The prognosis was a deceased power supply, but given how the machine was now several years old, couldn’t play 1080p video due to a rather aged Pentium 4 chip, and was wheezing like I do after climbing a flight of stairs, it was time for the great IT graveyard in the sky. Or more specifically, I gave it to Maceie for spares for his own box. Coincidentally, a power supply for one of these computers comes in at around £70 now, which even a GCSE maths student will be able to tell you is considerably less than £400 for a new machine. Newer, faster, shinier = better.

The replacement was chosen, a Dell Studio Hybrid. The machines are small, contain all the relevant outputs and are a fairly decent price (although watch out for the voucher codes that promise to make it cheap as chips – you can buy the machines in PC World and the price is the lower one already). I grumbled considerably before ordering the unit, lashing out money is the last thing I want to be doing at the moment but this is our primary source of entertainment so needs must.

As per usual the service from Dell was exemplary, and the machine was soon on its way. However it was dispatched on a Wednesday but took until Monday to actually arrive. I’m sure given how it was in the UK by Thursday morning it could have appeared on Friday, perhaps that’s just me being spoilt. But when I can have items overnighted from the US for less than the delivery price Dell charges it does make me scratch my head a little.

The machine is lovely, small and contains some very nice design features. Stand it up and the front panel illuminates at startup displaying “Hybrid”. Turn it on its side, and it is displayed in the centre of the unit. Its little things like that which please on an aesthetics level.

Of course it’s all very well to look lovely, but it’s what’s on the inside that counts and while the machine itself performs very nicely there was one small problem with mine. It was noisy, and not noisy in the sense of “a little bit louder than silent which isn’t perfect for Little Lord Cullen”, but noisy as in “louder than an Xbox 360”. Considerably louder than a 360 in fact, and given that the Studio Hybrid is designed to be a living room media centre computer, you would have to be tone deaf not to notice the fan whining like a toddler at Disneyworld.

As with the Mac Mini, an awful lot if crammed into the case, and the processor itself is passively cooled with a single fan at the back. That is where the problem lies with mine; the fan is mind numbingly loud. Switch the machine on it and it starts off fine, and then as soon as Windows starts to boot you’re reaching for the ear plugs. Seriously, I had two Inspiron desktop computers switched on, as well as a NAS box and a Windows Home Server and this thing was louder than all of those devices put together!

Obviously that’s not right, so it was straight on to Dell support, and because it’s classed as a consumer device there’s no chance of an engineer coming out on site to look at it. No it has had to be boxed up and sent back to Dell. To their credit the support staff are always good, and this morning a City Link courier arrived to take the machine back for a full diagnostic and a replacement of the fan. Or rather I hope that is what’s going to happen.

Given that we have a four day weekend for Easter next week I can’t imagine seeing it back until at least Tuesday week (although I’m very open to surprises). I’ve been a vociferous supporter of Dell in recent times (this is now my fourth machine of theirs), but how something like this can leave the factory in this state is somewhat beyond me.

Fingers crossed I get the quiet machine I ordered when it eventually returns.

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Jem Alexander from PS3 Fanboy joins us to talk about Leipzig, PAX and a whole host of other topics.  Including Dave actually saying something NEGATIVE about an Apple product!  If your ears can handle these shocking revelations, and some casual swearing you can listen to it on the site, or subscribe in iTunes.

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We’re talking about things that have impressed and disgusted us, with a Leipzig flavour.  Tell your friends, unless they’re easily offended.  As per usual, there is some fruity language that may burn the ears of a small child, or prudish Daily Mail reader.  Consider yourself warned.

You can download the podcast from the web site, or subscribe to it via iTunes.  And as an extra, during the recording of this weeks show I multitasked and also played Burnout Paradise, upgrading my license to Class A.  I like to think the power of the Rant propelled me on to this greatness*

* We cannot guarantee you will be great by listening.

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Next month the 12th falls on a Saturday, so I’ll be back on board for that one.

