Denon announces 'entry-level' premium Blu-Ray player

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If this is ‘entry-level’, then I’m mildly terrified to see what Denon would describe as ‘high-end’. Oh wait. Now I’m scared. Anyway, back to the DVD-1800-BD. It’s a Blu-Ray player. It’s got HDMI 1.3a, full bit stream output of Dolby and DTS-HD audio, and 1080p upscaling of DVDs and 2-channel audio. It’s also got a stereo output, if you want to use it as a very expensive CD player.

There’s an SD card slot, too, and it incorporates a secondary audio and video decoder for picture-in-picture functionality, if you can handle watching two things at once. It’s going to be available at the start of December, and cost a whopping ‘entry-level’ £600. It’ll be available in Black and Silver.

Denon

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Allio's 42" Blu-ray-playing all-in-one media HDTV with BONUS PC in the case

Ladies and gentlemen! Roll up! Roll up! The gadget freak show is in town! Here, behind a wall of steel for your safely, is the Silicon Mountain Allio – a 32″ or 42″ HDTV that also squeezes a Core 2 Duo PC and Blu-ray player into its case.

It even manages PVR-like recording features thanks to its PC bit’s hard drive. Plus you can split the screen if your brain’s capable of multitasking and you want to watch TV, browse the internet and play video games simultaneously because you’re THAT CONNECTED. Here’s a look at the beast…

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Careful, she’s hungry! The 42″ model does the full 1080p spec, with the…

Pioneer launches its 400W LX01BD integrated Blu-ray Home Cinema System

Pioneer’s all-in-one Blu-ray and surround sound option for the common man has launched in Europe, with shoppers able to experience its “3D” sound charms from today. Here’s what all the bits look like when photographed under laboratory conditions and without any messy cables in shot.

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As well as a Profile 1.1 Blu-ray player, the LX01BD comes with “compact dodecahedron technology derived satellite speakers that generate sound fields in all directions,” with that sound being sprayed around by an integrated 5.1 channel amplifier capable of managing both DTS-HD and Dolby TrueHD soundtracks…

Pioneer's two limited edition 50" KURO plasmas – yours in "Pure White" and "Beige Grisé"

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Pure White and Beige Grise are the exciting names of two new colours Pioneer has invented to jazz up its KURO range of HD Ready plasmas a little. Pioneer’s home business product manager Jim Catcheside offered us the following explanation about why white and beige TVs are best…

“With these Limited Edition KURO TVs we want to offer our customers the opportunity to customise their viewing environment even further by harmonising their TV with their interior design. The minimalist White and luxurious Beige Grisé KUROs are an excellent means to express one’s individual taste and style.”

The KRP-500AW and KRP-500ABG both use Pioneer’s media receiver technology…

Denon shows off super-high-end DVD-3800BD Blu-ray player with "wonder" DVD upscaling

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If you thought standard Blu-ray players were still a bit pricey, wait ’til you see Denon’s DVD-3800BD, which comes in at a cool £1,600.

For that, you do get some superior technology, including reference-standard Blu-ray disc playback offering Denon’s best pictures to date, with fantastic audio reproduction to match.

Denon is the first manufacturer to use the 10-bit Silicon Optix Realta chipset, as well as HQV video processing, digital noise reduction, and 12-bit/297MHz video DAC…

Sony launches VAIO TT Blu-ray notebook and new customisation service in UK

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Sony has announced that its VAIO TT Blu-ray notebook, which it claims is the lightest portable PC containing a high-def optical drive, is now available in the UK.

It sports a modest 11.1-inch widescreen LED-backlit display offering 1,366 x 768 resolution, Intel Core 2 Duo SU9300 processor, Mobile Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 4500MHD, 4GB of RAM, 160GB hard drive, plus WWAN technology offering 7.2Mbps HSDPA and 2Mbps HSUPA where service is available.

A DVD superdrive comes as standard with the laptop, with the option to add Blu-ray. A 128GB solid state drive can also be fitted instead of the hard drive. Sony is being suitably stingy with pricing information, but we’ll get it to you as soon as we find out…

Sharp claims world first: HDTVs with integrated Blu-ray recorders

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Sharp will launch a range of high definition LCD TVs with integrated Blu-ray recorders in the Japanese market next month, claiming a world first.

While it’s not uncommon to see flat panel TVs with built in DVD and Blu-ray players, this is the first time a Blu-ray recorder has been added to a production TV.

The AQUOS DX range will come in a range of screen sizes from 26- right up to 52-inch, all full 1080p high definition, and ranging in price from around £1,100 to £2,900 (at current Yen to UK pound exchange rate). Though the integrated drive will allow playback of Blu-ray, and recording TV programmes directly to disc, there won’t be a built-in hard drive — so no DVR functionality…

Sanyo has said it's doing something to make Blu-ray lasers better

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To this end, Sanyo is promising to boost the capacity of Blu-ray discs to 100GB and maximise write-speed of burners to around 12x.

It’s all thanks to clever and more powerful new blue laser diode technology, which allows up to four data layers – each packing in 25GB of deleted scenes and staggeringly dull interviews with the leading man – to be stuck into a single Blu-ray disc at TWELVE TIMES writing speed…

Sony launches HD-friendly Vaio range, including "super notebook" and all-in-ones

Sony has introduced its new range of Vaio hardware, with a focus on high definition and Blu-ray.

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Vaio AW

Sony describes its Vaio AW as a “new class” of portable, because it boasts a range of advanced features including a 1,920 x 1,080 resolution 18.4-inch widescreen using 3LED backlighting similar to that found on Sony’s high-end BRAVIA TVs, integrated Blu-ray drive, Dolby Home Theatre audio signal processing and 2.1-channel speakers with integrated subwoofer.

It features an Intel Core 2 Duo T9600 processor, NVIDIA GeForce 9600M GT, and 128GB solid state disk and 500GB hard drive working together in a RAID array. It also comes with Adobe’s Photoshop Lightroom, which should appeal to photographers and artists using the Vaio AW for image processing…

Hitachi announces DZ-BD10HA tri-format Blu-ray camcorder

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Hitachi has announced its new DZ-BD10HA high definition camcorder, able to record directly to Blu-ray disc, internal 30GB hard drive, or SDHC.

It features a seven megapixel CMOS image sensor offering full 1080p high definition recording, a dubbing feature which allows footage to be transferred directly from the hard drive or memory card to the Blu-ray disc, face detection, and image stabilisation…