Okay, so there are a few titles out there on Blu-ray, DVD and / or CD that simply shine. Those are undoubtedly the ones you bring out when looking to wow onlookers who are checking out your setup for the first time. But wouldn't you like to know which titles industry professionals use to seal deals and land clients? Thanks to a feature over at CE Pro, now you can. Bigwigs from SpeakerCraft, Richard Gray's Power Company and the Imaging Science Foundation were questioned about their favorite source material, and just to name a few, Cars, Casino Royale, The Fifth Element (the remastered version, obviously), Vertical Limit and Contact (DVD) made the cut. Hit up the read link for the full list.

Oh yeah, Onkyo's definitely going to dish out a Blu-ray player of its own later this year, but it can't just sit idly until that one has spent adequate time in the oven, now can it? Say hello to the DV-SP406, a 1080p upscaling DVD player that delivers upconverted content over HDMI. You won't find SACD / DVD-Audio compatibility here, but you will find coaxial / optical digital audio ports, a USB socket for loading up multimedia files and a 180MHz / 14-bit video DAC. Not too much else to gloat about beyond that, but considering the $125 street price (available now in black or silver), we suppose that's just alright.

[Via RandomlyAccessed, thanks littlefarny]

Slumping economy? Recession? Poppycock. Based on sales of home media, America's financial engine is humming along just fine, with consumers plunking down 1.6% more on DVD / Blu-ray purchases and rentals combined than they did in the first half of 2007. Granted, some may suggest that home entertainment is seeing an increase as more lavish alternatives (going out for a movie, taking a vacation, etc.) are utilized less frequently, but whatever the case, this sector is sure benefiting. Focusing on HDM, we're hearing that $194 million has been spent on Blu-ray Disc thus far in 2008, which is up some 350% from $43 million in 1H 2007. Amazing what a format war conclusion will do for numbers, huh?

[Image courtesy of Syracuse, thanks Joel]

If you've stumbled upon the perfect solution for archiving your DVD collection and streaming it via a DLNA server (you know, like the PlayStation 3), this week's Ask Engadget question is just begging for your input. Head on over and give those two pennies a toss!

Okay, so we really have no clue what's going on inside of Toshiba's labs, but one thing is for certain: it has upscaling on the brain. After hearing of an elusive super-resolution DVD player and seeing an all-too-curious new DVD logo, in flies word from Germany that the outfit is prepping an updated line of Picture Frame LCD HDTVs for release at IFA 2008. On the surface, there's not too much different about these REGZAs compared to any others, but internally, the newcomers are expected to tout Cell-based Resolution+ technology, which will upscale SD images in an attempt to make something (read: HD) out of nothing. Granted, Tosh has been talking up this stuff since CES, so it's not an entirely new concept, but we'll be interested to see if this has anything to do with those rumored DVD deck plans.

[Via Big-Screen, danke Joel]

'Round these parts, we prefer to read the fine print first, so it should be noted that none other than Macrovision -- you know, the firm that purchased the now-cracked BD+ DRM scheme for $45 million last year -- financed this here study. According to poll results from US and UK consumers, around 1 in 3 individuals admitted to "making copies of pre-recorded DVDs in the past 6 months, up over a quarter from the previous year's study." Predictably, males aged 18 to 24 were most likely to wear an eye patch and own a DVD burner (if you catch our drift), and while revenue loss due to illegal copying is certainly a valid concern, researchers did find that 62% of American respondents (and 49% in the UK) were duping flicks they already owned. Arrr!

[Image courtesy of George Dillon]

We keep hoping that Toshiba will come to its senses and just let this whole thing die, but no. Apparently insistent on keeping the last-generation format alive for as long as it possibly can, it seems the outfit is getting ever-closer to a super-resolution DVD player that would reportedly upscale DVD content like nothing we've ever seen. The latest tidbit in this woefully depressing saga is a newly approved DVD Download DL logo, which was given the final thumbs-up by the DVD Forum Steering Committee last month. In reality, no one outside of Tosh's headquarters has any idea if this development is indeed intrinsically related, but at this point, we wouldn't be shocked one bit to find that it was. Then again, the June 11th meeting also saw specifications for CH-DVD approved, so here's to hoping Toshiba isn't jumping on that bandwagon fiery wreck.

[Via TG Daily]

Read - DVD Forum approval
Read - Discussion / rumors

Never mind those fancy BD-R critters, how's about a 42GB DVD? Researchers with a good deal more intelligence than us over at Tohoku University have reportedly figured out a way to "multiply the amount of data that can be stored on a DVD or CD by 9." Based on our best guess at translating a foreign language (we kid... sort of), the achievement was realized by shaping the pits on a DVD's surface like Vs, essentially making the disc more capacious in the process. Unfortunately, said project will probably never see any mainstream attention, as existing DVD / CD players won't recognize the malformed media, and worse still, the process can't be applied to Blu-ray Discs.

