Cambridge Audio just announced today in Denver that they too will be joining the ever popular Blu-ray club by coming out with their version of Blu-ray technology, the 640BD, in Spring 2009.  The player is meant to complement the Azur range of AV receivers, and from the spec sheet/release, it looks like it isn’t too shabbily put together.

The 640BD will have a full set of analog video outputs, full HDMI 1.3 output (which will include bitstream output of all the latest Dolby/DTS tracks), S/PDIF, Ethernet, Toslink and a set of separate, dedicated 7.1/stereo analog outputs. And no...they haven’t put a price tag on this baby yet.

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As a man of twenty five I am comfortable saying that the most challenging, and truly self discovering journey of my life was the transference from CD to digital music. A process that took months of short activity spurts and endless accumulated hours of musical rediscovery from the very depths of my musical collection (talking about Morris Day & Time, and Hanson in one sitting). In the end, like Highlander, “there could be only one” device that is. My trusty iPod, filled with every song I have ever loved up until next new release Tuesday. All in all I tore through 572 CD’s, all colorful and slick, some with scratches, others with little dots indicating that they were not long for this world. 

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This new boombox by jWIN has all the requisite features of your standard boombox: CD player, tape deck, and AM/FM radio. There’s also a built-in microphone so you can make your own voice recordings, but where are you going to get the blank tapes in order to do that or to record off of the CD or radio? I mean, as it is Maxell has already even stopped making blank CDs, let alone a cassette tape. So I can see the tape deck only being useful for playing whatever pre-recorded tapes you still have around.

jWIN however, has brought this boombox into the present by including a USB port, an AUX input, and an SD/MMC card slot. So that’s four total ways you can listen to your digital tracks; using an mp3 CD, any device with a headphone jack, a SD/MMC card, or a flash drive. Now if this thing could somehow also play HD radio and had a little TV instead of the tape deck, getting it would be a no-brainer!  Still, this would be a fun thing to bring to your next picnic or barbecue. The price is $59.99, and it’s available in your choice of black, green, or orange.

Product [jWIN]

Just in time for the conclusion of the DVD format wars with Blu-ray disc finally emerging as the new standard disc format, Plextor has decided to finally release its two new Blu-ray drives – the PX-B920SA and PX-B300SA. But to give customers the freedom to choose which format they would want to use when viewing high-definition video, Plextor has kept the HD DVD support.

The PX-B920SA being the high-end model of the two drives support fast Blu-Ray recording with a speed of 4X BD-R. That is equivalent to 18 MB/sec transfer rate. For single layer and double-layer media, the PX-B920SA runs on 2X BD-RE or 9 MB/sec transfer rate.  For DVD purposes, the PX-B920SA runs at 16X on single-layer media and 4X on both double-layer and dual-layer media with 5X DVD-RAM. The PX-B920SA also support various models of DVD+RW, DVD-ROM, CD-RW and even CD-ROM. This drive also comes with Lightscribe for direct disc laser printing and some other software.

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Technically ‘ripping’ your CD to your computer to copy over to your MP3 player is against copyright law, but that doesn’t stop anyone as far as I am aware! The government in the UK is due to change this archaic law to reflect the reality of the times, although selling or giving away your music after you had ripped it would still be illegal.

“UK music industry body the BPI said it supported the move to clarify the law for consumers, but warned that any changes should not damage the rights of record companies.”

While this seems sensible it doesn’t really change anything materially on a day to day basis, and if anything it just shows how way behind the times our elective representatives are, and of course the usual doom mongers have had their say: “The Association of Independent Music (Aim) said the proposals did not go far enough - pointing out that CDs could become obsolete in the next decade. It said that, once CDs are replaced, the law could be misused to “open the floodgates to unstoppable copying”, adding that it would like to see copyright holders compensated when music was copied.”

Err - so this is going to make the CD obsolete? Nope - technology has already all but done that with the huge popularity of online music stores. Somehow that have to find laws that accept he inevitable and still make people happy rather than try and stop something that is actually better for the majority.

Via [BBC]

New to Insignia’s rapidly expanding line of shelf systems is their NS-HD2114. The compact player/speaker system can play your CDs, DVDs, favorite (HD) Radio stations, and even has support for your iPod. While the NS-HD2114 may not replace your current home theater setup, for $128, it acts as a great device to put up in your bedroom or kitchen.

Input/Output

Before I delve into the features of the NS-HD2114, I’d like to put up a list of the input and outputs found on the device.

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Over a year ago, Sony BMG loaded DRM on their CDs so when you put it in your computer’s CD ROM drive, you get a rootkit.  When you tried to remove it, the rootkit screwed up your computer.  Then finally a month later, Microsoft released a patch that safely removed it (ironic, right?). 

Sony has just agreed to pay out $150 to customers infected by the rootkit in order to “repair damage done.” The company will also be providing an uninstall tool and patches to repair any damage that was done.  If my computer was infected, I likely would’ve re-formatted by now, but would gladly pocket the cash.  In fact, I think I’ll hit up eBay and look for an infected CD to install on my computer.  Sounds like an easy payout to me!  (Disclaimer: we do not indorse this activity)

Read [Yahoo! News] Via [Gizmodo]

It looks like Pioneer is, at least for now, on the Blu-ray side of the format wars. In the next few months Pioneer will release their BDC-202 Blu-ray Disc Combo Drive, capable of reading DVDs, CDs and both single- and dual-layer BD-DVDs (see the chart for specific types and max speeds) and will be able to write DVDs.

The price has not yet been announced but, according to the press release, it will be “competitive to existing next generation drives” (whatever the heck that amounts to in terms of cost). Except for maybe CDs, this doesn’t look to be an uber-speedy drive and it’s not a Blu-ray burner, though it will offer a lot of playable formats.

Read [BitBurners] Product Page [BDC-202] Site [Pioneer]

The war over consumer HD vs. Blu-ray products is, dare we say, starting to really burn? (Was that too much?)

Toshiba’s coming out with a biggie - the first consumer HD-DVD disc writer for PCs. (Recall that not too long ago Toshiba also demonstrated an HD-DVD writer for laptops this past October at Ceatec in Japan). The new SD-H903A is an internal, single-bay drive that will read and write HD-DVDs along with existing format CDs and DVDs . Dual-layer writing will allow for up to 30GB per HD disc which translates into about 8 hours of HD video, 7300 MP3s or 30,00 images. The drive uses a standard SATA interface, an internal 8MB buffer, and a blue-violet laser diode to read and write HD DVD-R discs. Their specs indicate that the HD-DVD-R will write at a rip-roarin’ 1x (boo!), DVD-R at 8x, DVD-RW at 2-4x and CD-RW up to 10x. Read speeds were higher only for DVD-RW at 6x and CDs at 24x.

The HD-DVD drives will be on display at CES and start hitting US store shelves this February. Price was not indicated.

Site [Toshiba] Read [TechTicker]

LightScribe has decided to brighten their and your day by adding some color. Verbatim’s LightScribe CDs are now available in red, orange, yellow, blue and green.

The development of LightScribe’s color-background CDs was possible through LightScribe’s Media Version 1.2 coating technology. With this next-generation LightScribe coating technology, the same precise, silkscreen-quality black text and graphics labels available on gold-background discs can be burned onto the label-side of LightScribe-enabled CDs in stunning, jewel-toned background colors.

The color-background CDs are offered by many brands, including LaCie, Philips, PRIMEON and Verbatim and are now available in stores.

Read [LightScribe] Via [ Chip Chick]