April 22 - 3:35pm EDT   Warner Bros. has launched a new trade-in program that allows owners of high-definition movies on the now-defunct HD DVD format to trade them in for the same title on the surviving Blu-ray format. Known as Red2blu, the promo lets owners trade up to 25 HD DVD titles produced by Warner for the same title on Blu-ray. A $4.95 charge applies to each movie, as well as the associated shipping and handling costs of $6.95 for each Blu-ray title. [full story]

March 13 - 4:05pm EDT   CyberPower on Friday launched a duo of game PCs that all center on bundled GeForce 3D Vision glasses and Samsung's 120Hz, 22-inch 2233RZ LCD display needed to see the extra visual depth. They also both come with a GeForce GTS 250 video card that produces mid-range 3D capable of driving a stereoscopic 3D image. [full story]

December 17 - 12:20pm EST   Okoro Media Systems today signaled itself as one of the first home theater PC builders to use Intel's Core i7 platform for its systems. The TH550 as well as the GX100 and GX300 all use the new quad-core processors combined with faster video cards to produce systems that can both share content across multiple zones, including HD, and also play games on the same level as larger desktop PCs. Every model has dual analog and dual QAM digital tuners that let it pick up as many as four separate wired TV feeds; a separate over-the-air TV tuner catches free broadcasts. [full story]

November 14 - 2:05pm EST   Netflix recently informed its subscribers that, starting on December 15th, it would stop shipping movies on the HD DVD high-definition format. This is the final move in the company's backing of the winning HD format, Blu-ray, after Netflix announced back in February that it would stop purchasing movies recorded on the HD DVD format. In the letter to its subscribers, Netflix told them any current HD DVD title will be substituted with the same movie on standard DVD as of December 15th, making the transition seamless and not requiring them to take any actions. [full story]

July 29 - 4:25pm EDT   Sony today reported that its profit had dropped approximately 47 percent in the spring quarter versus the same quarter a year ago, representing one of the company's steeper drops in recent history. The Japanese company chiefly attributes the company-controlled aspects of the shortfall to poor Sony Ericsson results, which saw the company's cellphone sales virtually flatten as customers turned away from its mid-range and high-end phones, which target the same camera and music fields as devices like Apple's iPhone, LG's Viewty, and Nokia's Nseries. [full story]

July 14 - 1:35pm EDT   Sony's PlayStation 3, long third in the wave of current-generation game consoles, is finally beginning to accumulate substantial sales, statistics show. Bloomberg reports that during the first five months of 2008 the PS3 sold more units than Microsoft's Xbox 360, which has normally held second place under Nintendo's Wii. The surge is attributed mainly to high-profile exclusives like Metal Gear Solid 4, and the demise of HD DVD, boosting the appeal of Sony's extensible, built-in Blu-ray drive. [full story]

July 1 - 7:55pm EDT   As the dust from the HD DVD/Blu-ray war settles, Toshiba is allegedly not adopting the victorious Blu-ray standard, but instead is expected to pursue DVD up-sampling and Internet-enabled players. TG Daily writes that Toshiba has not released specific plans or future machine specifications, but believes that the players would be based around its SpursEngine 1000 processor for upsampling – a 'lite' version of the Cell BE CPU. The observations come as the Toshiba-chaired DVD Forum approved the logo for "DVD Download/DL" [full story]

June 30 - 11:15am EDT   After having left the market for several years, Lenovo today returned to home desktops and launched the IdeaCentre K210. The mini-tower is a parallel to the IdeaPad notebooks and borrows design elements from the portables, including face detection security when paired with a BrightEye add-on webcam that clips to most LCDs. The image recognition system also dynamically adjusts brightness based on proximity to the screen. [full story]

May 5 - 4:55pm EDT   Microsoft today repeated its past denials that the company is developing a Blu-ray drive for the Xbox 360. Following a report on Friday which said Microsoft had contacted ASUS for drives to be used as add-ons for the game system by the fall, Microsoft has echoed its past approach and says that it has "no plans" to launch a Blu-ray reader add-on in the near future. The company prefers to focus on the core gaming of the Xbox, according to a statement. [full story]

April 11 - 8:35am EDT   Shuttle has taken the unusual step of launching a small form factor PC that caters to both current and obsolete HD videos. While the company already sells systems with Blu-ray alone, the XPC G5 6801M Vista incorporates a combo optical drive from LG that allows it to play both Blu-ray titles as well as the now defunct HD DVD format, letting early adopters keep their libraries active. Playback at 1080p is helped along by the use of a Radeon HD 3450 that offloads most of the work from the CPU and also outputs its video to either DVI or HDMI through a bundled adapter. [full story]

April 9 - 3:20pm EDT   Online retailer Amazon is the latest company to offer compensation for having bought an HD DVD player, reports and anecdotes indicate. Customers say they are now receiving e-mail bulletins from Amazon, informing them that as "someone who purchased an HD DVD player from us before February 23, 2008," they are being given a $50 credit for any future purchases from the website. To claim it users must enter an individual promotion code during checkout, and do so by the end of April 9th, 2009. [full story]

April 8 - 12:35pm EDT   Bargain retailer Wal-Mart has joined the ranks of corporations attempting to appease buyers of HD DVD players, which are now obsolete and faced with an increasingly dwindling movie supply. The company is offering refunds to anyone who bought an HD DVD player on or following November 1st of last year, with or without original packaging. People must, however, return the player by April 30th, and bring with them their original receipt. [full story]

April 2 - 10:20pm EDT   Microsoft today has again denied claims that the firm is building an Xbox 360 with a Blu-ray drive. The Redmond, Washington-based firm has flatly rejected assertions that Lite-On is manufacturing BD drives for a future version of the console and has reiterated its past assertions that it has no need to push an HD movie disc format to succeed, noting that the Xbox built its current success on games rather than videos. Customers also have access to online downloads if they really need HD video, Microsoft says. [full story]

April 1 - 9:20am EDT   Best known in the Americas for producing add-in optical drives, Lite-On is building Blu-ray drives for Microsoft's Xbox 360, according to claims made within the storage industry. The firm is reportedly assembling read-only drives that would ship in the second half of this year and would allegedly be used for the next version of the Xbox 360 itself rather than a USB add-on, as was the case for the now defunct HD DVD drive. The reasons behind the decision are unclear, though the move is likely necessary to ensure native 1080p output for Blu-ray movies, as USB may affect the likelihood of support for the HDCP encryption needed to play back some titles at full quality. [full story]

March 28 - 4:40pm EDT   HD DVD has ceased to exist in every formal capacity, an official announcement explains. The HD DVD Promotion Group, a body put together to represent the various companies which once produced HD DVD movies and players, has announced that as of March 28th, it has put a halt to all operations. Its website has been closed, leaving behind a message redirecting companies to the official bodies for the regular DVD format. [full story]