Over on AVS Forums, a few members are complaining about a problem with copies of The Prestige: disc rot.
Those affected seem to believe that the rot is occurring in the disc coating. At the moment, this issue appears to be isolated to one thread and one movie. As far as I'm concerned, that's good news implying that we shouldn't all run for the hills just yet.
My discs were looking A-OK when I double checked them, though I don't own a copy of The Prestige. To further promote our unscientific poll, hit the comments to let us know how your Blu-ray discs are holding up. – Mark Wilson

AVS Forums [via crunchgear]

Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment
Some things are just better left unsaid, and if you're Microsoft's manager for Media Entertainment Convergence, you're getting a lesson in the age-old truth right now. Apparently, Richard Doherty managed to state that Microsoft may not "deliver HD content on an optical disc in five to ten years," and further dug his hole by suggesting that his company would "rather the content not be on a disc" at all. Of course, he wasn't truly stating that HD DVD and Blu-ray discs would be obsolete in under a decade, as he explained that digital downloads were simply the wave of the future. Richard added even more controversial fodder by claiming that Microsoft wouldn't be backing out of the HD DVD game anytime soon, and threw in one last cheap shot by saying that "Blu-ray had not delivered the interactive content like HD DVD had." Step down Mr. Doherty, you've said plenty.

[Via BGR] 
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Remember the Ultimate Xbox 360 Racing Setup? VRX cuts all of that do-it-yourselfness out of the equation with their VRX Triple Screen Limited Edition 001. Here's what you get.
galleryPost('vrxracing', 4, 'VRX Xbox 360');
Four Xbox 360 Elites, four copies of Forza Motorsport 2 (you need a copy in each in order to enable multi-monitor support), an Xbox 360 HD DVD drive, Xbox 360 camera, Xbox 360 wireless headset, a Zune, the Xbox 360 Steering Wheel, three 37-inch Sharp Aquos 1080p LCDs, a 7-inch rear-view LCD, Bose Acousimass 10-series surround sound, Harmon Kardon surround sound receiver, vibration feedback systems, aluminum mountin bracks and various other racing seat/setup gear to make the system a standalone beast.
How much will this cost? Let's just say you probably can't afford it. Email them for details if you just won the lottery. – Jason Chen
Product Page [VRX]

Filed under: Gaming

Man, talk about leaving the Home Pro Racing Simulator in the proverbial dust. VRX has introduced a swank new racing sim of its own designed with a Forza Motorsports 2 theme and a trio of 37-inch Sharp Aquos 1080p LCD TVs. The frame is constructed from CNC machined polished aluminum, and envelopes the gamer by curiously including just one Sparco seat along with four Xbox 360 Elites, four copies of Forza Motorsport 2, an Xbox 360 HD DVD add-on player, camera / wireless headset, a Zune, force feedback wheel, and surround sound as well. Sure, brush it off as overkill if you please, but those who are sick of draining quarters dollars at the arcade can contact the company to experience the presumed sticker shock for themselves. 
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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Warner Home Video has unveiled details about the upcoming release of We Are Marshall on DVD, HD-DVD and Blu-Ray Disc, scheduled for release in September. Based on true events, "We Are ...

Last Monday, Brian and I had a chance to run down to Monster HQ in Brisbane, CA, to run some tests for the HDMI Cable Battlemodo. This time, we brought along a bag full of awesomely priced cables, mostly from Monoprice, that we were ready to run bandwidth tests on, side-by-side with Monster's finest (and most damned expensive) cables.
The tests, which fired digital signal through the cable to synthesize high-definition video, can be divided into REAL-WORLD requirements (720p and 8-bit 60Hz 1080p) and FUTURE-WORLD requirements (12-bit 60Hz 1080p and even 12-bit 120Hz 1080p). Mind you, the future formats don't exist now, so they should only be a concern when you are buying cables you intend to keep for five years, such as those you want to build into a wall.
What were our findings?
1) At short distances up to 6ft (2 meters), you can pretty much get away with any cable. Not all cables are the same, however, and in truth, it's the medium-priced cables that m...

At a press breakfast today in NYC, Sony Electronics US President Stan Glasgow admitted that Sony's attempts to unseat Apple in the once Walkman-dominated personal audio category are pretty close to over. For many years, Sony repeated the slogan, "It's still early in the game." Today, acknowledging Apple's 80% market share in personal audio, Glasgow said, "I wouldn't say the game is over, but it's really late in the game."
Rick Clancy, head of Sony's US public relations, quickly reminded reporters that Sony would still innovate in this category, but when discussion turned to the Sony Connect service, Glasgow said that, looking to the future, it would be more focused on movies and books. (It is currently the content hub for Sony's E-Ink Reader.)
On a brighter note, Sony confirmed that it would be using the PlayStation-style Cross Media Bar (XMB) in most or all of its TVs and audio-video products going forward, including Blu-ray players and audio receivers. In some ins...

Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment, Storage

Ah, the sweet aroma of competition in the air. That's what we've gotten a whiff of after catching an (admittedly grainy) shot of what appears to be an internal Blu-ray writing / HD DVD reading combo drive from Hitachi. The GGW-H20N should have no issues playing your favorite high-definition films on either format, and it can also burn 50GB dual-layer Blu-ray discs, BD-R, BD-RW, and the typical flavors of writable DVDs and CDs. Reportedly, the drive will also boast a speedy SATA interface and will posses a read rate of up to 6x and burn rate of 4x, but the most important detail (read: worldwide release details) was unsurprisingly omitted. Bring on the price drops.

[Via FormatWarCentral] 
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Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!

Toshiba lowers their sales target for HD DVD players Toshiba seems to have realized the fact that people are not really going in for next generation DVD players. The company has now slashed its sales target for high definition DVD players and recorders. Toshiba is seeing disappointing sales in the US market. Toshiba said in a statement: “Sales [...]

Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment

Yesterday when Steve showed us 10 of his favorite new Leopard features, he left out at least a couple we were a little more than interested in: HD DVD and Blu-ray support. While Tiger does have support for HD DVD and Blu-ray drives, it's not able to play back Hollywood movies from either format. Someone at MacRumors has discovered that the new DVD Movie Player.app in Leopard now includes preferences for both HD DVD and Blu-ray. Sure, Tiger included a preference pane for "HD", but this was for discs with H.264 encoded HD video created in Apple's DVD Studio Pro -- or the like. Of course, this isn't the only thing needed to add next-gen Hollywood movies to Leopard, but we're hoping Apple can pile on the rest before October, like AACS, HDCP, VC1 and of course an actual drive shipped with a new Mac.


[Via AVSForum]  
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