Now after HD DVD is out and the format war is over, a research in the US shows Blu-ray disc sales have topped nine million since inception, with some three million of those discs flying off the shelves in 2008. The figures, published by Home Media Research, show average weekly sales of BD titles ranging from between 200,000 and 300,000. Big-sellers, such as the recent No Country For Old Men release, helped weekly sales reach 319,000, with the disc itself selling 68,000 copies in the week ending March 16th. The second place is for the Hitman title, who sold twice as low or 38,000 copies.

Today, Dell announced that movie buffs can pick up the Inspiron 1525 with optional Blu-ray disc playback for under a $1,000 or $879 to be more precise. The award-winning Inspiron 1525 laptop features a 15.4-inch high definition wide aspect display with 720p resolution, various options of Intel Core 2 processors, up to 4GB of DDR2 667MHz memory, up to 250GB of disk space, Intel GMA X3100 integrated graphics, and more. It also includes an HDMI port for easy connectivity to high resolution displays and HDTVs. The Blu-ray player disc drive is fully backwards compatible, and will play as well as burn traditional DVDs and CDs. Consumers can also chose a Blu-ray DL burner drive, but this will add $480 to the overall price of the laptop. The Inspiron 1525 laptop with Blu-ray is available today in the U.S., Canada and Europe. Here's a link to Dell's Online store where you can customize and purchase the Inspiron 1525 laptop.

After our brand new TechPowerUp Reader Survey 08 results, it's time for some news coming from Plextor. The firm has released two new multifunction disc drives that combine next-generation Blu-Ray and HD DVD technologies. I'll start with the more sophisticated model the PX-B920SA, a Blu-Ray and Blu-Ray DL (50GB) burner that plays HD DVD discs and supports high-speed reading and recording of DVD and CD formats, including DVD-RAM and Dual/Double Layer DVDs. The internal drive features 4X BD-R write speed, Serial ATA (SATA) interface, 4MB buffer and Lightscribe disk labeling. Second in order is the PX-B300SA, a multifunction drive capable of only playing both Blu-Ray and HD DVD media, while DVD and CD burning features remain presented. Other than that, the PX-B300SA is identical to the PX-B920SA model. Both drives support Buffer Underrun Proof technology and come with one year full warranty. They are also bundled with a complete package of application software, including InterVideo WinDVD 8, Ulead MovieFactory 5.5 SE, and Burn.Now 4.5 SE. The PX-B920SA costs $599 while the PX-B300SA Blu-Ray/HD DVD reader ships for $499.

Sony previewed yesterday on its official PS3 blog the next PLAYSTATION 3 system software update which is due to be out in the next few days. Firmware v2.20, will introduce a number of features to further enhance your PLAYSTATION 3, but most notably the update will enable the PS3 to support Blu-ray Disc Profile 2.0, also known as BD-Live. BD-Live allows you to obtain additional content and special features through Internet on BD discs that support this feature. On April 8th Sony Pictures Home Entertainment will release The 6th Day and Walk Hard on Blu-ray; these titles will be among the first to take advantage of BD-Live.

Microsoft has commented that there are still no plans in place to introduce a Blu-ray player for the Xbox 360, despite comments by Stan Glasgow which seemed to hint that such an add-on could be on the way. A spokesperson for the company said:

There are no plans to introduce Blu-ray. In response to Stan Glasgow's statement that Blu-ray is a possibility for Xbox 360, we have made no such announcement. Games are what are driving consumers to purchase game consoles and we remain focused on providing the largest library of blockbuster games available.

So Xbox 360 owners could find themselves without the ability to watch new HD movies in the coming months as film producers stop selling HD DVDs.

Circuit City and Canadian retailer Future Shop are both running schemes which will allow owners of HD DVD hardware to trade-in their current players to receive a discount on Blu-ray hardware. An internal memo from Circuit City states:

We do not want to upset our valued customers. For this special circumstance, we are happy to offer an exchange for a Blu-ray player (customer pays any difference in purchase price) - even if it has been several months since the customer made their HD DVD player purchase. If the customer does not want a Blu-ray player, we can issue a gift card refund for their original purchase price. For products purchased in the last 30 days, handle as usual.

