Here’s a list of region codes on Blu-ray Discs, as discovered by yours truly. Discs are tested with various players from regions A and B. (Updated 29.07.2008)

I took delivery of Panasonic’s new DMP-BD30 Blu-ray player earlier today. It’s not a new product as such, as it’s been on sale in the USA for a while already. As usual, Europeans had to wait a few months to get theirs. Here are photos of the unit’s unboxing, with some brief comments.

Toshiba’s HD DVD format lasted less than two years in the battle for the crown of next-gen optical media format. Toshiba threw in the towel in mid-February and placed a number of publishers in a rather difficult situation: what to do with titles that are already in the pipeline? German publisher Kinowelt had been working on a definitive high-def edition of Terminator 2 for ages and had obviously spent a bundle of cash on it already, so they had little choice in the matter.

Well folks, it’s here: T2 Steelbook Edition. Or, as the cover says, the “ULTIMATE HD-EDITION”. I guess we can call this HD DVD’s swan song – one of the last titles to be released for the rapidly dying format.

I received my review copy a few minutes ago. My first action was to try to play it on a PC, but that didn’t work. PowerDVD 3319a was unable to render the main menu, though it did play the background video. I hit Enter a couple of times, image went black, and PowerDVD crashed. A newer version might work, but I’m loathe to update PowerDVD because Cyberlink was forced by AACS to remove support for BD/HD playback from hard drive.

Next stop: Toshiba HD-EP35. Works like a charm. Well, apart from the black screen which endures for 10-15 seconds while the rather cool looking main menu is being prepared for display. Or something. I noticed that my EP35 has an ancient firmware so I told it to fetch the latest one from the internet, which is what it’s doing now. I’ll do a proper review of the title this weekend, with photos and all.

Some of you may remember my earlier rants about the demise of HD DVD and the future of High Definition. In them I made a bunch of predictions, some of which turned out to be a bit bone-headed. I received plenty of flak for those opinion pieces; some of it justified, most of it… not so much. It was therefore quite heartwarming to read some of the news articles published during the past week.

Toshiba conceded the Hi-Def format war earlier today. Rumours of their forthcoming announcement had circulated the net for some days already, so one can’t claim surprise.

Media all around the world has been quick to pronounce Blu-ray as the winner of the format war. Financial Times went as far as printing rumours about Paramount dropping HD DVD, which Paramount very quickly denied. Other than that, HD DVD PRG has been very quiet about the future. I have a theory about what’s going to happen next.

I’ve been getting quite a lot of feedback to my two-part rant about the format war. Since it’s obvious some people have difficulties in comprehending written text, I’d like to clear things up a bit.

Finland’s most influential newspaper, Helsingin Sanomat, published a short news item about Warner’s decision to support only Blu-ray from May 2008 onwards. The ensuing discussion on HS’ website was interesting reading, mostly because the majority of chuckleheads there were convinced that Blu-ray’s victory will lead to cheaper movies and players. Dream on, people, dream on.

It was mere days before CES 2008 and the already announced HD DVD press conference, when Warner Bros. shook the industry with its announcement of their exclusive support for the Blu-ray format (from May 2008 onwards). Early adopters and industry pundits everywhere wasted no time in declaring the format war over.