If you just so happened to miss out (aw, shucks) on Disney’s Magical Blu-ray Tour the last time it went trekking across the continent, you could be in luck. The tour, which reportedly aims to “educate consumers… about the amazing capabilities of Blu-ray,” kicked back off on January 25th in Toronto, Canada, and will hit six more North American cities before it goes back into hiatus. Consumers who meander on out to one of the show dates will get to see previews of upcoming titles (Finding Nemo and The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe in particular) and presumably get blasted with loads of marketing hoopla all the while. Nevertheless, be sure to hit the read link and scroll down for exact dates of when the tour will be rolling through Hartford, Raleigh-Durham, Nashville, Dallas, Denver and Chicago areas if you’re so inclined.

[Image courtesy of USAToday]

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Despite limitations that keep us from crowning it the best Blu-ray player out there, the PS3 is the most popular way to get into the format. The PS3 also gets dinged as a Blu-ray player because of its Bluetooth remote control. Who knows what Sony was thinking — maybe IR was just too old timey for their next gen console or maybe they just wanted to get as much “blue” as possible. Whatever the case, the use of Bluetooth makes it pretty much impossible to integrate the PS3 with your system’s remote scheme. While there are USB-based workarounds, they leave out some functions (most notably power on/off). Enter the IR4PS3, which adds an IR receiver to the Bluetooth PS3 remote, effectively turning your Bluetooth PS3 remote into a IR-to-Bluetooth transceiver. IR goes in, Bluetooth commands go out, and you get full functionality. You want it, right? Well, you’ll have to wait for the manufacturer to prepare a DIY-friendly revision (giving you time to polish up your soldering skills).

[Image courtesy RemoteCentral]

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While one week is not a trend, two weeks in the row could be the start of one. And according to this week’s Nielsen VideoScan numbers courtesy of Home Media Magazine, Blu-ray has once again defeated HD DVD handily with a 83/17 split (4.9:1). The other thing to happen two weeks in a row that could also become a trend is that — despite the fact that four of the top ten titles are also available on Blu-ray — not one HD DVD made the list. You might be quick to say this is Warner’s doing, but we can’t forget that it has been a month since HD DVD released a decent title. So this situation is as much Universal and Paramount’s fault as anyone else. Of course the real bad news here for the red camp is there aren’t any hot titles to speak of until American Gangster hits the street in about a month. And to top this off — looking at the entire release schedule for the red camp — there are only ten HD DVD exclusive titles. If HD DVD is really trying to win this thing, they need to push Universal and Paramount to release the hottest catalog titles in their vaults, otherwise we don’t see how this thing can be turned around.

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If you want the ultimate HD media machine, it is hard to beat Vista Media Center. Seriously, you’ve got HD CableCARD support, HD DirecTV tuners are right around the corner and for less than $300 you can get a dual format HD DVD and Blu-ray drive. And no matter what your feeling are about Microsoft, it’s hard to argue that the Vista Media Center isn’t a pleasure to use. But the are a couple of caveats that are keeping us all from the ultimate HD media experience. The first — which should be just a matter of time — is the lack of support for any of the next-gen audio codecs, but the second might not ever happen. Vista Media Center can seamlessly playback DVDs, HD DVD or Blu-ray discs require a 3rd party application. Sure, it still works, but the overall flow is lost. Many had hope that eventually MS would come around and at least add native support for HD DVD, but considering the Blu-ray spec requires BD Java — and we know how much MS loves Java — MS insiders like Chris Lanier don’t think it’ll ever happen. So if HD DVD does go away only leaving with Blu-ray, we might not ever see the ultimate HD media experience all in one box.

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Sony has announced the development of a new Blu-ray reader / writer module that is not only smaller than previous components, but promises to be cheaper as well due to a simplified manufacturing process. The new laser housing is less than three millimeters thick, according to the Japanese manufacturer and co-developer Nichia Corporation, enabling it to be incorporated into smaller devices such as portable players. Sony predicts that we’ll first start seeing 9.5-millimeter laptop BD drives which employ the module later this year.

[Via Tech.co.uk, thanks Kiwi616]

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Some were very quick to crown Blu-ray the winner when we learned that the Blu-ray player owned 93 percent of the HD movie market the week after Warner went Blu. Evidently the numbers were leaked and the NPD group was quick to respond in an attempt to clear things up. As expected, some were just as quick to discount the Blu-ray success — which is just as silly as saying the numbers alone mean Blu-ray has won. Two things happened that week that we’re not so sure could continue forever; HD DVD sales were down, and Blu-ray sales were up. With some help from a few promotions (free player with a new TV) — stand-alone Blu-ray player sales were up 30 percent (22k, up from 15k) — but this alone wasn’t enough to shift HD DVD share from 40 percent down to 7. HD DVD only sold 1,758 stand-alone players during the same week, compared to 14,558 the week before. So while Blu-ray was up 30, HD DVD was down 88 percent. So it isn’t that the Blu-ray sales were all that spectacular, but instead it was that HD DVD sales were way down. At this point it doesn’t mean anything, but if it continues for more than a month then that’s whole ‘nother story entirely.

[Thanks, To everyone who sent this in]

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As has become quite the norm for Amazon, it seems that the trio of flicks it proudly listed as Blu-ray titles just two days back were in fact listed erroneously. A new report over at Heise — and a quick click back over to the exact same Amazon links — shows that the films are indeed HD DVDs. So yeah, we wouldn’t take any of Amazon’s listings from here on out as a sign of the format war getting even crazier, but who knows, try clicking back tomorrow and see if they’re scheduled to debut on HD VMD.

[Via FormatWarCentral, thanks Blake]

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We wouldn’t call this one definite just yet, but according to “sources” cited by TGDaily, a Chicagoland retailer is shedding its purple skin in favor of Blu. Reportedly, it has “stopped ordering new HD DVD supply” entirely, and while it’s said that existing inventory has been depleted, we reckon you may be able to score a real deal should you find a locale with one last HD-A3 just begging for an owner. ‘Course, whether or not you should plunk down any coin whatsoever on HD DVD — considering the state of things and all — is another matter entirely.

[Thanks, Dave]

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In an interview, Universal executive vice president and HD DVD Promotional Group co-president Ken Graffeo gave some insights to the recent format war developments. First up, he addresses the obvious: the pre-CES Warner announcement was a surprise, and the necessary re-jiggering of the HD DVD press conference is what led to its cancellation. Graffeo also reiterates that Universal will continue to stand behind the HD DVD format and roll out new titles; “business as usual” as he calls it. It’s a brave face to put on the embattled format; but if consumer purchases are the strongest statement that can be made, then how can the 60:40 split in sales figures be reconciled with his statement that “… we just haven’t addressed (Warner’s move) yet?”

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According to the latest NPD group report, during the month of December Blu-ray players held 60 percent of the HD media player market — despite the fact that HD DVD players were considerably cheaper. While that might’ve helped Warner in its decision to go Blu, the move has definitely had a dramatic effect on player sales since. According to the same study the week after the announcement, Blu-ray players were able to grab 93 percent of the market, which puts the year to date (short, we know) share for Blu-ray players at 70 percent. Granted, it’s hard to put too much stock in just a week or two of data, but if this and the recent media sales numbers (85 percent) becomes a trend, maybe this won’t be such a slow death for HD DVD after all.

[Via Blu-ray.com]

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