Meanwhile, Future Shop is allowing customers to return their HD DVD players between 7th March and 3rd April to receive a $100 discount off either an LG or Samsung Blu-ray/HD DVD combo player - even if their HD DVD player was purchased at another store. However, HD DVD movies are not eligible for a refund or trade-in at either store.

The Financial Times citing an unnamed senior executive reports that rivals Sony and Microsoft are discussing the possibility of offering a Blu-ray drive for the Xbox 360. Sony Electronics US president Stan Glasgow also noted that the company was holding discussions with both Microsoft and Apple over Blu-Ray. The report even claims that there is also the possibility of an internal Blu-ray drive being incorporated into a new, more expensive Xbox 360 model, as it is already done in the PlayStation 3. Currently all Xbox 360 consoles support the HD-DVD format only, but since Toshiba abandoned production last month, Microsoft has no choice but to reconsider Blu-ray as vital step forward. Microsoft refused to comment on the story.

Acer plans to start offering Blu-Ray equipped laptops in the spring of this year, the company's Taiwan head explained on Monday. The executive confirmed that the computer firm will have two notebooks available with the world's first 16- and 18.4-inch widescreen notebook LCDs, capable of playing Blu-Ray movies in full HD (1920x1080) resolution. Other specifications of the portables have not been revealed, though the Blu-ray feature will likely dictate dedicated AMD or NVIDIA graphics as well as a minimum 2GB of memory. Prices should range between $1,900 and $2,240 depending on the screen sizes and configurations.

Given that Toshiba has now officially discontinued its HD DVD business, this news acts merely as an extra nail in the format's coffin. Paramount has become the last of the big six Hollywood studios to decide upon Blu-ray, saying:

We are pleased that the industry is moving to a single high-definition format, as we believe it is in the best interest of the consumer," the statement reads. "As we look to (begin) releasing our titles on Blu-ray, we will monitor consumer adoption and determine our release plans accordingly.

Universal, Sony Pictures, 20th Century Fox, Walt Disney Studios and Warner have already made the switch to Blu-ray, which looks almost certain to become the dominant high definition format for the next few years.

The HD-DVD camp put up the white flag just a few days ago. Now what? Universal Studios has an answer to that question: everyone goes Blu-ray. They're very happy to begin that movement. As of now, everything coming out of Universal Studios' doors will be in Blu-ray, if it's in high-def.

While Universal values the close partnership we have shared with Toshiba, it is time to turn our focus to releasing new and catalog titles on Blu-ray. The path for widespread adoption of the next-generation platform has finally become clear. Universal will continue its aggressive efforts to broaden awareness for high-def's unparalleled offerings in interactivity and connectivity, at an increasingly affordable price. The emergence of a single, high-definition format is cause for consumers, as well as the entire entertainment industry, to celebrate

Samsung Electronics will concentrate its ongoing efforts to strengthen Blu-ray products since Toshiba virtually pulled the plug on its HD DVD products.

Samsung is expected to show more interests in Blu-ray products than rival HD DVDs

the company said on Sunday. Samsung officials have declined to further comment. The Korean electronics firm has currently been developing dual-format Blu-ray and HD DVD movie players such as the UP5000, but according to experts it will now focus on Blu-ray only with no plans to phase out any combo players.

Samsung, which has been adopting a dual-strategy for both Blu-ray and HD DVD products, is likely to cut the HD DVD portion because of aggressive marketing and closer industry connections over the technology

a market expert said.

Following closely on the heels of news that both Netflix and Wal-Mart plan to drop HD DVD support, it looks like Toshiba, one of the key firms behind the format, is planning to do the same. A company source is being reported as saying:

We have entered the final stage of planning to make our exit from the next generation DVD business.

An official announcement is expected to come within the next few days, and it is estimated that the move could see Toshiba suffer losses of hundreds of millions of dollars. This is likely to put an end to the HD format war, with Blu-ray, backed largely by Sony, looking almost certain to overcome HD DVD, which had powerful names including Toshiba and Microsoft supporting it.

Update: Toshiba denies the reports:
"The media reported that Toshiba will discontinue its HD DVD business. Toshiba has not made any announcement concerning this. Although Toshiba is currently assessing its business strategies, no decision has been made at this moment."

