Warner Home Video to offer Blu-ray combo packs

Warner Home Video announced that they will be offering Blu-ray combo packs for all theatrical new release movies starting first quarter of 2010. Combo pack includes Blu-ray disc, DVD and a digital copy. This combo pack offering trend was started by Disney sometime back. It is evident that these offerings will help accelerate Blu-ray adoption and at the sametime give more viewing choices for customers with no additional cost.

Warner Home Video is also launching Blu-ray double features pack starting at $24.98 that will include a pair of well-matched catalog hits from Warner studios.

Disney Blu-ray upgrade program

Similar to Warner Bros. DVD2BLU program, Disney Studios Home Entertainment has introduced Upgrade2Blu. As part of the program, Disney is offering $8 coupon towards the purchase of Blu-ray disc if you already own DVD of the movie. After selecting the DVD titles you own, you would need to send the printed rebate form along with the proof-of-purchase tab for DVDs. $8 savings coupon will be emailed to you. Unlike Warner Bros. DVD2BLU program, you can keep your Disney DVDs with you. Below is the list of titles available for this program:

Movie	Movie
A Bug's Life	Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End
Bedtime Stories	Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
Beverly Hills Chihuahua	Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse Of The Black Pearl
Bolt	Pixar Short Films Collection Vol. 1
Bridge To Terabithia	Race To Witch Mountain
Camp Rock	Ratatouille
Cars	Remember The Titans
Chicken Little	Roving Mars
College Road Trip	Santa Buddies
Dinosaur	Sky High
Disneynature Earth	Sleeping Beauty
Eight Below	Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs
Enchanted	Space Buddies
G-Force	The Cheetah Girls: One World
Glory Road	The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian
Hannah Montana & Miley Cyrus Best Of Both Worlds Concert	The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe
Hannah Montana The Movie	The Game Plan
High School Musical	The Greatest Game Ever Played
High School Musical 2	The Haunted Mansion
High School Musical 3: Senior Year	The Rookie
Invincible	The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause
Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience	The Wild
Meet The Robinsons	Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas
Miracle	Tinker Bell
Monsters, Inc.	Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure
Morning Light	Underdog
National Treasure	Up
National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets	Wall-E
Pinocchio

Blu-ray Managed copy

Technology makes life easy. It also makes the consumer in you feel bad with it's advancements. Case in point - Blu-ray Managed copy. In an effort to discourage people from obtaining illegal copies of movies, AACS LA's managed copy for Blu-ray discs lets the Blu-ray disc owners make a copy of the movie. Once this feature is fully implemented by Studios, Hardware manufacturers and Technology companies, you would be able to make a full resolution backup copy of Blu-ray movie to various storage devices. This requires Blu-ray players to be connected to the internet so that your Blu-ray disc can be authenticated by servers managed by Studios or AACS before making a copy.

Even though all Blu-ray discs sold after Dec 4, 2009 are required to have Managed copy feature, none of the current generation blu-ray players and other BD devices do not support this feature. This means the expensive Blu-ray player you bought this holiday season would become obsolete when Hardware manufacturers start selling Managed copy compatible players early 2010. Additionally, Studios can charge you for this managed copy, which makes this feature not so popular with consumers.

A demonstration of managed copy feature:

Sony movies on Internet connected TVs & Blu-ray players

Declining DVD sales and lackluster box-office performances are driving Hollywood studios and Consumer Electronics manufacturers to come up with new ways to increase their revenue streams. As this BusinessWeek's article and NY Times article report, Sony is experimenting with making some movies available through it's Internet ready Bravia TVs and Blu-ray players just before their DVD release. This new window, called as Home theatrical window is spaced between movie's theatrical release and it's DVD release so that,  interests of theatre owners and DVD retailers are equally served . Sony, with it's unique position as Hardware manufacturer and Movie studio owner, is trying to convince other Hollywood studios and content providers to join this experiment.

Even though HDTV and Blu-ray technology adoption is slow, there seems to be a section of viewers who are willing to pay a premium for watching movies on their big TV screens well before it's DVD release schedule. The quality of a typical internet streaming movie may be comparable to DVD quality but it doesn't match with Blu-ray quality. As Blu-ray technology becomes more mainstream, the popularity of this offering from Sony  is going to depend on the quality of the online stream and how it is priced compared to DVDs.

Blu-ray disc deals from Warner Home Video

Looking for deals on Blu-ray discs this holiday season? This might interest you. Warner Home Video, a division of Warner Bros. Studios is offering a trade-in program called DVD2BLU wherein you can send in your DVD titles (from the list of 55 or so available titles) and get Blu-ray version of the same titles for around $8 - $10 each. They are offering free shipping on orders over $25. But, after throwing in factors like parting with your beloved DVDs, paying shipping cost of $4.95 and waiting 4 -5 weeks to get your Blu-ray discs, the effective price you pay here may not be as competitive as buying Blu-ray discs from Amazon or Bestbuy. List of titles available from Warner Bros.'s website DVD2BLU:

