Wha? Blu-ray format takes a MPEG-2 step back

Mike Curtis just posted an enraged examination of the brewing war over the "standard" codec to be used in Sony's upcoming HD disc. Will it be the archaic, ridiculously inefficient MPEG-2, currently used in plain jane DVDs, or will it be a more efficient and scalable format such as MPEG-4 H.264 (currently shown in all its glory when downloading 1080p movie trailers from Apple's website)?

Does this mean brewing tension in the Sony-Apple Blu-ray alliance? (Such an alliance formed when Steve Jobs endorsed Blu-ray and brought the president of Sony onstage at last year's Macworld Expo.)

Will Apple, determined to spread 1080p H.264 joy across the universe, abandon ship in favor of its own Kaleidoscopic efforts?

Assessing the HVX-200's 1080p-ness

Mike Curtis over at the lovely HD For Indies sorts through the thickening morass that is the speculation over the Panasonic HVX-200's capture format.

Things are looking good on the 1080p front, with these highlights culled from Panasonic Japan:

1080 line, progressive CCDs [!!!!!]

Analog to Digital signal processor (A/D DSP) is 14 bits with an internal precision of 19 bit

HD can be downsampled from P2 to internal DV cassette

variable slow shutter down to 1/12th second

Cinegamma - 8 gamma modes

Check out all the record modes in this handy chart:

Marantz 1080p DVD player and receiver

Finally, the name brands are jumping into the 1080p unconverter ring presently dominated by the likes of NeoDigits. First Denon, now Marantz.

Marantz just unveiled its "flagship" DV9600, a high-end 1080p-output DVD player component with some bells and whistles, as well as the SR9600 component receiver, according to AV Info.

Featuring a 14-bit video chip from Analog Devices and "full bandwidth" HDMI 1.1, the PAL and NTSC-compatible DV9600 also contains what Marantz calls "six Noise-Shaped Video DACs." Um, we'll take your word for it.

Audio features include FireWire audio ports, Cirrus Logic 24-bit DACs and all 6 channels, and "bespoke Hyper Dynamic Amplifier Modules."

The SR9600 sister device features S-video/composite-to-component-video upconversion as well as HDMI switching and two FireWire ports to boot.

Hot!

Panasonic HVX-200 is indeed 1080p

And the tide continues to turn...

DV Guru lets us know that the soon-arriving HD successor to Panasonic's venerable DVX-100 will indeed have 1080p image capture, rather than up-rezzed (up-resed?) 720p garbage.

Take that, 720p suckers.

A 1080p DVR fit for a king

At $15,000, the new HR-1 video recorder from Wafian isn't meant for all you sorry-ass plebes out there. But even the ruling class needs to record last night's episode of "Joey" in pristine 1080i 10-bit YUV 4:2:2 "CineForm Intermediate" format, whatever the cost.

Capable of 24fps 1080p output, the DVR stores video on an internal level-one RAID and features a using a touch-screen LCD for its navigation and operation. Outputs include HD-SDI and DVI ports, gigabit Ethernet, USB 2.0 and FireWire, according to Macworld. Booyakasha.

A rack-mountable version will also be available for y'all professional video types, and the device, which offers no spatial compression in its native format, can be hooked into Final Cut Pro as well as JVC's 720p GY-HD100U. Wha, no love for the Panasonic HVX-200, Wafian?

The HR-1 comes out early next year.

1080p HD-ILA from JVC

HDBlog.net tells us about the new RPTVs from JVC's "DesignerPro" series, including the gargantuan $10K 70-inch HD-70FH96, which features HD-ILA, a variant of LCoS. Although the sets upscale everything to 1080p, we don't know if they feature 1080p inputs. What gives?

PC Magazine reviews LVM-37W1

As we asked several weeks ago, what's the deal with the Westinghouse LVM-37W1, that oh-so-affordable HDMI-less 1080p set? Well, finally some people are paying attention, including the website of Personal Computer Magazine (but you can call it PCMag.com).

HD Beat joins in as well.

ARCAM AV9: 1080p pre-amp box is coming

British high-end "home cinema" supplier ARCAM is finally following up on their much-revered AV8 AV pre-amp box (pictured) with a 1080p successor: the fmj AV9.

Hidden Wires reports the software upgradeable AV9 features full HDMI support with a 5-way 1080p-over-HDMI compliant switch as well as 3 1080p capable component video connection, Lucasfilm THX Ultra2 Surround EX 7.1, a "Lip Sync delay" for the de-interlaced or scaled video, and "Acousteel" damping and separate power supplies for audio and video.

No word on FireWire support or a street date.

1080p wires explained!

UK wiring site Hidden Wires lays out what y'all electricians out there need to know about wiring homes for 1080p cable. Word.

Taiwanese 42-inch 1080p LCD TV

Who knows when Taiwan-based Genii will let their new 6042 model out of the local market.

Priced at around $3,800, the LCD TV features a 1080p resolution and a 1000:1 contrast ratio, according to Max Wang (that's his, ahem, real name) at DigiTimes. Not too shabby. The specs on the TV look good too.

Down the road, the company is working with the Taiwanese government to develop LCD TVs using LED backlighting, which they're hoping will be ready in 2006.