As Blu-ray hardware enters Australian homes, Sony companies are collaborating with the country’s two leading movie rental chains to educate consumers on the high definition home entertainment format. The Video Ezy and BLOCKBUSTER® networks will be making it a ‘Blu summer’ as they roll-out a number of initiatives designed to help customers experience the exceptional sound and image quality Blu-ray can offer.


The partnerships include an increased quantity of Blu-ray films for customers to choose from in both rental networks, in-store displays featuring PLAYSTATION®3, Sony’s S300 Blu-ray players and BRAVIA full high definition TVs, as well as educational content. These stands will be delivered to over 200 Video Ezy and BLOCKBUSTER stores across Australia. Video Ezy will drive a promotional campaign across TV, radio, direct mail, catalogues, mobile and online mediums, while BLOCKBUSTER will promote the format through its print and online channels.

“It’s without question that Blu-ray is the format of the future,” said Michele Garra, Managing Director of Sony Pictures Home Entertainment. “Both the hardware and software trends are tracking significantly towards Blu-ray in the adoption of high definition in the home. Working closely with our partners in the rental space – a significant channel for home movie consumption in Australia – we’re committed to providing a strong education focus, particularly in-store. The Sony group is in a unique position to demonstrate the strength of the format across the full gamut of content – movies, music and games.”


"BLOCKBUSTER – with over 8,000 stores in 24 countries – recently announced that we are extending the portfolio of Blu-ray titles we will offer our rental customers purchasing only this HD format for the foreseeable future following the lead from the US,” John McKay, Head of Product for BLOCKBUSTER in Australia. “We made this decision in order to meet the demands of our customers and based on trend data we're seeing both here and internationally, while ensuring they’re educated and understand the possibilities of HD. We believe the customer will dictate which high definition format will become the industry standard as the format matures in the Australian marketplace and we will be supporting them in their decision.”

TOKYO--Toshiba today brought the wide ranging capabilities of HD DVD to the desktop PC with the announcement of a standard height HD DVD drive able to read and write to HD DVD and to standard DVD and CD discs. Sample shipments of the new drive, SD-H903A, are scheduled to start this month.

The new SD-H903A integrates a blue-violet laser diode that can read and write to HD DVD-R discs and that offers support for high-density HD DVD-ROM discs, including high definition movie and video images. The drive also offers all the functionality of a super multi-drive, with high performance, high-speed read and write to all flavors of standard DVD and CD discs.

The new drive takes full advantage of the shared physical structure of HD DVD discs and standard DVD discs, which allows it to read and write to HD DVD-R discs, to read the diverse line-up of discs in the HD DVD-ROM disc family, including twin format disc and combination discs, and to read and write to standard DVD and CD discs, using an optical pick-up head with only a single objective lens.
The new drive is also fully compliant with the EU's RoHS directive, which came into force in July 2006.

Toshiba will feature the new drive at the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2007, in Las Vegas, Nevada from January 8 to 11, at the Toshiba booth (booth 12832 ) and the HD DVD Promotion Group booth (booth 7914) .

For us it's not the physical format. Understand that this is the last physical format there will ever be. Everything's going to be streamed directly or on a hard disk. So, in this way, it's even unclear how much this one counts.