A fisherman, a smuggler, and a syndicate of businessmen match wits over the possession of a priceless diamond.

You can purchase this Blu-ray movie here!

Popularity: 3% [?]

Jackie Moon, the owner-coach-player of the American Basketball Association’s Flint Michigan Tropics, rallies his teammates to make their NBA dreams come true.

Order Semi-Pro here!

Popularity: 3% [?]

After Paramount announced its come back to Blu-ray and release of a whole list of movies, they decided to start a website dedicated to Blu-ray format. It has information about what Blu-ray is, Blu-ray movies, new title releases, news about the format, etc. The website is very raw right now, with a lot of “coming soon”screens which is suprising, I would expect more from a big studio like Paramount, specially since they are already behind compared to the others so a few more weeks wait to finish the site would not make a difference and we would not have so many annoying “coming soon” pages… We assume they will be finishing these pages soon to prepare it to be the primary link on future Paramount BD-Live titles.

This is a little except we took from the site: “Paramount Home Entertainment introduces a whole new way to watch your favorite blockbusters! With any BD-Live enabled Blu-ray disc, you can download additional features right to your Blu-ray player, if your player is compatible with BD-Live (I.E., a Blu-ray Profile 2.0 player or newer) and is connected to the internet with a high-speed connection. And even better, new features are added all the time, so you can keep checking back for more first-look extras! Stay tuned for BD-Live movies from Paramount Home Entertainment.”

We’ve added Paramount’s site to our blogroll so you can easily access it!

Popularity: 11% [?]

John McClane takes on an Internet-based terrorist organization who is systematically shutting down the United States

Add Live Free or Die Hard to your Blu-ray Collection here!

Popularity: 3% [?]

Just like we mentioned last week, we smell a little price war going on and the latest strike is Amazon’s, which has lowered many of their Blu-ray movies to $15 in order to compete with Wal-mart’s prices. This is also in addition to the already available “Buy 2 Get 1 Free” promo. Amazon usually has better prices on Blu-ray movies but when Wal-mart took the plunge and started offering movies titles at $15, they had to react! Take advantage while it is still available!

Amazon’s $15 list includes:

• 3:10 to Yuma
• War
• 300
• Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
• The Host
• Syriana
• 16 Blocks
• The Last Samurai
• GoodFellas
• Blood Diamond
• Training Day
• Alexander Revisted: The Final Cut
• Deliverance
• Dog Day Afternoon
• Leathal Weapon
• The Getaway

Unfortunately Amazon did not create an exclusive page for this promo so if you are interested on it you have to dig through the titles… I know I know…a pain!

Popularity: 10% [?]

Two terminally ill men escape (Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson) from a cancer ward and head off on a road trip with a wish list of to-dos before they die.

Order  Bucket List Blu-ray from Amazon here!

Popularity: 3% [?]

The Rambo series is definitely one of those I remember watching as a kid and absolutely loving it! Rambo’s power and willingness to survive under the worst conditions were inspiring as a kid. I know those movies that after watching your mom had to give you a triple dose of Prozac so you you sleep and stop destroying the house. Just Kidding about the Prozac! Now, I didn’t know what to expect from a 60-year-old Rambo (Yes, Sylvester Stallone is 61!) but I have to say I was surprised. Be prepared for the violence because it is extreme. What’s shown in this movie is going on in Burma as I write. We don’t hear the story in the media. Stallone made this movie with Burmese people as actors and they were all at risk making this movie. Stallone still has it at 61 years. If you don’t like Rambo then don’t bother. Otherwise it’s highly entertaining!

Plot:
A group of American missionaries ask Rambo, who lives in seclusion in Thailand to help them get across the river to Burma to help the civilians there. They hope to make a change by doing humanitarian deeds to help the war victims. Rambo looks in disdain upon their request and tells them, “You’re not bringing weapons… you’re not changing anything!” Rambo is persuaded by a female missionary to help her and her teammates make the trek to help the civilians in Burma. Somehow the woman is able to reach the hardened soul of Rambo, and so he agrees to take the missionaries across the river to help the civilians in Burma.
The woman missionary and her teammates go MIA and get kidnapped and tortured, an American pastor hires mercenaries to go rescue the missionaries. Rambo accompanies them and then massacres the bad Burmese soldiers, using the biggest and baddest weapons. I’ll leave you to watch how this movie ends, but it is supposed to go full circle in terms of how Rambo begins in the First Blood.

