Hey, guess who showed up on time?
Yes, you guessed it, DirecTV showed up on time Saturday, installed my MPEG-4 dish and receiver (well, to be more exact, they just did the former), so now when the ESPNs, Discoverys and History Channels of the world all get into HD (which should be occurred starting in September), I’ll be ready to enjoy millions and millions of high definition broadcasts like I should.
Anyway, moving onto news that doesn’t pertain to me, Samsung appears to be on the verge of releas…ng their third-generation player. The BDP-1400 will support all of the next generation audio formats and will be appearing during the IFA in Berlin at the end of August, to be sold in September. In addition, a BDP-2400 will be released a month later, cost $100 more and interlace better using proprietary technology. All of this, combined with speculation that more details will emerge among Samsung’s dual format player (to be released at the end of the year) make things mighty interesting for the company.
And besides, everyone now knows the $100 on the 60GB PS3 is a done deal now, to help move units out of the way for an 80GB model in August that will retail for the old $599 price, and Amazon has got a nice package deal that includes a Blu-ray remote and a movie to boot for the $499 price. Walmart is even doing a “free discs with BDP-S300” package for $10 cheaper. It’s nice to see as the temperatures are high, prices are finally coming down, and hopefully more of the same will follow in the future.
Disc announcement wise, the big one appears the be the dual-format announcement of the Director’s Cut of Troy. The initially underwhelming Brad Pitt swords and sandals epic streets on 9/18 from Warner, what will be interesting to see is if the extras on the current HD DVD version (read the IME) are not only ported over to this new one but also to the Blu-ray version to boot. Paramount will bring out Next to both formats a week later, Blu-ray exclusivos will see A Few Good MenBug a week later. On the “What’s Out This Week?” front, things this week are light, as Blu-ray campers can see if they want Premonition, Waiting… or Wild Things on the format. And if you haven’t gotten a copy of The Fifth Element yet, the remastered edition with TrueHD on top of it will be out as well.
That’s it for me this week, and as always high definers, keep the brightness low and the resolution high!
