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Managed Copy hits Blu-ray Discs December 4th, but you still can't use it

by Ben Drawbaugh posted Nov 7th 2009 at 2:34AM

Managed Copy demo
The egg had to come before the chicken right? Well either way, one of 'em came first and in the case of the latest Blu-ray feature, Managed Copy, the Blu-ray Discs will come before the hardware. Less than five months since AACS was finalized and the details of Managed Copy were revealed and so far we've only seen one demo and not a single product announcement. This doesn't surprise us, but AACS-LA is apparently surprised because although all Blu-ray Discs sold after December 4th have no choice but to allow at least one copy to be made, the requirement to label the packaging as such has been postponed until Spring of next year. We'd expect at least a few products that support Managed Copy to be announced at CES and although we highly doubt any stand-alone Blu-ray players will sport this feature anytime soon, we do have our hopes on PC software and expect a few movie jukebox devices like Kaleidescape -- that we won't be able to afford -- will be announced at the big show in Vegas.

Ask Engadget HD: Where can I find Blu-ray movies for cheap on Black Friday and beyond?

by Richard Lawler posted Nov 4th 2009 at 1:00PM

Prices on Blu-ray players continue to plunge, inducing more and more to make the jump, but what about the software? We've asked where you buy your discs before, but this time we're presented with a brand new adopter looking to stock up on titles during the holiday season. That's Sean's situation, where to look for Blu-ray discs over the next month if price is the only consideration.

"Instead of camping out for a big ticket purchase on black Friday, I already grabbed a new flat screen and Blu-ray player, but so far I only have a couple of movies to watch on it. I really want to upgrade my library with plenty of reference quality selections, and I figure holiday seasons will be a great time to do it. Any advice on where to look for the deepest discounts / bundles over the next couple of months?"

So, we know there's more than a few of you always on the lookout for a BOGO or better offer to come along whether buying for yourself or as gifts, any tips for our tightfisted friend here?

Got a burning question that you'd love to toss out for Engadget HD (or its readers) to take a look at? Tired of Google's blank stares when you ask for real-world experiences? Hit us up at ask at engadgethd dawt com and keep an eye on this space -- your inquiry could be next.

OWC takes quad-interface Mercury Pro external BD burner to 12x

by Darren Murph posted Nov 4th 2009 at 10:12AM

Pioneer's BDR-205 may not be hitting shelves in retail form until early next year, but those who desperately need a Blu-ray burner that outpaces the optical media currently available still have an option. OWC has today updated its long-standing Mercury Pro external BD drive -- which boasts FireWire 800, FireWire 400, USB 2.0 and eSATA connection options -- with Pioneer's latest, giving it the ability to toast BD-Rs at up to 12x. Of course, you'll need lady luck on your side to actually find any media that'll support said rate, but hey, there's always the future. It's available today for $349.99, or $449.99 if you want Roxio Toast Titanium PRO bundled in.

[Via Macworld]

Blu-ray releases on November 3rd 2009

by Ben Drawbaugh posted Nov 2nd 2009 at 4:47PM

G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra - Blu-rayOctober is over and before you know it Black Friday will be here, and so all the studios are preparing their holiday selection. Although this mostly consists of classics like It's A Wonderful Life, Forrest Gump and others, there are also some okay day and date titles like G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra and The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3. Next week Disney makes things much more interesting for animated feature fans though as both Monsters Inc. and UP will be released on Blu-ray for the first time.

  • G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (Paramount)
  • Forrest Gump (Paramount)
  • It's A Wonderful Life (Paramount)
  • The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 (Sony)
  • Aliens In The Attic (Fox)
  • I Love You, Beth Cooper (Fox)
  • Say Anything... (Fox)
  • Two Girls And A Guy (Fox)
  • The Answer Man (Magnolia)
  • Christmas Vacation (20th Anniversay Edition) (Warner)
  • Star Wars: The Clone Wars (The Complete Season One (Warner)
  • North By Northwest (Warner)
  • Watchmen: The Ultimate Cut (Warner)
  • Command Performance (First Look)
  • Direct Action (First Look)
  • Earth 2100 (MPI)
  • Food, Inc. (Magnolia)
  • Howards End (Criterion Collection)
  • Wings Of Desire (Criterion Collection)
  • Love Actually (Universal)
  • Mummies: Secrets of the Pharaohs (Image)
  • The Narrows (Image)
  • Not Forgotten (Anchor Bay)
  • Rocky: The Undisputed Collection (MGM)
  • Witchblade: The Complete Series (Funimation)

