Blu-ray sales in the UK didn’t keep up their mind melting increases from earlier in the year, but considering the economic slowdown worldwide, a 378% jump from 2007 doesn’t seem too disappointing. The British Video Association and Official Charts Company numbers point out a 1.9% lift in DVD sales as a whole in 2008, including [...]

Stand-alone Blu-ray Disc player revenue during the week of Thanksgiving and Black Friday more than tripled from a year earlier. $30 million was spend for 147,000 Blu-ray players during the week and 1 out of 4 video-disc players sold was Blu-ray machines up from 6% a year earlier. Sony and Samsung, selling their cheapest Blu-ray players for [...]

Okay, I’ll have to admit I asked for this a bit. In my last post about Denon Blu-ray players I demanded to know what Denon would describe as ‘high-end’, after their ‘entry-level’ player cost $900. Well, this is it. It’s the catchily-named DVD-A1UD, and it’ll play back Blu-ray discs, Super Audio CD (SACD), DVD-Audio, DVD-Video and [...]

The water the home-entertainment industry is treading is getting Blu-er. That’s the news that came out of an Entertainment Merchants Association report this week about U.S. consumer spending on DVDs. Studios celebrating Sony’s Blu-ray victory in the high-definition DVD format war in February were validated by an EMA estimate that spending on [...]

Lee Dye reports, TOKYO–Toshiba Corporation today announced that it has undertaken a thorough review of its overall strategy for HD DVD and has decided it will no longer develop, manufacture and market HD DVD players and recorders. This decision has been made following recent major changes in the market. Toshiba will continue, however, to provide full [...]

Circuit City extends HD DVD return time By MICHAEL FELBERBAUM, Associated Press Writer Thu Mar 6, 2:12 PM ET Circuit City Stores Inc. is getting on the Blu-ray digital video format bandwagon by tripling the period in which customers who purchased a rival HD DVD player can return them. The nation’s No. 2 electronics retailer has instructed its [...]

The Financial Times reports rivals are talking about adding high-def technology to formerly HD DVD-aligned console; Microsoft denies anything official, Sony says it’s open to the possibility. Sony is in talks with console rival Microsoft about offering a Blu-ray drive for the Xbox 360, according to a senior executive.The Japanese electronics maker has until now touted [...]

Still fresh on everyone’s mind, Universal wasted no time responding to Toshibas surrender in the HD-DVD format war with supoport for the Blu-Ray format. “While Universal values the close partnership we have shared with Toshiba, it is time to turn our focus to releasing new and catalog titles on Blu-ray,” said Craig Kornblau, president [...]