Not a ton of new specs to behold on this new Blu-ray player, but Philips's BDP7100 does everything it should (1080p output, HDMI CEC, 24p, True HD, and DTS HD support). No word if it's got HDMI v1.3 or Blu-ray 1.1, and Philips also neglected to mention the price and availability of this new Blu-ray player of theirs, but we still dutifully thank them for their morsels of information and sheepishly ask for a second helping of porridge, kind sirs. One more image after the break….

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'Tis the season to cut prices as Toshiba slashes the cost of its hi-def spinners – now from just £250

This price-cutting wave is catching. With the ink barely dry on the Xbox 360's new price tags, Toshiba's had a word in our shell-like to tell us it's marked down the already bargain HD DVD spinners.So £250 will now get you the top-selling HD-E1 or, for an extra hundred of your English/Scottish/Welsh/Northern Irish pounds you can invest in the 1080p-spewing EP10 (pictured).And they're the official prices, mind. A quick search online will now find you the HD-E1 at an incredible £210 or the HP10 for £300.At those prices you may as well forget a dual disc spinner. Bag a Toshiba and …

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Add Blu-ray to your PC for a mere £125 – just don't forget the graphics card

Seems the PS3 is not the only route to cheap hi-def thrills. Phillips partner, Lite-On, is getting ready to debut a cut-price Blu-ray drive for PC movie watchers for a mere £125.Natch it won't burn BD discs but it will spin them and, provided you have a HDCP compatible graphics card such as the bargain basement ATI Radeon HD 2400, you can watch Blu-ray movies to your heart’s content on your monitor or an attached HD-ready TV.Incidentally, it turns out that the Xbox 360's external HD DVD drive is compatible with Windows XP should you want to watch a spot of Transformers with your Spi…

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You didn't think Acer's recent deal with the Blu-ray camp was an exclusive arrangement did you? No sir-e, not if this product sheet is to be believed. Though the details are hard to make out, those Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD logos make it pretty clear that the Aspire line-up of multimedia desktops are about to go both ways. The desktop will feature what Acer calls “Blu-ray Universal” which reads Blu-ray and HD DVD discs while burning DVDs and CDs. Sounds like an LG Super Multi Blue player to us. It's all said to be going down on October 1st, in Australia anyway. Do your best to make out the full …

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Samsung's format war peacemaker, the Blu-ray and HD DVD swallowing BD-UP5000, has finally been unveiled. Looks good don't it?

Here it is: the player that'll be gracing the homes of hi-def fence sitters up and down the land.Announced way back in April, Samsung's finally given us a proper glimpse of its new one-for-all machine that'll spin Blu-ray discs, HD DVDs and even DVDs if you ask it nicely. It'd probably have a stab at Laserdiscs if the slot was big enough.All splendid but it sadly won't be quite as cheap as we'd hoped – coming in at around $1050, rather than the $545 figure first touted.Still, it'll manage 1080p in both HD formats and for DVDs too, thanks to the same HQV upconversion gubbins found in the …

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The Optiarc mashup between Sony and NEC has spawned a new brood of DVD and Blu-ray Disc drives. For HD DVD lovin' NEC already seen dabbling in dual-format underpinnings, the addition of Blu-ray Disc drives to their product roster is a notable development in the format war and yet another possible sign of Blu-ray's emerging dominance. No less than four new Blu-ray devices for laptops were launched at CeBIT: the BD-5710S, the BD-5600S, the BD-5500S, and the BD-5500A. The BD-5500A (pictured above) writes at 2x to both single- and dual-layer BD-R, 2x BD-RE DL, 4x DVD-R DL and reads BD at 2x. Also …

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DVDs are for the kids – now that Panasonic's come up with a Blu-ray spinning head unit

We're done with DVDs – even in the car. Frankly, if it isn't 1080p we won't touch it, so bravo to Panasonic. It's decided to bring Blu-ray (BD) to the humble head unit.Not like Panasonic’s current Blu-ray players (pictured), the car versions will be smaller and fit snugly away – we hope. Last thing you want is a hulking great disc spinner under your feet.We know what you’re thinking though: watching hi-def on the 7in screen, how crappy will that be? But think about it. Having shelled out £30 plus for your copy of Spiderman 3, do you really want to get hit again for…

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It really doesn't take a keen eye for news these days to spot the all-out PR blitz by team Blu-ray to convince the masses that the format war is over and Blu-ray has won. Now Toshiba is finally sticking up for itself, in specific response to Blu-ray's recent CeBIT press conference. Olivier Van Wynendaele, Deputy General manager of HD DVD at Toshiba, calls the Blu-ray claims “propaganda” and disputes the Blu-ray points. For instance, the new 3:1 sales figure being touted by the Blu-ray Disc Association in regards to Blu-ray to HD DVD sales is claimed by Wynendaele to be artificially inflated by…

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Knocking down our hi-def doors like a comedy juggernaut, Adam Sandler's latest film has arrived with another exciting announcement, 50GB Blu-ray discs

With today’s release of Adam Sandler’s latest comedy vehicle Click! comes something rather more special: the first commercially available 50GB, dual-layer Blu-ray disc.This should excite you for two good reasons: 1) you’re a hi-def buff and you want to experience the visual fruit of its Blu-ray high-resolution labours; and 2) this is only the first of many, we’re assured.In fact, not content with just one monumentally hi-def flick, Sony Pictures has also announced another two in the pipeline. There’s a new version of Black Hawk Down and the achingly amusing Tallad…

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Looks like Toshiba
isn't the only company with last-minute jitters about the market for next-gen optical disc players. Samsung has now confirmed rumors that the
company's BD-P1000, its first consumer Blu-ray disc player, will be delayed from its original ship date of May 23 to
sometime in late June. According to Samsung, the $999 player is being delayed due to "testing" needs, though
we certainly can't rule out the possibility that at least one of the "tests" the company is planning will be
a check of the amount of BD media in the
marketplace by the launch date. Samsung sti…

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