Blu-ray

Great wines, fine food, fabulous fashion. What else is fierce about France? Fox/MGM has reportedly announced that they will be releasing six James Bond flics on Blu-ray in November in France. The first six titles are (rumored to included) From Russia with Love, For Your Eyes Only, Dr No, Thunderball, Live or Let Die, and Die Another Day.

What's your grocery list look like? Milk, butter-pecan ice cream, bread, butter, blueberries, Blu-ray.  Blu-ray??? Starting in June, DVDPlay is going to be offering Blu-ray discs right along side standard DVD in their standalone rental kiosks. They're the first rental kiosk to offer Blu-ray. You haven't seen these kiosks yet?

The very thing that people love about Blu-ray could very well be the thing that people are going to hate. For the first time, home theaters are able to display every single, subtle detail of your favorite old films, as they've only been visible before in theaters. Part of that detail is film grain.  And people are not happy.

Just last week, we reported about the somewhat dismal adoption of Blu-ray among consumers. We said it seemed that $300 was the magic number that would entice more folks to whip out the credit card and go Blu. Seems like Wal-Mart was taking notes.

It's a little bit ironic, don't you think? After all the dust in the consumer electronics war between HD DVD and Blu-ray settled, it appears that not many people really cared at all. In a survey by Harris Interactive, only 9% of people who don't own Blu-ray already have any plans to buy a player in the next year, although a majority knew the format debate was over.