[Via CrunchGear]

Oh, joy. Yet another report suggesting something about the year 2012 -- as if we're just going to let 'em spew anything and not check back for accuracy in 3.5 years? Anywho, not long after hearing a laughable article suggesting that Blu-ray decks would outsell DVD players by August (yes, of 2008), along comes another that makes a little more sense. The Entertainment Merchants Association's (EMA) 2008 annual report on home entertainment has found that "nearly 9 million high-definition discs were sold in 2007," and just 12,177 DVDs were released last year, down from a peak of 13,950 in 2005. More interesting, however, was the notion that "in 2012, sales of Blu-ray Discs will exceed those of standard DVDs and will generate sales of $9.5 billion," while spending on home video in general is expected to increase to $25.6 billion. Remember those days when you just couldn't find a VHS tape to save your life? You've got just under four years before that same feeling hits in relation to DVD (their assertion, not ours).

DVD rental kiosks have been lighting up pharmacies and supermarkets across the US, but it seems that UKers and Irish lads / dames will soon have the great, great privilege of interfacing with Movie Booths in the near future. This particular unit doesn't seem all too different from other variations we've seen, boasting a simple touchscreen display and a built-in android tasked with fetching your selected title and spitting it out for a nominal (read: undisclosed) fee. Apparently, trials have been deemed a success in outlets like Tesco, Centra and Applegreen, thus paving the way to see these pop up everywhere by the year's end. Any chance we'll see a Blu-ray Disc or two popped in there?

[Via Pocket-lint]

Let's get real honest with one another here: if folks are legitimately arguing that a $700 Profile 2.0 Blu-ray player is overpriced, there's absolutely no way a DVD player is worth over four times as much. That being said, the folks over at Sound & Vision put the pricey pair through the paces, and they were actually quite pleased with the results. In a nutshell, it seems that reviewers found the best upscaling DVD players this planet has to offer, and while all the fawning over their pristine reproduction of colors was fine and dandy, it's the value proposition here that's absurdly out of whack. In fairness, it's good to hear that the bundled Sigma Designs' Gennum VXP video processor chip lived up to the hype, but all the upconverting in the world won't make us believe these things are worthy of the stratospheric prices.

And you thought Toshiba's super-resolution DVD player taking on Blu-ray was comical. Kaleidescape -- the company famous for selling grossly overpriced (albeit fanciful) DVD / BD archiving systems for wealthy home theater junkies -- has just announced two new standalone DVD players that "provide a viewing experience that rivals Blu-ray." The argument goes something like this: there are 170,000 titles on DVD, and "just 6,000" (wait, for real?) on BD -- why support the next-gen format when these two upscaling DVD players display content that is utterly indiscernible from Blu-ray. For starters, the outfit is launching the 1080p Player (pictured), which earns the "ultimate DVD player" label by featuring a Sigma Designs Gennum VXP chip, 10-bit processing and full support for Dolby Digital, DTS, MPEG and PCM audio formats. The 1080p Mini Player offers the same, but in a tinier package meant for inconspicuous installations. Granted, both units do have exclusive access to Kaleidescape's Movie Guide database, but that hardly justifies the $4,295 / $2,995 price tags (in addition to the required $10,000 Kaleidescape System). Full release after the jump.

Yes, this really is yet another research firm chiming in on the pace at which Blu-ray is being adopted. This go 'round, we've got Futuresource digging into the numbers, though it is looking exclusively at western Europe. According to Jim Bottoms, managing director of corporate development at the outfit, the "early indications are that Blu-ray player sales are running way ahead of DVD after the same time period." He continued on to say that his firm expects some 10 million Blu-ray players (Sony's PlayStation 3 included) to be in use before 2009 dawns, whereas just 1.5 million DVD players were installed after its third year on the market. Notably, the importance of the PS3 in all of this wasn't understated, but the data didn't mention how many of those 10 million were expected to be consoles.

[Via MarketNewsGadgetTalk]

For the attentive in attendance, you likely noticed that none of Toshiba's newly announced laptops (yes, even the absurdly powerful Qosmio rigs) have built-in Blu-ray drives. Like, there's not even an option. When questioned about the obvious oversight (ahem), Tosh's Europe CEO Alan Thompson noted that "Blu-ray was just one of the many ways that you can get HD content and is not required for accessing HD content." Furthermore, it seems as if the outfit is continuing on in its pursuit to develop the best DVD upconverting technology in the whole wide world, as it explained to the press in London that its forthcoming technology would "fill in the gaps" and "add resolution." Company representatives even remarked that "Blu-ray was only a storage medium," and reiterated that BD "wasn't the only way to view high-def content." It's one thing to bow out gracefully, pick up the pieces and get on with life. It's another thing to douse yourself in ignorance and pretend that Blu-ray (let alone HD DVD) never happened.

Read - Toshiba's London press event
Read - Toshiba Europe CEO comments

Given Netflix's blatant plunge into the world of online content delivery, it shouldn't come as a surprise that the outfit's execs understand that physical media is at risk. Sure, DVD rentals far outnumber online rentals today, but Netflix is assuming that its DVD business could peak in around five to ten years. In a brief interview this week, CEO Reed Hastings told investors that "everybody peaks sometime," but he did note that Blu-ray was apt to make the "DVD ecosystem stronger." Even though the company is definitively moving at least some of its attention to online streaming, it's still quite aways from delivering a "standalone streaming service." On a slightly different note, we also learned that Intel-based Macs would be able to tap into the firm's "Watch Now" service "later this year," but unfortunately, it didn't get any more specific than that.

[Image courtesy of ANPark]