Welcome to another episode of format wars – this time Sony makes its first Blu-ray film, and Panasonic announces tech for a drive that can read the format and normal CDs and DVDs

The format war machine is well and truly rumbling – Sony and Panasonic have both announced important milestones in getting Blu-ray into homes.Sony, the Commander-in-chief of the format, has completed its first full-length Blu-ray (BD) disc, Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle.It’s a slightly curious choice, but takes advantage of Blu-ray’s stonking capacity by stuffing the disc with fully-animated menus and, of course, high-definition picture quality and surround sound. We can’t say we’re averse to seeing Cameron Diaz et al jumping around in high-def glory either.The film has been compressed in …

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US retailers are to shift $100 (£50) HD DVD players from tomorrow. We want them too!

Earlier this week, we brought you news of a sub $200 (£100) Toshiba HD DVD player, about to go on sale in the US. Well, now it seems it’s going on sale for $100. That’s just £50.The HD-A2 is a basic HD DVD player, churning out a maximum resolution of 1080i, missing out the highest setting 1080p. It also supports Dolby TrueHD 5.1 surround sound, HDMI and has an Ethernet port. But for $100, its cheap at twice the price.The new price point, putting even Tesco’s penny-pinching DVD players to shame, is being backed by American retail super-giant Wal-Mart – the US o…

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Currently, there’s just not a whole lot of options when you’re scouting a pre-fabricated rig that does both HD DVD and Blu-ray on a single optical drive, but adding one more to mix certainly helps. Enter Inteset, which has just announced that an HD DVD / Blu-ray combo drive will be an option in the firm’s Maximus and Denzel media server systems. The machines will reportedly come loaded with CyberLink’s PowerDVD Ultra software, support 7.1-channel surround sound, and sport an array of ports including audio in / out, DVI / VGA / component / S-Video, USB, FireWire, and antenna inputs for the TV t…

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It’s made by Sony, plays Blu-ray discs, is out in the US and not available here yet. No, not the PS3, but the dedicated BDP-S1 movie spinner

Take one PS3, remove all the gaming abilities and what have you got? That’s right, a Blu-ray player. So is there anything to commend Sony’s first stand alone machine?Well first impressions in the States are that the picture quality is superb. It’s also one of the first players to support the enhanced Blu-ray Disc Java extras (BD-J to its friends) found on titles such as The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen - but then so do our PS3s.So will it be worth shelling out for instead of the equally elusive gamer? We’ll put them side by side as soon as we get our hands on one.EssentialsSony BDP-…

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So you’ve pondered the benefits of the two high-definition formats, HD DVD and Blu-ray, and you just can’t make up your mind. AACS or AACS? 1080p or 1080p? Well forget building your own homebrew “combination” player or waiting for some manufacturer to build a combo laser or all-in-one disc, and head on over to your local specialty shop to pick up a VidaBox LUX or MAX, as the company has just announced a pair of upgraded combination HD DVD / Blu-ray systems with both formats inside! Having your cake and eating it too will cost you, though: $1629 over the regular $3499 price of the LUX and a gra…

Full content at: Engadget