Poll: What's the biggest Blu-ray disc still due to arrive in 2009?

by Richard Lawler posted Nov 1st 2009 at 3:30PM

After seeing Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen blow up the charts, is there a bigger Blu-ray release left for '09? Peep the possible responses and let us know which one is your most highly anticipated release for the rest of the year. Thanks for all nominations submitted to our Twitter (@Engadgethd) if you don't see yours give us a follow so we can get your opinion next time, and leave a note in the comments.

What Blu-ray disc are you most interested in?

Transformers 2 tops chart, best selling Blu-ray of all time?

by Ben Drawbaugh posted Oct 29th 2009 at 12:40PM

Transformers: Revenge of the FallenThe first week numbers are in and they're pretty good -- Michael Bay's latest movie moved 500,000 Blu-ray Discs in one day and a total of 1.2 Million for the week. Now we didn't go back and compare that to previous years, but that is without a doubt the best week any Blu-ray title has had this year, so we'd assume its safe to say this is the best selling Blu-ray title of all time -- in its first week anyways. Love it or hate it, there were plenty of people willing to run out the first week and buy this movie. This has to ease the minds of Paramount execs at least a little bit. Too bad for Hollywood that this will probably be as good as it gets this year, although we admit the movies we're looking forward to on Blu-ray still remain unreleased.

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

by Darren Murph posted Oct 28th 2009 at 8:59AM

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...

Update: Ouch -- this thing is only Profile 1.1. Dud. [Thanks, Aaron!]

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

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

by Nilay Patel posted Oct 26th 2009 at 8:22PM

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

Blu-ray releases on October 27th 2009

by Ben Drawbaugh posted Oct 26th 2009 at 5:06PM

Battlestar Galactica - The PlanSo the biggest movie of the year has come to Blu-ray and is behind us, but there are plenty of hot new releases left on the docket this year -- just not this week. This week we are planning on getting a couple of movies for our kids as well as checking out the latest Battlestar Galactica movie, The Plan. Other than that we're looking forward to checking out Larry David in a Woody Allen movie, we mean how could that not be funny?

  • Battlestar Galactica: The Plan (Universal)
  • Ice Age: Dawn Of The Dinosaurs (Fox)
  • Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure (Walt Disney)
  • Night of the Creeps (Sony)
  • Whatever Works (Sony)
  • Orphan (Warner)
  • Nothing Like The Holidays (Anchor Bay)
  • Stan Helsing (Anchor Bay)
  • Beast Stalker (Tai Seng)
  • Expedition: Africa (A&E)
  • The Prisoner (A&E)
  • Il Divo (MPI)
  • The Living Dead At Manchester Morgue (Blue Underground)
  • Look For A Star (Tai Seng)
  • Lovecraft: Fear of the Unknown (Cinevolve)
  • Monty Python: Almost The Truth - The Lawyer's Cut (Vivendi)
  • Stargate: 15th Anniversary Edition (Lionsgate)

Netflix coming next month to PlayStation 3

by Ross Miller posted Oct 26th 2009 at 8:38AM Breaking News

What a coup. After we've been hearing all along that Xbox 360 had a game console exclusivity to Netflix streaming, Sony just announced it, too, will be joining in on the fun. Timeframe? Sometime next month. Press release after the break.

[Via PlayStation blog]

Continue reading Netflix coming next month to PlayStation 3

Poll: What is the best Blu-ray player?

by Ben Drawbaugh posted Oct 25th 2009 at 3:30PM

Blu-ray booth
With Christmas right around the corner and the CEA predicting that consumers will spend more on electronics this year then last, we have to wonder what our dear readers think is the best Blu-ray player. Of course the PS3 is the most obvious answer since it pulls double duty as a gaming device, but movie lovers might prefer a standalone with other streaming features like VUDU or Netflix. At the same time, home automation nuts might prefer a player with discrete IR codes or maybe an RS-232 port. So keeping everything include the price in mind, which is the best Blu-ray player?