Movie	Price	Movie	Price
10,000 BC	$9.95	Journey to the Center of Earth	$7.95
2001: A Space Odyssey	$7.95	Last Samurai	$7.95
Alexander Revisited: (Unrated)	$7.95	Lost Boys, The	$7.95
American History	$7.95	Michael Clayton	$7.95
An American in Paris	$7.95	National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation	$7.95
Any Given Sunday	$7.95	Ocean's Thirteen	$9.95
Aviator	$7.95	Orphanage, The	$9.95
Beetlejuice	$7.95	Pan's Labyrinth	$9.95
Blazing Saddles	$7.95	Perfect Storm, The	$7.95
Body of Lies	$9.95	Pride and Glory	$7.95
Bucket List, The	$7.95	Rio Bravo	$7.95
Christmas Story, A	$9.95	Risky Business	$7.95
Clockwork Orange, A	$7.95	Rumor Has It	$7.95
Collateral Damage	$7.95	Rush Hour 3	$9.95
Constantine	$7.95	Scanner Darkly, A	$7.95
Dark City: Director's Cut	$7.95	Searchers, The	$7.95
Deliverance	$7.95	Shining, The	$7.95
Dirty Dozen, The	$7.95	Speed Racer	$9.95
Dumb and Dumber	$7.95	Superman II: Richard Donner Cut	$7.95
Elf	$9.95	Superman Returns	$9.95
Eraser	$7.95	Swordfish	$7.95
Final Destination	$7.95	Taking Lives	$7.95
Fugitive, The	$7.95	Training Day	$7.95
Full Metal Jacket	$9.95	We Are Marshall	$9.95
Gods and Generals	$7.95	Wedding Crashers	$7.95
Golden Compass, The	$9.95	Wedding Singer, The	$7.95
Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle	$7.95	Wyatt Earp	$7.95
History of Violence, A	$7.95

Blu-ray players to be more affordable (Sub-$100) this Holiday season

Of late, retailers have been offering discounts on Blu-ray players by bundling them with High Definition TVs and Home Theater Systems. This holiday season, you are going to find entry level Blu-ray players for as low as $100. This break in entry level price barrier is partly due to higher Blu-ray adoption rate and partly due to the imminent competition the Chinese Blu-ray disc manufacturers are bringing in.

Unlike high-end models, entry level Blu-ray players lack support for BD-Live (profile 2.0) and high definition audio standards like Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio. But, most of them will do the job of playing Blu-ray discs and upconverting DVDs without any issues. If you are planning to get onto Blu-ray bandwagon without burning a hole in your wallet, look out for these players:

• Magnavox NB530MGX (Profile 1.1. No BD-Live support. Has SD slot instead of USB drive)
• Bestbuy Insignia NS-BRDVD3 (Ethernet enabled, supports Profile 2.0
• Curtis Mathes CMMBX130
• Sylvania NB530SLX

A leaked Walmart Black friday Ad lists Magnavox NB500MG1F for $78.

Blu-ray Vs Broadcast HD

Like everybody else, I am starting to enjoy the amazing and crisp video quality of Blu-ray movies compared to Broadcast HD or DVD movies. But, while watching Broadcast HD shows or movies, there are occasions that make my eyes believe that Broadcast HD video quality is as good as Blu-ray, if not superior (especially with animated movies). It is not easy to compare these two video qualities without taking into consideration factors like Transmission mode, Compression, Bitrate, Load on Broadcast provider's network and type of the content and your TV settings.

Compression: Blu-ray discs use 1080p maximum and MPEG-4 compression which results in higher possible bandwidth. Broadcast HD transmissions are 1080i maximum and use MPEG-2 compression which results in lower possible bandwidth.

Bitrate: Blu-ray technology transmits the content at 40 Mbps (total 48 Mbps for video and audio). Broadcast HD transmits at around 20 Mbps. Lower bitrate for broadcast HD means squeezing the content resulting in loss of details.

Network Load: Broadcast HD quality is affected by network load which depends on number of subscribers availing the service at a particular time and other infrastructure related factors.

Content Type: CGI rich animated movies lose less details in broadcast transmission compared to a normal movie. This, sometimes, results in a Blu-ray quality comparable movie experience from broadcast HD.

TV Settings: TV Settings play a big role in viewing experience. Factory defaults are not always the ideal settings for a typical home viewing environment. By optimizing your HDTV settings, you can enjoy better picture quality for both Blu-ray movies and broadcast HD content.

All things considered, Blu-ray content has superior quality over broadcast HD content.

Netflix one step closer to conquer your living room

Over the weekend, Netflix announced that PS3 owners soon will be able to watch Netflix's streaming content. This is an interesting announcement from Netflix, considering the fact that their streaming service is already available on XBox and they are using Silverlight technology from Microsoft in their players. PS3 now joins the long list of devices that support Netflix's streaming: Roku player, Tivo player, XBox 360, LG/Samsung/Insignia Blu-ray players, LG/Sony/Vizio HDTVs, LG/Samsung Blu-ray Home Theatre Systems, Windows and Mac computers. This will help Netflix get more gaming customers subscribe to their service with the possibility of starting their own game rental service to PS3/XBox community (Beware, Gamefly!).

Next step for Netflix would be to provide the streaming service to Mobile users. An iPhone app that can start playing the show that is paused before. Also, the ability to edit 'instant queue' from the Mobile app or TV remote. I see three hurdles associated with this Netflix iPhone/Mobile app. i) iPhone compatible player technology [either Microsoft should make Silverlight iPhone/Mobile ready or Netflix should abandon her bedfellow for a while and go with different player technology for Mobiles ii) Bandwidth - While you may enjoy the streaming content on a 3G mobile, content streaming to 2.5G mobiles will not yield desired results. iii) Apple's reluctance to host such an app, as it would cut into it's iTunes service.

As the ever increasing customer base demands more quality, Netflix would have to improve it's streaming service by providing more 'new' movies to the "watch now" list and improving the stream quality. Improving stream quality is costly and time consuming. The quality of a typical streaming content falls between that of DVD and broadcast HD content (depending on your internet speed). Also, at present, streaming does not support multi-channel audio (just stereo) or closed captioning. The devices that come pre-installed with Netflix streaming service are capable of 1080p. So, Netflix's should aim at providing atleast broadcast HD quality content through the streaming service in order to keep the new customers coming to them.