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With the recent announcement and display of Gears of War 2 I started the original game again on the harder difficulty (I originally completed it on Easy to breeze through the story, swearing blind I would do it again on the proper difficulty level) and was quite surprised to find that it isn’t ageing as well as I thought.
Gears is obviously an incredibly demanding game that is wringing as much performance from the 360 as it can, so slowdown is inevitable but what surprised me was just how frustrating some of the combat can be.

Moving around the mobile meat van that is Marcus Phoenix is a bit of a clumsy affair at times, but when timed to perfection it’s an absolute joy.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not hating on Gears at all, merely commenting that in the two years since the games release there have been a few pretenders to the Gears crown that have mercilessly borrowed from its template (which itself borrowed heavily from Kill Switch and Resident Evil 4), and some have dared to vaguely improve on it.  Army of Two may have been a somewhat soulless facsimile but I never found myself getting frustrated by diving into cover at the wrong points.
I haven’t tried the Emo Gears, or Dark Sector as it is better known due to lukewarm reviews, despite that fact that Tesco are offering it at £25.

After I’m done with Gears I’m heading back to Bioshock to enjoy another trip to Rapture.  That may have to wait, because with Lego Indiana Jones being released on Friday, I think it could be time to take a break from slaughtering everything and everybody in sight!

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But we did go to the Sealife Centre (got to love those complimentary tickets) and were extremely surprised at how much was there.  There are lots of snaps on Flickr.

In other news, Ian was quite right, Red Bull Cola tastes like Panda Pops (the proper ones from when I was a lad, not the modern fancy stuff), and also Jolt Cola.  Only without the sheer lunacy of Jolt.  Tastes a bit like syrup and some gas.  Actually, just like Soda Stream cola.  Oh and it doesn’t really work either, it certainly didn’t wake me up after drinking it.  Four hours in the car doesn’t help matters though.

Final item of note for today, the eggs benedict at Bill’s Product Store is expensive, but gorgeous.

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Panasonic Unleash Blu-ray Spinner

But this week a press release hit from Panasonic relating to its new DMP-BD50 deck, this third generation player finally contains all of the features and specifications I’ve been waiting for in a stand alone player.

BD-Live and full HD audio codec support make this the spinner I want to have in my rack, but the $700 price tag is a bit of a kicker.  However, the player is due to launch in the US this Spring, with a European launch sometime after I’m sure.  Plus you can be certain that you will have to change the $ to a £ over here.  My importer of choice, Movietyme has been selling the baby brother DMP-BD30 player for some time now, so hopefully they will do the same with the 50 when it becomes available.

Like many other people here in Europe, it makes sense for me to buy a US player due to the price of US versus UK BD movies (ie they are a whole lot cheaper) and the fact that many of the major studios (Fox being the key player here) are now placing region coding on many of their discs.  I did the exact same thing when DVD first launched, imported movies from the US but had a multiregion DVD player costing probably what an import DMP-BD50 will cost.  Same prices, new technology.

Freesat
I received word from Maceie yesterday that Freesat has now officially launched here in the UK.  I’ve been keeping a very keen eye on this for some time now, and the first wave of boxes are now available.  As you would expect from the name, Freesat is a free satellite TV service (well, you have to purchase the box but after that it’s free) bringing all of the existing Freeview channels as well as a host of others delivered via satellite.

But they key factor for me with freesat is it will be broadcasting BBC and ITV HD.  Free to air HD programming, TV nirvana!  Except that part isn’t quite there yet.  The current receivers are SD only, with the HD version and the all important HD unit with built in DVR “coming soon”.  Interestingly the Freesat web site states that existing satellite dish owners “may” be able to utilise their existing dish.  If that’s the case do you still have to pay the £80 (the words money and old rope spring to mind) installation fee for someone to plug the box in?

Check out the Freesat web site for more details, anything’s better than giving money to Sky.

