High-Def DVD Digest is reporting that Sony is also preparing Silent Hill and RV for BD release.

Like Sony’s Ultraviolet, both of these titles will be day-and-date releases with their DVD brethern. RV is due on August 15th, while Silent Hill will follow a week later. Both will have uncompressed PCM 5.1 surround sound audio tracks, and both will be 25GB discs. I would be more impressed if they had 7.1 surround sound in TrueHD or DTS-HD. The PCM thing is a good for now, because no receivers or pre/pro’s can handle the new digital formats, but I would like my discs to be a bit more future proof.

Sony Preps ‘Silent Hill,’ ‘RV’ for Blu-ray

Blu-ray is coming this week, and VBO and c|net both have articles about the subject, each with tiny (and I mean tiny) bit of information about the Blu-ray launch. Remember that june 20th will see the first BD movies, while June 25th will see Samsung’s BD player.

In case you haven’t seen the list, the launch titles due on June 20th are:

• 50 First Dates
• The Fifth Element
• Hitch
• House of Flying Daggers
• Underworld: Evolution
• xXx
• The Terminator

Anyway, VBO mentions that Samsung expects to have their BD player in about 2000 stores. A Samsung spokesman said that pre-orders have been “incredible”. Which, considering, the source, isn’t actually really saying much.

Blu-ray ready to roll

c|net has another tiny little bit of info for you. Sony says that for launch, the expect to ship 15,000 of each BD titles to retailers for Tuesday. Lionsgate, on the other hand, plans to press fewer than 10,000 copies of each movie that they’re releasing near launch. The tagline being used to flog the BD titles will be “Experience High Definition Today”. Which, while not really corny, isn’t really good either. Also, we find out that dual-layer 50GB Blu-ray discs will be available “toward the end of summer”.

Blu-ray Disc ready to hit play

You may recall that Sony is releasing the first laptop with a Blu-ray Disc (BD) drive built in. Well, it’s being released and LAPTOP Magazine has a review. Not only does this laptop have a BD drive built in, but it also has a 17″ 1920 x 1200 display to view those BD movies with.

The BD drive reads and writes BD discs, and the laptop includes an HDMI port. So after a day of actually working on the thing, you’ll be able to hook it up to your HDTV to watch a BD movie the way it was meant to be watched - LARGE.

There’s a lot more to this laptop, but that’s what the review is for. You can check it out below.

Sony VAIO VGN-AR190G Reviewed

Here are some more HD trailers courtesy of Apple and their QuickTime division. First up is a movie with a strange name.

Quinceañera is a look at what happens when teenage sexuality, age-old rituals, and real estate prices collide. It is a story fueled by the racial, class, and sexual tensions of a Latino neighborhood in transition.

Quinceanera

Next up is a horror/thriller movie with a cool looking movie poster, which is about a bunch of lday cave crawlers and the trouble they get into.

The Descent

Finally, we have The Night Listener.

A psychological thriller based on the international bestselling novel by Armistead Maupin. The story revolves around a celebrated writer and popular late-night radio show host, Gabriel Noone, who develops an intense phone relationship with a young listener named Pete and his adopted mother just as his own domestic life is undergoing drastic changes.

The Night Listener

by Art Feierman - Projector Reviews
www.projectorreviews.com

I spent three days in the grueling Florida sun (Orlando 92-95 degrees, 60% humidity), searching for interesting new projectors and related gear for home theater. OK, I was in doors most of the time, but offsite meetings at nearby hotels had me pretty withered.

That’s probably more than you wanted to know, so let’s get to products.

In no particular order here’s some of the more interesting things I saw:

Optoma: They are getting close to releasing their HD81, a genuine 1080p resolution single chip DLP projector. Suggested retail price is probably going to be $9999, when they ship in August (if they can hold to schedule). That should make it the first (relatively) affordable 1080p projector.

I’m dying to get my hands one for review, but they say that they won’t have review units until probably mid July. Alas!

