Reports circulated around the web today that Samsung has canceled the release of its upcoming high-end Blu-ray Disc player, the BDP-2400, and that its BD-UP5000 Blu-ray/HD DVD combi player will be delayed until December. And this is not all bad. Let me explain.

This is what nerds do: after watching another awesome episode of season one of <I>Heroes</I> on HD DVD I cued a firmware update and indeed my Toshiba HD-XA2 found one and started downloading it. I waited up until the update was complete, and then checked the player's setup menu and sure enough, "up to 1080p/24" is now a selectable output resolution.

I know that technology moves fast these days, but we can hardly get a review of a Blu-ray Disc player out the door before a new model that supersedes it is released. And indeed, I received this Pioneer Elite BDP-94HD in August, just ahead of the rumors that a new player from Pioneer would be making its debut at CEDIA 2007 in early September.

On the heels of Paramount's stunning announcement that it will be supporting HD DVD exclusively, Fox and MGM have jumped back into the fray with a massive slate of 29 "new release and must-have" Blu-ray Disc titles that will be in stores by the end of the calendar year. Included will be six Blu-ray titles released day and date with DVD, led by <I>Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer</I>, <I>Live Free or Die Hard</I> and Fox's hit TV show, <I>Prison Break</I>.