(Credit:
Hewlett-Packard )
At its Connecting the World event in Berlin, Germany, HP unveiled the first DreamColor monitor from its partnership with DreamWorks. The DreamColor LP2480xz is a 24-inch LCD that will set you or your design shop back $3,500. For the money, you get 30-bit color for over 1 billion color possibilities (standard LCDs are 24-bit for 16.7 million color options). HP says you will see deeper reds, blues, and greens when standing next to a run-of-the-mill consumer LCD, while blacks will appear four times darker and whites are adjustable.
The DreamColor LP2480xz features a 1920x1200 native resolution, LED backlighting, and seven image presets (including one programmable), plus a night vision mode for working in a darkroom. Video connections include HDMI, DisplayPort, component, S-video, and composite. A four-port USB hub is also on board.
Before you get any grand ideas about putting this display on your desk, be sure you get yourself a workstation-class graphics card to take advantage of its 30-bit color. And it doesn't look like the best choice of overspending on a gaming display; its 6ms gray-to-gray pixel response time is slower than the 2ms response time you can find on consumer LCDs. But if your job depends on creating content with consistently accurate colors, the DreamColor might allow you to replace those honkin' CRTs in the office.
Will we ever get one disc to rule them all?
(Credit: kotaku.com)Ah, the emails and voice mails were flying fast and furious yesterday after Paramount and DreamWorks made their little announcement about going HD DVD exclusive. At just after 4 p.m. in New York, Fox and MGM put out a press release saying they were unveiling "an aggressive global Blu-ray Disc release strategy, including 29 new release and 'must-have' catalog titles that runs through the end of the 2007 calendar year."
The release went on to say that Fox intends to put out "at least one state-of-the-art title per month featuring numerous BD 'firsts'" and highlighted the fact that "Blu-ray was out-performing HD DVD 2-to-1 at retail in 2007." Among the 29 new releases, my eye was drawn to Master & Commander, Ronin, Cast Away, Independence Day, A Bridge Too Far, 28 Days Later, The Day After Tomorrow, and the Die Hard trilogy.
After the email went out, the phone started ringing: All the CNET the home-theater editors were contacted, so the PR folks at GCI Group in LA were working overtime, trying to do a little damage control. The basic message was, they may have this, but we have a whole more of that. And, did you hear that the Paramount deal doesn't include any of Spielberg's movies and that the deal only ran for 18 months? Tit for tat. Tat for tit. The war was raging.
Then, thanks to a New York Times article, word got out this morning that indeed (as I suspected), someone was getting paid off. The article noted that, "Paramount and DreamWorks Animation together will receive about $150 million in financial incentives for their commitment to HD DVD, according to two Viacom executives with knowledge of the deal but who asked not to be identified." Microsoft denied paying anything, but wouldn't rule it out as a tactic in the future. There was no word on who might be paying Universal for its exclusive HD DVD agreement, but you gotta think there's a pretty sweet deal in place there, too.
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It's not whether you get knocked down, it's whether you get up--Vince Lombardi
(Credit: codyl.com)Just when you thought the next-gen DVD war was on the verge of being over, a couple of studios decide to muck things up even further. Today, Paramount and DreamWorks Animation announced that they will exclusively support HD DVD on a worldwide basis.
According to the press release, "The exclusive HD DVD commitment will include all movies distributed by Paramount Pictures, DreamWorks Pictures, Paramount Vantage, Nickelodeon Movies and MTV Films, as well as movies from DreamWorks Animation, which are distributed exclusively by Paramount Home Entertainment."
"The companies each said that the decision to distribute exclusively in the HD DVD format resulted from an extensive evaluation of current market offerings, which confirmed the clear benefits of HD DVD, particularly its market-ready technology and lower manufacturing costs. Paramount Home Entertainment will launch its exclusive HD DVD program with the release of the blockbuster comedy hit 'Blades of Glory' on August 28th and follow with two of the biggest grossing movies of the year 'Transformers' and 'Shrek the Third'."
Until today, Paramount was putting out movies on both Blu-ray and HD DVD, so needless to say, the announcement came as a surprise. Also, all of this comes in the face of reports that on the software front, Blu-ray was outselling HD DVD by a 2-1 margin, and that both Blockbuster and Target would be pushing the Blu-ray format in stores. (Note HD DVD fans: Yes, Target will continue to carry the XBox 360's add-on HD DVD player). Consensus was that things were looking pretty bleak for HD DVD. Is this a game changer?
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