I should note that they had a demo theater set up in their booth, (fully darkened) and were showing Phantom of the Opera, off of the Toshiba HD-DVD player. Damn, it looked really good. I love the extra sharpness of 1080p and can’t wait to put a 1080p projector in my own theater, because I like to sit fairly close.

Optoma also showed their HD7300, an enhanced version of the excellent HD7100 (click for review), with the same 1280×720p resolution. The HD7300 features a separate outboard processor box from Gennum, which sits with the rest of your equipment so you only have a single digital cable between the processor and the projector. The Gennum processing should prove to be even better than the stuff that drives the HD7100. Shipping very soon.

ProjectionDesign: This one is strictly for the rich and famous. If the Optoma HD81 looked great, the Action! 3 1080p from ProjectionDesign, is off the charts. It’s another widescreen 1080p projector, but this one is a 3 chip DLP. And, with 2500 lumens, it has amazing brightness, easily handling a large screen. An almost $25,000 price tag, though will scare off all but the rich, the famous, and hard core semi-rich-crazies.

*****

I’m a big fan of higher power widescreen projectors that can tackle some ambient light, for daytime viewing. Unfortunately today’s normal home theater projectors are mostly designed for fully, or near fully darkened rooms. Sure, some have “dynamic” or “family room modes”, brighter modes to help, but not really enough to watch a football game with a little light coming in the windows…

So it’s nice to finally see a few bright widescreen projectors that are better suited for brighter rooms, (not too bright please) but can also do a passable job for movie watching, these could prove to be very popular with gamers, sports addicts, typical TV watchers, etc., and some will fully satisfy movie watches as well. Consider:

Optoma: has their new EP1690 widescreen projector. Similar to their award winning HD72 (click for review) (my favorite under $2000 home theater projector), it is rated 2500 lumens and has a 2500:1 contrast ratio. If you have ambient light to deal with, you won’t see the difference between it’s 2500:1 contrast and the HD72’s 4000:1, but you sure will appreciate the extra lumens.

Mitsubishi: Wow! The almost brand new WD2000U (list price $5999) looks to be selling for around $4000! Although primarily designed for business applications, It offers 3000 lumens and a 2000:1 contrast ratio. That’s definitely enough contrast for decent movie viewing, and more than enough for HDTV and HD-sports. I’m looking to review the WD2000U later this summer! It uses the same 1280×768 Darkchip2 DLP chip found in popular lower powered, and highly rated, projectors like the Optoma HD72 and Mitsubishi HC3000. Note, we are now reviewing the HC3000 and should post the review around 6/27. The WD2000U, is loaded – with power zoom and focus, lens shift, and 4 optional lenses.

Although non-HD, Mitsubishi says they are selling a very healthy number of their tiny LED powered Pocket Projector. It fits in the palm of your hand, and produces a whopping 25 lumens! The market for these is gamers, cell phone and other portable device users, etc. It needs a dark area, and works best projecting images of 15” to 30” diagonal. Weighing just 1 pound, it sells for $799, and for now is exclusively sold at CDW. There’s even a rechargeable battery pack. Very cool, and the LED lamps last up to 10,000 hours!

Panasonic: No word yet on what and when they will replace their best selling PT-AE900u, but they have come out with a new model every fourth quarter, so we’ll probably have to wait for the CEDIA show to find out what’s next.

But Panasonic did show a new, killer HD projector, in the form of the PT-DW5000U. (Shown here) It is a widescreen version of their extremely successful single DLP chip PT-D5500U. It offers dual lamps for brightness and redundancy, is liquid cooled, has power everything, many lenses, and 4500 lumens! This is a $10K plus machine destined for movie theaters for showing advertising and movie trailers, sports books, sports bars, etc., needing power and widescreen. They demo’d it in their suite at Infocomm and it was truly impressive.

