HD DVD Takes Quite a Beating on Black Friday

Black Friday, with its array of super-special discount offers, huge sales, scuffling in front of the cash register, etc. has come and gone, and both retailers and the companies carrying out various marketing studies are just now drawing a line. And according to the latest reports,
it seems that Blu-ray's ascending sales trend was quite visible over this period, as the Sony-backed format has accounted for around 72.6 percent of the entire number of HD discs sold.

Thus, as the "Hollywood Reporter" informs us, the Nielsen VideoScan First Alert sales data, which gathers information from Best Buy, Target and Circuit City (but, quite surprisingly, not from the giant Wal-Mart, which typically accounts for around 40% of the DVD sales market), reveals the fact that 72.6% of high-definition discs purchased by consumers were Blu-ray and just 27.4% were HD DVD. Furthermore, the "classical" DVDs have fared pretty well too, since the the number of DVD sold during this period has recorded a huge increase, namely around 175%, compared to the previous week.

One of the best-selling discs over this period was 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment's "Live Free or Die Hard," which has managed to generate first-week sales that were 20% ahead of projections, in addition to nearly 100,000 Blu-ray Disc copies, said Steve Feldstein, the division's senior vp corporate and marketing communications. "The entire category was up significantly over last year, with growth of 15% and more, in many cases on Black Friday alone," the official added.

The strangest thing is that the Blu-ray format seems to have been favored over the past period, despite the fact that Toshiba released a hurdle of very affordable HD DVD players via Wal-Mart and other retailers, the smallest discounted price being around 98 US dollars.

Does this mean that we can actually foresee a winner in the HD DVD vs. Blu-ray conflict? Well, that's a possibility, but the truth of the matter is that we're still far from a definite answer, especially since, after all, this could be just a mood swing among consumers. However, despite of this changing market trends, one thing's for sure: the PS3 (and especially its cheaper variant) did a hell of a good job as a Blu-ray promotion vehicle, and might, in the end, prove to be that "edge" required for wining this competition.

Hot Stuff! iRiver Unveils D27 And W7 PMPs!

iRiver keeps on popping out cool portable media players. This time, the giant Korean electronics company decided to release two devices, D27 and W7.

The former is much more than a media player, as it can also perform the job of an electronic dictionary. IT reveals a nice WQVGA screen display with 260k colors and a 480 x 272 pixels resolution. And there is more to come. For a better handling of the device, the makers have added a QWERY keyboard to the recipe, making the player look like one of those cool Chinese UMPCs.

Besides that, the PMP is bundled with a lot of geeky capabilities, such as dealing with lots of popular file formats on the market. Therefore, the player does a pretty good job when it comes to decoding music files like MP3, WMA, ASF, OGG, JPEG, GIF, BMP, as well as TXT files and more. File transfer management works via the latest USB 2.0 interface. The D27 PMP' s battery life was rated at about 27 hours. Size is also a bonus, as the PMP only measures 163.4 x 83.6 x21.5mm and weighs a mere 315 grams.

iRiver W7 PMP

The second new entry in the company's portfolio wears a spy name, the W7, and can do some really nifty stuff. To start with its simple, yet voguish design patterns, it will surely draw some attention. The player comes equipped with a built-in TFT LCD touch screen with 260k colors. It sports the same 480 x 272 pixels resolution and comes packed in 4GB and 8GB internal storage capacities. However, if the integrated memory proves to be not enough there is a built-in miniSD slot for an extra boost.

The PMP' s sound performances are also customizable with one of the 10 integrated EQ modes. In terms of file formats, the players is able to handle WMA, AVI, JPG, TXT, CSD, SWF and more. For easier file transfer, the PMP also uses the latest USB 2.0 version. Notably, its autonomy is rated at up to 20 hours of media content. The PMP measures about 110.5 x 52.6 x 15.7mm and weighs no more than 105 grams, just about enough to fir in the palm of your hand, with a little bit of effort.

Want one of these? Well, there is no official info on the their price tags, yet! Looking forward to that!