BD-Live From SPHE
I received word this week that Sony Pictures will be bringing their first BD-Live enabled disc to Europe next month picking the ever popular Men In Black to be the first of hopefully many titles supporting the new features.  A multi-player interactive trivia game is included as well as exclusive downloadable preview content.  As with other studios support for the format it’s a toe in the water but as good a start as any.  At least they didn’t pick the sequel   The disc is released here on June 16th.

Buzzing Subs
Finally for today, a tale of woe regarding one of my subwoofers.  I’ve had my Kef 2005.2 surround speakers for just over three years now and they have given sterling service throughout, making the junior set of 1005′s the obvious choice for my office audio set up.  But for the last few months I have had to leave the sub on permanently, because every time I turn it off and then back on it again it emits a loud electrical buzzing.

I thought it was related to the purchase of the ONKYO amp, as the problem coincided with its purchase, but the problem persists even when the sub is disconnected.  Leaving it switched on was fine for a while, but last week it started buzzing randomly, upsetting the cat.  So I took it in to my local repair shop last Friday and have since learned it is a common fault with that particular model of sub (the PSW2000) and it needs an amp board replacing.

Sadly they phoned me yesterday to say they are unable to source the board, so I have a malfunctioning sub that cannot be fixed be an independant repairer.  I’ve fired off an e-mail to Kef this morning to see if their support can help, or if an approved dealer can do anything with it.  I don’t want to be spending hundreds of pounds on a new sub, and I’m tired of lugging the 1005 sub out of the office every time I want to watch a movie

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As everyone I spoke to who has passed it either in person or online will agree, it is an absolute bitch, plain and simple! It didn’t help that I thought the PC was going to crash again after around ten questions. The screen froze and I was able to Alt-Tab back to the exam app and back again, but fortunately after a minute it carried on to a Simulation question. By the time the end of the exam came around my brain was so exhausted I just wanted to get out of the rather warm exam room. I’m sure the testing centre put the mankiest PCs they have in there (running Windows 2000 no less) to keep you waiting as it sits there thinking for around fifteen seconds before the pass/fail screen appears

Needless to say, I’m overjoyed with the result and it dawned on me while I was driving back to the office afterwards that I had just achieved the MCSA certification. So I’m now a Microsoft Certified Systems Administrator. Hopefully that Administrator will become an Engineer in the next couple of weeks. In actual fact, having just checked the Microsoft web site it is actually MCSA Messaging, as I took an Exchange 2003 exam as an elective.

Also today, HD DVD owners may be weeping into their overpriced hardware (Amazon were selling the player below mine at the weekend for £80, ouch) but the great movie clearout has begun! Movietyme are selling practically every Universal disc for £7.99 and a load more will be added tomorrow. Check it HERE.

I made couple of celebratory purchases.  That’s an IT persons “couple”, naturally.

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Of course, price has always been the trump card of HD DVD (or the Toshiba format as it may as well be known), and while Toshiba may have been able to crow over the initial Blu-ray players for being half the price of the competition, with the entry level PlayStation 3 coming in at just a few pounds more than this new model, the format doesn’t seem quite so tempting any more.

When I first saw the EP35 (and its lower spec’d brother the EP30) at IFA I was a little underwhelmed. Maybe it was due to the sheer quality and desirability of the Blu-ray players from Sony, Pioneer and Panasonic, but the Toshiba players looked like a £30 DVD player and with the build quality to match. So how does the player stack up?

Seven free movies? None too shabby, 300 and The Bourne Supremacy are included in the box with a further five from a mail-in rebate, and I was half expecting two discs in slip cases, not the full retail packaging.

Unboxing photos are hardly exciting, so I’ll spare you the full horror and just say that in the box you get the player, remote, batteries and an HDMI cable (nice touch Toshiba).

The player itself is functional without being flashy, it DOES feel like a £30 DVD player, and the remote control is absolute junk. Seriously, I’ve seen better remotes on the aforementioned supermarket special players. Oh, and while I’m bashing the player, the eject mechanism is slow, noisy and clunky and the whole thing feels very plasticky.

