Support for the Blu-ray high definition disk format is growing, with Philips joining the band of companies announcing new Blu-ray hardware. Philips, who made the announcement at Berlin's IFA consumer electronics show, will launch the BDP9000 Blu-ray Disc player, which will play high-definition content at 1080-pixel resolution, and is designed for connection to HDTV and HDMI devices.
Philips also announced that they are working on an internal PC drive that can record to and playback from Blu-ray Disc, CD and DVD. Seemingly, this product will be available in Europe in October.
Philips' was plugging its range of Blu-ray players ; with the first model, the TripleWriter SPD7000, going on sale in the UK this autumn.
This comes at a time where the High-def DVD market is looking static. Hollywood hopes that the launch of the Blu-ray and HD-DVD formats will regenerate a slowing market for movies at home, but reports have surfaced that these products have drawn mixed reviews from retailers and analysts. Technical issues have dogged High-def DVD in both of its formats, and the affects of a bitter format war have been strongly felt. The consumer appears to be quite confused by the whole thing, and many people have complained that the new formats don't look that much better than DVD.
...Since Samsung Corp. rolled out the first Blu-ray player, priced at $1,000, in late June, Blu-ray has faced complaints of subpar picture quality on discs, talk of component shortages for players and other technical problems.
Meanwhile, Blu-ray and HD-DVD players are to go on sale in the UK very soon. The format war will finally reach the UK high street when the first models go on sale in the UK this autumn.
November will also see Toshiba put its first HD-DVD players on sale in Europe. As in the US, Toshiba will sell two models in Europe. A £599 model will be available from November and an £899 model will go on sale a month later.