How about more moderately priced projectors? Here are a couple of “All-in-one” projectors:

Toshiba and 3M: Each showed DLP projectors that look identical, except that the Toshiba ET20 is black (the 3M folks call it the Darth Vader helmet), and the 3M is white. Both are All-in-one projectors, with built in DVD player (optional) and speakers. Both use an exceptionally short throw lens allowing a 6 foot diagonal image with the projector less than 40 inches back, allowing them to be placed on a table only a few feet from the screen! The Toshiba has Silicon Optix HQV processing, so should deliver an extremely high quality image. Typical of “All-in-one” projectors, it is WVGA 854×480, so not true HD. Toshiba rates it at 1100 lumens. We’re hoping to get either the Toshiba or 3M version in August timeframe for a review.

That’s a wrap for now. There are a few other products worth commenting on, but I’ll save them for a separate update. -art

Do you like how plasma and LCD displays are so low-profile? Sleek and simple, hang it niceley on the wall, and avoid using up all that floor space. If you like the look of an LCD or plasma, but want a more affordable, yet bigger, display, you might want to look at a product from Optoma. The 100″ display is actually a rear-projection DLP display that’s meant to be built into a wall in your home. Of course, that begs the question: how are you going to build this into your wall without wasting a lot of space to the left and right of the display? Maybe shelves and cupboards can be built in next to the display.

It might be hard to fit a display like this into your house, but if you do, the integrated look will dazzle your friends. Or maybe, just you.

SCI FI Tech

According to the London Free Press, Canadian stations are slow on the HDTV uptake. As an HDTV owner in Canada myself, I can attest to that myself. This past season, I’ve had to watch Smallville in SD, because no Canadian station was playing it in SD.

And that’s just dropping the ball on carrying HD content from the States. Another large problem is that Canadian broadcasters are not big into creating their own HD content, either. Supposedly Canadian broadcasters are four years behind their American counterparts in the HDTV conversion process.

I just saw my first HD commercial the other day. Of course, the commercial was for an HDTV display.

So yes, I can attest to how slow the HDTV uptake is here in Canada. Get with it folks!

Canadian stations trail in HDTV race

The good news is that all those rumours about the Samsung BD-P1000 BD player being delayed are false. The bad news is that they’re not false in the UK. The Samsung BD-P1000 Blu-ray player is due to arrive on store shelves in North America on June 25th. But in the UK, the BD player will only arrive in September.

I have to make a confession. I haven’t actually seen an HD DVD player in action yet. I keep meaning to get around to a local AV store to check out how awesome HD DVD’s look. And two weeks from now, when the Samsung player is released, I’ll have even more incentive to wander into that Best Buy. So I’ll just have to make the time!

I’m looking forward to it.

Samsung BD-P1000 Blu-ray player delayed (again)?

Pioneer’s BD player, to be released this fall, will retail for $1500. The BD players from Samsung and Sony will be released at $1000. No sane person would possibly want to buy the $1500 BD player when a $1000 BD player is available, right? I’ve heard similar arguments about the PS3, which includes a BD player. Why buy the Samsung, Sony, or Pioneer, if the PS3 is so much less expensive?

The thing is, BD players are not commodities. At least not yet. They’re not even on the market yet. Every BD player will have its advantages and disadvantages. Each will have their own unique features. Is that so hard to imagine? Why are people complaining about the high price of the Pioneer player, implying that nobody would ever buy it? There are $4000 DVD players being sold today. They seem to have found a market. I think a $1500 BD player will find a market too. Pioneer makes some really good DVD players. I’m sure their BD players will follow suit.

Pioneer Concentrating On Blu-ray But Delays Player

Samsung will be the first manufacturer to release a BD (Blu-ray Disc) player. Sony will be releasing a laptop with a Blu-ray drive built-in around the same time. In August, Sony will start selling their BD player. In September is Pioneer’s player, and November or so we can expect Panasonic’s.

Now we can add to that list a BD player from Philips. The BDP9000. Philips’ BD player will have an HDMI output that supports 1080p resolution. The player also plays back DVD and CD discs.

Philips will also be selling a drive for use in computers, the TripleWriter. It’ll be able to read and write CD’s, DVD’s, and BD’s.

Philips plans to sell these devices in the third quarter of 2006, so that’s by the end of September.

Philips Unwraps its Blu-ray Disc Player for Ultimate HD Home Entertainment