Pioneer Electronics said late Wednesday that it has begun shipping its first Blu-Ray computer drive, which e-tailers have listed for just under $1,000.

Mustek has launched a 10 inch LCD 16:9 widescreen tablet portable DVD player.

Next, I put the HD DVD of Phantom of the Opera into the player. I was chagrined to see that it took exactly 47 seconds between the time I put the HD DVD into the player and the time the picture appeared on the screen. With the disk finally began its playback, my frustration and gnashing of teeth quickly abated, because I saw a magnificent high-definition picture on my screen the likes of which I hadn't seen before. There were very few compression artifacts, the sound was crisp and clear, and the colors were extremely saturated. Here was the nearly-saving grace of the Toshiba HD-A1. The HD DVD format is capable of magnificent playback quality. That factor alone may make this player worth its $500 purchase price.

Microsoft Corp. will release an HD DVD player for its Xbox 360 video game machine in time for the 2006 holiday season and will have 10 million of its next-generation consoles to market before its rivals debut their new systems, company executives said on Tuesday.

High-definition DVD titles continue to trickle into US stores, but the arrival of the first titles in the rival Blu-ray disc format has been pushed back by a month to June 25. Samsung has delayed the US launch of its next-generation DVD player for a month in order to complete testing.