This is Blu-ray launch week

Blu-ray movies officially go on sale today and the Samsung BD-P1000
player officially goes on sale next weekend. But, lots of people in
different areas have been getting Blu-ray movies and players early in
different areas of the country. The AVS Forum is buzzing with people
getting them early. The funny thing is the people on AVS Forum have
hardly heard about the PS3 and are now wondering how good the Blu-ray
playback will be on that. Even though it is the first of its kind, the
Samsung Blu-ray player is getting a lot of good reviews. It is selling
really well, and fast, even if it is retail $999. Some people have got
promotions so they have been able to get it for $899. Here is the real
kicker. Circuit City is going to have a promotion this weekend for the
player with 4 free Blu-ray movies. Also, the Blu-ray movies are going
for $25 to $30, so all the hysteria about the supposed high cost of
Blu-ray movies was all wet, as usual. While not all the first titles
have been mastered the best, the ones that have been are receiving a
lot of praise, especially from people that can check them out on 1080p.
Sears and Best Buy are taking pre-orders for the Sony Blu-ray player
now. In a couple of months, there will be Sony, Panasonic, Phillips and
Samsung Blu-ray player models on the shelves.

Things are not going as well for the Toshiba HD-DVD player. There is a
severe supply shortage so the main stores have moved the displays out
of the way since they are not getting any notice of when the supply
shortage will ease and they can't sell any till then. The HD-DVD movies
are exceeding 25GB with the supposedly superior encoding, forcing them
to be released in dual layer and not being able to go over the 30GB
maximum limit, and this is with no players demonstrating 1080p output
yet. This means very little in the way of menu enhancements and extras,
not a good indicator for future expansion. In addition, it looks like
Toshiba is the only hardware manufacturer for HD-DVD players with only
the one model so far and a possible higher end model by the end of the
year. There are up to 9 Blu-ray manufacturers now with several model
lines. In five months, Blu-ray is going to have a very solid position
in the marketplace and is already getting more notice than HD-DVD.
Blockbuster has started renting Blu-ray movies, as well as HD-DVD.