But the all important thing is how do the movies look and sound? Fortunately, the answer to that is great. This higher end player supports all of the assorted HD audio formats (including Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD), HDMI 1.3 deep colour, 24fps playback and outputs up to 1080p.

Setup is nice and simple thanks to an easy to follow menu system. The only snag I had was the ethernet connection had trouble picking up a default gateway from my DHCP server, but that’s a thirty second fix. Audio, video and clock settings are all run through within five minutes and I was ready to go.

Boot up time is around thirty seconds, but as with previous models it takes a good twenty to thirty seconds to recognise an HD DVD disc (DVD boot times are much faster). After the initial wait access times are instantaneous and remote response is fine.

I tested the player with three of my favourite reference quality discs – The Matrix, Transformers and Fast & Furious: Tokyo Drift. Tokyo Drift for the bright colours against dark backgrounds, Transformers for the incredible CG and live action blending and The Matrix because…well, it’s The Matrix, and it looks fantastic.

Picture quality is outstanding, a marked improvement over the Xbox 360 HD DVD drive. Black levels are superb and the picture is crisp and clear (the 360 player has a tendancy to look a little wishy washy in places). Sound is also an improvement, front speaker dialogue cuts perfectly through the soundscape. Bottom line is, the player looks and sound fantastic, and for less than £300, it’s a steal.

DVDs upscale up to 1080p and they look superb, better than some stand alone upscaling players costing £200+, certainly better than the PS3 (but not by much), but not as good as my Pioneer DVD deck. The Pioneer retains its place in my AV rack for the forseeable future at least.

So how do I sum up this player? Just to go over the negatives first, the player looks nice but feels cheap. Buttons are plastic, the tray is clunky, the remote is an absolute joke and it takes a while to boot. Oh there is also no resume playback from pressing stop.

But what this player does very well is what it was designed for – playing discs. HD DVD movies look and sound great, the interface is clear and concise. This range of players is exactly what Toshiba wants them to be, a high quality player with a competitive price that may tempt consumers who have been waiting for the price to drop.

Despite my negative comments, I like this player an awful lot. If you can look past its faults you have a great quality player for a competitive price. It’s a consumer player with high end features and I’m glad I bought it.

The Look And Sound Of Perfect is still a stupid slogan, though.

NOTE: There are more, higher resolution photos on my Flickr page.

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Dave and I discuss crazy German taxi drivers, sampling the “local” cuisine, and even some technical stuff that we saw at the event.  This is my last podcast for a while, so sit back and enjoy.

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Is Dave REALLY a street fighter?  Can Tom pwn the Americans on Warhawk?  Can I survive three days with Dave?  These questions may be answered in this weeks episode.

The IFA round-up podcast will also be coming very soon.  This will be my last podcast for a few weeks as I’m going to be kept very busy with work stuff.  I can almost hear the cheering from here

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It’s time to bring my coverage of IFA 2007 to a close, so what better way to finish up than with a round-up post?

Before we went, I couldn’t quite get my head around the statistics from last years show, over 1,000 exhibitors and a couple of hundred thousand visitors sounds a fair amount. Then you put those people and companies together and it’s rather overwhelming because the place was massive. Imagine Earls Court, then multiply that by twenty-five and you get the idea. By the end of the second day my feet were about ready to drop off, and Dave and I both covered every single inch of the show floor.

By far the largest sections of IFA were Home & Audio Entertainment, which seemed to be hall upon hall of TVs, HD players, high and low end audio equipment, car audio, computers, laptops and anything else with a plug and looked shiny!

Larger European manufacturers like Tatung and Grundig had plenty on show, mainly cheap plasmas that didn’t hold up compared to their Panasonic or Hitachi counterparts. I did feel somewhat sorry for these folks, because they were right in the middle of a number of manufacturers who were essentially all showing the same products. You can’t help but feel somewhat apathetic towards plasma and LCD TVs when you have walked through three halls of identikit screens all showing nature clips.