Online giant Wal-Mart is taking the steps of many other big players, by confirming that in the beginning of June the world's largest retailer will only stock Blu-ray players and movies. Over the next few months, Wal-Mart will phase out all HD-DVD products and reorganize their stores to focus exclusively on Blu-ray. Gary Severson, senior vice president, Home Entertainment, Wal-Mart, U.S. commented, "We've listened to our customers, who are showing a clear preference toward Blu-ray products and movies with their purchases. With the customers best interest in all we do, we wanted to share our decision and timeline with them as soon as possible, knowing it will help simplify their purchase decision, increase selection, and increase adoption long term. We anticipate enhancing our selection with continued great values in hi-definition Blu-ray products, so our customers can further enhance their entertainment experience at home." The win of Blu-ray over HD-DVD becomes a step closer to undeniable, with Netflix and retailer Best Buy already commited to Blu-Ray. Now Wal-Mart and soon Toshiba if all reports become true.

This is an extraordinary week for the Blu-ray disk format. Aside from exclusive treatment from business giants Best Buy and Netflix, this week also witnessed Blu-ray sales topping two and a quarter million sales. This translates into an impressive 79% market share for Blu-ray in Europe. This epic landmark was reached two months after the previous landmark of 1 million units, which is an impressive feat, to say the least. Odd enough, HD-DVD is also trying to claim some victory. Apparently, 60% of all stand-alone players are HD-DVD.

Sharp has developed new 250 mW blue-violet laser diodes which promise to bring a substantial speed boost to Blu-ray writers - up from 72Mb/s today to a maximum of 216Mb/s, equal to 6x recording speed. The new laser will be produced in two models - one 3.3mm package for laptop Blu-ray writers and a 5.6mm version for desktop drives. Samples of the new diodes are available at this time, but aren't exactly cheap: Sharp charges 50,000 Yen or about $462 per unit. The company will start mass production of both products from April 2008.

While just earlier today we told you that Netflix is going Blu-ray exclusive, it seems like the folks over at the HD-DVD are taking another blow. Best Buy is happy to announce a new policy: Best Buy "will give preferential treatment to Blu-ray movies and hardware when it comes to floor space and positioning in its stores." Best Buy CFO and President Brian Dunn has this to say over why they chose Blu-ray:

Consumers have told us that they want us to help lead the way. We've listened to our customers, and we are responding. Best Buy will recommend Blu-ray as the preferred format. Our decision to shine a spotlight on Blu-ray Disc players and other Blu-ray products is a strong signal to our customers that we believe Blu-ray is the right format choice for them.

Best Buy believes that their decision will help make customers "feel confident in their high-def content choices". Best Buy mentioned that they will not cease selling HD-DVD products.

With an unexpected announcement from Warner stating that the company would issue its movies on Blu-ray, the high-definition format war is over for many.

A new definition of Blu-ray is coming up, namely "Blu-ray 2.0". The 2.0 profile brings picture-in-picture and online functionality to Blu-ray discs; these movies will have "BD-Live" stickers on the case so you know certain features will require 2.0-compliant players.

Currently, the Playstation 3 is the only Blu-ray 2.0-compatible player available.

It looks like Sony has truly admitted defeat with UMD movies following plans to allow the PS3 to transfer Blu-ray movies onto PSP memory sticks. Rather than re-encoding the HD content for the PSP's resolution, Sony plans to have Blu-ray disks which feature a PSP-specific version of the movie on the same disk as the main feature, allowing the PSP to simply copy it from the disk directly to the memory stick. The one downside of this would be that Blu-ray films which have already been sold will probably not be compatible with this feature. President of Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, David Bishop, said:

This way, you can have a portable copy you can take with you. There was always the promise of greater interactivity. You'll see that coming in the new year.

According to Albert Penello, group marketing manager for Xbox hardware, the Xbox 360 console could be equipped with a Blu-ray add-on in the future if HD DVD fails to take off. Penello said:

It should be consumer choice, and if that's the way they vote, that's something we'll have to consider. I fundamentally don't think this has a significant impact on Xbox 360 versus PS3. You can't say it's not a bummer, not a setback, but I've seen this battle declared over so many times. I want consumers to have a voice in this and I think there are a lot of consumers who bought HD DVD who are going to have a say in how this shakes out.

