More high-def DVD news: Engadget reports that Sony has announced the summer release of a second set-top Blu-ray player, the BDP-S300 — which, with a sticker price of $600 USD, will be considerably cheaper than its current player, the thousand-dollar S1.

Now, that’s still a couple hundred bucks more expensive than Toshiba’s baseline HD-DVD player, the A2, and slightly pricier than a PlayStation 3, but $600 is awfully more attractive than $1000. (In Canada, it’ll probably translate to about $750.)

Question: What’s Sony doing? I mean, I know what they’re doing, on a pure marketing level; they’re bringing in the affordable second-generation unit after wowing everyone with the gorgeous, obscenely expensive flagship player, just as they did in 1997 with their standard DVD players.

But why $600? Why not $400, the better to achieve price parity with Toshiba’s A2, and thus conquer the high-def DVD world?

Do they know something we don’t? Is another manufacturer — Panasonic, maybe — about to announce a really cheap Blu-ray player? And is this an attempt to subtly position Sony’s machine at the high end of affordability, as the company did previously with DVD and even VHS?

Meanwhile, HD-DVD plugs along. And if you’re in the Toronto area and want to pick up a player on the cheap, Costco is selling Toshiba’s first-gen player, the A1, for $350.

I considered grabbing one just the other day, actually … but it doesn’t output 1080p, and it takes a full minute to boot up. Might be worth the extra $150 to get one that’s a little further along the developmental curve …

Remember the other week, when it came to light that the AACS encryption system, the first line of digital defense on both HD-DVD and Blu-ray discs, was almost laughably vulnerable?

Well, the folks over at DVDFile.com — who are usually pretty level-headed about this sort of thing — have decided to stand up against the evils of hackery in this completely over-the-top editorial, which argues that the compromising of AACS threatens the very existence of the burgeoning high-definition DVD market, since studios will stop releasing their titles to either format if they know those titles are just going to be pirated as soon as they hit the market.

Money quote:

Such criminals threaten to destroy the home theater technical progress that can bring pleasure to millions. The mentality of such a sociopath is equivalent to those who release computer viruses and Trojan horses into the wild to wreak random havoc. They are anarchists intent on destruction. They are no better than terrorists.

Um … what?

Look, I’m as eager to see high-def DVDs enter the mainstream — with all the attendant affordability and breadth of catalogue that such success would entail — but this is just plain ridiculous.

Neither HD-DVD nor Blu-ray will live or die on the impregnability of its content protection; after all, standard DVD is about as pregnable as a female rabbit, and studios aren’t exactly hesitating to release their biggest titles to the format, as quickly as possible.

In a rather specious bit of reasoning, the DVDFile editorial argues that Fox pulled its March and April Blu-ray titles from its schedule because of the revelation of AACS’ vulnerability. That’s probably a bit of a stretch.

Fox did announce that it was rescheduling some of its March and April titles, but not all of them … and I suspect the rescheduling has more to do with Blu-ray replication facilities being pushed beyond their capacity than anything else.

Anyway. Just trying to be the voice of reason here. Carry on.

From Engadget: The cheap Blu-ray players are coming — though by “cheap” they probably mean “somewhere in the neighborhood of a PS3”. Or, if you’re tracking this sort of thing, “still about $100 more expensive than an HD-DVD player”.

But it’s all about the appearance of a bargain, and next to the $1300 to $1500 sticker prices of the Sony, Panasonic and Pioneer boxes, a $600 player will certainly appear attractive.

Also, from Future Shop: The LG BH-100 combo player is coming to Canada … though it’ll cost a small fortune, and be known as the SMB-007 up here. Maybe they’re planning to bundle it with “Casino Royale”.

Hey, “The Departed” arrives on DVD today! Someone should write a column about it or something!

(Although they should probably come up with a better name for that column than “DVDrop”. Doesn’t please the eye, somehow.)

In addition to the standard DVD release, “The Departed” is also arriving on both high-definition formats today, wading right into the middle of the latest developments in the format war.

See, yesterday Sony saw fit to declare to the world that the high-def format war has ended, and Blu-ray — which just happens to be Sony’s bestest widdle baby — has won.

It’s just like the statement from the Blu-ray group last month at CES, which said the same thing. Except that, y’know, in neither case did anybody provide any real evidence to support the statement.

It’s just, like, a feeling, man.

Of course, one element of Blu-ray’s swagger has always been the promise of an enhanced copy protection, called BD+, that will add another layer of defensive power to the AACS copyguard present on all high-definition discs. Funny thing, though; while I’d mistakenly believed that BD+ was already present on Blu-ray titles, it turns out the protection has yet to be applied to any releases … meaning that Blu-ray’s added level of security — which was surely a big part of the format’s appeal to its many studio partners — is just a bit of elegant marketing spin.

