Blu-Ray
Dynabook, formerly Toshiba's PC division, has been pretty energetic with announcements recently, marking its return to active life and attempt to address certain market segments with unique products. This week the company introduced its new T8 and T9 laptops for multimedia enthusiasts, which feature a rare 16.1-inch display as well as an integrated Blu-ray/DVD burner. Dynabook’s T8 and T9 notebooks come in Stylish Blue or Satin Gold chassis made of thick plastic that measures 379×256.5×23.7 mm — similar dimensions to a mainstream 15.6-inch class laptop. The laptop features a 16.1-inch Full-HD IPS display, which offers a larger screen real estate that the company hopes will provide a slightly more immersive entertainment experience. To further improve the system's multimedia capabilities, Dynabook’s T8 and T9 systems are...
Mitsubishi's Verbatim, Known for CD, DVD and BD Optical Media, Sold to CMC
This month Mitsubishi Chemical Corp. decided to sell its legendary Verbatim business unit to CMC Magnetics. Verbatim is primarily known for its recordable optical media, but the company also...
27 by Anton Shilov on 6/28/2019CyberLink Launches PowerDVD 19 for UltraHD Blu-ray and 8K Videos
CyberLink's PowerDVD remains the only legitimate Blu-ray playback software in the PC space. Over the last few years, the company has been trying to add value to the software...
17 by Ganesh T S on 4/16/2019Samsung to Cease Selling Blu-ray Players in the US
Surprisingly for the electronics titan, Samsung has not released any new Blu-ray or Ultra HD Blu-ray players for the US market since 2017. And now in 2019 it looks...
75 by Anton Shilov on 2/19/2019ASUS Announces VivoMini VC65-C1 SFF PC with Ultra HD Blu-Ray & Core i7-8700T
ASUS has quietly introduced a new lineup of ultra-compact form-factor (UCFF) PCs, with an interesting balance between media playback and display capabilities. The VivoMini VC65-C1 systems are based around...
29 by Anton Shilov on 1/25/2019IO Data Unveils Blu-ray Drive for USB-C Laptops
Known for their rather unorthodox devices, IO Data recently introduced a new external Blu-ray drive that works with USB Type-C hosts. An otherwise typical slimline Blu-ray drive, the BRP-UT6/MC2...
22 by Anton Shilov on 1/3/2019Sony Releases Quad-Layer 128 GB BD-R XL Media
Sony is about to start selling the industry’s first 128 GB write-once BD-R XL optical media. The discs will also be the first quad-layer BDXL media formally aimed at...
47 by Anton Shilov on 11/9/2018CyberLink Launches PowerDVD 18 - UltraHD Blu-ray Playback with Value Additions
CyberLink's PowerDVD 17, introduced in April 2017, was the first software player to bring UltraHD Blu-ray playback to the PC market (albeit, with plenty of hardware restrictions). We also...
13 by Ganesh T S on 5/1/2018Silverstone Launches TOB03 ODD: 9.5-mm CD/DVD/BD/BDXL Burner
SilverStone has introduced its first ultra-slim ODD that can read and record CD, DVD, Blu-ray and BDXL media. The drive is not a technological breakthrough, but it is going...
13 by Anton Shilov on 8/21/2017CyberLink Launches PowerDVD 17 with UHD Blu-ray and VR HMD Support
CyberLink has been regularly updating their multimedia playback software / PC DVD & Blu-ray players. While ArcSoft dropped out of the software Blu-ray player market a few years back...
29 by Ganesh T S on 4/11/2017Blu-ray Disc Association Completes Ultra HD Blu-ray Specification
Yesterday the Blu-ray Disc Association formally completed the Ultra HD Blu-ray specification. The specification has been under development for some time, with the first information about it being released...
37 by Brandon Chester on 5/13/2015CyberLink Launches PowerDVD 14 with HEVC Support
A couple of years back, we reviewed CyberLink's PowerDVD 12 in detail. At that time, support for the mobile ecosystem was one of the most important targets for CyberLink...
37 by Ganesh T S on 4/8/2014Cinavia DRM: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Blu-ray’s Self-Destruction
DRM (Digital Rights Management) is intended to protect media from being played in an unauthorized manner. However, more often than not, it fails to serve the purpose. Today, we...
121 by Ganesh T S on 3/21/2012CyberLink PowerDVD 12: Complementing Your Mobile Lifestyle
Software Blu-ray / DVD players are bundled with almost all OEM PCs and a necessity for consumers who want to enjoy their commercial optical media in the most legal...
42 by Ganesh T S on 1/31/2012VLC 'Hack' for Encrypted Blu-ray Playback Capability
VLC is one of the most widely used media players. It was one of the first open source media players to get encrypted DVD playback capability, and now, it...
29 by Ganesh T S on 1/23/2012Syabas Launches Popcorn Hour C-300
Syabas launched the second generation version of their BDA licensed unit, the Popcorn Hour C-300 today. The previous version was based on Sigma's SMP 8643, and the C-300 is based...
6 by Ganesh T S on 12/6/2011Sony NSZ-GT1 Blu-Ray Player with Google TV Review
Google TV launched to high expectations a couple of months back. Users have slowly come to terms with the capabilities of the software as well as the underlying hardware...
20 by Andrew Van Til on 11/29/2010