LG Electronics in the Middle East has released the Super Multi Blue Blu-ray Disc Rewriter, the BE06. The fastest rewriter that reads and writes Blu-ray at 6x. It’s aimed at laptop users or those with multiple PCs connecting USB 2.0 and a DC power connector.

It also has Optical Pickup Technology supporting Blu-ray disc write/playback, HD-DVD playback, and DVD/CD write playback. You can get one for $549, but as far as availability in the U.S., there’s no word just yet.

The Magnavox and Sylvania branded Funai NB500 Blu-ray players have been spotted at Walmart. A number of Walmarts apparently. The NB500 is a Profile 1.1 Blu-ray player and is priced at a fairly reasonable $298. It’s got HDMI version 1.3, HD audio codec’s, and DVD upscaling.

Yes, these are low end players, and already somehow outdated, but the price being what it is, it’s going to get it’s share of buyers. We’re not really sure what you can expect performance-wise, but if any of you brave souls should buy one, do let us know in comments.

Pioneer revealed their latest two Blu-ray players, the Elite BDP-05FD and BDP-51FD. Both support BonusView extra disc content and 1080p True 24fps output, they have HDMI 1.3a ports, four Wolfson Professional Audio 12-bit digital-to-analog converters and the proprietary PureCinema Deinterlacer for upscaling standard definition DVDs. The Elite BDP-05FD has fancy gold-plated connections and capacitative controls.

If you combine either of these with any of Pioneer’s KURO HDTV sets, both players have the ability to set-up automatically to a screen-specific factory preset. Other presets include projector settings as well as other displays. 7.1 surround sound, with Dolby Digital Plus, Dolby TrueHD, DTS HD and DTS HD Master decoding are all supported. The 51FD has a 108MHz 12-bit video encoder, while the 05FD has a 297MHz version. These will be priced at $599 for the BDP-51FD and $799 for the BDP-05FD. They have also improved the speed of the players due to customer demand.

It’s never as much fun to write an article to report on things that aren’t going to happen, but in this case we think this is something that should happen and we still expect it to, despite Microsoft’s denials.

What we do know is that Microsoft had an HD DVD player for the Xbox 360 which they put a stop to producing. We also know that rumors keep cropping up that Microsoft is going to work something out with Sony to bring a Blu-ray player to the 360, and Microsoft continues to squash them.

For those of you who like Super hero statues sawed off at the waist or higher, this deal in Japan may be for you. If you’re in Japan. And a geek. On July 23, Japanese folks will get their chance to own Batman Begins on Blu-ray.

That’s about two weeks after release in the U.S. Our gift set edition comes with story boards, script pages and a $7.50 movie credit towards Dark Knight, but in Japan they will get a 25 cm tall bust. Which begs the question, why are we always getting left out on all the cool stuff? What’s the deal with that? The standard Blu-Ray will be around $47, the gift set edition is about $180.

Sony is launching it’s BDZ series of Blu-ray recorders, with the A70 and high-end T90 that are capable of picking up unprotected HDTV feeds, relying on AVC (H.264) encoding in order to record shows for future viewing on their 320GB and 500GB hard drives. If you like, you can record videos straight to Blu-ray, and it can also convert videos directly to portable formats, which is really handy.

Some other features include both analog and digital TV tuners, Sony’s Room Link, HDMI output, S-Video, and RCA. Both models will ship on April 30th in Japan. The prices start from $1,664 upwards. No info yet on whether we will see these in the US.

Mitsubishi just launched two new Blu-ray recorders set for Japan with the DVR-BZ200 and the DVR-BZ100. The two recorders each house an internal HDD with 500GB and 250GB capacities, respectively.

The part that really makes these Blu-ray records most notable is that they can record HD content onto a regular DVD disc with Blu-ray’s AVCREC specs. You can fit around a couple of hours of Full HD MPEG video onto a standard 4.7GB DVD, and set it to record using the super-cool, included touch screen remote control.

Now that the high-def format war has come to an end Sony is rolling out a couple of new Blu-ray players equipped with the latest and greatest features. The BDP-S550 and BDP-S350 look virtually identical but differ only in some of the internal extras.

Both players come with picture-in-picture which Sony is calling “BonusView”, and have BD-Live through an Ethernet port allowing the players to get firmware updates and interactive content through the intertubes. The BDP-S350 is BD-Live “ready” while the BDP-S550 ships with the feature already capable. One of the other few differences between the two is that the BDP-S550 comes with 1GB of internal storage while the other doesn’t, but both have a USB connection for additional external storage.

