If you’re shopping for a new Blu-Ray player, you could walk into any big-box or electronics store and pick one up for under $100. For that price, you’ll get a high definition picture and the unit may even include streaming video apps. Or you could go to Walmart, where this 8-year-old player that originally cost $499 is marked all the way down to $200. [More]
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Does Paramount See ‘Star Trek’ Fans As ATMs With Legs?
By 9.13.13
Earlier this decade, Paramount successfully rebooted the entire “Star Trek” universe as a blockbuster movie franchise. Great news for them, but the release of the second film, “Star Trek: Into Darkness,” on Blu-Ray disc is kind of crappy news for the obsessive fan. That’s because a dedicated special-feature-watcher has to collect at least two different copies of the disc. [More]
Samsung’s Disposable Blu-Ray Player Won’t Play New Blu-Rays
By 9.6.13
Samsung’s BD-P3600 is apparently a nice enough gadget, which plays Blu-Ray discs and DVDs and streams online content from Netflix, Amazon, and other streaming services. Well, in theory. It seems to be an okay device as long as you don’t like to watch anything released in the last six months or so. Thanks to a firmware problem, it can’t deal with new discs. [More]
Samsung Replaces Blu-Ray Player That Won’t Play Perfectly Good Discs
By 4.4.13
Richard was unhappy with his Blu-Ray player. Some discs wouldn’t play at all. Samsung claimed to be on it and working on a firmware update as a solution to the problem, but have said that for a year now. What was a customer who just wants to watch some movies to do? His family couldn’t even watch “The Dark Knight Rises.” What horror! Richard flexed his complaining muscles and fired off a letter to Samsung’s Office of the President e-mail address. [More]
Target Sells Lots Of Reservation Cards For ‘The Avengers’ Blu-Ray, Forgets To Order Discs
By 10.4.12
Target stores offered customers the opportunity to reserve their copy of the super-awesome Blu-Ray box set of “The Avengers” by purchasing reservation cards in advance. What the stores forgot to do, though, was actually stock the discs. It’s fine if they want to only get a few copies of a hot new movie in and sell them to employees’ nephews or people banging on the door at opening time or whatever. It’s not cool to sell reservation cards that you don’t intend to honor. [More]
Showtime Ruins Last Scene Of 'Dexter' Finale As Soon As You Start Blu-Ray Disc
By 8.20.12
If you’re a fan of the TV program “Dexter,” you will remember that something rather important happened in the last thirty seconds of the last episode of the last season. If you’ve never watched “Dexter,” imagine an equally important scene in a television program that you do care about. Or game-winning points scored by your favorite team right at the buzzer. Now imagine that you sit down to watch after some delay. In the case of reader K., that viewing is on DVD. That pivotal scene is the first thing you see, part of a promotional clip for… the very DVD you’ve just sat down to watch. So they’re spoiling something you’ve just rented or purchased, assuming that anyone who buys the DVDs had already watched the last season or failed to avoid spoilers? [More]
Best Buy Accepts Pre-Orders For Jaws, Sells All Copies To Other People
By 8.15.12
The movie “Jaws” is out on Blu-Ray. Please try to contain your excitement. Reader Mark was pretty excited at the news, actually: he wanted Best Buy’s own exclusive version, and placed a pre-order for in-store pickup. He went to the store, waited around for an hour or so, and then finally learned: oh, yeah, all of the pre-ordered copies had been sold off the shelves accidentally. And an employee told Mark that this wasn’t the only store where that had happened. [More]
Sony Decides To Not Go Disc-Free For Next Gaming Console
By 5.30.12
With the next generation of gaming consoles set to debut during the next two years, rumors abound about whether or not digitally downloaded or cloud-stored games will replace the current disc-based standard. A new Wall Street Journal report claims that, for Sony at least, the day of the disc isn’t done yet. [More]