Audio:
The featured audio is a DTS HD 7.1 Master Audio, so if you’ve got a full system of surround sound speakers they’ll get a workout. Hopefully you don’t have cranky neighbors! There’s plenty of action to go around, with a nice wide spread across the front speakers and pretty solid audio emanating from the rear effects speakers as well. If you’ve got a subwoofer, it’ll rumble in a number of places. No complaints here. An additional soundtrack option is the Dolby Digital EX 5.1 mix that’s used on the DVD, with subtitles in English (CC) and Spanish.

Video:
The 1080p picture is exceptionally clear, though not necessarily 3-dimensional looking. Black levels are strong, and I didn’t notice any compression artifacts. Some of the scenes aren’t overly laden with color, but that’s a reflection of the atmospheric lighting conditions more than anything. “Rambo” is presented in 2.35:1 aspect ratio, and it’s a pleasure watching in Blu-ray.

Extras:

The Blu-Ray edition of Rambo receives little in the way of exclusive features. Aside from picture-in-picture functionality, high-definition video and audio on all the featurettes, and a new image gallery, the content remain the same as the special edition DVD release. In that regard, the features include:

• Audio Commentary with Stallone
• Deleted Scenes
• Legacy of Despair: The Struggle in Burma
• It’s a Long Road: The Resurrection of an Icon
• A Score to Settle: The Music of Rambo
• The Art of War: Completing Rambo
• The Weaponry of Rambo
• A Hero’s Welcome: Release and Reception

The strange juxtaposition between 1980’s camp nostalgia and real-world, genocidal violence carries over from the film into the extras, but here it’s explained and framed by the incredibly articulate words of the filmmakers themselves. The audio commentary – as well as “Legacy of Despair” and “It’s a Long Road” – speak very honestly about the challenges of bringing the character back to screens and the search for a story with enough significance that the return wouldn’t seem like an attempt to simply cash in. In fact, Stallone offers up a few what-if narrative options that had been considered before finally setting on the Burmese conflict which fans will likely appreciate. For many, the look into the situation in Burma – while only scratching the surface – may in fact be wildly educational. The featurette does its best to clearly lay out the situation in some graphic detail, though it does become difficult at times to remain comfortable with the notion of using Burma as a plot device in an action film. But the setting does resonate with the themes of the character and even for those who can’t quite relate the two, it’s a global problem worth exploring.The other featurettes are pretty standard behind-the-scenes peeks at the various elements of the production – sound, editing, etc. – except that there’s a honesty at work here, especially on the part of Stallone, that makes the featurettes well worth watching. They’re short for the most part – five to ten minutes in length – but they’re both amusing and informative, a compliment which simply cannot be paid to most extras which fall into the same category. Finally, the deleted scenes consist mostly of character bits which, while interesting and worthwhile in their own right, were cut for fairly obvious reasons.Overall, Rambo offers a somewhat unexpectedly high-quality set of basic, everyday extras. There’s nothing groundbreaking here, but everything present is worth your attention.

Watch Rambo’s Blu-ray trailer here! And purchase it here!

Popularity: 13% [?]

A war re-erupts on Earth between two robotic clans, the heroic Autobots and the evil Decepticons, leaving the fate of mankind hanging in the balance.

Amazon already has Transformers on Pre-Order!

Popularity: 3% [?]

Rumors have surfaced about a new Samsung player arriving in September. I really hate rumors! Specially when they arrive out of the blue and with no back up whatsoever. According to a French forum the Samsung BD-P2500 is a profile 2.0 (BD-Live) player that will have the Silicon Optix (HQV/Reon VX) video processing chip for optimal DVD upconversion, and decoding support for both Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio. For those of you without HDMI receivers, the player will feature 7.1 analog outs. Priced at 449 Euros, this possible Samsung player will be competing head to head with the Panasonic DMP-BD50.

I really don’t know how true this is since Samsung just released their BD-P2400 which is BD-Live ready and only need a firmware upgrade to bring it up to profile 2.0. As soon as we get more information we will post it.

Source: Blu-ray.com

Popularity: 45% [?]