What is the best Blu-ray player?

Microsoft: 'We have no plans for Blu-ray on Xbox 360'

by Thomas Ricker posted Oct 23rd 2009 at 9:03AM

A recent Gizmodo sit down with Steve Ballmer led with a headline exclaiming a Blu-ray add-on for Xbox was coming. See, when Ballmer was asked about making the Xbox a home theater companion of choice and where Blu-ray might fit in, the Windows 7 wild man said, "Well I don't know if we need to put Blu-ray in there -- you'll be able to get Blu-ray drives as accessories." He then added that on-demand is the future of movies, not physical media. Now our bud Major Nelson, Director of Programming for Xbox Live, has stepped up to lay the conflation to rest. The Major says that Ballmer was referring to Blu-ray accessories for the PC and reiterated Microsoft's focus of bringing instant-on 1080p streaming movies to the Xbox 360. So... that should end speculation of Blu-ray on Xbox right? Not if history serves, nope.

Digital Entertainment Group reports disc revenue's down, transactions up

by Ben Drawbaugh posted Oct 21st 2009 at 5:37PM

The Digital Entertainment GroupThe latest DEG numbers reporting the 3.2 percent decrease in disc revenues this year over last, weren't really that interesting to us. Sure some might argue that is actually good considering overall consumer spending, but what is really interesting is that the number of transactions (sales and rentals) are up 6.6 percent. This should probably be interpreted as rentals are up while sales are down, but the bottom line is that more people then ever are still watching movies on round discs. All of this added together with the latest DRM technologies coming, makes us wonder what the home media landscape will look like in a few years. One thing is for sure, it seems Blu-ray has given packaged media the life extension that the studios had hoped for.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen Blu-ray review roundup

by Richard Lawler posted Oct 21st 2009 at 4:29PM


It's pretty hard to miss this week's premiere Blu-ray release, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen may not be as well regarded as the first movie, but the hype train has continued to roll. Still holding out on a possible purchase? A slew of reviews of the Blu-ray edition are available to help you make a choice, so dig in and see what there is. The Dallas Morning News says FX can't turn a bad film into a good one, but were still impressed by the Blu-ray special features, while Blu-ray.com's reviewer had perfect scores the video, audio and supplements of the IMAX edition, calling it "THE one to own" (reports on AVSForum.com also point to a volume difference between editions) Our friends at Cinematical actually preferred the flick at home to the theater experience, citing the thrill of checking out the preparations entailed in making such an explosive movie, plus the ability to pause and take in each set piece individually. DVD Town actually split up review duties between tow people with one on the quality of the flick, and the other on audio, video and extras, finding this flick "the kind of sonic spectacular one can use to impress friends and neighbors who haven't bought into Blu-ray yet."

Read - DVDTown.com
Read - Blu-ray.com
Read - The Dallas Morning News
Read - Cinematical.com
Read - AVSForum.com

Netflix, Best Buy deal brings Watch Instantly streaming to even cheaper Blu-ray players

by Richard Lawler posted Oct 20th 2009 at 10:23PM


Though they've been floating around retail channels for a few weeks, Best Buy and Netflix have finally made official a partnership bringing streaming to the latest Insignia Blu-ray players. The NS-BRDVD3 runs $179, while the NS-WBRDVD edition tosses in WiFi for $20 more, while they won't stream out of the box, a firmware update just made available should add all that Watch Instantly goodness. These two keep the (we'll be nice and call it plain) styling of earlier models, and likely live up to the family reputation of "basic Blu-ray playback at a bargain" reported on the second generation of players. Of course, the BD-P1600 offers more features and a nicer reputation at about the same price, but Reward Zone members may want to think twice, with AVS Forum posters mentioning the NS-BRDVD3 can be had for just $99.99 through the 24th. Decisions, decisions.

Read - Best Buy and Netflix Announce Partnership to Instantly Stream Movies Over the Internet Via Latest Models of Insignia Blu-ray Disc Players
Read - Save $50 On Select INSIGNIA® Connected Blu-ray Disc™ Players with Netflix [Via AVS Forum]




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