Just a quick note for those who are planning to get a Sprint Samsung Galaxy S II or Epic 4G Touch smartphone. You might want to consider getting it from Best Buy starting this Sunday, November 13th. Best Buy is offering a free Samsung BD-D5100 Blu-ray player (regularly priced at $99.99) if you buy the more »

$800 for a portable Blu-ray player may seem crazy, but it’s really a step to make Blu-ray discs more prevalent. One of the complaints about Blu-ray is “I can’t take it with me, so I’ll get a regular DVD instead.” The portable player looks to take away that problem. Gadgetell got to test out the device and found it had some quirks, Also, it is supposed to be portable. Could it handle being shaken? Keep reading to find out.

Marantz is showing off its new BD8002 Blu-ray player. The company has described the Blu-ray player as “an-ultimate-quality reference standard High Definition source component,” which doesn’t make it sound all that sexy, although completely useful. The player is only available with profile 1.1 (so much for that “ultimate” label) so you can’t get the same experience as you could with a Profile 2.0 player, or BD-Live.

The player is the flagship model for the company and features 1080p HD video, Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby True HD and DTS-HD Master Audio decoding, HDMI 1.3a, DVD upscaling, and a SD memory card slot.

If you haven’t yet registered as a fan of the site now is the time. As soon as we wrap up from CES and Macworld we will be letting loose a whole bunch of fresh giveaways for 2009. These may or may not include: 30+ Plantronics bluetooth headsets Singbox Solo and SlingLink Pioneer portable satellite more »

ezGear, a company well-known for their high end audio and video electronics, plans to debut their BluCoba EZ3000 Blu-Ray player in hopes it gains popularity and recognition. The EZ3000 is the first product in the BluCobra series, so we can probably expect more, similar Blu-ray players later on. They claim that the EZ3000 and the BluCobra lineup as a whole contains features found in advanced models, but sell for a less expensive price than others.

To begin with, the Blu-Ray player comes with many video outputs including HDMI 1.3, component video, composite video, and S-video. It also supports SACD, Blu-Ray (obviously), and DVD all at 1080p and 24Hz outputs. In case your HDTV isn’t full HD, the EZ3000 also can output at 1080i, 720i, and 480i resolutions. For audio, it supports MPEG-2, Dolby TrueHD, Digital Dolby, and DTS-HD Master Audio.

The new BD300 Blu-ray Player from LG is more than just a device to play Blu-ray format discs, as it can do a whole lot more. The BD300 allows for the streaming of movies, and can support many audio formats and has refresh rates of both 24Hz and 60Hz. Additionally, the BD300 does not have to be updated manually at any time, because an on-board Ethernet connection insures regular online updates.

After Panasonic and Sony, it’s now Pioneer’s turn to announced their new Elite BDP-09FD Blu-ray player. And like the other new Blu-ray players, Pioneer would not just let the competitors outwit them in features and functionality. As such, Pioneer’s new Blu-ray player boast of advanced features as well that include 16-bit video engine, I/P conversion, video scaling, video adjustments of HD and SD content and QDEO processor and Renesas Technology’s video decoder. The result of all these technology? – a full 1080p video viewing pleasure with smoother picture free of artificial noise.

Other features of the BDP-09FD Blu ray player include Pioneer’s Adaptive Bit Length Expansion technology which enables the player to represent the purest color of the movies, BD movie restoration, 8-bit color production, dual HDMI 1.3a outputs and BD-Live support.

In time for the Christmas techno-shopping rush, Sony will be releasing a high-end Blu-ray player dubbed BDP-S5000ES in Japan. According to Sony, the BDP-S5000ES is the company’s best Blu-ray player to date.

What makes this Blu-ray player special is its HD Reality Enhancer and Super Bit Mapping technology which enables it to generate images that suit perfectly well with HDTV’s. In addition, the Blu-ray player also boasts of a 14-bit, 297MHz Video D/A conversion circuitry, which further helps in generating clear images.

Samsung has announced its feature rich Blu-ray player, the BD-P2500. Boasting interactive features such BD Live and Bonus View, this Blu-ray player gives out a full HD audio-visual experience through its Hollywood Quality Video (HQV) processing and 7.1-Channel analog audio outputs. Even better is the fact that the BD-P2500 does not only play Blu-ray discs more »

Now that Blu-ray has won the format war over rival HD DVD, a lot of people are saying that it is indeed the next generation optical disc standard. That may be true, as long as a better format does not come out in the next few months or years.

Strategy Analytics Connected Home Devices recently sent out a report that 30 million Blu-ray devices would be found in homes before the year 2008 ends, although not all devices will be used for movie playback. Global sales of Blu-ray players are expected to hit 18.8 million units this year. With thirteen million of those being consoles, four million stand-alone players and two million found in computers. After four years, the number is also expected to increase to 57.4 million units. I don’t know if this is just a guess or an estimate but the report says the market will be largest in Europe, then US, and Japan coming in at third.

Keep reading for a summary of the report: