Samsung can’t claim to have produced the first multi-format player — that award goes to LG for its Super Multi Blue player — but it can claim to have the first one that is certified by both the Blu-ray Disc Association and the DVD Forum. The BD-UP5000 offers playback of both formats, but it also …

One thing Blu-ray has always had in its favour is that there’s more than one manufacturer making players. With HD DVD, if you aren’t a fan of Toshiba, you’re stuck — at least for the time being. It’s taken Sharp a while to announce its Blu-ray player but now it’s here, we’re very impressed indeed. The best bit about the …

Last week, we mentioned that HMV Oxford Street was the place to go this morning if you were a Matrix fan and wanted to pick up a free HD DVD player — the Toshiba HD-E1 — with your purchase of the box set. We were expecting this to be a popular promotion, but we were blown away by exactly how …

According to the old adage, possession is nine tenths of the law. Ofcom, the UK communications regulator, certainly seems to use it as its mantra, because it has decided — and it’s backed by MPs — that the analogue TV spectrum will be sold off when the UK completely moves over to digital in a few years time. Although the …

Despite oft-repeated claims that the Blu-ray vs HD DVD battle is similar to the VHS vs Betamax scuffle of the 80s, the latest news makes it appear that Sony might actually have backed a winner this time. The most recent sales figures generated by Nielsen VideoScan, a US company responsible for measuring the sales of video products in retail stores, …

CES is here, and this is going to be a fantastic year for audio and video gadgets. We’re not expecting a revolution — just loads of big TVs, plenty of good old-fashioned fisticuffs in the HD DVD/Blu-ray war and even better quality images on the TVs we’ll be buying next year. A new technology called “surface-conduction electron-emitter display” (SED) is …

Yes, it’s true: Samsung thinks the kerazee world of audio-visual entertainment doesn’t have enough three-letter acronyms, so it’s decided to bring LEDs to LCD TVs. The massive LE52F96 is one of the first TVs to feature an LED backlight, which replaces the traditional cathode-based system. The result of the LED backlight is that the TV can selectively dim areas of …

Barely weeks have passed since we reviewed the Yamaha YSP-1100 but there’s already a new kid on the block. The recently announced YSP-40D isn’t a replacement for the 1100, but it does have some pleasing new features that make it well worth considering. Unlike the 1100, the YSP-40D offers standard-definition upscaling to both 720p and 1080i via analogue inputs. The …

We got some one-on-one time with the Bravia D3000 TVs at Sony’s annual event in March and we haven’t been able to stop thinking about them since. With the impending arrival of the 32-inch KDL-32D3000 model we’ll be reviewing it in full soon, but until then here’s some more tantalising info on this eagerly awaited television. The highlights of this …

It doesn’t take much to annoy me — anyone who reads the things I write here probably already knows that — and if you ask my friends, they’ll all tell you I’m running on a short fuse most of the time. Sky has today pushed all the right buttons to get me worked up, so here goes a nice little …