Imagine how those studio partners must feel now that AACS has been cracked. Actually, it’s more like it’s been surgically removed, since the process requires no actual hackery, just careful observation of a given computer’s memory to find the master processing key for AACS itself, rather than the AACS encryption protecting a specific disc.

(Sweet Jebus, is there nothing Norwegian teenagers can’t do?)

Still, I can’t imagine this will be a body blow to either format, any more than the release of DeCSS and the subsequent flood of ripping programs crippled DVD in its heyday. Both formats are still in the “Ask Again Later” category, as far as I can tell; each has its merits, each has its drawbacks, and almost a year into their respective runs, neither has found the killer app that’s really grabbed consumers’ attention.

Then again, “Casino Royale” comes to Blu-ray in four weeks. Can the HD-DVD of “Man of the Year” really compete with that? And truly, do we want to live in a world where it does?

Engadget reports that the first Neilsen VideoScan numbers for 2007 are coming in, and Blu-ray software is outselling HD-DVD software two to one.

Yeah, it looks like a rout, but I’d raise a couple of cautionary points.

First, the data isn’t title-specific, leaving us no idea whether a given dual-format release — say, Paramount’s “World Trade Center” or Warner’s “Lady in the Water” — is moving two Blu-ray editions for every HD-DVD sold.

And it follows that, if said date isn’t title-specific, then the sheer number of available Blu-ray titles would naturally lead to disproportionate sales when compared to HD-DVD, since HD-DVD only has Warner and Universal supporting its platform, while every studio but Universal is releasing titles to Blu-ray. There’s simply more Blu-ray available to be bought. (And Fox is releasing “The Marine” next week! Dudes!)

What the numbers do seem to imply is that the release of the moderately priced, Blu-ray capable PlayStation 3 has had precisely the effect that Sony expected it would — people are using it to watch high-definition movies as well as play games. And they’re not just upconverting their standard DVDs with it; they’re buying Blu-ray discs specifically for HD playback.

Christmas = PS3s. PS3s = Blu-ray sales. Blu-ray sales = eventual format domination. I’m not sure how underpants fit into it, but I probably just forgot to carry the three.

Oh, and if you want a peek into the die-hard, frothing mind of the early adopter, read the comments on the Engadget piece. It’s a lot more fun if you read them aloud in the voice of this guy.

I didn’t bother to mention it when Engadget broke the news over Christmas that HD-DVD’s vaunted copy protection system had been broken, since it appeared the protection itself remained intact, and only a few titles would be “liberated” by the hackery … but now, it looks like the wizards behind the HD-DVD crack have dented Blu-ray’s armor, too.

This isn’t terribly surprising, since both formats employ the same protection, called AACS, as their first battlement against duplication. But Blu-ray uses a second tier of encryption, BD+, that has yet to be hacked.

Oh, it’ll happen someday — everything gets hacked eventually — but right now it looks like another strike against the HD-DVD platform.

Especially when one sees something like this turn up online.

Ow.

This arrived via Purolator, promoting MGM’s upcoming “Fiddler on the Roof” SE.

It’s a challah. A fresh challah, specifically, from the Open Window bakery.

Look, I’ve got nothing against being the recipient of random baked goods — honestly, who could say the world wouldn’t be a better place if cupcakes fell out of the sky every now and then? — but I get this, and I think: Someone’s marketing department has too much money.

On the other hand, Kate now has toast for the weekend. So that’s something.

UPDATE: Hey, I’m not the only one who gets this stuff!

It always comes down to porn.

Sony’s Blu-ray format may have a greater percentage of Hollywood studios on board — everyone but Universal, really, and that’s only a matter of time — but it appears the adult film industry has other plans.

According to Fleshbot, dirty-movie distributor Digital Playground has just switched its affiliation to Toshiba’s HD-DVD platform after initially releasing some titles to Blu-ray. (Another distributor, Wicked Pictures, sided with HD-DVD from the start.)

The decision makes some sense, since HD-DVD allows for combo discs with a standard DVD side — a good way for a company to hedge its bets as consumers move hesitantly into the high-def field — and it also avoids the inevitable bad publicity when some child finds Daddy’s grown-up movie in the family PS3.

It’ll be interesting to see how (or if) this affects HD-DVD player sales; personally, I have to wonder whether there’s really a demand for high-definition porn in the first place. I mean, the whole point of pornography is an idealized representation of sex … does that include being able to see Tera Patrick’s razor burn?

Of course, the format war is awfully close to being a moot issue: Engadget reports that LG’s high-def combo player will ship early next month.