Paramount was the last of the big Hollywood studios to officially make the move to Blu-ray, announcing on Wednesday that they are pleased with the industry finally picking a single format with the consumer in mind. Paramount did not elaborate much on the announcement but by doing so removed all doubt that HD DVD has met its demise.

The announcement came a day after Toshiba’s Tuesday announcement of the end of HD DVD and the end of manufacturing by the end of March. All six studios working with a single format reduces consumer confusion and will likely bring more sales of media and players than retailers would see by trying to push two different formats.

Recent decisions by the likes BlockBuster earlier last year, Warner Brothers last month and Netflix just this morning are only further cementing the future of the next single high definition video format. Widening the gap today is retail giant Best Buy which has announced that they too will be supporting Blu-ray over HD DVD as the preferred format for the future.

Best Buy says they will continue to carry HD DVD products in their store as well, but will be showcasing the Blu-ray products as the emerging single format for high-definition video going forward. This move could help many consumers who are undecided about the future of video formats to make a decision and possibly make purchases that they’ve been holding out on. We also imagine that this will make life a whole lot easier for Best Buy employees working on the floor answering customer questions about which format to choose.

Just on the heals of the news that Warner is going Blu-ray exclusive and talks that Universal and Paramount might be moving to Blu-ray, Philips has announced the new, reasonably-priced BDP7200 Blu-ray disc player. The BDP7200 is the successor to the BDP9000 and features full HD 1080p output with the ability to upscale regular DVDs to 1080p at 24 frames per second. It also uses EasyLink HDMI Consumer Electronics Control (CEC) protocols to let you control other compatible devices, picture in picture and Deep Color giving more than a billion colors and removing on-screen color banding. Phillips is offering the BDP7200 Blu-ray player at a price point of $349 and is expecting to have it available in April of this year.

Just earlier this week Warner Bros. Entertainment, the studio with the industries largest selection of movies, changed the tide in the high definition format war in favor of Sony by announcing that they are going with Blu-ray discs exclusively. Warner’s intention was to end the battle and consumer confusion hopefully resulting in improved DVD sales in 2008. It appears their move just might be working as Variety states they have confirmed information that Universal, who previously has been HD DVD-exclusive, has ended their promise to continue with HD DVD only and could possibly be making a change to Blu-ray.

Paramount along with Universal are two of the big seven studios that have been hanging on with Toshiba and HD DVD, but they too have a clause to produce Blu-ray as well after Warner’s decision. Back in June of 2007 Blockbuster also made a move to Blu-ray over HD DVD which combined with recent news is making things look very grim for the HD DVD future.

Amidst all the technology hype going on at CES in Las Vegas this week, Warner Bros. Entertainment somewhat quietly made an announcement with potentially significant implications on the high-def DVD war between Toshiba’s HD DVD and Sony’s Blu-ray disc formats. Warner made an announcement on January 4 that it would release its movies in only the Blu-ray high-definition format, and no longer would offer any of the rival HD DVD formatted discs.

According to Reuters, in talking to Warner Bros Entertainment Group President Kevin Tsujihara the company chose to go the Blu-ray route due to falling DVD says and a “deteriorating U.S. economy”. Tsujihara said the plan was made with the intention of ending the format war and hence ending confusion and split purchases by consumers between the two formats. This move to Blu-ray exclusively is so significant due to the fact that Warner has the industries largest offering of movies and continues to produce big titles, making 5 of the 7 major studios on board with Blu-ray.

As consumers start their shopping for another holiday season one of the big questions raised last year at this time still doesn’t have a satisfactory answer: Blu-ray versus HD-DVD? While prices for both players dropped throughout 2007 there still wasn’t any clear indication which new DVD format was reigning supreme with the common man. Sony’s much-hoped for plans that their new Blu-ray PlayStation 3 would lead the charge failed to materialize while Microsoft’s HD-DVD add-on wasn’t exactly flying off of store shelves either. Sales of HD-DVD and Blu-ray discs started off with the latter edging out the former but lately both groups have been selling roughly the same amount of units. So now that we’re well into the next gen DVD war, which side is winning? The answer according to one of Blu-ray’s biggest supporters is no one.

Panasonic recently unveiled a new Blu-ray Disc player which is the first player to offer up the Final Standard Profile and its variety new and enhanced features. The Panasonic DMP-BD30 is priced at around $500.

The Panasonic DMP-BD30, making use of the Final Standard Profile, offers some interesting new functions including Picture-in-Picture (which displays a second image in a sub window) and Audio Mixing (which allows one to switch the sound between the main and sub windows). There’s also a new multi-function SD Card slot which allows for images recorded on a HD SD card to be outputted at 1080p via HDMI.