Posted Wed May 30, 2012 at 11:30 AM PDT by Dick Ward
by Dick Ward
It's been a busy month for Blu-ray. Thanks to Dolby's new encoding tech, Blu-ray sound is going to be improving to levels higher than it already is. In the world of videogames, May seems to be the month of delay announcements. Still, there's plenty of goodness to come from the month before E3. You can bet, though, that the next few weeks are gonna be huge. That all being said, here's the biggest of the big new in Blu-ray, gear, and gaming.
Blu-ray News
'The Hunger Games' Blu-ray Pre-orders Now Live!
The critically acclaimed film based on the book series is slated for release on Saturday, August 18th. If you're looking to pick up a copy for yourself, preorders are now live on Amazon.
'Casa de mi Padre' Announced and Detailed for Blu-ray
Will Ferrell's latest is a clear pet project in which he plays a relative straight man in a send up done entirely in Spanish. Pretty crazy, right? Well you can see the flick in its full form when it comes out on July 17th.
'The Royal Tenenbaums' Blu-ray Dated and Detailed
When Wes Anderson comes to Blu-ray, we all win. It's even better when those movies come from the Criterion Collection and include a huge amount of bonus features. You can pick this one up on August 14th.
You know, despite all of the people bashing the idea of movies based on board games, 1985's 'Clue' proves that it can be done well. Better than well, in fact. 'Clue' is a comedy classic, and one that's due out on August 7th.
HDD Demos Dolby Atmos and Dolby TrueHD Advanced 96K Upsampling
HDD headed out to Dolby Laboratories and got a taste of what Dolby's new 96kHz upscaling can do. The prognosis – it's awesome.
Gear and Industry News
LG's 55-Inch OLED Will Run Around $10,000
One of the most eagerly anticipated TV releases of the year, LG's 55EM9600 has been improved, streamlined and LG says we can expect a price of around $10,000 when it hits.
LG Creates a New Plant to Produce 55-Inch White OLED Panels
LG is bucking tradition with their new OLED plant. It's creating white panels and nothing else. Details are still unavailable as to just what that means for OLED production, but you can be sure that the company has something up its sleeve.
Panasonic and Sony May Join Forces in OLED Development
Sony – what happened to that nice early lead you had? - and Panasonic are behind in OLED, and are reportedly going to team up in both research and production of the new sets.
Mitsubishi Introduces New DLPs Starting at Under $3,000
The 742 model is available in a 73" size at just $2,199. If you're going for pure dollar to square inch though, the 82" 642 series set comes in at $2,599.
'Avengers' and 'Hunger Games' are Hitting Netflix in Early 2013
Netflix doesn't get a great deal of new movies, but they're getting two of 2012's biggest, and not too terribly far after the pay TV window.
Videogame News
'Borderlands 2' Special Editions and Preorder Bonuses Revealed
If you're looking to get into the vault hunting spirit with a few extras, Gearbox has just the thing. The $150 version even comes with a mini loot chest to keep all your swag in.
Capcom is Celebrating 25 Years of Street Fighter with a Massive Collection Set
Capcom gives you another option for that $150. You can get yourself four games with full DLC, two Blu-rays, an 11 disc soundtrack, a Ryu statue and more when the new Street Fighter collection hits shelves.
'Dishonored' is Due Out October 9th
Bethesda's first-person assassination game looks incredibly cool and is due out just a few weeks before 'Assassin's Creed III.' It should be interesting to see how it fares.
PlayStation Network Will Allow for Pre-Loading of Game Purchases
Console gamers finally get the feature that PC gamers have had for some time now. Buy a game, download it and then play it as soon as it launches courtesy of a quick unlock download.
Blizzard Delays the Real Money 'Diablo III' Auction House
If you've been playing 'Diablo III' then you know just how bad things are in the auction house. Nothing's working properly and the AH goes down intermittently. Blizzard is delaying real money auctions until they can get things up and running.
The latest news on all things 4K Ultra HD, blu-ray and Gear.