Apart from Blu-Ray, the VGX-XL3 also offers a huge 500GB of storage, a wireless keyboard for controlling it and HDMI and 1394 for connectivity. And if that’s not enough, the nice horizontal case also manages to make space for a CableCard slot.

Sony says this beauty will ship in April, but don’t expect it to be cheap – you might want to call your bank manager now.

[via Newlaunches]

[via Gizmodo]

In a press-release, Sony stated that the Playstation 3 console will be available in Europe, Middle East, Africa and Australasia on the 23rd of March, and it will have a new hardware specification. Among the other things, the European PS3 will have the 60GB drive, Blu-ray Disc Player, built-in wifi and the SIXAXIS wireless controller. This console will be backward compatible with a lot of PS games and some PS2 games. Also on the launch date, a firmware update will be presented, which will allow several other PS2 games to be playable on the PS3. You can check all the games compatible with the Sony PS3 on this link. I’m so eager to see how will things go on launch date. Aren’t you?

Samsung has joined the Blu-ray camp, offering their Samsung M55 notebook with a blu-ray drive. The M55 is huge in size – and features: powered by an Intel 2.0GHz Core 2 Duo T7200 CPU and a whopping 2GB of RAM this beast isn’t going to find it difficult coping with Blu-ray discs running on the full Microsoft Windows Vista experience difficult at all. The 17″ display with 1920×1200 resolution will make watching them fullsized a pleasure even from a bit further than desktop position.

Otherwise, the Samsung M55 offers a 120GB HDD, a GeForce Go 7600 graphic card plus Wi-Fi a/b/g and Bluetooth 2.0 for connectivity.

I wish my Samsung R40 were a M55, even if I do prefer HD DVD

Probably keeping the prospect of Blu-ray discs in mind, Matsushita Electric Industrial Co. Ltd. (Panasonic) has come up with a Panasonic Hollywood Blu-ray Testing Center (PHBTC). According to PHBTC, they will cross check whether Blu-ray disc are compatible with Blu-ray Disc hardware. Movies studious who are preparing to provide their contents on Blu-ray discs will have to meet the technical specifications before they are made.

Panasonic feels that this would be a great facility which can be availed by the film industry. With the release of Sony Playstation 3, the sale of Blue-ray discs got a tremendous boost. Along with Sony Corp. and Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., Panasonic is also on the committee formed for setting the format of Blue-ray discs.

As per the data provided by Sony, top 11 out of 15 films were released on Blu-ray discs last year. From format verification to playback testing and many more facilities will be offered by Panasonic Hollywood Blu-ray Testing Center. The new Centre will function from the same premises of the Hollywood Laboratory of Panasonic.

Offering a Blu-Ray drive also means that Sony has equipped the VGN-AR31S with a large 17″ display that is HD capable. The hardware is also up to the task, offering a Intel Core Duo2 T7200 with 2GB of RAM, a NVidia GeForce Go 7600 graphics card (256MB VRAM) and two 120GB harddrives for a massive 240GB total.
In case you don’t have a Blu-Ray disc with you, Sony has also kindly built in a digital and analogue DVB-T tuner.

However, the Sony Vaio VGN-AR31S does weighs 3.8 kg and will most likely not come cheap.

[More Info: Sony press release]

Now again we have to new formats who are going to battle it out: HD DVD and Blu ray. And it seems that HD DVD is going into the race with the support of the adult film industry.
Just a few days ago there were reports that Sony was banning adult movies on Blu ray all together, but even though these bans have now been denied, the HD DVD seems to be the current leader and most likely winner of the race, especially because they are cheaper to produce and more players exist.

LG also has plans up its sleeves to bring out a computer drive priced $1,999, which would be able to play both HD DVDs and Blu-Ray discs. At the same time it can also record Blu-Ray discs. The model named GGW-H10N will be available in the market almost around the same time when BH 100 will be available.

However, LG’s hybrid high-def player lacks support for HD DVD’s iHD. This could signal for LG because if this turns out to be a fact, then the DVD forum will in most probable cases sue LG for using the HD DVD logo falsely and claiming to perform a technology, which their devices does not support. If BH 100 is really incapable of playing HD DVD’s iHD, then access to HD DVDs interactive menus will not be possible. In that case, the movies can only be viewed straight through.

In the final go, it can be gauged that unless and until, LG comes out with some last moment innovation, then probably it would be a great blow to their credibility and the techno-savy consumers will have to remain content with the old DVD players.

