Harmon Kardon is jumping into the Blu-ray market with its first player, the BDP 10. It has all of the features you want in a Blu-ray player. Like BD-Live and Bonus View capabilities for online content, advanced audio codec support, 1080 / 24p playback, plus USB ports for DiVX and JPEG display.

It also features HDMI 1.3a, Ethernet, coaxial and optical audio outputs plus two-channel analog audio outputs. The BDP 10 has only been announced for Europe so far, but it should show up everywhere else in the next few months, including the US. It will cost you about €700 (or $940).

Oppo Digital is introducing their first Blu-ray player, the BDP-83. The company is most famous for its upscaling DVD players capable of supporting multiple formats that include SACD, DVD-Audio and HDCD. The BDP-83 has some decent specs.

Like BonusView and BD-Live support, VRS de-interlacing and scaling capabilities, 7.1-channel analog output, Dedicated stereo output, USB connectivity, Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD audio codecs support.

If you thought the format war was over, think again. China’s alternative to Blu-ray has finally arrived and has some hardware to show off, with players from TCL and Shinco making debuting this week. They’re priced at less than 2,000 yuan (or $292) reportedly 40% cheaper than the competition.

Apparently the promised support from Warner Bros. hasn’t happened yet, but it plans to release 100 movies on the CBHD format by the end of the year.

If you recently jumped on the Blu-ray bandwagon, chances are you’ve got a bunch of DVDs that are pretty much useless now. Warner Bros. wants to help. The company is now offering a trade-in program called Red2Blu that allows people to trade in 25 Warner Bros. HD DVDs and have them replaced with Blu-ray versions.

The new program isn’t free though. It will cost you $4.95 per disc plus $6.95 for shipping on each DVD. Interestingly, you don’t have to send in the discs to the WB, you just need to send in the cover art for the HD DVD discs you want replaced.

Panasonic has a pair of dash-mountable devices that will finally let you toss aside those old school DVDs. The first is the CN-HX3000D Windows-powered device, sporting a 7-inch, 1280 x 720 display and also offering GPS, Bluetooth, a 40GB hard drive, and iPod/iPhone compatibility.

The second device is the CY-BB1000D in-car Blu-ray player (Not BD-Live compatible). Both are set to arrive this fall for an unknown price. Whatever it is, you’ll gladly pay it, just to keep the little ones happy and sedated.

Just in time to compete with Dell’s Studio 15, HP is offering the Pavilion dv3t. It’s a 16:9 widescreen 13.3-inch, with a Core 2 Duo T6400, a Blu-ray option and a optional 9-cell battery that will give you up to 7 hours of battery life.

Some other features are a webcam, up to 500GB of hard drive space, and it comes in two flavors: Espresso black and Moonlight white. Prices start at $799.

You folks who have been putting off the purchase of a new Blu-ray player can finally lay down your money and get a great deal if you hold off just a little while longer. Say, around Christmas. That’s when the Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA) will make the technology and licensing available to manufacturers in China, which means the usual. Cheap products. Hopefully you pick one that is quality as well as cheap.

Around that time you should see affordable $99 Blu-ray players hitting the market. What’s the poor PS3 gonna do when it isn’t the cheapest Blu-ray player anymore? Shake a tin cup at you as you enter Gamestop? This also means that prices for Blu-ray discs should lower some.

That’s what seems to be happening with a small group of subscribers who are claiming their discs are arriving with small cracks on the outside edges. They say it’s happening repeatedly. No one is sure what is causing it since the Discs have an extra coating to prevent scratches on Blu-ray.

It could be the automated mail processing machines, manufacturing defects or maybe postal carriers are playing Frisbee. The Mars Box blog experienced this issue back in ‘07, but over the last few months reports are picking up again. It’s too bad the extra costs that customers are paying can’t go toward tougher packaging, but Netflix told Wired the problem is “infinitesimally small” and changing shipping wouldn’t be cost effective.

I remember when Blu-ray drives for computers first starting coming to the market. The internal drives were over $1000 to purchase making them far too expensive for most of the people interested in them to afford. Thankfully, as things happen in the technology industry, prices have dropped significantly today.

Pioneer has announced a new Blu-ray writer called the BDR-2203 that can burn dual-layer Blu-ray discs at 8x speeds. The best part is that the internal optical drive retails for $249.99, about a quarter of what Blu-ray drives sold for not so long ago.

Remember that crazy slim Blu-Ray player that also happens to be the world slimmest? Well, the Samsung BD-P4600 is now available for purchase in Korea. Some features include BD-Live (2.0), DVD upscalling, DviX support, Wifi B/G/N, 1GB of internal memory, USB 2.0 etc.

The player is only 1.5-inches thick. We have no idea when, if ever, this makes it’s way to our shores, but it has us wanting an ultra-slim Blu-Ray player in our lives.

Sony will be releasing two new Blu-ray recorders that offer support for a bunch of Sony gadgets. The 500GB BDZ-A950 and the 320GB BDZ-A750. It means you can export what you record or download to your Walkman devices, your PSP and some cell phones.

There’s also an accompanying Internet-based service called acTVila that allows you to download videos for a fee. Or, you can stream content for a smaller fee, but surprise, you can’t keep the content.

No doubt, this will upset a great many of you, but Netflix is raising the price of Blu-ray rentals again. You might remember, Netflix already implemented a $1 per month fee for Blu-ray customers in October. Now it wants to raise it even higher, by around 20 percent across its pricing structure.

It should hit April 27th and is only applicable to BD customers. According to the company, this is all due to having to buy more titles on BD to “accommodate the increasing number of Netflix members who prefer renting movies on Blu-ray.”

This ultraportable laptop may not come from a huge company name, but the specs certainly caught our eye, while the coat of arms etching simultaneously repelled us.

The Maingear mX-L features a 13.3-inch LED-backlit display (1,280 x 800), a Core 2 Duo CPU, GMA X4500HD graphics, 8GB of DDR2 RAM, 160GB Intel X25-M SSD (or a 500GB HDD if you want to save some money), a dual-layer Blu-ray reader, Bluetooth 2.0+EDR, gigabit Ethernet, WiFi, and VGA output. It also sports three USB 2.0 sockets and a custom etched top. The unit weighs just 4.4 pounds and starts at $1,099.99. You’ll also get a four-cell Li-ion that is sure to be changed often.

Sony intros a couple of new Profile 2.0 Blu-ray players: the BDP-S360 and BDP-S560. The BDP-S560 will feature built-in Wi-Fi connectivity that taps into BD Live content, as well as the ability to download future firmware updates without a cable.

It is also fully DLNA-ready, upscales your DVD collection, bit-streams audio via HDMI, decodes Dolby TrueHD/DTS-HD Master Audio and is compatible with external media loaded up on a USB drive. The BDP-S360 is the same player, it just lacks Wi-Fi connectivity.

Samsung’s new value priced Blu-ray player has been overlooked in favor of other better equipped players, but that doesn’t mean it’s not out there and being spotted at retail stores. This one was spotted on a Best Buy shelf.

Supposedly Blu-ray player prices will be dropping across the board, and it looks like Samsung is positioning the BD-P1600 as one of their lower-end models. $300 may not be dirt cheap but Netflix subscribers will probably like the unit. However wireless networking requires purchasing a Samsung USB accessory that isn’t released yet and BD Live requires at least 1GB of external storage.