DVDs

December 22, 2008—Yamaha today introduced the DVX-700 DVD home theater system featuring an integrated DVD player, two front speakers and a powerful subwoofer for ultra-realistic home theater performance in an elegant design. The ideal system for smaller spaces where refined style is important, the DVX-700 ($1,199.95 MSRP) utilizes Yamaha’s exclusive Air Surround Xtreme technology to deliver fully convincing surround sound performance without requiring multiple speakers to be installed throughout the room.

Compact and eye-catching, the DVX-700 provides an exciting new way for consumers to bring home theater into their lives with a single purchase. The simple, basic and clean design ideally complements and enhances both modern and traditional home décor. The DVX-700 features a host of additional advancements all designed to deliver superior performance from a compact system. Read more

December 17, 2008 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Just in time for the holidays, Roxio is introducing a new online service that enables consumers to create and share stunning multimedia slideshows on professionally produced DVDs. A perfect solution for last-minute shoppers, the new Roxio PhotoShow DVD service allows consumers to quickly turn personal photos and video clips into an expressive multimedia slideshow. Users can also create personalized disc and cover artwork based on a pre-designed style. Finalized projects are then produced, tested, packaged and shipped from a professional DVD production facility. The service is available today at www.roxio.com. DVDs usually cost $29.99; however, for a limited time, Roxio is offering a special savings coupon code (DVDOFFER) worth $10 off the purchase price. See an example slideshow at www.RoxioMemorableGifts.com.

"Roxio PhotoShow DVD turns still images and video clips into richly woven digital stories that convey the full emotion and feeling behind important family memories, milestones and events," said Matt DiMaria, general manager, Roxio division of Sonic Solution. "Not only an ideal solution for last minute holiday shoppers, Roxio PhotoShow DVDs are also a great way to share the season's events with those closest to us after the holidays are over." Read more

Rob Glaser, RealNetworks CEO, hasn’t had a lot of winners lately so we bet the idea of helping you copy your Hollywood DVD sounded like a great way to strike it rich…again.

And to ensure you hear about his offer he chose to sue Hollywood before they sue him for his RealDVD copying, backup, archiving, ripping, whatever software. Nice quiet way to deliver the message!

Sounds great. The $30 software lets you rip a DVD movie to your computer hard drive. Read more

RealNetworks just announced RealDVD, a PC application that lets consumers legally save their DVDs to a PC or portable hard drive and watch them later without using the actual discs. Unlike existing applications, RealDVD is licensed DVD software that saves a secure copy of a DVD to the hard drive without removing or altering the CSS encryption. Laptop users will be pleased because the disc drive is no longer needed...which means better battery life when you're out on the road!

RealDVD will be available later this month from www.realdvd.com. Register to be one of the first to receive RealDVD and get a limited-time discount offer of $29.99 ($20.00 off the retail price of $49.99). Up to 4 additional licenses are available at a discounted price of $19.99.

More information: Read more

ONKYO jumps on the Blu-ray bandwagon with the announcement that they will release their first Blu-ray Player in late 2008. It is designed to partner with Onkyo’s HD A/V receivers equipped with full HDMI processing of 1080p video and Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio surround sound formats. The player is set to be released in late 2008. 

Want more information such as pricing, specs, an actual release date? So do we, but unfortunately that hasn’t been released yet. Stay tuned.

For more information on other ONKYO products, visit www.onkyousa.com.

If you haven’t jumped on the Blu-ray band wagon, this may be the moment you have been waiting for. DivX has granted certification to six new Blu-ray DVD players from Panasonic, Philips, and Denon. These models include the Panasonic DMP-BD30EE, the Philips BDP7200 and Denon DVD-2500BTC1B, DVD-3800BDC1B, DVD-3800BDC1B, DVD-3800BDSP and DVD-2500BTSP.

Each of these products have been put up to the DivX rigorous testing program in order to bear the DivX certification. Now each of these players are inter-operational with the same universal security and picture quality. And with the excellent compression of the DivX format, you can take advantage of Blu-ray technology to store and playback over 25 hours of DVD-quality video on a single Blu-ray disc. Read more

It’s Saturday night and you want to rent a movie and watch it with your family. Seems simple enough, but suddenly you have a cavalcade of choices including:

Brick and Mortar Rental Stores: You go to a store and rent a physical copy.
Delivery Service: You sign up for a subscription service such as Netflix, create a wish list of movies you want to see, and receive DVDs by mail.
Video On Demand: You select a movie to watch from a video-on-demand menu on your television and pay a fee that gets added to your cable bill.
Downloads: You go online, pay a fee and download a movie.

So many choices just to decide how you will get your movie, yet each has its pros and cons. Deciding which is the best choice is not always easy. Welcome to the world of 21st century entertainment. Read more

If what you are interested in is the best of the best, then this is the product for you. Introducing the Rolls-Royce of Blu-ray players, the Eidos 20 BD by Goldmund. The Goldmund company is a Swiss-based provider of high-end electronics for true connoisseurs with great expectations of quality. The Eidos 20 BD is the first Blu-ray player to be released by a luxury manufacturer. It embodies all of the fine craftsmanship of the Goldmund company and features the “AC-Curator” to give you top quality sound stability, picture and dynamics, the “Mechanical Grounding” which prevents vibrations that can blur picture, and the “Magnetic Damper” which is exclusive to Goldmund’s top products. Read more