Audio Video News

Recently released independent sales tracking from Nielsen's VideoScan has shown that Blu-ray Disc has nearly caught up to HD DVD in total number of discs sold since launch, and that the Sony-backed format outsold HD DVD at a rate of better than 2:1 in the first two weeks of January. While this is certainly too short a window to draw conclusions from, there are some significant reasons that this news bodes well for Blu-ray.

One of the stories of CES 2007 that didn't make it into <A HREF="http://blog.ultimateavmag.com/ces2007/"><I>UAV's</I> Blogs</A> is Sony's Internet TV, which is a two-part concept that includes an add-on module for its BRAVIA TVs and streaming broadband content provided by Sony's music and movie arms and partners like AOL, Yahoo, and Grouper. The BRAVIA Internet Video Link requires an Ethernet connection and is compact enough that the BRAVIA LCD flat panels can still be wall-mounted with the module in place.

Whither SED? That was a question on the minds of many journalists walking through Toshiba's city block-sized booth at CES 2007. As it turns out, Toshiba has sold its stake in the burgeoning flat panel display technology to Canon, its partner in the venture.

The format war just took and interesting turn as some juicy pre-CES news leaked out to the Internet today courtesy of the New York Times. Next week at CES Warner will be announcing the Total HD disc, which will carry both Blu-ray and HD DVD transfers of a title on a single disc.

For 2007, Home Entertainment Show makes a return engagement to New York City—one of the most popular destinations ever for this event! The venue is the elegant and gracious Grand Hyatt New York Hotel, where the consumer-electronics industry and music lovers alike will descend on May 11–13, 2007 to see and hear the latest high-end home audio and video entertainment products, gaming consoles, imaging products, and more.

In late November Comcast began offering on-demand movie titles from every major studio day and date with the films' DVD debut in its Pittsburgh and Denver markets for $4 per viewing. On-demand video availability for major movies has typically lagged 30-45 days behind the DVD release, creating an exclusive window for DVD sales and rentals, which has certainly not helped on-demand's popularity. If this practice extends beyond these markets and to other cable and satellite operators it seems likely that DVD sales will continue to erode.

The Associated Press has reported that Sony is sticking with its target of having six million PlayStation3 game consoles shipped to retailers by March, the end of the fiscal year. Further, Sony claims it will also meet its goal of having two million PS3s shipped by the end of this calendar year.