Sony has introduced its first sub-$200 internal BD-ROM drive, the BDU-X10S drive that can upgrade an existing desktop computer into a high-definition Blu-ray Disc player, as well as a DVD and a CD player. This is purely a read-only device, without any Blu-ray, CD or DVD burning functions. The new BDU-X10S BD-ROM drive comes with CyberLink's PowerDVD BD Edition software for playback of commercial movie titles, recorded Blu-ray Disc home videos, DVD-ROMs and CD-ROMs. It features a Serial ATA (SATA) interface and standard 5.25-inch form-factor for easy installation inside desktop PCs running the Microsoft Windows Vista or Windows XP operating system. The new BD-ROM drive will start shipping this month.

The HD disk market has seen another twist with the news that Warner Bros. plans to make all of its high definition film releases exclusive to Blu-ray. The movie label is claiming that the decision was a strategic move, saying:

The window of opportunity for high-definition DVD could be missed if format confusion continues to linger. We believe that exclusively distributing in Blu-ray will further the potential for mass market success and ultimately benefit retailers, producers, and most importantly, consumers. A two-format landscape has led to consumer confusion and indifference toward high definition, which has kept the technology from reaching mass adoption and becoming the important revenue stream that it can be for the industry. Consumers have clearly chosen Blu-ray, and we believe that recognizing this preference is the right step in making this great home entertainment experience accessible to the widest possible audience.

Warner Bros. will stop releasing HD DVD movies in May this year, and any movies it does release before that cut-off will be initially launched on Blu-ray and released on HD DVD after a "short window." This news follows Paramount and DreamWorks announcing that they would release movies exclusively on HD DVD four months ago.

Panasonic today revealed the development of the world's thinnest (9.5 mm height) internal Blu-ray drives. The firm made such a thin drive by using couple of exclusive technologies such as spherical aberration compensation mechanism, 2-lens actuator, low-profile and an optimized optical design for CD, DVD and Blu-ray disc laser. It is targeted towards mobile computers and features 2x BD-R or BD-RE read/write speed. The drive also supports reading and writing on dual layer Blu-ray 50GB discs and upcoming low-cost, organic dye discs. The slim Blu-Ray burner also sports full legacy burning support and writes a single-layer DVD at 8x. Panasonic will display the Blu-ray drive at CES 2008 in January.

An Israeli firm known as Mempile is currently working on a new form of DVD called TeraDisc DVDs, which will offer 1TB of permanent storage on a single disk. The company has already managed to develop a disk capable of storing half a terabyte, and expects the 1TB disks to become available within the next few years. The disks, which are made of a polymer similar to Plexiglas, use powerful red laser technology to read and write, with a second laser which tracks data. The technology works by writing bits at the molecular level, which changes the color of florescent molecules in the disks. The main advantage of this method over current technologies such as HD DVD are that it has far less background noise, allowing it to read and write to hundreds of layers without any deterioration. The company plans to launch a 700GB version in 2011, with an expected price of around $30 per disk - although the DVD drives required to play them could set you back between $3,000 and $4,000.

What was once a stalemate on the HD format front now seems like a landslide victory for the Blu-ray team. The latest Nielson figures shows that Black Friday really put Blu-ray in the chips. As of this week, Blu-ray now has a 72.6% market share over rival format HD-DVD. The most likely reason for this sudden push in sales was the release of "Live Free or Die Hard". Despite cheap HD-DVD players, Blu-ray has managed to maintain a sales advantage for quite some time, and currently is holding off HD-DVD with a 2-1 average sales advantage. Last week's sales advantage was roughly 3-1 in favor of Blu-ray.

While the Blu-ray party claims that over one million Blu-ray movies were distributed in the United Kingdom a few days back, the HD-DVD promotional group has their own victory to celebrate. Over three-quarters of a million Americans now are the proud owners of some form of HD-DVD player. This recent success is most likely due to the low-priced availability of HD-DVD players ($200 for the Toshiba HD-A2, and less than that for the HD-DVD Xbox 360 add-on drive). Considering that in June a relatively low 150,000 units were sold, this 400% increase in sales is nothing to shake a finger at. However, this rise in sales may not last. Most HD-DVD owners are movie aficionados, and most Blu-ray drive owners are gamers (thanks to the Blu-ray integration with the PS3).