What's up with Blu-ray?

---

Tools:
Recommend this news to a friend »

---

With the launch of Blu-ray a month away we thought it would be appropriate to give you a rundown on the latest news about titles and players.

Samsung will be first with a Blu-ray player, the BD-P1000. The date is set for late June. In mid August Sony will be ready with its own player, the BDP-S1. Both will retails for $999. Compared with Toshiba's $499 and $799 HD-DVD players, they look very much the same, at least on paper. Some have complained about the fan noise in the HD-DVD players; however, the Samsung also has a fan, so it looks like the non-fan days are over. One thing that strikes me as odd, though, is that both the Sony and Samsung players lack Internet connections for special features and firmware upgrades. Both Toshiba players have these functions, and they seem like great features for upgrading the player in the future. The more expensive $1800 BDP-HD1 Blu-ray player from Pioneer will have these connections, though. Pioneer originally had it scheduled for a June release. New reports, though, say that the player will be delayed until November. Panasonic also has a player scheduled for a September release, but reports are also saying that they will delay it until November.

Player or no player, Sony Pictures will have nine titles ready for release on June 20th. All will feature 1080p picture and PCM 5.1 sound. We have yet to learn about what extras they will include on these releases. Nevertheless, first reports say they will be limited. Following that week, LionsGate will release five titles on the format including "Terminator 2" on June 27th.

Sony and LionsGate are the only studios with announced titles for now, but other studios like 20th Century Fox and Disney will most likely follow as soon as the format is on store shelves.

We will, of course, follow the development and bring you news all the way up to the launch. We will also bring you some of the very first reviews of titles and hardware as we did with HD-DVD.

We have found ourselves in a kind of dilemma lately here at DVDTOWN.com. We love HD, and HD-DVD has proven to deliver remarkable picture and sound quality. I'm sure that Blu-ray will do the same. However, while we are thrilled with what we see, we are not thrilled with the fact that a format war is about to begin. So, our advice to our readers is, on the one hand, to wait at least until early next year. By then it will much clearer where you get the most value with the formats. Or, on the other hand, if you always seek the best possible picture quality and latest technology and simply can't wait, my best advice is to read our review and articles. We will try to give you the latest information so you can make a better decision on what to buy.

For a complete list of announced Blu-ray titles go here.
For a complete list of announced HD-DVD titles go here.
For all articles and review go to HDDVD.org.

---