Panasonic had some nice products on display, and an impressive stage show with rotating plasmas that was a lot of crash boom banging about some new TVs and camcorders. It may have been fluff, but the show was well put together and it meant I could sit down for twenty minutes.
The products looked great, but the stand was rather dark and dingy, which was a major contrast to Sharp who had one of the largest (and brightest) halls of the lot! The Aquos range of TVs has always looked great, and the latest additions looked impressive in the wall of the screens that greeted you at the entrance. They even had the worlds smallest 1080p TV, a mere 22 inches! They were also pimping 100Hz TVs, just like everyone else.

There were wireless PDAs, Blu-ray players, cameras, mobile phones and all manner of handheld gadgets on show, as well as a very nice prototype BD home cinema box (there are photos of this on the Blu-ray Flickr page).
Pioneer had a typically stylish stand that reeked of class, right next to people like Denon for maximum kudos.

I have a particularly soft spot for Pioneer, and they pushed all the right buttons with new TVs, audio equipment, disc players, et al.

My award for the best stand would probably go to Samsung, they had a ton of stuff on display, all well arranged in one of the narrower halls. Bonus points go to them for a number of comfortable sofas, 360 rigs for a quick game and the best looking girls.

Disappointments? Well I was surprised by the lack of a gaming presence other than Nintendo and a few 360 and PS3 games. Intel didn’t have a particularly great showing either, despite numerous people carrying around their huge swag bags. They were very much focussing on the digital home, but in a very small area.

IFA ends tomorrow (September 5th) and I’m sure everyone involved will be relieved. Already the smiles on the girls were starting to drop by Saturday afternoon, and by now they are probably ready to kill someone. I have to take my hat off to the Messe centre in Berlin, the facilities were second to none and the staff were helpful and courteous. All told, a very hectic, noisy and crowded couple of days. I came home exhausted but elated, it was a great couple of days and I would definitely go back again next year.

The final stand I want to mention was for a product called Xounts, which is a strange speaker/light thing that was really cool to look at and listen to. They had a nicely dimmed area with tons of these things constantly changing colour, the music was really nice and relaxed ambient plus they had some very comfy sofas. When it was nearing the end of the second day, I spent an hour and a half trying to find these guys for a second time and kicked back on a sofa with a drink and just enjoyed the ambiance. The English version of their web site is still under construction, but if you speak German or just want to enjoy the music, go HERE.

I have uploaded a ton of photos to a new Flickr album called “IFA 2007 – Supplemental”, you can find those pictures HERE.

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Nintendo made a showing to once again go after their new best friends, the casual gamers.  This WiiMoveYou bus was positioned in the South entrance hall, offering folks the chance to play Wii Sports and get some freebie goodies inside (stickers and the like).

A number of manufacturers also had Wii Sports themed zones, one with a different arena for the different sports and a projection screen setup, which was very well done.

As well as the bus and static setups, there were also mobile kiosks in shopping trolleys being pushed around by Nintendo staff.  These were offering a few rounds of Brain Training to anyone who wanted to have a play, and there was no shortage of takers.

Everyone playing was having a great time, and people were flocking in their droves to try out the Wii.  It’s amazing how a game that’s nearly a year old is still able to draw such crowds.  I didn’t wait for a go, having just sold my Wii I wasn’t really that fussed!

Nintendo were the only one of the “big three” console manufacturers to really show anything here.  The PS3 was at the BDA and Sony stands, the Xbox 360 was at the Samsung stand as well as an ambient music/lighting manufacturer’s area where multiplayer Guitar Hero was attracting a lot of attention from interested show goers.

Personally I think the manufacturers missed a trick here this year, this is a consumer electronics show after all, attracting hundreds of thousands of people.  You only had to look at the “My Media” section of the show which was by far the busiest when I walked through, to see that the general public love their digital home lifestyles.  Maybe next year.

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We may even touch on the computer and videogaming perspective.  Watch your iTunes feed.