eBay Says Selling Download Codes Is Copyright Infringement
By 4.18.12
Stephen buys Blu-rays, but has no use for the free Ultraviolet download codes that come with the discs. So he turns around and sells them on eBay, because, hey, money! Only eBay shut down his last auction, claiming copyright infringement. Copyright infringement? In our brave new world, just because you purchased something and are holding it in your hand, that doesn’t mean you can sell it. Apparently. [More]
Movie Studios Create Special Blu-Ray Slipcovers For Target, This Target Tosses Them In Trash
By 11.3.11
Michael has a cool hobby that I had never heard of until today: collecting new Blu-Ray disc releases, especially limited editions and interesting slipcovers. Studios issue exclusive slipcovers to certain retailers: a great marketing opportunity and plenty of fun for collectors, right? Sure. If the employees at Michael’s local Target hadn’t been ordered to slip off those neat slipcovers and toss ’em before putting new movies in plastic security cases before they go on the shelves. [More]
Beware The Worst Blu-rays Of The Year So Far
By 7.20.11
Blu-ray geeks rave about 1080p picture resolution, lossless audio and the high capacity of the discs, but upgrading old DVDs to the high-definition format doesn’t always make sense. Sometimes studios rush out discs without giving them the proper care, either replicating a standard-definition release or eliminating features entirely. [More]
Despite Blu-ray Price Cuts, Video Disc Sales Are Dwindling
By 6.9.11
Home entertainment studios seem to have gotten over the whole “let’s try and charge $30 for all new Blu-ray movies” thing, with prices generally closer to the $20 range. But general price cuts still haven’t sparked the Blu-ray bonanza Hollywood was hoping for. [More]
Samsung Not Sure Where Its Samsung Apps Will Work
By 9.15.10
James wanted to buy a new Samsung Blu-ray player that could download and run Samsung Apps, which are widgets that can connect to the Internet or–in the case of the Hulu Plus app–stream video content. He tried to make sure he knew what he was doing before making a purchase, because his whole point for upgrading was to access Hulu, but he still chose the wrong player. Or did he? No, he did. Right? [More]
Warner Bros. Batman-Blocks Apple Users From Digital Copy
By 8.16.10
Apple enthusiast David was annoyed to discover his Blu-ray of the animated film Batman: Under the Red Hood won’t allow him to use the download voucher to get a digital copy of the film that will play on his Mac or iPod. He feels misled because he had no such trouble with previous digital copy transfers, even from other Batman movies. [More]
Blu-Ray Redbox Spotted In The Wild, Rental Costs $2 For First Day
By 6.10.10
While Redbox says that they’re still figuring out price points for Blu-Ray discs in their movie kiosks, reader Dave discovered a box in the wild near San Francisco–clearly part of some test marketing effort. The price points are different from anything we’ve heard before. The machine offers Blu-Ray rentals for $2 for the first night, then $1 for each subsequent night. Yes, he sent pictures. [More]
Blu-Rays Coming To Redbox With Price Hike
By 6.8.10
Redbox is finally latching on to the Blu-ray bandwagon, announcing it’s months away from adding the pricier HD movies to its kiosks, but will be charging $1.50 a night rather than the standard buck it costs for DVDs. [More]
7 Ways DVDs Still Dominate Blu-ray
By 5.20.10
I’m an admitted Blu-ray whore and adore the format for its glorious picture and sound, but there are nagging shortcomings of the newfangled HD format that prevent me from prosthelytizing its virtues to all who will listen. [More]
Paramount Recalls Saving Private Ryan Blu-ray, Sending Out Replacements
By 5.13.10
For once, a recall that doesn’t tell you a product was trying to trap your babies in crib rails, sicken your children with lead paint, catch your car on fire or poison you via over-the-counter medicine. Paramount announced the Saving Private Ryan Blu-ray that came out last week has some audio-syncing problems, so the studio issued a recall and will send out replacement discs, High-Def Digest reports. [More]