We’ve had the Panasonic DMP-BD30 for a little while here is the US but our friends from the middle east are just starting to have a taste on the player. The middle east is definitely an emerging market, specially UAE and Dubai (I’ve heard incredible things about this place!). With plenty of disposable income, Arabs are very likely to buy the newer generation Panasonic DMP-BD30 in their country instead of having to bring the player from abroad. This will be the first Panasonic BD player available in the Middle East and also the first to carry profile 1.1. So for you Middle Eastern readers, here is an overview on your potential new toy:

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Design
We were happy to note that DMP-BD30 lacks the extremely annoying flip-down panel of its predecessor, the DMP-BD10A. While a large panel still conceals most of the BD30’s front-panel controls, the disc tray hides behind a separate, smaller panel that automatically flips down when you hit the Open/Close button. We definitely prefer this arrangement to having to manually lower the BD10A’s panel every time we wanted to change a disc. On the right half of the DMP-BD30’s face player is the LED display, which was sized to be easily legible from a seating distance of about 7 feet.

The good: Excellent picture quality on Blu-ray discs; 1080p output at 24 frames per second; DVD upconversion up to 1080p; HDMI 1.3b output; can output Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio in bitstream format; first Blu-ray Profile 1.1 player; SD card slot can play high-def video from AVCHD camcorders.

The bad: No built-in decoding for high-resolution audio formats; no Ethernet jack for firmware upgrades or future interactive content.

The bottom line: The Panasonic DMP-BD30 offers excellent video quality and is Blu-ray Profile 1.1 compliant, but those who want high-resolution audio will need a cutting-edge AV receiver.

You can read the full detailed review of the DMP-BD30 on http://reviews.cnet.com

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Specs

• Chipset- Panasonic UniPhier
• Post-processor- None
• BD profile-Bonus View (1.1)

Video

• Video resolutions-480p, 720p, 1080i, 1080p
• DVD upconversion-720p, 1080i, 1080p
• Video frame rates-60i, 24p, 60p

Media Compatibility

• BD media- BD-ROM, BD-R, BD-RE
• DVD media-DVD-ROM, DVD-R, DVD-R DL, DVD-RW, DVD+R, DVD+R DL, DVD+RW, DVD-RAM
• CD media-CD-ROM, CD-R, CD-RW

Playback video Compatibility

• MPEG-2 - Yes
• MPEG-2 HD - Yes
• MPEG-4 - Yes
• MPEG-4 AVC (H.264) - Yes
• VC-1 - Yes
• DivX - No
• DivX HD - No
• DivX Ultra - No
• XviD - No
• XviD HD - No
• JPEG - Yes
• JPEG HD - Yes

Playback audio Compatibility

• Dolby Digital - Yes
• Dolby Digital+ - Yes
• Dolby TrueHD - No
• Dolby TrueHD (bitstream) - Yes
• DTS - Yes
• DTS-HD - Yes
• DTS-HD MA - No
• DTS-HD MA (bitstream) - Yes
• PCM - Yes
• WMA - No
• WMA Pro - No
• MP3 - Yes
• OGG - No
• AAC - No
• AAC+ - No
• SACD - No
• DVD Audio - No

Connections

• HDMI - 1
• HDMI version – 1.3a
• HDMI audio output 7.1
• HDMI CEC - No
• DVI - No
• Composite - 1
• Component – 1
• S-video - 1
• Optical - 1
• Analog - 1
• Analog audio output - 5.1
• Coaxial - 1
• Ethernet - No
• Wireless - No
• Firewire - No
• USB - No

Converters

• Video DAC - 12bit / 148.5MHz
• Audio DAC - 24bit / 192kHz

Remote

• Universal - No
• Programmable - No
• Bluetooth - No
• Infrared - Yes
• Display - No
• Radio frequency - No
• Backlight - No

Other

• Parental lock - No
• Hard drive - No
• SD card reader - 1

Dimensions

• Width (cm) 43.02
• Height (cm) 5.97
• Depth (cm) 32.07
• Weight (kg) 3.31

Download the full User’s manual here!

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In general, the DMP-BD30 is a great quality player and gets the job done! However, keep in mind that the DMPBD50 is right around the conner. It is being released in the US soon so I am guessing it will be hitting your side of the world around the beginning of 2009 if all runs as expected. The Panasonic DMPBD50 is Profile 2.0 (BD-Live) Player with all the latest interactivity technology. If you want to know more about it before taking the plunge into a DMP-DB30 click here! and Here to check out what we’ve covered before!

Popularity: 34% [?]