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LG Electronics “Super Multi Blue” player was without a doubt the talk of the show at CES back in January.  The first single drive device that will play both HD DVD and Blu-ray discs.  The general consensus of opinion was that while the BD playback was fine, as the player wasn’t officially licensed by the HDA it wasn’t able to bear the certified logo and the HD DVD playback was essentially gimped.

Animated menus were gone, no network connectivity.   This was very much a work in progress player, but at least it was a start.

The SMB player was at IFA this year, and I have to say the playback quality hardly blew me away.  Whether it was the player itself or the TV calibration that was wrong I don’t know.  But it was hardly a stellar display.

As you can see, LG were showing two screens, one showing Blu-ray playback, the other HD DVD.  This would have gathered more attention I’m sure if it wasn’t for this putting in an appearance.

This is the prototype combo player from Samsung, a fully certified HD DVD and Blu-ray player.  The representative from Japan took great pride in showing me all the interactive features working correctly on HD DVD, adding that while an official release date had yet to be set, it was looking like sometime this year for the US, and next year for us here in Europe.  No word on pricing as of yet.

Rather than looking like a £20 DVD player from Tesco ala the LG product, the Samsung unit was contained inside the new BDP-1400 Blu-ray player chassis.  Despite being an incomplete model right now, it certainly knocked spots off the originator.  I’ll be keeping a watching eye on this player over the coming months.

There are additional photos of both players on my Flickr site HERE.  Getting photos of the Samsung player was extremely tricky as TV and camera crews were eager to snap this interesting piece of kit.

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There were some ridiculously gorgeous cars at IFA this year that had been modded to oblivion. Both from the major car audio manufacturers and local enthusiast companies. Clarion, JBL and all the major players were there to show off their latest and greatest.

It sounds almost ridiculous to say I got sick of Lamborghinis after a while, but that’s what spending eight hours wandering around IFA does to you. My favourite by far has to be the Mustang that JBL had in their area. A simply stunning job, and there are over forty more pictures of various makes and models on the Flickr page HERE.

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While the BDA were putting their name on any surface they could rent at IFA, it was a distinctly low-key affair for their rival in the HD space, HD DVD.

The HD DVD Association had a section of the very large Toshiba stand, and not to take anything away from Toshiba either, they had one of the most impressive stands at IFA, if a little narrowly cramped in certain sections. HD DVD seemed to be crammed into a corner, which is a shame because there was a fair amount of kit in a small space which looked almost tacked on. A more centre stage promotion of the format would certainly of helped.

Toshiba were showcasing two brand new models of HD DVD player, the EP30 and the EP35. Unsurprisingly, the EP35 is higher end of the two models, both of which will output at 1080p, and also support 24p mode (displaying the movie at a true to original 24 frames per second – Sony’s new Blu-ray players are also supporting this output format). Those wishing to enjoying the high resolution audio codecs will need the higher specification model.

The players were most definitely functional and decent enough to look at. They lacked some of the neater design touches of many of the BD players, but they do have the all important price on their side. The players will be launched in Europe in October for a very reasonable €399 and €449 respectively.

Like the BDA, the HD DVD folks were also pimping other products that use the format, including laptops (made by Toshiba, naturally), the Xbox 360 HD DVD drive, laptops from other vendors like ASUS and Rock.

I really like the HD DVD format, the two finest looking movies I have reviewed so far have been Hot Fuzz and The Matrix Trilogy. They have price on their side, and a good catalogue of movie studios onboard (regardless of how they got them). But if they don’t want to go the way of Betamax they need manufacturers other than Toshiba to start making players. A step in the right direction is being taken with both Venturer and Onkyo showing stand alone players, but the backing of another big name manufacturer would be a great help to them. Shame all of the others have already signed with the other folks!

The battle lines are drawn, Disney, Sony Pictures, Fox and their sub-studios are with Blu-ray, Universal and Paramount are backing HD DVD. Warner Brothers are firmly in the middle wanting to be everybody’s friend, but quietly giving one camp some extra sweets at playtime behind the others back.