However, Kevin Tsujihara, President of the Warner Bros. home entertainment group has got a different version of the story. Though he agreed that in many industries multiple formats co-exists and survives, yet he believes that “In an optimal world you would have one format.”

At the International Consumer Electronics Show this year, Warner Home Video announced the release of a dual format Blu Ray HD DVD, which is capable of holding movies in both the formats. Named “Total Hi Def” (THD), Warner Home Video was one of the few studios to support both formats. However, as of now, the dual-format discs will be priced a bit high and Warner Home Video would start releasing content in Total HD format only sometime mid-2007.

Warner Bros., a division of Time Warner Inc. though is hopeful of other studious adopting the dual-format discs, yet majority are stubbornly struck to the old formats. Whatever may be the issue of the battle, it remains a matter of fact that either via the marketplace or a negotiated truce, one of the formats has to go away. However, until and unless electronics companies comes up with more and more dual-format players this year, the the dual-format discswill fail to achieve its goal. Though it would shock both Blu-Ray and HD DVD camp, yet it is only time which would give its final verdict on this conflict.

The player will be available in the US from the first week of February for $1,199 (£619) that’s significantly more than the priciest HD DVD player, but only slightly more than the average Blu-ray player.

The player includes both red and blue laser diodes, which enables it to read all three disc formats. While users can take advantage of all the interactive features included on Blu-ray discs, however, it is currently limited to simply playing HD DVDs without their interactive functions.The player will play 1080p content, currently the highest possible video resolution available, and has an HDMI 1.2 output.

LG developed the Super Multi Blue Player to end the confusion caused by the current competition between Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD. Customers are no longer forced to choose between the two formats. As Full HD TV is already gaining ground, we are hoping that the Super Multi Blue Player will play the trigger role in expanding and advancing both Full HD TV and high-definition DVD market volume together.

In addition to offering Full HD 1080p picture quality from high-definition discs, the player incorporates interactive functions based on BD-Java, which allows advanced menus and functions to be displayed over the video of Blu-ray discs. And, while the same level of advanced menu interactivity is not available while playing HD DVD discs, the powerful combination of Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD audio-video playback technologies is like no other on the market, says LG.

The unit supports various A/V formats, including MPEG-2, VC-1, H.264 video, MPEG1/2 audio, Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital+, DTS and DTS-HD audio, and includes multiple inputs/outputs such as HDMI out, component/composite video outputs, and optical/coaxial/discrete 5.1 channel audio outputs, among others.

Many expected the format war to be decided by which format could offer the most compelling content, and in another sign that the two camps could be forced to call a truce, Warner Bros. is also expected to announce it will sell movies and TV shows as a hybrid disc called Total HD that will play in the Blu-ray and HD DVD formats.

Sony Computer Entertainment, the Japanese game giant, has finally met its goal of shipping one million PlayStation 3 video game consoles to North America by the end of 2006. In an announcement made by the company, it had stated goal of 2 million Play-Station 3s globally by the the end of 2006. Thus, the North American shipments contributed to about half of the total number, inspite of the production problems.

Sony corp. has a $30 billion share in the video game industry. The PS3s video game console can be acquired at a retail price costing $600 in the United States. Nintendo’s Wii retails for $250; and Microsoft’s Xbox 360 retails for $400. Sony had been the leader, with 70 percent of the global market, in the last generation of the console wars and done pretty good with the PlayStation 1 and 2, but its still a puzzle who will grab the market this time.

Microsoft Corp.’s Xbox 360 and Nintendo Co. Ltd.’s Wii are the main rivals of PS3. Microsoft sold 511,000 units of its Xbox 360 , while Nintendo sold 476,000 units of its new Wii video game console in the United States in November, last year. Microsoft, which gets most of its sales from North America, has made 10 million shipments of Xbox 360 by year end.

Jack Tretton, chief executive of Sony Computer Entertainment America, which handles Sony’s PlayStation business says, “Within a week, at the most, a million units will be in (North American) consumers’ hands,” He further said that,”We are planning to ship 6 million PS3 consoles worldwide by the end of March 2007.We’re equally strong in all three markets Europe, North America, Japan. We can’t afford to sacrifice any one of them.”

Sony has ruled the video game console market with its two previous PlayStation models, PS1 and PS2, and has sold 200 million of them globally till date, but its launch of the PS3 was delayed due to limited supply to manufacturing glitches with blue laser diodes, the technological heart of the system’s high-capacity, high-definition Blu-ray disk drive.