Whoa, we didn't see this one coming, but in an announcement today, the international Advanced Television Systems Committee approved and published an update (A/72) to the spec we all use for over-the-air HD that includes the hottest new codec around, H.264. The problem is that the odds of the US adopting the new standard with ATSC 1.0 so wide spread, is slim to none. It makes sense if you think about it, we aren't even done using NTSC yet, so the last thing every broadcaster in America wants to do now, is to go and replace all those modulators again. And it goes without saying that all the consumers aren't rushing out to replace all the tuners in our brand new HDTVs. So while it may be some time before the we adopt a new standard in the US, the rest of the world that chooses the new standard when they switch digital can at least enjoy more HD, with less bandwidth.

Thomson's Tiger AVC encoder that it has been using in house for the last couple of years, is now available for sale to interested Blu-ray (and HD DVD) compression and authoring facilities. Including Thomson's film grain adjustment technology among other parts of a "secret sauce" Thomson says results in better looking MPEG-4 / h.264 encoded movies. Packaged as the Nexcode HD AVC Encoder, its a full hardware and software solution built to scale to business requirements. No word on who exactly will use this technology, but as long as our HDM is artifact-free, we're not too concerned how it got that way.

The PlayStation 3's latest firmware update is out in Japan, adding an option to force 1080p/24 Blu-ray/DVD playback to the console, among other features. Continuing the steady flow of updates for the PS3, v1.90 also adds playback for AVCHD files from Memory Stick or digital camera, upscaling for audio CD output over HDMI or optical output, the ability to change XMB wallpaper, adjust video output settings for PSOne and PS2 game while in game and an "eject disc" option on the XMB. The official PlayStation Blog says the update is "coming soon" to the U.S. so keep that 24fps-compatible HDTV ready for judder-free movie playback.

Update: Added in this update is the ability to "force" 24fps output, which should fix compatibility issues with certain displays. (Thanks Mp3)

Read - PlayStation.Blog
Read - Impress

Considering what a mythical reference title The Fifth Element was when released on DVD (and Superbit, and Laserdisc!), it was surprising to see it reviewed as just another softly-focused, dirty, and scratchy launch title for Blu-ray. Many reviewers and fans complained about the lackluster MPEG-2 encoding, and the general poor quality of the transfer. Sony has announced details and contact information about a plan to exchange the first -- now discontinued -- batch of Blu-ray Discs for the remastered edition, due to be released in July. The new version is a new 1080p transfer from a different master, and includes Dolby TrueHD as well as uncompressed PCM audio. It will also be encoded in MPEG-4 AVC, which will hopefully show off the improved compression of the newer codec. Quite an olive branch from Sony for those who have already picked it up, and a show of good steps toward making Blu-ray titles the best they can be. Now the question remains, how many of the other initial MPEG-2 Blu-ray titles will be remastered like this?

Today's latest CODECs can do some amazing things in the quality vs size compromise, but anyone who has tried to encode their own knows how challenging it can be. Members of the Blu-ray camp have claimed they use MPEG2 for just that reason. To make using the latest CODECs easier, Toshiba has developed an encoder that can run on a PC and even encode in real time, which they say will make content creation even easier and faster.

Fox has announced they are jumping into the Blu-ray market in a big way this fall, with eight titles scheduled and the debut of many of the advanced features we've been expecting to see from Blu-ray since launch. Slated to launch just ahead of the Playstion 3 in Japan November 10th followed by North America, Europe and Australia release on November 14th, all of the movies will carry an MSRP of $39.98 and appear to be well worth it. Also announced today is the day-and-date with the DVD release of Ice Age: The Meltdown on Blu-ray November 21st. The rundown of the titles and their features is as follows:

• Behind Enemy Lines: BD-J authored, DTS HD Lossless Master Audio and MPEG-4 compression. Includes several director commentaries and HD trailers for coming BD releases.
• Fantastic Four: DTS HD Lossless Master Audio, HD Trailers, HDMV authored.
  
• Kingdom of Heaven (Directors Cut): 50GB dual-layer Blu-ray disc to accommodate the 3 hour 42 minute movie DTS HD Master Lossless Audio, HDMV authored.
  
• Kiss of the Dragon: Director commentaries, HDMV authored, HD Trailers.
• The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: BD-J authored, MPEG-4 AVC compression, special features including search index by actor/character/location and more, a first-person shooter game, up to 99 bookmarks, pop up animated trivia game and HD trailers.
• The Omen (666): DTS HD Lossless Master Audio, director commentaries plus BD-exclusive pop-up trivia track The Devils Footnotes exploring the history of 666.
• Speed: BD-J authored, DTS HD Lossless Master Audio, 56 category search index, Speed: Take Down Java game with six play modes and HD trailers.
• The Transporter: DTS HD Lossless Master Audio, HDMV authored, director commentaries, HD trailers.

Twentieth Century Fox is obviously going the extra mile to show what Blu-ray can do in these initial releases, with features even Sony Pictures has put off until 2007 like BD-J. As the press release states, these titles and features have been chosen specifically to appeal to buyers of the Playstation 3 and Blu-ray early adopters. While you may be familiar with Blu-ray's advanced Blu-ray Java features obviously present in the BD-J authored releases, if you're unfamiliar with HDMV, that is the term for discs authored with simpler menus more reminiscent of traditional DVDs. While HD DVD has undoubtedly outclassed Blu-ray up to this point, it looks like the BDA's first strike back will come in November.

NVIDIA's PureVideo H.264 hardware acceleration was officially announced today and there was much rejoicing. Why bog down your CPU with mundane video decoding tasks when your GPU can do it for you, right? PureVideo hardware decoding supports all of the standard MPEG-4 flavors such as H.264, VC-1, WMV and also supports the "soon-to-be-legacy"  MPEG-2 compression as well.  NVIDIA's PureVideo technology will show up in both desktop and notebook products: the GeForce 6- and 7-series will sport the new technology, as well as the nForce 6150 series of GPUs. Note that this should cover you in a PC solution for either Blu-Ray or HD-DVD since all of the usual suspects codecs are supported.

No official word from the company that we can find, but NVIDIA is allegedly going to bundle H.264 decoding software with their GeForce 7600 series that surfaced last month.  Currently, the cards support MPEG-2 decoding, but the decoding software isn't supplied with the card. Instead of shelling out an additional few bucks, if you can get H.264 or MPEG-4 Part 10 or AVC (did we hit 'em all?) decoding software for free, we're all for it. HDTV clearly isn't limited tothe television area, so it would be a wise move for NVIDIA, and ATI for that matter, to keep pushing the envelope for their GPUs and cards.

It seems DirecTV is getting the MPEG-4 AVC party started a little early. We knew New York and LA were going to get local channels in high definition, but we thought it would take until January, we were wrong. Starting today, both cities can enjoy their local programming via satellite as long as you have the right equipment.

Subscribers who already get their local channels in HD via MPEG-2 equipment don't worry, nothing has changed (yet) for you.

New York channels:

• WABC/Channel 7
• WNBC/ Channel 4
• WCBS/Channel 2
• WNYW (FOX)/Channel 5

LA Channels:

• KABC/Channel 7
  
• KTTV (Fox)/Channel 11
  
• KCBS/Channel 2
  
• KNBC/ Channel 4