This one is going to rumble on for some time to come.  In the meantime, I have some higher resolution HD DVD photos over at my IFA HD DVD page on Flickr right HERE.

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The Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA to you and me) certainly meant business at IFA this year. The logo was emblazoned on name badges, walls and even the floors!

These feet were plastered around the entrance and early exhibition halls steering you towards the BDA booth, and it was certainly an impressive one.

Paramount’s name still on the list of supporters by the entrance aside, the BDA put on a show that shouted “look at me” rather than the HD DVD folks of “look at me, please, oh go on, we are here really you know”.

The big showers from the Sony manufacturing perspective were two new second generation models of BD player. The first designed to be the casual enthusiasts weapon of choice, weighing in at an estimated €599 (BDP-S300). The higher-end model (BDP-S500) will retail for an estimated €899 and includes a very nice motorised front panel, and (critically) support for the higher-end audio codecs such as Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD.
The players are certainly very impressive, the higher-end model in particular, and at least Sony have done away with the rather ghastly blue front panel from their first effort.

Other BDA members were showing their latest players here. The second generation Samsung model (BD-P1400) looks far more sleek and polished compared to the original offering, and it is the same chassis that will be used to house their much-touted Blu-ray/HD DVD combo player (more on that in a later post).

Philips and Panasonic were also showing their support, along with the superb Pioneer BDP-LX70A which is very much the high end videophiles (ie people with a sizeable disposable income) player. Faultless build quality and performance as you would expect from Pioneer.

Although absent from the BDA stand, players were also dotted around the show from LG, Daewoo, Panasonic and Sharp. There are photos of each of these players on the IFA Blu-ray section of my Flickr account. The link for which can be found HERE.

As well as the stand-alone players, the other aspects of Blu-ray technology were shown including the world’s first BD camcorder from Hitachi, several slimline notebook drives as well as PC 4x burners, and software from vendors such as Corel that use the format. The corner of the booth was capped off by the almost obligatory 108” 1080p plasma showing movie clips.

On Friday evening we attended a cocktail party for bloggers from across Europe to meet and great some of the Sony executives from Japan and the US. Much wine and champagne was quaffed, and while I spent a large amount of time talking to Hiro Shinohara (Director of Home Video for Europe) and Don Eklund (Advanced Technologies Executive VP) about TV series (and their appearing on HD with Fox launching Prison Break on Blu-ray this year) and a little know fact that US DUDE loves Blade Runner so much he named his son after Rutger Hauer’s character (now THAT is hardcore!). Poor guy had to slum it talking to us rather than catch a screening of the new HD remaster 

The key thing I can recall from that event was that in the wake of the recent Paramount ship-jumping to HD DVD exclusivity, Warners have confirmed they will continue to support both formats. Whether there will be more movies which have specific exclusive extras such as the 300 disc in future remains to be seen.

All in all, Blu-ray had an impressive showing at IFA this year, all of the major manufacturers (bar Toshiba, obviously) were showcasing their players including Samsungs first home cinema in a box with Blu-ray. If you want to use appalling marketing phrases like “mind share”, you could say Sony certainly had the upper hand in that particular arena.

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I have so much to write up it is unbelievable, a ton of photos and information about new Sony products, including some very nice looking Blu-ray players. The show is so vast it is almost impossible to take everything in at times. Today I have concentrated on display technology and media formats, and have a lot of photos of new hardware from both the Blu-ray and HD DVD camps.

Tomorrow we are at the show again, and it will be the real information gatherer. I want to talk to Samsung, Sharp, Toshiba and Panasonic, as well as checking out the audio section that I barely even touched on today. Denon in particular have some very interesting new products that I want to get hands on with. Never has the phrase “so much to do and so little time” been more applicable.

Check back over the next couple of days for a huge rundown of stuff from IFA, most likely on Sunday and Monday. For now, I need to sleep off the free booze that Sony forcefully plied me with this evening*.

* – Forcefully plied=gratefully drank.

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Be warned: Even more swearing than usual in this one in a section I like to call “When geeks get angry”.

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