Onkyo has announced that despite switching to Blu-ray support in February after the demise of rival HD DVD, its first Blu-ray player will not be available until the holiday season of this year.
The player is designed to integrate with Onkyo’s high-end A/V receivers and will have full 1080p/24 support through HDMI 1.3a as well as audio decoding for Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio.
Before Toshiba pulled the plug on HD DVD, Onkyo revealed it had sold just over 2000 players. The company claimed to be an “enthusiastic” supporter of the format at the time.
Onkyo did not give an exact release date or pricing but that information should be available soon.
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Image Entertainment has announced they have finally secured a DVD distribution deal with ThinkFilm allowing the company to breathe new air into their DVD rental business that has been stuttering for some time.
The company projects the new deal will bring in $16.5 million USD for fiscal 2009, accounting for 13 percent of the anticipated $125 million in revenue for the period.
As major studios continue to close their independent theatrical divisions, Image feels it can take the market for quality, direct-to-DVD features. Consumers will usually buy the latest Hollywood blockbuster but may be more likely to want to rent star-driven, but unfamiliar movies.
“There are less studios supplying rental product, especially within the indie category” , said Bill Bromiley, Image chief acquisitions officer, “We are looking for product that producers thought would be a theatrical film when they made it and for whatever reason didn’t quite turn out. These are bigger budgeted, cast-driven films. … There needs to be a home for them.”
Before the end of fiscal 2009, Image hopes to have 40 releases some of which may have theater releases, but most will be direct-to-DVD titles.
Bromiley adds the company is searching for products that “are broadly appealing and span subjects not already heavily exploited by other suppliers.”
“We are avoiding the horror genre, because Lionsgate has done a good job at securing that marketplace,” noted Bromiley.“We will look for critically acclaimed, … commercially viable films.”
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LG has announced the introduction of its inaugural line of digital Freeview Playback DVD recorders with built-in HDDs.
The three DVRs, dubbed the LG RHT399H, LG RHT398H and LG RHT397H can receive up to 40 digital channels and offer time shifting allowing users to record, as well as pause and rewind live TV.
The RHT399H offers the largest built-in HDD, 320GB. The company says that should allow for 935 hours of recording time.
The DVRs also offer a “series link” function which allows you to record full seasons of TV shows with ease. Each also offer “high speed copying mode” which gives users the ability to copy 60 minutes of video to a DVD or the HDD in about 27 seconds.
The high end RHT399H also offers 1080p upscaling through HDMI, Super Multi DVD recording ability, DivX movie playback and “optical output to get digital audio directly to a home cinema system.” Each also offers LG’s SIMPLINK to easily connect the setup to other LG products in the house.
The other two models will offer 250GB and 160GB HDDs respectively. There was no word on pricing, but the DVRs should be available by the end of the month.
