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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HD DVD breathes again. Rumours of Microsoft bringing out a Blu-ray drive for the Xbox 360 have been well a truly quashed

As far as rumours go it was up there with the 'Apple will use Intel chips', 'Palm will switch to Windows Mobile' and 'Sega will stop making consoles' type – all of which, er, came true. So while we weren't holding our breaths on reports that Microsoft was considering an Xbox 360 Blu-ray drive, we still weren't prepared to stake a dinner date with our hats on it.With Microsoft and its bargain, if slightly flawed, HD add-on (pictured) being one of the key partners in the HD DVD camp it was hardly likely. Still, with HD DVDs taking a hammering in the States and BD discs outselling them by m…

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No surprises here, but Philips is finally getting official on their BDP9000 Blu-ray player, along with that SPD7000 TripleWriter Blu-ray burner and their 25GB Blu-ray media. We saw the Philips player back at CES, but haven't heard much since. Available in the third quarter of 2006, the unit has a suggested retail price of $999, and, well, it plays Blu-ray discs. The burner is slater for Q3 as well, and we had heard of an August launch previously, so we're guessing we'll see both of these devices around then. Philips is prepping Blu-ray media as well, and they're planning on releasing their 25G…

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No need to wait 'til Christmas for your dual HD DVD and Blu-ray player kicks from Samsung. LG's BH100 hybrid player is on its way right now

Well that format war was fun while it lasted, but now we've settled it, with LG's BH100 dual disc spinner.First spotted at CES in January, John Lewis has just announced that it's shipping in consignments of the hi-def peacemaker to hit the shelves around the middle of next month – well ahead of Samsung's similarly bi-lingual BD-UP5000.So now Blu-ray and HD DVD can scrap it out all they want, it matters not one jot for the BH100. Also known as the 'LG Super Multi Blue', it’ll play both formats in all their 1080p loveliness. Oh and toss in a few of your old DVDs while you're at it &#…

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The Blu-ray Disc camp just unrolled another: the BD-HP1 AQUOS hi-vision recorder from Sharp. Yes, it records, to single-layer (only) BD-R/RE in MPEG-2 format with AAC audio for about 2-hours and 10-minutes of 1080p video at 24Mbps. Of course, it will also playback DVD±R/RW and DVD-RAM discs as well. It comes packing 1x HDMI (presumably with Familink support), Japanese D4, S-Video, and composite video outputs; optical/coaxial digital audio; and support for 7.1ch sound. It also brings 2x Firewire allowing the BD-HP1 to augment your existing hard disk recorder set-up for BD dubbing. Hittin…

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