats and eventually will choose one, but the winner of the format war will be decided well before these guys choose. Who knows the winner may be streaming video?

Slashdot | Porn Industry May Not Decide Format War

Want an affordable upscaler for your HDTV display? Gefen introduced the Gefen Home Theater Scaler and Home Theater Scaler Plus. Both scale signals all the way up to 1080p.

The Gefen Home Theater Scaler ($449) offers these inputs/outpus:
- two HDMI inputs each with digital audio (optical and coax)
- two component video inputs each with analog (RCA stereo) audio
- one HDMI output with (optical and coax) audio out

Gefen - Home Theater Scaler

While the Home Theater Scaler Plus ($499) offers:
- one component input with analog audio
- one composite or s-video input with analog audio
- and two HDMI inputs with digital (optical and coax) audio.
- one HDMI output with (optical and coax) audio out

Gefen - Home Theater Scaler Plus

[via IGN]

Atul wrote in to complain about some baseball HD problems in Virginia:

One noteworthy news note for you is that here in ACC country (Virginia) one of the biggest basketball games of the year is supposedly on ESPN HD, however nobody in Comcast’s Richmond area network, and possibly more, is able to watch the game because they are ‘having technical difficulties.’ What did they offer in return for this “inconvenience”, which will require people to drive to a local sports bar to watch the game in high def? A $1 credit to their customers who are paying upwards of $100/mo for this ’service.’

Personally I wouldn’t care about missing a baseball game, but if this were F1 and F1 were available in HD, I know I’d be ticked…

There have been a lot of mistakes in the HD format war, the chief among them the fact that it exists in the first place. Now I’m not saying that the BD group hasn’t made mistakes, but I got a good chuckly out of this mistake on the part of the HD DVD Promotions Group.

The HD DVD Promotions Group claimed that Speilberg’s films Jaws, Jurassic Park, and E.T. would be making their way to HD DVD this year. Now it turns out that this claim was made in error, and they’ve retracted it and apologized for the mistake.

Tee hee.

HD DVD Promotions Group to Spielberg Fans: Whoops!

A/V guru Joe Kane’s HD DVD version of ‘Digital Video Essentials’ has been delayed several times. But now it’s been given another release date: February 27th. It’ll retail for $34.95.

Everyone who’s serious about picture quality should use a calibration disc like this to set up their TV. I’ve done this using the AVIA disc, but that’s not HD. I’m looking forward to a high-def calibration disc like this, but I don’t have an HD DVD player. I hope that Digital Video Essentials comes out on BD sometime soon too.

‘Digital Video Essentials’ Gets a New Date… For Now

LG Electronics made everyone at CES do a double-take when they announced a combo Blu-ray and HD DVD player, to be made available for sale soon. Well, now it’s available. It’s is called the LG “Super Multi Blue” Player (model BH100). It should now be available at stores like Best Buy, Circuit City, and CompUSA.

The player retails for $1200, if I remember correctly. That’s enough to buy both a Toshiba HD DVD player and a Sony PS3. So you have to determine what’s more important to you: saving a little space, or getting the best of both worlds. (And remember, the LG supposedly doesn’t fully support HD DVD’s iHD feature.)

World’s First Dual-Format High-Definition Disc Player Now Available from LG Electronics at U.S. Retailers

Consumer Reports took a look at 98 HDTV’s in their March issue. Are they HDTV experts? Do they know their interlacing and their colour temperatures? I don’t know that. But I do know that they made some top picks, according to TVPredictions.

Some of the top TV’s they rated as “Excellent” were:

LCD
JVC 40-inch LT-40FN97 ($2,700)
Sony 46-inch Bravia KDL-46XBR2 ($3,800)
Sony 40-inch Bravia KDL-40XBR2 ($3,000)
Toshiba 42-inch 42LX196 ($2,300)
Toshiba 37-inch 37LX96 ($1,900)
Samsung 32-inch LN-S3296D ($1,500)
Toshiba 32-inch 32HL66 ($1,000)
Toshiba 26-inch 26HL66 ($800)

Plasma
Panasonic’s 58-inch TH-58PX600U ($4,800)

DLP Rear Projection TVs
Toshiba 62-inch 62HM196 ($2,500)
Toshiba 62-inch 62MX196 ($2,900)
Toshiba 56-inch 56HMX96 ($2,300)
Toshiba 56-inch 56HM66 ($1,800)
Sony 60-inch KDS-60A2000 ($3,000)
Sony 55-inch KDS-55A2000 ($2,700)

Want a Super High-Definition TV?

