Five consumer electronics companies, Sony, Panasonic, Pioneer, Samsung, and Philips, and five movie studios, Gaumont, Columbia Tristar, Walt Disney, Pathé, and Warner Home Video, have formed a consortium to promote Blu-ray Disc in France. They’re goal is to place 600,000 units in homes by the end of the year (counting standalone players and PS3s), which would mean capturing 90% of the HD player market. Blu-ray currently accounts for 60% of HD movie sales in France, and if the consortium meets their goals that is expected to hit 80%. The original article is in French, translated via Google. Picked up from Blu-ray.com.
New Blu-ray players coming to market to support Profile 1.1 and Profile 2.0 (BD-Live). The LG BH200 ‘Super Blu’ player, which supports both BD and HD DVD will be the first Blu-ray Profile 1.1 unit to go on sale. And it is also expected to support BD-Live as it has an Ethernet port. Sony is expected to update the PS3 to BD 1.1, and perhaps 2.0/Live in their next firmware update. Pioneer will unveil their first ‘full profile’ BD player at CES in January, Daewoo and Denon will also be releasing such players. From Video Business, by way of Blu-ray.com.
Sony to launch new PC Blu-ray drives. Sony will launch a BD-ROM drive in early 2008 for under $200. This is strictly a ROM drive, no burning capabilities. Coming sooner, in November, is the $600 BWU-200S Blu-ray burner. It will burn Blu-ray at 4x, DVD-/+R at 16x, and dual-layer DVD-/+R at 8x. From TWICE.
