Metropolis Director's Cut in UK Theaters Before Blu-ray

Eureka Entertainment has announced the continuation of its long association with Fritz Lang's 1927 cinema classic Metropolis, a restored and reconstructed “Director's Cut” of which received its highly anticipated world premiere at the Berlin International Film Festival on February 12. UK audiences will get their first glimpse of the film returned to its original glory (for the first time in 83 years, after materials were cut and lost after its 1927 premiere) when the film is re-released theatrically nationwide later in the year, followed by a new Blu-ray edition in The Masters of Cinema Series.

Monsters vs Aliens 3D Blu-ray Exclusive with Samsung TVs

During the unveiling of its product lineup, the European branch of consumer-electronics company Samsung announced that, in order to get customers started with stereoscopic home cinema, the 3D version of the 2009 Dreamworks Animation blockbuster Monsters vs. Aliens will be available exclusively bundled with Samsung Full HD 3D televisions, expected to launch in March.

At the moment, there is no information regarding the duration of that exclusivity deal, or whether it will also apply to the US.

Blu ray players compared

Murphy's Law seemed to be the theme for Blu-ray in 2006. In addition to firmware foul-ups and component shortages, a lackluster slate of early Blu-ray movies let underdog HD-DVD steal the show. But a new year means new opportunity: the number of available Blu-ray titles is soon expected to surpass that of HD-DVD, and there are actually some players you can buy. So far, the PlayStation 3 is the runaway winner, offering excellent Blu-ray playback in addition to its HD gaming and multimedia capabilities--all for hundreds less than the price of competing players. Moreover, the PS3 is the only player that boasts bleeding-edge HDMI 1.3 compatibility, and it's going to remain in the line-up for years to come. Meanwhile, the other first-generation players shown here will be soon overshadowed by their inevitable successors, certain to be on display at the 2007 Consumer Electronics Show. In other words: Blu-ray fans who can't get their hands on a PS3 should wait to see what the second-generation players will offer later in 2007 before taking the plunge.

Blu Ray Facts

Blu-Ray technology is the next generation of optical disc format developed by the Blu-Ray Disc Association(BDA) and major developers of consumer electronics, computers, and media manufacturers around the globe. The technology will enable consumers to store large amount of data (5 to 6 times more than DVD), record/rewrite digital content, and watch high definition videos via Blu-Ray devices. The Blu-Ray disc comes in two types: Single layer disc which will be introduced first in the market and dual layer disc which will follow near future. The single layer can hold up to 25 GB of data which equates to about 2 hours of recording/playing time of digital content on HDTV and 13 hours of non-digital content from a regular television. The dual layer disc will hold data up to 50 GB and it will be mainly utilized for gaming (PS3) and entertainment purpose.

The current optical disc technology such as DVD utilizes red laser to read and write data. However, the Blu-Ray technology uses blue- violet laser to read and write. There are several differences between the red laser and blue laser. First, the wavelength of a blue-violet laser is shorter (405nm) than the red laser (650nm). Second, the numerical aperture has been improved to 0.85 from .60. The shorter wavelength of a blue-violet laser leads to more accurate focus on the laser spot, which makes it possible to pack more data onto a DVD sized disc. The numerical aperture measures the ability of a lens to gather and focus light. The aperture number 1 represents the greatest focusing power and smallest laser spot. The DVD?s numerical aperture ranges from .50 to .65 compared to the Blu-Ray?s numerical aperture of .85, making it a big improvement over the existing optical disc technology.

The technology industry has seen an explosive demand for the HDTV and consumer’s desire to record high definition content. Fueling the demand is the U.S government’s mandate to shut off analog broadcast by February 17th of 2009 and replace it with digital broadcast. The Blu-Ray technology was created out of necessity to meet the new demand and to set a new standard in the field of optical disc. This technology supports direct recording of the MPEG-2 TS (Transport Stream) which is used by many digital broadcasters globally. In other words, digital content from HDTV can be recorded directly to the disc without compromising quality and extraneous processing power. Also, Blu-ray will support MPEG-4 in H.264, and SMPTE, Microsoft’s Windows Media Video. The Blu-Ray’s 1x speed is rated at 36Mbps which is less than the required 54Mbps for movies and games. Movies and game discs will utilize at least 2x speed, which is 72Mbps data transfer rate, to complement the large amount of data required for high definition content. This fast rate is more than sufficient to record and playback HDTV while maintaining the original picture quality. It is very possible to watch playback video and record HD video at the same time through the use of random access feature offered by the Blu-ray technology.

Blu-ray Players

In the Blu-ray player section you will always find up-to-date information about new and upcoming Blu-ray players, Blu-ray player reviews, photos and product images, detailed specifications about Blu-ray players including release dates, media, audio- and video playback, connections, features etc. You can also search for players and features, and easily compare Blu-ray players using our comparison functions.