So how’s that whole format war coming? Nielsen VideoScan has released some information that finally lets us see how the whole BD (Blu-ray Disc) versus HD DVD thing is coming along.

In short, Blu-ray discs are now starting to sell better than HD DVD discs. In the first two weeks of January, BD discs outsold HD DVD discs by more than two to one. (Though those two weeks only saw two new HD releases - both on Blu-ray.)

On top of that, BD is catching up to HD DVD in total units sold. As a matter of fact, if current trends continue, that inflection point will occur within weeks.

This is all good news for Blu-ray Disc Association members. It’s probably helped by the fact that PS3 owners are actually participating in the whole Blu-ray thing, unlike what some people were predicting.

Finally: VideoScan Releases High-Def Disc Sales Numbers

So it seems one of my predictions is coming true. I did predict that the PS3 would boost Blu-ray sales and now we have some hard facts that this is the case.

Videoscan says that Blu-Ray is outselling HD DVD right now at a 2:1 margin. This is despite either format coming out with a killer disc during this time.

Now in February Blu-ray will bypass HD DVD in number of titles.

It took a little while to get the steam train rolling, but I predict that by mid February there will be no looking back.

Finally: VideoScan Releases High-Def Disc Sales Numbers | High-Def Digest

It seems as though the Blu-Ray/HD-DVD format war has no end in site, and just when you think one format is turning the tide, the other one hits back. Earlier in the week we posted about Universal announcing that they were going to release 100 HD-DVD titles in 2007. That is definitely a solid number, but with no firm release dates, and only a few titles known, the level of anticipation could be higher. I can think of a few titles in the Universal catalog that could change that, and apparently so did they. Yesterday the HD-DVD Promotions Group added three Steven Spielberg classics to their “Coming Soon” in 2007 list, including E.T., Jurassic Park, and Jaws. If you want to get people to side with your format, a good way to do it is by bringing out some big guns, and these titles certainly qualify.

via High-Def Digest

Correction: My wording was perhaps a bit off. I meant to say that the three Spielberg titles had been added to the “Coming Soon” section of their current (hence 2007) HD-DVD list. There is no guarantee that these films will actually be released this year. As I theorize, however, should these titles be included in the 100 that Universal has stated they will release this calendar year, it would definitely be a boost for HD-DVD.

According to this article from TMC.net which doesn’t seem to be spell-checked, BestBuy will be introducing a “Blue-ray” player in the Chinese market in the first half of this year.

Strangely, the article says that these players are “Blue-ray HD-DVD” players. They’re not talking about EVD players, because the article outright mentions those as the competition. Maybe they’re talking about Blu-ray players, and the “HD-DVD” is just there to signify that BD discs are HD discs. Or maybe BestBuy will be selling HD DVD players. Or a combo player, like the LG. I guess I’m going on a tagent here, because I think that this player is really just a Blu-ray player.

Blue-ray HD-DVD Player to Enter China Market

LG surprised everyone at CES this year by announcing that their combo BD and HD DVD player is indeed a reality and would be available soon. “Soon” turned out to be “almost immediately”, and gadgetaholic has a review.

Remember that this player plays both Blu-ray discs and HD DVD discs, but does not support the HD DVD format’s iHD functionality. And it retails for a cool $1,199. (That’s enough to buy both an HD DVD player and a BD player (the PS3).)

So what does gadgetaholic think of this player? Load times are slightly better for BD discs than for HD DVD discs. The lack of iHD functionality really scuppers the use of special HD DVD features. They couldn’t find any picture quality difference between this player and other players for BD and HD DVD discs. But they didn’t seem to use a very thorough method. But they didn’t think highly of the DVD upscaling abilities.

All in all they think the player is a decent BD player with HD DVD capabilities tacked on.

LG BH100 Reviewed